Season 7: Orison (7X07)

Written by: Chip Johannessen
Directed by: Rob Bowman

Reverend Orison leads a service with a group of inmates in the chapel at the Marion maximum security penitentiary in Illinois. During the service his cries of "Glory, amen," are answered by the inmates stomping their feet in unison. Among the congregation is Donnie Pfaster.

After the service one of the prisoners, Brigham catches his fingers in an electric saw while working in the garment machine shop. With the guards and other inmates attending to Brigham, Donnie Pfaster escapes. Mulder and Scully as the agents who caught Donnie Pfaster, a death fetishist, in the first place are called in to help track him down.

Mulder suggests to Scully that she should remove herself from the case, considering her past history with Pfaster, but Scully is adamant that she should be with her partner. They interview Brigham, who is uninjured despite the accident that everyone witnessed, Brigham suggests it is a miracle. But Mulder recognises his use of of the phrase "Glory, amen," and the unconscious tapping of his feet as evidence of post hypnotic suggestion.

Suspicion soon falls on the Reverend Orison, Mulder belives he has the ability through ancient chants to induce mass hypnosis, enabling the inmates to escape unnoticed. Reverend Orison believes he is making amends for the time in his life when he was acquitted for a murder that he did commit. However it appears there are wider implication to his actions. Donnie Pfaster abuses his freedom to hunt down the one victim who eluded him, Scully.

Notes:
The definition of 'Orison' is "A Prayer".

The song that plays often through out the episode is "Don't Look Any Further" by Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garrett.

Quotes:
Marshall Daddo: He's a sick man.
Mulder: Sick would describe him. We found women's fingers in his freezer. He liked to eat them with his peas and carrots.
Marshall Daddo: So it's just women he's after?
Mulder: Just women. Been five years in here thinking about only that. I'm sure he's worked up quite an appetite.
Marshall Daddo: I happen to know you two agents have a particular forte — a thing for... what is it called? The supernatural? Now, the circumstances of the escape...
Scully: I promise you there is nothing supernatural about this man. Donnie Pfaster is just plain evil.

Mulder: Post-hypnotic suggestion. Did you see him?

Scully: You mean, did I see him raise his foot? Yes, I saw that.
Mulder: A programmed behaviour prompted and manifested by suggestion in this case, a rhythmic motion of the hands producing a unconscious act in a conscious state. (He raises and lowers his hand in front of Scully) Doesn't work on you.
Scully: I know what hypnosis is, Mulder.
Mulder: Group hypnosis.
Scully: If you're suggesting that Donnie Pfaster escaped from prison using a technique from a Vegas lounge act I'd think again.
Mulder: Mesmer was able to hypnotise and command entire audiences.
Scully: So, how would Donnie have acquired this amazing ability?
Mulder: I'm not saying that it was Donnie.
Scully: Well, then, who?
Mulder: Three inmates are missing from three separate prisons. One man has had possible contact with each of those cons. The prison chaplain. Glory. Amen. Not god, the chaplain. Scully, what?
Scully: That song — can you hear that?
Mulder: Barely.
Scully: I haven't heard that song since high school. That's the second time I've heard it in the last hour.
Mulder: Well, I think if it was a make out song I think it'd be ruined forever now, huh?

Reverend Orison: What is this?

Mulder: Blood of the lamb, Reverend. Handiwork of Mr Donnie Pfaster — a young girl he picked up at the bus stop.
Reverend Orison: Oh, Lord.
Mulder: Where is he, Reverend?
Reverend Orison: He took my car. She wasn't supposed to die.
Mulder: No. Donnie was supposed to die. You were supposed to kill him. That's why you freed him. God knows you're capable of it. (to Scully) The Reverend Orison is really Robert Gailen Orison — convicted in 1959 of first degree murder. Served 22 years in Soledad.
Reverend Orison: God spoke to me. He told me to look after Donnie.
Mulder: When god spoke to you, Reverend, did He happen to mention where Donnie was headed?

Scully: Go back to hell!

Donald Pfaster: Who does your nails, girly girl?
Scully: Let me go! The only reason why you're alive is because I asked the judge for life! The only reason why you're alive is because we didn't kill you when we could!
Donald Pfaster: You're the one that got away. You're all I think about.
Scully: I'm a federal agent. You do anything to me and they will not give you a break this time.
Donald Pfaster: I'm going to run you a bath.

Highlights from ''Irresistible''

Highlights from ''Orison''

Episode Number: 146

Season Number: 7
First Aired: Sunday, January 9, 2000
Production Code: 7X07

Season 2: Irresistible (2X13)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: David Nutter

When FBI agent Moe Bocks of the Minnesota Bureau investigates the case of a female corpse dug up and mutilated, he is quick to think it is the work of extraterrestrial and calls in agent Mulder and Scully for their expertise with UFO's. However Mulder who has seen this before recognises it as the work of an escalating fetishist. Someone who collects dead things, hair and fingernails, no one quite knows why they do it. Scully who has never seen a case like it before although she has read about them, is badly shaken by what she sees.

Mulder warns agent Bocks that the escalating fetishist may progress from mutilating the dead to opportunistic homicide, killing people and then mutilating them. A theory given credence when a prostitute is found murdered and mutilated. After examining the body and how it was defiled Mulder tells Bocks that the killer has a deep hatred of women and will continue to kill until he is stopped. As word of the attacks spreads the local populous become uneasy, when a prostitute is hit by a john she pulls a knife and cuts him. Mulder and Scully joins Bocks as they question the man, who it turns out is innocent. But unknown to them the fetishist, Donnie Pfaster is in the next cell.

Scully struggling with her reaction to the case goes back to Washington with the prostitute's body, a move which pays off when she finds a latent fingerprint. But on her return she is intercepted and kidnapped by Pfaster and Mulder has to pull out all the stops to find her before it is too late.

Notes:
The original title of this episode was "Fascination."

Karen Kossoff mentions that Scully had lost her father the previous year. This happened in the episode "Beyond The Sea".

Chris Carter originally wrote Donnie Pfaster as a necrophiliac but due to pressure from Fox Television he was forced to alter the character to the less offensive, but still very creepy death fetishist. Nick Chinlund as Donnie Pfaster later returns in Season 7's 'Orison'.

The name Soames can be seen on a tombstone at the beginning of the episode - Ray Soames is the name of the person Mulder and Scully had exhumed in the Pilot episode.

Quotes:
Donnie Pfaster: (to Scully) There's no way out, girlie-girl... I know this house, girlie-girl, there's nowhere to hide.

Scully(voiceover): Death is a recorded event. For reasons natural or unnatural, when a body ceases to function, the cause of the effect can be clearly reconstructed. A body has a story to tell... If the victim was strangled, an examination of the veins in the eyes will reveal this. If the victim was shot, entry wounds and gunpowder residue can be used to reconstruct the events leading to death and help to establish a possible motive. Body temperature, preferably the temperature of the spleen, is an accurate indicator of the time of death. As are rigor, livor and levels of sodium in the blood. If the body was moved, sand, small rocks, vegetable debris, even pollen can be removed and analysed to determine the location of the original crime scene and place the position of the body at the time of death. Extracutenous stains and residues can indicate the use of poison or toxins. Hair and fibres, slivers of glass, plastic, even insect casings can serve to recreate the circumstances under which death occurred... It may be an irony only understood by those of us who conduct these examinations, who use these pieces to rebuild a narrative, that death, like life itself, is a drama with a beginning, middle and end.

Scully(voiceover): A complete model or psychological profile of the death fetishist does not exist. Extrapolating from material on file at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, the compulsion is the result of a complex misplacement of values and a deviation from cultural norms and societal mores - often accompanied by extreme alienation from normal social interaction and traditional avenues for interaction with others. He is more likely to be white, male and of average to above average intelligence. Cases of fetishists with IQs over 150 have been documented. The progression of the pathology can be traced from the fantasy stage to the eventual acting out of fetishistic impulses, including opportunistic homicide.... Agent Mulder believes strongly that the suspect in this case is escalating toward this action. It is my opinion from reading these case files that death fetishism may play a stronger role than suspected in cases of serial murder. That once he begins to murder, it is the killing that draws attention away from a deeper motive. A motive which most people, including law enforcement professionals, dare not imagine. It is somehow easier to believe, as Agent Bocks does, in aliens and UFOs, than in the kind of cold blooded inhuman monster who could prey on the living to scavenge from the dead.

Episode Number: 37
Season Number: 2
First Aired: Friday January 13, 1995
Production Code: 2X13