A man is possessed by a strange force and when Agent Reyes notices similarities between the deaths he causes and the murder of Doggett's son, she enlists Mulder's aid in finding the connection.

It's a difficult situation that The X-Files finds itself in here. With essentially four leads, all of them FBI agents, it's tricky to keep the episode balanced between them all. Firstly, Scully is written out, unsurprisingly due to the imminent birth of her baby, allowing Mulder to take a more active role in proceedings. The problem is that it deletes the main partnership of the show, and Reyes and Mulder don't work well together. Likewise, Doggett's reasonable lack of enthusiasm for the investigation makes him a rather overbearing and stroppy character and not immensely likeable, which is a shame after the work done with him so far this season.

The problem then is that Mulder doesn't get a vast amount of screen time either. It's mainly about Reyes and, to an extent, Doggett, but the visions both of them have aren't clearly explained or particularly relevant to what's happening. The threat itself is likewise rather fuzzy, apparently some kind of nameless evil that possesses people, but the link between Doggett's son and the force at work here is never examined. Mulder puts it best when he explains that, "The real pisser is that you'll probably never know what happened." Yes, that's how we feel by the end too.

On the positive side, there are some superb and horrible effects, although the scene in which the possessed Jeb tears his face apart makes no real sense either. Mulder and Scully have some touching scenes together as well, but what we want is to see them both in action together. While the antagonism between Mulder and Doggett is good up to a point (who wouldn't be annoyed to go back to work and find that their life's mission had been taken from them?), it's gone far enough now and the pair need to resolve their differences and work together if this new line-up is going to work. There are some good ideas here, but they're not well executed and there's too much misery and mulling things over to really entertain the audience.

**

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