The X-Files/Recap/S01/E19 Shapes

FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder travel to Browning, Montana to investigate the killing of a Native American man, Joseph Goodensnake, by local ranch owner Jim Parker. The present killing appears to be motivated by a dispute over the ownership of a tract of land, although Parker claims that he fired on a monstrous animal rather than a human. Parker's son, Lyle, bears scars that lend credence to the story.

At the scene of the shooting, Scully reasons that at the short range from which Goodensnake was shot, it would have been impossible to mistake him for an animal. However, Mulder finds tracks leading to the area that appear to change from human to something more animal in nature. Scully dismisses this, but finds a large section of shed human skin nearby. She believes that the Parkers knowingly killed Goodensnake, but knows that they could not have skinned him since no signs of such injury were found on the body.

The matter is complicated by the difficulties Mulder and Scully have with dealing with the Native American population, stemming from the experience of the locals with the FBI at the Wounded Knee incident in 1973. Goodensnake's sister Gwen is also bitter that her neighbors are too frightened of native legends to confront his death. Despite these misgivings, the agents find a seeming ally in Sheriff Charles Tskany, who permits Scully to make a cursory examination of Goodensnake's body, but forbids a full autopsy. They discover that he had elongated canines, similar to those of an animal, and bears long-healed scars similar to those borne by Lyle. After parting ways with the Sheriff, Scully asks Mulder why it seems he is expecting every piece of evidence they have come across. Mulder informs Scully that forty years previously there was a similar incident in the area, which was investigated by J. Edgar Hoover and became the FBI's first X-File case.

Goodensnake's body is cremated in a traditional ceremony, while the agents watch from a distance. Mulder shares with Scully his belief that both the culprits in both the current case and Hoover's investigation are werewolves. Scully dismisses this theory and instead credits the belief to clinical lycanthropy. The elder Parker is subsequently ripped apart by an unseen animal outside his home, and Lyle is found naked and unconscious a few hundred yards away.

Ish, one of the elder men of the reservation, explains to Mulder the legend of the manitou, a creature which can possess and transform a man and which can pass to a new host, through a bite, or upon the death of the original host. Ish believes he had seen the creature in his youth, but was too frightened to confront it. He says it happens every eight years to someone in the region, and that it has been that long since the last sighting of a possible manitou.

Mulder calls the medical examiner who tells him that Scully has taken Lyle Parker back to the ranch and that Parker's blood test has revealed his father's blood type in his stomach. Mulder and Tskany hurry to the Parker ranch. After firing on the creature which escapes unharmed, Mulder finds Scully hiding upstairs. They search for the creature, and as it lunges to attack them, Tskany shoots it. Scully expresses disbelief on seeing Parker’s body, saying that Parker was in the bathroom, sick, and then they were attacked by the mountain lion. But Tskany says that the lion is still in its cage.

As the agents leave, they learn that Gwen has left town, while Ish cryptically warns Mulder, "See you in about eight years". As Mulder and Scully drive away, a wolf is heard howling in the forest.


 * Human-to-Werewolf Footprints
 * Injun Country
 * Our Werewolves Are Different
 * Magical Native American
 * Braids, Beads, and Buckskins