Series creator Chris Carter pens the seventh season opener of The X-Files, which premiered on 7 November, 1999. Scully (Gillian Anderson) is still in West Africa, on the Ivory Coast, investigating the strange, possible extraterrestrial structure (craft?) that the ocean has revealed.

The entire thing is covered in text that seems to touch on all the major religions, as well as the human genome. Scully is hoping that it contains a clue on how to save Mulder (David Duchovny), but she also has to be mindful of who she works with as, Dr. Barnes (Micheal Ensign) seems fixated on the craft, its properties, and ‘his discovery’ of it.

Scully works alongside Dr. Amina Ngebe (JoNell Kennedy) to document as much as they can, but things are happening quicker now, and the locals who are happening are beginning to be very superstitious about things that are happenning around the discovery.

Mulder, meanwhile, is still languishing in the mental ward of a hospital, though Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) gets in to see him, and is able to bring the help the agent asks for in the form of Michael Kritschgau (John Finn) who has seen what is happening to Mulder before.

Mulder’s brain is incredible active, brushing up against esp, and remote viewing. He’s able to read people close to him, and when Fowley (Mimi Rogers) shows up, he knows who she’s working for, and knows that Skinner is being unwillingly controlled by Krycek (Nicholas Lea).

As Mulder begins to regain some of his sanity, while still showing remarkable abilities, all supposedly coming from his encounter with the rubbing of text from the craft, Barnes is brutally murdered, and the craft seems to have vanished, leading us right into a To Be Continued…

The third part in this trilogy of episodes, The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati, was penned by Carter and Duchovny, and originally aired on 14 November, 1999.

The episode opens with a kicker, as CSM (William B. Davis) comes to see Mulder in the hospital, injecting him with something that helps quell his abilities, and delivers the gut punch of, ‘I am your father.’ But is that a metaphorical fatherhood or something else?

Which ever it is, it leads to a sort of Last Temptation for Mulder as he imagines something more, something without the x-files in his life.

Scully has to work outside the Bureau (at Skinner’s urging) to track down the missing Mulder, but are either of them ready for where it’s going to lead them?

We learn that Mulder is unconcious and being held by CSM and Fowley, where he dreams of an ordinary life, and that he may be immune to the virus and the possible encroaching apocalypse being brought on by the alien invasion.

Scully works to find him, even as CSM seems to be putting his plans into action. And perhaps Mulder’s vision of her, even as she closes in on his location (the two are no doubt connected by Mulder’s abilities) spurs him to return to the fight, to his obsession, his mission.

The episode features some final appearances of characters that have popped up throughout the series, including Megan Leitch portraying versions of Mulder’s sister, Albert Hosteen (Floyd ‘Red Crow’ Westerman), Kritschgau, Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) and one other character who pays a price for their actions.

Next week, with the events in this episode behind them, the pair of stalwart agents return to their investigative work because the truth is out there…