The X-Files S3 E11

Spoilers

“Revelations”

A young boy appears to be a stigmata, attracting a man who is killing fake stigmatics. Mulder and Scully are on the case to try and protect the boy from the evil force. However, in this episode, because of the religious implications of the case, Scully was the believer, the one with faith, and Mulder was the skeptic, the naysayer. It felt weird.

The little boy was from the Air Bud movies, actor Kevin Zegers. He is effective in the episode opposite Gillian Anderson, who does some excellent work. David Duchovny though just did not feel right. Mulder believes in everything, but having him so anti-religion felt against the character. Not that he had to believe in God, but how he was so dismissive to everything was so unlike Mulder that it was jarring.

And when Scully came up with the answer where Kevin had been taken, Mulder did not go with her. I found that to be hypocritical of him, since she has followed him through how many potentially hairbrained ideas before. I wanted him to go with her, even if he did not believe she was right. That would have shown that he believed in her. 

I did like how Mulder’s refusal to believe in the religious moments of the episode led to Scully having a crisis of faith and ending up in a confessional. 

Our evil killer was played by the excellent Kenneth Walsh, who was Windham Earle from season two of Twin Peaks. He was Simon Gates in this episode and he was creepy and eerie with his religious zealot persona. 

Some of the events that happened in the episode were shaky. Some coincidental things that could have been tightened up more, but overall, I enjoyed the episode and I liked the focus on Scully’s personal beliefs.

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