“The Amazing Maleeni” is episode eight of season seven of The X-Files.
In Santa Monica, a man is sitting in the back of a rather rundown van with ‘The Amazing Maleeni’ painted on the side. A member of staff asks if he’s ready and apologises that the $125 promised will be $75. The magician says that this will be his best show ever. He’s performing in front of a small crowd, giving a spiel about cups and balls. There’s a heckler who doesn’t seem remotely impressed. The Amazing Maleeni talks about a trick attempted three times and each time ended in tragedy, and this is the fourth. He then rotates his head 360 degrees.
After the show, the magician is in his van. The staff member tells him he will get the money and returns to find the magician apparently asleep. Until his head falls off, anyway.
Mulder thinks this is a neat trick. Scully thinks him convincing her to come to Santa Monica is a better one. Mulder recaps the show. Scully thinks the trick is removed from the subsequent murder. Yes, she thinks this is a murder. Mulder says there is no blood and no fingerprints. Scully may not know how the murder was carried out, but she still thinks it’s murder. Mulder thinks a magic trick went horribly wrong. He gets a camcorder of the performance and shows it to Scully. They notice the heckler, who Scully thinks is worth checking out. Mulder says he never showed his face. Scully says he did discard his soda cup, though.
This leads them to a Billy LaBonge, who has a criminal record for pickpocketing. LaBonge makes it clear he doesn’t have a very high opinion of the late Maleeni. As for the head turning around, LaBonge does something similar with his hand. LaBonge says that it’s about originality, style and soul, and Maleeni didn’t have them. There are powerful forces at work with magic. Mulder asks if they are enough for a magician to lose his head. Could be. But he also heard Maleeni had some big gambling debts.
Scully does the autopsy on Maleeni and says she’s stumped. She thinks she’s supposed to be. The dead man’s head was very carefully sawed off, slow, exacting work, then reattached with spirit gum. And he appears to have died from advanced coronary disease. Mulder asks if Maleeni died of a heart attack, then someone crept up and sawed his head off before gluing it back on, all in the space of 30 seconds, makes sense. No, it doesn’t. And, according to Scully, Maleeni seems to have been dead for over a month. There are also signs of refrigeration. Yet he also performed.
LaBonge heads to a pool hall and speaks to a Cissy Alvarez, who he did time with. Who was also owed money by the Amazing Maleeni. Also known as Herman Pinchbeck. Who is dead. LaBonge claims he’s the guy who made Pinchbeck’s head fall off. How would Alvarez like to get back the money owed, times ten. By helping him do magic.
Mulder and Scully head to the Craddock Marine Bank to see Albert Pinchbeck. Who looks like the Amazing Maleeni, though he has a support around his neck. Albert is Herman’s twin; the neck injury was from a bad car accident in Mexico. He and his brother performed together in the seventies, but Albert quite once he knew they would never be the best. Mulder thinks Albert performed Herman’s last trick for him, an act that would always be remembered. Albert wishes that’s true. Then pushes away from the desk. In a wheelchair. Without his legs. It was a very bad car accident.
Mulder and Scully then head to find LaBonge to get him to examine Herman’s van to find out how the trick was done. LaBonge suggests the brother did it. Mulder says the brother has no legs. LaBonge can’t find out how the trick was done.
One of the popular phrases when it comes to stage magic is misdirection. And there’s a lot of that going on. As well as genuine stage magic; two of the people are actual magicians.