Case 06, File 18: Milagro

AKA: Wait, The Same Plot As The Will Ferrell Movie?

Tone, in The X-Files is a delicate thing, and honestly I'm hard pressed to explain why it works as often as it does. The show, overall, takes itself pretty seriously but it's also working with some kind of inherently silly concepts. And yet the show can be glib, make fun of itself, even be an outright comedy, without necessarily making the darkness feel cheap or easily breached. This is a tightrope walk, tonally, so we can't necessarily blame the series too much if they fall off on occasion.

Our episode kicks off with a writer sitting alone in his apartment, failing to write (which is just a wee bit too close to my process for writing these reviews). When he goes to the bathroom he pulls a still beating heart out of his shirt. This doesn't super fit with the mechanics established later (not does the following scene where he sees a heart in the incinerator) but I guess the episode's opinion is, it's only weird if they bring it up, so whatever.

It turns out our creepy weirdo writer lives in the same building as Mulder, and he runs into Scully in the hallway, as he lives next door to our hero. Scully is at Mulder's place to discuss the new serial killer they're tracking, who removes people's hearts without any major physical evidence. Mulder thinks it's something called Psychic Surgery, while Scully thinks that's nonsense but doesn't have a better theory. Oh and the writer overhears all of this because he's listening through the vent like a weirdo.

That night a pair of teenagers are out in lover's lane and one of them gets murdered by the mysterious killer which still baffles Mulder and Scully, but not the writer cause he's writing about it. Also when Scully gets into the office the next day, she finds an envelope with a pendent with a burning heart on it. She thinks it's from the killer and this weirds her out enough to go to check out her local church to look at a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Oh and the writer is writing about her getting turned on by the memento, that's not weird.

"Hey, how come my character is seeing visions of hearts, it doesn't really fit-"
"It's a neat visual, shut up."

While she's there, she runs into the writer (whose name is Phillip but I'm gonna call him the writer), who tells her he sent the pendant. And like, so many weird details about her life that indicate he's been watching her, Jesus dude, that's so fucking weird. Anyway, Scully goes and tells Mulder that the pendant is from him, and Mulder responds by uh, breaking into his mail. Oh Mulder. Also Scully goes over to his apartment because he's writing about her doing that, and is nearly seduced by him until Mulder busts into his apartment and arrests him.

It turns out Mulder had dug through the newspaper he found in the writer's mail and discovered that all the victims were in the personals, and when he found descriptions of the murders in the writer's novel, it confirmed it. The writer denies knowledge of the murders and claims that they, as well as the murderer (who is a Brazilian psychic surgeon, who is also dead) is just something from his imagination. Mulder's not buying it, but they eventually let him go and he says that Scully can't fall in love with him cause she's already in love. Even weirdo writer dude is a shipper.

Anyway, it turns out they let him go as a ruse and they're spying on his apartment, when the fictional killer from his book shows up and demands that the writer write him an ending (which our heroes don't see) and after some discussion, he writes down his ending and then heads down to the incinerator to destroy, prompting Mulder to follow and the killer to show up and attack Scully, cause of course that was his ending. When Mulder shows back up to save her, she is of course saved by the writer burning his manuscript and also...ripping out his own heart? I didn't follow that part, and I dunno if it matters, cause the episode is over.

I know a lot of people are fond of Milagro, including both of the writers, but it's just never worked for me. Something is missing, some tool in its arsenal, that keeps it from clicking with me. There's not a major issue that drags the whole thing down, just a mass of minor problems and irritations that just keep stacking and stacking until I lose patience with the episode. And now I gotta try and explain why.

Ah shit, I put in a slasher film by mistake, goddammit.

I think the big issue is the tone, which is why it got mentioned in the opening paragraph. Frankly, the premise of this episode is more than a little silly. It's about a writer writing a Silence of the Lambs knockoff which turns into self-insert fanfiction of him getting it on with Scully, and the prose is just one use of "Turgid" away from being a full on bodice ripper, so why is the tone so serious? Why is the camera work and lighting so subdued. If any episode called for the colorful, over the top style of The Rain King, this one would be it.

It doesn't help that I have no idea how I'm supposed to read the writer as a person. The way the director and actor are playing it, he's supposed to be a tortured genius who maybe doesn't have great people skills but is also genuinely seductive. His dialogue however is so awkward and painful, it borders on cringe comedy, and he occasionally comes off as a bit of an unhinged weirdo. By the end of his little rant about all the things he'd noticed about Scully, I'd be on the phone to the police just overhearing it.

That might be the biggest issue of all though, that so much of the episode's plot is leaning on the vaguely defined fact that the in universe writer is writing it. We focus a lot of time on the writer himself instead of the crimes (to the point where the fact that the actual killer is completely created by the writer is a finale reveal, instead of a integral part of the mystery) but I have no idea how much control he actually has. Was Scully actually seduced a little by him the person, or was it entirely his powers behind it? And if he has so much control over people's actions with his writing, how did Mulder break free of it to bust into his apartment at the midpoint?

Still don't totally get this ending, but I like this shot.

The overarching issue, in my opinion, is that they got so into the idea of Scully being manipulated and seduced cause of this dude's writing (which has some uncomfortable overtones I'm not gonna go into) that they wound up writing this episode backwards. The tale of the killer, either invented by the writer or an original person, being compelled to kill without knowing why due to the writer's writing is a much more interesting story than the writer faffing about his apartment, but that would require the Scully stuff to be excised and that was clearly the focus.

It's not entirely without merit. The psychic surgery nonsense is good stuff, and in need of a much better episode, as someone standing over their victim, holding their heart is always a solid visual. As much as I complained about the dissonance between the dialogue and the performance, the actor playing the writer is doing a solid job, and even the actor playing the killer has good screen presence and does a solid job once it's time for him to actually talk. Dunno why the writer chose a Brazilian Psychic Surgeon for his killer, but there you are.

I'm a firm believer in reviewing the episode (or movie, or whatever) you've got instead of the one you want, and while I stick by that, I worried for a while that this review would walk up to that line. I spend a lot of time imagining how to make this episode better, how to remove the dissonance that is, in my opinion, holding it back. There are other ways this episode could be made better (I really wanted more about the connection between what the writer is doing and Mulder profiling people; Maybe he could have tried to seduce Mulder?) but the main one is just me wistfully thinking how it could be either smarter, or more fun.

Case Notes:

• I didn't think it was possible that there was a more depressing apartment in Mulder's building than Mulder's, but this dude's will do it.
• I think the "Failing to write" montage is supposed to be creepy, but honestly, it's just kind of relatable.
• I know what's actually going on, but I am amused by the implication that the guy had a heart literally just hanging out in his shirt and failed to notice.
• The dude sees Scully in an elevator and is awestruck. It's supposed to be creepy (and his staring is) but honestly, that's just how people react to Gillian Anderson.
• Mulder's theory for how someone's heart is being removed without cuts is psychic surgery because he's Mulder.
• The brief interlude with the "Horny teens at makeout point" feels like a cut scene from a Jason film, dialogue and all. Resulting chase scene is a little close to one too, except with no machete.
• I like the scene where the dude is saying what Scully is thinking in voice over (partially cause it shows how little he actually knows about her: Scully is inclined to trust?) but I'm sorry, he was tormenting himself about having to write a Silence of the Lambs knockoff?
• This prose is so bad it's bordering on embarrassing.
• I like it when Scully gets annoyed by Mulder setting her schedule, it seems very in character.
• The writer explaining The Sacred Heart and being just the creepiest human being on Earth towards Scully is a VERY uncomfortable scene. Not a scary one, Scully could easily kick his ass,.
• Mulder uses a lock picking set to break into his neighbor's mail. That's not super important to the scene, but I love that Mulder owns a lock picking tool.
• The writer may be the kind of weirdo who writes fanfiction about him banging people he meets in the hallway, but at least he knows enough not to walk side by side with a stranger down the hallway.
• If a dude you barely know says "I'm writing about you," that's you're cue to run. Especially if he adds that he moved to try and run into her.
• Mulder figuring out that the writer is involved by digging into the personal ads is pretty vintage Mulder.
• The interrogation scene makes me want to smack the writer across the head, but I do like Mulder describing sex as "The Naked Pretzel." It's weirdly childish and funny.
• The writer losing hope that he'll get Scully after he sees her with Mulder (and declaring that Scully is already in love) is some of the most explicit shipping bait the show has done.
• The writer burning his own work after writing Scully got killed is nice but honestly, the nice thing to do would be not write it.
• Between Mulder flooding the building with his alternate-universe waterbed, his neighbors going crazy because he was being poisoned by the conspiracy, multiple people being shot or having armed standoffs at his building and now Scully shooting up the walls trying to escape the killer, his neighbors must hate him.
• The writer tearing out his own heart is an ending that makes more sense as an X-Files ending than an actual emotional climax to the episode.
• As always these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so you too can get buyer's remorse for paying for these reviews.

Future Celebrity Watch:

John Hawkes, who plays the writer, is about to embark on a lot of critically acclaimed roles, from a major role on Deadwood (Sol Star, for those of who watch it) to being nominated for an Oscar for Winter's Bone (the movie that gave us Jennifer Lawrence). He was also really good in The Sessions, which you should totally check out.