The X-files
Zero Sum
Episode: 4X21
First aired:4/27/97
Written by:Howard Gordon and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by:Kim Manners
A wonderful episode dealing with Skinner's dark side.
Jane Brody, a
mail sorter at an
overnight delivery company, sneaks into the
female
employee's rest room to
smoke a cigarette. Without warning, hundreds of
bees creep
into the stall where Jane is sitting. When the young woman
attempts to swat the insects
so she can escape, the bees
swarm and attack, stinging her to death.
An
e-mail file containing photographs of the
victim is sent to
Mulder, but Skinner
intercepts and deletes the file. Skinner then covertly
erases evidence of the bee attack,
and incinerates Jane Brody's body. Identifying himself as
Fox Mulder, Skinner visits a
police forensics lab in Virginia where he switches a
vial containing Brody's
blood with
another
identical container. As he is leaving,
Skinner is approached by Detective Ray
Thomas, the man who
e-mailed Mulder photographs of Brody's body. Skinner tells the
disappointed Thomas (who thinks he is talking to Fox Mulder) that the
evidence does not
warrant his
further involvement in the case.
Mulder pays Skinner an
unexpected visit. He states that someone has gone to great
lengths to keep news of the bee attack from reaching him. He also reveals that Detective
Thomas was
found dead, the victim of an
execution-style shooting. With Scully
undergoing tests at a
hospital for the treatment of her
cancer, Mulder asks Skinner for
his help in solving the
mystery. Later that night, Skinner is approached by
The
Cigarette-Smoking Man. Skinner accuses him of murdering
Detective Thomas. The
Cigarette-Smoking Man counters that Skinner "failed to
neutralize a potentially
compromising situation."
Mulder discovers that someone stole Brody's body from a
morgue and switched her
blood sample at the
police station. He also discovers that Thomas was murdered by
someone using a
government issue gun. Shortly thereafter, Skinner realizes his own
weapon is missing. Skinner revisits the women's
rest room where Brody was killed. He
discovers part of a
massive honeycomb inside the rest room wall, and brings a piece of
the honeycomb to
entomologist Peter Valdespino for
analysis.
Mulder discovers that a bank
surveillance camera captured a blurry image of someone
talking to Detective Thomas shortly before he was
murdered. He hopes the Bureau's
Photo Unit can produce a
clearer image of the man who he suspects is Thomas' killer.
Using
larvae taken from the
honeycomb, Valdespino hatches more bees to identify the
species. The insects
unexpectedly swarm the
entomologist, killing him. Mulder later
discovers that Valdespino died from smallpox. He
hypothesizes that someone has
engineered a method of spreading the
contagion using the insects.
Skinner questions Brody's co-worker, Misty Nagata. She reveals that a
damaged
overnight package was confiscated by other
investigators working on the case. Students
at an
elementary school in
South Carolina are attacked by a
swarm of bees. Skinner
tells doctors at a
hospital emergency room that the children should be treated not for
bee stings, but for
smallpox.
Working from
surveillance camera footage, the
FBI photo unit produces a
clear image
of Skinner talking to Thomas shortly before his death. Outraged, Mulder accuses Skinner
of working in
conjunction with
The Cigarette-Smoking Man from the very beginning. But
Skinner insists he was framed.
Skinner again confronts The Cigarette-Smoking Man, firing several shots in
anger.
Afterward, The Cigarette-Smoking Man instructs
Marita Covarrubias, in the company of
Syndicate members, to tell Mulder whatever he wants to hear.
Important Quotes:
Skinner -- "I needed
some sleep."
Mulder -- "Is that why you're taking out the
garbage at 4 in the morning?"
CSM -- "A man digs a
hole; he risks falling into it."
CSM -- "Yours isn't the first
gun I've had pointed in my face,
Mr. Skinner.
I'm not afraid to die."
Back to The X-files: Season 4