Fresh Bones

Mulder's manner in this ep is very subtly protective. It's not surprising because this really isn't Scully's luckiest season, is it? I think he's behaving as if anyone they meet in their investigations could turn out to be dangerous because so far, that has been completely true. Nothing overt, just the way he acts around her. Frequently putting his arm around her, putting himself between her and others; Chester when he harasses her, Bauvais when he tries to intimidate her, the graveyard dog.



Buying Chester's lucky charm for protection counts as well ;)

M: You should always carry protection.

Scully will need it when she once again falls victim to the villain of the episode, this time what appears to be a Haitian refugee practicing voodoo in order to take revenge on the soldiers holding him. But as the Colonel says, it's a pretty bad situation for everybody at the camp.

COLONEL WHARTON: We're soldiers. We're not prison guards. And we're being asked to police a hostile population of foreigners without the resources to feed or house them. There are bound to be some conflicts.



The viewer would be forgiven for seeing things from his point of view too. Too bad he turns out to be the villain himself!

This episode contains a few scenes with very creepy imagery. I love the body in the morgue that has been replaced with a dog's corpse.



I love the barbed wire wrapped around the steering wheel, which Scully pricks her hand on. (Scully is driving??)



I love how it festers and becomes completely disgusting, and she scratches at it more and more until she finally watches a hand peel itself out of her wound!



She saves herself by grabbing the charm whose magical powers she earlier compared to that of a pair of fuzzy dice.

Not that anyone could blame her about being skeptical. Mulder's original theory even had me rolling my eyes a bit (until he clarified that he didn't mean actual back-from-the-dead zombies, just faked death)

M: What do you know about zombies?
S: Well, I hope you don't intend to tell Robin McAlpin that she married one.
M: In 1982, a Harvard ethnobotanist named Wade Davis did extensive field research in Haiti on the zombification phenomenon. He analyzed several samples of zombie powder prepared by voodoo priests and he found tetrodotoxin to be common to all of them.
S: But, Mulder, it’s a lethal poison.
M: But in small enough doses it can cause paralysis and depress cardiorespiratory activities to such a low level that the victim might appear clinically dead.

OK, so the victims weren't technically dead in the first place, they only appeared to be. I buy that. M & S begin to wonder if this means the other voodoo victims might have been buried alive as well.

They head to the grave yard where they meet with an almost unrecognizable Callum Keith Rennie! But grave robbers have beat them to the body; grave robbing being a popular activity with the voodoo crowd.



One of them is this kid Chester, though he appears to be primarily collecting frogs. (S: Maybe I should kiss a few and find out if one is Guttierez) They take him to lunch and question him.

S: How do you get out of the camp?
CHESTER: I go, and then I come back.

Very Zen answer LOL. Mulder seems to have a lot of time for kids in general, Chester is no exception.



CHESTER: Bauvais. His magic is the most strong. (shakes his empty French Fry carton) He even made my fries disappear!
M: Hey, Chester. I got magic, too, and I bet I can make your fries reappear. (hands him some cash)
CHESTER: Merci!

While Chester is ordering more fires, Mulder notices that they have been followed. A marine comes up to them and confesses the Colonel forces them to abuse the refugees, which is why the situation has become so violent. Chester uses this opportunity to make a run for it. M & S pursue him, but he vanishes into thin air.. or magically becomes a black cat.



I believe Mulder refrains from telling Scully about that one because.... well, come on!



Despite even Scully's obvious concern about the barbed wire in the steering, Scully tells Mulder not to worry about it. Mulder does anyway, and continues to worry about it throughout the episode.



Surprisingly, X decides to get involved in the case. He contacts Mulder by leaving him a playing card; the 10 of diamonds, a pun on the location where they are supposed to meet.



M: I was surprised to get your card. I had assumed our last contact... would be our last. Why are you here?

I have to ask the same thing... after all, we haven't seen X since One Breath, and they didn't exactly part on friendly terms. I'm still not clear on why he got involved here; he tells Mulder they are going to be called back to Washington and the whole refugee camp is going to 'disappear'. Helpful information, yes, and it's always good to see Black Throat, but... still...



Meanwhile, Scully is at the hotel, phoning around looking for Private Dunham. Evidently he's been AWOL, but Scully finds him when she goes looking for Mulder in his hotel room. His door is unlocked so she lets herself in. She finds bloody water is running out of the bathroom and becomes understandably frightened of what she might find behind the door. Lucky for her it's only the missing marine dead in the bathtub; Mulder then pops in with the 'killer'.

Actually, Private McAlpin is being set up; he doesn't remember anything, but is convinced to sign a confession. Truth is though, there are so many weird things going on in this ep, I just want to sit back and watch. I have totally forgotten that a crime is being committed or that we're supposed to care that they find out it's actually the Colonel who is responsible!



I'm more concerned about Scully's gross little flesh wound that is now causing her headaches (though she continues to tell Mulder she's fine :P)

S: I’m all right.
M: You don’t look all right.




Not that he has any reason to believe she's actually fine. If anything, he just becomes more concerned for her. When Mulder goes after the Colonel in the cemetery, Scully stays behind because if her pain. She now starts to hallucinate under the voodoo influence. The hand breaks through her wound, then starts choking her!



Mulder catching the Colonel in the middle of a voodoo ceremony over Bauvais's grave, so the Colonel stabs him by stabbing the ground!

Bauvais poisons the Colonel, making him appear to be dead; Colonel winds up being buried alive!

Scully runs to Mulder, who is still on the ground. Both are utterly bewildered by what just happened. Bauvais lays peacefully, dead in his coffin. Voodoo is weird shit.



After all of that excitement, the episode ends rather weakly with a 'Chester has been dead since the beginning' line. Oh well! Explain that one away Scully!