Maybe I’ve just seen too much X-Files, or things really are changing, but it’s getting very hard to keep up with people who come back from the past.

This time round, Skinner informs Scully of a woman that was recovered after a UFO sighting in the middle of nowhere. The woman was Theresa Hoese, the woman who went missing the night before Mulder did, and was also in the very first episode. The kid who found her – Richie Szalay was also in the last episode of Season 7 – when Mulder went missing.

Anyway, they get her to hospital and find some quite strange experiments have been done on her. Scully and Skinner are convinced they know who’s behind it, but Doggett isn’t quite sure. In a rather bold move, he asks for some help from his friend, and Agent Monica Reyes, who specialises in religious cult crimes or something like that. Her conclusion of the whole thing angers Scully, which she states Mulder may have ran away to join some UFO cult. Meanwhile, Theresa has moved and disappeared again, though we see he’s in the hands of a good alien – a bounty hunter who is going around collecting the victims after the ship drops them off, and healing them.

Monica stumbles across the next victim, Richie’s brother Gary, who dies as a result of his injuries. The state in which these abductees are returning starts to worry Scully, and she runs to Skinner crying, thinking Mulder may be dead already. Monica explains to Scully about her ‘senses’ and says she does believe in UFO’s, but not in Mulder’s case (haha). However she does sense a hurt in Scully – worrying Mulder may be dead, and in Doggett – wanting to find Mulder alive, after a tragic event that happened three years ago in Doggett’s life – when his son turned up dead. Now it gets interesting.

When Monica found the last victim, she also saw another get taken away in a van by two unknown people. After tracing the location of the van, they find out it belongs to someone they’ve known before – the man who predicted the alien invasion in 2000. However after raiding his farm they find Theresa all better again. Scully notices that Jeremiah Smith was also at the farm (remember he’s the guy who can shape shift and heal people).

They explained at an interview that they collect the victims, and heal them – He was just about to heal Mulder when Scully burst in. After another search, Skinner and Doggett locate Mulder in nearby woods…. well, Mulder’s body. Scully naturally has a freak out but after just speaking with Jeremiah, she knows he can be saved – while running back to the farm, she sees a UFO flying towards it, and pauses for several seconds to witness it hover over the building Jeremiah Smith is in. When suddenly a beam of light fires from the craft, she runs in to find Jeremiah Smith gone!

Breaking down to the floor, yelling the title of this episode and screaming – Scully certainly earns her Oscar moment of the X-Files here. So to recap – Mulder has been found in rather bad… or dead shape! DUN DUN DUNNN!