by Chelsea Dee, Editor

I knew from the start this would probably be my favorite episode so far. It was similar to The Thing, and that’s one of my favorite horror movies. I am a psychological thriller fan, so anything that twists at your brain makes me happy. I’m not even going to ramble here, because this episode rocks and I want to get right into it. The very first scene is a man looking bloody and frenzied saying “we are not who we are.” Someone else shows up and they fight, and then the two of them commit suicide together. I was hooked. Scully and Mulder obviously are called in. This is at a base in the arctic, and naturally the weather is bad so that’ll cut them off from other people when they need help. They meet three scientists and a pilot: Danny, who is goofy and obviously going to die, Bear who is the pilot and easily expendable so he’s going to die, and then Dr. Da Silva and Dr. Hodge. Felicity Huffman plays Da Silva. I yelled when I saw her. I love these random celeb sightings.

The thing is this does play into a lot of tropes, but I like those tropes, so I was having a blast watching. They get there and immediately Mulder gets attacked by a dog, who bites Bear and they manage to get it down. They see an odd mark on its skin and then a really creepy terrifying movement of something underneath. I squirmed when I saw it. Yuck yuck yuck. Bear finds the same marks on his skin when he goes to the bathroom and panics, starting to get aggressive toward the others and insisting on leaving. Naturally no help can come to them during the storm. They hold Bear down and see the movement in his body, managing to cut out this terrifying worm and get it contained. Unfortunately Bear dies.

There’s no telling how the infection spreads and they’re all suspicious of one another. Since heightened emotions and anger are signs of it, this is a problem because they’re all intense and fearful and acting out in that way. So it could be anyone. They have the worm locked up and check each other’s bodies for the mark, but nothing can be found on anyone. Mulder points out the dog lost the mark though, so it doesn’t mean it will always be there. Mulder and Scully have a loud and intense fight about what to do with the worms once they find them. Scully wants to destroy it to protect everyone, Mulder wants to study it. They try to get some rest and Mulder hears something, so he starts wandering. He gets distracted by the dog waking up and being aggressive again, and then he sees blood in one of the metal lockers. He opens it to find Danny. See, told you he’d be a red shirt. They of course think Mulder is the one who is infected, and he’s panicking someone else is infected. Mulder and Scully hold their guns to each other and yell and eventually Mulder agrees to be locked away.

The scientists pow wow and learn more about the worm. Apparently if you put two worms in the same body they’ll cancel each other out. They try it on the dog and it works. All they need to do is put the current worm in Mulder, and if he’s infected, it’ll save him. Scully tries to tell Mulder that but he insists he’s not infected and he lets her examine him to prove it. The other two won’t hear that though and hold him down, but at the very last second Hodge sees the worm move in Da Silva’s neck and realizes it’s her. The three of them pin her down and manage to destroy it. Rescue finally comes, but when Mulder wants to go back in, it turns out it’s been torched by the government. Mulder thinks it hasn’t been and they’re just hiding it like they cover up everything.

This was without a doubt the best episode of the season so far for me. It was intense and well shot and another example of how they look outside of the box to get around their funding problems. They didn’t need CGI or special effects for this one, outside of a few small worm moving things. Pretty damn good considering. The acting with the two of them was marvelous, especially as everything got more crazy, and their fight about what to do with the worm was fascinating to watch. Then there was some more UST with them examining each other. I totally get what they said about this chemistry, it burns up on the screen. So I loved “Ice” and I continue to be impressed with the show.

Rating: – Like I said above, this was without a doubt my favorite episode of the season so far.

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