The X-Files/Recap/S02/E22 F. Emasculata

In the rain forest of Costa Rica, entomologist Robert Torrance stumbles upon a decomposing boar carcass covered with dark purple pustules. As he extracts an insect from one of the pustules, it erupts, spraying him with fluid. By nightfall, Torrance himself has developed the boils and tries to radio for help. When a group of soldiers arrive the next morning, Torrance is dead.

At a prison in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, an inmate—also named Robert Torrance—receives a package containing a boil-covered piece of meat. He becomes infected and dies thirty-six hours later. Two other inmates, Paul and Steve, escape in a laundry cart after being sent to clean Torrance's cell. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are sent to help the U.S. Marshals find them. The agents note that the FBI does not normally investigate prison escapes, and become suspicious as the prison is quarantined by the CDC and the National Guard. Mulder joins the Marshals to hunt the fugitives, while Scully stays behind to investigate the situation in the prison.

Scully learns that the lockdown population is infected with an exceedingly deadly contagion, finding a pile of body bags stored for incineration in the prison's boiler room. Scully cuts open Torrance's body bag and examines his corpse, but Dr. Osbourne, a member of the CDC team, tries to stop her. A pustule on Torrance's body erupts in Osbourne's face, causing him to flee the room. Meanwhile, the fugitives steal an RV and stop at a gas station, where Paul calls his girlfriend, Elizabeth, looking for shelter. The station's clerk finds an infected Steve in the restroom; he is knocked unconscious by Paul. Scully calls Mulder after the Marshals raid the gas station, telling him that the contagion could spread into the population if the fugitives are not captured. Mulder sees a CDC biohazard team arrive at the scene, forcibly taking away the clerk in a helicopter.

The fugitives arrive at Elizabeth's house, where she tends to Steve, in the late stages of his infection. One of Steve's pustules erupts in her face, killing him and infecting Elizabeth. At that moment, Mulder and the Marshals raid the house and arrest her, but find Paul missing. Meanwhile, Scully traces Torrance's package to Pinck Pharmaceuticals, a major drug developer. She also finds an insect in the body of another prisoner. Dr. Osbourne, who has become infected, reveals that his team works for Pinck and are researching a dilating enzyme produced by the insect. However, the insect has a parasitic life cycle that kills its hosts. Osbourne claims that the insect and its contagion were deliberately introduced into the prison by Pinck as an experiment. He tells Scully that since she was next to him when he became infected, she may have contracted the contagion as well.

Mulder confronts Skinner and The Smoking Man, believing that he and Scully were deceived into taking the case without knowing about the contagion. Mulder is adamant that the public should know the truth about Pinck's actions. The Smoking Man counters that public knowledge of the truth would create mass panic and do more harm than good. Mulder tries to take his case to Scully, but she agrees that exposing Pinck may result in a deadly hysteria. Paul becomes the only remaining proof of the company's crimes, but he takes a hostage and is killed by the Marshals before Mulder can convince him to divulge the contents of Torrance's package. The episode ends with Skinner warning Mulder to be more wary of the situations he will find himself in.


 * Body Horror
 * Covered in Gunge: Well, not covered, but Dr. Osbourne does get a face full of pus.
 * Mega Corp: Pinck Pharmaceuticals.
 * The Plague


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