The Host

"The Host" is the second episode of the of . It premiered in the United States on September 23, 1994 on the . The episode was written by series creator and directed by . It is a "" story, independent of the series' arc.
==Synopsis==
While continuing work unrelated to the X-Files, Mulder apparently finds evidence of a giant, flukeworm-like monster, living in the New Jersey sewage system.
==Summary==
===Teaser===
ATLANTIC OCEAN
TWO MILES OFF THE COAST OF NEW JERSEY
Aboard a Russian ship in the Atlantic Ocean, a sailor walks along the lower decks and finds an overflowing toilet. He reports it to the ship's engineer who assigns a sailor named Dmitri to fix the problem. Later on the ship's lower decks, Dmitri works on removing a blockage that the engineer says must be dealt with before the sewage tanks can be purged. Frustrated by the assignment, Dmitri removes an access panel and is looking inside for the blockage when something grabs him and drags him into the sewage tank, even overwhelming several members of the ship's crew as they struggle to grab hold of Dmitri's legs. The ship's engineer urgently shouts orders to the other crew members to flush the tanks out to sea. The water inside the tank then begins to bubble but reveals no sign of Dmitri.
===Act One===
LONGSTREET MOTEL
WASHINGTON D.C.
FEDERAL WIRETAP #5A21147
 is disinterestedly conducting wiretap surveillance in a small, darkened room within Washington, D.C.'s Longstreet Motel when he is relieved from the assignment by an Bozoff, who is accompanied to the room by an Agent Brisentine. Leaving the room, Brisentine tells 
Mulder about his new assignment; a murder case in Newark, New Jersey, where his contact will be a Detective Norman. Mulder is surprised his reassignment was requested by .
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
At a downtown crime scene, Mulder meets up with Detective Norman. Heading to the victim's corpse, the detective leads Mulder into a sewer where he and Mulder make smalltalk about their disgust at their surroundings. Norman then shows Mulder to the body, revealing there is not much evidence. Wandering away, Mulder accepts Norman saying that the front side of the body has largely been eaten away and advises the detective to send the body to the FBI, care of AD Skinner.
At FBI Headquarters, Mulder demands to speak with Skinner, despite Skinner's secretary, Kimberly, claiming Skinner is unavailable. Seeing Skinner from Kimberly's office, a frustrated Mulder criticizes the assignments Skinner has placed him on. Once Skinner welcomes the agent into his own office, Mulder sees that a group of FBI officials are gathered around Skinner's conference table. Mulder immediately adopts a more polite air, explaining his current investigation seemed to concern merely a drugland body dumping, but he also mentions the X-Files, at which Skinner strongly reminds him that unit has been closed. Reluctantly, Mulder agrees to continue carrying out the assignments Skinner gives him, including his current investigation.
While Mulder is sitting alone on a bench at night, Agent approaches him. Mulder jokes he may be experiencing violent impulses but Scully jokingly answers that she is armed. Once Scully sits down next to him, Mulder vents his frustrations at the seeming triviality of his assignment, admitting that he has even recently been considering leaving the FBI. Scully insists she could help Mulder out with his current case, reminding him there is a dead body to be examined.
Scully later begins the examination, though the smell of the corpse at first clearly disgusts her. All the while commentating on the examination, she notices a strange tattoo on the victim's right forearm and is shocked to discover – while inspecting the man's internal organs – a form of gray flatworm that she then begins to remove.
In Newark, two sanitation workers begin work in a sewer when one, Craig, is suddenly dragged underwater, repeatedly, and screams in pain. The other man, standing on an overhead catwalk, desperately tries to save Craig, tossing a rope into the water near him. Their efforts eventually succeed and the pained man is pulled out of the water. However, he has a large wound on his back so his co-worker, horrified, speeds away to seek assistance.
===Act Two===
MIDDLESEX COUNTY HOSPITAL
SAYREVILLE, NEW JERSEY
A Doctor Zenzola examines Craig, who refers to a strong taste in his mouth – while Mulder enters – so the doctor duly inspects her patient's throat and gives him a piece of gum. The doctor then privately talks with Mulder, informing him the sanitation worker is claiming to have been attacked by something undetermined. Zenzola also mentions the wound on the man's back, referring to it as highly unusual. Mulder then briefly questions the victim, who suspects his attacker was a pet snake, and Zenzola shows Mulder the man's wound. Mulder receives a call from Scully, who tells him of the worm she found. Receiving another call, Mulder at first assumes that his caller is again Scully but it is actually a who first notifies Mulder that he has a friend at the FBI and then abruptly ends the call. Mulder agrees to Zenzola releasing her patient but is privately perplexed by the strange call.
FBI NATIONAL ACADEMY
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
After Mulder arrives in Scully's office, she shows him the flukeworm she found, wordily telling him about its parasitic nature. The pair of agents enlighten their conversation with some jokey banter. Scully then explains that she is left to conclude that the unlikely possibility that the single parasite killed the young victim. Mulder theorizes the wound on the sanitation worker's back could be from the scolex of a gigantic flukeworm. Scully starts to laugh at his theory but stops herself, realizing she had become too caught up in their discussion feeling like "old times." Scully seriously refutes Mulder's theory and he acts pleased that he doesn't have to tell Skinner the murder suspect is "a giant, blood-sucking worm." Having assumed the mysterious call he received earlier was due to Scully having launched a campaign for him, Mulder confronts her about it. She is puzzled about the matter but assures him she would never betray a confidence.
Meanwhile, Craig is in the bathroom of his own home. He tries to get rid of the taste in his mouth using an excessive amount of toothpaste. When he spits the toothpaste out, he is shocked to see blood mixed with it. He later showers but experiences an extreme choking sensation, regurgitating more blood and a flukeworm that slithers down the drain.
NEWARK COUNTY
SEWAGE PROCESSING PLANT
Mulder interviews Ray, a foreman at the county sewage processing facility, who briefly introduces Mulder to a worker named Charlie. Ray tells Mulder about the plant's workings and Mulder shows him the flukeworm from the body pulled out of the sewer. Ray seems unsurprised at its discovery, remarking virtually anything could have been breeding down in the antiquated sewage system. Outside the plant, Charlie notices something moving inside one of many filtration pools. Panicking, he telephones Ray. In a large darkened area inside the plant, Charlie is joined by Ray and Mulder. Charlie explains he is back-flushing the system and tells of his experience of having seen something. What he saw in the water is revealed to the group once it is caught in a large, transparent pipe. It appears to be a slimy, nearly featureless humanoid creature with a giant scolex mouth - the monstrous Flukeman.
===Act Three===
Scully is doing research on her computer, in her office at the , when she notices a tabloid newspaper being slid under her door. She briefly exits her office to see the paper's anonymous deliverer is now gone. Scully later comes across an article that suggests officials now suspect the incident aboard the Russian ship was due to some kind of monster. Learning of this incident for the first time, she returns to her computer and brings up a magnified view of the tattoo she discovered earlier. Scully then answers a call from Mulder, who implies he has found a much larger fluke than the one she previously caught.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
The agents peer into a room of the psychiatric facility where the Flukeman is being held. After Mulder points it out to Scully, she reacts in amazement. Using technical lingo, they remark that the Flukeman shares the flatworms' characteristic of being genderless and that it has aspects of both parasitic and primate physiology. Mulder comments he will apparently have to tell Skinner the murder suspect is indeed a "giant, blood-sucking worm." Scully tells Mulder of her conclusion that the body from the sewer was a Russian engineer, a determination she made after having detected its tattoo spells "Dmitri" in Cyrillic lettering. Mulder is puzzled how she managed to determine that, so she shows him the newspaper article, also implying she believes the paper was left by the same mysterious caller who told Mulder that, within the FBI, he has an ally. She tells him of her hope that he won't decide to quit the FBI.
Later in Skinner's office, Skinner looks through Mulder's field report regarding the Flukeman. Skinner deems the report as being acceptable, which Mulder thinks is a humorously odd reaction to the bizarreness of both the case and the suspect. Skinner clarifies he had his reactions to those in the morning and that the current meeting is to evaluate Mulder's work. Both men argue about how the Flukeman should best be handled, Mulder disputing Skinner's plan of transferring the being to a psychiatric institution. Skinner mentions the Flukeman is now responsible for the deaths of two people, as Craig was found dead – in his own home – due to his injuries. Mulder angrily asserts that, if he and Scully had still been assigned to the X-Files, they could have saved the second victim's life. Skinner agrees the case should have been an X-file, implies that he took orders to shut down that unit from someone else and dismisses Mulder.
U.S. Marshals transport the Flukeman, bound to a gurney, into an ambulance which then drives away. The vehicle's driver finds, while driving, that the Flukeman has escaped his bonds, leaving clear slime on the gurney's straps. Moments after investigating with a shotgun, the driver screams and his firearm is shot once, noises that can be heard from outside the vehicle, which is parked near a sign for Lake Betty Park. The Flukeman then crawls into one of a pair of public port-a-john lavatories nearby and hides inside the tank.
===Act Four===
LAKE BETTY PARK
5:27 am
The public toilets are emptied into a tanker truck, via a suction tube that momentarily becomes blocked.
LAKE BETTY PARK
6:37 am
The park is now a crime scene due to the discovery of the abandoned ambulance. When Mulder arrives, he notices the septage hauler truck as it leaves. Again meeting up with Detective Norman, Mulder is told the only evidence is a dead driver and an escaped prisoner. Mulder advises the being will attempt to head back underground. He answers another call from his mysterious contact, who instructs him success in his current assignment is imperative and that reinstatement of the X-Files must be undeniable. After the mystery caller abruptly ends the call, Mulder overhears Norman being contacted by an investigator who reports the discovery of the now-empty toilet. With this information, Mulder realizes the suspect may be on the truck he himself passed.
NEW JERSEY COUNTY
SEWAGE PROCESSING PLANT
8:15 am
Mulder hurriedly arrives back at the processing plant. He again talks with the foreman, Ray, who assures Mulder that the Flukeman will definitely become trapped in the sewage system. After a period of intense waiting near the plant's filtration pools, Mulder receives a call from Scully. She tells Mulder the fluke she caught earlier was one of many the Flukeman has been transmitting through its bite, as its method of reproduction, and that the Flukeman is looking for hosts. Ray relays news to Mulder that something has been spotted in a section of pipe. Using a map of the sewers, Ray shows Mulder the exact location of the sighting, the same place where the first body was found – an overflow system connected to the harbor. Mulder suspects both that the Flukeman entered the sewer system there and that the being is working its way back out to sea.
Mulder and the foreman hurry to the sewer. On Mulder's suggestion, Ray tries to close a metal gate over the overflow pipe, but slips and falls into the water. He is suddenly dragged underwater twice but desperate attempts by Mulder to pull him to safety are eventually successful. Mulder spots the Flukeman climbing into the overflow pipe so he races to close the gate, which agonizingly splits the being in half.
Back in Washington, D.C., Scully again meets with Mulder at their bench. Like before, they share humorous banter before Scully sits down; Mulder warns her he may slightly reek of the sewer but Scully chances sitting next to him anyway. Mulder notifies her about his mysterious contact alleging the importance of his work, although Scully at first mistakes those words as having come from Skinner. Scully lengthily informs Mulder she has determined the Flukeman, capable of spontaneous regeneration like any fluke or flatworm, is actually a human mutated by radiation from the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, having come off a decommissioned Russian freighter involved in the disposal of salvage material from that incident.
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
Deep underground, the Flukeman rejuvenates, opening its eyes and breathing long, rasping breaths.
==References==
Newark; New Jersey; Washington D.C.; Quantico; Virginia; NYPD; flatworm; US Marshal; liver; Russian; Chernobyl; Ukraine
==Cast==
Main Cast
* as 
* as 
Guest Starring
* as 
* as Flukeman
Co-stars
* Matthew Bennett as Craig
* Freddy Andreiuci as Detective Norman
* Don MacKay as Charlie
* Marc Bauer as Brisentine
* Gabrielle Rose as Dr. Zenzola
* Ron Sauve as Ray
* Dmitri Boudrine as Russian Engineer
* Raoul Ganee as Dmitri
* William MacDonald as Federal Marshal
Uncredited
* Hrothgar Mathews as Man on Phone
* Unknown as Kimberly, AD Skinner's assistant
== External Links ==
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=Episode Navigation=
Host, The
Category:The X-Files Season 2 episodes
Category:Monster of the Week episodes