In attempting a story with a religious subtext, the writers of this episode could have really gone out on a limb to come up with something easy to criticize, but Chris Carter and Kim Newton came up with a genuinely intriguing tale while flipping the believer/skeptic dynamic between partners Scully and Mulder. This time, and even with her Roman Catholic upbringing, Scully is reluctant to accept the evidence of a real live stigmatic, a corpse exhibiting characteristics of an 'incorruptible', and the apparent bilocation ability of young Kevin Kryder (Kevin Zegers). Personally, seeing Owen Jarvis (Michael Berryman) getting up and running away after taking a header out of a second story window was justification enough for me to believe some angel was watching over him, but that was an idea that never came up.
Even though I've learned about all of those miraculous kinds of events mentioned above, this was the first time I ever heard of a Jerusalem Syndrome, affecting people who visit the Holy land and suffer religious delusions induced by their journey. That seemed to describe what was going on with Simon Gates (Kenneth Walsh) in his fervor to hunt down and kill all known stigmatics, but in his case, I think we can take a cue from Clyde Bruckman's brilliant observation from an earlier Season Three episode - the guy was simply a homicidal maniac.
Well if the devil is in the details, this episode did a pretty good job of laying out a credible story with some highly incredible, some might even say, miraculous touches. It was interesting to see Scully on the defensive here with her partner role modeling the voice of reason, something you don't ordinarily see if the main event has to do with the mere paranormal.
Even though I've learned about all of those miraculous kinds of events mentioned above, this was the first time I ever heard of a Jerusalem Syndrome, affecting people who visit the Holy land and suffer religious delusions induced by their journey. That seemed to describe what was going on with Simon Gates (Kenneth Walsh) in his fervor to hunt down and kill all known stigmatics, but in his case, I think we can take a cue from Clyde Bruckman's brilliant observation from an earlier Season Three episode - the guy was simply a homicidal maniac.
Well if the devil is in the details, this episode did a pretty good job of laying out a credible story with some highly incredible, some might even say, miraculous touches. It was interesting to see Scully on the defensive here with her partner role modeling the voice of reason, something you don't ordinarily see if the main event has to do with the mere paranormal.