Scully leads Skinner and an unhappy Doggett to Arizona to protect child prodigy Gibson Praise from an alien bounty hunter disguised as the missing Mulder.Scully leads Skinner and an unhappy Doggett to Arizona to protect child prodigy Gibson Praise from an alien bounty hunter disguised as the missing Mulder.Scully leads Skinner and an unhappy Doggett to Arizona to protect child prodigy Gibson Praise from an alien bounty hunter disguised as the missing Mulder.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis is Brian Thompson's final series appearance as the Alien Bounty Hunter.
- GoofsThe sound heard from the helicopter is that of one with a 2-bladed main rotor (Bell 206 JetRanger or UH1 Huey). But the helicopter depicted (N35961) is an Airbus/Eurocopter AS350 (H125) and has a 3 bladed main rotor which makes a much different (smoother) sound.
- Quotes
John Doggett: It's not who wins or loses - it's who takes the worst beating that counts.
- Crazy creditsIn Memoriam
Jim Engh
1961-2000
- ConnectionsFeatured in The X-Files: The Truth (2002)
Featured review
The Last Days of the Shape Changing Alien Bounty Hunter...
...Or are they?
The first time that we meet Brian Thompson's shape changing alien bounty hunter in S2E17 "Colony", he cuts a rather imposing and almost immortal figure. You can't shoot him, otherwise your blood curdles and clots into the consistency of cottage cheese, which does not flow through veins very well. But we actually saw this happen when humans were exposed to Dr William Secare In S01E24 "The Erlenmeyer Flask". So there is a relationship between the shape changing alien bounty hunters' physiology and the contents of The Erlenmeyer Flask, which has been referred to throughout the series as "Purity"... which we know is represented by the ever present "Black Oil", as a transfer medium for the alien life force, or its Virus.
The "shape changing alien bounty hunter", or "SCAB", if you want to reduce the character to an acronym (we could also use "ABH") appears to be just one of the representation of aliens in the X-Files. But we forget, that the aliens with which the syndicate were in cahoots were not different aliens, but all the same alien. Let's have a small recap of the forms in which "Purity" has appeared in The X-Files, shall we?
First we have the little gray aliens, The "Roswell Greys" of which we also see a baby version in "The Erlenmeyer Flask", which provided the Syndicates' source of "Purity Control", aka the Alien DNA. We have also seen the "Long Clawed Spacelings", which are born in a disgusting manner, as seen in the 1st X-Film, "Fight the Future" and also in S06E01 "The Beginning", where we see a Spaceling shed its skin to reveal the final stage of the alien lifecycle, which brings us back to the alien fetus. In the middle of all of this is a couple of different versions of "the black oil", one of them used by a Purity alien as a means to get around on earth and accomplish various parts of its agenda (inside of Alex Krycek). The other version of the oil is non-sentient and this is what carries The infectious Purity. So ends our history of the various forms of the X-Files Purity Alien.
We have to remember, this alien is a virus, according to the well manicured man. Which walked on the face of the earth long before there were ever men, or even Ebola or Covid viruses. So their goal during the syndicate portion of the X-Files story may have been simply to reclaim a planet that they considered theirs. But according to Cassandra Spender, their goal was not simply planetary, she claimed that they were "infecting the galaxy".
Enter rebel aliens that are fighting Purity. Even though they appear to have the same kind of physiology and chemical make up. And what do they also use? They also use "the shape changing alien bounty hunter". Brian Thompson also played one of these rebel aliens who had sewn up his face to prevent himself from being infected by purity, Mulder helped him escape.
The "SCAB", or "ABH" if you prefer, was used by both purity the rebels. "Jeremiah Smith" also had the same capabilities, or powers, that ABH had. Even though their physiology would kill a human being, there was also something in their physiology that could heal a human being.
So, whatever was left behind after the shattering of the syndicate, whatever experiments, whatever humans who were part of experiments still left on-planet, Purity wanted to clean it all up, maybe go back to Reticula, order liver and onions in peace. Except for Mulder.
What Mulder had stumbled into before he decided to take a trip on a mothership was simply the cleanup operation, and who best to administrate this cleanup than the "ABH"?
Agent Doggett knows nothing about any of this. He is talking about catching Mulder, who he believes is trying to kidnap Gibson Praise, with "eyes in the sky" and other forms of manhunting which work great with humans but not so great with an entity that can be anybody. As another Reviewer has said, the central piece of this episode is a small discussion where A. D. Skinner basically tells Doggett that he is being used. And that his technique for locating a fugitive will fail, because it is simply "the wrong approach". And that Now-Director Kirsch has some kind of unspoken agenda. Which we don't hear about in this season but we can guess that it has something to do with what will eventually be called "super soldiers"- Director Kirsch appears to be extremely hostile to the X-Files. The reason for this is explained later in the series, especially in season nine.
So while Dogget is directing a group of agents which he believes are "his men" but might not be, the ABH uses the confusion to get into the hospital.
This particular ABH has been different than the ones that we have seen previously, this one does not speak. When asked a question, he would nod. But he did not speak until the very end.
It also occurs to us that we have never successfully seen a human take out one of these ABH's, which would normally require the "ice pick" weapon- Mulder used it on ABH once, but he must have missed because the green Purity slime-goop got sucked back into Brian Thompson's neck... just another reason why the character exuded a kind of indestructible-ness. It was in "Colony" where a certain kind of kill shot was suggested. We finally get to see that here. Of course, In a reversal of the roles of Mulder and Skully from the first season, Doggett, The new skeptic, does not see this kill-shot happen.
But the very end of this episode should explain once and for all, why this ABH was different. Because this ABH was conducting its own "manhunt". And what do extra-terrestrial manhunts have in common with FBI manhunts?
Multiple agents in the field, of course. "There is more than one of everything". As usual I tried to avoid blurting out certain information.
The first time that we meet Brian Thompson's shape changing alien bounty hunter in S2E17 "Colony", he cuts a rather imposing and almost immortal figure. You can't shoot him, otherwise your blood curdles and clots into the consistency of cottage cheese, which does not flow through veins very well. But we actually saw this happen when humans were exposed to Dr William Secare In S01E24 "The Erlenmeyer Flask". So there is a relationship between the shape changing alien bounty hunters' physiology and the contents of The Erlenmeyer Flask, which has been referred to throughout the series as "Purity"... which we know is represented by the ever present "Black Oil", as a transfer medium for the alien life force, or its Virus.
The "shape changing alien bounty hunter", or "SCAB", if you want to reduce the character to an acronym (we could also use "ABH") appears to be just one of the representation of aliens in the X-Files. But we forget, that the aliens with which the syndicate were in cahoots were not different aliens, but all the same alien. Let's have a small recap of the forms in which "Purity" has appeared in The X-Files, shall we?
First we have the little gray aliens, The "Roswell Greys" of which we also see a baby version in "The Erlenmeyer Flask", which provided the Syndicates' source of "Purity Control", aka the Alien DNA. We have also seen the "Long Clawed Spacelings", which are born in a disgusting manner, as seen in the 1st X-Film, "Fight the Future" and also in S06E01 "The Beginning", where we see a Spaceling shed its skin to reveal the final stage of the alien lifecycle, which brings us back to the alien fetus. In the middle of all of this is a couple of different versions of "the black oil", one of them used by a Purity alien as a means to get around on earth and accomplish various parts of its agenda (inside of Alex Krycek). The other version of the oil is non-sentient and this is what carries The infectious Purity. So ends our history of the various forms of the X-Files Purity Alien.
We have to remember, this alien is a virus, according to the well manicured man. Which walked on the face of the earth long before there were ever men, or even Ebola or Covid viruses. So their goal during the syndicate portion of the X-Files story may have been simply to reclaim a planet that they considered theirs. But according to Cassandra Spender, their goal was not simply planetary, she claimed that they were "infecting the galaxy".
Enter rebel aliens that are fighting Purity. Even though they appear to have the same kind of physiology and chemical make up. And what do they also use? They also use "the shape changing alien bounty hunter". Brian Thompson also played one of these rebel aliens who had sewn up his face to prevent himself from being infected by purity, Mulder helped him escape.
The "SCAB", or "ABH" if you prefer, was used by both purity the rebels. "Jeremiah Smith" also had the same capabilities, or powers, that ABH had. Even though their physiology would kill a human being, there was also something in their physiology that could heal a human being.
So, whatever was left behind after the shattering of the syndicate, whatever experiments, whatever humans who were part of experiments still left on-planet, Purity wanted to clean it all up, maybe go back to Reticula, order liver and onions in peace. Except for Mulder.
What Mulder had stumbled into before he decided to take a trip on a mothership was simply the cleanup operation, and who best to administrate this cleanup than the "ABH"?
Agent Doggett knows nothing about any of this. He is talking about catching Mulder, who he believes is trying to kidnap Gibson Praise, with "eyes in the sky" and other forms of manhunting which work great with humans but not so great with an entity that can be anybody. As another Reviewer has said, the central piece of this episode is a small discussion where A. D. Skinner basically tells Doggett that he is being used. And that his technique for locating a fugitive will fail, because it is simply "the wrong approach". And that Now-Director Kirsch has some kind of unspoken agenda. Which we don't hear about in this season but we can guess that it has something to do with what will eventually be called "super soldiers"- Director Kirsch appears to be extremely hostile to the X-Files. The reason for this is explained later in the series, especially in season nine.
So while Dogget is directing a group of agents which he believes are "his men" but might not be, the ABH uses the confusion to get into the hospital.
This particular ABH has been different than the ones that we have seen previously, this one does not speak. When asked a question, he would nod. But he did not speak until the very end.
It also occurs to us that we have never successfully seen a human take out one of these ABH's, which would normally require the "ice pick" weapon- Mulder used it on ABH once, but he must have missed because the green Purity slime-goop got sucked back into Brian Thompson's neck... just another reason why the character exuded a kind of indestructible-ness. It was in "Colony" where a certain kind of kill shot was suggested. We finally get to see that here. Of course, In a reversal of the roles of Mulder and Skully from the first season, Doggett, The new skeptic, does not see this kill-shot happen.
But the very end of this episode should explain once and for all, why this ABH was different. Because this ABH was conducting its own "manhunt". And what do extra-terrestrial manhunts have in common with FBI manhunts?
Multiple agents in the field, of course. "There is more than one of everything". As usual I tried to avoid blurting out certain information.
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- XweAponX
- Mar 26, 2022
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