Ramblings On...XF Episode 1x17: "Miracle Man"

I thought I would do a little bit of a X-Files Season One comes “of age” ramble...At this time, eighteen years ago, the X-Files was on hiatus.  The hiatus lasted from February 16, 1994to March 18, 1994.  On that night, a Friday, at 9pm “Miracle Man” aired.  

Written by Howard Gordon and Chris Carter and directed by Michael Lange, “Miracle Man” is the X-Files episode featuring a Cadillac driving tent ministry revivalist.  Supernatural would also hit tent revivalist religion in the first season episode “Faith” (1x12).  Although there were parts of “Miracle Man” that I felt were a little over done, the episode was a good one. For one thing, Mulder is more open in this episode than he usually is about issues involving Christianity. We all know Mulder is very open to extreme possibilities, but generally is very skeptical when it comes to what he considers “fundamentalists acting fundamentally”.  One of my favorite episodes was the third season episode “Revelations” where stigmatics are being hunted down and murdered.  In that episode Scully is the one willing to believe.  Mulder, however, is very clearly NOT willing to believe.

“Miracle Man” opens with a horrible fire, and a body being hauled away in body bag. A man brings a young boy over to the body bag.  The man unzips it and the boy puts his hand on the body, starting to pray, telling the dead man to rise up and heal.  The firefighter comes over to the man and the boy saying “You don’t understand.  The man is dead.” The man replies, “then the boy can’t possibly do any harm, can he?” the badly charred arm in the body bag moves, and the hand grabs and holds the hand of the young boy.

Ten years have gone by and Scully is bringing a case to Mulder’s attention that she knows isn’t an X-File, but she is hoping that Mulder will go with her.  Local law enforcement has been trying to get Reverend Hartley’s tent ministry shut down for years, and they finally got the Tennessee office of the FBI involved, who got the information to Scully because she is a medical doctor and they wanted someone with a medical background to assist. 

Mulder is well aware of the Reverend Calvin Hartley and his adopted son Samuel.  He appears to make light of the sensationalistic way Reverend Hartley preaches (“No, wait...this is where they bring out Elvis”), but he has heard the claims of Samuel’s healing and doesn’t seem to refute that the boy has the power. In fact, after reviewing what they find down at the ministry, he believes that Samuel does have the gift.

Around the sensationalism of the tent ministry is Samuel who does seem like an innocent in all of this. He has a Cadillac himself, and quite a bit of jewelry, but he does feel responsible for the deaths of these people.  Not so far that he actually has tried to kill them, but that he feels responsible because he has taken his gift for granted and allowed himself to profit  He felt that his pride had “muddied the river of [his] own faith.” Somehow, he had corrupted his gift.  

My favorite part about this episode was Scott Bairstow’s Samuel Hartley.  I don’t think I’m the only one that was impressed with his performance...Chris Carter would give him a lead role in one of his other shows--the ill fated Harsh Realm.  Fox only aired a couple episodes before canceling the show.

The first time I watched Carnivale I couldn’t help but wonder if Nick Stahl was cast as Ben Hawkins because of how much he resembled Scott Bairstow (ten years later).  Ben Hawkins also had a power to heal and even to bring back the dead.  Hawkins power, however, was a power of transference.  He didn’t heal or give back life so to speak, but move energy.  To heal one, he had to take from somewhere else. Likewise, in the Supernatural episode “Faith” the Reverend Roy LeGrange didn’t have the actual power to heal.  His wife had bound a reaper and was sending reaper after someone else she deemed sinful and in need of punishment.  Samuel’s power was not reliant on taking power elsewhere or on anyone working any kind of side spells.  He just had the gift to save people.

The fact that we see that Samuel is being manipulated and exploited makes his death even more tragic.  Samuel feels that God has spoken against his pride and is punishing him.  Because of this, when the sheriff locks some people in the jail cell with the intention of something bad happening to Samuel, he just takes it.  In fact, he just stands up against the bars and allows them to beat him to death.  We see him with his arms out to either side, crucifixion imagery.

There was one part of this episode I really couldn’t stand...In later Christian episodes, usually the journey of discovery was Scully’s province.  She has been molded by her Catholicism as much as she has been molded by science.  I’m sure to many that may seem like two very conflicting ideas...but oddly enough, I always understood it perfectly.  Being raised Catholic myself, but having a very strong sense of logic, I completely understood.  But this episode brought in the pain Samuel could see in Mulder.  He could sense the old pain that Mulder had (the loss of his sister), and attempted to help in what little way he felt he could.  At the bar, he tells Mulder he may have been able to help him if he had met him sooner.  Now, with his gift corrupted, he was unable to help.  Mulder running off chasing a little girl he kept getting a glimpse of gold old fast for me...

Personally, I loved the understated way that “Faith” was done in Supernatural.  Roy’s tent ministry didn’t have anywhere near the pinache of the Hartley ministry.  Both Roy and Samuel  were good men and their hearts were in the right place.  “Miracle Man” also lacks the subtext that “Faith” beautifully interweaves.  I will have to admit that falling in love with the “Faith” episode of Supernatural gave me a whole new level of respect for Miracle man...Although it also shows that while the X-Files was an amazing show and is my second favorite show ever, the scripts generally the depth that Supernatural shows us almost every episode.

It shouldn’t surprise people to know that many people who worked on the X-Files wound up working on Supernatural!  So I am sure that those involved learned a great deal from working on the X-Files and were able to expound on that knowledge making Supernatural an amazing follow up show that has been able to even go farther than the X-Files did.  My dream is that Supernatural gets as many seasons as the X-Files did...and without losing the momentum that the X-Files seemed to lose...