S7E19 · Hollywood A.D.

Walter Skinner 's college friend, Hollywood producer Wayne Federman, is involved in a film project about the FBI. During Federman's research phase, Skinner gives him access to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who are investigating the attempted murder of Cardinal O'Fallon. Federman tags along and constantly interrupts the agents. While searching the catacombs of O'Fallon's church, Mulder finds the remains of Micah Hoffman, a missing 1960s counter-culturalist. Searching Hoffman's apartment, they find bombs and counterfeiting tools, as well as a forged gospel of Mary Magdalene. Mulder and Federman return to the catacombs, finding several skeletons and pieces of the forged gospel. Federman wanders off and stumbles upon animated bones, who attempt to assemble a shattered piece of pottery. He panics and leaves the scene.

As they examine the pottery, Scully tells Mulder the story of the "Lazarus Bowl", in which the aunt of Lazarus had been making a clay bowl when Jesus Christ resurrected him. The words of Christ were then recorded in the grooves of the bowl, much like a phonograph record. Mulder brings the relic to Chuck Burks, who, after performing a sonic analysis, discovers voices in Aramaic: In one portion part of the audio, one man commands another to rise from the dead. The other contains lyrics from " I am the Walrus " by The Beatles plus an allusion to the Paul is dead urban legend.

Mulder visits O'Fallon, who admits he bought the forged gospel from Hoffman, believing it was real. Meanwhile, during Hoffman's autopsy, Scully experiences a hallucination wherein he comes back to life on the operating table and begins talking. Later, at the church, Scully has a hallucination of Hoffman in Jesus' place on a large crucifix. Mulder arrests O'Fallon for Hoffman's murder, but Hoffman walks in, unscathed. He tells the agents that while he initially created the forgeries to make money, he came to believe he was the reincarnation of Christ, and bombed the church to get rid of the "blasphemous" forgeries. Skinner suspends Scully and Mulder for four weeks because of the mix-up. Sixteen months later, O'Fallon kills Hoffman in a murder-suicide. As such, the X-File is never truly solved.

During their suspension, Mulder and Scully venture to Hollywood to view the production of Federman's film. It is revealed that Federman's movie was called The Lazarus Bowl, with Garry Shandling playing Mulder and Téa Leoni playing Scully. After filming is done, Mulder and Scully attend a screening of the film with Skinner, but are disappointed with how the movie portrays them and the case. The agents leave the set holding hands, presumably on their way to dinner with the FBI credit card Skinner gave them after watching the movie, hinting at the continued romantic relationship between them. As they leave, the dead who were resting underneath the film set are revived and begin to dance passionately, reinforcing a theory Mulder made earlier in the episode.