Sestra Amateur:
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that’s pretty accurate in this week’s episode. The opening shot focuses on an unshaven man wearing a wrinkled shirt, sitting in front of an electric typewriter in a room free of distractions. He’s got his Marlboro Reds and what is probably a glass of whiskey. (I seriously doubt it’s tea.) We learn he’s experiencing some form of writer’s block so he goes into the bathroom and rips his heart out of his chest.
That doesn’t seem like an acceptable way to cure writer’s block, but let’s suspend some disbelief. He later gets to experience an elevator ride with Scully. Turns out the “heartless” writer Phillip Padgett, played by Deadwood’s John Hawkes, is Mulder’s neighbor. He has a habit of listening to Sculder’s conversations through the wall. This week, our intrepid heroes are investigating a serial killer who is committing “psychic surgery” -- Fox's words, not mine -- and yes, hearts have been removed.
Later, boring couple Kevin and Maggie have a tiff in his car. She leaves and he goes after her, but gets chased down by the killer who tears out his heart. (By the way, the casting director really dropped the ball on this one. Kevin is supposed to be a 16-year-old kid but the 29-year-old actor looks like he could have a wife, two kids, an ulcer and a mortgage.)
Mulder is out at the scene, but back at the office, Scully finds a “milagro” (miracle charm) slipped under the office door. Phillip’s voiceover – allegedly necessary because of his work in progress – certainly sounds like a written narrative. Fox thinks the lucky charm – which is of a burning heart – was intended for Dana, not for him.
Scully goes to church, where Padgett tells her the story of Saint Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart. Dana accuses Phillip of following her, which is funny because he got there first. He’s very articulate, and in a different situation, it may even be endearing. Scully just looks disgusted, but still doesn’t believe he’s involved in her current case. Mulder uses his FBI training and resources to identify his neighbor … OK, he looks for a name on the mailbox and steals Phillip’s mail.
Of course, Padgett’s interest in Scully makes for an awkward elevator ride with Mulder. On the upside, it looks like Phillip's writer’s block has been cured, as possibly is Dana's dry spell. Nope, it’s just Padgett's vivid imagination brought forth by the episode’s director. Dana really does stop by Phillip’s apartment and has a cup of coffee with him. Too bad he keeps talking and reveals he’s been stalking Scully since before he got the apartment. She’s still intrigued, though, and chooses to sit in the dark with Padgett. Mulder enters the apartment, guns a-blazing, and arrests Phillip after realizing Padgett chose his victims through the newspaper of personal ads available by their mailboxes.
Fox interrogates Phillip without an attorney present and admits to reading Padgett’s work in progress. He wants Phillip’s “psychic surgeon” Ken Naciamento located, but Dana has already identified him as a Brazilian doctor who died two years earlier. In his cell, Padgett continues writing his novel and describes Maggie (yeah, she doesn’t look 16 either) being hunted by the serial killer at Kevin’s grave. The agents arrive too late and Mulder finds Maggie’s body in the cemetery’s landscaping truck.
Back at the jail, the dynamic duo releases Padgett, who is convinced Scully is in love with Fox. Inside his apartment, Padgett encounters Naciamento, the character brought to life. Sculder, watching via surveillance camera, only see Phillip sitting alone by his typewriter. Padgett and Naciamento discuss his character’s motivation. Unfortunately, he realizes Dana must die in the story. Phillip heads down to the incinerator with his book.
Mulder stops him at gunpoint while Naciamento attacks Scully in Fox's apartment. She shoots him several times, but the bullets go right through him. Padgett burns his book and Naciamento disappears. Scully is alive, but her dry-cleaning bill is going to be pretty expensive. She still fares better than Phillip who dies by the incinerator with his heart literally in his hand. No naked pretzel for you, Padgett.
Sestra Professional:
Last week's "Trevor" was as non-descript an ep as they come, one fitting the bill for any TV model specializing in the supernatural. "Milagro" is the polar opposite. This is a love story about and for Scully. Quite often, The X-Files defines itself in terms of Mulder's quest for the truth and his sister. But this episode shows that through almost six seasons and a movie, Dana not only continues to inspire legions of fans, but creator Chris Carter and his company as well.
Now "Milagro" isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. Dreamy Scully sequences are interwoven with scenes of pretty gruesome violence. And I can't fathom those elements being mixed together better by anyone than Kim Manners, the director continuously counted on to drive home the emotional moments. Beyond that, the Hallmark fan base might just want Dana and Fox to say those magic words to each other, not have them spoken for them by a guy who conjures up the ripping out of hearts to wear on his proverbial sleeve.
Coming in the so-called "X-Files Lite" season, "Milagro" proves there's so much left in the tank. Frank Spotnitz and John Shiban combined on the story while Carter wrote the teleplay, giving them all a chance to get their Scully ya-yas out. It feels freeing to watch it unfold, so it must have injected new life into all of them after diluting a major portion of the mythology a few episodes back and coasting through the most recent couple of shows.
But she was beautiful -- fatally, stunningly prepossessing: It's not all hearts and flowers. The vivid imagery of hearts being ripped out of chests belies conventional romance, suffusing it with elements of pain and suffering. And that only serves to make Manners' ensuing slow-motion 360-degree freeze-frame pans around gorgeous Gillian Anderson even more intense.
As in a majority of Dana-focused episodes, we get to see our female lead irked about Mulder making plans for her. That makes her seem more human and less like a puppy dog following in her partner's footsteps. We're seeing something in Scully that was hinted at in "Never Said" (Season 4, Episode 13). There is a lot of sensuality in this woman, and when it's recognized by another -- even one on the outskirts of the society, or maybe especially in that case (and can't we include Mulder in that mix?) -- that passion can flare and burn.
The heart-and-fire motif running through our bottle episode is pointing out aspects of Dana we need to keep in mind. Should we be upset that these words are voiced by this Padgett guy and not Fox? I'm not, but I know a legion of shippers who might disagree with me. Yet there's another faction accepting it for what it is, knowing it's a race and not a sprint and expecting that someday someway, these two will be as exceptional at love as they are in their fields of expertise.
Loneliness is a choice: Another pattern in Scully-centric shows is less-than-idealistic behavior exhibited by Fox -- be it mail theft or unlawful entrance. The majority of the time, he's driven and correct in his suppositions -- your basic misunderstood genius. But in Dana-driven "Milagro," we see the cracks in his armor. This serves to refine his character as well. I need to see Mulder unsettled by Scully when they're in the same orbit -- as opposed to the different paths forged by her abduction and cancer scare -- before any major declarations are forthcoming.
I'm plenty satisfied by the big moment here, namely that Phillip -- who has been so brash and sanctimonious all episode -- admits he got something wrong ... (insert fanfare here) Agent Scully is already in love. It makes my head swim as a viewer and gets me projecting what Fox and Dana might separately think about such a proclamation. Is it something Mulder's considered before and discarded? Is it something Scully recognizes to be true in her heart of hearts?
But that gets put on the back burner for a bit with Dana in physical danger yet again. Maybe that, in turn, will drive home the points Padgett made to them. These two couldn't possibly be right for anyone else in the world. Whereas Carter once told the world he had no plans to put Mulder and Scully together romantically, "Milagro" seems to reverse that position and plot a course precisely for that. And that is accomplished without dialogue, we're not hit over the head with it. Carter and company just let us know it's there.
Guest star of the week: John Hawkes is perfect as Padgett. Sometimes he's a tortured artist, sometimes he's a heartsick man, sometimes both at the same time. Hawkes blends that perfectly on a canvas he stepped onto for one week. (He originally auditioned for the convict role in the previous episode.) I can't fathom anyone else pointing out the truth -- no, not that truth --- that viewers have known for so long and the characters only seem to be starting to get the hint of here.
Sestra Amateur:
I feel like my snarky side has taken a vacation as well, so I hope this is an episode in which I can let my snark flag fly once again. In Jasper County, Mississippi, a correctional farm facility prepares for an oncoming tornado. (“It’s a twister, Auntie Em!”)
One inmate annoys prisoner Pinker Rawls and takes a nail through his hand for it. Superintendent Raybert Fellowes sends Rawls to the box as punishment. The “box” looks like a decrepit outhouse made of wood so, of course, it doesn’t stand up to the twister. Forty minutes later, one guard goes to tell Raybert (I wonder if his parents debated his name. Should we call him Ray? Nah, we should call him Bert. How about Raybert?) Pinker and the box are gone. The superintendent’s only half there. Literally. The fellow has been cut -- torn? burned? -- in half.
This is a job for … Doctor Scully! She’s thinking industrial acid, but Mulder nips that theory in the bud. Dana fulfills Fox's dreams by suggesting spontaneous human combustion. The guard says Pinker did it, but can’t account for how he entered a locked office, or for that matter, how he did it while dying during the storm. Mulder shows the wall isn’t so thick after all, he pushes his hand right through the plaster.
Sculder are curious about Rawls' former girlfriend, June Gurwitch, played by Catherine Dent. At this time, she was only three years away from reaching some long-running job security as Danni Sofer on The Shield. June is currently engaged to Robert Werther, who is played by David Bowe, an actor with a name you won’t recognize but a face you will. Meanwhile, Pinker – played by character actor John Diehl (hey, he’ll also be on The Shield too!) – is alive and shopping for new clothes when a security guard apprehends him for burglary and theft. Rawls manages to get out of the cuffs and disappear, but the subsequent physical contact caused the cuffs to dissolve in Mulder’s hands.
Pinker goes to see his former partner in crime, Bo, trashes his home and demands June’s current address. Bo shoots Rawls eight times, but that doesn’t slow down Pinker one bit. You should’ve saved one for yourself, Bo. And where is this Trevor from the episode title? Sculder arrive, find the security guard’s car and what’s left of Bo. Let’s just say no one will be identifying Bo by his face. Fox sees seven of Bo’s bullets in the wall (What happened to the eighth one? Bo had such a tight grouping.) but they’ve also dissolved after passing through Rawls. Mulder tries to convince Scully that Pinker can move through solid objects and have solid objects move through him.
June’s sister, Jackie (Tuesday Knight from Nightmare on Elm Street 4), is visited by Rawls. Let’s see her “dream warrior” her way out of this one. Our heroes show up while Jackie has Pinker at knifepoint, but Rawls walks through the wall and leaves Jackie and her son unharmed. Pinker hides in the agents' trunk as they unintentionally drive him directly to June and Robert’s house. Robert is pissed to hear about June’s criminal past and bails on her.
Fox and Dana take June into protective custody, but Mulder realizes Rawls was in their trunk the whole time. (Lariat must have one hell of a car rental contract with the FBI. The X-files division alone seems to cause lots of damage to their fleet.) Sculder search the house for him, but only find his message “burned” into the wall. Fox realizes Pinker can’t pass through rubber or glass. However, he can pass through ceilings because Rawls gets into the hotel room, kills the cop and kidnaps June.
June thinks Pinker is mad about the 90 grand she stole, but he’s focused on the baby she gave up for adoption, the one named Trevor Andrew. (Those prison grapevines are more accurate than Johnny Dangerously let on.) Turns out Jackie adopted Trevor as her son. Mulder gets some rubber-bullet ammunition to take down Pinker. He and Scully realize who and where Trevor is and try to warn Jackie on the phone. Too bad June and Rawls show up at Jackie’s house for the family reunion and Pinker tries to bond with the wide-eyed Trevor. (“Call me Pinky.” Ewww. OK. Pinky it is.)
Jackie does her best by throwing hot soup on Pinky, but it goes through him. She does get to clock him with the pot, though. Too bad he catches her. Trevor makes a run for it and Rawls chases after him. Fox arrives and shoots Pinky several times with the rubber bullets while Dana gets Trevor to the car. Rawls catches up to them, so Scully secures Trevor and herself in a phone booth. (I know some of you might not know what one of those is. We'll wait here while you look it up.) Pinky punches a hole through the glass with a rock, but can’t bring himself to hurt Trevor. He steps into the road and June tries to run him down. The car passes through him … but the windshield doesn’t. Ewwwww ... glad I wasn’t eating lunch during this episode. At least Trevor is safe, but he and the Gurwitch sisters have some Ricki Lake drama to work out.
Sestra Professional:
With any show of longevity, there are probably episodes you skip if you're not doing a complete rewatch. This is the perfect example of one of them for me. It's just so blah. It's almost not worth picking on because that would require some effort. Almost.
Acknowledgement (or blame) for the story depicted in "Trevor" went to Jim Guttridge (the only IMDb writing credit for the television composer) and Ken Hawryliw (The X-Files' prop master for 105 episodes). So I have to think they were trying to bring some musicality and an artistic bent to this one.
I think my biggest issue is that Mulder and Scully don't get much out of it. OK, they can recognize there's some kind of supernatural aspect to the case. So it's an X-file. It's the kind of X-file I wish Jeffrey Spender has been assigned to when he still had a face. You know, the folder that he glanced at and then put in the circular file. I would have respected him for doing that with this one.
Dear diary, Today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion: Having Dana pull a Fox-ian theory out of thin air reminds me of the Stephen King episode "Chinga." The show super fan penned Episode 10 in the fifth season, and concepts that seem like they might work on paper were just awkward when committed to celluloid. There's an art to the Sculder relationship and if one of the most renowned writers of our time can't capture their voices, we can posit that it's not all that easy to do. It has to be more than Scully brings the science and Mulder's willing to believe. Even reported polishing by co-executive producer Vince Gilligan and producer John Shiban didn't help. Say what you want about the less-convincing episodes penned by the regular writing team, but they know the characters inside and out. And the composition of them doesn't -- and shouldn't -- change and/or lessen.
It might make a difference if the other characters in "Trevor" weren't so woefully uninteresting. We've probably been spoiled by the likes of Brad Dourif (S1E13's "Beyond the Sea") and Tom Noonan (S4E10's "Paper Hearts"), who delivered chilling performances -- partly because due to better scripts and partly because they were able to delve into the rich characters and make them hold up better than brittle walls easily punched through.
That leaves us wondering why this dude can vanish from a box in a tornado and withstand a multitude of bullets fired at close range. To tell the truth, I didn't really care after about 15 minutes. But I wanted to give it every opportunity for this rewatch, as there's a good chance I'll never watch it again.
So should we arrest David Copperfield? --Yes we should, but not for this: So Sculder continue to swap theories from their usual side of the fences as they get closer and closer to this mystery man. They determine the oddball fugitive isn't just after the money, he's after a child -- the name of the episode not actually uttered until 34 minutes into the proceedings, Trevor. That's certainly a different tactic taken by the storytellers.
There's a long scene before the denouement with no Fox and/or Dana at all. That doesn't really help its cause. And then Mulder comes in, shotgun ablazing with the dumb-dumb bullets, thinking that's going to subdue a guy he's just spent the previous half hour investigating for the ability to withstand worse punishment. A portion of a speeding car eventually does the trick. Nevertheless, that was a beautiful shot through the broken phone booth at a tremulous Scully. Very artistic.
Guest star of the week: The Sestras recollect Diehl from his recurring role on The John Larroquette Show, among other things. And while he doesn't have a lot to work with here, Diehl made a career out of flourishing under those kinds of conditions. Playing the escaped convict must have been a lot like being third banana for three seasons on Miami Vice. At the very least, we see through to Pinky's human side.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that’s pretty accurate in this week’s episode. The opening shot focuses on an unshaven man wearing a wrinkled shirt, sitting in front of an electric typewriter in a room free of distractions. He’s got his Marlboro Reds and what is probably a glass of whiskey. (I seriously doubt it’s tea.) We learn he’s experiencing some form of writer’s block so he goes into the bathroom and rips his heart out of his chest. 
That doesn’t seem like an acceptable way to cure writer’s block, but let’s suspend some disbelief. He later gets to experience an elevator ride with Scully. Turns out the “heartless” writer Phillip Padgett, played by Deadwood’s John Hawkes, is Mulder’s neighbor. He has a habit of listening to Sculder’s conversations through the wall. This week, our intrepid heroes are investigating a serial killer who is committing “psychic surgery” -- Fox's words, not mine -- and yes, hearts have been removed. 
Mulder is out at the scene, but back at the office, Scully finds a “milagro” (miracle charm) slipped under the office door. Phillip’s voiceover – allegedly necessary because of his work in progress – certainly sounds like a written narrative. Fox thinks the lucky charm – which is of a burning heart – was intended for Dana, not for him. 
Of course, Padgett’s interest in Scully makes for an awkward elevator ride with Mulder. On the upside, it looks like Phillip's writer’s block has been cured, as possibly is Dana's dry spell. Nope, it’s just Padgett's vivid imagination brought forth by the episode’s director. Dana really does stop by Phillip’s apartment and has a cup of coffee with him. Too bad he keeps talking and reveals he’s been stalking Scully since before he got the apartment. She’s still intrigued, though, and chooses to sit in the dark with Padgett. Mulder enters the apartment, guns a-blazing, and arrests Phillip after realizing Padgett chose his victims through the newspaper of personal ads available by their mailboxes.
Back at the jail, the dynamic duo releases Padgett, who is convinced Scully is in love with Fox. Inside his apartment, Padgett encounters Naciamento, the character brought to life. Sculder, watching via surveillance camera, only see Phillip sitting alone by his typewriter. Padgett and Naciamento discuss his character’s motivation. Unfortunately, he realizes Dana must die in the story. Phillip heads down to the incinerator with his book. 
Now "Milagro" isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. Dreamy Scully sequences are interwoven with scenes of pretty gruesome violence. And I can't fathom those elements being mixed together better by anyone than Kim Manners, the director continuously counted on to drive home the emotional moments. Beyond that, the Hallmark fan base might just want Dana and Fox to say those magic words to each other, not have them spoken for them by a guy who conjures up the ripping out of hearts to wear on his proverbial sleeve.
But she was beautiful -- fatally, stunningly prepossessing: It's not all hearts and flowers. The vivid imagery of hearts being ripped out of chests belies conventional romance, suffusing it with elements of pain and suffering. And that only serves to make Manners' ensuing slow-motion 360-degree freeze-frame pans around gorgeous Gillian Anderson even more intense.
Loneliness is a choice: Another pattern in Scully-centric shows is less-than-idealistic behavior exhibited by Fox -- be it mail theft or unlawful entrance. The majority of the time, he's driven and correct in his suppositions -- your basic misunderstood genius. But in Dana-driven "Milagro," we see the cracks in his armor. This serves to refine his character as well. I need to see Mulder unsettled by Scully when they're in the same orbit -- as opposed to the different paths forged by her abduction and cancer scare -- before any major declarations are forthcoming. 
But that gets put on the back burner for a bit with Dana in physical danger yet again. Maybe that, in turn, will drive home the points Padgett made to them. These two couldn't possibly be right for anyone else in the world. Whereas Carter once told the world he had no plans to put Mulder and Scully together romantically, "Milagro" seems to reverse that position and plot a course precisely for that. And that is accomplished without dialogue, we're not hit over the head with it. Carter and company just let us know it's there. 
