Scully (Gillan Anderson) gets pulled deeper into the super-soldier investigation by Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Reyes (Annabeth Gish) when Shannon McMahon (Lucy Lawless) reveals more about the program in Nothing Important Happened Today II. Written by series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, this episode first debuted on 18 November, 2001.

And as the opening credits tell us (The Truth Is Out There is replaced with…) Nothing Important Happened Today.

Can Shannon be trusted? Or (once again) is there something else going on? And what is its connection to a naval ship that stays at see almost year round with a secret lab aboard it and whose captain (Ryan Cutrona) is trying to blow the whistle on it, hindered now by the arrival of his new XO, Knowle Rohrer (Adam Baldwin).

Shannon has the same super soldier attributes as Rohrer, having come up through the same program (according to Shannon), but she wants the truth to come out, while Rohrer is intent on keeping the program a secret and the truth out of the public’s eye.

As the trio investigate the ship, will they find answers or just more questions? And will we learn more about Mulder’s (David Duchovny) departure?

It’s tough bringing in a whole new layer to the conspiracy arc nine seasons in, especially with these new characters, but the shows pulls it off. It remains smart, scary, and oh so entertaining. I love the bureau politics that are coming into play with Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), Kersh (James Pickens jr.) and Brad (Cary Elwes) and how it affects the week to week investigations as well as the ongoing mythology.

Daemonicus was penned and directed by Spotnitz, who lends it a dream-like air with camera shots and transitions. It first aired on 2 December, 2001. Reyes and Doggett jump into their first monster of the week episode of the ninth season, which sees James Remar guest starring as Josef Kobold, a former professor, turned psychiatric inmate after a series of murders.

The duo are called in to investigate what looks like the staging if a satanic murder, something Reyes has investigated before, but this time feels different. Evil.

Their investigation leads them to Kobold, even as a the murders continue. What Doggett can’t figure is why Kobold didn’t escape when another inmate and a guard went on a new spree.

Scully, who is teaching a forensics course at the academy gets pulled in to conduct some autopsies and join on the investigation, which begins to feel very threatening. Is there something supernatural going on here as Reyes believes, and Scully admits to being open to, or is it just the machinations of an evil man?

It’s a solid episode, and I like how Spotnitz experiments with the visual storytelling of the episode. The investigations continue next week because the truth is out there…