#luis cardinal

[nonhicsumus]

bonus: Scully accurately sums up Apocrypha (3x16):

Is anybody not looking for Krycek, Part I

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Season Three Master Post

We’ve come to the conclusion of a momentous season! From some of the most iconic episodes to some of the most beloved characters, season three was full of intense chapters!

Check out this thread to see all the characters we got to meet!

3x01 | The Blessing Way - The Well-Manicured Man (@fridaysat9

They were all living on the precipice of the end of the human race, but they were only concerned with jobs, school assignments, and playdates.

Life, as it should be.

3x02 | Paper Clip - Victor Klemper (@monikafilefan)

The offspring of a rebel syndicate member unearthing truths Victor has spent decades trying to bury beneath buttercups and begonias has marked him for certain death.

3x03 | D.P.O. - Darin Peter Oswald (@gaycrouton)

His friend was scared of him, and it made Darin feel powerful.

3x04 | Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose - Clyde Bruckman (@fridaysat9)

A funny thing happens when you see your own death. At first you try to make sense of it– what could it mean, why the tears, why her? Then you try to change it.

3x05 | The List - Dr. Juan Ullrich (@monikafilefan)

Juan fidgets with an evidence bag, trying not to blatantly stare at the agents holding an entire conversation with their eyes while systematically categorizing every sway of their bodies, every touch of her hands.

3x06 | 2Shy - Lauren MacKalvey (@gaycrouton)

2SHY > You have no idea how beautiful I think you are. I must confess… I feel inextricably drawn to you. I can’t stop thinking about what you said the other day… You don’t deserve to feel lonely, Lauren.

3x07 | The Walk - Leonard 'Rappo' Trimble (@admiralty-xfd)

Every night, he walks again. And every morning he wakes in the same bed with the same phantom pain. Every day he wishes he’d just died; that explosion that didn’t quite kill him cost him his life, anyway.

3x08 | Oubliette - Lucy Householder (@monikafilefan)

She has to go. It’s all so clear now. She has to go back. Through the woods, through the house — into the dark. Maybe she was never meant to leave it at all.

3x09 | Nisei - Penny Northern (@gaycrouton)

It was the strength of these women that got her through those experiences, and it was the strength of these women that would help her embark on this dark path they were all destined to walk.

3x10 | 731 - First Elder (The Well-Fed Man) (@admiralty-xfd)

The one thing that can be manipulated more effectively than any other is her fear of the unknown… of what happened to her last year.

3x11 | Revelations - Owen Lee Jarvis (@fridaysat9)

He gave of himself, abandoning what little life he’d had, to honor God’s words and do as he had been called.

3x12 | War of the Coprohages - Dr. Bambi Berenbaum (@gaycrouton)

Bambi felt a flush spread across her chest as his hypothesis brought a smile to her face. Hearing that he hadn’t been merely indulging her earlier was a refreshing change of pace.

3x13 | Syzygy - Detective Angela White (@admiralty-xfd)

Detective White stops as Agent Scully finally glances over at her, somewhat defensively. And then she gets it. Everything about the way she’s been treated since the agents arrived makes perfect sense.

3x14 | Grotesque - Agent Bill Patterson (@fridaysat9)

Patterson figured that Mulder might have a theory about a potential copycat killer, but no; he’d been researching gargoyles and goblins. Monsters recorded in dusty old tomes pulled from the library shelves.

3x15 | Piper Maru - Kimberly (@monikafilefan)

Kimberly Cook is good at her secretarial job. So when the man she’s been working closely with for two years is troubled, she refuses to let him file the feeling away like some confidential case in his cabinet.

3x16 | Apocrypha - Luis Cardinal (@admiralty-xfd)

The Scully woman is not simply angry, she’s unhinged. And there’s a small part of him that understands; it’s the part of him that, prior to working for the Smoker, had never been asked to shoot an innocent woman before.

3x17 | Pusher - Agent Frank Burst (@fridaysat9)

Frank doesn’t care if he has to tell him his mother’s maiden name and his favorite breakfast cereal if it means getting his location.

3x18 | Teso Dos Bichos - Officer (@monikafilefan)

He doesn’t get paid enough for this shit.

3x19 | Hell Money - Hsin Shuyang (@gaycrouton)

The gods might not be listening, but the devil was waiting for him down the street, ready to play a game with all the men whose American dreams had turned into nightmares.

3x20 | Jose Chung's From Outer Space - Detective Manners (@fridaysat9)

That's a bleepin' dead alien body, if I ever bleepin' saw one.

3x21 | Avatar - Carina Sayles (@monikafilefan)

She can tell he doesn’t do this. Doesn’t drink alone in a bar, letting a stranger slowly seduce him.

3x22 | Quagmire - Queequeg (@gaycrouton)

Queequeg was loved.

3x23 | Wetwired - 'Doctor' Stroman (@admiralty-xfd)

Another town, another test, another shitty motel room… but always the same boss.

3x24 | Talitha Cumi - Teena Mulder (@monikafilefan)

If only Bill had known back then that the untrustworthy person he was referring to would sleep with his wife and father his son.

Stay tuned for more perspectives coming in Season Four!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

[bugchuckles]

Norman sat with his eyes closed and his back hunched. He was shaking uncontrollably; his muscles spasming unnaturally.

"Norman?" Neil asked fearfully, pulling on their connected hands.

"Don't break the circle!" Gideon warned. "Someone is trying to contact us through Norman." - Mystery Kids and The Case of The Whispering Rock, Chapter 15: The Seance

commission for @c-corvid of the seance scene, including some detail shots that were covered up by the final composition

[all-eyes-lead-to-the-truth]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Apocrypha (3x16)

The ambulance doors fling open and for a split second, it's déjà vu for Luis Cardinal. A flash of red hair and those eyes, the same eyes… only these aren’t taken by surprise, barely registering death before they close. This time they are directed at him in anger.

Back in Nicaragua, death was a way of life. He’d spent most of his days chasing his older brothers, engaged in target practice, pretending they were Contras. His mother always called him cumiche, the baby. Her baby. 

But he doesn’t think about her anymore.

By the time he was in his mid-twenties he’d surpassed both of his brothers, having become exactly what he’d trained for. And when he arrived in the United States, having been enrolled in the School of the Americas, he’d required little training as a marksman. In fact, his skills in that area were exactly what had drawn the Smoker to him. He’d been the one to pluck him out of a lineup, take him under his wing, and erase his history. Just in time, too; it happened mere months before the feds required the human rights background checks he would certainly not pass.

He didn’t make mistakes back at Fort Moore. But here and now on his own as a mercenary, he has made far too many. First the Scully woman, then the Assistant Director. 

He’s come here to rectify his error in the restaurant; now is his chance to finish the job. Because the man he works for does not tolerate mistakes. And perhaps that’s what’s made him reckless now, as he fires wildly into the vehicle and misses. 

Luis flees, something he’s gotten used to doing. Working in the shadows as a cipher makes it a necessity. The redhead gives chase, and if not for an ill-timed car pulling out in front of him, he might very well have escaped on foot. But his legs ache, and his back… his back feels like it’s been stabbed with a thousand machetes.

“Federal Agent, stop right there!”

He collapses, unable to bear the pain. 

“Are you Luis Cardinal?!” she screams, her gun pointed directly into his face. Then, louder: “Are you Luis Cardinal?”

Luis Cardinal. His name sounds unfamiliar now. This is not who he is anymore, this is the name of the boy who chased his brothers through the streets, whose mother cradled him at night and kissed his head, calling him her cumiche.

No. He doesn’t think about his mother anymore.

“Are you the man who shot my sister?”

The Scully woman is not simply angry, she’s unhinged. A woman with a vendetta. And there’s a small part of him that understands;  it’s the part of him that, prior to working for the Smoker, had never been asked to shoot an innocent woman in cold blood before.

But the adrenaline is coursing through his veins, pushing towards the forefront of his mind the singular thought of a survivor: I don’t want to die.

The Smoker has made it clear he no longer trusts Alex Krycek. For years it seems Krycek was poised to be his right-hand man, but since that’s no longer the case, now is Luis’s chance to throw his counterpart to the wolves.

“You want Krycek,” he tells her. He was there, after all. It’s a last-ditch effort, and he’s not entirely sure it will even work. All she has to do is pull the trigger. But the Scully woman shows something he never does: restraint. It’s probably the only reason he’s still alive.

The officers arrive, slapping cuffs on his wrists, and he is caught. His third mistake. The Smoker will not be pleased.

Luis sits in a cold holding cell for what feels like an eternity, but most likely is only a couple of hours. It’s strange how time has no meaning when your death is imminent.

Eventually, the Smoker arrives, a carcinogenic cloud following him the way it always does. Luis crosses himself like a reflex; it’s something he has not done in years. He wonders how God will judge him, something he also has not done in years.

For the first time Luis notices Alex Krycek is standing behind the Smoker, unusually stiff, like a sentinel. Just as earlier, there’s something not quite right about him, but Luis has no time to worry about that. He has no time for anything, not anymore.

The Smoker comes up close to the bars, exhales a plume of smoke between them. “I have no use for men who make mistakes,” he says coldly. He unlocks and opens the cell door, and Krycek advances wordlessly. 

There is no time for pleas or arguments. A cord is wrapped around Luis’s throat, and he gasps wildly for air. All he sees is the Smoker standing back in the shadows, like Death himself. 

It’s not what he wants to see before he welcomes death. He closes his eyes and the last thing he sees is his mother. He waits for her to hold him close, to whisper cumiche.

She does not.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Ao3

@admiralty-xfd

[keepingtrackoflosttime]

my partner just described Luis Cardinal as "Mike Ehrmantraut if he sucked at his job"

can't say I disagree