Plot
In Millikan County, Georgia, biologists Paul Farraday and William Bailey discuss the decreasing frog population. Bailey goes looking for a missing beeper and ends up getting dragged into the lake by an unseen creature and killed.
Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) drive down to Georgia to investigate. Scully is forced to bring her dog Queequeg with them due to the short notice. Mulder tells Scully that a Boy Scout Troop Leader has also disappeared near the lake. Scully soon finds that Mulder believes "Big Blue"—a plesiosaur-like cryptid—is responsible. The agents talk to Dr. Farraday and visit a local bait and tackle shop that sells Big Blue merchandise. Soon afterwards, the half eaten body of the Scout Leader is found.
Later that night, the bait and tackle shop owner walks through the swamp in boots, making fake dinosaur tracks. However, he is attacked and killed. Mulder wants the lake to be closed but the local sheriff declines and says that he does not have enough men to cover the 48 miles of shoreline. Two teenagers, previously seen in the episode "War of the Coprophages", head to the lake and discover the remains of a partially eaten diver. Scully, still is skeptical about Big Blue being the killer, thinks that a boat propeller was responsible. A photographer named Ansel is also attacked and when the Sheriff feels something in the water. After falling into the lake, he orders the lake closed. Scully takes Queequeg for a walk while Mulder looks at Ansel's photographs and the dog ends up running off and disappearing, becoming the latest victim of the attacks. Mulder realizes that the Big Blue sightings have been occurring closer and closer to shore.
Mulder and Scully rent a boat and head out onto the lake; their boat is quickly struck by something and sinks. The two find a large rock to climb up on and talk for a while about Mulder's quest to catch Big Blue, and the book Moby-Dick. When Dr. Farraday walks by the two realize they are close to shore. Mulder thinks the drop in the frog supply has caused Big Blue to move closer to shore and seek alternative food sources. Farraday is soon attacked but manages to make it out alive. Mulder chases the attacker into the woods and fires at it, revealing it to be an alligator. Mulder is disappointed that the killer ended up being an alligator and not Big Blue. As the agents leave, Big Blue swims nearby in the lake, unnoticed.
Read more about this topic: Quagmire (The X-Files)
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