The X-Files - 4.

French title: Le pré où je suis mort
translation: The Prairie Where I Died

US Airdate: November 3, 1996

writers: Glen Morgan and Jim Wong

director: Rob Bowman

STARRING:

David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder

Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully

Guest Cast:

KRISTEN CLOKE as Melissa Riedal-Ephesian

MICHAEL DOBSON as BATF Agent

MICHAEL MASSEE as Vernon Ephesian

LES GALLAGHER as the attorney

DOUG ABRAHAMS as Harbaugh

DONNA WHITE as the therapist

ANTHONY HARRISON as Agent Riggins

DOUGLAS ROY DACK as Mighty Man

AGENTS MULDER AND SCULLY INVESTIGATE EVIL GOINGS-ON AT A CULT COMPOUND

Agent Mulder's search for an informant inside a cult compound leads to a suspect to whom he may have an unexpectedly close personal connection.

Apison, Tennessee, once the site of a Civil War battle, is now the home of the Temple of the Seven Stars, a doomsday religious cult that believes in reincarnation. A member named "Sidney" calls the FBI with accusations of child abuse and weapons stockpiling. Fearing another Waco or Jonestown, the BATF and the FBI lead a joint raid on the compound. No weapons are found. Neither is Vernon Ephesian, the cult's dangerously charismatic leader, who dominates his followers with a mix of Biblical prophecy, New Age channeling and old-fashioned intimidation. An odd compulsion leads Mulder to search a nearby field where he finds an underground Civil War bunker concealing Ephesian and his six wives--all on the verge of committing mass suicide. One of the wives, Melissa, catches Mulder's attention. She feels somehow familiar to him. Ephesian, his wives and the cultists are taken into custody. But with no evidence of abuse or illegal weapons, the FBI can hold them for only one day. Mulder and Scully are assigned to interrogate Ephesian and his wives. Preaching fire and brimstone, Ephesian admits nothing. Melissa is a different story. Under questioning, this withdrawn and hostile girl suddenly shifts personalities into the mysterious informant Sidney, a gruff male New Yorker. But somehow Mulder knows Melissa's case is even more unusual than Multiple Personality Disorder. He is certain that "Sidney" is one of Melissa's past lives. Scully, who has a hard enough time with MPD let alone reincarnation, can't understand why Mulder is so obsessed with Melissa, and so certain he is right. Then comes a revelation that surprises even Mulder. Melissa shifts into yet another identity: a Civil War nurse named Sarah Kavanaugh. She tells them she watched as her fiancee Sullivan Biddle died in the aftermath of the long-ago battle. And that Biddle is one of Mulder's past lives. Mulder unconditionally believes her.

Desperate to discover the truth...Mulder has himself regressed. Scully listens as Mulder cycles through a series of his past lives. He says that same souls reincarnate together over and over again: he, Samantha, Scully, even the Cigarette-Smoking Man are destined to play out many lifetimes together. Melissa and Mulder are soulmates...fated always to be star-crossed lovers. The current Melissa hears Mulder's story, but she won't allow herself to believe. She returns to Ephesian. Scully doesn't know what to think--especially when she discovers photographs of Sarah and Sullivan in historical archives. After Ephesian and his cultists are released, everyone's worst fears come true. Ephesian leads the cult in a mass suicide. Mulder discovers the body of Melissa...clutching the photograph of Sarah Kavanaugh in her hand.

The name of the soldier Mulder was in his his past life, Sullivan Biddle, is very similar to the name Sullivan Ballou who was a real soldier during the Civil War, a major with the Second Rhode Island Volunteers, according to Ken Burns' "Civil War" which has been shown many times on PBS. One of the most poignant parts of this documentary was a letter that Sullivan wrote to his young bride describing his everlasting love for her. For your enjoyment, and with mucho thanks to Laura Abel (dable@iglou.com) for transcribing it, here's the letter:

July the 14th, 1861

Washington, D.C.

Dear Sarah,

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel compelled to write a few lines that may fall onto your eye when I am no more. I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged. And my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the government. And how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government. And to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break. And yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blistful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me and I feel most deeply greatful to God and you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes in future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you. Nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been.

But, oh Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and the darkest night. Always. Always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath. Or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, do not morn me dead, think I am gone and wait for me. For we shall meet again.

Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the first battle of Bull Run.

The poem Mulder reads at the beginning and end of this ep from "Paracelsus" by Robert Browning:

Mulder's version:

At times I almost dream

I too have spent a life the Sages way

And tread once more familiar paths

Perchance I've perished in an arrogant self-reliance an age ago

And in that act of prayer for one more chance went up so earnest

So...

Instinct with better light let in by death

That life was blotted out not so completely

But scattered wrecks enough of it to remain dim memories

As now one seems

Once more the goal in sight again.

Browning's version:

For me, I estimate their works and them

So rightly, that at times I almost dream

I too have spent a life the sages' way.

And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance

I perished in an arrogant self-reliance

Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer

For one more chance went up so earnest, so

Instinct with better light led in by death,

That life was blotted out--not so completely

But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,

Dim memories, as now, when once more seems

The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,

Is foolish, and only means--the flesh I wear,

The earth I tread, are not more clear to me

Than my belief, explained to you or no.

Melissa: (as Sarah to Mulder in the field) "I was here. As were you. This is the field where I watched you die."

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FBI: "ATF intelligence reports were weak. It was our man Spooky that found Ephesian in a bunker ATF didn't even know was there."

____________________________________________________________

Mulder: "You - you were there, Scully! You saw it, you heard it, why can't you feel it? How could I know about a bunker in a field where I've never been?"

Scully: "Then why is it that Vernon Ephesian is reported by you a paranoid sociopath because he believes he lived in Greece a hundred years ago, and you're not because you died in that field?"

____________________________________________________________

Scully: "There's nothing we can use to prove that this is the truth."

Mulder: "There's one way."

Scully: "Mulder, Ephesian's arraignment is in two hours! There is no time to be doing this."

Mulder: "Wouldn't you, Scully? Wouldn't anybody?"

____________________________________________________________

Mulder: "Souls...come back together...different, but always together."

____________________________________________________________

(Mulder's past life regression)

"Ghetto streets. Shattered glass. Bodies of the dead. I'm a woman. Jewish woman. Poland. My son is with me. He is Samantha... My father, he's dead in the street. He is Scully... An officer (Gestapo). He is Cancerman. Evil returns as evil... My husband is taken away from me. He is Melissa..."

As Sullivan Biddle: "My sergeant is also dead. He is Scully."

____________________________________________________________

Scully: "Mulder, no! You're dead!"

____________________________________________________________

Mulder: "Evil returns as evil"

____________________________________________________________

Mulder: "...we'd been friends together, in other lifetimes, always.Would it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?"

Scully: "Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn't change a day. Well, except for that flukeman thing, I could have lived without that."