The X-Files - The Blessing Way / Paper Clip

• I have had this sitting inactive since the summer of last year. It is not as much a review as a collection of thoughts and plot developments listed. So I might revisit these episodes with something more satisfying in the future.

The Blessing Way

• Mulder nearly dies but is healed of his wounds thanks to help from the Navajo and their chief representative/mentor, Albert Hosteen (Floyd Red Crow Westerman)
• The FBI believe Mulder is dead, and Scully is suspended from her job without pay due to her association with him, the loss of files the Cigarette Smoking Man desperately wants, and quiet involving any information Mulder might have had, as if concealed out of respect to him.
• She realizes her life is in danger (told to her by the Well Manicured Man (John Neville) because he feels his “consortium” is acting “impulsively”), and Skinner seems to be the errand boy of the CSM (he’s always in the office taking a drag), not cooperating with her over a possible shooter responsible for two murders that might be tied and would exonerate Fox of the murder of his own father.
• Scully finds a computer chip embedded under her skin thanks in part to a metal detector at her FBI headquarters. She also agrees to hypnosis to unearth buried memories, motivated to do so by her sister who believes secrets are cruelly undermining her ability to function.
• Melissa, Scully’s sister, goes to meet her at her home but is shot dead by CSM’s hired gun, Luis Cardinal and Krycek accidentally…the bullets were meant for Scully but Skinner insists she goes with him to a private locale (Mulder’s apartment the place chosen) to discuss personal matters.
• Mulder sees a vision of Deep Throat and his father, both of whom encourage him to defy death, return to the living, and continue to seek the truth.

Paper Clip

• Mulder reveals to Scully and Skinner he’s alive and well.
• CSM is full on heel now, bragging about killing Mulder to his “consortium” which includes the WMM. He sent Cardinal and Krycek to kill Scully, with them shooting her sister instead. 
• The digital tape which specifies the coverup of the existence of extraterrestrial life is in Skinner’s possession. CSM sends his two thugs to beat up Skinner and take the tape. Skinner claims to CSM, quite cocky that there’s no leverage to use against him now, that Albert Hosteen has memorized the details on the tape and has told several Navajo to secure the safety of Mulder and Scully. 
• Mulder and Scully get some key info from The Lone Gunmen regarding a photograph with Mulder’s dad and the WMM. It has a Nazi war criminal/scientist who was spared from punishment due to his scientific genius, Klemper, now an elderly man tending to orchids (played by Walter Gotell; known for his Bond movies). Klemper won’t reveal much but does send the renegade agents to an abandoned facility seemingly insignificant and dilapidated. It has a room with an extended hall of filing cabinets containing files dating back to the 50s, containing folks with tissue samples, with Mulder believing those collected are abductees. Scully’s file being among them dates back to her own abduction with Mulder also finding his own sister’s file, discovering that her name’s sticker was overlaying his own, telling him he was meant to be the abductee, not her.
• Melissa dies and Scully is left to mourn her loss, and Mulder assures her that the truth must be in the X-files. This leads to future episodes involving Krycek and Cardinal, as Scully wants justice for her sister’s death and Mulder continues to pursue the location of his sister.
• WMM tells Mulder about alien-human hybrids while Scully persists that all of this is a lie perpetuated by a syndicate that wants him to be led astray, giving him what he wants to hear. Mulder teeters between believing what he says and listening to Scully due to how he’s been led on wild goose chases often.
• Scully drops her flashlight accidentally while scurrying aliens move past her (she sees a figure distant, too). Mulder looks out and sees the bright lights of an alien ship that passes overhead.