X-Files S3E11: Running on faith

Sestra Amateur: 

Speaking of "Revelations" (this episode’s title), I just finished watching the third season of Gillian Anderson’s series The Fall, in which she plays an English detective superintendent leading a serial killer investigation in Northern Ireland. The years have been good to Gillian, but when you switch immediately from one show to the other, you can’t help but get the impression that DSI Stella Gibson and FBI Special Agent Dana Scully could be the same person. Gibson has the weary look of a woman whose law enforcement career has shown her the worst of humanity, to the point where almost nothing surprises her anymore. In Season 3 of The X-Files, Dana has seen a lot but Gillian – as Scully – still maintains an optimistic and wide-eyed look and perspective. I need to re-watch The X-Files Season 10 to see whether Gillian exudes more of Stella’s or early Dana’s traits.

"Revelations" is a religious-themed bottle episode. A priest in Pennsylvania is giving a sermon and his palms start to bleed. His congregation is full of believers, except for Simon Gates, played by Kenneth Walsh, a Canadian character actor you’ve seen everywhere but probably can’t place specifically. For me, his Twin Peaks character Windom Earle, single-handedly shanghaied and ruined that show. But I digress. 

Simple Simon – who was not a pie man -- meets with the Reverend “Garfunkel” after the sermon and strangles him to death. At the reverend’s crime scene, Mulder promptly licks up the victim’s blood. Well, we knew it would happen sooner or later. Turns out it’s fake blood from the reverend’s fake stigmata wounds. Of course, Fox has been “tracking a series of international, religiously motivated murders." Eleven, to be exact. Scully shows her Sunday school background when she points out the fact that only 12 true stigmatic sufferers exist in the world at one time, one for each of the apostles. 

In Ohio, a schoolteacher calls young Kevin Kryder to the chalkboard, but his palms start to bleed. This is actually the second time something like this has happened to poor Kevin, the previous year he suffered wounds to his hands and feet. Sculder make it to Ohio in record time. The school nurse hasn’t even finished treating him yet. Kevin thinks the feds want to arrest his father for child abuse. His mother gets to the school – after the agents – and they warn her Kevin may be in danger. The main question on my mind is why can’t Dr. Scully tell the difference between a cut and a puncture? 

Sculder visit Kevin’s father, Michael, in a psychiatric institution but he’s cryptically useless. Later that night at the children’s home, Kevin is telling the other kids a creepy story. Suddenly, Pluto from Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes arrives – actor Michael Berryman has a very unique look. He scares the other kids away and takes Kevin. Susan Kryder arrives at the group home and realizes the suspect composite is their gardener, Owen Lee Jarvis. Sculder find and disarm Owen, who says Kevin is not safe. Scully looks for Kevin, but he hides from them. Jarvis claims he’s on a mission from God, but Owen’s mission is not nearly as entertaining as the one in The Blues Brothers. 

Jarvis gets handcuffed in the attic, but he throws himself out the window, breaks the cuffs and makes a run for it. Kevin makes it back home, but Simon is looking for him there. Gates notices Kevin bleeding in the laundry basket, but Owen saves the day again. Unfortunately, Simon kills Jarvis when Sculder arrive. Poor Gates looks like he died with a smile on his face. I hope he made it into heaven.

Scully conducts Owen’s autopsy and notes his body isn't exactly showing the usual signs of deterioration, like rigor mortis or cooling body temperature. Dana is leaning toward the St. Owen theory, but is not ready to say it outright. Mulder tries to rein in Scully’s religious beliefs. It’s always interesting when they experience role reversal – Fox with aliens and Dana with religion. 

After the autopsy, Mulder runs the prints from Owen’s neck wound and comes up with Gates’ ID. Simon drives up to assist Susan and Kevin, who are having car trouble. "Simon Says" Susan should thank him for his help. Kevin tricks Gates into chasing him on foot and Susan hits Simon with her car – which looks like it hasn’t been simonized -- then crashes into a ditch, killing herself in the process. 

Scully thinks the agents should keep an eye on Kevin. Later that night, she admits the wounds on Kevin’s hands were similar to crucifixion wounds after seeing another one on his chest that wasn’t a result of the car accident. Somehow, someone has bent the bathroom window bars and Kevin is gone again. Sculder reinterview Kevin’s father, but the hospital staff upped his anti-psychotic medication dosage, so he’s incoherent. 

Fox gets a tip that Simon is at the airport, but Dana thinks Gates took Kevin to Simon's recycling plant in Jerusalem, Ohio. So who do you think is on the right path, Scully or Mulder? Scully, “Simon ese!” which loosely translated on Urban Dictionary means “Of course, dude!” Dana and Fox split up to check out both leads. Doesn’t anyone from one of the FBI’s Ohio office want to assist them? Or even local police? 

Scully easily finds Simon and Kevin at the recycling plant. Maybe it really is Dana’s divine duty to protect the kid. Gates carries Kevin up to the shredder and we see a bloody mess coming out the other end. Luckily, it’s not Kevin. This one ended pretty abruptly. Jeez, Scully’s not going to adopt Kevin like she did Queequeg, is she? “Simon no ese!”

A couple of days later, Dana goes to confession at a local church. I’m curious, if you say it’s been six years since your last confession, do you lose points if you downplay the time? Let’s say it was actually six years, 11 months, 29 days. That’s really more like seven years. So is that considered a sin by omission? And does it affect the overall penance? It’s too bad Scully can’t talk about religion with Mulder. Maybe they’ll have better luck discussing politics or abortion.

Sestra Professional:

After immersing ourselves in the mythology for two episodes, it must have seemed like a good idea to revisit Scully's faith. That's almost as much of a recurring series theme as Mulder's search for Samantha. Having this episode -- one of two this season credited to Kim Newton -- air around the holidays (Dec. 15, 1995) was certainly an interesting choice totally in keeping with the show's vibe.

For me, the episode is a bit of a hot mess. Scully's beliefs were addressed in a much cleaner way in Season 1's "Beyond the Sea." Here they might be hitting it too hard, or maybe it's just because the script was still being revised during filming. Maybe it's Mulder's stance -- discussed at length in two different conversations between the agents. As Dana says, he's willing to go out on a limb for every light in the sky, but not believe in miracles.

In this episode, we bid farewell David Nutter, one of the directors who helped set the standard for the show early on. He had many more pilots in the genre to set the stage for -- Millennium, Space: Above and Beyond, Roswell, Smallville and Supernatural, to name a few. In the Season 3 episode guide, he praised Gillian Anderson's performance -- "she's got such an ability to emote and give from the inside" -- and he's right, she really delves into this ep with style and substance.

So all the changes made during the course of filming seemed to create some loose ends, starting with Kevin's visit to the hospital nurse. As Sestra Am said, how come Scully can't determine the difference between a cut and a puncture? Why would she say he was "a little" hot when she felt his forehead when he winds up exploding the thermometer? And most of all, why are they putting a rectal thermometer in that kid's mouth? But don't feel bad, Kevin, math makes me bleed too, although generally not from my hands.

It's safe to say this guy carries a grudge: There's a lot of mileage gained from the guest performances by Kenneth Walsh and Michael Berryman. It's easy to understand both characters' viewpoints, although I'm at a loss about why Gates exterminates all the pretenders and then also wants to take Kevin out too.

I also get a bit confused about that one who was meant to save Kevin. It was Dana and not Owen? Or it was also Jarvis until he was unable to fill his obligation any more and became the sweetest smelling corpse this side of St. Francis? You know what it is? It's St. Owen's fire. 

Don't think for a moment that you set the rules for me: Maybe Jarvis was supposed to show Scully what she was meant for. He really gives her the business, pondering how Dana thinks she can help Kevin if she doesn't believe. That scene almost works better than the two stand-off ones in which the agents change their usual sides. Almost.

There's good stuff to be found in those moments too. So Fox considers the "fanatics behaving fanatically" to be giving bonafide paranoids like him a bad name. The relationship reversal is compelling, but one still would think Mulder would be more open to things like the unexplained stigmata and flesh burns on a victim's neck, since even in non-conspiracy episodes, he's quick to jump on the supernatural bandwagon.

Coming full circle to find the truth: Does anyone else roll their eyes when Fox says that the whole thing is testing his patience and not his faith? He tests Scully's all the time when he doesn't check out the obvious solution before going off half-cocked, even though his conjectures usually have merit. They must have been really into that argument, though, if they didn't hear Gates bending bars and breaking a window to get to Kevin.

And one last thing to take issue with in the script, how exactly can Mulder handle the sheriff's formal statement on Simon's death alone? She's the one who was there when Gates died. Ya coulda done that and then gone to confession, Scully. You're just going to backtrack there anyway, wondering if you imagined all the signs that you saw before switching yet again for the last line, one I'm convinced was penned by executive producer Chris Carter -- "Mostly it makes me afraid ... afraid that God is speaking but that no one's listening."

Anyway, Sestra Am's comparison of Gillian's characters intrigued me, although I think Stella gave into her impulses a lot more freely than Dana ever will (save a certain Season 4 episode). I'm not sure faith fits into Gibson's overall profile, but then again, I didn't get to Season 3 of The Fall yet.

Guest star of the week: Michael Berryman, best known for the wild 1977 Wes Craven ride that is The Hills Have Eyes, was cast against type as Kevin's protector for this episode, and afterward, the unusual-looking actor -- who suffers from a rare condition that left him without sweat glands, hair, fingernails or teeth -- reportedly said the show completely changed the way he was regarded in Hollywood.