Deep Throat (The X-Files)
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{{Xfiles character
|image=Image:Deep T008.JPG
|name=Deep Throat
|affiliation=CIA/Syndicate
|start=Deep Throat
|finish=The Erlenmeyer Flask (regular)
The Truth (archive footage)
|portrayed=Jerry Hardin
}}Deep Throat is a fictional character in the television show The X-Files, played by Jerry Hardin. The character is named after the Deep Throat of the Watergate scandal.
Deep Throat first appears in the episode Deep Throat, first warning agent Fox Mulder of the danger he is in, and later offering to help him. He subsequently becomes Mulder's first covert information source.
During the first season of The X-Files, Deep Throat provided Mulder and Scully with information they would have been otherwise unable to obtain, leading to some interesting investigations. Being a member of the then unseen Syndicate, he was in a position to know a great deal of information. Generally, Deep Throat used his power to help Mulder, though without jeopardizing his own security, and so his information was sometimes vague and needed to be decoded by Mulder. Deep Throat felt that the truth that the Syndicate kept secret from the public needed to be known, and he expressed to Mulder that he believed Mulder was the one capable of doing so. However, Deep Throat had at least once provided Mulder with false information in order to divert him, later explaining that he believed the public was just not ready to know some truths.
It is unclear what Deep Throat's motives for helping Mulder uncover the truth about extraterrestrial life actually were. During the Vietnam War, and while still part of the Syndicate, he worked for the CIA. A UFO was spotted over Hanoi by the US Marines, who shot it down. The surviving EBE was brought to Deep Throat, who following Syndicate policy, executed the alien. He later recounted this to Mulder and explained that his helping Mulder is his way of clearing his own conscience after that haunting experience. He has also stated that he was "a participant in some of the most insidious lies and witness to deeds that no crazed man could imagine". He became disillusioned with the Syndicate, though unlike Bill Mulder or Alvin Kurtzweil, he remained a member.
In the first season finale of The X-Files, The Erlenmeyer Flask, Mulder was taken hostage by a group of Men in Black operatives, following his investigation into an alien-human hybrid program. Fearing for Mulder's life, Deep Throat secured access for Scully to enter a high containment facility, where she managed to secretly remove a cryogenically preserved alien fetus, which would then be used as collateral for Mulder's life. In the subsequent meeting between the operatives and Deep Throat, who would not allow Scully to make the exchange, he was gunned down by Syndicate assassin, the Crew Cut Man, on orders from the Cigarette Smoking Man. He was buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.
Deep Throat appears in later episodes primarily in flashbacks, but also once as a ghost and later as a memory in Mulder's mind.
Quotes
- [To FBI Division Chief McGrath, concerning Mulder] Deep Throat: "...but his occasional insubordination is in the end far less dangerous."
- McGrath: "With respect, sir-- less dangerous than what?"
- Deep Throat: "Than having him exposed to the wrong people-- what he knows... h'm [smiles], what he thinks he knows." - Fallen Angel
- Deep Throat: Always keep your friend's close. But keep your enemies closer.
{This line is one of many references to The Godfather, but the quote's origin is actually from Machiavelli's The Prince.}.
- [Handing Cigarette Smoking Man a firearm] Deep Throat: "I'm the liar. You're the killer."
- CSM: "Your lies have killed more men in a day than I have in a lifetime. I've never killed anybody."
- Deep Throat: "Maybe I'm not the liar." - Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
- Mulder: "They're here, aren't they?"
- Deep Throat: "Mr. Mulder, they've been here for a long, long time." - Deep Throat
- Deep Throat: "Mulder...if a shark stops swimming, it will die. Don't stop swimming." - E.B.E.
- [His dying words] "Trust no one." - The Erlenmeyer Flask