The Red and the Black (The X-Files)
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 has Scully put under hypnosis to learn the truth about her abduction after Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright) goes missing and her son Jeffrey (Chris Owens) angrily attempts to push his way up in the FBI.
Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) arrives at the Ruskin Dam and finds a number of burned corpses, including those belonging to Quiet Willy and Dmitri.
The Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and other Syndicate Elders watch as their black oil vaccine is administered to Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden), which has yet to work.
Later, The Well-Manicured Man meets with Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), who is being held captive aboard a Russian freighter.
A spacecraft crashes at Wiekamp Air Force base in West Virginia, and the surviving Rebel passenger is captured by the military.
Jeffrey shows Scully a video of him talking about aliens while under hypnosis while he was a child, claiming his mother had forced him to make those statements.
Mulder and Scully head to Wiekamp Air Force Base, where the Alien Bounty Hunter—who is disguised as Quiet Willy—has come to kill the Rebel.
"[2] Rob Bowman originally intended to direct the episode but, due to reshoots, he was unable to do it, resulting in Carter assuming directorial duties.
The show selected the site because, according to Carter, it had "an interesting observation space above it that we used", which in the end proved to be a difficult place to film.
[2] "The Red and the Black" was a technically demanding episode, which Carter later described, along with "Patient X", as "the most challenging and logically complex [project] of the season.
The crashed alien spacecraft was sixty feet in diameter—twice the length of any other spaceship seen before on the show—and was forcibly dragged across the ground to create a deep gash in the earth.
"[5] For the scene in which Mulder discovers the charred remains of abductees, the prop and the production design departments had to create specialized fake bodies.
Club reviewer Zack Handlen gave "The Red and the Black" an A−, and wrote positively of the "galactic war" between the colonists and the rebels that is referenced in the episode, noting that it marked the point where "shit is about to get real".
'"[9] Handlen, however noted that "The Red and the Black" worked because "the performances are great as always, and because the second part of this two parter rarely feels bogged down or draggy.
"[9] Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode three stars out of five.
[10] Paula Vitaris was extremely impressed with the scene's blocking, calling the rendition "virtually orgasmic in intensity" and concluded that "Anderson is marvelous".
