"Fallen Angel" is the tenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on November 19, 1993. It was written by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, and directed by Larry Shaw. The episode saw Jerry Hardin reprise his role as Deep Throat. The episode explored the series' overarching mythology. The episode was mostly well received.
The show centers on FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who work on cases called X-Files, which are linked to the paranormal. When Mulder and Scully investigate a mysterious crash site, they find that the official reports of the incident may be covering up the crash of a UFO. Meanwhile, Mulder meets a ufologist who he believes may be a former abductee.
The episode introduced the UFO fanatic character Max Fenig, portrayed by Scott Bellis, who would later return in the fourth season episodes "Tempus Fugit" and "Max". In addition, Fenig also laid the template for the introduction of The Lone Gunmen in the later first-season episode "E.B.E."
Plot[]
Near Townsend, Wisconsin, a UFO crashes in the woods. When the deputy sheriff arrives on the scene, he is killed by an invisible figure while surrounded by bright white light. As the U.S. Air Force monitors the crash, Colonel Calvin Henderson (Marshall Bell), the military's UFO reclamations expert, launches an operation to clean up the site.
After consulting with Deep Throat, Fox Mulder travels to Wisconsin and takes photos of the crash site, only to be captured. After being interrogated by Henderson, he is detained alongside an eccentric NICAP member named Max Fenig, who was also captured in the woods. The next morning, Dana Scully arrives to retrieve Mulder, telling him that FBI Section Chief Joseph McGrath is threatening to shut down the X-Files because of his actions. She also claims that the wreckage has been identified as a downed Libyan fighter jet; Mulder dismisses this explanation. Meanwhile, the invisible occupant of the UFO passes through an electronic fence set up around the crash site, escaping into the outside world.
The agents return to Mulder's motel room, finding it ransacked by Max. He turns out to be a fan of Mulder's, having followed NICAP's research into his work on the X-Files. Max brings the agents to his Airstream trailer, where he shows them audio transmissions from the deputy, as well as a fire crew that arrived at the crash site. Mulder and Scully visit the deputy's widow, who claims the government won't release her husband's body and has threatened her into silence. They also meet a doctor who treated the deputy and the fire crew, revealing that they died of abnormally severe burns; he claims that he was also threatened. Henderson arrives at the hospital with a group of burned soldiers, who were attacked after they cornered the invisible alien at their base.
Mulder returns to the motel and finds Max inside his trailer, having an apparent epileptic seizure. As Mulder tends to Max, he discovers a mysterious scar behind Max's ear. Mulder reviews earlier X-Files, discovering similar scars on two reported alien abductees. Scully believes that whatever abduction experience Max had was a schizophrenic delusion, having noticed medication in his trailer. But Mulder believes that Max, despite his interest in UFOs, is completely unaware of his experiences and was guided to Townsend by his abductors on the night of the crash.
The Air Force tracks a larger UFO as it hovers over Townsend. The invisible alien enters Max's trailer and abducts him. When the agents visit the trailer and find Max missing, an Army radio transmission reveals that he has been transported to a waterfront. They race to save Max as Henderson's men scour the area searching for him. The alien kills two soldiers who encounter Max, causing him to flee into a warehouse. As Mulder finds Max inside, the building is surrounded by Henderson's forces. Mulder tries to comfort Max but is attacked and injured by the alien. Mulder then sees Max floating in a pillar of light before vanishing. When Henderson finds that Max is missing, he orders Mulder arrested.
Back in Washington, both Mulder and Scully report to Section Chief McGrath, who does not believe their claims. McGrath offers an especially harsh reprimand to Mulder and presents written testimony by Henderson claiming that Max's body was found in a cargo container. McGrath and his disciplinary board decide to shut down the X-Files and dismiss Mulder from the FBI, but the decision is vetoed by Deep Throat, who feels it would be more dangerous for them to allow Mulder to turn whistleblower than to let him continue his work.
| 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 | |