MILAGRO

Phillip Padgett (John Hawkes), a fledgling author, sits at a desk, suffering from writer's block. He eventually retires to the bathroom to discard a spent cigarette. Without warning or concern, the man suddenly reaches into his chest and removes a bloody heart. Later, he walks down metal stairs into a cluttered basement, and opens the door of an incinerator. Noticing a beating heart amidst the flames, and unfazed by the vision, he nonchalantly tosses in a paper bag.

Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) later encounters the stranger as she walks into an elevator. Both ride in silence up to the fourth floor, with Scully somewhat unsettled by the experience. At Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) apartment, Mulder and Scully begin discussing a case the pair are working on, wherein the heart of the victim had been removed with the absence of any significant physical evidence. Mulder believes the heart was removed with a technique known as psychic surgery. Meanwhile, Padgett, who is Mulder's neighbor, stands on a chair with his ear to an air vent, listening to the conversation.

Later that night, two teenagers get into a fight in the woods. The girl, named Maggie (Jillian Bach), runs into the woods to be alone and Kevin (Angelo Vacco), her boyfriend, gives chase. However, he is attacked and his heart is removed. Meanwhile, the writer intensely transcribes the event on his typewriter. The next day, Mulder and Scully discuss this latest incident via phone. An unmarked envelope is discovered by Scully in the office containing a milagro, a type of pendant. While she examines the pendant, a voice-over from the writer describes Scully's most intimate feelings as she examines the unsolicited gift.

Scully later runs into the author at a church. He admits sending Scully the pendant and discusses with her the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She leaves, visibly shaken. Scully meets Mulder and relays her most recent encounter with the writer to Mulder. Later, Padgett woos Scully into his apartment with more character revelations. Mulder bursts in and arrests him based on accurate descriptions of the case murders in his novel, which he secretly read after discovering it in the mail. While Padgett is in custody, Maggie is murdered in the same fashion as Kevin. This establishes a de facto alibi for the author. Lacking concrete and connective evidence to the murders, and hoping Padgett might lead them to his partner in crime, Mulder releases Padgett from custody.

Back at his apartment, Padgett converses with the killer from his book, a deceased Brazilian surgeon named Ken Naciamento (Nestor Serrano). It is revealed that through some sort of psychic connection, Padgett's Naciamento has come back to life and has been removing hearts from victims. The two discuss motivations for the killings. Realizing that his novel prognosticates Scully's murder, Padgett heads to the incinerator to destroy his novel. Mulder intercepts him, thinking Padgett is instead simply destroying incriminatory evidence. Meanwhile, Naciamento accosts Scully. After hearing gunshots, Mulder runs toward his apartment and shockingly finds Scully on the ground, covered in blood but alive. The episode closes with a voice over from the author, explaining his final actions. The stranger lies stricken on the basement floor in front of the incinerator, his beating heart in hand, having "... given what he could not receive"

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