Shout Out / The X-Files, Seasons 7 to 9

Season Seven

The Sixth Extinction

• 'The Sixth Extinction' makes a reference to a real scientific study with the same name stating that humanity is on the verge of extinction by its own hands.
• To Michael Kritschgau, just before performing a clairvoyance test:
  Mulder: Who you gonna call?

The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati

• 'The Sixth Extinction' makes a reference to a real scientific study with the same name telling us that humanity is on the verge of extinction by its own hands.
• 'Amor Fati' is Latin for “love of (one’s) fate” used to describe an attitude which one sees everything that happens in a life such as suffering and loss as good, which can be a religious term, having to do with our lives being divinely willed thus we are supposed to love our lives
• The relatively famous phrase is repeatedly used in Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings
• The phrase has also been linked to the writing of Marcus Aurelius.
• Mulder’s dream sequence is borrowed from the last thirty minutes of The Last Temptation of Christ.
• Scully mentions Mulder being injected with 'phenytoin', a generic form of the drug Dilantin.
• At the beginning of the episode when Cigarette Smoking Man is in Mulder’s hospital room, he says "I’m showing you how to take the road not taken," the last five words being the name of a poem by Robert Frost.

Hungry

• In keeping with writer Vince Gilligan inserting the name of his girlfriend, Lucy "Holly" Hartwell Rice, somewhere in an episode, the fast-food store manager is named Mr. Rice.
• Rob Roberts is named for Vince Gilligan’s helicopter flight training instructior as well as a morning traffic reporter in Richmond, Virginia.
• Derwood Spinks is a combinations of Gilligan’s sixth grade teacher Derwood Guthrie and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Leon Spinks.
• The speed-metal music playing in the first victim’s car is the band called Unearthed.
• Private investigator Steve Kiziak shares the same name as his actor.

Millennium

• 'Millennium' refers to
  • the fact this episode takes place as the new millennium begins
  • a period of time equal to one thousand years
  • the same name as another show created by Chris Carter
  • The thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 during which holiness is to prevail and Christ is to reign on Earth.
  • a period of great happiness or human perfection.
• Frank Black appears.
• Skinner hands Mulder and Scully the Millennium Group’s symbol representing the never ending cycle of destruction and re-creations in the universe known as 'Ouroboros', a mythical snake eating its own tail.
• Vince Gilligan’s girlfriend Lucy “Holly” Hartwell Rice, is mentioned.
• Much of the episode takes place in fictional town Rice County, Maryland
• and name of the institution where Frank stays is the Hartwell Psychiatric Hospital.
• About the zombies:
  Mulder: Shoot for the head... it seems to stop them.
• Necromancer Mark Johnson is named for producer Mark Johnson.
• Both Donald Trump and Dick Clark appear.

Rush

• Teenagers Max Harden and his girlfriend Chastity Raines acquiring Super-Speed and running at the speed faster than the eye is like speedsters Hermes, Johnny Quick, Jay Garrick, Sonic the Hedgehog, Wally West, Black Flash, Speedy Gonzales, Jesse Quick, Barry Allen, Cheetara, Professor Zoom, Bart Allen, Quicksilver, Max Mercury, XS, Little Beeper, Tornado Twins and the Road Runner among other examples.
• Among the posters on Max Harden’s bedroom walls are ones of The Doors, Staind and Busta Rhymes.
• Max telling Scully she must’ve been a “Betty” back in the day is slang for an attractive young woman.
• To Mulder who’s in Max’s hospital room along with Scully and Officer Harden:
  Max: If I wasted Babbitt, then how did I do it? Am I Carrie or something? I used some kind of mental powers?
• Max tells Mulder he’s whistling "Dixie", a slim possible nod to Dixie Chicks.
• Max and Mulder make an allusion to popular song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.

The Goldberg Variation

• Scully mentions Wile E. Coyote.
• 'The Goldberg Variations' were special compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach’s works consisting of an aria and a set of thirty variations in the 1700s by brilliant harpsichordist Rueben “Rube” Lucius Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor, and author along with being a trained engineer and accomplished artist. His “inventions” known making simple tasks complex by utilizing dozens of arms, wheels, gears, handles, live animals and such to accomplish something as simple as squeezing orange juice or closing a window and thus the name “Rube Goldberg” became associated with any convoluted solutions to perform a simple task.
• Mulder shuffles a deck of cards exactly how Henry Gondorff does right after saying an injury he got “stings a bit.”

Orison

• Amongst the words scrawled on the prison chapel’s walls is “Sheep go to Heaven, Goats Go to Hell,” chorus line of “‘Sheep go to Heaven’” by Cake.
• Mulder alludes to William Blake’s work when he speaks about the Doors of Perception in relation to the gates of Hell.
• Scully’s clock malfunctions, showing the time as 6:66, generally taken to be the number of the Beast.
• 'Orison' is a literary word for a prayer.
• Ending scenes between Scully, Donald Pfaster and Mulder look eerily similar to the scene when Mr. Smith shoots Neo, including the flash as the gun goes off reflects on a character’s face, a spent cartridge falling to the ground and the gun going off in slow motion.
• A recording of singer John Hiatt’s version of the song "Don’t Look Any Further" by Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garrett is heard.

The Amazing Maleeni

• Magician Billy LaBonge is named for Bob LaBonge the Second Unit Director of Photography.
• Titular 'Amazing Maleeni' refers to Max Malini, who was famous for relying on his own skill rather than props.
• Ricky Jay, who play brothers Herman and Albert Pinchbeck, is himself a very famous magician, renowned for sleight of hand and card tricks as well as a whole host of 'magical' abilities.
• Maleeni taking a magician’s name and then spells it differently refers to Harry Houdini if not Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin.
• At one point, Mulder talked like fussy neat freak Felix Unger.

Signs and Wonders

• Reverend Enoch O’Connor’s namesake can be found in the Book of Genesis, an ancestor of Noah, the prophet Enoch "walked with God" and was transferred so as not to see death.
• O’Connor’s name homages to Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor.
• 'Signs and Wonders' is a common biblical phrase used to describe the acts used to convince followers of the Christ and his apostle’s nature.

Sein und Zeit

• Last names of Kathy Lee Tencate as well as Bud, Amber Lynn and Billie LaPierre are from Chris Carter’s two former girlfriends.
• Amber-Lynn LaPierre is named for Chris Carter’s assistant Amber Woodward on Harsh Realm.
• Bud LaPierre is watching Harsh Realm in the teaser.
• LaPierres’ lawyer Harry Bring is named after Harry V. Bring the unit production manager.
• 'Sein und Zeit' is the title of a rather famous philosophy book by world renowned German philosopher Martin Heidegger roughly translated to “being and time.” This book deals with the topics of death and anxiety, and claims that the confrontation with death can wipe away illusions and self deceit.
• Doll versions of Marvin the Martin, Keroppi, Badtz-Maru and Pochacco appear in Amber-Lynn’s room.
• In Skinner’s officer where he and Mulder are watching a recorded image of the newscast:
  AD Walter Skinner: Intensify our search where? The twilight zone?
  • Skinner mentions 'Twinkie defense,' a claim by a criminal defendant at the time of the crime he or she was of diminished mental capacity due to intake of too much sugar-rich snacks as from eating "Twinkies," successfully arguing by a defense psychiatrist in the notorious case of former San Francisco County Supervisor Dan White who shot and killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and County Supervisor Harvey Milk, resulting in White's conviction for only manslaughter instead of murder.
• At the end of the notes written by the abducted children’s mothers is the phrase “no one shoots at Santa Claus,” a campaign slogan used by Al Smith in 1936 while running against Franklin D. Roosevelt in the democratic primary, intended as a warning to politicians about the folly of attacking government entitlement programs.
• The kids sing "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" while at the seedy Santa's Village attraction
• With the park theme and graves, Santa’s Village is like the “Dead Children’s Playground” tucked away in a peaceful cover surrounded by a rock cliff on three sides and picturesque paths leading through the woods within the Maple Hill Cemetery limits, the oldest and largest cemetery in Alabama founded in 1822, reaching over one hundred acres of land. Stories about unnatural phenomena include swings moving by themselves, laughter of children is heard and children calling out when no one has been in the area and orbs of light being caught on photos. Local stories has it spirits of the dead children come to the playground to play, occurring between ten at night and three in the morning.Some say spirits of the dead children come to the playground to play. Another legend has it that Huntsville suffered a rash of child abductions in the 1960s and the bodies of the children were found in the area of the playground.

Closure

• During the first scene in which the FBI discover a mass grave site containing dozens of missing children and near the end when Mulder encounters his sister Samantha’s spirit, Moby’s song "My Weakness" from the album Play is heard
• Mulder finds his sister’s former home on “Albatross Way,” the street name 'Albatross' being a cliché of having “an albatross around one’s neck” taken from Samuel Coleridge’s narrative poem meaning a heavy burden of guilt that becomes an obstacle to success.
• The definition of 'Closure' 1) a means of enclosing. 2) an act of closing. 3) the condition of being closed. 4) something that closes. 5) French translation of 'clôture'. 6) the property that a number system or a set has when it is mathematically closed under an operation. 7) a set that consists of a given set together with all the limit points of that set. 8) an often comforting or satisfying sense of finality. 9) something (as a satisfying ending) that provides such a sense.
• Agent Lewis Schoniger is named for next door neighbors of Chris Carter’s grandparents.
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial are mentioned.
• Mulder watches Planet of the Apes on television.

X-COPS

• Episode title is a blend of X-Files and COPS.
• Smiles and dramatically poses for camera:
  Edy: I’m ready for my close up.
• A composite sketch looks like Freddy Krueger.
• This episode was made to look like it been shot exactly like a normal episode of COPS except its seemingly freestyle story was scripted.
• This episode appears to be a homage to The Blair Witch Project with the use of a hand-held camera footage and the scene with the camera falling to the floor, handprints on the wall and the fact the audience never gets to see this “monster.”
• The police first find Mulder and Scully on Holly Street. Holly is Vince Gilligan’s girlfriend, Holly Rice.
• Chantara Gomez is named for Gilligan’s literary agent Rhonda Gomez.
• Sergeant Paula Guthrie was named for Gilligan’s sixth grade teacher.
• Characters Steve and Edy refers to husband and wife singing duo Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme in The '60s and The '70s.

First Person Shooter

• A 'First-Person Shooter' is actually a computer game genre.
• Scully comments that she can get into the Pentagon easier than into the First-Person Shooter (FPS) offices.
• 'Maitreya' means “loving one” in the Sanskrit language.
• Maitreya’s line “Watashiga korekara surukotowo yurushitene” to Darryl Musashi is Japanese for “Forgive me for what I am about to do,” said just just before she kills him.
• Jade Blue Afterglow uncrosses and then re-crosses her legs to allow Mulder a lecherous glimpse and then a pan of Mulder's titillated look in the police station is the same thing Catherine Tramell does.
• Maitreya uses acrobatics to attack Mulder just like Pris.
• Mulder explains to the stripper being held in custody who looks just like the computer generated Maitreya, who killed two of the three people who were the first people to play the game with a fourteenth century broadsword and a flintlock pistol:
  Jade Blue Afterglow: Oh. You must have had me confused with my sister Xena, Warrior Princess.
• And then there’s Mulder’s That’s entertainment line.

Theef

• Name of the reporter covering the flesh-eating disease story is John Gillnitz, long-running in-joke of combined names of writers John Shiban, Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz.
• Dr. Robert Wiede was named for Frank Spotnitz’s assistant Sandra Tripicchio’s doctor.
• The woman who owns the shop which Scully and Mulder go to for information describes actor Billy Drago’s character Orel Peattie as “charmed.”
• After Scully corrects the spelling of “theef” as “thief” though the former appears throughout the episode:
  Mulder: Insert your own Dan Quayle joke here.
• Dr. Wieder mentions the Baba Yaga, some kind of witch from Eastern Europe folklore reputedly lived in a house standing on chicken legs, who supposedly kidnapped and ate children.

En Ami

• 'En Ami' is French for “as a friend” yet phonetically sounds like 'enemy'.
• In regards to how Jason McPeck was cured of his cancer after his parents denied him any medical treatment because of their strong religious belief that {God would heal him:
  Mulder: I just wanna know if it’s Roma Downey or Della Reese.

Chimera

• Mulder asks if Martha’s last name is actually “Stewart” instead of “Crittondon” refers to the queen of house and home Martha Stewart, whose advice on cookery, centerpieces, decor and all kinds of things have been followed by people everywhere for quite a few years. ''
• While discussing ravens with Walter Skinner, Mulder brings up Edgar Allan Poe well-known poem as well as the repetitive phrase “Nevermore.
• The little girl’s name in the teaser being “Michelle” and the psychiatric hospital is called “Deschamps County Hospital,” refers to writer David Amann’s wife Michelle Deschamps.
• The term for 'Chimera' is 1) the fabled monster from Greek mythology said to be made up of different animal parts, usually a lion’s head or three heads which one of them is a lion, a goat’s body, a dragon’s tale and the capability to breath fire. 2) a foolish fancy. 3) an organism, especially a plant, with tissues from at least two genetically distinct parents.

all things

• After the theme is played, Mulder is dancing to Moby’s "The Sky is Broken" which is featured prominently throughout the episode.
• The Blair Witch Project is brought up.
• After Scully says she had some kind of vision, Mulder quips "having David Crosby’s baby", a fact that singer and songwriter David Crosby refers to him being a sperm donor for singer Melissa Etheridge and her former partner Julie Cypher and fathers to Cyper’s two babies named Bailey Jean and Beckett.
• According to Gillian Anderson, 'all things' "speaks to that which is innate in everything and the unity of life energy and all of us and of all things"

Brand X

• 'Brand X' is the generic term advertisers give to a competitor’s products.
• A Korean fellow is mentioned looking like Wonder Woman.
• Darryl Weaver watches Guadalcanal Diary.
• Characters Joan Scobie and Dr. James Scobie get their last names from Herman Scobie.
• Victim Thomas Gastall is named for Ten Thirteen’s Office Production Assistant.
• Dr. Libby Nance is named for the sister of script coordinator Barbara Nance.
• Ashford Medical Center is named after writer Greg Walker’s girlfriend Michelle Ashford.
• Morley Security Chief Daniel Brimley was modeled after Bill Devasher, coincidentally both characters are played by Wilford Brimley.
• Once more, fictional “'Morley Cigarette'” brand not only appears in this show but has appeared in Malcolm in the Middle, Murderer’s Row, Gun Shy, 200 Cigarettes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Epicenter, The Outer Limits, Nash Bridges, That '70s Show, System Shock 2, Mannix, Mission: Impossible, ER, Judging Amy, Friends, Dan August, Space: Above and Beyond, The Twilight Zone, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Beverly Hills, 90210, Millennium (1996), Becker and Murder in the First.

Hollywood A.D.

• Forger Micah Hoffman was named for real-life forger Mark Hoffman who made extremely good forgeries that seemed to cast doubt on the origin of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the ’80s. The most prominent of these was the 'Salamander letter' forgeries passing several tests and at one point declared authentic but Hoffman's Mormon accomplices threatened to expose him as a fraud so Hoffman planned to kill them by blowing them up with homemade bombs. When one of his own bombs went off early and hurt him, it started an investigation that exposed most of what he had sold over many years as fake
• At the beginning, Garry Shandling, who’s playing Mulder, hides behind a headstone reading “Alan Smithee” in the graveyard while avoiding gunshots.
• Obnoxious Wayne Federman is named for Mulder’s actor David Duchovny’s friend Wayne Federman, who plays the part.
• Federman describes Scully as 'Jodie Foster's foster child on a Payless budget' and Mulder as 'Jehovah's Witness meets Harrison Ford’s Witness'.
• Witness was a movie trivia question in a celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire that David Duchovny didn't get right.
• To Mulder:
  Federman: [Skinner] said that you come at things maybe a little fahtke, a little Star Trekky, which is the exact vibe I'm looking for, for this thing I'm doing It's a Silence of the Lambs meets Greatest Story Ever Told type thing.
• Federman ends his above rant with "I'll be strictly Hiesenbergian, like a hologram." The 'Hisenberg Theory' states, among other things, that one cannot observe something without changing it.
• Mulder mentions watching Plan 9 from Outer Space forty two times.
• While taking a bubble bath, Scully asserts Mulder that Téa Leoni and Gary Shandling both having a crush on him alludes to the fact both Téa Leoni and Mulder’s actor David Duchovny are married and David Duchovny had a recurring role on The Larry Sanders Show where he had a gay crush on Shandling’s character.
• Scully tries to defend herself by explaining the dead man looked very much like Hoffman as she and Mulder sit in Assistant Director Albert Skinner’s office, getting reprimanded:
  Skinner: Agent Scully, if I’m carrying Marilyn Monroe’s purse, do you assume that I slept with J.F.K.?
• Mulder is asked who he sees playing him in Federman’s movie and suggests Richard Gere.
• After Scully mentions they should’ve gotten a warrant:
  Mulder: Hey, it’s only the Constitution, no big deal.
• Shandling asking Mulder whether he dresses on the left or right is in regards to tailored men’s pants having a little extra room in the tip right or left inseam to accommodate male anatomy.
• Federman’s line “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” comes from Bob Dylan’s song “‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.’”
• An actor playing a zombie is roaming the set all the while screaming:
  Tofurkey Zombie: The people are made out of turkey!
• Mulder’s “Man-o-Manischewitz” comment has been featured for over twenty years as a tag line for Art Kumbalek, a fictional columnist or Milwaukee (WI US) newspaper Shepherd Express. Each week, Art For Art's Sake opens with, "I'm Art Kumbalek and man oh man manischewitz what a world, ain'a?"
• 'Hollywood A.D.' could be reference to 1) the “A.D.” standing for 'Anno Domini' Latin for “the year of our Lord” and the designation for the time after Christ as opposed to 'B.C.,' the time before Christ. 2) the 'Hollywood A.D.' is in reference to A.D. (Assistant Director) Skinner, who has pitched an X-Files story to a Hollywood filmmaker.
• Newly-mobile body of Micah Hoffman says "Noli me tangere" to Scully, Latin for "touch me not," which is what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when he appeared to her at the tomb.
• There’s a mention of biblical figure “Lazarus,” the man Jesus brought back to life after being dead for four days in one of the miracle recounts in The Bible.
• After Scully explains having a wacky nun named Sister Callahan in Catholic School and calling her “Sister Spooky” for telling scary stories:
  Mulder: Twisted sisters, my kind of nun.
• Wayne Federman mentions the 'Shroud of Turin,' an ancient linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to be crucified. Many worshippers believe it could be the cloth that covered Jesus Christ when he was placed in the tomb.
• As Scully watches Chuck Burks examining the pottery piece with sophisticated laser equipment in Mulder’s office, Burks quip “there’s music in the air,” a line from Twin Peaks.
• After stating the language on the pottery is Aramaic and Scully asks if a linguist translated it, Burks explains that it’s in two parts. The first part is roughly translated as 'I am the walrus. I am the walrus. Paul is dead. Coo-coo-ca-choo.' "I am the Walrus" is the title of a Beatles song and the 'Paul is dead' line was an urban legend made in regards to Beatles’ member Paul McCartney.

Fight Club

• Episode title 'Fight Club' is based on 1) a 1996 novel written by Chuck Palahniuk. 2) a 1999 movie directed by David Fincher.
• A Betty Boop cartoon is seen.
• Mulder enters Koko’s copy shop and shows badge to the manager:
  Mulder: I’m looking for... (sees Betty Templeton)... that girl...
  • The “Koko’s” copy shops are a clear references to the “Kinko’s” copy shopes before being bought out by FedEx.
• Argyle Saperstein says "Ma nish ta na" when Mulder mispronounces his name is a Hebrew slang-like statement shortened from the phrase "Ma nish ta na ha'lilah hazeh" which means "why is this night different statement from all other nights" and the shortened version can be read more like "So what else is new?"
• LuLu Pfeiffer was named for LuLu Powers, a regular catering chef for Ten Thirteen Productions. “Pfeiffer” is also the last name of Michelle Pfeiffer.
• The manhole Mulder is sucked into closes in a similar way and identical sound as the Ark of Covenant.

Je Souhaite

• 'Je Souhaite' is 'I Wish' in French.
• Anon Stokes permanently becoming invisible is like Hawley Griffin, Winslow the Gnome Magician and the original invisible man Griffin only to become visible again after certain consequences happen.
• Mulder and Scully watch Caddyshack at the end.
• Jenn compares her previous master to Tony Manero.
• Mulder hums the I Dream of Jeannie theme.
• Jenn mentions one of the wishes people make is becoming cool like the Fonz.
• Mulder mentions Steel Magnolias.
• Jenn mentions Allah, Buddha and Christ.
• Anson Stokes gets his name from actor Anson Williams.
• Jay Gilmore, the man without a mouth shares his name with the son of former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore. It's also a very normal surname.

Requiem

• A Big Bird toy is seen.
• Mulder quotes one of New York Yankees baseball star Yogi Berra’s most famous quotes “It’s like déjà vu all over again” whilst standing by the same red cross in the road he had marked in the pilot episode seven years previously.
• A 'requiem' is a 1) hymn, composition, or service mass for a deceased person. 2) musical composition for such a mass commemorating the dead.
• The group scene in Walter Skinner’s office is modeled after Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. See "Last Supper" Steal.
• Deputy Ray Hoese probably got his name from a Ray Hoese who appears in the credits of the Season One gag reel.

Season Eight

Within

• Agent John Doggett is named after sports commentator Vin Scully’s co-commentator Jerry Doggett.

Without

• Agent Landau may been named for Alvin Kurtzweil’s actor, Martin Landau.

Patience

• On finding the missing two fingers, Doggett comments “V for Victory,” Winston Churchill’s famous hand gesture during World War II, using the first and second fingers slightly parted to suggest a “V” after victory with palm out and other fingers clenched. In the 1960s, hippies and other members of the anti-Vietnam War movement used it as a sign of “peace.”
  Of course, the same gesture reversed has a very different and insulting connotation.
• The main villain being a human-bat hybrid like one of Batman’s arch-nemesis, Man-Bat.

Roadrunners

• The first scene is reminiscent of The Lottery in concept if not in detail.
• As he hotwires the bus:
  Doggett: Gone in sixty seconds.
• Hank Gulatarski is named after the brother of Vince Gilligan’s girlfriend Lucy “Holly” Hartwell Rice.
• Mr. Milsap was named for famed singer and songwriter Ronnie Milsap.
• Sheriff Ciolino was named after Vince Gilligan’s mortgage broker.

Invocation

• The song Ronald Purnell sang to Billy Underwood to keep him quiet and was featured as a backmasked message on Scully’s tape recorder is a traditional African American lullaby "All the Pretty Horses" from the southern United States.

Redrum

• Besides being backwards for 'murder', 'redrum' is best known as a phrase in The Shining.
• Several shots of Doggett mirrors those of the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
• Former successful lawyer Martin Wells gets his name from H. G. Wells.

Via Negativa

• Dr. André Bormanis shares the same name with Frank Spotnitz’s childhood friend who is a behind the scenes worker on the set of many sci-fi television shows from 1993 until about 2004.
• Latin for 'the negative way' or 'the negative path', 'Via Negativa'. 1) was first designed as a way of talking about God as language limits a supposed infinite God, it was concluded the only way to talk about God was by saying what God is not. 2) is a Latin phrase that refers to the darkest path taken en route to enlightenment.
• The Doctor Directory printed on “Washington National Hospital” letterhead contains three names:'C. Carter' = Creator Chris Carter.'D. Scully' = Dana Scully, the main character and protagonist.'C. Kaplan' = Production Designer Corey Kaplan.

Surekill

• When Scully and Doggett are discussing the possibility of X-Ray vision:
  Doggett: Call in Clark Kent.
• Using his pencil to collect a piece of fabric into an evidence bag:
  Doggett: An old Godfather trick. Wrap a towel around a pistol, muffle the sound. The killer was up here all right, so how in hell did he make that shot?
  • The gun trick Doggett mentions is what a young Vito Corleone used in The Godfather: Part II.

Salvage

• Raymond Aloysius Pearce gets revenge on those responsible for making his cellular structure into metal after being exposed by an unknown substance.
• Ray being a man of walking metal is like the Metal Fetishist.
• There are references to The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day
  • Ray poking at his face in front of a mirror under the flickering bathroom light of an old white building in a rundown section of town.
  • Ray tells his wife Nora to “get out!” in the same manner as T-800 in his bathroom at the halfway house
  • Doggett comment to Scully about metal men only happening in movies is a Shout-Out to his actor Robert Patrick playing T-1000.
• 'Salvage' means “rescue” and as such may refer to 1) 'marine salvage' is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo and sometimes the crew from peril 2) 'salvage tug' is a type of tugboat used to rescue or salvage ships which are in distress or in danger of sinking 3) 'vehicle salvage' 4) 'salvage data' is the process of extracting data from damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible primary storage media 5) 'salvage archaeology' is an archaeological survey and excavation carried out in areas threatened by construction or development 6) 'salvage ethnography' is the practice of salvaging a record of what was left of a culture before it disappeared 7) 'salvage therapy' is medical treatment for those patients not responding adequately to First line treatment.
• The three scientists Dr. Puvogal, Dr. Chamber and Dr. Clifton were named after engineering friends of staff writer Jeffrey Bell.
• The four-door 1973 Ford Torino destroyed in the beginning is the same vehicle owned by The Dude.
• The soundtrack features a theme from the first movement of Edvard Greig’s piano concerto.
• A newspaper mentions George W. Bush succeeding Bill Clinton as American President.

Badlaa

• 'Badlaa' is a word in Urdu for exchange, retaliation or revenge.
• Scully discovers that a chemical spillage at a village called Vishi was the catalyst for the Indian mystic's vengeance, referring to the Bhopal incident in 1984 where around 8,000 people died in the few weeks after the Union Carbide plant accidentally released a large amount of methyl isocyanate gas.

The Gift

• In the teleconference between FBI Special Agent John Doggett, Assistant Director Walter Skinner and the Lone Gunmen, Richard Langly, Melvin Frohike and John Byers where they’re discussing the medicine wheel, Langly reenters the camera frame, zipping up a newly0donned pair of pants:
  Langly: That’s the part that takes some conjecture there, Agent Dogbert.
• A 'medicine wheel' is a Native American symbol common in folklore that is considered sacred. Although the size and shape varies, it usually consists of a central stone or cairn, concentric circles of stones and at least two lines coming from the center of the middle stone. The stone usage been mired in controversy but most Native American scholars agree that it represents the "synthesis and wholeness, including concepts of renewal and rebirth."

Medusa

• Robert Patrick makes another actor allusion when his character Doggett says that he’s just a good shot in regards to his T-1000 role where director James Cameron was impressed by Patrick’s shooting in the movie that he didn’t do anything like fast motion or any other special effects.
• 'Medusa' is one of the three “Gorgons” with hair of snakes and a gaze that turns a creature to stone in Greek Mythology slain by Perseus. It is the name of a kind of jellyfish body type along with the less-popular "polyp." It also means “sovereign female wisdom.”
• Lieutenant Bianco, Steven Melrick, Agent John Doggett and Dr. Hellura Lyle are in the subway tunnel:
  Bianco: Ooh, it feels like Atlanta in August.
  Doggett: Yeah, it’s the middle of winter. How come it’s so hot down here?
  Melnick: They shut down ventilation last night. Normally you have almost a million cubic feet of fresh air per minute pushing through here but now we’re in a sweatbox.
  Lyle: Aren’t we lucky? Hot, sticky and crawling in the dark. All so every commuter in Boston can get home to watch Survivor II.
• Hellura Lyle and Kai Brown were named after two Writers Guild members who served during the first part of the eight season on the show’s staff.
• Steven Melrick is named after 20th Century Fox Television Vice President of Media Relations, formerly served as a publicist.

Per Manum

• 'Per Manum' means “by hand” in Latin, referring to masturbation in medical sontext and in vitro fertilization method.
• 'Zeus Genetics' refers to Zeus, lord of lightening in Greek Mythology.

This Is Not Happening

• According to The Bible, Absalom was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maachah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur.

DeadAlive

• Mulder rising from the dead has been seen as a metaphor for Jesus's resurrection.
• Absalom was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maachah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur from The Bible.
• Scully’s role in this episode was partially based on Rob Merrick as she tries to cure Mulder like how Merrick tries to cure widower Helen Phillips’ blindness.

Three Words

• In The Bible, Absalom was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maachah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur.
• Doggett is told in order to access the secret database the password is the three words “Fight the Future,” which the episode title refers to.
• Dr. Lim asks how Mulder is:
  Mulder: Like Austin Powers.
• Mulder’s line “Remember boys, this is America. Just because you get more votes, doesn't mean you win” refers to the fact that George W. Bush became president despite Al Gore getting more votes than him.
• Doubting Thomas is mentioned.

Empedocles

• After a speech from Agent Monica Reyes on seeing evil, Mulder comments that he saw Elvis in a potato chip once.
• Scully mentions feeling stuck in a Mad About You episode.
• 'Empedocles' refers to Εμπεδοκλης, which is the Greek spelling of Empedokles or Empedocles, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who formulated the theory of the four elements: earth, air/wind, fire and water.

Vienen

• Mulder and Doggett hesitate as they prepare to leap from the burning rig on Doggett’s count of two.
• After Doggett explains how five years ago, Mulder and Scully investigated the “black oil” substance that somehow curved into an alien colonization theory:
  Mulder: And you’d like to help but you left your light-sabre at home.
• 'Vienem' is Spanish for 'they come'.

Alone

• Special Agent Leyla Harrison was named for a fan whose life was cut short in February 2001 when she lost her battle with skin cancer.
• Harrison asks when Mulder went to Antarctica to save Scully from being taken by a spaceship and running out of gas in his sno-cat, she inquires how both agents got back.
• Mulder mentions watching a lot of Oprah to know what a pregnant woman goes through.

Essence

• Mulder says Scully’s got "manos de piedra,” Spanish for “hands of rock/stone.”
• Dr. Frankenstein from the 1910 Frankenstein short is mentioned.

Existence

• Several allusions to the story of Jesus’ birth are made:
  • Mulder is guided to Scully’s location by a light like how the three wise men were guided by the star.
  • The Lone Gunmen act as the three wise men by bringing gifts for the baby.
  • The super soldiers leaving the birthplace, apparently concluding that who they found wasn’t who they were looking for, paralleling the Pharisees’ prospect in the Gospels who refused to acknowledge Jesus as the messiah, having concluded that he was just an ordinary person, and not the king they sought.

Season Nine

Nothing Important Happened Today

• Assistant Director Brad Pollmer is named after Chris Carter’s assistant.
• The Greater Maryland Water Reclamation Facility worker is named after FOX network’s Vice President of Broadcast Standards Roland McFarland.
• There are references to the short-lived The Lone Gunmen show such as Frohike and Byers making it known them being unemployed and Langly coming in with a very blue face.
• One of the names on Doggett’s list of soldier friends is Steve Maeda, a writer of the series.
• The phrase 'Title Drop Nothing Important Happened Today' or words to that effect was the entry King George III of England made in his personal diary on July 4, 1776, the same day the United States colonists declared independence from the British Crown since he couldn’t have known about the events occurring for several weeks.
• Agent Monica Reyes mentions the sex scandal tapes of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.

Nothing Important Happened Today II

• Again, King George III of England wrote 'nothing important happened today' in his personal diary the same day the United States colonists declared independence from the British Crown on July 4, 1776 since he couldn’t have known about the events occurring for several weeks.

Dæmonicus

• A dog is named Happy after a dog owned by Gillian Anderson, Scully’s actor.
• Last name 'Kobold' of Josef Kobold is a German spirit which can appear in the form of a human or an animal.
• 'Dæmonicus' is Latin for Satan.
• Monica Reyes enters one of the autopsy rooms where Doggett and Scully are talking:
  Reyes: What did you find?
  Doggett: I asked Agent Scully for expertise on this, looks like we can rule out the Exorcist after all.
• Doggett refers to the 'Ouroboros' symbol by saying “a snake swallowing its own tail,” a symbol of never ending destruction and re-creations cycle in the universe.
• Reyes mentions ectoplasm:
  Doggett: Ectoplasm?
  Reyes: You’ve heard of it, Agent Scully?
  Scully: Agent Mulder used to refer to it as psychic plasma, a residual by-product of telepathic communication. In theory it would have inorganic properties that couldn’t be explained otherwise.
  Doggett: So what are we talking now? The Ghostbusters?
• Doggett alludes to a film a cast member was in, this time to actress Annabeth Gish when he suggests the killer might use human flesh to fertilize his garden to Reyes.

4-D

• Agent Rice was named after Lucy “Holly” Hartwell Rice, writer Vince Gilligan’s girlfriend.
• Monster of the week Erwin Timothy Lukesh is inspired by Norman Bates though without his mother being dead until he kills her.
• Reyes’ new Georgetown apartment address of 67 Bennett Avenue was actually Rod Serling’s home address in Binghamton, New York.
• The Prisoner: Number six is her apartment.
• A hospitalized but unconscious Doggett with a cervical collar on his neck uses Morse Code with his fingers to spell out “Lukesh” the man who shot him to Skinner, Scully and Reyes.
• The fact one of Doggett’s fingers is attached to a Morse button, which is connected to a laptop at the end of his bed in order to interprets his finger presses and displays the letters on the screen, thus capable for him to communicate is like Stephen Hawking suffering from Motor Neurone Disease, thus quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair where he uses a computer voice synthesizer.
• Doggett being only to communicate through Morse Code is like French journalist, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who had been paralyzed and could only communicate by blinking his left eyelid.
• ‘4-D' is the abbreviation form of “fourth dimension” which is generally accepted as time whereas length, breadth and height as the first three dimensions.

Lord of the Flies

• The aggressiveness of the flies in the episode is inspired by actual habits of Australian blow flies.
• The fictional reality show David Winkle and Bill Kizzler, each calling themselves a nickname, perform dangerous stands is called ‘Dumbass.’
• David Winkle tries to sell the tape of Bill’s final act before his death to FOX Network.
• Scully and her partner for the duration of the episode, an entomologist, go up the steps to the Lokensgard’s residence where the front door is partially ajar to search the premises:
  Dr. Rocky Bronzino: Dr. Scully? This is so exciting! I’ve never had a partner before.
  Scully: I have.
  Dr. Bronzino: I’d like to think of it as a hymenopteran relationship. Two scientists using their special knowledge reaching higher than either of them could ever reach alone. And if I may say so doctor, you complete me.
  'Scully: I got upstairs, you take down.
• Scully makes her way up in the attic where she finds large human sized webbed sacs to her horror, many of them hanging from various positions in the ceiling and Dr. Bronzino is in one of them:

  'Bronzino: Help me, help me!

• 'Lord of the Flies' is the
  • 1) English translated name for Semitic demon Beelzebub.
  • 2) title of William Golding’s novel.
• Doggett and Reyes interview David Winkle in Principal Lokensgard’s office where the hand held video of the port-potty train plays on the television set behind them:
  Doggett: That’s very entertaining, Sky Pilot.
  David Winkle: Sky Commander, if you don’t mind.
• Dylan Lokensgard wears a Syd Barrett t-shirt, even talking about him to Natalie Gordon.
• Two of Barrett’s songs "No Good Trying" and "Terrapin" are featured.
• On Dylan’s walls are posters related to Syd Barrett seen among many other posters
• Posers of Radiohead, Garbage and Fear Factory among others appear on Natalie Godron’s wall.

TrustNo1

• Terry O’Quinn plays a character only known as the Shadow Man.

John Doe

• The case Doggett works on concerns a banker named Hollis Rice was named for the girlfriend of writer Vince Gilligan, Lucy “Holly” Hartwell Rice.
• A character uses the name “Ladatel” when he reads it posted on a public phone booth, the name of the credit card system for public telephone use is 'Ladatel' in Mexico and is handled by cars, not money.
• 'John Doe' is generally the name given to someone with amnesia, as well as 'Jane Doe' for females, simply as something to call them until their real identities are discovered.

Hellbound

• Episode’s plot it similar to the mythology surrounding agriculture god Xipe Totec.
• Dr. Sackheim is named after a producer and director.

Provenance

• The definition of 'provenance' is a place or source of origin.

Providence

• 'Providence' is foresight, or care or preparation beforehand.
• Needing proof of Mulder’s death, the cult leader demands Scully “Bring me the head of Fox Mulder,” an allusion to the tale of John the Baptist where Salome as pleased the king with her dancing that she was granted any wish and her mother Herodias told her to ask for the head of said saint, not to mention the phrase has also been used in other forms.

Audrey Pauley

Underneath

• Doggett’s former partner Duke Tonasick was named for The X-Files construction coordinator.
• Reyes and Doggett are sitting inside his car outside Jana Fain’s house at night, Reyes suggest Doggett gets some sleep hence not getting any rest in forty-eight hours:
  Doggett: I’ll sleep once we make sure this guy, Fassi, never kills again. Fassi or this Charles Manson sidekick.
• Reyes and Doggett have a chase through a sewage system after the bearded man.
• Reyes suggests Robert Fassi physically becoming another person:
  Doggett: So what, we moved from Casper the Friendly Ghost to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
• The sewage system in the episode was based on the 1952 Les Misérables’ blueprints.

Improbable

• The tagline is changed to Dio Ti Ama, Italian for “God loves you.”
• Mr. Burt is turning over cards at the end fo the teaser, naming the cards just before they’re shown where a woman enters the room screaming about a murder, the final card that’s turned up is the ace of spades, which is the death card in divination with standard playing cards as opposed to Tarot.
• Reyes’s comment “God doesn’t play dice with the universe” is a very loose translation to Albert Einstein’s quote “Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber bösehaft ist er nicht,” though a more literal translation of this is “God is clever, but he is not perverse.”
• The songs "Ça Va Ça Va", "Torero", "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons", "Ponciana", "La pense", "Inouis", "Io Mamate e Tu" and "El Bodeguero" are from Karl Zéro.

Scary Monsters

• 'Scary Monsters' shares its name with David Bowie album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).
• While Doggett, Reyes and FBI Agent Leyla Harrison are at the Conlon residence, Scully states to they being in grave danger to the sheriff and Harrison’s potential suitor:
  Gabe Rotter: That’s my girlfriend up there, Hoss.
• Tommy Conlon shows a picture to Reyes, uttering famous phrase “I made this” spoken while the Ten Thirteen logo appears after the end credits of every X-Files episode.
• In the last scene, Tommy is lying in a hospital in front of a dozen televisions with Doggett’s voiceover saying they tried reducing the boy’s fantasies is very similar to the one in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Jump the Shark

• The Lone Gunmen’s intern is named Jimmy Bond.
• Yves Adele Harlow is an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy’s assassin.
• Man with bioweapon is named Professor John Gillnitz, once more the combined names of writers John Chiban, Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz.
• Pop-cultural phrase 'Jump the Shark' refers to the moment at which a popular television show reaches its peak and then starts to go downhill.
• In regards to Fletcher giving reasons why Doggett and Reyes shouldn’t seek the help of the Lone Gunmen in search of Yves while the six are at the Gunmen’s headquarters:
  Morris Flecther: Agent, I’m tellin’ ya, you don’t want these three involved. I mean, they don’t even have their ridiculous tinker toy gizmos. This place is like ‘How the Grinch Stole Radio Shack.’
• After Morris mentions being a Man in Black, Doggett brings up the fact he saw the movie.
• Jimmy travels to Zurich, Malta and Yemen whilst tracking Yves.
• Yves Harlow, Jimmy Bond, Melvin Frohike, John Byers and Richard Langly are stopped from entering the conference hall and he asks them what newspaper they work for after Byers tells him they’re reporters:
  Byers: Uh... uh... The Lone Gunman.
• The blueprint floating on the water after the boat’s destruction is the Jupiter 2 diagram.
• After the Lone Gunmen pull a fire alarm, causing large emergency doors to seal shut, simultaneously containing the virus and entrapping them along with the second bioterrorist who has a virus filled organ, a distraught Jimmy places his hand on the other side of the glass where the hands of Byers, Frohike and Langly are placed as they are exposed to the deadly virus, thus killing the Lone Gunmen.
• Fletcher’s voiceover Once Upon a Time there were three... how shall I put this... geeks. At the beginning is like “Once upon a time, there were three little girls...”

William

• At the beginning, Scully sings Three Dog Night’s "Joy to the World" to her son William.

Release

• Rudolph Hayes’s profiling skills seems remarkably similar to Frank Black’s.
• Nicholas Regali mentions The Washington Post.
• Rudolph Hayes was crafted to be an ambitious character either a genius adept at solving crimes comparable to Sherlock Holmes or a criminal mastermind like Professor Moriarty.

Sunshine Days

• Oliver Martin is a Manchild with psychic ability of a dangerous level who’s real name is Anthony.
• References to a 1960’s dom com series are made:
  • The main suspect has a strong obsession with The Brady Bunch
  • 'Sunshine Days' refer to song "It’s a Sunshine Day" sung by the Brady children when they formed a band.
  • Oliver Martin is inspired by Carol Brady’s nephew Oliver Tyler
  • Two teenagers invade a house at the beginning and Doggett and Reyes investigate two murders revolving around a house that at some points in time is identical to the Brady house
  • There are nine actors playing the main Brady cast: Marice Lynn Ross as ‘Alice Nelson, Keith Forster as ‘Mike Brady’, Robbie Troy as ‘Carol Brady’, Nick Campisano as ‘Greg Brady’, Danielle Savre as ‘Marcia Brady’, Nolan Irwin as ‘Peter Brady’, Stephanie M. Herrera as ‘Jan Brady’, Jack Bensinger as ‘Bobby Brady’, Sharayah Montgomery as ‘Cindy Brady’.
  • Father figure to Oliver, the psychiatrist Dr. John Rietz has the same name as Robert Reed, born John Robert Rietz who played the father.
• After Doggett tells Reyes the roof’s been patched after getting off said roof, stating he noticed a smell of fresh plaster while inside:
  Reyes: So, are you gonna fill me in?
  Doggett: A - Eyewitness places the deceased inside this house just prior to the time of his demise. B - We found a fragment of roofing shingle at the scene of the impact. It would seem it matches the discarded piece you now hold in your hand. C - There's a hole in the roof, recently patched, this big around. Connect A to B to C.
  Reyes: Much in the fashion of, say, Daffy Duck or Wiley Coyote, the deceased shot straight up through the roof, flew high into the air and landed on his buddy's car? You're serious?
• Doggett asks why people are still watching a thirty year old show that’s The Brady Bunch:
  Reyes: Because they’re the family everyone wishes they had, loving, parents, lots of brothers and sisters, everybody getting along.
  Scully: They’re the, uh, perfect family. And since Oliver didn’t have one as a child, he created one.
  Doggett: Sure, I’d buy all that, but in this case, why The Brady Bunch? Why not The Partridge Family? Why not Eight is Enough?

The Truth: Part 1

• Footage of the prehistoric virus is shown.
• Skinner and Scully visit Mulder in his holding cell:
  Mulder: I smelled you coming Clarice.

The Truth: Part 2

• Cigarette Smoking Man the final alien invasion will occur December 22, 2012, the same day the Mayan calendar ends.

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