Scully definitely gets her tattoo from a creepy Asian man. He doesn’t really do anything most of the episode.
Meanwhile, Mulder is off doing something without his partner (maybe he didn’t accrue enough frequent flier points?) or is at least indisposed/displeased with Scully’s burgeoning attraction to a serial killer/her own tattoo. (Sorry guys, I was “Team Sneaky Rat-Faced Dude with the Weird Black Shit in His Eyes, Though He was Evil Before That For Sure, Because One Time He Chased Scully on a Gondola, But He Had the Benefit of Not Looking Exactly Like My Father” Man.)
Her tattoo is of…a male mermaid? A hot guy? An alien smoking a blunt, a la Paul ? (Shout-out to Paul !) I feel like she has a flirtatious relationship to her tattoo that is 50 percent more sexually charged than her relationship to life-sized cardboard cutout masquerading as a partner. The tattoo she gets definitely starts telling her to do crazy things, none of which I remember. The more I think about it, the more Scully was drugged and forced to get a tattoo. Or no…wait, maybe it’s that a guy with a tattoo starts murdering people, and Scully goes deep undercover by….getting a tattoo herself? Could that be right? I mean, in a way, that makes LESS sense, since it would imply that the logical Scully bought this dude’s excuse that his tattoo (which is of a mermaid, I think, so maybe he’s a sailor?) made him do it, which is the equivalent of catching David Berkowitz by adopting a dog. So anyway, she’s got this tattoo now, and the guy she was on a date with starts murdering people.
(Rough.) I don’t know, but the point is: Scully is feeling lonely and vulnerable and has a lot of free air miles. Or wait, maybe she had just tried to kiss Mulder, but he got really moody because his sister was abducted by aliens, or because his dad is a dick who is also his boss. Why does the previously cautious and taciturn FBI agent make such a rash decision? How did she get to Taiwan/Philippines/Canal St? I don’t know, but it probably has something to do with aliens. I want to say this takes place in Taiwan, but it could very well be the Philippines, or anywhere in Asia, or possibly just a Chinatown.
Scully gets drunk one night, or possibly takes Ecstasy, and gets a tattoo with some rando she picks up at a bar.