Young at Heart
Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: XFiles: Season One: Young at Heart
Synopsis: Mulder and Scully are called into a jewelry store robbery by agent Reggie Purdue, where it quickly comes apparent why Mulder was called in. A note reading "Fox can't guard the chicken coop" was left at the scene, which fits the pattern of Mulder's first case: a sadistic robber named John Barnett who ended up killing two people because of Mulder's hesitation in a hostage situation. Even though Barnett supposedly died in prison four years prior, a specialist determines that the note was written, by Barnett, two days ago at the most. Joe Crandall, Barnett's old cellmate, reveals in an interview with Mulder and Scully that he saw Barnett alive on the night he supposedly died, and that the prison doctor had amputated Barnett's right hand. While Mulder tells the facts to Purdue on the phone, Purdue is attacked. Mulder arrives at the scene too late, to find Reggie dead and another note from Barnett. The agents investigate Dr. Ridley, the doctor at the prison at the time, and find that he lost his license for unethical experiments to find a cure for progeria, a disease which causes accelerated aging. Ridley was attempting to find a fountain of youth by curing the disease, and Mulder suspects he may have succeeded on Barnett. Scully is unexpectedly visited by Dr. Ridley, who reveals that Barnett was his last surviving test subject, and that he grafted the cells of a salamander onto the stump of Barnett's hand to grow him a new, deformed one. Meeting with Deep Throat, Mulder learns that Barnett has the secrets of Ridley's experiments, and is trying to sell them to the U.S. government. Mulder suspects that Scully might be Barnett's next target, so he arranges a stakeout at a recital Scully's friend is giving. Barnett does show up and shoots Scully, but she prepared by wearing a kevlar vest. History repeats itself when Barnett takes a hostage, but this time, Mulder takes the shot.
By The Twelfth Man on Saturday, June 15, 2002 - 8:05 pm:

How come the cellist didn't freak out when the piano tuner (Barnett) stood up and stuck a gun in his waistband right in front of her?

-12-

By constanze on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 6:06 am:

Okay, I can understand the Evil Forces around Deep Throat/Cancerman financing Ridleys research - they are only interested in results, not methods. But why is mulder griping about the research being lost when barnett dies? Ridley told scully and mulder that of all the people he performed experiments on, it worked only on barnett, and he is the only who survived - even ridley himself will soon be dead. This doesn't suggest a succesful experiment or interesting research, this means obviously that barnett has a special body chemistry and slightly different genetic code from normal people, which allowed him to survive. Keeping barnett alive and getting the research papers wouldn't help the consortium at all, they would have to start again anyway.

By Merat on Wednesday, November 09, 2005 - 11:27 pm:

The Twelfth Man, because he was facing away from her. She didn't see what he was doing.

Constanze, not really. It was something they could base their research off of. It might not work with this version of the procedure, but working from that they may have found a sucessful version.

By Merat on Sunday, March 30, 2008 - 11:04 pm:

Its another X-Files/Stargate actor crossover. This time he went from troubled mad scientist to, well, troubled mad scientist. Dr. Joe Ridley is played by Robin Mossley, who would go on to play Maliki in the Stargate SG1 episode "Window of Opportunity". He would later play a much saner scientist, Dr. Reimer, in the SG1 episode "Morpheus." Mossley would return to X-Files three times, as Dr. Vance Randolph in "Our Town" and as Dr. Kingsley Looker in "Tunguska" and "Terma". In "Tunguska" and "Terma" he would play alongside fellow SG1 actor Brent Stait.

By AWhite (Inblackestnight) on Wednesday, July 20, 2016 - 10:08 am:

Scully's die-hard skeptical attitude is one of the foundations of the show, since her being a medical doctor was the reason she was assigned to the X-Files in the first place. However, considering it lasted nearly the entire run of the show I think it deserves some scrutiny starting with this ep.

So far in the show, Scully has been conveniently left out of seeing the really bizarre stuff Mulder has witnessed, but here she has actual evidence of the prison doctor being a fraud and creating a false death certificate, as well as a witness stating he saw Barnett still alive on the date of his death while being threatened to say he was dead. Between these points and Mulder's knowledge of Barnett she still refers to him as "the ghost of Barnett," despite not even believing in ghosts!

Phil touches on this scene in the guide but when Fox goes to watch the son of one of Barnett's victims plays football and finds a note in his car, he walks uncomfortably close to the young Barnett (for no reason) and doesn't recognize him or even find him suspicious in the least; what with the milky eyes and unnecessarily warm hat.

Even though she was wearing body armor Scully should've been a lot more injured from Barnett's gun than what we got. Barnett used a long-barreled .44 magnum revolver; or at the very least a .357 magnum. Either of those rounds would do more than bruise a couple ribs.

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