The Blessing Way is the continuation of season two's finale Anasazi where Fox Mulder was supposedly killed by an explosion in a buried rail car. Anasazi was at such a high level of drama and excitement, it would be hard to follow it up with as much intensity. The Blessing Way is a great episode but falls a little short of Anasazi. A lot of the episode deals with Mulder's recovery through a Native American ritual called 'the blessing way'. For me, that's where the episode loses a lot of its tension. Mulder lying on a bed being talked about by a Native American and being talked to by deceased persons doesn't do it for me. The other half of the story has to do with Scully dealing with Skinner, a member of the Consortium, and finding an implant in your neck. The Scully side of the story has a lot of good drama and intensity. That's why I gave this episode an 8. The end of the episode is worth the wait, and takes us into the third part of this story, Paper Clip.