Herrenvolk (The X-Files)

Infobox Television episode | Title = Herrenvolk


Caption =
Series = The X-Files
Season = 4
Episode = 1
Airdate = October 4, 1996 (Fox)
Production = 4x01
Guests = Roy Thinnes as Jeremiah Smith
Writer = Chris Carter
Director = R.W. Goodwin

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Prev = Talitha Cumi
Next = Home

"Herrenvolk" is the season four premiere of "The X-Files". While Mulder and Jeremiah Smith attempt to uncover the truth, the Syndicate realizes that they have a traitor in their midst. The informant known to fans as Mr. X dies in this episode, as he is discovered to be the source of the leak. As he dies, he scrawls the letters "SRSG" on the floor of Mulder's apartment in his own blood. Later, it is implied that these letters stand for Special Representative to the Secretary General, and lead Mulder to Marita Covarrubias (who is the SRSG's assistant).

Plot

As an electrical technician gets stung by a bee, five identical children crowd around the telephone pole he is working on. He begins shaking, his bones make cracking noises. Then he falls down, dead. The children appear untouched by this and walk off silently.

Meanwhile, Mulder is still begging Jeremiah, to heal his mother. An Alien Bounty Hunter pulls up in a silhouetted car, Jeremiah explains that this man was sent to kill him. Mulder begins to run with Jeremiah. After chasing the Mulder and Jeremiah around an abandoned building, he regroups with Scully and tells her to prepare the car. After she began driving to the exit - ready for a quick getaway - the Alien Bounty Hunter lands on the roof of her car. In shock, Scully slams her fist on the horn. The Bounty Hunter then returns to chasing Mulder and Jeremiah, who were warned off by the sound of Scully’s car horn.

After hiding in a pile of wood, Mulder sneaks up after the Alien Bounty Hunter and stabs him with the alien, stiletto-like weapon in the back of his neck, from which a green bubbling liquid is emitted. Mulder and Jeremiah escape on a boat, leaving Scully alone with the Alien corpse. She approaches to identify it, not having noticed the green liquid re-entering the carcass; the Bounty Hunter wakes up and begins to choke her. He asks where the two were headed off to. Scully notifies him that she is oblivious to their target location. On the boat, Mulder and Jeremiah debate whether or not it would be too risky to go to the hospital to save Mulder’s mother, at the risk of Syndicate Elders and Men in Black awaiting them, ready to kill Jeremiah.

Back at the hospital, the other government conspirators informed the Cigarette Smoking Man of an earlier incident, during his meeting with Mulder’s mother, during which he was being photographed. They knew there was a leak - someone among the conspirators telling Mulder secret information. Mulder, conversing with Scully over the phone, was unaware that the Alien Bounty Hunter was holding Scully hostage and listening to the vital location information that was being discussed. Scully was called into Skinner’s office and asked of her theories on the fact of the existence of five indistinguishable men - all named Jeremiah Smith - working for the Social Security Agency. After the discovery of a mysterious code, Scully takes it to Mulder’s source, X, to have it decrypted. Meanwhile, Mulder comes across the day old corpse of the electrical technician, grossly disfigured and covered in wasps. Jeremiah takes Mulder to a mysterious field of intoxicating shrubs, which weren’t on government records. Mulder then sees a series of children - the girls all identical to his sister, and at the age she was at the time of her abduction. Jeremiah informs Mulder that these children are drones, chattel kept to tend the fields, and that they are incapable of communication. They go to the nearby village where the children live and Jeremiah heads off to find gas. Meanwhile, Scully is in Mulder’s apartment attempting to contact X, who arrives immediately. He informs Scully that Mulder’s mother is in danger. He then decrypts the codes Scully received earlier. The codes are records of the Smallpox Eradication Program. Mulder tries to take one clones of his sister with him, but before Jeremiah can protest, a car, driven by the Alien Bounty Hunter, chases the trio.

The threesome, led by the clone, head into a secret bee hive, only to discover that they were trapped. After entering the hive in pursuit of them, the Alien Bounty Hunter is crushed by a large honey wall. The threesome then run back out the entry. Scully reports back to the FBI about the codes. She reports that the government is using Cow Pox structural protein 6 to record humans in a catalogue-like formation. After performing two exams, she is able to prove that this is possible, through minute and individually distinct, variations on the protein structure. She also convinces her colleagues that the only man who knows the identity of the people behind this project is Jeremiah Smith. Mulder is then attacked and caught by the Alien Bounty Hunter. Jeremiah Smith appears to escape, but his fate is uncertain at this point, as is the little girl's. Mulder arrives disorientated at the hospital and meets Scully. Both next to his mother, the two have a heartfelt discussion ending with a hug. Due to a mistake by Scully, X arrives at Mulder’s apartment, where he is shot in the heart by a Man in Black, as he is trying to escape. The agencies are, at this point, assumed to know that he is the photographer. He crawls as far as he can, back to Mulder's apartment, then writes with his blood: “SRSG”, before dying. Mulder, at the Bureau, wants to know why Scully trusts her science so much, when things such as these recent events contradict it, to which she replies, “Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only to what we know of it - there is the place to start”. Mulder goes to meet an assistant to the Special Representative to the Secretary General, Marita Covarrubias (this is her first appearance), who informs him that the fields in Alberta have been abandoned and that there was no evidence that there was anything out of the ordinary about the plants. She tells him that no trace of the children or of the apiary, have been discovered; however, she hands him a file containing a picture of the children tending the plants and tells him that not everything dies. Meanwhile, the Alien Bounty Hunter arrives at the bedside of Mulder’s dying mother, where we are told that Mulder has something to do with Cigarette Smoking Man’s plan. At the Cigarette Smoking Man's urging, the Alien Bounty Hunter heals Mulder’s mother.

Trivia

*The traditional opening credits text reads "The Truth Is Out There"; however, in this episode, it reads "Everything Dies", a phrase spoken by the Alien Bounty Hunter to Mulder.
*Later in the episode, Marita Covarrubias, in her first appearance in the series, tells Mulder that "Not everything dies".
*Herrenvolk means "Master race" in German.
*William B. Davis is now billed under the "Also Starring" tag alongside Mitch Pileggi.

External links

*imdb title|0751135|Herrenvolk
* [http://www.tv.com/the-x-files/herrenvolk-2/episode/564/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;0 Herrenvolk] at TV.com