The X-Files - 4.

French title: Sanguinarium

US Airdate: November 10, 1996

writers: Valerie Mayhew & Vivian Mayhew

director: Kim Manners

STARRING:

David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder

Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully

Guest Cast:

Andrew Airlie as the attorney

Norman Armour as the ER Doctor

Richard Beymer as Dr. Jack Franklyn

Martin Evans as Dr. Hartman

O-Lan Jones as Rebecca Waite, R.N.

John Juliani as Dr. Harrison Lloyd

Arlene Mazerolle as Dr. Shannon

Paul Raskin as Dr. Eric Ilaqua

Gregory Thirloway as a Doctor

A SERIES OF MYSTERIOUS DEATHS WHICH PLAGUE A COSMETIC SURGERY CLINIC LEAD MULDER TO BELIEVE IT MAY NOT BE HUMAN ERROR, BUT HUMAN SACRIFICE.

Everyone wants to be beautiful. And the Aesthetic Surgery Unit of Chicago's Greenwood Memorial Hospital can make anyone more attractive...for a price. For one patient thought to be undergoing a scalp-reduction the price is a grisly death, when Dr. Lloyd goes insane and during surgery and performs a violent liposuction instead...and literally sucks the life blood out of the man. Scully and Mulder are called in to investigate the doctor's unusual defense: demonic possession. Scully logically assumes the doctor's sleeping pill addiction caused a psychotic break. When Mulder discovers evidence of a pentagram--an occult symbol of protection-- on the floor of the operating room, he concludes that some kind of magic is at work. Scully is dubious, to put it mildly. Another surgeon goes into an uncontrollable frenzy, using a laser to burn through the flesh of a patient's face . Mulder discovers the mark of the pentagram on this body as well -- placed there by Nurse Waite, a practicing witch. Dr. Franklyn admits that Nurse Waite worked at the clinic ten years earlier when similar deaths had occurred. Scully and Mulder search her house, finding a spooky den of candles, incense, herbs and witchy objects. But Nurse Waite is gone. She's lying in wait for Dr. Franklin; submerged in a tub full of gore in his bathroom. Her sneak knife attack fails, and she's arrested.

Before Nurse Waite can explain herself to Mulder, she dies horribly, in what Mulder recognizes from Nurse Waite's occult books as a classic case of death by hex.

Waite was trying to protect the patients...but against what or whom? Maybe Dr. Franklyn -- who smiles inscrutably as he levitates a few feet above his bed.

Putting all the clues together, Mulder deduces that Franklyn is a black magician. Cursed with the sin of vanity, Franklyn transforms his looks beyond the limits of surgery: using sorcery and human sacrifice. Ten years ago, he had escaped suspicion. Today, he manages to escape even Mulder. Mulder is too late to stop the final sacrifice that completes the spell. Dr. Franklyn slices off his own face, to disappear forever...

...And the classically handsome Dr. Hartman is welcomed aboard at a Los Angeles cosmetic surgery clinic.

Sanguinary means carnage, bloodthirsty, consisting of blood. Sanguinaria means bloodroot.

Was this ep a homage to "Twin Peaks"? Consider that the airdate was November 10, and according to Peaks fans on the newsgroup, this is the date that "Twin Peaks" climaxed with Ray Wise seeing Bob in the mirror. And, of course, Richard Beymer played Ben Horne on "Twin Peaks", so it's interesting to see David Duchovny (who was also on "Twin Peaks") interacting with Beymer.

Written on the wall as one word: Vanitas Vanitatum (vanity of vanities)

The address where Dr. Franklyn lived, 1953 Gardner Street, was refering to Gerald Gardner, whose form of witchcraft, called Gardnerian, started in 1953, and is the largest type of withcraft in the U.S. today. Also, Nurse Rebecca Waite may have been refering to Rebecca Nurse, a witch tried during the Salem Trials and/or the Rider-Waite tarot (same initials R.W.) and/or early 20th century author of books of witchcraft, Arthur Edward Waite, who was also, among many things, a practicing "white" magician.

Dr. Lloyd: "I think this patient is finished!"

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Scully: "Well, he started taking the drug 5 years ago and he went through... ooh, he took a lot of it. 19 100-tablet refills."

Mulder: (watching attractive nurse pass by) "Wow."

Scully: (assuming he meant the pill numbers) "Yeah."

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Scully: "What could she have been doing in here?"

Mulder: "Probably not tax returns."

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Doctor: "May we ask you to sit down?"

Mulder: "It appears we have interrupted a gathering."

Doctor: "Gathering..."

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Mulder: "What do you suppose these are?"

Scully: "What?"

Mulder: "These 5 marks on your brand new state-of-the-art floor."

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(Mulder traces pentagram with blood and a tongue depressor)

Scully: "Mulder, if you want to connect the dots here, you should look at the facts."

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Mulder: "I'm not a doctor, Scully, but you got to be pushing pretty hard to mistake a beer belly for a bald head."

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Mulder: "Are you aware that Dr. Lloyd is claiming that he was possessed during the operation?"

Nurse: (Laughs) "Yeah, I guess it's cheaper than malpractice insurance."

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Scully: "There's magic going on here. Only it's being done with silicone, collagen and a well-placed scalpel."

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Doctor: "We give any credence or credibility to Dr. Lloyd's story...they're going to burn us at the stake."

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Scully: (reading) "...an anti-spasmodic whose active ingredients include belladonna alkaloids..."

Mulder: "Belladonna. It's also known as witches' berry. That's a herb used in hexing rituals."

Scully: "Mulder, do you know how many pharmaceuticals listed in the PDR contain belladonna?"

Mulder: "Yeah, just one. The one that Dr. Lloyd was taking."

Scully: "Well, if it's that simple, why don't you put out an APB for someone riding a broom and wearing a tall black hat?"

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Scully: "This kind of transformation is medically impossible."

Mulder: "It's not medicine, Scully, it's blood sacrifice."

Scully: "Blood sacrifice."

Mulder: "The most potent offering in black magic."

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Mulder: (nodding towards broom at door) "Probable cause."

Scully: "On the suspicion of being a witch?"

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Scully: "So this man committed these murders in order to make himself beautiful."