![[Krycek's FBI ID]](images/krycekid.gif)
When we first meet Alex Krycek, he is Mulder's new partner, an eager, rather puppyish young FBI agent with a severe case of hero worship for Mulder. But the puppy has teeth! He brings Mulder his 302 for the Grissom case - the form that officially assigns him to the case - and Mulder is less than pleased to find Krycek has been assigned to work with him. Krycek refuses to give the case up, however.
Mulder doesn't want anyone replacing Scully, who has been reassigned to teach at the FBI Academy at Quantico, and ditches the new kid rather rudely. He tells Krycek to get them a car from the car pool, then takes a cab to Grissom's sleep disorders clinic. But when he gets out, he finds that Krycek has tracked him down and paid off his cab.
Krycek confronts him over his behavior ("I don't appreciate being ditched like someone's bad date") and tells him that he's always admired Mulder's work, even when everyone else laughed. After that Mulder seems to accept him, even trust him - far more quickly and easily than he trusted Scully when she first became his partner. Scully even seems to be a little jealous about this.
After that rough beginning, Mulder and Krycek work quite well together. Krycek appears to be well-trained and well-educated - very helpful to Mulder, if a bit green. (He's visibly disturbed at the sight of the body Scully is autopsying when they visit her at Quantico, and panics a bit at the end, when they find wounded Dr. Gerardi and confront Cole.)
Near the end of "Sleepless," Krycek kills Augustus Cole, thinking the man is about to shoot Mulder. It turns out that Cole was unarmed, but was able to make Krycek think otherwise - Cole's way of committing suicide. (Curious that Cole pointed his "gun" at Mulder rather than at Krycek himself. Cole seemed to be able to read people's minds; apparently he saw something that made him think Krycek would respond better to a threat against Mulder than to a personal threat.) Krycek is distraught over having killed a man, particularly one who turned out to be unarmed, and Mulder reassures him: "You did the right thing."
However, it is soon revealed that, unbeknownst to Mulder, Krycek is a double agent, working for CM. His assignment at first seems to be mainly to gain Mulder's trust and report on his activities. At the end of "Sleepless," he tells CM that "Scully's a problem. A much larger problem than you described."
In "Duane Barry," Krycek's role is largely that of errand boy. He's sent to fetch Mulder at the swimming pool, in the famous Speedo scene. They take Krycek's car to where Barry is holding the hostages (and Krycek gets to drive). Once there, Krycek volunteers to help Agent Kazdin in any way he can - and she sends him out for coffee! He also takes messages for Mulder from Scully, who is again rather snippy with him.
And perhaps she had reason to be. Duane Barry didn't even know Scully. Someone had to put it in his head that if he kidnapped her, he'd be spared abduction himself. That someone might have been Krycek.
In "Ascension," Krycek begins to take a much more active role, both as an FBI and a Consortium agent. This is when he moves beyond merely spying on Mulder - who is so distraught over Scully's abduction that Krycek has to take the lead more than once.
When they attend a meeting on Scully's abduction in Skinner's office, Skinner asks Mulder about Barry's motives; Mulder doesn't answer, and Krycek is the one who has to float the alien abduction stuff, to the discomfort of the senior agents present. At the end of the meeting, Skinner orders Krycek to make sure Mulder gets home safely.
Later that day, Mulder figures out where Barry has taken Scully, and heads out to Skyland Mountain, taking Krycek with him. He seems to trust Krycek implicitly at this point; he doesn't have to tell Krycek what he's planning, or bring him along, but he does - even though Krycek is uneasy at the idea of going against Skinner's orders. Mulder seems to think he'll need Krycek. (And he did. He was so tired he'd probably have driven off the road and killed himself if Krycek weren't in the car to wake him up!)
Once at Skyland Mountain, it's Krycek who takes the lead in the investigation: he questions the tram operator, shows him a photo of Duane Barry, etc. And he wants to go with Mulder on the tram, even though the tram operator says it isn't safe. Mulder won't let him, though, wanting him to stay at the controls and make sure no stops the tram (and perhaps willing to risk his own life but not his partner's).
When it starts to look like Mulder might make it to the top of the mountain in time to stop Barry, Krycek pistol-whips the tram operator unconscious and turns off the power, stranding Mulder on the tram. Krycek calls someone on his cell phone, possibly CM, and tells him that he can keep Mulder there as long as necessary. But Mulder gets out of the tram and starts to climb up to the cable, apparently intending to crawl or swing along it to the top of the mountain. (A truly desperate move, since that cable must have been a high-voltage line. If Krycek had waited until Mulder got up there to turn the power on, it would have been Mulder flambe.) Krycek panicks, and starts the tram up again. (He was not trying to kill Mulder; he looks visibly relieved when Mulder reached safety.)
Many viewers believe that Krycek killed the tram operator, but I find that hard to credit. What did he do with the body if he killed him? The tram operator wasn't found, and it seems unlikely that Krycek would have had the time to bury a body on the site - so well that hoards of FBI investigators couldn't find it. Putting it in the trunk of the car for later disposal would be more than a little risky, since presumably Mulder drove back with him. No, the same men who took Scully must have taken the tram operator, too.
When Mulder is questioning Duane Barry in the office of the Skyland Grill, Barry sees Krycek looking in the window behind Mulder. He is standing with the two men Duane saw in his abduction flashback in "Duane Barry." (Interesting, if that was real and not a delusion. Has Krycek participated in abductions himself?)
Mulder seems to have lost some of his trust in Krycek after the power failure on the tram. He doesn't want Krycek questioning Duane Barry. Krycek also gives Mulder a hard time over the way he choked Barry. Barry dies shortly after Krycek questions him. Mulder thinks someone poisoned him, but he did choke the man, who had been shot in the chest not too long ago.
The next morning, Krycek gets in his car and finds CM waiting for him inside. He asks what he should tell Skinner about the Duane Barry incident. CM tells him to confirm Mulder's version of events; he's earned Mulder's trust, and now his assignment is to keep it. Krycek expresses some dissatisfaction with the Consortium's methods, and CM tells him, "You have no rights, only orders to be carried out. You have a problem with that, we'll make other arrangements."
There's another meeting in Skinner's office. Skinner says Krycek has corrroborated Mulder's story, but that he still wants them both to take a lie detector test. Mulder doesn't go, though; instead, he borrows Krycek's car and goes to visit Senator Matheson. He finds Morley butts in the ashtray of the car, and suddenly suspects Krycek of everything: killing the tram operator, killing Duane Barry, arranging Scully's abduction. He spends the rest of the day and night working on his report, and presents it to Skinner the next morning. Skinner calls Krycek in to face the charges, only to find Krycek didn't report to work that morning, and that his home phone number has been disconnected. It's unclear if he was pulled out because CM somehow found out Mulder no longer trusted him, or because he couldn't pass the lie detector test Skinner wanted him to take.
