The 9 Greatest X-Files

4-D

In their time with the X-Files, agents Mulder and Scully investigated some truly bizarre cases – including monsters, spirits and rampaging insects. It wasn’t until the fourth episode of the ninth season, though, that The X-Files encountered a killer that could evade capture using inter-dimensional travel.

With these later seasons being distinctly Mulder-deficient, much of the investigating is undertaken by Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Agent Reyes (Annabeth Gish), and it is Reyes that finds herself at the forefront of the action, as the team work to capture violent serial killer Erwin Lukesh (Dylan Haggerty).

We learn that Lukesh has a tendency to remove the tongues of women, and then apparently disappear. Reyes, Doggett and Assistant Director Brad Follmer (Cary Elwes) are mounting an operation in his apartment building, and Lukesh murders Reyes – taking her gun. He then seems to disappear, reappear and shoot Doggett at close range. Reyes and Doggett are then in her apartment – perfectly fine – when a phone call from Skinner tells her that Doggett has been gravely injured. She looks up to find that Doggett is gone.

The FBI believes Reyes may have shot Doggett, but Doggett wakes and identifies Lukesh, while explaining to Reyes that he had seen her murdered. Her investigation into Lukesh and the inciting incident leads her to believe that Doggett followed Lukesh from a parallel universe, and the version she was talking to in her apartment vanished – because two can’t exist on one plane. The team once again works to entrap Lukesh – who is ultimately killed – and Reyes switches off Doggett’s life-support, allowing him to die. The combination of these two acts re-sets the two timelines, and Reyes and Doggett are right back in her apartment.

The point of the case is to demonstrate the depth of the relationship between Reyes and Doggett – the two relatively new characters in this long-running series. It sets Reyes up as a capable agent, unfazed by horrific crime and those that perpetrate them, and it also side-swipes the audience, with its tale of a brutal killer who can slice open a throat, and essentially, disappear at will. In this way, Lukesh proves to be one of the most compelling ‘monsters-of-the-week’ for The X-Files.