Lazarus

Episode Summary
Scully’s fellow agent and old flame Jack Willis gets shot and killed (or does he?!) by a bank robber named Dupre who has a spooky tattoo and a nutty girlfriend named Lula. Jack gets possessed by Dupre, Scully gets handcuffed to a radiator, insulin gets wasted: it’s all very titillating. Also, Mulder remembers his ninth grade math.

Bankman and Robbin’

Scully and some guy named Agent Willis are in a bank that’s about to close… waiting nervously for someone!

Meanwhile, two bank robbers in a car outside–

–talk about luck and call each other “Baby” a lot and franticly make out a little bit, giving us a peek at the dude robber’s forearm tattoo:

And then the hockey mask and the shotgun and the shouting and the hey hey hey, and the robber shoots Agent Willis and Scully shoots the robber.

Hospital time

Willis is flatlining on a table in the ER; the doctors want to give up after thirteen minutes, but, wait!

And now for the spooky bit: while they’re repeatedly shocking Willis McDeaderson with the paddles, the bank robber corpse in the background is convulsing in time.

Scully’s Ultradoctor gambit pays off — Willis gets a heartbeat! And we get a lingering shot of the dead robber guy’s tattoo.

Two Days Later

We open on the Bethesda Naval Hospital.

The camera pans over to, and then zooms in on, the face of Not Dead Agent Jack Willis, laying in his hospital bed with a respirator in his mouth and his eyes closed.

His eyes open!

And now a quick montage — Willis walking out of the hospital room, Willis stealing some guy’s clothes, Willis…preparing to strangle a nurse with surgical tubing…Willis having a flashback to being shot by…Willis.

The Office

Mulder checks in with Scully. Willis is missing.

Unfortunately for Mulder, Scully — oblivious to Mulder’s burgeoning bovine enthusiasms — reveals that it’s just those fingers we saw a minute ago, and theorizes that Willis is cutting off robbers’ fingers and disappearing because he’s gone nuts after working on this case for so long.

Cut to Willis doing a little breaking and entering at some house.

He’s looking for Lula, the lady robber! He says “baby” several times! His arm, it’s growing a tattoo!

Back in the office, Mulder starts needling Scully about what he thinks is going on, showing her an EKG from during the bringing-Willis-back-to-life episode:

Meanwhile, at the U Maryland bio department

What’s up with near-death experiences, Scully?

Who’s asking? Dr. Barnes, who yammers on about the electrical activity involved in near-death experiences, and people who come back from the brink being unable to wear wrist-watches, and how almost dying can really put a spring in your step, etc, but then Mulder brings him back down to earth:

Dr. Barnes says there’s a window of time during dying where the body is “vulnerable”. And then tells a nice story about a pilot who almost died and got mentally invaded by some other now-dead guy who had been schtupping his wife and he went crazy and strangled his wife with an extension cord. The end!

Mulder and Scully exit stage left, discussing amongst themselves:

And then Scully drops a bombshell about Willis:

So Mulder thinks Willis has been invaded by the spirit of the dead robber guy, Dupre, and Scully is positive that he’s just having a massive psychotic break.

Crime Time

Willis jumps some guy named Tommy — Lula’s brother! And then gives some wacky speech about Lulu and beauty and whatever the heck, and says Tommy “set [them] up” and totally shoots him in the face.

Next morning, Scully and Mulder are casing the scene when Willis shows up and gets all intense and stuff. Scheming Mulder pulls the old “I know you and Scully have the same birthday because of some exposition earlier in the episode so I’m going to give you a birthday card for her and tell you to sign it to prove that you don’t know it’s not her birthday because you fail to say OH HEY YEAH THAT’S RIGHT ITS BOTH OF OUR BIRTHDAYS TODAY, AWESOME–

–and also I’ll notice that you sign the card with the wrong hand, sucker” switcheroo gambit.

Scully is unconvinced, however, because she has forgotten that she is on The X-Files and is bound by x-law to be wrong about any rational explanations she might have.

Willis and Scully

Willis follows a lead, Scully in tow, to an apartment building where Lula was spotted. They catch her DOING LAUNDRY but she bolts and they commence to search for her in the surprisingly creepy apartment building basement.

Then Lula jumps Scully, Scully tackles and handcuffs Lula, Willis grabs Scully’s gun and tells Scully to cuff HERSELF and calls Lula “Baby” a bunch, and Scully suddenly looks like maybe she realizes something is a little bit weird here maybe.

Cue Willis telling Lula stuff that only Dupre could know, yadda yadda yadda.

Cue dawning recognition and belief on Lula’s part.

Oh, and Scully is handcuffed to a radiator.

Mulder on the chase

Willis calls a pissed-off Mulder, who demands to talk to Scully. Mulder calls her “Dana”. Willis hangs up.

Commence Scully trying to get Willis to snap out of it by talking about stuff from their dating life, and Willis overacting like crazy and drinking lots of soda, which you’d think is a pretty random detail but, wait:

Soda crisis begets drug store robbery, but then Lula spills the beans — it wasn’t Tommy who set Lula and Dupre up, it was Lula who set Dupre up, and him showing back up in Willis’ body was an unwelcome surprise.

Also, Lula wants (pink to mouth) ONE MILLION DOLLARS ransom for Scully; the FBI traced the call to…Scully’s cellphone. Aw, poop. But then an FBI audio nerd throws on a Z14 filter filter and tweaks some knobs and, hey, there’s an airplane on the tape of the phone call! So she’s near… an airplane.

Afterschool special

FBI guy #1: Mulder says he’s got something.
FBI guy #2: What?

FBI guy #2: An alien virus, or new information on the Kennedy assassination?

Anyway, it turns out there are no hookers or Kennedys involved. Mulder draws a picture of a flight path:

In the bad place

Jack Willis seems to be Jack again kinda; he and Scully go back and forth about some details of a sexy weekend they shared in a cabin in the woods. Also, Jack is still kinda dying of diabetic shock and having flashbacks of the bank robbery from both ends of the soul spectrum.

Also, an FBI agent posing as an evangelist tries to interest Lula in the word of the Lord.

Scully tells Lula that Jack’s dead; Lula drops her wedding ring on his prone body; and he pulls her gun out of her belt and turns it on her. The FBI swarms the place. It is all very tense and stuff.

Then Lula tries to talk Jack out of shooting her and doesn’t do a very good job, and Jack manages to die of shock finally like two seconds later. And that darned tattoo fades!

The rest of it all

Mulder gives something to Scully: dead old Jack’s watch.