Note: These synopses are not official synopses. They were written by the talented people at: http://www.themareks.com/xf/gunmen.html who have constructed a Lone Gunmen timeline and an X-Files timeline
A long line of people file into the illuminated offices of E-Com-Con Computer Corporation for an evening reception. On the roof of the building, Byers and Frohike, dressed in black, are gaining secret entrance into the building through a ventilation duct. A public relations woman begins to describe their "Octium" processor chip in glowing detail, but Langly, who is attending the reception, starts making cat calls. He accuses the company of embedding modem technology on the chip and invading the privacy of users. On a cue from Byers, received on Langly's tiny earpiece, Langly begins to fake convulsions.
Byers and Frohike use Langly's distraction to gain access to the secure room containing an Octium chip. Byers lowers Frohike from the ceiling using a powered winch, in order to not trigger the pressure sensitive floor of the room. Security guards, paying attention to Langly, do not see the incursion on their video monitors. As Frohike hangs from the ceiling, a slender bearded man, wearing a black trench coat, uses a computer system to take control of Frohike's winch, throwing him out of control. The man enters the chamber, setting off the security alarms. As Frohike hangs upside down, the man firmly kisses Frohike on the mouth, then grabs the Octium chip and leaves the room. Security guards do not see the man, but catch Frohike. They find Byers, and have also discovered Langly's earpiece. The guards demand the chip back, and when the Gunmen do not respond, a "full body cavity search" is ordered. Meanwhile, a strikingly beautiful woman emerges from a restroom, drops a wig and beard hairpiece in a trash canister, and walks off, miniskirted hips undulating.
The Lone Gunmen return to their Takoma Park, MD, warehouse office, having finally been released by E-Com-Con. They still want to prove the company's planned invasion of privacy, but don't have the chip they need for proof. Byers wonders if they are really making a difference with their work -- their latest issue had a circulation of just over 2,800, and they are "preaching to the converted." Frohike is convinced that the bearded man was really a woman, because of the way she kissed. She is Yves Adele Harlow and has probably already sold the chip to the highest bidder. Wondering how she knew of their plans, Frohike finds a listening device in the office -- she has been listening to them. The phone rings and Byers answers. He is informed that his father has been killed in a one-car accident.
At a cemetery, Bertram Roosevelt Byers is eulogized as a good civil servant who had a strong belief in the power of the government to do good, having been a civilian employee of the Air Force. His ashes are shot into the sky with a small model rocket. The two Byers have been estranged since John began working on The Lone Gunman newspaper eleven years earlier, walking away from an eventual government pension. Ray Helms introduces himself -- he was a friend of Bertram. He is not convinced that Bert's death was an accident. They visit the spot, underneath an overpass, where Bert's car ran off the road. Helms thinks Bert was shot and the car accident faked, because of something Bert knew. The Gunmen go to Bert's home. His PC has been wiped clean. Frohike slips and falls on wet carpet, then uses ultraviolet light to find the remains of a large blood stain. Hacking the raw data on the computer hard drive, Langly finds file directories of what appear to be government files, including one named scenario_12_d.txt.
Byers concludes that his father was murdered at his home and the car accident faked. The Gunmen go to an auto salvage yard. After a brief misunderstanding that Bert's car is about to be crushed, they are shown the actual car, already crushed. Byers is convinced that somewhere inside the tangle of metal is an answer. Meanwhile, Langly is at a firing range, apparently near the Gunmen's offices, shooting at virtual targets. He asks another shooter for help getting into the Department of Defense computer systems, then notices a woman in another stall of the firing range. He is told that she is Yves Adele Harlow, and he has a brief conversation with her. She speaks with a continental accent and is condescending about The Lone Gunmen publication.
Byers and Frohike have Bert's car back at their shop, taking it apart to look for evidence. Frohike feels that Byers is hoping to discover that his father was someone who he can respect. Byers says his father's stories of President Kennedy's vision of "Camelot" made John who he is. Frohike finds a small circuit board in the engine compartment that was apparently used to control the speed of the car when the accident was faked. Langly's friend helps the Gunmen hack into the DOD computer and find the 12D scenario file. As they begin to download, a DOD worker detects the download and begins blocking it, accessing the Gunmen's computers. It becomes a race to see if the Gunmen can download their file before having their identify revealed. Finally, Frohike pulls the plug. They don't have the file, but from the file header they know that it deals with terrorism against civilian aircraft. The DOD worker apologizes to his superior, who we see is Ray Helms. Helms says it's OK, because he knows who it was.
The Gunmen have pulled an all-nighter. They are trying to figure out why someone would go to the trouble of faking the accident when the body already had a bullet hole in it. Frohike speculates that maybe the blood stain wasn't Bert's blood. They return to the overpass and Helms drives up. They tell Helms that the blood has been tested and was not Bert's -- it was the assassin's. As improbable as it seems, Bert had just had the carpet cleaned and the assassin apparently slipped and shot himself. Realizing he was in danger, Bert hurries out of his house and discovers a remote control device on the seat of his car. He puts the assassin's body in his car and fakes his own death. The Gunmen ask Helms for his password so they can locate the information on the 12D scenario. He tells them that it is "Overlord."
Byers goes back to his father's home and finds Bert there. Bert slaps him and says he should not have gotten involved. The 12D plan is for a small group of government operatives to crash a jetliner into New York City in order to keep tensions high and increase arms sales. Bert is doing what he can and thinks he knows which flight they have targeted. Back at the Gunmen's office, Frohike is working on anagrams when Byers returns. Helms is also there, and Byers tells him he has talked with his father. It was the plan of the government to flush Bert out of hiding using John. Ray hurries off to find Bert. After he leaves, Bert comes to the door of the Gunmen's office. The two Byers head for the airport to try to find the explosives in the aircraft. Both board the plane, but cannot find explosives, using hydrocarbon "sniffer" devices.
They realize that the airplane will be remote controlled, just like Bert's car was. Talking by phone to the Gunmen's office, Byers asks Langly and Frohike to hack into the aircraft controls. They do and discover that the plane is programmed to crash into the World Trade Center. Bert enters the cockpit and tries to warn the aircrew, but they don't believe him. Making a lunge, he deactivates the autopilot and the crew realizes that they are not in control. They have 22 minutes before they hit the building. Langly can't break the encryption on the aircraft control system --- his computer doesn't have the processing power and the computer keeps freezing. Frohike slips next door to the firing range and finds Yves there. He needs the Octium but she is not impressed by the need to save people's lives. Frohike points out that her name is an anagram for "Lee Harvey Oswald" and says he knows who she is. She uses the Octium in her laptop to somehow assist Langly break the encryption and give the pilots control of the aircraft again. The plane barely misses the skyscraper.
As they leave the airplane, Bert tells his son that they are much alike, except that John has something Bert doesn't -- bravery. Bert will not testify because if he did, his life would be in danger again. His silence will keep them both alive. Back at the Gunmen's office, the three partners discuss their next newspaper issue. They don't have proof of the 12D scenario. Frohike says they can write about the Octium invasion of privacy. He holds up the chip. How did he get it? After first claiming that Yves couldn't control herself because of their kiss, he admits that he grabbed it and ran.
The dates for the episode "Three Men and a Smoking Diaper" are apparently set during the November 2000 US Senate election. This suggests that all previous episodes in the series are prior to November 2000.
While searching for the killer of a notorious hacker, the astute three find a not-so-astute fourth.
An oriental man is sitting alone in a room, his hands tied behind him. The room has an oriental appearance, with paper walls. Another man enters. The first asks in Japanese if he is in Towson, Maryland, and the second replies that they are in Osaka. The second draws a large knife and tells the first that he is about to be put out of the whaling business. A third man enters, also speaking Japanese. It is Frohike, dressed in traditional Japanese style. He and the second man fight. Frohike does surprisingly well, making astounding leaps and kicks, eventually scaring off the second man. Frohike claims to be a special investigator and asks the captive where his whaling fleet is. The captive admits that all three of his ships are at Yokahama, but just then the prisoner frees himself from his bonds - he has managed to get his hands on the knife. He discovers that Frohike is attached to the ceiling on wires - it was all a ruse to get the location of the whaling fleet. The wires allowed Frohike's exceptional leaps and kicks. The second man is nearby, with Byers and Langly, monitoring the scam. They all run for it, but Frohike is stopped by the wires and pulled backwards, knocking the whaler to the floor.
In Glen Cove, Long Island, at 3am, a man (later identified as Alex Goldsmith) is on the balcony of a mansion, hitting golf balls into the yard. Inside, three laptops are formatting hard drives. Another man, later identified as a diplomat, enters the room, pulls out a silenced gun and shoots Alex, who falls to the ground. The next day, Byers arrives home at the Lone Gunmen office. This week's issue has been printed, but they can't afford to pay for it. Langly proposes to put girlie pictures on they covers of future issues to build circulation. The door buzzes and Yves enters the office. She tells them about Alex, a highly skilled computer hacker who was found dead. Police think it was the result of a drug deal, but Yves says the bullets were typical of intelligence agency weapons. The Gunmen head out to check out the story, but their VW van is out of gas. They finally arrive at Alex' home and talk with his mother. Langly is ill from swallowing gas that they siphoned out of other vehicles (one gallon out of each of ten vehicles). Mrs. Goldsmith doesn't know what Alex was working on. She lets them look at his computer, which has been wiped clean. While Mrs. Goldsmith is upstairs, Langly pukes into Alex's golf bag, which is covered with autographs of famous golfers. Byers and Frohike send Langly to the bathroom to clean up the bag, and the signatures wash off. The three gunmen beat a hasty retreat, as we hear Mrs. Goldsmith scream upon discovering the bag.
Back in the van, Langly reveals that he found a check for $1 million, written to Alex by POE, Philanthropic Outreach Enterprises. They conduct surveillance on POE and see a man leave. The license plate on his car traces to "James Bond," which is apparently a false name. The Gunmen follow to another residence, and then walk through woods to try to observe Bond. They see a football field with players practicing and hear odd beeping sounds. When a beeping ball lands near the Gunmen, Frohike picks it up and is immediately tackled by several of the players. Jimmy Bond comes up and introduces himself. The football players are all blind and POE is funding a blind football league. The Gunmen say they are journalists and Jimmy understands The Lone Gunman to be a hunting and fishing publication. He says that POE is a charitable endowment with anonymous donors. The Gunmen head back to their van and find that they are out of gas again. While Frohike and Byers deal with that problem, Langly hitchhikes back to the POE office. Finding nobody there, he enters an office and begins hacking into their computer systems. The diplomat who killed Alex enters and Langly claims he wants Alex' job, demonstrating his proficiency. The diplomat says he has the job, but then takes Langly captive. As Jimmy helps with gas for the VW, Yves phones and tells the Gunmen that Langly is being loaded into a van.
Yves, Byers and Frohike are observing a diplomatic residence owned by a small country that broke away from the Russian Republic. Yves says the entire thing is about an arms deal and that POE is a shell company, created to hide the transaction. She won't say why she is involved. Langly is freed and taken to the room containing three laptops. He is told to create a bogus company and buy large amounts of e-commerce stock. The scam will inflate prices and result in $50 million that can be used to buy nerve gas. The diplomat locks Langly in the room. Jimmy is recruited to help save Langly. He is shocked that the blind football league was a scam and makes a heartfelt speech about people who have the courage to fight for lost causes. They take him to the diplomatic residence where he gains entrance through the security gate. The diplomat and a security guard meet Jimmy on the driveway and knock him unconscious with a golf club, dragging him into the house. "Tell me this isn't part of the plan," comments Yves. Langly and Jimmy discover that they are in adjacent rooms and talk to each other underneath the door. Jimmy has something for Langly and ends up punching a hole on the door to hand it through - a Ghost Modem circuit that will allow Langly to communicate with his friends without the others in the house knowing about it. He makes contact - they want him to put the money gained from the e-commerce stocks into a special bank account.
As the diplomat watches, Langly begins the transaction. Meanwhile, Jimmy breaks down the door to his room Langly completes the transaction and the diplomat pulls out a gun, but a security guard comes in and speaks their foreign language with excitement. The diplomat puts his gun away and leaves, locking Langly in again. Jimmy jumps to the ground, then calls up to Langly to jump. Jimmy promises to catch Langly and break his fall. As Langly jumps, Frohike, who has gained entry through the security gate, calls to Jimmy to hurry. Jimmy is distracted, turns, and Langly hits the ground. Jimmy and Frohike help Langly to the minibus. Meanwhile, Yves has grabbed a disk, kissed Byers quickly and disappeared. They drive off. Yves only made it look like Langly bought stock and accumulated money. Instead, she used the account codes to steal all of the money that was already in the account. The leaders of the breakaway country are now bankrupt.
Later, we see Mrs. Goldsmith hug Langly. He has given her the $1 million check and she has forgiven him for the golf bag incident. Returning to their offices, they find the stacks of last week's issues waiting for them. Jimmy is there, too. He paid for the printing because the Lone Gunmen fight lost causes and he wants to help.
A lederhosen-clad Frohike convinces a Nazi war criminal that he is her long-lost son.
The episode begins with a Movietone news real about the 1944 D-Day invasion of France. It tells the story that while France was being liberated, several members of the French resistance were poisoned and the killer never found. Suspicion centered of Madame Davos, the best baker in the village of Verzenay in Alsace Lorraine. A high ranking Nazi officer, rumored to be her lover, was arrested - a man who looked much like Frohike does today. He reportedly gave her orders to commit the poisoning, but he refuses to help find her. She has not been seen since. The newsreel ended, we see a scene in which a woman gives a child to a German soldier, who rides off on a bicycle with the child in a basket.
Frohike is searching through files - the newspaper deadline her here and he has not yet finished his column. He is looking for a Warren Commission file but Jimmy has been filing for The Lone Gunmen and put The Warren Commission file under "T." Byers argues that Jimmy has a good heart, and is funding their operation. Jimmy walks in and the Gunmen try to fire him, but he makes a speech about how he's been looking all his life for something like this - the three of them are heroes and he's proud to be part of the team. Jimmy finally tells them to not feel weird about taking his money.
A man, Michael Wilhelm, comes to the door, looking for Frohike - he is the only one who can catch a killer. He shows the last known photo of Madam Davos. Last month a personal advertisement appeared in newspapers across Europe from Anna Haag, looking for her missing child. The village name and the dates listed in the ad are correct. The child's father looks like Frohike, and Wilhelm wants Frohike pass himself off as the child and bring the killer to justice. Wilhelm says he is the son of the poisoned prefect of the villager. He leaves, saying to call him if Frohike changes his mind. Frohike argues that he just can't pass for a 56 year old man but the others go to work with makeup and transform Frohike. Byers and Langly will monitor his vital signs from the VW van, in case she attempts to poison him. The Davos family all have a birthmark, shaped like Germany, on their bottoms. It is the only means of making a positive ID. As a result, Frohike also needs the birthmark, and he bends over to have a fake birthmark applied.
Frohike goes to the Haag home. An elderly woman answers the door and leads him into the house. She hardly notices as he pulls back her skirt, looking for the birthmark, but another women interrupts. The second woman is Mrs. Haag. She scrutinizes Frohike carefully, and Byers and Langly lose contact with him - apparently her hug disconnects Frohike's transmitter. Another woman bangs on the VW and objects to them parking there, spying. Byers and Langly claim to be conducting surveillance on Anna's maid for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Hours later, Frohike gets into contact again. Anna has insisted that he stay the night. He speaks to the others briefly, but Anna comes in and grabs his clothes to be laundered, taking the transmitter away with her, too.
The next morning, the guys in the van are hungry. They see the neighbor lady going to the Haag house. Did she expose them? They try calling on the radio, and the elderly maid hears the signals and dumps the transmitter in the trash. Frohike is given the clothes of Anna's dead husband - German-style shorts. He looks for his radio transmitter, but is again interrupted by Anna. She has a pastry for him - is she trying to poison him? Frohike secretly throws away the cake, and finds the transmitter in the trash where the maid put it. He gets in touch and they Byers tells him to get the cake, because it is evidence and they need to analyze it. The maid comes into the kitchen to clean up, and finds the cake in the trash. She pulls it out and nibbles on it.
Back at the office, Yves picks the lock and enters the Lone Gunmen's warehouse office. She hacks the computers, but is surprised to hear "bad to the bone" on the stereo - Jimmy is dancing in a shirt with no pants. Yves does something to the computer then prepares to leave. Jimmy stops her. She tells him the Gunmen are on over their heads. The man who brought them the story is not who he claims to be - the man he claims was his father was poisoned, but died childless. Meanwhile, Anna has Frohike exercising, as befits the master race - even jogging with her, but he eventually falls in pain. She takes him inside and puts an ice bag in his leg. She makes an emotional speech about how she lost him in the war, when the world was hard on little things. It robbed her of her treasure, her son. Today she has that treasure back. Anna urges Frohike to eat again and he suggests ordering a pizza. As she goes to make the call, Frohike makes his way to the kitchen to get the cake, but he now doubts that Anna is guilty. He finds that the pastry is gone and finds the maid, dead on the floor nearby. Maybe he spoke too soon.
Later, the coroner is taking the body away. Wilhelm, by phone, says Frohike has to stay, or Madame Davos might be scared into fleeing. The neighbor lady is there and says Anna wants to have a few friends over that evening. Anna asks Frohike to answer the phone - she is going to take a shower. Meanwhile, Wilhelm leaves his hotel room and Yves and Jimmy are watching. Jimmy told Yves where Wilhelm is staying. She says he was with the East German secret police. He is a cold blooded murderer and there is a large bounty on him. Wilhelm is Madame Davos' real son, Yves tells Jimmy, and the Gunmen are stalking horses sent in to find out if she is really his mother. Yves slips into Wilhelm's room, leaving Jimmy as lookout. She dusts for fingerprints, but Wilhelm returns, missing Jimmy by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Yves sneaks around Wilhelm's room while he talks on the phone, eventually slipping out. Now they have to rescue the Gunmen.
Frohike sneaks into the bathroom with a camera to see if Anna has the birthmark, but slips in the bathroom and doesn't get the shot. The camera goes flying. He claims he didn't know she was in there and feels dirty. She puts him in a bathtub and begins to scrub him with a bath brush. The birthmark comes off. Now she wants to shampoo him - she knows it is a toupee. She tells him to take it off, saying she loves him just the way he is. That night, Yves and Jimmy drive up to the VW bus and talk to Byers and Langly. Yves tells them that they have been set up and have to get Frohike out. Wilhelm is on his way to retrieve his mother and flee the country, but Anna is not really his mother - Yves heard him say into the phone that the Gunmen were spying on the wrong woman. Could it be the neighbor lady? Langly is horrified that the neighbor just gave him some muffins. Were they poisoned? Langly falls over backwards.
Anna is now helping Frohike in dress clothes. They were her late husband's. He says "I've dressed myself since I was 40." In between Anna bringing him ties from the next room to try on, Frohike talks to Jimmy through the window. He tells her that Anna is not Madame Davos. Anna catches them and asks who Jimmy is. She is also holding the transmitter that she has found. "We need to talk," Frohike tells her. Wilhelm drives up carrying a gun toward the VW bus. Yves injects him with a drug that knocks him out. Langly is conscious but his stomach hurts.
Wilhelm goes to the neighbor lady's home. Frohike intercepts him, claiming to the neighbor that he is a friend. Frohike tells Wilhelm that Mrs., Haag poisoned his friend. They go next door and Anna is there, with a dead women, one of her friends. Wilhelm tells her that she is his mother, but the neighbor lady interrupts, confessing that she is his mother and was just using Anna to find him. Wilhelm asks to see the birthmark, which she shows, proving that she is the Poisoner of Alsace. But Wilhelm reaches his fingers to his face - he is really Jimmy, wearing a mask. The neighbor gave Anna the pastry for Frohike. As police take her away, she points out that Frohike lied, too. Frohike apologizes to Anna - he had to lie but he is sorry she got hurt and sorry she hasn't found her son. She tells him that she did - for a day or so, while she thought Frohike was her son, and it made her feel better.
Outside, the FBI has told Byers that Yves has already filed for the bounty on Wilhelm. Yves did save their buts, they recognize. Jimmy wonders if maybe she isn't the person they think she is. She drives off in her sports car as Jimmy makes his comment.
The search for a water-powered car fuels the Gunmen to encounter missile silos, cows and unhelpful government clerks.
The episode opens with a narration by Jimmy Bond about heroes, and we see film of General MacArthur, Apollo 11, Churchill, Gandhi, among others. You never know when one will turn up and where, he says. In Sterling, Virginia, in 1974, several school children talk about what they want to be when they grow up. Young John Byers wants top be a career bureaucrat, so he can help people. In Saltville, Nebraska, in 1982, young Richard Langly is in a barn on his family's farm (he obviously hates cattle) and tells his father that his "toy" computer is the future and he expects to make a fortune working in the computer industry. In Pontiac, Michigan, in 1967, young Melvin Frohike tackles the captain of the football team, forcing him to admit that Frohike's favorite car is the best. Young Frohike says he thinks big – he's going to do big things and then write about them. He'll make the world a better place, like, uh, Hugh Hefner. Jimmy's narration concludes with the thought that these are three paths leading, to one destiny – to change the world and make history.
Byers visits the Federal File Depository. Byers narrates how history sneaks up on you – living your life and "boom," you're swept up in it. Byers talks to a file clerk, who knows him pretty well by the frequent requests Byers makes, under the freedom of information act. They are both surprised that this one went through. Byers is given a large cardboard box. Back at the office, Frohike is working on the paper shredder. Langly is playing a video game – he has spent two weeks on the game and he is up to "crown prince." Frohike comments that playing computer games is why Langly is a 32-year-old virgin. Byers arrives with his box, which is very heavy. They cut the plastic strap and inside is a cement block – the civil servant's sense of humor. Also inside the box, Jimmy finds a single sheet of paper. Like many documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, most of the words are blacked out, but it has the name Stan Mizer on it. Frohike has first told Jimmy to shred the paper, but on hearing Mizer's name, Frohike dives to the electrical plug for the shredder. The paper is already shredded but the Gunmen do a computer scan of the shreds and slowly reassemble them. Stan was an inventor who allegedly perfected a car than ran on water. He died in mid 70s, but Frohike actually rode in the car – a green 1959 Studebaker Lark. Frohike thinks Mizer was threatened, maybe by the big oil companies. The car had the same horsepower as usual, but zero pollution. The document reconstruction shows a pallet number, probably a shipping record, and a person's initials, "J.T." Frohike is determined to find the car that he believes still exists.
Yves drives up to a meeting with a man, later identified as Henry Fast, who works for an oil company. He is paying her to find the car. She has nothing for him yet, but soon hopefully, she says. He commented that it's amazing that our entire economy is based on dinosaurs – but he means the oil companies, which he points out are huge and lumbering with sharp teeth. The Gunmen are at the home of Mizer's daughter, Shelly. Frohike visited her in the mid-1980s, trying to get access to Stan's files. She wouldn't give them to him and he caused a disturbance when the police came to remove him. Frohike suspects the mailman is watching them, and when the mailman reaches into his bag, Frohike abruptly pulls Byers into Shelly's house. It turns out that the mailman is just the mailman, and shelly calls the police. The police put her on hold, and Frohike makes clear that he admires Stan and wants his work to see the light of day. She relents. Meanwhile, Langly can't find any record of the pallet. Jimmy wonders about the coincidence of the paper showing up when Frohike is so interested. Langly notices that there is no FOI stamp in the document and realizes that the document was planted for them to find. Yves leaves the FOI office and the clerk has lipstick on his face. Fast man enters and asks what Yves wanted. He believes that she was looking for a car and Fast wants to know what the clerk told her. Langly and Jimmy arrive at the office and find the clerk, dead.
Shelly takes Frohike and Byers to the basement where all of her father's files are. Langly calls to tell then the clerk is dead and Langly suspects Yves. The last name on the log is another anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald. Byers and Frohike don't think she is a killer. Frohike finds a watercolor Shelly painted years ago of her dad's car. It is on the back of a piece of photo paper. On the other side is a picture of Stan with his best friend, Mr.. Guthrie – J.T. Guthrie. She used to play with J.T.'s son. The Gunmen, Jimmy and Shelly all drive in the VW minibus to North Dakota, where J.T. lives on a farm. Frohike relates how Stan gave Frohike and Frohike's father a ride in 1962. At a diner, Melvin saw Stan pour water into his carburetor. It was a magical afternoon. The VW van has a blowout. They don't have a jack (they left it at home to make room for the night vision goggles). Jimmy lifts the passenger side just enough so that Byers can slide a chunk of wood under the axel – it takes enormous strength, but the bus tips over into a water-filled ditch. Later, the VW is towed by a wrecker to the Guthrie farm. Cattle are a nightmare Langly thought he had escaped. Byers, Frohike and Shelly walk to the house, but the farmer comes out and thinks that Langly and Jimmy are county extension agents, here to see a bull names "J.T." Confused, Langly plays along and ends up giving the bull a "rectal palpation". This requires Langly to insert his plastic-covered arm up the rear end of the bull. The farmer pulls a gun, realizing that Langly and Jimmy are fakes. Shelly comes in and it turns out that the farmer is Jason Guthrie, J.T.'s son. J.T. died two months ago, and the bull was bought the same week, named in honor of Jason's father. Jason is in debt and is in danger of losing the farm.
Jason suggests that the pallet number is probably an Air Force inventory number. His dad was stationed at "Biznot Air Force Base," not far away. It is mostly closed down. Jimmy enters the base in AF uniform, being the only member of the group who looks military. He doesn't understand military procedures very well, saluting the janitor. He sneaks into the file room as a security guard approaches and finds the original of the FOI document – just as the guard enters and orders him face down on the floor. Jimmy jumps the guard ---and finds that it is Yves in military uniform. She was using a device to make her voice sound like a man's. The document is torn in half, and each of them ends up with half.
Back at the farm, they all conclude that the document is an AF materials invoice. The pallet weighed around 2000 pounds, which is about right for a car. Langly accuses Yves of murder, but she claims she didn't know the file clerk was dead. She tells them about Fast. She wasn't working for him, just taking his money. Yves had the clerk give Byers the FOI sheet. Yves claims to know where the car is, from her half of the page. She turns the paper over – the car is in storage room 4, silo C. Jason thinks it's an ICBM silo, which would certainly be a safe place for storage. That night, Fast and Jason meet in Jason's barn – they know each other and Fast gives Jason a large check for helping find the car. The VW is running again, but the Minot newspaper says the silos are going to be demolished today. A band is playing at the silo sites and a crowd has gathered to see the explosion. The Gunmen have snuck into the silo and are repelling down the cylindrical silo. At the base they find underground chambers and passages. One door is labeled "Silo C Storage." As the explosion is about to be set off, Yves sees a truck hauling away the car, with Fast in the cab. She radios the Gunmen to get out, but the signal doesn't get through. The crowd counts down 10-1 and the explosions are set off – are the Gunmen dead?
At night, Jimmy is digging – Yves says the concrete is 9 feet thick, reinforced with hardened steel. He says he doesn't matter. He keeps at it to find his friends, but out of the evening fog the three Gunmen walk up, wearily. They crawled through a ventilation shaft. Yves doesn't know where Fast took the car. Back at the farm, Jason confesses that he took money from Fast, but he couldn't bring himself to deposit the check. Shelly is surprised that the Gunmen would go as far as they have. She confesses that her father's car on the farm – she found it earlier in the day. She shows they the framework of a car, without a body, under a tarp. It's been sitting there for years and Jason didn't know what it was. His father wouldn't let him get rid of it. Stan and J.T. put a decoy in the silo. Shelly says they will have to destroy it – what her father really wanted. He didn't think that the world should have it. It would send the economy through the roof and cause a huge development boom – more people, more consumption, more use of resources. Her father didn't want to be responsible for that. Fast comes in. He doesn't want to destroy the car; he wants to make billions off the invention. As he is about to shoot them, Jimmy dives at the bull and Fast is kicked through the wall.
The ambulance takes Fast away. Shelly and Jason are holding hands – a romance may be flourishing. They still have the check, which can save the farm. Jimmy's narration says that sometime changing the world is not a good thing. The invention is still out there, waiting until the world is ready for it. Meanwhile, Frohike takes the shell of the car for a drive around the farmyard and for him, it is another magical afternoon.
Note: the grass on Jason's farm is quite green, suggesting a date before hard frost.
It's not politics as usual when a Senator's mistress is murdered and the Gunmen are forced to baby-sit the evidence.
A television reporter covers a political rally - it is four days before the election and a campaign worker of Senator Jefferson, Barbara Bonabo, has been killed in a traffic accident. Byers is in the crowd, holding a silver balloon. The reporter asks the senator about an alleged cover-up of the Barbara's with the senator. Langly and Byers are in the VW minibus nearby, using radios to feed questions to the reporter's earpiece. The producer of the news report, in the TV remote truck, realizes that the balloon Byers is holding is an antenna. Byers escapes, but the producer intercepts Jimmy. Moments later, police open the VW door and arrest Langly and Frohike.
At the police impound yard, Langly and Frohike exit a police van - Langly complains that he just spent nine hours in jail. The cop seems to be insulting Langly's long hair and Langly starts to retaliate, but Frohike intervenes. There are only four days to the election and have work to do. Byers and Jimmy meet them there. The senator's poll ratings have actually gone up - their stunt backfired. On the window of the van, written in the dirt, they find several letters and numbers - someone has left them information that they soon determine is a prescription number of the dead woman. Langly and Frohike go to her doctor's office, trying to get the file. A nurse intercepts them and they fake Frohike having a stomachache. She wants to send him for a lower gastrointestinal test, but they counter by claiming he has gas. While Frohike is escorted into an exam room, Langly sits in the waiting room, looking for a chance to grab the files. Frohike fakes breaking air, using a water bottle to produce sound effects. When the nurse goes to investigate, Langly quickly hacks the computer. Frohike is hauled off on a stretcher.
Byers paints a special adhesive on Jimmy's hand - he got the adhesive from a friend in the FBI. All Jimmy has to do is go in and shake hands with people on the Senator's staff. Byers will match the hand prints with the handprints on the VW's windows. Jimmy goes into the campaign HQ, but everybody is too busy to shake hands with him. He ends up licking envelopes, happy to be working on a political campaign because he respects Senator Jefferson. The adhesive begins coming off and he tries to reattach it with Elmer's glue, ending up with many pieces of paper stuck all over his body. He goes into a stall in the backroom to remove the papers. A man and women enter - they are the two campaign managers, Brenda and Jock, and they are obviously conspiring in connection to the Senator's "dead girlfriend." They don't know Jimmy is there.
Langly and Frohike locate the dead woman's address from the prescription records and enter her apartment. A TV is on and a baby is sitting in the middle of the floor. They take the baby back to The Lone Gunmen headquarters. They can determine from the condition of his diaper that he hadn't been left along for long. Is this the senator's love child? If the Gunmen can prove it, the senator will lose the election. They suspect that Brenda left the clue for them. They send Jimmy back in to talk to her. Frohike and Langly are left with the baby, which does not go well. Jimmy enters the campaign office and Brenda grabs him immediately to take him to see the Senator, who is passed out in the shower. Several rich old ladies are expecting to give the senator an award. Jimmy helps lift the senator to his feet, and rouse him. A few minutes later, the senator presents a satisfactory appearance. Yves arrives at the Gunmen's office. She thinks Frohike and Langly are joking when they ask her for help with the child. She says he won't stop crying until he gets what he wants. She holds and cuddles him, and quickly concludes that he is teething, meaning he needs a pacifier.
Jimmy is licking envelopes when Jock comes up to thank him. He says the Senator's condition earlier isn't something to be discussed. The senator is on medication, Jock says, for a mild heart condition-angina. Jimmy goes to talk to Brenda. He tells her he knows she is upset about what is going on, using a rocking motion with his arms to indicate that he knows about the baby. Brenda soon tells Jock that Jimmy knows everything. "We'll have to take care of it," Jock says, "just like we did with the Senator's little girlfriend."
Yves returns to the LGM office. Frohike says just got the baby quiet. She compliments him, saying that it is a turn-on when a man is so capable with a child, but then she discovers that Frohike and Langly have automated the baby's rocking cradle and bottle feeding with motorized devices. Jimmy returns to the campaign office the next day. Brenda and Jock offer him a fulltime job and give him a check. Jimmy understands it's a job offer to keep him quiet about the senator. Jimmy says he has always believed the senator is a good man, and walks out in disgust. Jimmy returns to the VW and Byers is happy that the campaign managers tried to bribe Jimmy, but Jimmy tore up the check, meaning that they have no evidence. It is now 36 hours to the election and they still don't know who left the clue for them. Jimmy vows to get the evidence and the story.
Frohike and Yves, with the baby, attend a parenting class designed to get daddies to bond with babies. Yves learns for the first time that the child is the senator's baby. At the next rally, Jimmy is backstage handing out coffee. Later, Jimmy comes back to the VW with all of the empty cups, all with fingerprints on them. Yves and Frohike show up. Byers identifies the informer by scanning the prints on the cups. Jefferson even playing sax during the soul music of the rally. Jimmy signals to Brenda, who comes backstage where they have the baby. She was worried that something terrible has happened to the baby. She punches Jimmy but playing stupid. Brenda thinks they are there to expose the senator. It is obvious that the cup with the prints of the informer was not hers, but whose was it? The senator is making a speech, but Brenda interrupts and the Senator leaves the stage to meet with the Gunmen in the campaign office. Jock confesses that he is the one who left the clue. He says the Jefferson didn't know about Barbara because Jock always has to "take care of it." Barbara was in love, distraught, took the pills and went for a drive. It really was an accident. Jefferson apologizes to Brenda and Jock, then goes back out to the platform to tell people the truth. Jimmy says will still vote for him.
Back at the Gunmen's office, Frohike and Langly have bonded with the baby. The Senator comes to their door. He compliments them for their conscience. He came for his son and will name him William - William Jefferson. Brenda also comes to the door to help the Senator with the baby stuff. The initial election returns on TV show that Jefferson is not out of the race, to which everyone is happy.
The dates for this episode are apparently set during the November 2000 US Senate election. This suggests that all previous episodes in the series are prior to November 2000.
Midget wrestlers and a hyperactive television salesman may help the Gunmen with a guy suffering from a severe case of identity crisis.
Note: much of this episode appears to have been set as much as a year earlier than the final scenes.
In Surf City, MD, a man, later identified as Adam Burgess, returns home in the evening, checking the mailbox and unlocking the house door using a hidden key. He turns on the TV, and then goes to the kitchen. Another man enters and changes the channel on the TV. The two men move around the house, always missing each other as they go from room to room. Adam turns off the TV and goes to bed, undressing and slipping in beside his wife. The second man is surprised that the TV is off when he reenters the living room but soon also goes to bed. The three of them soon realize there are three people in the bed. The second man and the woman are married. Both they and Adam believe the others are invading their home.
In Washington DC, Byers and Jimmy enter an all-night café. They are there to meet a story source, which turns out to be Adam. Adam thanks them for coming - he was worried that they might not show up. He feels that his whole life is gone. Byers thinks it's identity theft, but Adam says strangers live in his house, neighbors don't know him and he doesn't know where his wife is. He spent the night in a dumpster where he found a copy of The Lone Gunman. Adam thinks he is from a parallel reality and that aliens brought him here. Everything is as it always has been, but he is a stranger in this reality. He offers proof of alien contact, a small blue tub of fluid that he says he found in every crevasse of his body. He calls it alien goo and says his body was submerged in it to keep him alive. Byers gets up abruptly, saying they can't help him. As they leave, Jimmy asks and Byers says the goo smells like lavender hand lotion. Jimmy sees a wound on the back of Adam's neck, similar to an implant scar.
They take Adam to their lab and inspect the wound in more detail. Frohike examines it, but he's not ready to call Mulder yet. It could be self-mutilation. Langly says the goo is udder cream, used with cattle. Byers thinks the wound looks like an electrical contact. They have a homemade MRI machine and cover Adam with a heavy lead shield. Adam thinks Frohike looks familiar. They x-ray Adam's skull and find electrical wiring throughout his cerebral cortex. The drive the van to Adam's house and ask him to prove that it is his house. He correctly describes the actions of several of the neighbors, convincing them that it is his neighborhood, except that they can't find any record of him in any official source. Byers wants a more earthbound explanation than aliens. Nobody is home, so they disconnect electricity from the house and enter, using the hidden key. Byers thinks there are hidden cameras in the house that were somehow fed into Adam's brain. Cutting power should kill any cameras that night be operating. Frohike remains outside and is accosted by a young child who accuses him of being a burglar. The boy is annoying and a disturbance develops between them. A neighbor who has been watching calls police. A police car pulls up as Frohike tackles the kid, a wall of the house collapses - Jimmy's electronic device found something in the wall and Adam used a cutting device because he was determined to find out what it was. AS the police deal with the Gunmen, we see a lab, in which white-coated workers are monitoring equipment. The cameras are off, so the test subjects are put to sleep. In the lab are tanks filled with blue fluid and people submerged in the fluid. The woman lab supervisor has a bandage on her forehead.
The Gunmen, Jimmy and Adam wake up in jail. They debate why someone would pump Adam's brain full of the belief that he has lived a happy suburban life. Adam exhibits extreme personality swings, as if triggered by some outside source. A jailer escorts in Yves - she is there to get them out on bail. Back at the office, they show Yves the brain scan. Adam is watching TV and is fascinated by a wacko salesman on a TV commercial known as Maniac Marvin. When Marvin goes crazy on TV, so does Adam. They go to Maniac Marvin's store. Adam has no idea why the sight of Marvin drove him crazy. Adam and Langly wait outside while Byers and Jimmy go inside. Byers and Jimmy talk with Marvin, who wears an eye patch - he wears a glass eye for the TV commercials. The show him a picture of Adam and Marvin says he doesn't recognize him. When a store worker puts a cardboard cutout of Marvin in a window, Adam goes crazy again, attacking Langly. Byers and Jimmy have to run outside to help. Meanwhile, the lab worker with the forehead injury comes to the Gunmen office and talks with Yves and Frohike. She is looking for Adam and claims to be Lois, Adam's wife. She knows Adam was arrested with the Gunmen, but Frohike and Yves claim to not know where Adam is. Back at the office, Adam apologizes for going crazy. Yves shows Adam a security cam image of Lois, and he agrees she is his wife, but Yves says she isn't his wife. Yves and Frohike thinks she is his keeper and Adam is a "lab rat." Lois had said there was an accident and Adam wandered away. They think she is feeding things into his brain. Yves points out that Adam Burgess doesn't exist and they have to figure out who he really is. Adam hallucinates that Frohike changes into a midget wearing a cape and costume and Adam attacks Frohike, shouting, "I am not you, I will never be you, never."
The midget is a pro wrestler, who they later watch on a videotape, called Dwarf Santini. Adam pulls the tape out of the machine and destroys it. Yves points out that Santini has been dead for years, but they can go to see his daughter, also a midget. Marvin arrives at the daughter's house with flowers. She is married but he is in love with her and wants to be part of her life. He wants her to get a divorce. Sadie has not seen her husband for a year. She doesn't think Marvin loves her - she thinks he's a pig, but she is attracted to him. The Gunmen and friends arrive at Sadie Santini's home and see Marvin's car. Adam rushes inside in anger and finds Marvin and Sadie in bed. Adam rages at them and is turns out that Adam is really Sadie's husband, Charlie. Suddenly, Charlie remembers everything. Lois comes to the door and tells Charlie, we need to talk. Charlie later tells the group that he is an alcoholic, has anger issues, is a shoplifter, and claims many other vices. Charlie despises himself and arranged with Lois, a scientist, to replace his personality. Marvin also knew all about it. Lois has Charlie's signed consent form on file. Lois says Sadie and Charlie are wrong for each other and shouldn't be married. Charlie says he could never measure up to Sadie's father, who Sadie constantly compared him to. Creating the Adam personality was a change for the better, and Lois says the work can continue. Charlie leaves with Lois, leaving Sadie crying.
Byers is writing a story on "therapy or thought control." Jimmy isn't sure he wants his name on the story because he doesn't like how the story ends. Jimmy thinks they need to take more interest in the people they write about. Yves asks how Jimmy would write the story. Jimmy says he would have Charlie end up with Sadie because it's obvious they love each other. Following up on the story at the "Adam's" house, the Gunmen determine that every utility pole in the neighborhood has cameras on it. Yves hacks into the lab computers and finds Adam in the virtual bedroom, with Lois. The cameras are feeding audio and video into a computer somewhere, so they should pick up the Gunmen and feed them into the system, too. They stand outside the house and call to Charlie. Yves tracks Charlie on the computer and sends his audio to the Gunmen. They have a conversation with Charlie. He knows it is virtual reality, but there's no pressure here, life is good and there are no big decisions. Soon he will forget who he really. As they try to convince Charlie, they soon hear police sirens again. Jimmy makes a last minute argument that Charlie and Sadie should be together, as they run off.
Marvin and Sadie are getting married - the day after her divorce papers come through. The wedding is in a pro wrestling ring, done in wrestling style - the minister is the ring announcer. The ceremony proceeds, but Charlie enters, interrupting the ceremony, saying that he wants his life back. Sadie and Charlie hug as the audience, the Gunmen and Yves watch. Charlie and Sadie kiss and have a happy ending.
Dating this episode is difficult. Divorce paperwork typically takes a year to finalize. The reference to calling Mulder early in the episode implies that it takes place at a time when Mulder is not missing, as he is in the spring of 2001. The presence of Yves, however, means that there are not parts of the episode set before the series premier.
The Gunmen receive an email from an unwilling captive being subjected to a secret government tests, but find their contact to be a genetically altered, super monkey.
At the Boulle-Behavioral Laboratory in Richmond, Massachusetts, a doctor enters a high security area. There is a sign on the door that says "no food beyond this point." Inside, someone is reciting Shakespeare. Several chimpanzees are in front of computer word processors. One of them, it seams, has produced Shakespeare and is playing it through a speech synthesizer. The doctor calls in several other specialists, but the chimp is now just typing gibberish. When the people leave, the chimp deletes the gibberish and begins typing "a short history of my demeaning captivity."
At a fancy hotel in Baltimore, Yves is drinking a martini and speaking French with a man, flirting. She advises him to take the direct approach, leaving a room key and walking off to her room. She readies a vial of sodium pentothal, then is surprised to find Frohike and Langly also in her room. They found a person with an anagram of her name registered at this hotel. They want to know what's going on – but they are interrupted when the French man enters. He quickly excuses himself and leaves again. Yves goes out on the balcony and begins climbing up to the next story. Men are coming up on the elevator now, she says, and will kill everyone on the room, thanks to the way Langly and Frohike have mucked things up. As the Gunmen leave the room by the door, they see the men coming down the hall. Langly and Frohike lock the door, but the men soon break it down. They find bed sheets tied to the balcony rail, hanging down the building. Langly and Frohike, however, are hiding on top of a table umbrella, and as soon as the men leave, the umbrella collapses.
Back at the Gunmen's office, Yves lambastes the Gunmen. They have cost her millions of dollars. They ask her if she sent them the document that came as a text and audio file. The cultured voice British in the file asks them for help. He is being held captive by a cadre of scientists who work for the government and who subject him to horrible tests. He asks for their help to escape. Yves recognizes the voice as that of Edward Woodward, the actor who played The Equalizer on TV. Someone sampled his voice and assembled the message. The text message says the scientists call the captive "Peanuts." The message says to bring bolt cutters and meet Peanuts behind the fence at a certain time. They all decide to go, Yves included.
Dr. Hasslip is attempting to teach a class of chimps to spell their names. Peanuts doesn't respond. When the doctor leaves the room briefly, Peanuts rearranges the letters. Hasslip is told that an unauthorized e-mail has been sent, using his password. He returns to the classroom and finds the letters rearranged. The Gunmen are in the brush along the fence when the chimps are let out for exercise. Peanuts is by the gate, and Jimmy realizes that the chimp is looking right at the Gunmen, waving to them. Yves indicates that she believes Jimmy is right. Jimmy takes the bolt cutters to free Peanuts. Peanuts jumps, knocking Jimmy down and striking his head. The others run, jumping into the VW minibus and eluding guards. They have left Jimmy behind, but they discover that Peanuts is in the van with them.
The group is hiding in an old barn. Frohike wonders what if Peanuts is some sort of government-bred super chimp? Yves says "ask the chimpanzee," but Peanuts doesn't respond. Jimmy tells guards that he is with the "Monkey Liberation Army," but he can't explain how he knew what was going on at the lab. The Gunmen are trying to figure out how to get Jimmy loose. Peanuts takes Frohike's keys and tries to escape in the van, but Yves has unhooked the battery. Peanuts has revealed himself. Yves realizes, however, that chimps don't have vocal chords to speak. They set him up with a laptop and Peanuts downloads a voice synthesizer program. He asks that they address him with the name he has given himself – Simon Whitethatch Potentloins. Simon isn't convinced that the Gunmen are any different from his previous captors. He just wants to be left alone. Privately, Yves tells the Gunmen that she has heard hints of the intelligent chimps. It's the first step in breeding other intelligent animals, which could then be intelligence agents. The problem is that you can create an intelligent animal, but you can't be sure of his politics.
The doctor gives Jimmy a tour of the chimp laboratory – they are rarely in cages and very well treated. The doctor realizes that Simon e-mailed Jimmy. The doctor tries to convince Jimmy that the chimp is important to America – it would be disastrous for an enemy power to gain access to the genetic engineering technology that produced Simon. Simon isn't interested in the affairs of humans, but offers to give the Gunmen access to another super-chimp who is already in the field, a former Russian secret agent who Simon says is now working as a free agent. This chimp, named Bobo, is planning another assassination tomorrow, in Washington DC. The French Minister of State is the intended victim during high-level trade talks. The minister plans a visit the to National Zoo and Bobo will be waiting in the primate section. Police wouldn't believe them, so the gunmen have to stop the murder themselves. Simon will help Langly hack the lab computers while the other head off to the zoo.
Jimmy declines to help the doctor, but a guard says the lab has just received a ransom demand for Peanuts. They traced the message and know where Jimmy's friends are. Guards pull up at the barn and find Langly tied up and hanging from the ceiling. Simon is far away, in a shipping crate – he is having himself sent to the National Zoo. Later, the minister is at the zoo and the Gunmen are monitoring his progress. Yves and Frohike enter the restricted area behind the chimp habitat, carrying sodium pentothal injectors. They find a chimp, but paperwork indicates that it is a female, Lady Bonkers, a recent acquisition donated by the Boulle Behavioral Lab. A second chimp in the habitat is a male, Bobo, who jumps Frohike, knocking him unconscious. Yves radios to Byers that she has things under control – she has Bobo in a cage. Byers, however, sees another chimp in the habitat, carrying a banana and approaching the trade minister. Byers realizes that this chimp, not Bobo, is the assassin and dives at the minister. Police take Byers into custody and viewers see Simon pealing and eating the banana.
Frohike wakes up when Bobo pinches his nose. Yves tells him that Bobo is dumber than a bag of rocks. He is not an assassin and there was no plot to murder the trade minister. Byers, Langly and Jimmy are in federal custody. Simon pulled a big scam. Yves negotiates an exchange of Peanuts for the Gunmen in custody, substituting Bobo. The doctor, however, is not deceived because Peanuts has a white tuft of hair on his head and Bobo does not. The doctor uses a cloth to rub off the white on the head of the chimp he is holding. All of them are taken into custody. Jimmy reveals to the doctor that Byers told him that Peanuts is at the zoo – Jimmy knows that telling is the right thing to do, because of national security. At the zoo, they substitute Bobo for Peanuts in the cage with Lady Bonkers. The Gunmen are sad, but the doctor allows them to be released, as long as they never set foot on the lab property again, and the people from the laboratory leave. Everyone is mad at Jimmy, but Jimmy takes Langly's laptop and puts it in the cage by Bobo. Jimmy doesn't understand nobody else was playing along – this is Simon, not Bobo. They don't look anything alike. It was all an even more complex scam by Simon. Why escape to the zoo? Lady Bonkers is there, and the whole world is really a cage, anyway. Jimmy thinks Lady Bonkers is hot.
The only way to make a final plea to a convicted killer is to penetrate Death Row, but the boys do it as pretend prisoners.
The Lone Gunmen are undercover on a cruise ship, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. A stage act begins - it is an Elvis impersonator. The man sees himself in the mirror, but it is not a mirror. It is two men looking at each other, one old and one young, both dressed as Elvis. The young is Jimmy Bond. "Sorry, Mr. Presley," he says, and injects the older man, knocking him out. As Jimmy performs on stage, the Gunmen check the older man's fingerprints. It is not Elvis, but another man, who is wanted by authorities.
The Gunmen publish the story. As they talk about it, a man and woman come to their door. Her name is Alberta Pfieffer. She has been a subscriber since their first issue and is a big fan. The man is her son's lawyer. Her son Douglas is on death row, but she claims he is not guilty. Douglas refuses to talk to anyone but the lawyer, Jeremy Wash. Doug is pushing for an execution date, even though he pled not guilty and fought his conviction tooth and nail. There is some sort of conspiracy, Mrs. Pfieffer feels.
Frohike thinks there's not much they can do if Doug won't talk, adding that you can't just walk into a penitentiary. Jimmy counters that, "The A-Team does." They decide to make the attempt when Byers reminds them that an innocent man's life may be at risk. The Gunmen "defend the defenseless."
Byers and Jimmy sneak onto a prison bus wearing orange jumpsuits. Langly has planted criminal records in the electronic database used by the guards. (Jailhouse blues plays while the scenes are shown of the two being processed into the prison.) They are taken to their cells. Both are deeply affected by the experience - it's not like on TV. Another prisoner, Spike, is muttering and looking for his pet cricket "Jiminy," but it's really a cockroach. Jimmy asks another prisoner, Lowry, to hand the insect back to Spike, but Lowry kills it. No innocent man should be in this place, Jimmy says. Meanwhile, Frohike and Langly try to get into the closed and locked restaurant where the murder occurred that Douglas was convicted of. A neighboring storeowner tells them that he saw Douglas Pfieffer commit the robbery. He is convinced that Douglas is absolutely a murderer and that the Gunmen are barking up a wrong tree.
Byers wakes up to hear Spike talking to Jiminy Cricket again. Byers asks Lowry about Douglas, but a trustee tells Byers that Lowry doesn't talk because he has a lisp. Byers learns that Douglas is in the prison infirmary, having been beaten by guards. Meanwhile, Frohike and Langly ask for Yves' help to get a communications device into the prison. They tried to see Byers, claiming to be his brothers, but the guards became suspicious. They ask her to pose as Jimmy's wife, and to use her feminine wiles to succeed. Guards take the Byers outdoors for recreation and Byers deliberately antagonizes Lowry, faking a lisp of his own. As they are about to be returned to their cells, Byers gets Lowry to attack him, but the guards delay stopping the fight because they are watching Yves on a video monitor of the visitor's section, showing deep cleavage and wearing a short skirt.
Jimmy is taken to see Yves. She pretends to be his wife and he clumsily plays along. She gets up and buys him some chips from a vending machine, substituting a prepared package that has the device in it. Byers, in the infirmary, has his arm in a sling. He gets the chance to talk to Douglas, also in the infirmary. Byers tells Douglas that he is there at Douglas' mother's request. Byers asks why he is pressing for the execution. Doug says if Byers ever speaks of this again, to anybody, he'll cut his throat. Jimmy finds the device that has a tiny video screen and earpiece. Spike has another a roach in his hand - he doesn't believe that things really die, you just take a trip and move on, knowing more. Spike is in prison for murder.
Frohike and Langly find that Douglas had thousands of dollars in savings, so there was no reason for him to commit a robbery. A real estate holding company has been depositing money in Douglas' account. The same company has been buying up property all over the block where the robbery took place and Jeremy Wash, Douglas' lawyer, is behind the holding company. Frohike and Langly get the word to Jimmy that they think Douglas was a killer for hire. Wash planned a big development and the dead shopkeeper was a key landowner who wouldn't sell. Wash has to go through the motions of trying to get Douglas declared innocent. Frohike and Langly also has found evidence that another prisoner, Spike, was framed for murder of another shopkeeper by Wash and is innocent.
Byers talks with Douglas again - he is healing and as soon as he does they'll put him on death row. He'd do anything for his mom but he still has nothing to say about the crime. Wash comes to the hotel room where Frohike and Langly are working. They don't tell him that Byers and Jimmy got into the prison. Yves comes arrives and they have to talk fast to keep Wash from learning that Byers and Jimmy are in prison. Wash tells them that Douglas' execution goes forward the day after tomorrow. When he leaves, Yves tells Frohike and Langly that she convinced the credit union manager to let her see the files - Wash has been making payments to Doug's mother's account. Wash listens through the door and hears what they are discussing.
Jimmy sends a note to Byers with the trustee, telling Byers about Wash. Jimmy and Spike talk - if Spike were a free man he'd never again squander a moment of precious time and devote himself to realizing his lifelong dream - caring for those who can't care for themselves. The poor, Jimmy asks? No, cockroaches. Meanwhile, Wash tells Lowry to make sure Douglas doesn't get to death row. Jimmy hasn't heard back from Byers. Byers keeps trying to convince Douglas, and the trustee finally delivers the note to Byers, just as they guard arrives to take Douglas to death row. Doug confesses to Byers that he committed the murder. Byers encourages Douglas to tell the truth before it is too late. Lowry is in the infirmary and attacks Douglas. Byers whacks Lowry with a bedpan and Douglas is safe. Guards tell Jimmy that his prison orders were incorrect, and he has to be transferred. He is turned over to the custody of Frohike and Langly, in law enforcement officers' uniforms. They have also entered computer orders to get Byers out. They all go home. Wash is told that his client was attacked in the infirmary. Douglas has implicated Wash in the two murders he. Law officers take Wash away for questioning.
The story about Wash is front-page news for the Gunmen. Their story also frees Spike, who sets up a roach hospital. Douglas' execution is finally scheduled again. He takes the last walk, past Wash who is also on death row. As a crowd holds a deathwatch vigil in the rain outside, a guard announces that Douglas is dead. Mrs. Pfieffer slaps Byers for not freeing her son. Jimmy consoles him - it's like Spike and his roaches - maybe we don't so much die as learn something and move on.
While laid up in the hospital after a skiing accident, an amnesia-stricken Jimmy suspects his doctor is a wanted killer offing his patients.
Along the US-Canadian border in Washington State, the Lone Gunmen's van is buried in snow. Their periscope is up and Byers and Langly are inside, watching a skier. Frohike and Jimmy are down the trail. The skier is approaching two Asian men who have stopped their snowmobile. Jimmy is supposed to take pictures of the handoff of merchandise. The skier, however, doesn't stop where the two men are, and Jimmy begins to follow on skis to see what is happening. After a chase, Jimmy hits a tree and the skier stops by him, pulling the film out of his camera, and departing. Jimmy's leg appears to be broken.
Jimmy wakes up in the hospital. His doctor, Dr. Blomberg, says Jimmy has a concussion. Jimmy's leg is in a cast and is elevated, hung from an overhead frame. The Gunmen come in to see him. They brought him to the hospital, but Jimmy doesn't remember much about what he saw. They have been watching a survivalist and ex-con named Walter Stukus who they believe has been killing endangered grizzly bears to sell their gall bladders on the Asian market. They want to catch Stukus in the act and shut him down. A beautiful nurse comes in as the Gunmen leave. Her name is Marilyn and she is clearly attracted to Jimmy. She is pleased when Jimmy comments that he doesn't have a girlfriend. When she has to give him an injection in his rear end, she is impressed with what she sees.
The Gunmen are back in the Cascade Mountains, watching Stukus. Langly is freezing cold. They see Stukus hang a grizzly skin on a rail outside his cabin. Byers in particular takes Stukus' poaching of grizzly bears personally. Jimmy, meanwhile, is watching America's Most Wanted in TV. The show reports on a doctor, Richard Millican, who has a track record of poisoning his patients, then disappearing and moving on to a new town. Jimmy is fascinated by the report, but his roommate, an elderly old man, keeps switching the channels in the single TV in the room. Millican is an arthroscopic surgeon last known to be in Denver in the fall of 1999. Four of his patients died over a ten-month period in Denver. The roommate, Mr. Dimsdale, is bad tempered and offensive to Jimmy. Marilyn sweet-talks Jimmy into ignoring him. Meanwhile, she has brought some supplies Jimmy requested, including lots of cotton balls and tongue depressors. Jimmy plans to build a model of the ski slope to allow him to reconstruct what happened to him, hopefully allowing him to remember. Marilyn repeats her suggestive comment, "if you need anything, push my button." Dimsdale has fallen asleep, so Jimmy watches the rest of the America's Most Wanted report, indicating that Millican changes his appearance and always carries candy in his pockets, because of his sweet tooth.
In the operating room, Blomberg is doing arthroscopic knee surgery on an older patient, who has remained awake during the procedure. Viewers see Blomberg leave the operating room to wash his hands, and an eyebrow, attached with adhesive, comes loose on his forehead. He goes to his locker and takes out a candy sucker. Meanwhile, in the operating room, the patient suffers a cardiac arrest as the anesthesiologist is finishing with him.
Jimmy has made his model of the ski slope. He tells Marilyn that he slept really well - the idea of going to the backroom without leaving the bed is really going to catch on in the "civilian world" he thinks. She likes the model of the little skier Jimmy has made. She offers to reward him with a sponge bath, but he doesn't notice the suggestive nature of the offer. Mr. Dimsdale comments about the patient who died during arthroscopic surgery, which rings a bell with Jimmy. As Marilyn leaves the hospital room, Yves enters. Marilyn notices and flounces away, thinking that Yves is Jimmy's girlfriend. Jimmy is surprised that Yves would come all the way out to Washington just to see him. As soon as Yves learns that Jimmy doesn't remember what happened on the ski slops, she leaves. Marilyn gives Jimmy another injection in the butt, this time jamming it in, because she is upset about Yves.
The Gunmen are still watching Stukus. They are surprised when a deliveryman gives Stukus an "overnight letter." They surmise that it is information on the next meeting between Stukus and his buyers. They have to see what the document says. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Dimsdale are annoying each other more and more. Jimmy actually falls on the floor while trying to reach Dimsdale. Dr. Blomberg also comes in to help get Jimmy back in bed, and a sucker falls out of Blomberg's pocket, which Jimmy notices. Jimmy phones the Gunmen to tell them that he thinks Blomberg is Millican, but he doesn't have much proof, so the Gunmen ignore him. Jimmy sneaks out to the nursing station to read charts and discovers that Blomberg is scheduled to operate on Dimsdale the next day. Jimmy believes that Dimsdale's life is in danger. Later, Dimsdale has to fill out paperwork. He refuses to list a next of kin. When they are alone, Jimmy tries to tell Dimsdale that Blomberg is Millican, but Dimsdale thinks Jimmy is crazy. Jimmy says Blomberg has been here just over a year, which fits perfectly with when Millican disappeared from Denver.
The Gunmen are planning how to get the letter. Byers talks about how he loved the TV series Gentle Ben as a child, and he loved the bear that played the title role in the series. When Byers was 12 years old, on a family vacation, Byers saw a real grizzly bear, a rogue that park rangers had to kill, which made Byers realize how easily grizzly bears could disappear. Yves has returned to see Jimmy, and he tries to get her to hack into computers to research Blomberg. Dimsdale's son comes to see him, but Dimsdale refuses to see him. Langly has taken the bear skin and is carrying it around in the brush, pretending to be a real bear to lure Stukus away from his cabin, but Langly trips and is caught in a bear trap. Frohike enters the cabin, but can't find the letter. Stukus finds the bear trap, with Langly's pants caught in the teeth. He continues to hunt Langly, who slips around trees and gets behind Stukus. The letter is in Stukus' back pocket. Langly manages to slip the letter out and glance at it. Meanwhile, Frohike has gotten his foot caught in a snare in the cabin, and he is hanging from the ceiling. He is swinging back and forth, trying to get himself free when Stukus returns to the cabin. Frohike swings up and grabs the antlers of a stuffed deer head, keeping him high enough that Stukus doesn't see him when he enters the cabin. Stukus soon realizes that the letter is no longer in his pocket, so he leaves the cabin again to look for it, and the antlers promptly break, dropping Frohike down again.
When Blomberg and Marilyn take Mr. Dimsdale away for surgery, Jimmy confronts Blomberg. It turns out that Blomberg is wearing a hairpiece and is completely bald. Yves arrives, however, and has found no proof that Blomberg is Millican. Blomberg says he has a condition that caused him to lose all of his hair. Last year, he was doing volunteer surgical work in Africa, so could not have been in Denver. Jimmy collapses. Blomberg checks him quickly, then says to the anesthesiologist, "Greg, I hope you didn't have any dinner plans," meaning that Jimmy also needs surgery. Greg goes to his clothing locker and pulls out a vial of something, apparently poison.
The Gunmen arrive at a warehouse where Stukus' deal will go down. They set up a second story observation post. Jimmy and Dimsdale are in the same presurgery waiting room. Jimmy knows what's wrong with Dimsdale - he is scared of being alone and wants a bit of attention, but Jimmy thinks it's sad that Dimsdale has a son. Dimsdale says his son is a stockbroker and is part of what's wrong with this country, a "greed monger" who is sticking it to the little guy. Who would want to talk to a guy like that, Dimsdale asks? One who doesn't want to die alone, Jimmy replies. Yves hears a news report that is a follow-up to the America's Most Wanted report. Authorities have realized that Millican is not the guilty party, but rather there is another killer. Stukus enters the warehouse, with the Gunmen watching. The Asians enter and the exchange of merchandise begins. Byers realizes that it is so dark that they can't capture the people's faces on film. He repositions himself to get a better shot, but is captured by Stukus and the Asians. He says he is an investigative journalist and bluffs that there are police outside. As Stukus is about to kill Byers, the doors of the warehouse swing open - there really are police outside. They rush in and arrest Stukus and the Asians.
In the operating room Greg talks with Jimmy, who is already groggy. He injects the drug into the Jimmy's IV and Jimmy passes out. Jimmy wakes up again with Yves looking over him, and remembers the skiing accident. Yves was skier, not Stukus. She tipped off the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as part of her own sting. She also saved Jimmy's life. The anesthesiologist arrived from Denver about two months earlier. His M.O. is to frame another doctor for murder, then kill that doctor to make him disappear. Greg is in custody, facing murder charges in two states. Mr. Dimsdale is ready to leave the hospital, and he has reconciled with his son.
After the Gunmen bungle her elaborate investigation and blow her cover. Yves is forced to play Tango partner in order to engage the criminal mastermind she has been tracking.
In a waterfront building in Miami, a bald man is apparently killed by another man who looks identical - but the second man is Yves in disguise, and it was really a stun gun that she used to knock out the Bald Man. The Gunmen are watching Yves via video and Frohike comments that she is beautiful - like the black widow and her prey. They have a right to the story, even if they are double crossing Yves. A boat pulls up to the pier. Langly, in the water, climbs into the boat to check it out as the boat pilot goes into the building. Langly finds a six-pack of German beer and opens a can, suspecting that it is a fake. Beer sprays out, knocking Langly back. He hits the throttle control and falls out of the boat. He is seen by the smugglers, but escapes.
Later, in a motel room, they Gunmen debate whether to pursue the story. Yves comes to their door - she has found a tracking device they planted on her. They ruined a foolproof plan, but they wanted to expose the smuggler. She pulls a roll of money out of her bra and throws it at them, saying she never wants to see them again. Langly and Byers are suspicious that the smuggler had merchandise on him, not on the boat, so the deal can still take place. The smuggler and the buyer, whose name is Leonardo Santavos, talk. They have mistaken Langly, thinking that it was a blonde woman who broke up the exchange. A CD-ROM is turned over. The music on it is Tango music. Later, Santavos is seen dancing the tango. He and the woman who is his dance partner are practicing for their second dance championship. Yves enters the room, attracting the Santavos's attention. The Gunmen identify the smuggler, but the Bald Man, a functionary of Santavos, kills the smuggler. Yves sprays something on the shoes of the Santavos's dance partner, who puts them on and later collapses on the dance floor. Bernardo looks to Yves, considering her as a dance partner. The Gunmen find the dead smuggler.
The woman dance partner's feet are seriously swollen - bad luck, two days before the competition. Bernardo asks Yves to dance, then asks her to be his partner in the competition. The Gunmen find symbols of a skull near the dead smuggler's body - the symbol of an Argentine death squad that is always left with their victims. The Bald Man who Yves was impersonating was a member, as was his employer, Santavos. Santavos is a suspected smuggler with international connections, and they know that he is a tango dancer. Yves arrives at Santavos' home. He leaves her alone briefly and observes her through a two-way mirror but she uses a hidden microphone to pick of Santavos' conversation with The Bald Man through the wall. The Gunmen plan to sign up for the Tango contest, but Frohike resists. When the other three arrive to sign up, they find that the name of one of the other contestants is an anagram for Lee Harvey Oswald -Yves. Byers, Langly and Jimmy have to audition for the contest, and do a terrible job. They are disqualified. While, Santavos and Yves practice, the bald man searches her purse, finding the tiny spray can. When Yves leaves, he tells Santavos that he is suspicious - the Bald Man's hand has swollen up like Santavos' first dance partner's feet.
The Gunmen are dejected that Yves is one up on them again. Frohike repeatedly pressures to go home. Kimmy, the Gunmen's friend who occasionally helps them, arrives. He has learned that they need information on Santavos and offers to sell his information. He agrees to 10% of any reward. The Department of Defense has a new composite material that is invisible to radar. Santavos is smuggling a sample of the material. They need to get close to him, but they can't get into the contest. Frohike quietly says, "I can get into the contest." In the morning, Santavos asks to look in Yves' handbag. She gives him the spray bottle and says it is perfume. Santavos tells her to put it on, which she does - this bottle really does contain perfume. She feigns being upset and begins to leave, but Santavos asks her to stay and apologizes.
In Little Havana, Frohike enters a commercial laundry where a beautiful woman is pressing clothes. She slaps his face and insults him in Spanish - the great El Lobo returns, but he is more of a mongrel to come back after all these years. They were Tango partners many years ago. He tells her they must dance. Santavos begins to seduce Yves, talking about what will happen after the competition. The Gunmen are outside, watching through a window. As Yves leaves for the evening, Langly and Jimmy talk to her, warning her that Santavos is "going down," but the Bald Man sees them speaking, and realizes that the "blonde woman" who broke up the exchange is really a long haired man -- Langly. Later, Yves accosts the Gunmen at their motel room. The exchange is supposed to happen tonight at the dance competition. They also have to make sure Santavos trusts her.
The dancers gather at the competition and Yves confesses to Santavos that she knows the Blond man. He is a newspaper reported, and she will use her gun to kill him in order to regain Santavos' trust. She is asked to kill the reported with the Bald Man's knife, rather than her gun. The Gunmen pretend to be a TV news crew, but are really using video and face recognition software to try to find the buyer to whom Santavos will give the composite sample. Outside, Yves appears to stab Langly, as the Bald Man watches. Santavos and Yves begin their dance, to the music on the CD-ROM Santavos acquired at the waterfront. El Lobo, Frohike, and his partner begin their dance. As they dance, the Bald Man recovers his knife from beside Langly. The face recognition gets a match - the male dancer who was in the first couple to dance is a known terrorist. As the Bald Man checks Langly, he finds a plastic bag of red liquid taped to Langly's back. Langly jumps up and runs away. The contestants are now participating in a dance-off. The first couple makes a mistake and is removed from the competition. The man takes CD #11 from the stack, but Byers realizes that he should have taken CD #1, since that is his contest number. It composite sample is in the CD jewel case. Byers radios to Frohike to get the CD. As the man passes, Frohike grabs the CD, and keeps dancing. The Bald Man throws his knife, intending to kill Yves, but she swings him around and Santavos is killed.
Later, the police take the Bald Man away. Frohike's partner says goodbye. There is no reward money. Jimmy realizes that Yves wanted to recover the composite sample "because it was the right thing to do." She is dejected because of the death of her tango partner. Jimmy walks up to her and offers his hand - they begin to tango. He is inexperienced and halting, but it makes her feel better.
The murder of a professional blackmailer, an appeal by the victim's sister and evidence linking the crime to FBI Assistant Director Skinner cause the Gunmen to question what's a lie and what's really the truth.
In a lounge, "Mr. Memory" is performing, entertaining people with feats of memory. A man, later identified as Larry Rose, enters and site with two men, Arv Frumin and his bodyguard. At the bar, Jeff Strode is watching them. Rose goes to talk with them. Jeff is blackmailing Rose. They agree on a price of $2,000 and Rose goes into the restroom. Jeff follows a few moments later, and does not find Rose. But FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner is there, and curses Jeff. Outside, in the lounge, patrons hear two gunshots. Jeff is found in the restroom, lying in a pool of blood.
Jimmy narrates the opening scenes - when he played football he always wore a helmet and it seems to him that everyone wears invisible helmets that protect them but keep others from seeing their true faces. Jimmy writes a check to allow the Gunmen to pay for their latest issue. They comment that Byers didn't come home last night. Outside, Jimmy discovers that his car is being repossessed, because he was late on a payment. Byers arrives, driving the VW minibus, with a beautiful women, carol Strode, who needs help solving a murder. Her brother, Jeff, was Byers roommate in college and was apparently committing blackmail when he was killed. His body was cremated without permission, and she never even saw it. Carol got an e-mail from Jeff, stored and automatically sent after his death, saying that if she received the message, it would probably be dead. He gives a WWW address that given information about his killers, but the site has been wiped clean, suggesting a cover-up.
They visit the lounge and enter the restroom. There, they find Mr. Memory who correctly remembers that Jimmy and his blind football players saw his act on April 4, 1999. Mr. Memory is wearing Jeff's glasses, and the Gunmen discover a tiny video camera built into the glasses frame. Rose and his wife are walking their dog when Skinner approaches them. Rose apologizes and says that Frumin hasn't contacted him since the killing. The gunmen determine that the video camera fed signals via cell phone frequencies, and track down the call phone account. Jeff's apartment contains a computer server - the one that held the WWW files - but it has been wiped clean. Jimmy, however, noticed a flashing light in an air duct and they find a second CPU, linked by infrared to the first. It contains backups of the wiped files. The files show video of Jeff accepting payoffs. On the day of his murder, a file shows him in the restroom and the Gunmen see Skinner in the video.
The Gunmen are tempted to publish their story about Skinner's involvement in the murder, but Byers insists that they have no proof, because the video goes blank before the murder. Yves arrives at their officer and meets Carol. She has reviewed the video files sent to her and recognizes Frumin. He is a Russian mob leader. It appears that Skinner and Rose were in the bathroom together and left together, so they are apparently in league. It appears that Frumin is paying Skinner. Rose and Frumin meet. Jeff was a computer hacker blackmailing Rose. Jeff discovered Rose sending e-mail to his mistress, and threatened to tell Rose's wife. Frumin tells Rose that he likes a man who has secrets, and they can still work together. The Gunmen trail Skinner from his Washington DC office to a park in Delaware. Carol waits in the VW bus while the three Gunmen follow Skinner into the woods and see him meet with Rose. Skinner, however, intercepts the Gunmen and takes them into custody. When Rose returns to his car, Frumin's bodyguard orders him into Frumin's car, which has arrived. Rose, along with Carol, is taken captive.
Jimmy and Yves can't contact the Gunmen and are concerned. There is no trace of them, but Yves determines that the VW minibus, which Jimmy calls the Mobile Command Post, has been impounded in Wilmington, Delaware. An FBI swat team raids the Gunmen's office, but Jimmy and Yves manage to hide and are not caught. Skinner has the Gunmen in a safe house and they are surprised to learn that Jeff is still alive. The FBI is conducting a sting, which both Jeff and the Gunmen have interfered with. Frumin is selling plutonium, salvaged from cold war era bombs. Now Skinner doesn't know where Rose has been taken, because the Gunmen distracted him. Both Rose, an undercover agent, and Carol may be in danger. Later, Skinner returns. Rose has been released, but Frumin still holds Carol, as collateral. An exchange is planned that night. Jeff refers to his sister as "he," and it is revealed that Carol, formerly known as "Carl," is a transsexual. Carl was actually Byers' roommate in college. If Frumin discovers inconsistencies in Carol's background, her life could be in danger.
The Gunmen hatch a plan to disconnect the security camera in the safe house and escape. Meanwhile, Skinner and Rose are at the exchange point - the same lounge where Mr. Memory performs. Skinner says Rose can't wear a transmitter, because Frumin's people might pick up the signal. There is an FBI agent at the bar, however, and if Rose gets in trouble he can order a Rum and Coke, which will serve as a signal. Yves and Jimmy are also observing the exchange. Using Yves' master of disguise techniques, Jimmy now looks exactly like Skinner. He enters the lounge and approaches the table where Rose, Frumin, Carol and the bodyguard are sitting. Jimmy acts like himself, which is far out of character for Skinner. Jimmy still assumes that Skinner is in Frumin's employ, but it becomes that that Frumin has no idea who Skinner is. When a bartender asks if Jimmy wants a drink, he innocently orders a rum and coke, and most of the people in the bar jump up, holding guns. Carol and Jeff are reunited. Jimmy removes his mask. Skinner comments that Larry, Curly and Moe have found a fourth stooge. The plutonium, outside in a vehicle, is found.
The Gunmen publish their story. A Moscow journalistic syndicate paid them $4,400 for the reprint rights, which the Gunmen use to get Jimmy's car back. Both Jimmy and Yves claim to have known as soon as they met Carol that she was a transsexual. In a final narration, Jimmy says that friends are the people you can show your true face to.
All hell breaks loose on the set of a kid's television show when Langly's childhood hero is accused of being an international spy.
Langly relates a perfect memory from his childhood – the people on TV were like good friends to him. Captain Toby was the best, along with his first mate Clarence the Crab. They made Langly's childhood bearable. As Langly speaks, however, we see Captain Toby arrested by the FBI with the Gunmen watching.
In Glenburnie, Maryland, a blonde woman walks in a mall. A man is following her. She barely escapes him into an elevator, so the man runs down nearby stairs. A second man is in the elevator. The first man finds the second unconscious in the parking garage. The woman jumps the first man using martial arts. He gets a gun trained on her but she throws a triangle dart at him.
The Gunmen are having breakfast. Jimmy is cooking. They are all reading newspapers, looking for story tips and for details left out by the conventional media. Frohike finds the notices of the deaths by heart attack of two men who were members of the International Brotherhood of stage technicians, Adam Vaughn and Eric Rice. They died on the same day at the same mall. The Gunmen go to the mall to investigate. A witness reports a woman with rose-colored glasses. Frohike finds a dart at the location where the men died. Langly and Byers go to the studio where the two men worked and discover that it is a children's program – Captain Toby. Langly doesn't recognize the set. It is the New Captain Toby Show and there have been big changes. The ventriloquist who operates the crab, Wayne, points out the director, John Gilnitz. Gilnitz is changing many of the time-honored traditions of the show. Capitan Toby used to operate a tugboat but now it is a submarine. The Gunmen learn that the dead men only worked there for a couple of weeks. Langly thinks that the changes in the show have destroyed his childhood.
Frohike and Jimmy examine the dart. It has poison on it. As they work, the dart slips and hits Jimmy on the chest. As Jimmy begins to panic, Yves enters and says that the poison has degraded. It is possibly a Chinese drug, but they can't figure out why it would be used to kill two stagehands. Captain Toby is in his dressing room. He makes a phone call and speaks in Chinese. Frohike discovers that the two dead men were working for the Justice Department, specializing in Chinese intelligence. Maybe they were looking for ways to spy using the show as a cover. Langly, Frohike and Byers return to the set of the show. Frohike acts as a photographer, wandering around the set taking lots of pictures. Gilnitz now wants the show to have Hip-Hop theme music. Toby hired him to make the show relate to today's kids. In a dressing room, Frohike finds a young girl who screams.
At the mall, Jimmy is dressed up as a frankfurter. The guy who usually wears the publicity costume said he often sees the blonde with rose-colored glasses. Yves is watching Jimmy. The blonde appears and Jimmy directs Yves to follow her. It turns out that she is a federal agent and Jimmy and Yves are detained. She is agent Blythe of the CIA and she says they are interfering with a combined FBI and CIA operation. She knows who Yves is and asks how badly she wants to keep it a secret.
Toby enters the dressing room as the girl, Mary, is crying. He calms the girl and they leave. Frohike searches the dressing room and finds papers covered with Chinese writing. Toby begins taping his show. Gilnitz comments that their ratings are increasing and they have sold foreign syndication rights, including in China. The Gunmen wonder if the show could be a conduit for information, somehow encrypted into the program. Frohike tells Langly and Byers about the document he found in Toby's dressing room. Suddenly the FBI raids the studio. Blythe finds microfilm in Toby's dressing room and Toby is arrested. Toby's wife of 18 years is a naturalized American of Chinese birth. Langly is crestfallen. He helped lead the law to his childhood hero.
Yves gets the Chinese document translated and it turns out to be a food recipe. Frohike searched the dressing room just before the federal agents and he found no microfilm. They wonder if Blythe planted the film. To solve the case they have to determine how secrets are being passed in the show. Gilnitz tells Blythe that he thinks the "magic porthole," the content of which Toby creates each week, is the conduit but Blythe shoots Gilnitz with a poison dart.
Toby gets out on bail and returns to the studio. He wants help to do his last show. The media are there watching. The ventriloquist, Wayne, makes his way through the crowd. The Gunmen are there, too, and wonder where Gilnitz is. Yves finds a ticket from Koko's copy shop, a place Jimmy saw Blythe earlier at the mall. As the show is taped, Yves and Jimmy go to Koko's to pick up the job – it is a poster of artwork for the magic porthole. Blythe appears also – if you look at the artwork with rose-colored glasses you see Chinese characters. "Come quietly," she says.
At the studio Frohike finds something odd hanging above the set. He releases the rope and Gilnitz' body falls down. Blythe indicates that the joint law enforcement operation was about to learn that Blythe was the spy. Jimmy takes a poison dart intended for Yves and before Blythe can reload, Yves attacks. The two women fight and Yves knocks Blythe out. Jimmy is unhurt – the dart hit his earlier bandage. The Gunmen publish the story about the capture of the double agent. Wayne takes over as the new Captain And Langly's faith in his hero is restored.
While tailing 'Man in Black' Morris Fletcher, the boys stumble upon what may be a link to Romeo 61, the grand daddy of all conspiracies that happens to lead right back to Yves.
In the Georgetown Plaza Hotel in Washington DC, Morris Fletcher is trying to pick up a woman in the bar, but she leaves when his wedding ring falls out of his wallet. Outside, Morris encounters a bright light from the sky and is abducted by aliens. He wakes up to find himself restrained in an alien medical test room, his face stretched by skewers. A grey alien approaches. Morris says he is with Majestic 12 - they're on the same team. The alien asks about "Maharren" and Morris says it is the code name for the technology borrowed from the Roswell UFO - it took them 50 years to figure it out.
In the Lone Gunmen's VW minibus, the Gunmen are ecstatic. They actually got information from a Man in Black. Fletcher was totally fooled. They gave him sodium pentothal. Frohike is still wearing part of the grey alien costume. The VW is intercepted by a military unit and the Gunmen are forced to kneel on the road. Fletcher walks up and orders the soldiers to kill the Gunmen. Langly blurts out that they got an e-mail about Fletcher from an anonymous address that traced back to a military server called "Romeo 61." Fletcher is shaken, and orders the soldiers to let the Gunmen go free. Back at their office, the Gunmen call in Kimmy to help trace Romeo 61. He locates a file with dozens of dates and locations of what could be terrorist acts, including the Munich Olympic killings, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez oil leak, and the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963. It's just a list, however.
They go after Fletcher, who is back in the bar using the same pickup line on another woman. He takes her back to his room, but the three Gunmen are there and the woman abruptly leaves. The Gunmen think Fletcher needs them - he's scared of Romeo 61 and they offer to help. He says he knows who they are, which is why he let them live. Killing them would be like killing the staff of Madd Magazine. He agrees to their help, however. Jimmy talks with Yves. He wants her to tell the others to leave the Romeo 61 story alone, but she refuses. Fletcher says that nobody knows who Romeo 61 is or what their mission is, but they are a very scary bunch. He has a meeting Friday about Maharren, but his data disk, needed for the presentation, was stolen by a woman. His description perfectly matches Yves. He exaggerates many details in telling how he picked her up in the bar and took her to his room. There, she drugged him, gained access to the room safe and took the data disk. If he doesn't have the disk Friday, he is literally a dead man. Fletcher is convinced that Yves is a member of Romeo 61. They take Fletcher back to their office and learn that Yves' phone account is billed to Martha Stewart Living.
Yves fakes a message to Fox Mulder from Frohike, asking to meet. The Gunmen hack into a series of pieces of equipment that take archival photographs, such as ATM machines, to trace Yves' route when she left the Georgetown Plaza Hotel with the data disk. They see her enter an apartment hotel. They break into her apartment, but as they enter, a booby trap sprays Langly's face with blue dye. Jimmy doesn't believe that Yves is a killer, and walks out in disgust. Langly finds a record of a Swiss bank account opened the day before with a balance of $10 million. Yves uses recognition passwords to meet with a contact in the Smithsonian Institution. He wants to know if she has the item for sale. She demands to know who he told about her and if they know who she is. As she leaves, a man follows her. Jimmy returns to the Gunmen's office to pack his things, but he sees an e-mail from "FOX2001" and assumes that it is Yves (who he thinks is a "Fox") setting a time for their meeting that night. Jimmy goes to the parking garage and meets Mulder. They eventually realize that they have been tricked into meeting and begin to figure the matter out. Meanwhile, Yves had been watching for Mulder, but discovers she has been followed. She drives off, and the man follows in his car. She corners him and he says people she cares about will die if she doesn't come with him. She counters that she doesn't care about anyone, and shoots out his tires, allowing her to escape.
The Gunmen have been observing Fenix Atlantic Corporation, the company that wrote the $10 million check deposited in what they believe is Yves's account. They obtain plans for the building showing an underground vault. Fletcher, who is with them, doesn't think they can get in, because the building uses a face recognition system. Langly's blue face suggests a plan - the blue face will be invisible to the camera system, which uses several identifying points on each face. They access the facial characteristics of three Fenix employees, and put pink dots on each of their faces, to fool the recognition system. Fletcher says he will sit this one out. The three Gunmen head out and Fletcher talks by phone with the man who was following Yves. Everything is going according to plan and the "three mice" are on their way.
Jimmy intimidates Kimmy into tracing the phone number Mulder got in the e-mail that was supposedly from Frohike - it is billed to Martha Stewart Living. Jimmy realizes that Yves intended to meet Mulder. Yves enters the office, giving Jimmy the computer disk and telling him to get it to Mulder. It is a detailed file of alien abductees, or at least people who have been brainwashed into thinking they are abductees. She says Romeo 61 does not exist - it is just bait used to attract the Gunmen. Langly, Byers and Frohike enter the Fenix building and successfully pass the face recognition system, but when they reach the vault, it is nothing like the design on their schematics, which were apparently faked.
Yves tells Jimmy and Kimmy that Fletcher is using them to get to her. He wants the data disk, but he also works for a man who has wanted to capture Yves for a long time. She won't turn herself in, which means that Langly, Byers and Frohike are in danger. Yves denies that she has an apartment at the hotel located by the Gunmen. The room, it turns out, is rented to Fenix Corporation. Yves, Jimmy and Kimmy drive up to the Fenix complex. She drugs Jimmy, and tells Kimmy to take him home. She easily opens a locked gate and enters the complex. Fletcher enters the room where the Gunmen stand in front of the vault. He has several military commandos with him, as well as Yves, with her wrists shackled. To be continued.....
Note about dating: The most recent dates on the Romeo 61 list are 5-14-01 and 5-4-01, indicating that this episode took place probably in late May or early June of 2001. Evidence seen in The X-Files indicates that this episode is set in the 48 hours between the "Mulder and Scully kiss" and Mulder's disappearance.
The Lone Gunmen was canceled after one season, so the resolution of this cliffhanger was never produced. In The X-Files eighth season premier Langly is seen with the remains of blue dye on his face, indicating that The Lone Gunmen somehow escapes Morris Fletcher. In that episode they also mention that they are short on cash, implying that Jimmy is no longer financing them.