X-Files S1E18: Don't lay your hands on me

Editors' Note: On the rewatch of The X-Files, Lorrie plays the part of Sestra Amateur and Paige serves as the resident "expert," aka Sestra Professional.
 
Sestra Amateur: 

In Kenwood, Tennessee in 1983, a preacher stands by as his young son tries to bring a badly burned man back from the dead. The boy seemingly succeeds and the burn victim moves his arm. I’m all for saving lives, but why do that to someone whose entire body suffered severe burns? Ian Malcolm said it best in Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” No, it won't be another week of Spielberg homages; just one last one to get out. 

Ten years later, father and son are still at it, but now their gig has snowballed into the Miracle Ministry. The boy, Samuel Hartley, is now a man. His father, Reverend Calvin Hartley, presides over his flock and encourages Samuel to heal their sick and infirmed followers. But it's not working out so well -- a woman who was suffering from cancer dies after Samuel touches her. 

In a rare twist, Scully brings the case to Mulder’s attention, but he already knows of the Hartleys’ reputations. Turns out, the cancer victim was the second person to die after being touched by Samuel. They arrive in Tennessee and attend a Miracle Ministry session which looks like the tackiest convention ever. Afterward, Reverend Hartley won’t help Sculder find Samuel. His driver, a pale, scarred man wearing all black, gives the Reverend the move along. I’m pretty sure he’s the burned man Samuel saved in 1983, unless the healer kept on reviving burn victims. Sheriff Daniels gives Scully the coroner’s report as well as some background exposition on the Hartleys. Although he has a very sick wife, the sheriff does not believe the Miracle Ministry lives up to its name. 

Scully reviews the coroner’s report and learns the two victims were not autopsied. To add to the conspiracy theory, the coroner is a card-carrying member of the Hartleys’ church. Sculder plan to exhume one victim for an autopsy, but the burned man, Leonard Vance, brings members of the flock to prevent the exhumation in the name of religion. It’s hard to describe how Vance looks now. If you’ve ever seen Amazing Stories, Vance resembles the creepy stalker in the "Mirror, Mirror" episode with Sam Waterston. Damn! Another Spielberg ref! (Fun fact; that’s actually Tim Robbins in the costume.)

The sheriff’s deputies locate Samuel, who got into a bar fight. The healer and Scully talk about God, until Samuel zeroes in on Mulder’s pain about his lost sister, Samantha. Before getting arrested, Samuel tells Mulder to open his heart and his eyes. Hope he doesn’t mean it literally. The following morning, Samuel’s attorney is trying to get him out of jail, but the kid doesn’t want to leave. During the hearing, the judge sets bail and the courtroom is attacked by locusts. I’m sure it was just a coincidence. Reverend Hartley calls on Sculder to complain about the sheriff. While there, Mulder sees a little girl and thinks she is his sister. He runs outside, but she disappears. 

At the next revival, Vance meets a woman named Margaret Hohman, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, and her parents. The tent is packed with supporters wearing Hartley swag. (Sestra Pro, have you ever looked for a “Samuel Heals” button or an “It’s a miracle” cap?) Sculder attend the performance – I mean sermon – and Mulder gets distracted by the little girl again. Samuel tries to heal Margaret but after touching her, the poor woman suffers a seizure and dies. Vance tries to block the autopsy, but Margaret’s parents want answers. In preparing for the procedure, Scully looks like she’s about to carve a Thanksgiving turkey. She determines the poison could be cyanide or arsenic, but won’t know definitively until she gets back the toxicology results.

Mulder visits Samuel in jail to get him released, but the mender thinks God wants him in jail. Poor Mulder doesn’t know what to believe, but he wants to know if Samantha is still alive. If she was, wouldn’t Mulder be seeing an adult version of her instead of the child version? After Mulder leaves, a deputy lets two men into Samuel’s cell and they beat him to death. The fighting choreography was so bad it looked like a spoof of a beating. The reverend confronts the sheriff over the jail’s shoddy security. 

Meanwhile, Sculder learn how the locusts infiltrated the courtroom. They also discover Vance ordered a pesticide containing cyanide which killed the three church members. Vance’s guilt is getting the better of him and he starts talking to Samuel’s ghost. Sculder and the sheriff go to the Hartley’s house to arrest Vance, but he is already dying from his own dose of cyanide. Vance says he thought Samuel was evil for bringing him back to life -- a life of suffering. And that’s the end of Vance. 

While Scully writes up her report about how no miracles occurred, Mulder learns Samuel just got up and walked away from the morgue. Sheriff Daniels is under investigation for Samuel’s death and his wife never gets healed. What a downer ep. When do I get my Skinner fix? 

Sestra Professional:

We're not too far away from the Skinner fix, Sestra Am. And I can't say I've ever searched for a “Samuel Heals” button or an “It’s a miracle” cap, mostly because I don't watch this ep a lot. For good reason. 

Just for the record, this show is all too good at casting creepy child actors. He's only in the teaser before the episode starts proper, but I'm bugged out by young Samuel (Alex Doduk) before he even speaks and brings the human charcoal briquette back to life.

This is the part where they bring out Elvis: The whole revival aspect gives Mulder quite a few chances to work on his quips. Samuel performs his miracle twice on Sundays. ... Mulder saw many of the people at Woodstock -- the movie. Even Scully pipes in with a Jessica Hahn joke to recall the Jim Bakker scandal.

It does seem rather passé, even when this episode originally aired in 1994, for these people to be so naive that they wouldn't be on to the con of a reverend knowing how far they had traveled for the Miracle Ministry. And that's just one of the eye-rolling moments contained within. How about we call on Samuel to heal this episode? Of course, we don't know which one we'd get -- the fixer or the beer-swilling chain smoker whose gift has been corrupted.

Samuel does portend The X-Files future, however, when he speaks about a man becoming so proud that he should get the crap kicked out of him. That goes a long way to explaining a lot of the beatings Mulder will be taking on our horizon. 

God never lets the devil steal the show: We get a pretty good peek into the faith of Scully, which will become more and more important as the series goes on. Here he explains that she doesn't doubt the power of God, just the veracity of Samuel's claims. Our complex Dana can be very practical when it comes to her job. She'll believe agricultural infestation over locusts and medical books full of unexplained spontaneous cures long before she'll jump into religion.

You're right, Sestra Am, I found Scully sharpening her knives for the autopsy to be almost as creepy as the teaser kid. And although her guess that the poison was potassium or sodium cyanide was right on point, a lot of this episode works itself out. In jail, the doubters take care of Samuel -- in a very thinly veiled Jesus reference -- complete with Christ-like pose in shadows. And then Mr. Kingsford eliminates himself with the glass of cyanide. 

Mid-show, Scully says even in medicine, if you imagine a miracle, you're halfway there. But I can see why Sestra Am was bummed out by the end, because Mulder -- the guy who believes in absolutely everything -- states that people want miracles so bad that they see what they want to see.

You were right in your original diagnosis, Scully, this wasn't an X-file. This case was actually tied up at the end. Well except for the dead body that walked out, so much for the pretty bow on the box. 

Guest Star of the Week: Scott Bairstow (Party of Five, Lonesome Dove) does a fairly decent job as Samuel, a young man haunted by more demons than Mulder. He manages to be charismatic in the Miracle Ministry scenes while still generating sympathy in the bar and/or the jail cell over his total disillusionment.