Scully is absent, the bees are back, and Skinner is trying to have Mulder implicated in a massive coverup on the orders of the Cancer Man. Oh, and also it turns out that the Cancer Man is working with Marita Covarrubias, Mulder's latest informant. Of course.
Scully's absence is probably the easiest part of this episode to understand and accept. Gillian Anderson was away filming her role in The Mighty, so they had Scully away in the hospital receiving treatment for her cancer. OK, then.
Meanwhile, there are bees. Lots and lots of bees. Bees that seem to kill and then vanish, much like the cockroaches did in 'War of the Coprophages'. And bees that are apparently carriers of smallpox. And not just any smallpox, but the kind that can kill a person in a matter of seconds, though perhaps that's also related to the sheer number of stings the victims receive, too.
I was wondering back in 'Herrenvolk' what the significance of the bees was supposed to be, and I suspect we haven't seen the last of them. What was interesting is that in that episode, Jeremiah Smith commented to Mulder, "You don't have immunity to [the bees]." And then Mulder dumped gasoline on himself, which at the time I thought simply would repel the bees and prevent him from being stung. But now I believe he could have otherwise withstood the stings if he was otherwise inoculated against that strain of smallpox, which I'm guessing his original vaccination would not have covered.
And then naturally, the conspiracy deepens even further. The Cancer Man is working with Marita at the U.N., which is more than a little unnerving, though I suppose in hindsight it should have been obvious there was some connection. He's been connected to X and Deep Throat, too, and Marita is Mulder's new informant, so yeah, I probably should have seen that coming. Interestingly, she lacks information Skinner is able to provide, which may end up leading to some unfortunate complications later on.
But also, Skinner, after following his orders for most of the episode and trying to cover everyone's tracks using Mulder's identity (really, did you think Mulder wouldn't be able to figure that out?) finally confronts the Cancer Man himself, much like Mulder did back in 'One Breath', and also fails to kill him. Or declines to, or whatever. Obviously he's given pause by the Cancer Man's threat that Scully will die if Skinner kills him, but I think he and Mulder and Scully (once she's better, because you just know she will be) need the Cancer Man as much as he needs them. Because of reasons.
This series is really living up to the mantra of "Trust no one," that Deep Throat warned all the way back in 'The Erlenmeyer Flask'. We're definitely set up to believe Skinner could be a villain, and I'm not counting it out yet, but his behaviour in this episode is much more along the lines of someone who is in a tough position and needs to do some unpleasant tasks in the interest of self preservation. And Scully preservation, supposedly.
But I think the cure will come in the form of something Mulder or Scully discover at some point - I'm not sure it'll happen by the end of the season, though, because there are only three episodes left. Managing anything that complex at this point seems like it might require magic or at the very least, hand waving. So it's beginning to look like Scully's cancer arc is going to span multiple seasons.
Either way, the cure will not be as simple as the Cancer Man (what a fitting nickname now, right?) just presenting the cure to Scully. For one thing, she'd never trust him. Even if he claimed to have the cure, would she allow him to administer it? Especially since he's in with the people who gave her cancer in the first place?
The other thing I wanted to mention in this episode is that Skinner is walking an extremely fine line. I'm willing to predict now that he's not going to make it to the end of the series. I remember voicing that very early on. I'm so used to watching shows where death is common that I generally expect pretty much everyone to die at some point, especially in a long running series. And as it turned out after I made that prediction, there's plenty of it.
So now I'm sticking to it. Skinner is going to get himself killed. The Cancer Man would, too, but I think he's cleverer than Skinner. Skinner may have finally got in over his head, and he'll have a difficult time working his way back out, if that's even possible at this point.
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