Fallen Angel (The X-Files)

Infobox Television episode | Title = Fallen Angel


Caption = "Fallen Angel"
Series = The X-Files
Season = 1
Episode = 1X09
Airdate = November 19 1993 (Fox)
Production = 10-110
Writer = Howard Gordon
Alex Gansa
Director = Larry Shaw
Guests =Frederick Coffin,
Marshall Bell,
Scott Bellis,
Jerry Hardin,
Brent Stait
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Prev = Space
Next = Eve

"Fallen Angel" was the tenth episode of the first season of "The X-Files" science-fiction television series created by Chris Carter. It is based around alien abduction.

Plot

Mulder puts the future of the X-Files in jeopardy when he heads to a UFO crash site in Wisconsin being rapidly covered up by the military. He is arrested and while in jail he meets Max Fenig, a UFO nut whose NICAP group has followed Mulder's work on the X-Files. When Mulder is released, Scully urges him to return to Washington to face his superiors and try to save his job. When Mulder finds an unusual scar behind Max's left ear, he becomes convinced that Max is an abductee, having seen the scar twice before. Mulder then ignores Scully and sets out to save Max from the approaching UFO/Alien Military Retrieval Unit.

This time, Chris Carter plays to conspiracy theorists' fears that the U.S. Military is covering up the presence of aliens on earth. The episode opens with a fire in the woods outside Townsend, Wisconsin, where something appears to attack a curious sheriff's deputy. In a military control room, a tech tracks an unusual object in the air that cannot possibly be an aircraft. The tech is told by the colonel to write it up as a meteor, while the colonel calls someone and launches Operation Falcon.

Mulder heads up to Wisconsin based on the advice of Deep Throat. He sneaks into the woods where the military is performing some sort of clean-up operation in the woods. Mulder takes photos of the site but he gets caught and thrown into a fenced cage with a UFO fanatic.

Scully shows up to yell at Mulder and tell him that the X-Files are in danger of being shut down because of his rule breaking ways. Scully believes that the crash site is not a toxic spill, but it's a Libyan plane with a nuclear warhead. Mulder laughs.

Outside, some strange little invisible being goes running through the red, electric fence that the military has set up around the perimeter.

Mulder and Scully return to Mulder's hotel room, where they find 'Max', the UFO fanatic, trying to escape out the bathroom window. It turns out, Max is a fan of Mulder. He's been tracking Mulder's work with the X-Files through travel expense reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Max has some audio from the sheriff's deputy who was killed in the woods. It turns out, he was burned.

Mulder and Scully visit the widow of the sheriff's deputy who died. She says the government won't release her husband's body for burial and she was threatened not to get his pension if she said anything to anyone.

A high-pitched noise sends soldiers searching for the small, invisible creature that may have been piloting the UFO that crashed. They scream in pain as the invisible creature lights up.

It turns out that the government spooks also pressured a doctor not to say anything. But the doctor tells the agents about the deputy and three others who were DOA and suffered from extreme burns, or possible radiation exposure. Mulder thinks it's a close encounter, Scully thinks nuclear radiation is a plausible explanation. As they're leaving the hospital, they see a half-dozen soldiers come in with what appear to be radiation burns. Mulder is ejected from the hospital by the military but Scully gets to stay because she's a medical doctor. All but two of the soldiers die.

Mulder returns to the hotel parking lot where Max's trailer is parked. He finds Max inside, having a seizure. When the convulsions stop, Max tells Mulder that he has epilepsy. As Mulder helps Max lie down, he discovers a red scar in the shape of a triangle behind Max's ear. He's seen it on two other alien abductees and he believes that Max may have been abducted, and doesn't even know it.

The military once again tracks a craft (aka 'meteor') over Townsend, WI, but this time it's much larger. Then, something flies over Max's trailer, goes inside, and looks into Max's ear, which starts bleeding. The agents go to check on Max, but he's gone. They trail Max to military staging grounds where it appears that Max has radiated two soldiers to death. Max and Mulder hide out in a warehouse as the army surrounds it. Something attacks them, throwing Mulder across the room and putting Max in some sort of mid-air trance. Max is gone when the military infiltrates the warehouse.

In the end, Mulder makes a great speech to his superiors who are really angry with him for not going through the proper channels before traveling to Wisconsin. He tells them that the government does not have the right to hide the truth. Afterward, Deep Throat manages to saves Mulder's job. However, when he does this, we're left to wonder whether he is really on Mulder's side because he says keeping Mulder at the FBI is safer than him getting out and trying to tell the world about aliens.

Production details

Guests

*Frederick Coffin as Chief Joseph McGrath
*Marshall Bell as Colonel Calvin Henderson
*Scott Bellis as Max Fenig
*Jerry Hardin as Deep Throat
*Brent Stait as Corporal Taylor
*Alvin Sanders as Deputy Jason Wright
*Sheila Paterson as Gina Watkins
*Tony Pantages as Lieutenant Fraser
*Freda Perry as Mrs. Wright
*Michael Rogers as Lieutenant Griffin
*Jane MacDougall as Laura Dalton
*William MacDougall as Dr. Oppenheim
*Kimberly Unger as Karen Koretz

References and external links

*imdb title|0751120|Fallen Angel
* [http://www.tv.com/the-x-files/fallen-angel/episode/500/summary.html Fallen Angel] at TV.com