The List

Internal dating: No date given. Could be anything, given the mess of the dating at this time. Probably October 1995, though, if it is to roughly track with air-date time, as most episodes do.

Mulder tells Scully about Neech's claim that he would be reincarnated to kill five men. Yesterday a death row guard was found dead inside Manley's cell, his death unexplained.

They visit the prison. The warden says the guard was suffocated, but has no idea who could have done it. Mulder asks about Neech's claim, but, needless to say, the warden doesn't believe in it. Neech was a very clever man, he says, and that very intelligence, thwarted in prison, manifested itself as bitterness and resentment. He thinks Neech has somehow planned this to be carried out after his death.

Scully examines the guard's body and finds it crawling with maggots.

Mulder and Scully talk to Manley's friend, John Speranza. He says there's no way any of the prisoners could have got out to kill the guard, especially as security has been doubled after Neech's threats. "He's back, I can feel him," he says. "The man was electric... pure energy."

Scully goes alone to look at Neech's empty cell and finds two flies crawling on a stained pillow. The guard, who doesn't believe a word of Neech's claims, is called away and Scully walks into the hallway alone. Suddenly she is grabbed from behind by a man in the shadows. He says he's called Parmelly, and he whispers that he's not going to hurt her. He claims to know the identity of the next person to die. "There's a list," he says. "One of the cons has it. A man named Roque." The guard comes back and Parmelly disappears. Scully looks shaken, and the guard warns her that it's not a place for a woman to be walking around alone. She rejoins Mulder, who asks her what's wrong. "I just want to get out of here," she says.

Next morning a prisoner finds the head of a guard in a paint can, all covered with maggots. The medical examiner tells Scully that the rapid appearance of maggots is not that unusual. In the lungs of the first victim he found lots of larvae of the green bottle fly, which thrives in a hot humid environment. The first victim seems to have suffocated or drowned.

Mulder visits Roque, asking him about the list. They move to a private room, as Speranza shouts after them that Roque is a liar and Mulder is not to believe what he says. Roque says there were five names on the list - which he overheard Neech telling Speranza. Two are dead now, and he will reveal the other names if he gets a transfer out of the prison. He won't say if this is because he is himself on the list.

The warden refuses the deal, saying if he deals once every prisoner will want deals, and that he mustn't back down. "There's a conspiracy at work here," he says, believing someone is acting in accordance with a plan hatched with Neech before his death. Entering his office, he finds the guard's headless body behind the desk.

Mulder reads Manley's diary, which is full of scholarly references to reincarnation. "Being obsessed with it doesn't mean you can do it," Scully says. Mulder says every religion has some sort of belief in life after death, but she says that's not what she learnt in catechism. He challenges her that even Christianity believes in the resurrection. She asks if he honestly believes Manley came back from the dead to kill these man, and he asks her what other explanation there could be. She says there's a very good theory - that there's a conspiracy of prisoners and guards behind the murders. Still, Mulder won't leave the idea of reincarnation. "Imagine if you could come back and take out five people who caused you to suffer. Who would they be?" he asks Scully. "I only get five?" she asks. "I remembered your birthday this year, didn't I, Scully?" he asks, and the both smile.

Mulder and Scully visit Manley's widow, Danielle. She says she's dreamt repeatedly that he can't be killed. She was only allowed to visit him three times in the eleven years, and those just before his execution, but she felt the power of his beliefs. She won't go as far as to say he's come back, but she does say that if anyone could come back, it would be him.

Roque is taken to the warden who beats him and demands to know who's on the list. "You're number five," Roque tells him. "How does it feel to be on death row, warden?"

Mulder and Scully discuss Danielle Manley. Mulder says her body language was scared, as if she fears she's on the list herself. As they drive off, Danielle watches them go, side by side with Parmelly. "What if he found out?" she asks him, anxiously, but he says everything will be all right. "He aint coming back, Danielle," he says.

Back at the prison, Roque is found dead in the showers, where we last saw the warden beating him. As Mulder and Scully walk through the prison, all the prisoners shout innuendo at Scully, but she walks past, head high. As Scully examines the body, Parmelly appears and tells her "I warned you. That's three." Mulder tries to work out the three dead men's connections with Neech. The warden says Neech and Roque had a violent fight once, and that the two dead guards once had to "discipline" Neech. Nevertheless, Mulder suggests Roque might not be victim number three, and asks for the name of the executioner, so they can warn him. The warden says that the only people who know his name are himself and two others. And Neech, Mulder says.

Mulder and Scully go to the executioner's house and find him in the attic, dead, all covered with flies and maggots.

Mulder talks to Speranza again, demanding he tell him everything. He won't say who's on the list, but will say that Roque wasn't. "I've seen him," he says of Neech.

Scully finds out that Neech used to make lots of phone calls to a man called Danny Charez, who has also visited Speranza several times recently. She wonders if he is the key to the conspiracy. They visit him, and he says he was Manley's defence lawyer. Afraid that he could be a target for failing to get Manley off, he's been visiting Speranza to try to get him a retrial or some other sort of deal. He says he's also visited anyone who might have influence with Neech and may be able to call him off, but was driven away from Danielle's house by her "crazy boyfriend," who works at the prison.

The warden visits Speranza and offers to reopen the case if he "calls off the dogs."

That evening, Charez is suffocated by a pillow forced over his face by a black man.

Parmelly arrives home to find Danielle waiting for him, furious. The FBI are outside watching, she says. Out in the car, Scully says she understands why Danielle took another man: "A woman gets lonely. Sometimes she can't wait around for her man to be reincarnated." They drive off the tell the warden.

Scully now believes that Parmelly is doing the killing and the warden suggests they arrest him. Hearing of Charez's death, Scully thinks he was the fifth victim, but neither Mulder not the warden seem convinced.

Danielle wakes up at night to see Neech in her bedroom. She picks up a gun and stalks him through the house, but when she confronts the figure it turns out to be Parmelly. "It's you," she tells him. "You're him." As Mulder and Scully knock at the door, she says she should have realised who he was. He tries to persuade her she's seeing ghosts, but she shoots him. "It was him," she says, weeping. "He came back."

Just as happened to Roque, Speranza is taken to the showers to talk to the warden. "You promised me a deal," Speranza says, but the warden beats him, demanding to know who else is on the list. "Neech's list got one man left to die," Speranza says, as he's beaten again and again.

Driving away, Mulder suddenly pulls over and gets out of the car, saying it doesn't make sense. Parmelly was only on duty at the time of one of the deaths, he says, and wasn't one of the people who knew the name of the executioner. "Doesn't it bother you?" he asks Scully. Scully says he was working with someone as yet unknown. "It's over, Mulder. Let's just go home," she says, when he tries to point out all the other loose ends.

The warden is also on the road. Suddenly flies appear in the car and he seems to see Neech in the back of he car. Neech grabs at him, and the car crashes into a tree. The back seat is empty, but there is a single fly on the warden's face.

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