The X-Files/Recap/S02/E16 Colony

The episode opens In Medias Res with Fox Mulder in a field hospital in the Arctic. As Mulder is lowered into a tub of water, Dana Scully bursts in and tells the doctors that the cold is the only thing keeping him alive. Suddenly, Mulder's heart monitor flatlines.

Two weeks earlier, in the Beaufort Sea, crewmen on a ship spot a light in the sky that soon crashes into the sea. A body is retrieved from the crash, revealed to be an Alien Bounty Hunter. Two days later, the Bounty Hunter arrives in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at an abortion clinic and kills a doctor by stabbing him in the back of the neck with a stiletto weapon, then sets the building on fire and escapes. Mulder receives emails containing the doctor's obituary along with two other identical doctors. After interviewing a pro-life priest who had threatened one of the doctors, they are able to use a newspaper advertisement looking for one of the men to track another one, Aaron Baker, to Syracuse, New York.

Mulder has a fellow FBI agent, Barrett Weiss, visit Baker's residence. Weiss and Baker are both killed by the Bounty Hunter, who impersonates Weiss and tells Mulder and Scully that no one is home. After Walter Skinner hears of Weiss' death and closes the case, the agents meet CIA official Ambrose Chapel, who tells them that the doctors are clones from a Soviet genetics program, and are being systematically killed by the Russian and U.S. governments. Mulder, Scully, and Chapel head to pick up another doctor named James Dickens, but Dickens flees at the sight of Chapel, who is really the disguised Bounty Hunter. Dickens is killed by the Bounty Hunter in the subsequent pursuit, unknowingly aided by Mulder and Scully.

Scully doubts "Chapel's" credibility, but Mulder believes his story due to his credentials and experience. Scully performs an autopsy on Weiss and finds that his blood has coagulated, while his red blood cell count is excessively high. Scully finds an address on a bag recovered from Dickens' residence and heads there, discovering a lab that is in the process of being destroyed by "Chapel." Meanwhile, Mulder is summoned to the home of his father, Bill, and learns that his sister Samantha has seemingly returned home after being abducted decades before. Samantha claims that she was returned around age nine with no memory, and recently recalled her experience through regression hypnosis.

Samantha tells Mulder that the Bounty Hunter and the clones are actually aliens, and the Bounty Hunter will begin chasing her as soon as he has killed the remaining clones. Meanwhile, Scully heads to a hotel to hide from the Bounty Hunter. Returning to the lab, she finds four more clones, who claim to be the last. Scully arranges for them to be transported to a safe place, but the Bounty Hunter follows her and watches. At her hotel room, Scully lets in a man who seems to be Mulder, only to receive a phone call from the actual Mulder soon after.


 * Cloning Blues
 * How We Got Here
 * Shapeshifter Default Form


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