User Reviews

You've got to be paying attention while watching The Red and the Black. With all the new twists and turns that occur, it's hard to keep track. Supposedly, Kryeck is working for the Russians and Marita is working for the United Nations. Then, we discover that those two are working together and are lovers. Then, we discover that Marita is betraying Krycek and attempting to help Mulder. Now, we have faceless alien rebels who are resisting colonization. And, a vaccine for the black oil has supposedly been developed. Lots of exciting new developments that make this two-parter fun to watch. Now for some random episode thoughts: I liked the helicopter blade sound effects as Mulder is exploring the burn site. Aliens just can't fly. They are always crashing their spacecrafts. I found it touching that Scully subconsciously reaches for Mulder's hand during her regression hypnosis. The special effect of Cassandra being abducted is really cool with the ashes floating upward with Cassandra. Classic visual. The syndicate really isn't working well together. First Elder decides to go ahead and turn the alien rebel over to the colonists without consulting the Well-Manicured Man. I think they are in disarray because of the alien rebels and don't know how to approach the situation. Last of all, it appears that Krycek of all people helps Mulder to start believing again. Mulder and Krycek have a great exchange in Mulder's apartment, Krycek turning to Mulder for help after his alliance with Marita has failed and the syndicate will have nothing to do with him. The new twists and developments along with the role reversal of Mulder and Scully help keep Patient X and The Red and the Black up with best of the mythology episodes.

Beginning. A man is typing a letter to his son whom it is apparent that he is somewhat distanced from. As he types a boy marches through the snow in the woods to a cabin where the man has been living for a time. It is none other than the Cigarrette Smoking Man who last we knew had been shot in his office and left for dead. But we will not find this out until later. The boy has come to deliver the message for the man to: "Federal Bureau of Investigation". We find out immediately that not everyone has died in the faceless alien burnings. Scully is alive but in bad shape; she has no memory of how she got there or what happened. Later she undergoes hypnosis to recall the events and we learn that the faceless aliens were killed in the act of burning the abductees and then they took Cassandra Spender with them, leaving everything else. The theme of the episode almost seems to be the entire crew of people who have doubted Mulder's beliefs in the past trying believing his new theory of government plot and misdirection as even less plausible. Many important mythology facts are learned. The purpose of the faceless rebel aliens and the existence of the Russian vaccine for the black oil being key. A note on the crash of the rebel alien craft, maybe if they wouldn't have crashed if they had had at least the one flying the craft NOT sew his eyes shut? Just a thought. And as a Mulder honorable mention...

KRYCEK: You must be losing it, Mulder. I could beat you with one hand.

MULDER: Isn't that how you like to beat yourself? If those are my last words I can do better.

9 out of 10.

The conclusion to the brilliant two parter started up by Patient X, The Red and the Black continues a breathless introduction of numerous new characters, alien races, plot points and revelations that breathes life into the stale Mythology.

We head back into the story the morning after the night before, with a new massacre at the bridge sitting proudly alongside those in Kazahkstan and Skyland Mountain. Mulder and Skinner arrive desperately seeking Scully, and luckily she is found with only superficial burns in a culvert nearby. It seems this attack wasn't as successful as those before.

Meanwhile, Krycek endures some role reversal at the hands of Well-Manicured Man who informs him of Marita's fate. She, incidentally, is in a Syndicate run medical centre being treated for the black oil. WWM demands the vaccine from Krycek, but the double agent insists his information is more vital, even when chained up in the hold of a ship that is soon heading back to Russia and no doubt signalling a rather gruesome end for our Comrade. Scully under goes hypno-therapy with Dr Werber in an attempt to unlock her memories, which shows what occurred.

Like Patient X, the strength in The Red and the Black is the writing. Chris Carter's direction is impeccable, Mark Snow's score is perfect and the acting is sublime, but the dialogue sparkles and the numerous subplots and bluffs are never too much to take in. The pace is excellent, and there's plenty of excitement, awesome reveals and great character moments. It's a very quotable episode, and features some memorable work from recurring characters (in particular Krycek and Well-Manicured Man, both brilliant here).

Overall, Patient X/The Red and the Black is an action packed, intelligent and highly satisfying cinematic double bill which for me is probably the pinnacle of the mythology.

With Mulder firm in the belief that his five year investigation into UFO's and extraterrestrials has brought him nowhere, events swirling around him look like they may start influencing him back in the other direction again, at least at some point. For now, the regression hypnosis of his partner is met with skepticism, believing that the chip implanted in her neck was a government experiment to test biological immunity, or kill as necessary to prevent that truth from coming out.

However you can't distrust your own eyes when Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright) is shown teleported into a spaceship, also witnessed by dozens of people at a gathering referred to by Scully's regression therapy hypnotist as the 'night place'. Though she has no memory of the event, it's interesting to note the juxtaposition in the beliefs of the partner agents who appear to have taken each other's former position on the existence of aliens and UFO's.

The biggest surprise offered by this episode occurs in the bookended scenes in which a young boy is handed a red envelope to be delivered to someone at the FBI. That someone is Agent Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), who has long been estranged from a father he barely knew. As difficult as it may be to believe in faceless aliens, shape shifting bounty hunters, and alien spaceships, you can only scratch your head when the red envelope is returned undelivered to a figure we used to know as the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). Last we saw him, he was in a pretty tight spot, but it seems that with the X-Files, things are not as certain as death and taxes.

Yes I love The Red and the Black to death with Patient X I love those two part episodes in fifth Season The X-Files I love them both to death! I love the ending so much. Mulder and Scully head to Wiekamp Air Force Base, Mulder clims on the army truck and try's to save the rebel. Alien bounty hunter try's to kill rebel love the twist so much it was filmed in an air base force which the story was set.

Scully (Gillian Anderson) is hypnosis to revel the evnts what happened on the bridge: the Rebels burning her fellow abductees, as well as a Colonist spacecraft killing the Rebels and abducting Cassandra. Fantastic performence from Gillian Anderson.

Patient X and The Red and the Black manages to use that iconography in an interesting and thought-provoking manner. Instead of clumsily grafting religious imagery on to the mythology to help create a sense of familiarity or recognisability, the two-parter instead uses the idea of divinity to make the show's extraterrestrials seem all the more alien and unknowable. Maybe the colonists are comparable to gods; and that serves to make them even more strange and even more unsettling.

There is a sense that we repeat these stories so often that we lose the sense of horror that they should impart. Perhaps that is the face of the divine embodied by the "colonists" in The X-Files.

Marita Covarrubias played by beautiful Laurie Holden is in this episode a test subject for the the black oil Vaxine and it administered on her. The Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and other Syndicate Elders watches.

Patient X and The Red and the Black is not only interested in the way that the conspiracy of powerful men tends to victimise women. The two-parter is fascinated with victimhood in general. Not only do Dmitri and the rebels have their eyes seal shut; their mouths are also sealed over. They cannot speak, they cannot talk. They are victims rendered incapable of expressing their suffering to the world. In fact, one suspects that - even if they could express themselves - their suffering would fall on deaf ears.

I love this episode to death I love the ending so much. Alex Krycek storms at Mulder tells him the truth about alien Colonoziation. A war is raging between the aliens and that the Rebel immolations are meant to halt the impending colonization of Earth.

Great performence by David Duchovny as Skeptical Fox Mulder now but really wondrerful performance that gain his fait agin on the end with Alien Bounty Hunter and the rebel.

I really love Patient X and The Red and the Black my favoritenumber 1 episodes in the fifth Season X-Files. The two parts episode is brilant great well writen and directed by Chris Carter. Recommended to X-Files fans including me.

This is a great episode, in the scheme of things, save all of the questions that go unanswered after this episode's turning points, like what happens to the rest of the Syndicate and how successful is the vaccine, and why does Mulder kill the Rebel and gloss over it? Patient X was a GREAT episode, but Red and Black, could use some work as a cliffhanger/ conclusion. It leaves a lot of questions open without answering them in the summary of Two Fathers/One Son, so for that I am giving it 7 stars, had a great beginning and premise, but was never actually concluded in Two Fathers One Son saga, so have to second guess this one.