A couple are killed and then arranged in a ritualistic fashion at their home over a Scrabble board, with the word 'daemonicus' in front of them. When one of those responsible is found shot dead, Doggett and Reyes are directed to an asylum inmate who may know more about what's going on than he is telling.

As was the case last season, it seems The X-Files is keen to up the creepiness factor that by the end of last year it had lost a little again. This is a nasty little tale, with some really quite grotesque deaths, and it seems at first that we're back to demons again. The problem comes when it is revealed that that's not the case at all and things get a bit odd. Before you know it the asylum patient is vomiting all over Doggett and acting as though he's possessed.

While some might find it a little incomprehensible at the end (I'm still not totally clear I get it), the twist of who is responsible for the murders, why and the clues they left is pretty well thought out; the larger question seems to be why they did it. Was it just because they could? It's good to see the villain winning for once, but there are too many details still missing at the end for my liking.

While I appreciate the writers' desire to build the parts of Doggett and Reyes in a little better, there's not really any excuse for sidelining Scully once again, who comes in to do some autopsy work but has little else to offer. This episode does introduce her new job of a lecturer at Quantico Academy, but it seems to be added in merely so Doggett has a blackboard to write on at the end of the episode. Certainly her students are a nasty bunch, laughing at her encounters with the unexplained, and clearing off the second the bell rings despite the fact that she's in the middle of a sentence.

****

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