"Milagro"

"I live in my head."
Originally Aired 4/18/99

Scully has been put in danger several times over the course of this series, from episodes like "2Shy" to "Never Again", so you would assume that she could spot a creep from a mile away. Well, not this time in "Milagro." She briefly encounters a man on her way to Mulder's apartment and they exchange glances. Later she discovers a charm, called a "milagro", has been slid under the door of the X-Files' office. Suddenly she's meeting this man once again at a church because he deduced she would visit a particular painting, a fact he knew because he has been stalking her. The man even admits this to Scully because he's "taken by her"; she has muscular calves, which mean she's a runner, also her government parking pass allows her to park anywhere. I have one word for Scully: run! Use those muscular calves and get away from him.

Perhaps I am missing the point of "Milagro". The reason why this man, Phillip Padgett (John Hawkes) knows these intimate details of Agent Scully and also where her office is located so he can leave the "milagro" for her, is because he imagined it. He's writing a story about hearts being removed from victims, which is the exact case that Mulder is investigating. Padgett began to fantasize about Scully after their brief meeting in the hallway, and now they're seeing each other again at the church. Scully's unusual behavior can be explained because she's been written this way by Padgett. It does feel a little too much like Season 4's "Never Again", which is an episode I really enjoyed, although this episode suffers a bit too much from Chris Carter's gift of overly-wordy inner monologues.

I actually do enjoy the character of Padgett and the dialogue he has between Mulder and Scully, such as the repeated use of the line, "anything I'd know?" It's usage during the conversation between Padgett and Mulder, when he asks if the case is anything he'd know, increases his creep factor because the murder case *is* something he'd know. He's the one creating the it. The conversation he has with Scully before entering his apartment is my favorite moment in the episode, especially the line that "loneliness is a choice." I can relate to that.

With Season Six winding down and only four more episodes remain, I really wanted to enjoy this episode more than I do. I watched it multiple times, trying to gain some meaning from it and understand the concept better. I feel perhaps it may have been too hyped since it was one of the "unseen" episodes from this season, I'd known it was a favorite episode among the writers and also actor Sean Penn, plus it's inclusion on an "Essential" DVD collection of episodes that was released before the feature film, I Want To Believe. Including it with fan favorites like "The Post-Modern Prometheus", "The Host", and "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" meant that it must be highly regarded. Maybe I'm still missing the point of this episode or perhaps Carter and company are too close to the subject, it's too personal, so they fail to see the flaws within. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Padgett does tell Scully that motive is never easy and "sometimes it occurs to one only later", so perhaps I'll see the beauty of "Milagro" during a future rewatching of this episode.