Sunday Mornings with Mulder and Scully – Alex Krycek Strikes Again

When Agent Scully was abducted in season two, it was because Gillian Anderson was pregnant in real life. Instead of writing the pregnancy into the show, Chris Carter chose to write a storyline of Scully’s disappearance around Anderson’s maternity leave. She ended up having a little girl whom she named Piper Maru.

Carter used this name as partial inspiration for a two-part episode in season three. The two episodes, Piper Maru and Apocrypha, revolve around a French salvage vessel named – you guessed it – the Piper Maru who sends a member of their crew down to a sunken fighter plane from WWII. Inside, they find a man still alive in the plane’s cockpit with his eyes looking black with oil. The crewman of the Piper Maru returns to his vessel possessed by the same black oil. It returns to port with the entire crew complaining of radiation burns.

Mulder decides this is an X-File and believes that the Piper Maru dropped anchor at the same coordinates as another ship that reportedly found a UFO. He and Scully discover that a submarine once had a crew who also had the same radiation burns and the same black oil. Their investigation eventually leads to an encounter with Alex Krycek who has been selling the contents of the digital tape from earlier in the season. Mulder gives chase when he escapes and eventually catches Krycek in an airport. When Mulder lets the man to to the bathroom, Krycek meets someone in there who passed on the sentient black oil and Krycek leaves with it in his eyes.

Also in the mix in these episodes is the investigation into who killed Scully’s sister. Skinner informs her that the investigation is no longer ongoing despite significant evidence. Later, Skinner is confronted by members of the Syndicate including the Gray-Haired Man and is told not to pursue the case. Skinner ends up with a bullet wound.

In part two, Apocrypha, it is discovered that Mulder’s father and the Smoking Man were the two agents who interviewed the crew of the submarine. The crew states that the captain had been infected by the black oil, but it had escape through a grate into the ocean.

Back to the present, Mulder and Krycek are run off the road by assailants who end up injured after Krycek emits a flashing light that causes the radioactive burns. Mulder, having been knocked unconscious by the car accident, wakes in the hospital only to be informed of Skinner’s condition. Scully informs him that evidence suggests that the shooter was the same shooter who shot her sister.

Mulder enlists the help of the Lone Gunman to help him get the digital tape back from the hiding place Krycek said it was in. Instead, Krycek has already taken it and returns it to the Smoking Man in exchange for the location of the UFO supposedly recovered by the sub. The Syndicate is not happy when they find out that the Smoking Man moved the UFO.

Mulder finds a way to meet with the Well Manicured Man, a member of the Syndicate. He reveals that an atomic bomb was the cover story for recovering the UFO and that anyone with that knowledge is unsafe which causes Mulder and Scully to return to Skinner in the hospital.

After checking on Skinner, they agents are led to a missile silo in North Dakota but are captured by the Smoking Man’s men. Inside, Krycek lets the black oil seep from his body and it is absorbed by a UFO. Krycek is left alone in the silo with no escape.

Actor Nicholas Lea (Krycek) hated filming the scene during which the black oil was excreted from his skin. He was fitted with a mask and tubes for the scene. Both digital and practical effects were used for the black oil, the combination of which is pretty convincing. The oil reappears several times in the series and in the first film, Fight the Future.

In the context of the series, this two part episode set up a lot of the alien and UFO mythology for the rest of the series. It played into the UFO obsession that seemed to be prevalent in the 90s. The interesting thing about this is that Mulder and Scully are almost always defeated in these mythology episodes, never getting the answers they seek. This never corrupts them, however. Our agents keep forging ahead, never dissuaded. This is what made Mulder and Scully so great as characters. While they had moments of heartbreak and anger, they never let the government manipulate them into giving up.

Until next week, the truth is out there.