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

Cast

Guest Cast

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?

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