Slowly, but surely as we move into Season 8, we see just how Doggett handles real hard X-Files right under his very nose. He spent a few seconds looking at that crazy slug from the last episode, but now, ten years after a six year old boy goes missing, he’s back right where he left off – only he’s still six. Scully checks the kid out, and he’s perfectly healthy, while Doggett treats the case like a regular child abduction, completely ignoring the scientific impossibility of a child reappearing 10 years later still to be the same age.

Scully does actually point this out, and Doggett attempts to explain it using ‘failure to thrive’ theory – only to be put in place by Scully’s medical mind, to which he instantly jumps back to kiddy abduction and states the kid can talk. Hmmm.

They call in a physic which starts having a seizure and then a print of a symbol the kid was drawing appears before their very eyes on her forehead. Anyway it turns out the kid is some kind of spawn of Satan and keeps trying to kill his older\younger brother.

Doggett gets even more confused when he sees the kid in a car, only to have him disappear seconds later, and again at the end, when the kid is standing in the woods – only to disappear. They then come across the burial ground of the kids skeleton, which has been there for 10 years.

Doggett has a hard time accepting that this is some kind of justice from beyond the grave, but Scully reminds him she’s been in that position before, and the only comfort they can take from it is that they found the killer and everything worked out OK (except for the kids parents… they were pretty confused).