“Signs & Wonders” is episode nine of season seven of The X-Files.
The episode opens at night in Blessing, Tennessee. Inside a house, a man reads a medical test result then tears it up. He packs, praying at the same time, and looks as the photograph of a woman kept in a bible. Someone is briefly glimpsed outside, but not by him. He checks a revolver, then a rattlesnake’s rattle rattles. The man heads out and gets into a car. He drops the keys inside, then hears a rattle. Then a rattlesnake glides across. It’s only the first and the door won’t open. The man grabs the revolver and starts shooting.
Mulder is on the phone when Scully enters. He gives her a file on Jared Chirp, the man from earlier. Dead from 116 separate bite marks from at least 50 different snakes, mostly copperheads and rattlesnakes. Found dead in his car. He’d fired six shots, including one into his knee. But there were no snakes. Mulder was speaking to an expert; rattlesnakes hibernate in winter. Yes, Chirp may have been murdered, but how? And why use poisonous snakes as the weapon? Scully mentions that snakes are symbolic in religions. It seems she isn’t the only one to make the connection.
The woman from Jared’s photo is church with an older woman. She’s clearly pregnant. Outside, Mulder introduces himself and Scully to the reverend, Samuel Mackey. The reverend spoke to the sheriff; he’s not sure that was a good idea. Mackey explains his church is founded on tolerance and acceptance but, before Jared joined, he belonged to a fundamentalist church, the God of Signs and Wonders. They practice snake handling. Jared and Gracie, his girlfriend, the pregnant woman, left together. It could be their former church persecuted them.
Mulder and Scully head to the Church of God with Signs and Wonders. Scully isn’t impressed, nor does she recall snake handling being a part of catechism. Mulder suggests it’s no different to communion wafers and transubstantiation. Or belief in flying saucers, according to Scully. Mulder notices a box with a mesh top. It’s empty. Because the snakes are loose.
A man enters; Reverend Enoch O’Connor, head of the church. He demands to know what they’re doing there and tells them the righteous have nothing to fear from snakes. Mulder would like some help, just in case they are not. O’Connor says Jared strayed from the path and was lost. He is sorry for his soul. The snake bites were a test of righteousness. They had best be ready when the Devil aims to test them, and be sure which side they are on. O’Connor has collected all the snakes and tells them they can leave now.
Outside, Scully suggests arresting O’Connor. Apparently, though, he was in Kentucky. Scully points out there are others in the church. Mulder says Jared died with a packed suitcase; someone must know where he was headed.
The older woman who was with Gracie, Iris, speaks to Reverend Mackey. Jared called the boarding house ethe night he died, wanting to talk to Gracie, but it was late and he sounded drunk, so she didn’t let him. The reverend will talk with Iris about this later.
Both O’Connor and Mackey ae leading a ceremony, both reading from the same part of the Bible. Though Mackey’s ceremony is rather more restrained and uses rather less snakes. Iris is removing staples, when the remover morphs briefly into a snake head and bites her. She heads to the bathroom to treat the wound, but more snakes appear.
As Iris’s body is taken away, Mackey tells Mulder that all they heard was Iris’s scream. He found Iris lying on the floor. She wasn’t that close to Jared, but spoke to Mackey about him not 15 minutes earlier. They didn’t get to finish the conversation. Mulder thinks that may have been the point.
They join Scully, who is with Gracie. Gracie doesn’t think O’Connor could be responsible. Mackey says she may be biased. Because O’Connor is her father. Ehen O’Connor found out she was pregnant, she was barred from her church. And her home.
O’Connor certainly comes across as a rather odd one, and certainly he looks like a probable suspect. Whoever was spying on Jared at the beginning wasn’t clearly seen, but it could have been him. Lots of snakes in this episode; not great for those with a fear of them. Which Scully apparently has.