TVSquad

(S01E04) This episode gets back on track to the prevailing story for season one: we're reminded that Scully is assigned to debunk The X-Files. We also return to the aliens-on-earth mythology storyline, complete with possible government coverup. We also learn that, unlike the first episode of the season, alien abductions aren't that easy to verify. The episode casts doubt on the existence of aliens and shows us just how complicated The X-Files can be. However, the point of the episode is to show us that the abduction of Mulder's sister is what drives him to investigate The X-Files. Unfortunately, it's all done in a rather boring and complicated episode.

In this episode, a teen-ager named Ruby Morris disappears from an Iowa campsite after a bright light appears. In D.C., Scully is once again asked to report on Mulder. Section Chief Blevins thinks Mulder wants to investigate the Iowa case because the circumstances are similar to the disappearance of his sister, Samantha, 21 years ago. But, Scully's interrogation of Mulder shows no sign of sentimentality over his sister and it actually turns out in his favor as she finds sufficient evidence for the FBI to approve travel to Lake Okobogee, a UFO hotspot in Iowa. The girl who disappeared has a mother, Darlene Morris, who saw a UFO years ago as a girl scout.

As usual, the story in Iowa has many plausible explanations. It could be UFOs, as Ruby's mother firmly believes, or it could be that she staged an elaborate disappearance because she got knocked up. Either way, her little brother Kevin is acting very strange. He's writing down binary code that he says he's getting from static on television.

After talking to a few of the townfolk (including the guy from Revenge of the Nerds) about the missing girl and her boyfriend, the NSA suddenly gets very interested in the case. It turns out, the binary code that little Kevin was writing down was a portion of a code from a defense satellite. Highly classified stuff. The NSA trashes the Morris home and takes Darlene and Kevin away in separate cars. Mulder is pissed at Scully for telling the NSA agents where they got the code and behaves cooly toward her for the rest of the episode.

The Morrises are let go when it becomes clear that the binary code Kevin was writing was a fragment of a defense code, but also DaVinci's Universal Man, a DNA double helix, a segment of the Brandenberg Concerto, some lines from the Koran and Shakespeare. Mulder believes that Kevin is a Conduit, that he was somehow affected by the abduction of his sister and now he's receiving signals.

While investigating the so-called 'crime scene', Mulder and Scully see a white wolf. Mulder follows it to a shallow gravesite in the woods. He starts digging and Scully stops him, but he's obsessed and we realize that yes, he's out here because he hopes to get answers about the disappearance of his own sister. In that shallow grave is Ruby's boyfriend, Greg. A note in his wallet matches the handwriting on a note that the agents were given by one of Ruby's "friends" who said she was pregnant and ran off with Greg. Mulder gets Tessa to admit to killing Greg and Scully thinks her statement proves she also killed Ruby.

Mulder refuses to give up on Ruby and, when the agents arrive at the Morris home, they find the tea kettle whistling and a giant square of papers with binary code on them. Scully sees from above that the binary code makes a picture of Ruby. The agents head back to Lake Okobogee and find Darlene's abandoned camper. They hear a voice and go running down a trail where they find Darlene. In typical X-Files fashion, Scully stays behind with Darlene while Mulder runs ahead to find Kevin... and a bright orange light which turns out to be a motorcycle gang. Scully ends up finding the sister who is suffering from symptoms of prlonged periods of weightlessness. In the hospital, Ruby is about to say who took her when her mother interrupts and sends the agents away. She doesn't want Ruby to suffer heartache for the rest of her life for telling the truth about where she was. We never know whether she was actually abducted or, as her mom said, "spent the last month on the back of a Harley-Davidson."