Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
Milagro
"Why do I want their hearts?"
Written by John Shiban (Story), Frank Spotnitz (Story), & Chris Carter (Teleplay)
Directed by Kim Manners
Directed by Kim Manners
Scully: The Milagro charm - you were right about its insignificance.
Mulder: No, I think I was wrong. I think it's very significant. I think it may be a communication from the killer. Most of my research shows that most credible practitioners of psychic surgery believe themselves to be imbued with the Holy Spirit - that their hands become the miracle tools of God.
Scully: Mulder, this... is nothing more than a tool used by a lovelorn Romeo who just happens to be your next-door neighbour.
Mulder: Who, the writer?
Mulder: No, I think I was wrong. I think it's very significant. I think it may be a communication from the killer. Most of my research shows that most credible practitioners of psychic surgery believe themselves to be imbued with the Holy Spirit - that their hands become the miracle tools of God.
Scully: Mulder, this... is nothing more than a tool used by a lovelorn Romeo who just happens to be your next-door neighbour.
Mulder: Who, the writer?
Mulder and Scully investigate a serial killer (Nestor Serrano) performing murders in which the heart was removed from the victim with no apparent incision. Meanwhile, Phillip Padgett (John Hawkes), a fledgling author who lives next door to Mulder struggles with a bad case of Writer's Block. Padgett, however, also seems to have some strange connection to the case, along with an unsettling obsession with Scully.
Tropes:
- Art Initiates Life: By writing about Naciamento, Padgett has somehow brought him to life.
- Cry into Chest: Scully to Mulder at the end of the episode.
- Foreign Language Title: Spanish for "miracle".
- Male Gaze: There's a close up of Scully's mouth, when Padgett is staring at her in the elevator.
- Mind Screw: Padgett's reality warping abilities through his writing, conjuring an unstoppable serial killer from thin air.
- Monsters of the Week: Padgett and Naciamento.
- Most Writers Are Writers: Mulder's next-door neighbor, Padgett is a writer who turns sinister when he reveals he's writing a book in which Scully is his love interest and he moved next door to Mulder in order to see more of her. Then the murderer from his novel shows up on his doorstep and demands that Padgett reveal his motivation. Padgett says, lamely, that the murders happened so he could get Scully's attention. The murderer tells him that's a dumb excuse, not a motivation, and expresses frustration that the author doesn't even know his own characters.
- Psychic Surgery: This is how Padgett's protagonist kills his victims.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: Naciamento delivers an impressive one to his own creator.
- Rewriting Reality: Padgett does this, albeit unwittingly to begin with.
- Serial Killer: One that takes hearts with his bare hands.
- Shipper on Deck: See the Wham Line below.
- Stalker with a Crush: Padgett. And he's apparently had his eye on her for awhile. He performs a disturbing Sherlock Scan on her when he runs into her in a church, and later reveals she lived in his old neighborhood. He moved into Mulder's building because there was nothing available in her building, and because she spends most of her time with Mulder, anyway. She is the love interest in his book, including a graphic sex scene. Scully is alternately intrigued and disturbed by the attention.
- Terror at Make-Out Point: A teenaged couple in a car at Make-Out Point has something of an argument because the guy wants to get more physical than the girl does. Tired of him pressuring her, she gets out of the car, and he runs after her. It seems like his sexual frustration is going to take him from subtle attempts at coercion to something more aggressive, possibly physically violent — until he happens upon the killer who tears out his heart.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: At the beginning of the episode, Scully takes the elevator in Mulder's building. In the elevator with her is a man she doesn't know who stares at her openly, obsessively and in a generally scary way. The elevator ride seems to go on forever, and then he gets off on the same floor as her before following her down the hall. She knocks on Mulder's door and has to wait for a few long, long instants for Mulder to get to the door while this guy is staring at her like he's going to eat her. He goes into his own apartment (right next to Mulder's) a few seconds later, but it's the kind of unsettling experience that happens to women all the time. And then, of course, he becomes Scully's Stalker with a Crush.
- Wham Line:Padgett: In my book, I'd written that Agent Scully falls in love. That is obviously impossible. Agent Scully is already in love.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: An In-Universe example. Naciamento eventually confronts Padgett, wanting to know what his motivation for committing the murders is, seeing as how he is his creator, he should know that. In response, Padgett more or less admits that he honestly hadn't thought that far ahead.
"And in this final act of destruction, a chance to give what he could not receive."
