So, I don't remember anything about "Firewalker" as an episode from watching it back in the 2010s, and for a early season s2 episode (on disc three, bc I own the DVDs now), I rank it up there with "Aubrey" in terms of rewatchability.
I think the best bits of the episode happen with Mulder. He's doing most of the sussing while Scully is just there reacting, and reassuring Mulder that she's fine to go to work post-kidnapping. That's not necessarily a negative, but when I think about the episode, it's the conversations Mulder is having with Ludwig and Trepkos. I think the strongest scene with her in it is near the end when she's trying to save herself from the certain infection.
It follows the same vein as "Ice" (my favorite s1 episode), but because so much of the horror has happened off screen, a lot of unease and tension is about what the hell is going on with Trepkos and why he's killing his team.
I remember thinking it was going to be a Firestarer episode, but the closest anyone gets to getting someone on fire is shooting Ludwig in the back with a flare. Fucking gnarly.
But all the things I was expecting to come crawling out of that man's neck in "Firewalker", a penis length parasite was not one of them. I went from scared to baffled. It actually killed whatever dread I experienced the first half of the episode, because I kept wondering, "How does that design correlate with the volcano environment? What does it do beside spear people in the throat?"
Of the guest cast, I do think Bradley Whitford and Leland Orser did stand out as the strongest performers.
