Página PrincipalInternal Dating: None. Episode aired January 4th 1998.
At Lorton Penitentiary, two interns watch as a therapist urges her patient on. He walks haltingly across the floor, pushing a large plastic wheel in front of him. When he finishes his prescribed steps, the interns strap him into a wheelchair and take him back to his cell. Outside the door, one of the interns asks why everyone is scared of the patient, scoffing at the "danger" the patient poses. The other intern, an experienced older man, says sternly that the patient must never be underestimated, that Robert Patrick Modell is extremely dangerous. He gives the younger intern a final warning before taking Modell into his cell.
That night, as the young intern is at his station, he sees the light go on over Modell's door, summoning him. The interns goes into Modell's room, first making sure his Mace is accessible, ready for action.
Modell is whispering, and the intern bends down, listening intently.
Several hours later, the older intern finds the station in the hall deserted and goes looking for the younger intern. The man is sitting on the floor of Modell's cell, which is empty. When asked where Modell went, all the man can say is, "He had to go."
Credits roll: The Truth Is Out There
In Lorton, Virginia, the manhunt for Modell is underway, headed by Assistant Director Skinner, and working with the U.S. Marshal's office. Skinner tells the assembled group that Agents Mulder and Scully are his SAC's, and orders them to listen up.
Taking turns, Mulder and Scully educate the group of law enforcement officers before them about Modell, or Pusher. They relate the story of the last time they dealt with him, emphasizing his enjoyment of playing games, and how his voice is the key. They mustn't listen to Modell, if he is found, Mulder says, and adequate back-up is to be called for immediately.
"What's adequate back-up?" asks one of the men.
"Every cop you can lay your hands on," Mulder replies seriously.
As Skinner gives out the officer's assignments, Scully tells Mulder about Modell, who is in a weakened condition. He woke from his coma about six months earlier, which is rare, but not unheard of, Scully says. The brain tumor he had is still present, still killing him.
She then asks Mulder if this investigation is a wise idea. Modell targeted Mulder before, and they believe Modell will start up "right where he left off." Should he even be heading the investigation?
"As opposed to what? What's your point?" Mulder asks.
"You're playing his game," Scully says, and Mulder looks at her for a moment, then walks away.
A weak Modell walks into a sporting goods store in Occoquan, Virigina. He talks the boy behind the counter into believing a baseball bat he is holding is really a snake, and tells the boy to go into the back room. While TV's over the counter show Mulder and Scully, a commentator talks about the manhunt under way. Modell watches calmly, munching on a power bar.
At the prison, Mulder and Scully visit the therapist, who does not believe Modell is faking his weakened state. Questioned by Scully, the doctor tells them that Modell had no family that she knew of, having grown up in a series of foster homes. He had few visitors, mostly the nuns of the Little Sisters of Charity, who visited all the inmates.
While talking to the therapist, an agent bursts into the room, saying they have Modell on the phone, wanting to speak to Mulder. Mulder is cautioned not to listen to Modell, only to keep him on long enough to trace the call.
"Mulder, listen, I have something you need to hear," Modell begins.
Mulder refuses to listen, saying Modell should tell him in person. He keeps Modell on the phone long enough for the trace to be made, back to the sporting goods store. By the time the agents arrive, Modell is gone, and only the boy from the store is found, wandering around in Modell's prison clothes. When asked about Modell, all he says is, "He had to go."
Mulder and Scully hear about a murder, this one of a prosecuting attorney, Nathan Bowman, the man who put Modell in jail. The man is covered in blue paint, and the room is painted with it. Scully believes he was "pushed" into painting his walls with Japanese ideograms in cerulean blue paint, then painting himself all over, and finally ingesting what paint was left, which is what killed him.
A Japanese interpreter is brought in, and she announces that the ideograms on the wall are the same one, over and over. It is Kitsunegari, meaning "foxhunt."
A picture of Bowman's wife, Linda, is found, with blue fingerprints on it, and the memory button on the phone with her number at work has been used. Mulder calls her office, and learns that Linda is a real estate agent, who is out of the office right now, on her way to meet a client named Fox Mulder at a commercial real estate property in Falls Church.
Skinner alerts the Falls Church PD, who check out the various properties. Two officers come across one where the lock has been broken. Pulling their weapons, the two enter the building cautiously, after calling for back-up.
The officers split up, and as the one walks through the building, he hears Modell, taunting him, playing "hide-and-seek" with him. The officer finally comes across Modell, merely standing in an aisle of the warehouse. He makes Modell lie on the floor and cuffs him.
Skinner, Mulder and Scully arrive, only to discover the cop has apprehended his own partner instead.
Linda Bowman arrives at the site, and is told about her husband. In tears, she admits that her husband had told her a little bit about the Modell case. Skinner believes she may be targeted next, and takes her to an FBI safe house.
Scully and Mulder realize that Modell could not be far from the property, being so weak. Borrowing one of the officer's radios, Mulder goes to a building across the street and finds one of the power bar wrappers Modell has been eating. He pulls his weapon and goes up the stairs, where he finds Modell standing in the hallway. Urgently, Mulder uses the radio to call for Scully.
"Mulder, listen to me," Modell begins.
"Shut up," Mulder retorts.
"Mulder, there's something you need to hear."
"Shut up or I will shoot you, you son-of-a-bitch," Mulder answers, advancing on Modell, gun up.
"You're going to listen to me," Modell replies calmly.
When Scully and the marshals arrive, Modell is gone. "He had to go," Mulder says.
Scully calls Skinner to let him know what happened, then asks Mulder how he feels.
"Aside from the utter grinding humiliation of knowing I let our suspect go, pretty good," Mulder says.
He goes on to add he doesn't believe Modell is involved the way they first thought he was. Modell could have killed the prison guard, or the boy, or, "While we're at it, why didn't he kill me? Why didn't he make me eat a bullet from my own gun? He could have."
Scully is skeptical, saying that the killing of Bowman, the Kitsunegari warning could only have come from Modell. Modell was there, yes, Mulder does not deny that, but he thinks the man is only related to the killings, that he did not commit them.
"That's your opinion?" Scully asks.
"Yes, that's *my* opinion," Mulder replies.
"How can you be sure its your own?" Scully asks quietly.
"What do we still agree on here? That Modell was pursuing Linda Bowman? I'd like to know why," Mulder says.
Back at the safe house, Linda Bowman is interviewed again. Throughout the interview, Mulder watches her carefully. She repeats how her husband was proud of his "brush with greatness"--that of "Pusher's" trial. She does not think Modell would know about her, because she and Nathan Bowman were only married for two months at the time of the trial.
After the interview, standing in the hallway of the safe house, Mulder tells Scully and Skinner he thinks Linda Bowman killed her husband, not Modell. Both are amazed at Mulder's announcement, but Mulder waves off their skepticism. Modell was there, yes, but he didn't kill Nathan Bowman. In fact, Mulder goes on, Modell warned him of this very thing. The important thing Modell had to tell him--Don't play the game. This is what he meant, Mulder says. "Don't play her game."
"You heard her," Mulder says to Scully.
"Mulder, no. You said it yourself--don't trust Modell, don't listen to him. Yet you've done both."
"What if she can do what Modell does?" Mulder asks.
Skinner orders Mulder to go home. "You're suspended until such time I'm confident your judgment is sound." He takes Mulder's weapon.
Determined to prove he is right, Mulder goes back to the prison, seeking out the therapist. He asks her if she would recognize the nun from the Little Sisters of Charity who came to vist, if she saw a picture. The phone rings, and the therapist agrees, fumbling around her desk for her glasses. Mulder waits off to the side, holding a picture of Linda Bowman.
While she is talking on the phone, the therapist walks across the room to the fuse box, reaches in and electrocutes herself. She has been "pushed" into killing herself.
Brought by two officers in a police car, Modell arrives at the safe house. He walks into the room Linda Bowman is staying in.
Mulder calls Scully and tells her about the therapist. Her first reaction is to want to know why Mulder hasn't gone on home. He says the therapist has been killed because she could identify Linda Bowman as visiting Modell. He wants the call traced, and all of Bowman's access to a telephone cut off.
I'm not at the safe house, replies Scully.
"You're not? Then why isn't anybody answering at the safe house switchboard?" Mulder asks urgently.
Skinner walks in on Modell and Bowman at the safe house. He orders Modell to lie down. Modell gives Bowman a long look, then says, "I have a gun." He turns around, pointing a revolver at Skinner. Thus provoked, Skinner fires, hitting Modell in the left shoulder. As Modell lays on the ground, Skinner does not see a gun, but Modell's index fingers is pointing outward, mimicking a gun.
Mulder arrives at the safe house as they are taking Modell to the hospital. This was his plan, Mulder argues to Scully. Modell deliberately drew Skinner's fire, taking the fall for Bowman. Scully is unconvinced, sarcastically responding to Mulder. When he asks where Bowman is, she says they've taken her home, that there is no reason for her to stay at the safe house any longer.
Mulder goes to the hospital, waiting by an unconscious Modell's side. A nurse enters the room, saying she needs to change Modell's bandages, and Mulder leaves the room.
The "nurse" is really Linda Bowman, who has a piece of paper pinned to her lapel saying "Nurse." Modell awakens, and she tells him he shouldn't have done this.
"Don't make a mistake," Modell whispers.
"I'm not," Bowman replies. "After what they've done. Do you think I'd let them get away with this?"
Modell is suffering, and Bowman is moved. Talking gently, she "pushes" his heart into slowing, telling him he feels no pain, that his heart is tired. He flatlines, and dies.
Mulder, alerted, comes in and sees the piece of paper with "nurse" written on it. Written on the back is an address--214 Channel Avenue--the commercial property where they originally met.
At the warehouse, Mulder goes in alone, armed with only a flashlight. As he moves through the building he hears Scully call his name. She steps forward, holding her gun on him.
Dismayed, Mulder says her name.
"She's making me do this," Scully says woodenly. She cocks the gun. "Mulder, she's here. Make her stop. I can't control myself. Mulder, make her stop."
Mulder calls out for Linda, ordering her to show herself. Slowly Scully raises the gun to her head. "NO!" Mulder cries, running toward her. Scully fires. She crumples to the floor.
In shock, Mulder crouches over Scully, touching her aimlessly. Footsteps sound behind him, and Linda Bowman approaches, holding a gun. Grabbing Scully's gun, Mulder stands up, holding it out. "I'm going to kill you," he says, anger and hate evident on his face.
"Don't listen to her, Mulder," Bowman says.
"What?" "You were right about her. Linda Bowman is pushing you."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm Scully. Linda's right behind you. She's telling you I'm her."
Mulder glances down at Scully, who lies still in a rapidly growing pool of blood. "You killed her!"
"Mulder, I'm Scully," Bowman repeats. "I'm not dead. She wants you to shoot me. She knows you'll never forgive yourself."
"Shut up!" Mulder screams.
"Mulder, listen to me! Your mother is Tina. Your sister is Samantha."
"Shut up!" Mulder screams again. "Modell warned you. Don't play her game."
Bowman fires her gun, and Mulder flinches in reaction, automatically pulling up his own weapon. Slowly he looks behind him, to see Linda Bowman laying on the floor. Across from him stands Scully.
Scully approaches and touches Mulder's arm. She bends over Bowman, who says, "You think you can hold me."
Silent and in shock, Mulder can only stand and watch as Scully calls for an ambulance.
Later, reporting to Skinner, Scully tells the AD that Linda Bowman had the same type of brain tumor Robert Modell did, and that the two were actually fraternal twins, a fact Bowman found out only six months earlier. Separated at two weeks, the two were raised apart. Scully goes on to say she believes Bowman's "Foxhunt" was revenge for what she felt the agents had done to her brother.
The agents get up to leave, and Skinner asks Mulder to stay a moment. "I just wanted to say you did a good job."
"How's that?"
"Nobody could have figured this out but you. You knew it was Linda Bowman and not Modell. You were way ahead of me."
"I almost killed my partner," Mulder protests.
"Mulder, despite that, you prevailed. You won her game," Skinner says.
"Then how come I feel like I've lost?" Mulder asks. He leaves.
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