[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\\
[[Recap/TheXFiles Index]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E01Within 1]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E02Without 2]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E03Patience 3]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E04Roadrunners 4]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E05Invocation 5]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E06Redrum 6]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E07ViaNegativa 7]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E08Surekill 8]] | '''9''' | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E10Badlaa 10]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E11TheGift 11]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E12Medusa 12]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E13PerManum 13]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E14ThisIsNotHappening 14]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E15Deadalive 15]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E16ThreeWords 16]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E17Empedocles 17]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E18Vienen 18]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E19Alone 19]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E20Essence 20]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS08E21Existence 21]]]]-]]]
'''Season 8, Episode 09:'''
!Salvage
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfilessalvage.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"His blood has enough metal alloy in it to... uh... poison an elephant."'']]
->Written by Jeffrey Bell\\
Directed by Rod Hardy

->'''Dr. Puvogel:''' We immediately shut down the project. But it was too late. [Dr. Clifton] didn't have any family. His work was his life. He wanted to leave us to continue working on the science.\\
'''Doggett:''' And leave you to ship this barrel and his body to Southside [[TitleDrop Salvage]] where it infected somebody else.

Ray Pearce (Creator/WadeWilliams), a salvage yard worker, goes on a revenge rampage after being transformed into living metal by thoughtlessly-disposed-of AppliedPhlebotinum.
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!!Tropes:
* AxCrazy: The transformed Ray Pearce.
* BodyHorror: Ray becomes increasingly a machine throughout the episode until he's unrecognizable.
* BittersweetEnding: Ray manages to regain enough of his humanity to not go through with murdering the accountant in front of his family, but in the end is DrivenToSuicide.
* CuttingTheKnot: When Ray is locked inside a metal chamber by Dr. Puvogel and armed police, he initially hits the front door, leaving four dents and no way to get out through there. What does he do? Hit the back wall, which would be weaker due to it being near the building's weaker walls. This allows him to escape.
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Ray steadily loses his humanity to the metal, though ultimately is able to defy this and stop himself from killing a man.
* DrivenToSuicide: Ray ultimately lets Owen Harris go, the accountant who unintentionally shipped the deadly container which got him infected when he sees Owen has his wife and a kid in the car. He willingly chooses to lie in a car crusher, finally ending his suffering.
* DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength: Ray tragically, in trying to quiet up Larina while hiding from the police Ray accidentally grips her face too hard and kills her.
* ICannotSelfTerminate: Averted. He could, and he does at the end.
* ImplacableMan: Ray is unstoppable in his quest for revenge.
* MadeOfIron: More like made of ''metal'', too. While Ray doesn't have shock absorption from shotguns, he has a handy {{healing factor}} to make up for that. Meaning that he can get through any obstacle, all for the sake of his revenge.
-->'''Scully:''' Agent Doggett, the man that we're speaking about withstood impact from a speeding car and two shotgun blasts at short range. Even if we can find him, who's to say we can stop him?
* PedestrianCrushesCar: Starts out with a car being almost cleaved in half after running into someone.
* RevengeByProxy: The people Ray is killing did not directly cause him to become a metal man but he considers them responsible and goes after them.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In the end the only person capable of stopping Ray through the episode is himself.
* ShoutOut: Many of them to ''Film/TheTerminator''. Ray Pearce could well be a tribute to the T-800 or [[ActorAllusion T-1000]]. Lampshaded, ironically, by [[Creator/RobertPatrick Agent Doggett]]:
-->''"What are you saying, Ray Pearce has become some kind of [[ActorAllusion metal man]]? [[ThisIsReality 'Cause that only happens in the movies]], Agent Scully."''
* TragicVillain: Being inadvertently exposed to a metal turns Ray steadily into a machine, consumed by a desire for revenge and losing his humanity. Ultimately he is unable to go through with finishing his revenge, sparing the last victim and escaping to commit suicide and end his agony.
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->''"Unless what drove Ray to kill is also what saved those people. Some flicker of humanity."''