What Happened In 'The X-Files: I Want To Believe' Movie? Recap Before The Miniseries Premiere

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are set to return to "The X-Files" for the first time in eight years when the six-episode miniseries premieres on Fox this Sunday. The last time we saw the two agents they were helping the FBI find one of their missing agents with the aid of a psychic priest in the 2008 movie "The X-Files: I Want To Believe." Before we see Mulder and Scully's next chapter, refresh your memory with what happened in their last case.

"The X-Files: I Want To Believe" was a standalone movie that did not continue the ongoing mythology of the show about the government covering up the existence of alien life. When the film begins Mulder is still in hiding from the FBI, while Scully has gone back to being a doctor.

Six years after the agents left the FBI, Mulder and Scully are drawn back in when an FBI agent goes missing. A priest named Father Joseph (Billy Connolly), who was charged with child molestation in the past, is guiding the FBI through visions he was having. He ends up leading them to a severed arm in the middle of snow-covered wilderness. The FBI then turns to Mulder for his expertise in the unexplained and agree they will stop hunting him down if he helps them.

The villain of the movie, Janke Dacyshyn (Callum Keith Rennie), is part of a medical unit that has been killing people and taking their organs to keep alive his sick husband, Franz Tomczeszyn (Fagin Woodcock). Dacyshyn keeps Tomczeszyn alive by having doctors sew on parts of other people, just like Frankenstein. Mulder believes Father Joseph really does have psychic abilities to see what the killer has been doing and the priest ends up leading the FBI to more evidence when they come across a field where bodies and limbs of people have been buried.

FBI agents Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Mosley Drummy (Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner) determine that the key suspects in the case are Dacyshyn and Tomczeszyn. They tell Mulder and Scully that Tomczeszyn was one of the boys Father Joseph abused in the past and they believe the priest is an accomplice. During a raid, Drummy finds the missing FBI agents head in a bag and Whitney gets killed by Dacyshyn during a pursuit.

Father Joseph is taken to the hospital after having a seizure and they learn he's terminally ill. Scully, who is not a fan of Father Joseph, decides to test his psychic ability. She asks Father Joseph if the missing FBI agent is alive, when she's knows the agent is dead. He answers yes, which she thinks will disprove his psychic claims, but Mulder doesn't give up on his belief.

Mulder ends up tracking down Dacyshyn to try and save another girl that's been taken. When Scully is unable to reach Mulder, she gets in touch with her old boss Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and the two track his phone. Skinner and Scully arrive just in time to save Mulder and the girl. Mulder later figures out that there was some kind of mental connection between Father Joseph and Tomczeszyn because when Tomczeszyn dies, Father Joseph dies at the same time.

For most of the movie, Scully no longer wants to be involved in the "darkness" of their past career and she focuses on trying to heal a patient with an incurable disease. She uses an experimental treatment to try and cure the boy, refusing to give up on him. After Scully gives the boy one last treatment, her and Mulder are shown in a boat, rowing away together before the film comes to an end.

"The X-Files" miniseries premieres Sunday, Jan. 24