Plot
Via a live news report, a high-speed car chase comes to an end in the Nevada desert. Assuming it to be a kidnapping, the female passenger is pulled from the vehicle and placed into the protective custody of a police vehicle. The driver, Patrick Crump (Bryan Cranston), is pushed to the asphalt and handcuffed. The woman in the police car begins violently banging her head against the car window. As the news chopper catches all of this on film, the woman's head explodes, sending a spray of blood across the window.
Mulder and Scully get wind of this bizarre car chase as they're doing work in Idaho investigating possible domestic terrorism. Mulder coerces Scully into taking a detour to Elko, Nevada on a hunch that this may be an X-File. Crump, who has started to develop symptoms of a sickness, is put in an ambulance. Mulder, wishing to speak to Crump, follows the ambulance, and ends up getting himself kidnapped by Crump, who has escaped from the police.
Mulder realizes that Crump is in a considerable amount of pain and that the only way to ease the pain is to drive west. At first, Scully believes that Crump is suffering from some sort of biological contagion, but after investigating the Crumps' home, she discovers a U.S. Navy antenna array emitting ELF waves stretches beneath their property. Scully deduces that an abnormal surge in these waves somehow caused a rising pressure in the inner ear of the nearby inhabitants. Westward motion and an increase in speed seems to be the only thing to help the ease the pain of the increasing pressure.
Initially, Crump, thinking that Mulder is in on some sort of government conspiracy, forces Mulder to drive by brandishing a gun. He further infuriates Mulder by using anti-semitic slurs. Eventually, however, Mulder and Crump begrudgingly make amends and decided to work together as allies, rather than enemies. Mulder explains to Crump that Scully will meet them at the end of the highway. There she will insert a needle into Crump's inner ear, hopefully relieving the pressure. Unfortunately, when Scully arrives, it is too late and the pressure in Crump's ear has already exploded, killing him.
Read more about this topic: Drive (The X-Files)
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