This episode begins with a conversation between Scully and Mulder on the idea of psychic surgery, with Scully describing phony seers sticking their hand in a bucket of chicken guts pretending to remove tumors. Back in the mid Sixties in the New York Metropolitan TV market, there was a talk show host named Alan Burke who used to have controversial guests, and who was somewhat controversial and acerbic himself. One night he had on a psychic healer who demonstrated his craft on a 'sick' person and removed a tumor from the person's abdomen using only his hands, no cutting implements used at all. It looked genuinely real and astonished Burke as well as my Dad and I watching the show. Some weeks later, Burke had on another guest who unmasked the fraud and showed how the phony surgeries were performed. It was really quite incredible, but if shown how, anyone could do it.
With that starting point, Scully and Mulder are on track to locate a murderer removing the beating hearts of his victims without any visible signs of incision or external trauma. A burning heart in fact, is the image that appears on a lucky charm known as a 'milagro' that novelist Phillip Padgett (John Hawkes) puts in an envelope and passes to Mulder under the door to his apartment. Padgett is Mulder's new neighbor in the apartment next door, with Scully on hand to retrieve the charm and find herself immersed in the seductive world of Padgett's fantasy.
The most interesting part of this story has to do with Padgett's ongoing narration as he reveals his infatuation for Scully, and by so doing, also reveals her true feelings about Mulder and the direction of their potential romance. There's a horror element present however, in as much as Padgett's writing is so personal, it has awakened a physical entity in the guise of an alter-ego named Ken Naciamento (Nestor Serrano), who carries out the grisly murders of Padgett's novel. At a point where Naciamento convinces Padgett that there can only be one true ending for Scully, resulting in her death, he burns his manuscript in order to save Scully from the mysterious stranger.
For Scully, this is an intensely personal episode, forcing her to confront her feelings about Mulder and how she subjugates her personal life for the sake of a career. She states to Padgett at one point, "Loneliness is a choice", as if to justify the value she has placed on career objectives in spite of her recent bout with cancer, but through it all, one senses that she knows something is missing, and is unable or unwilling to confront that issue just yet. Padgett teases the viewer in more ways than one when he poses the burning question on his finished manuscript - "How will it end?"
With that starting point, Scully and Mulder are on track to locate a murderer removing the beating hearts of his victims without any visible signs of incision or external trauma. A burning heart in fact, is the image that appears on a lucky charm known as a 'milagro' that novelist Phillip Padgett (John Hawkes) puts in an envelope and passes to Mulder under the door to his apartment. Padgett is Mulder's new neighbor in the apartment next door, with Scully on hand to retrieve the charm and find herself immersed in the seductive world of Padgett's fantasy.
The most interesting part of this story has to do with Padgett's ongoing narration as he reveals his infatuation for Scully, and by so doing, also reveals her true feelings about Mulder and the direction of their potential romance. There's a horror element present however, in as much as Padgett's writing is so personal, it has awakened a physical entity in the guise of an alter-ego named Ken Naciamento (Nestor Serrano), who carries out the grisly murders of Padgett's novel. At a point where Naciamento convinces Padgett that there can only be one true ending for Scully, resulting in her death, he burns his manuscript in order to save Scully from the mysterious stranger.
For Scully, this is an intensely personal episode, forcing her to confront her feelings about Mulder and how she subjugates her personal life for the sake of a career. She states to Padgett at one point, "Loneliness is a choice", as if to justify the value she has placed on career objectives in spite of her recent bout with cancer, but through it all, one senses that she knows something is missing, and is unable or unwilling to confront that issue just yet. Padgett teases the viewer in more ways than one when he poses the burning question on his finished manuscript - "How will it end?"