"Medusa"
Opening: Hey, we're in Boston – instant cache! An undercover transit cop
waits for the "T" (notice how I'm "hip" to the local
culture) and notices the kind of shady roughneck you never actually see around
the Boston subway. Anyway, the train comes and I don't know what kind of
bizarre, alternative-universe Boston this is supposed to be, but where I come
from the seats damn sure don't come in rows on the red line (go to the green
line for that sort of thing). Anyway, the transit cop and the shady roughneck
get in a scuffle, we hear a scream, and the next morning the cop is found on the
train with the skin eaten off his face.
ROLL CREDITS
Scully and Doggett hit the scene and are greeted with immediate disdain by
the deputy chief of the transit police (think a poor man's Philip Baker Hall),
who tells them that his trains will be running in five hours, come hell or high
water. Scully says they can't open the tunnel until the cause of death has been
determined, but the deputy only growls, "The trains will run… THE TRAINS
WILL RUN" (somehow this all reminded me of that horrible movie Money
Train – "Nothing stops the Money Train…"). Meanwhile, the
Center for Disease Control has been combing the tunnel all night and has yet to
find any traces of a contagion or biological agent. Nonetheless, seeing as how
they're on a federally-funded trip and all, Scully and Doggett decide they
better go and have themselves a little look-see.
Scully, however, feels it would be best if she stayed above ground and ran
the show from the command center. So Doggett goes and morphs into full badass
mode, putting on his black jeans and skin-tight black shirt and strapping on the
heavy artillery. Okay, Doggett is now officially "super-cool." The
motley crew that's going to accompany him down into the tunnels includes
Lieutenant Bionko, who's obviously going to be a major thorn in Doggett's ass,
the appropriately bland female from the CDC, and the jolly structural
engineer/working stiff. So down the Fab Four go… and they quickly hit a snag
when Jolly Engineer is burned on the neck. CDC Gal then takes a sample from a
puddle and transmits it to Scully, who quickly sends it off to the lab.
Meanwhile, Doggett is poking his nose in an abandoned tunnel, when the shady
roughneck lunges out at him and promptly drops dead, the skin eaten off his
face.
Bionko is ready to call it a day and go hit the Boston pubs, but Scully tells
them they have to soldier on and find out what's up with these
less-than-settling deaths. Meanwhile, a split-second after we notice that the
burn on his neck is glowing green, Jolly Engineer lets out a mighty yelp and a
shower of sparks fly off his body as the skin on his arm begins to disintegrate.
Mad props to the FX team – word up! Doggett is able to neutralize the burn
with a splash of fresh water, but CDC Gal unfortunately has to stay and tend to
him, so the Fab Four is quickly cut down to the Dynamic Duo. As Doggett and
Bionko press on, we see that the Lieutenant's hand is glowing green.
