[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\\
[[Recap/TheXFiles Index]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E01Herrenvolk 1]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E02Home 2]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E03Teliko 3]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E04Unruhe 4]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E05TheFieldWhereIDied 5]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E06Sanguinarium 6]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E07MusingsOfACigaretteSmokingMan 7]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E08Tunguska 8]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E09Terma 9]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E10PaperHearts 10]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E11ElMundoGira 11]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E12LeonardBetts 12]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E13NeverAgain 13]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E14MementoMori 14]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E15Kaddish 15]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E16Unrequited 16]] | '''17''' | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E18Max 18]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E19Synchrony 19]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E20SmallPotatoes 20]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E21ZeroSum 21]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E22Elegy 22]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E23Demons 23]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E24Gethsemane 24]]]]-]]]
'''Season 4, Episode 17:'''
!Tempus Fugit
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfilestempusfugit.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"What they're telling you, what they're going to report, they're the opposite of the facts. A claim to ignorance of the facts."'']]
->Written by Creator/ChrisCarter & Frank Spotnitz\\
Directed by Rob Bowman

->''"Nine minutes that became a lifetime for those passengers, and now for their families. Someone has got to figure out what happened in those nine minutes. Somehow, we've got to get them back."''
-->-- '''Fox Mulder'''

Mulder and Scully investigate a plane crash that may have been caused by an encounter with a UFO.
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!!Tropes:
* TheAdjectivalMan: The '''Dark Man''', a sleeper agent on Flight 549 sent to neutralize Max Fenig.
* AllThereInTheScript: You could be forgiven for not knowing that the unnamed Syndicate assassin that serves as this two-parter's primary villain was named '''Scott Garrett''' and not '''Moustache Man'''.
* TheAtoner: Louis Frisch who feels horrible after his part in causing an airplane crash.
%%* BigDisasterPlot: The plane crash.
* CallBack: Mulder and Scully get involved because one of the crash victims was Max Fenig, from the episode "Fallen Angel".
* ChaseScene: The car chase on the airport runway.
* ForeignLanguageTitle: Latin for "time flies".
* HollywoodAcid: Agent Garrett uses this on the Dark Man's corpse, destroying his fingerprints and dental records before Scully has a chance to autopsy him.
* LeanAndMean: Agent Garrett is a wiry thin man.
* MythArc: A bare-bones entry, with no sign of the Cigarette-Smoking Man or any other senior members of TheSyndicate.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Millar is skeptical of Mulder like everyone else but once evidence starts piling up, he quickly comes on their side.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: Pendrell, getting in the way of the bullet.
* WhamShot: Mulder seeing the drowned alien in the wreckage at the end.
* ZippingUpTheBodyBag: Mulder with Max.
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->''[[Recap/TheXFilesS04E18Max "I can't get that out of my mind. How those people died... how easy it is to lie, just to say it was a dot on the screen... until you see it."]]''