Director: David Nutter
Mulder and Scully travel to Pennsylvania when Reverend Finley, who claimed to bear the wounds of Christ, is murdered. Further investigation reveals that he was not a true stigmatic and Mulder links the case to a series of international murders of false stigmatics. Mulder and Scully travel to the small town of Loveland, Ohio when a local boy Kevin Kryder begins bleeding from his palms.
They meet with his father Michael, who is being held in a mental institute. He claims that Kevin is the son of God and that there are 'forces of darkness' who are out to eliminate him, that God will send someone to protect him. When Kevin is abducted from the social services home, witness descriptions match a local gardener, Owen Jarvis. When Mulder and Scully trace him to his home, they find Kevin missing and arrest Jarvis. When they question him he claims that God told him to protect Kevin, then with great strength he breaks the handcuffs and escapes.
He rushes to Kevin's home and finds a man, Simon Gates attacking Kevin, they fight and Jarvis is killed but Kevin is rescued by Mulder and Scully. Scully performs the autopsy on Jarvis and discovers fingerprints that identify Simon Gates. Records indicate that Gates recently visited Israel, leading Mulder to speculate that he may be suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome, religious delusions. Mulder does not believe the case involves religious phenomenon. Scully however believes that she has been chosen by God to protect Kevin.
Notes:
This would be David Nutter's 15th and last direction of an X-File episode. His first episode was "Ice".
The producers weren't satisfied with the priest's voice, so a new vocal track was added in postproduction using a different performer in LA.
The scene where Mulder and Scully are having a conversation with Mr. Kryder appears much shorter in the final version than in the original script. In the script Mr Kryder begins to speak in tongues. Only Scully can understand him, even when he quotes a line from "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
Scully mentions Kevin being in two places at once, "...just like St. Ignatius was able to do in the Bible..." There is no Ignatius in the Bible. The earliest Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, and no person in the New Testament appears in two places at once. Scully would know better, and the script supervisor could easily have checked this out.
Quotes:
Scully: Isn't a saint or a holy person just another term for someone abnormal?
Scully: I'm talking about events that defy explanation. Things that ... I believe helped me to save a young boy's life. But now I wonder if I saw them at all. If I didn't just imagine them.
Priest: Why do you doubt yourself?
Scully: Because my partner didn't see them. He didn't ... he didn't believe them. And usually he ... he believes without question.
Priest: Maybe they weren't meant for him to see. Maybe they were only meant for you.
Scully: Is that possible?
Priest: With the Lord, anything is possible. Perhaps you saw these things because you needed to.
Episode Number: 60
Season Number: 3
First Aired: Friday December 15, 1995
Production Code: 3X11
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