Mulder and Scully incompetently investigate a series of murders where the victim is the same man. Or at least he looks the same because they're all aliens.
I enjoyed this episode because it was very propulsive, really it felt like I must've watched two episodes by the time it was done. There seemed to be quite a bit of action, Mulder even gets hit by a car! Of course, action in the X-Files means a scene that doesn't take place in an office, just running in the street, or snooping around a dangerous place is pretty exciting for our two nerd heroes who naturally don't manage to shoot anyone or outfight anyone during the episode.
Of course we don't get much in the way of answers about what's really going on with all these aliens and government conspiracies and who the murderer is, etc. A fact about these central mythos episodes that eventually wore VERY THIN back when I watched this show as it aired.
I do have to deduct a point or two for too much idiot plotting. For anyone who doesn't know, that's when characters don't act according to what they know or tell people what they know when there's literally no good reason not to. Mulder and Scully both have excellent reason to ask, "So how do you kill an alien?" and the people they're protecting all have excellent reason to say, "Hey, since you never asked, here's how you kill an alien."
Add to that the multiple man's stupid tendency to run away into danger without EVER talking, crying out for help, or shouting some expositional dialogue over his shoulder as he flees, and it's borderline grating. And the ending where Scully manages to make things worse by trying to help, that's just stupid. And I don't mean Scully is being stupid, I mean it makes no sense, whatsoever, at all. Like there's probably over 100 things wrong and nonsensical with the (I think) penultimate scene.
Though the ultimate scene is a nice cliffhanger, the old, person in the room as you also talk to them on the phone is still creepy even if it's been done plenty of times in TV and movies.
