Production Code: #7ABX02 Original Air Date: 12/12/99 Written by Jeffrey Bell Directed by Thomas J. Wright
MULDER AND SCULLY ARE CAUGHT IN A REAL−LIFE RUBE GOLDBERG DEVICE AS THEY INVESTIGATE A MAN CURSED WITH EXTREMELY GOOD LUCK.
Tension fills the room of a high−stakes poker game in Chicago as the men place their bets. The meek Henry Weems does not belong in this group of gangsters. Henry asks for five new cards and lays them down with a perfect straight flush, winning the $100,000 pot. Mob boss Jimmy Cutrona motions to his henchmen, and Henry is taken to the roof. The thugs toss him off the building, and he falls thirty floors into an open service elevator. Miraculously, Henry pulls himself up onto the street and runs off unharmed.
The next day, Scully arrives in Chicago to meet Mulder. Agents staking out Cutrona saw an unidentified man fall from the roof and walk away. Mulder believes the man may have some kind of healing power. Scully thinks the guy just got lucky. They go down through the service elevator into a basement, where they find a laundry cart that has been broken, as if something heavy had landed in it. Among the towels in the cart is an artificial eyeball. Mulder and Scully track down their suspect through an appointment he made to get fitted for a new prosthetic eye. As they enter Henry Weems’ apartment building, they are approached by Maggie Lupone shouting for help. Her sink is spraying water and she can’t find Henry, the building superintendent. She urges her young son, Richie, to go back to bed. In an attempt to assist her, Mulder breaks the valve and causes more water to spurt from the sink. Suddenly, the floor gives way from all the water and Mulder drops into the apartment below – where Henry Weems has been hiding.
Mulder returns the artificial eye, and Henry discounts any dramatic description of his fall. He says it was a lucky break. Henry’s hobby is constructing complex, Rube Goldberg−like machines that perform simple tasks and Mulder admires his work. Henry admits that he lost all of his poker winnings but refuses to testify against Cutrona. Scully tries to persuade him that Cutrona will go after him. “I’ll take my chances,” he shrugs. The agents leave and narrowly miss one of Cutrona’s hit men as he enters the building. Mulder realizes he dropped his car keys and buzzes Henry. When they hear gunshots, Mulder and Scully rush back to Henry’s apartment. Henry has disappeared, but the thug is dead, suspended by the swirling ceiling fan.
Mulder comes up with a complex theory of how the assassin was killed by a series of events that coincidentally occurred in the apartment, much like one of Henry’s contraptions. Scully chalks it up to dumb luck, but then notices Richie in the doorway. Seeing that he is sick, she leads him back to his bedroom. Richie shows Scully the Goldberg device that Henry made for him when he was in the hospital for liver disease. He tells her that Henry always says that everything happens for a reason.
Scully reports back to Mulder that the boy doesn’t know of Henry’s whereabouts. She speculates that if Henry was really supernaturally lucky, then he would be out playing the lottery. Hiding in the air vent, Henry hears their conversation. He sneaks out to visit with Richie when the agents depart.
Going over Henry’s file, Mulder surmises that Henry’s lucky streak began when he was the lone survivor of a plane crash, but he has since gone underground. Only recently has he tried using his lucky fortune. Henry slips out to buy a scratch−off lottery ticket and wins $100,000. However, when he learns that the payment is spread out over months, he tosses it into a garbage can. Another man in the store grabs the ticket, despite Henry’s pleadings to throw it away. The man is immediately hit by a truck. When Mulder and Scully investigate, they figure out that Henry had heard their conversation about the lottery ticket. They separate and search the building. Mulder finds Henry in the air vent and holds him while he calls Scully. As he dials, another of Cutrona’s gunmen arrive and fire a shot at Henry. The bullet ricochets off Henry, grazes Mulder’s arm, and bounces around before it lands in the chest of the thug. Scully arrives in the room just as the hit man drops, not believing that she’s seeing Henry unharmed.
Later, Mulder’s wound is dressed at the hospital, where he tests Henry at playing cards. Henry draws the highest card every time, confessing that he is extremely lucky and that other people suffer. This is why he keeps a low profile. He says that he tried to get $100,000 for a liver transplant for a new experimental treatment for Richie’s liver disease. Although Henry’s life is in danger, Mulder believes that his luck will save him, and he allows Henry to leave. Scully pulls one last card and draws one higher than Henry’s. Mulder is alarmed by this and runs after Henry, who is also being followed by one of Cutrona’s men. Henry gets hit by a truck, but survives. Sensing that his luck has run out, Henry agrees to testify against Cutrona. Richie becomes seriously jaundiced and is taken to the same hospital. His mother Maggie goes to follow the ambulance, but is kidnapped by the mobsters. Henry knows that Maggie was taken to prevent him from testifying, so he goes to speak to Cutrona himself. Cutrona has him brought to the basement where Maggie is being held captive. As the men raise Henry onto a crane, a series of mishaps ensue that kill the gangsters and release Henry. Mulder arrives with the police to find Cutrona dead, and Henry and Maggie saved. It turns out that Cutrona’s rare blood type is a perfect match for Richie’s, and Richie gets his transplant after all. Henry was right when he said that everything does happen for a reason.
Orison
Production Code: #7ABX07 Original Air Date: 01/09/00 Written by Chip Johannessen Directed by Rob Bowman
REVEREND ORISON HOPES TO SAVE DONNIE PFASTER’S SOUL BY HELPING HIM BREAK OUT OF PRISON. BUT PFASTER ONLY WANTS THE VICTIM THAT ONCE ESCAPED HIM – SCULLY.
Reverend Orison preaches in a small chapel in the Marion, Illinois maximum security penitentiary. Each time he exclaims the phrase “Glory, amen,” the prisoners stomp their feet in unison. However, sitting stone−faced and silent is Donnie Pfaster (last seen in “Irresistible” #2X13), a fetishist who had once kidnapped Scully. Later in the garment machine shop, Brigham, an inmate from the sermon, gets his fingers caught in an electric saw. As the guards and other prisoners rush to help him, time seems to slow down and Pfaster slips out unnoticed.
In Washington, Scully is awakened by a gust of wind. She gets up to close the window, noticing the Bible on her bureau. Her clock radio blinks 6:66. She reaches for the clock, but the power switches off, and then back on. Her clock now reads 6:06.
The next day, Mulder and Scully are summoned to the Marion Penitentiary to help find the escaped prisoner they had previously put behind bars – Donnie Pfaster. Mulder tries to persuade Scully to remove herself from the case, but she is adamant about staying on, saying that she has no other choice. The agents interview the inmate Brigham whose hands are now intact. He proclaims his healing a miracle of God, and reciting “Glory, amen,” he unconsciously raps his feet. Mulder recognizes the post−hypnotic suggestion and suggests a talk with the prison chaplain. A song faintly drifts in through the vents and startles Scully. She says she hasn’t heard it since high school.
Teenage runaway Blueberry approaches Pfaster in a diner. He offers to give her dirty hands a manicure. Reverend Orison interrupts, telling Pfaster that it was he who helped orchestrate the prison break. Federal marshals storm the diner and Pfaster accuses Orison of turning him in. Orison quickly hands him his car keys, and with time again seeming to slow down, Pfaster inconspicuously escapes. In the parking lot, Pfaster plows down Orison, leaving him severely wounded. Later in the hospital, Orison tries to appeal to Scully’s faith, and she is unsettled when he calls her “Scout.” She is further disquieted when she hears the song from her youth again. Mulder arrives with news of Pfaster’s latest victim, calling Orison a liar. He believes that Orison is a convicted murderer who intended to kill Donnie Pfaster once he got out of prison. Scully has her doubts about Mulder’s theory. She tells him that she had been woken up at 6:06, the time Pfaster
escaped prison. The song she keeps hearing was on the radio on the day she learned that her Sunday school teacher was murdered. This teacher had called her “Scout.” She tells Mulder that she first believed that evil existed in the world when her teacher was killed. Mulder tries to disprove her thoughts of divine intervention by pointing to a lightspeed image of Orison’s brain on a computer. Orison pierced a hole in his own skull to allow more oxygen to the brain, presumably giving him special powers to “stop” time. Mulder predicts that Orison really believes he is working as God’s tool to stop Pfaster from killing. Meanwhile, Orison uses his chant of “Glory, amen” to hypnotize the marshal guarding him, and he escapes.
A red−headed prostitute visits with Pfaster, but when he realizes she is wearing a wig, he is furious and attacks her. The prostitute knocks Pfaster unconscious and leaves. Orison arrives and takes Pfaster to a cemetery. While digging him a grave, he asks Pfaster to repent for his sins. Pfaster says that Orison can not kill him. When Orison looks at Pfaster’s face, he has transformed into the Devil Incarnate. Pfaster kills Orison and buries him in the grave. The next morning, the agents inspect the gravesite and decide that their side of the case is over. They return to Washington.
Scully arrives in her apartment and is getting ready for bed when her electricity turns off and her clock radio flashes the time 6:66. Suddenly, Donnie Pfaster bursts out of the closet and attacks Scully. They struggle, and Pfaster succeeds in tying Scully up. At his own bed, Mulder sets his alarm clock, and he hears Scully’s song on the radio. He thinks about this coincidence and decides to phone Scully. She doesn’t answer. Meanwhile, Scully manages to move her tied hands in front of her so that she can crawl across the floor to get to her gun. Pfaster is busy lighting candles and preparing a bath. He catches sight of Scully when Mulder breaks through the door with his gun drawn. As Pfaster is held at gunpoint, Scully breaks out of her ties and shoots Pfaster.
Later as the police pour over the crime scene in the apartment, Mulder tries to comfort a shaken Scully, telling her that his report will reflect that she had no choice but to kill Pfaster. He asks if she thought God made her pull the trigger. Instead, Scully questions whether it was really Evil who made her commit an act in vengeance.