1.19 "Shapes" Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Parkers were involved in a court case with Joe's tribe.

When Mulder and Scully interviewed the Parkers, Jim Parker told them that he and his son Lyle had heard a noise and went to investigate because they had recently lost four cows to attacks by a wild creature. While they were investigating, Lyle was attacked by a creature, and Jim killed it.

He said that he saw red eyes and fangs and thought he was shooting an animal when he fired his rifle. He said he had no reason to kill Joe Goodensnake, but he admitted that he was involved in a Federal court case over land boundaries with Joe's tribe, the Tregos.

Answer: A large swatch of skin

When Mulder and Scully investigated the crime scene, Scully thought it was an open and shut case because Joe Goodensnake had been shot at a close distance. She didn't think it was possible that Jim Parker could not have realized that he was shooting a man, not an animal.

When Mulder showed her the skin, she said it almost looked like a snakeskin that had been shed. She said she didn't think the Parkers were the types to skin their victim, and Mulder pointed out that there had been no mention of the victim being skinned in the police report so Scully said she wanted to examine the body.

Answer: The body had fangs.

Mulder and Scully met with Sheriff Tskany who was a bit cold because he said he could never get assistance from the Feds when he asked for it. The body was at the sheriff's office, and when Scully and Mulder looked at it, they noticed that Goodensnake had similar claw marks on his body as those on Lyle Parker, although Goodensnake's were older and had healed.

Then Mulder looked at Goodensnake's teeth and saw the elongated cuspid teeth: "We're going to need to take a look at Joe Goodensnake's dental records".

Answer: J. Edgar Hoover

According to Mulder, the first X-File had occurred in the same area of Montana in 1946. An animal had been tracked into a cabin and had been shot, but when the cabin was entered, all that was found was a human body. Hoover had put the case away as unsolvable, making it the first X-File. Similar murders were recorded in 1954, 1959, 1964 and 1978.

But Mulder pointed out that stories of shapeshifters predated the first X-File by 150 years, with Lewis and Clark having written about Native American men who could change into wolves.

Answer: Naked and asleep in a field

Lyle Parker had attempted to attend Joe Goodensnake's funeral, but Joe's sister Gwen spat at him, and the sheriff told him to leave. That evening, Jim Parker was killed, and at the crime scene the next day, the sheriff told Mulder and Scully that both Gwen and Lyle were missing. Scully found Lyle in a field near the ranch.

He told Scully that he had drunk bourbon after leaving the funeral and didn't remember anything else from that evening other than seeing his father on the porch.

Answer: It didn't need a full moon to change.

Ish was impressed that Mulder was willing to consider the Native American legends, in contrast to Sheriff Tskany. He noted that Mulder even had an Indian name: "You should be Running Fox or Sneaky Fox". "Just as long as it's not Spooky Fox" was Mulder's reply. Ish told Mulder that he had seen the creature when he was younger. Watkins, the subject of the first X-File, had been attacked by an animal and received scars, and later the murders began. Ish said that when he was 16, he had seen Watkins through a window, covered in sweat and blood and in great pain.

Then he saw the skin tear off and claws emerge. According to Ish, the creature was a shapeshifter called a manitou, and the manitou "overtakes a man by night, not by full moon". There was some criticism of this episode for its misinterpretation of the manitou folklore.

Answer: Lyle had ingested the blood.

After finding Lyle naked and disoriented, Scully took him to the local clinic for a checkup and then drove him back to his house. When Mulder called the clinic to try to find Scully, the doctor told him that the blood samples taken during the exam showed traces of Jim Parker's blood type and that it could only be there through ingestion. Mulder then realized that Lyle must have become infected when he was attacked by Joe Goodensnake, and with night approaching, Scully was in danger.

Answer: Bathroom

Lyle started looking strange as they were driving to his house, and when they arrived, he went straight into the bathroom. He began to groan and cry out in pain as he transformed. Realizing that something was wrong, Scully attempted to unlock the door by removing the lock, but the door must have been pretty solid, because she didn't hear the growls before Lyle the animal burst through the door.

Answer: Sheriff Tskany

After talking to the clinic doctor and realizing that Lyle was a manitou, Mulder tried to call Scully but the reception was weak in that area, and he couldn't reach her. So Sheriff Tskany and he headed out for the Parker's ranch. It was dark and quiet when they arrived; Tskany looked around the outside of the property while Mulder went into the house. Mulder spotted the claw marks on a wall and knew that Lyle had morphed. Mulder found Scully upstairs in the house; she said something jumped her downstairs and she lost her gun. While they were looking around upstairs, Lyle lurched at them from behind and as Mulder turned around, Tskany shot Lyle with his shotgun.

There seems to be some differences of opinion on the Internet on who killed Lyle. While preparing this quiz, I found one source that listed Mulder and another that listed Scully, but the DVD of the episode showed that it was Sheriff Tskany who killed the Lyle animal as it was about to attack Mulder and Scully. Tskany ejected the shell after firing his shot gun and asked them if they were OK.

Answer: "See you in about eight years"

Ish was referring to the history of the murders associated with the manitou in the past, and although they didn't occur on a strict time table, they averaged about eight years apart. However since the manitou curse passed through the blood and both Lyle Parker and Joe Goodensnake were dead, it didn't seem likely that the murders would occur again. Sadly, Ish didn't call Mulder "Sneaky Fox" or "Running Fox"; he just yelled out, "FBI. See you in about eight years" to which Mulder replied, "I hope not".