The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.

In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate a case where a death row inmate declares that he will be reincarnated and that as a result five men will die.

The art department of The X-Files was tasked with creating a death row set quickly, a feat which eventually caused the episode to go over budget.

Napoleon "Neech" Manley (Badja Djola), a death row inmate at a Florida prison, is brought to the electric chair.

Shortly after the execution, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the prison after a guard is mysteriously found dead in Neech's cell.

The agents meet the prison's warden, Brodeur (J. T. Walsh), who believes that Neech planned the guard's murder with someone on the outside before the execution.

The prison coroner tells Scully that the first guard's lungs were completely infested with the larvae, belonging to the green bottle fly.

Meanwhile, Mulder talks to Roque, who wants a transfer out of the prison in exchange for revealing the remaining three people on the list, but Brodeur refuses to let this happen.

The agents talk to Neech's fearful widow, Danielle Manley (April Grace), who is secretly seeing Parmelly.

Based on phone records, Scully theorizes that Neech's lawyer, Danny Charez, may have engineered the murders with Speranza.

Looking in his rearview mirror, he sees Neech, who attacks Brodeur and causes his car to crash into a tree, claiming his last victim.

[6] For many of the scenes, the show's producers opted to use real maggots—creatures that series co-star Gillian Anderson later called among the hardest animals with which to work.

Due to a number of issues, the show's design crew was not able to create a "full-body replica" of the first murder victim, so the portraying actor had to lay on an autopsy table while maggots were poured over his body.

The elaborate car crash featured at the end of the episode was described by stunt coordinator Tony Morelli as "the most harrowing action sequence" during the show's third season.

He felt that "The List" embodied a bland stand-alone X-Files episode for its underdeveloped concept and script, with "attempts at drama" that had no depth, and "sideplots [that] have so little effect on the main narrative as to be basically padding".

Walsh, and the final scene, but ultimately considered that "once you get past the set-design and cinematography, you end up with some good lines and a few scary moments, and that's it.

[17] Robert Shearman, in his book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one-and-a-half stars out of five.

The author positively critiqued Carter's directing, calling the entry "good looking" and noting that it was "a decidedly grisly hour of television.