SHAPES

Episode Summary:
Our agents investigate the shooting death of a Native American man on a ranch near a reservation; it turns out it was a freakin’ werewolf; no one gets laid. Twin Peak’s awesome guy Michael Horse guest stars! Also Scully completely doesn’t get laid, but what else is new.

We see a pictures of a stuffed wolf! And a stuffed owl!

There is spooky lightning! A scruffy old man–

–loads a shotgun and exchanges a look with an intense young Clean-shaven Adams. They are at Two Medicine Ranch in Browning, Montana, according to the person who wrote on the screen with a typewriter somehow.

And anyway something that looks an awful lot like a werewolf beats the crap out of the kid and then the old guy shoots it and IT TURNS OUT IT’S A MAN.

BROKELYCANTHROPE MOUNTAIN

The persons of ranch explain the grisly situation.

Also, Clean-shaven Adams’ lawyer has a bolo tie on. He has a lawyer because everybody who hasn’t seen the intro to the episode thinks he just shot a Native American dude to death and not a werewolf or whatever.

And then the kid, Lyle, confides a bit with the agents out of earshot of Pa and Bolo-Lawyer.

Also, Mulder finds some foot prints that turn into paw prints, so he’s pretty much in hog heaven.

And then he flaps something that looks like skin peeled off an old dude’s back in front of Scully, because he is an awful person:

TREGO INDIAN RESERVATION

Mulder gets in a dumb one-liner contest with an old Indian dude in a bar on the reservation, mentioning that he wears women’s deodorant and sneaking in a quick “I want to believe” before totally going for the OH HEY SO WEREWOLVES thing and pissing Scully off.

And holy butts, it’s Twin Peaks’ Michael “Deputy Tommy ‘Hawk’ Hill” Horse as the sheriff!

They go and check out the body. While the sheriff and Scully have an actual adult conversation, Mulder like plays with the dead guy’s mouth or something:

Despite asserting that

Scully is totally denied an autopsy of the dead dude.

POW WOW IN THE MULDERMOBILE

Also:

Also:

And now some science from Dr. “I’m A Doctor” Scully:

Then the dead guy’s sister Gwen gives Scully some sort of claw-and-fur bauble of her brother’s in like the bitchiest way possible, but they’re about to set her dead brother on fire so you have to cut her a little slack.

Mulder and the sheriff have a being-manly-and-resolute-in-profile contest:

BACK AT THE RANCH

Old Grizzly sits on his porch at night with some whiskey, but then he hears a weird sound. He gets up to take a look!

Don’t worry, it turns out it was maybe just the jingling of some metal ranching tool thingies in the wind.

So, that’s a pretty dead Mark Twain there I guess.

THE NEXT MORNING

Mulder finds some fur — and more weird discarded skin!

Scully discovers Lyle naked and sleeping in a field and takes him to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Mulder and the sheriff go talk to the old wizened dude Mulder was talking to back in the bar earlier in the episode.

Anyway, I guess this isn’t a werewolf so much as a manitou. So take that, traditional schlocky monster names. And the condition is hereditary and shit — so maybe Gwen is a werewolf? Except maybe she’s not, and besides it’s obviously Lyle?

Oh and also apparently the folks at the hospital did a blood test and figured out that Lyle drank his dad’s blood.

Carpools With Wolves

Scully gives Lyle a ride back to the ranch–

–and Lyle says he needs to vomit.

And then Lyle starts turning into a Manatee.

And then Mulder and the Sheriff show up and oh no where is Scully and then Mulder takes a couple potshots at the werewolf–

–and then OH GOOD SCULLY IS SAFE, and there’s a bunch of tense GOSH THERE’S A LOT OF DEAD STUFFED ANIMALS IN THIS CREEPY HOUSE and then finally some extremely crappy slow motion and the Manitoba gets shot to death and its actually Lyle and was any of this supposed to be surprising?

THE END