Episode Summary
A man's decomposed body is found in the sewers of Newark, New Jersey and Mulder is given this supposedly routine murder case. But after Scully's autopsy turns up a parasite living inside the body and a sewer worker is attacked and bitten by something, it opens up a whole new can of worms.
Episode Details
- Writer: Chris Carter
- Director: Daniel Sackheim
- Original Broadcast: AU: 22.02.1995 US: 23.09.1994
Cast
- Scully Gillian Anderson
- Mulder David Duchovny
Guest Cast
- Detective Norman Freddy Andreiuci
- Agent Brisentine Marc Baur
- First Workman Matthew Bennett
- Russian Engineer Dmitri Boudrine
- Dmitri Raoul Ganeev
- Federal Marshall William MacDonald
- Charlie Don MacKay
- Man on Phone Hrothgar Mathews
- Flukeman Darin Morgan
- Assistant Director Walter Skinner Mitch Pileggi
- Dr Zenzola Gabrielle Rose
- Foreman Ron Sauve
- Mr X Steven Williams
Quotes
Engineer: The blockage must be removed before the tanks can be purged.
Dmitri: Why is this always my job?
Engineer: Because you are young. And because it is terrible and smelly work.
Agent Brisentine: Agent Mulder?
Mulder: Yeah.
Agent Brisentine: You're being relieved from your current assignment. Agent Bosoff will take over. You've got a flight to catch in 45 minutes.
Mulder: Where am I going?
Agent Brisentine: Murder case. Newark, New Jersey.
Mulder: Treat yourself.
[Giving seeds to Agent Bosoff]
Agent Brisentine: You're flying out of National. Your contact in Newark is Detective Norman.
Mulder: How'd I draw the assignment?
Agent Brisentine: Assistant Director Skinner made the request.
Mulder: Skinner requested me?
Mulder: Ugh!
[Stepping down into sewer]
Detective Norman: Watch yourself.
Mulder: Yeah, wouldn't want to step into anything.
Detective Norman: They say it cuts the smell if you don't breathe through your mouth.
Mulder: They lied.
Detective Norman: Would you like us to turn his body over for you?
Mulder: No, I'll take your word on that.
Detective Norman: Hey, Agent Mulder! What would you like us to do with the body?
Mulder: Wrap it up and send it to the FBI care of Assistant Director Skinner.
Skinner: Is there a problem, Agent Mulder?
Mulder: Yeah, there is.
Skinner: Then make an appointment.
Mulder: It's kind of hard to make an appointment when you're up to your ass in raw sewage being jerked from one meaningless assignment to another.
Skinner: Excuse me?
Mulder: What's my next punishment? Scrubbing the bathroom floors with a toothbrush?
Skinner: You're way out of line, Agent Mulder.
Mulder: So I gathered.
Scully: Is this seat taken?
Mulder: No, but I should warn you, I'm experiencing violent impulses.
Scully: Well, I'm armed, so I'll take my chances. I hear you really endeared yourself to Assistant Director Skinner today.
Mulder: You know sometimes it just gets hard to smile through it when they ask you to bend down and grab your ankles, you know?
Mulder: There's nothing to it.
[The case]
Scully: There's a dead body, isn't there?
Mulder: [answering mobile phone] Scully, this is a bad time for me to talk.
Mr X: Mr Mulder?
Mulder: Yeah.
Mr X: I think you should know. You have a friend at the FBI.
Mulder: Who is this?
[Mr X hangs up]
Scully: It's called Tubalaria, or it's commonly known as a fluke or flat worm.
Mulder: This was living inside the body?
Scully: Apparently it had attached itself to the bile duct and was feeding off the liver.
Mulder: Lovely.
Scully: Believe it or not something like 40 million people are infected worldwide.
Mulder: This isn't where you tell me some terrible story about sushi, is it?
Scully: Well maybe you'd rather hear what you could catch from a nice rare steak?
Mulder: So, what? The murder weapon was a top sirloin?
Scully: I'm sorry. Felt like old times there for a second.
Scully: They are not creatures that go around attacking people.
Mulder: Well, that's good. I didn't want to have to tell Skinner that his murder suspect was a giant bloodsucking worm...
Scully: No...
Mulder: Look Scully, I don't know who you shared our conversation with the other night, but I'd prefer it if you didn't try and launch a campaign on my behalf.
Scully: Excuse me.
Mulder: I don't know who you talked to.
Scully: I didn't talk to anybody.
Mulder: Well somebody called me told me I had a friend at the FBI.
Scully: Look Mulder, I don't know what to say, but I wouldn't betray a confidence.
Foreman: City runs on several different systems. Some new, some built around the turn of the century. Almost as old as Charlie here. Isn't that right, Charlie?
Charlie: Ah, yes sir.
Mulder: And all the sewage comes through this plant?
Foreman: 560,000 people a day call my office on the porcelain telephone.
Mulder: Have you ever seen one of these?
Foreman: Looks like a big old worm.
Mulder: It's called a fluke. It came from the body they pulled out of the sewer.
Foreman: Wouldn't surprise me. No telling what's been breeding down there in the last 100 years.
Scully: Platyhelminths are often hermaphroditic. Mulder, this is amazing. Its vestigial features appear to be parasitic, but it has primate physiology. Where the hell did it come from?
Mulder: I don't know. But it looks like I'm gonna have to tell Skinner that his suspect is a giant bloodsucking worm after all.
Scully: Somebody shoved this under my door. I guess you really do have a friend in the FBI. And Mulder, when you see Skinner to hand in field report, I hope that you know that I'd consider it more than a professional loss if you decided to leave.
Mulder: There's no way you'll prosecute this.
Skinner: The Justice Department has asked the suspect be transferred to an institution for a full psychiatric evaluation.
Mulder: This is not a man, it's a monster. You can't put it in an institution.
Skinner: And what do you do with it, Agent Mulder? Put it in a zoo?
Mulder: You know, you had a pair of agents that could have handled a case like this. Agent Scully and I might have been able to save that man's life, but you shut us down.
Skinner: I know. This should have been an X-File. We all take our orders from someone, Agent Mulder. That'll be all.
Mulder: What have you got?
Detective Norman: Well we got a dead Marshall and an escaped prisoner. Other than that we got bubkes.
Mulder: [answering mobile phone] Mulder.
Mr X: Mr Mulder, I'll make this brief. Success in your current assignment is imperative.
Mulder: Who am I speaking to?
Mr X: Are you hearing me Mr Mulder?
Mulder: Yes. Why is it imperative?
Mr X: Reinstatement of the X-Files must be undeniable.
Scully: Mulder if it finds a new host —
Mulder: I know Scully, it could multiply.
Scully: Is this seat taken?
Mulder: No, but I should warn you I may reek a bit of the sewer.
Scully: I'll take my chances.
Scully: Mulder, nature didn't make this thing. We did.
Mulder: You know they say three species disappear off the planet every day. You wonder how many new ones are being created?