Episode Summary
When a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances are reported near a lake in a small town, Agents Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate. With local folklore of a killer sea serpent running rampant amongst the locals, the agents must take their search for the truth to the water.
Episode Details
- Writer: Kim Newton
- Director: Kim Manners
- Original Broadcast: AU: 14.08.1996 US: 03.05.1996
Cast
- Scully Gillian Anderson
- Mulder David Duchovny
Guest Cast
- Ted Bertram Mark Acheson
- Ansel Bray R Nelson Brown
- Sheriff Lance Heads Chris Ellis
- Dr Bailey Peter Hanlon
- Stoner Tyler Labine
- Snorkel Dude Terrance Leigh
- Fisherman Murray Lowry
- Redheaded Chick Nicole Parker
- Dr Farraday Timothy Webber
Quotes
[Scully's dog starts barking in the back seat]
Scully: Nature's calling, I think we should pull over.
Mulder: Did you really have to bring that thing?
Scully: ...You wake me up on a Saturday morning, tell me to be ready in five minutes, my mother is out of town, all of the dog sitters are booked and you know how I feel about kennels. So, unless you want to lose your security deposit on the car, I suggest you pull over.
[Scully sees a billboard advertising Big Blue, the local sea serpent]
Scully: Tell me you're not serious.
Mulder: I'll take that diatribe to mean that you don't believe in the existence of such a creature.
Dr Farraday: I'm not even going to grace that statement with a reply.
[Half the body of the missing boy scout leader is found]
Scully: Well, his fly's unzipped.
Mulder: Are you insinuating something?
Scully: ...We eat fish and fish eat us.
Mulder: Are fish also known for eating half and saving half for later?
Ansel Bray: Like I said, I recognised his hat.
Mulder: How could you not?
Sheriff Heads: Hell, on a lake this size you're going to have eight, nine deaths in a season. That's just a statistical fact.
Mulder: Yeah, but you've got two or three in as many weeks. I'd say you're a little outside your bell curve, Sheriff.
Sheriff Heads: I got zip out of Freebird and Moonunit over there. No telling what they've been smoking.
Mulder: Oh. Is that the psychological approach to crime solving, 'he's too embarrassed'?
Scully: I'm taking Queequeg for a walk.
Mulder: Want me to come with you?
Scully: I'll be fine.
[Scully flashes her holster at Mulder]
Scully: Could you repeat that last part? I kind of faded out.
Mulder: Which part?
Scully: After you said
I'm sorry
.
Scully: You know on the old mariner's maps the cartographers would designate uncharted territories by writing 'Here be monsters'.
Mulder: I've got a map of New York City just like that.
Scully: What was that?
[The fish sonar goes wild]
Mulder: It ain't no bass.
Scully: What is that? What is that, Mulder?
Mulder: Here be monsters, Scully.
Scully: It looks like it's coming straight at us.
Mulder: Yep, that's what it looks like.
[Mulder and Scully watch as their boat sinks]
Scully: There goes our $500 deposit.
Mulder: Yeah, you know, living in the city you forget that night is so dark.
Scully: It's not until you get back out to nature until you realise that everything is out to get you. And my father always taught me to respect nature, Because it has no respect for you.
Mulder: Hey Scully, do you think you could ever cannibalise someone? I mean if you really had to.
Scully: Well, as much as the very idea is abhorrent to me, I suppose under certain conditions a living entity is practically conditioned to perform whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure its survival. I suppose I'm no different.
Mulder: You've lost some weight recently, haven't you?
Scully: Yeah. So I have. Thanks for —
[Scully glares at Mulder and he laughs]
Scully: Poor Queequeg.
Scully: I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck. So I named my dog Queequeg. It's funny, I just realised something.
Mulder: It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?
Scully: No. How much you're like Ahab. You're so... consumed by your personal vengeance against life whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?
Scully: You know, Mulder, you are Ahab.
Mulder: You know, its interesting you should say that, because I've always wanted a peg leg. It's a boyhood thing I never grew out of. I'm not being flippant, I've given this a lot of thought. I mean, if you have a peg leg or hooks for hands then maybe its enough to simply keep on living. You know, braving facing life with your disability. But without these things you're actually meant to make something of your life, achieve something earn a raise, wear a necktie. So if anything I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab, because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy and more content not to be chasing after these creatures of the unknown.
Scully: And that's not flippant?
Mulder: No. Flippant is my favourite line from Moby Dick.
[Scully smiles, finishing the line with Mulder]Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling.
Yeah.
Scully: What was that?
Mulder: I don't know, but it ain't no duck.
[Mulder and Scully are stranded on a small rock outcrop in the lake]
Scully: We'd have been out here all night if you hadn't have answered our distress call.
Dr Farraday: Oh, I didn't. I was walking by, heard you talking.
Scully: Walking by?
Dr Farraday: Yeah. The shore is just a stone's throw from here. Come on, I'll take you back.
Scully: [to Mulder] Well, captain, what now?
Scully: Well, you slew the big white whale, Ahab.
Mulder: Yeah, but I still don't have that pegleg.