"Conduit" is the fourth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on October 1, 1993. It was written by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, directed by Daniel Sackheim, and featured a guest appearance by Carrie Snodgress as the mother of an abducted teenager.
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, when investigating the possible alien abduction of a teenage girl, find that the missing girl's younger brother may be capable of receiving satellite transmissions, and that her mother may also have been party to a UFO encounter over twenty years earlier. Mulder finds himself becoming emotionally attached to the case due to its similarities to his own childhood experiences, when his younger sister Samantha was abducted from their home.
The episode, although not directly tied to the series' ongoing story arcs, provides more information on how Fox Mulder's younger sister, Samantha Mulder, had been abducted as a child; a plot thread which would go on to become one of the more prominent of the series. The episode was filmed in British Columbia, with Buntzen Lake being used as Lake Okobogee.
Plot[]
At a campground at Lake Okobogee National Park in Sioux City, Iowa, Darlene Morris witnesses a flash of light outside of her RV. When she ventures outside to find her young son, Kevin, he claims that his teenaged sister, Ruby, has vanished.
In Washington, FBI Division Chief Scott Blevins informs Dana Scully that, unbeknownst to her, Fox Mulder has requested travel expenses to Sioux City based on a tabloid article about Ruby's disappearance. Blevins also shows Scully an X-File on the disappearance of Mulder's sister Samantha. When Scully asks Mulder about the travel expenses, he explains that Lake Okobogee was the scene of a series of UFO sightings in 1967; Darlene Morris, then a member of a Girl Scout troop, was one of the witnesses.
When Mulder and Scully travel to Iowa and meet the Morrises, Mulder observes Kevin writing down binary code on a piece of paper; Kevin claims they are coming from static on a television screen. After submitting Kevin's code for analysis, the agents meet with the local sheriff, who tells them that Ruby was a juvenile delinquent who likely ran away. They also meet a young woman, Tessa, who says that Ruby had gotten pregnant and was planning to run away with her boyfriend, Greg Randall. The agents are unable to find Greg at the bar where he works; however, his boss tells them about UFO activity at Lake Okobogee.
Kevin's code is revealed to be part of a Defense Department satellite transmission. NSA agents ransack the Morris household, looking for any other documentation that might supposedly compromise national security. After the Morrises are taken into custody (which causes Darlene to lose her trust towards Mulder and Scully), Mulder examines the charred roof of their RV, prompting him to head to Lake Okobogee. There, the agents discover sand turned to glass and a burned tree line, indicating the presence of a massive heat source. Upon encountering some white wolves, Mulder and Scully find Greg Randall's body in a shallow grave.
On his person, they find a note in his wallet that eventually leads Mulder and Scully to conclude that it was Tessa, not Ruby, who was pregnant. Under interrogation, Tessa confesses to killing Greg but denies Ruby was at Lake Okobogee that night. The agents return to the Morris' house, and, finding it deserted, discover the binary-covered pieces of paper laid out across the living room floor, forming an image of Ruby's face. They return to Lake Okobogee, where they find Darlene and Kevin in the nearby woods. A motorcycle gang appears, and as Mulder hurries to rescue Kevin from their wake, Scully discovers Ruby nearby.
Ruby is then seen in a hospital bed, with Kevin by her side. When questioned about her ordeal, she says she was told by an unnamed group not to say anything. Darlene also refuses to cooperate any further, given the ridicule that she faced after her past experiences. Back in Washington, Scully listens to a tape of hypnotic sessions in which Mulder recalls the night his sister vanished. Mulder, meanwhile, sits in a church, crying as he looks at a picture of his sister.
| The X-Files TV series | ||
|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | Pilot • Deep Throat • Squeeze • Conduit • The Jersey Devil • Shadows • Ghost in the Machine • Ice • Space • Fallen Angel • Eve • Fire • Beyond the Sea • Gender Bender • Lazarus • Young at Heart • E.B.E. • Miracle Man • Shapes • Darkness Falls • Tooms • Born Again • Roland • The Erlenmeyer Flask | |
| Season 2 | Little Green Men • The Host • Blood • Sleepless • Duane Barry • Ascension • 3 • One Breath • Firewalker • Red Museum • Excelsis Dei • Aubrey • Irresistible • Die Hand Die Verletzt • Fresh Bones • Colony • End Game • Fearful Symmetry • Død Kalm • Humbug • The Calusari • F. Emasculata • Soft Light • Our Town • Anasazi | |
| Season 3 | The Blessing Way • Paper Clip • D.P.O. • Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose • The List • 2Shy • The Walk • Oubliette • Nisei • 731 • Revelations • War of the Coprophages • Syzygy • Grotesque • Piper Maru • Apocrypha • Pusher • Teso Dos Bichos • Hell Money • Jose Chung's From Outer Space • Avatar • Quagmire • Wetwired • Talitha Cumi | |
| Season 4 | Herrenvolk • Home • Teliko • Unruhe • The Field Where I Died • Sanguinarium • Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man • Tunguska • Terma • Paper Hearts • El Mundo Gira • Leonard Betts • Never Again • Memento Mori • Kaddish • Unrequited • Tempus Fugit • Max • Synchrony • Small Potatoes • Zero Sum • elegy • Demons • Gethsemane | |
| Season 5 | Redux • Redux II • Unusual Suspects • Detour • The Post-Modern Prometheus • Christmas Carol • Emily • Kitsunegari • Schizogeny • Chinga • Kill Switch • Bad Blood • Patient X • The Red and the Black • Travelers • Mind's Eye • All Souls • The Pine bluff Variant • Folie à Deux • The End | |
| Season 6 | The Beginning • Drive • Triangle • Dreamland • Dreamland II • How the Ghosts Stole Christmas • Terms of Endearment • The Rain King • S. R. 819 • Tithonus • Two Fathers • One Son • Agua Mala • Monday • Arcadia • Alpha • Trevor • Milagro • The Unnatural • Three of a Kind • Field Trip • Biogenesis | |
| Season 7 | The Sixth Extinction • The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati • Hungry • Millennium • Rush • The Goldberg Variation • Orison • The Amazing Maleeni • Signs and Wonders • Sein und Zeit • Closure • X-Cops • First Person Shooter • Theef • En Ami • Chimera • all things • Brand X • Hollywood A. D. • Fight Club • Je Souhaite • Requiem | |
| Season 8 | Within • Without • Patience • Roadrunners • Invocation • Redrum • Via Negativa • Surekill • Salvage • Badlaa • The Gift • Medusa • Per Manum • This Is Not Happening • Deadalive • Three Words • Empedocies • Vienen • Alone • Essence • Existence | |
| Season 9 | Nothing Important Happened Today • Nothing Important Happened Today II • Dæmonicus • 4-D • Lord of the Flies • Trust No 1 • Joe Doe • Hellbound • Provenance • Providence • Audrey Pauley • Underneath • Improbable • Scary Monsters • Jump the Shark • William • Release • Sunshine Days • The Truth (Part 1) • The Truth (Part 2) | |
| Season 10 | My Struggle • Founders Mutation • Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster • Home Again • Babylon • My Struggle II | |
| Season 11 | My Struggle III • This • Plus One • The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat • Ghouli • Kitten • Rm9sbG93ZXJz • Familiar • Nothing Lasts Forever • My Struggle IV | |