A lot of mystical terms came up in the story like hexcraft, graveyard dirt and conjure dust, but in the end, this story boiled down to an old fashioned case of good old voodoo. There was even mention of a New Guinea tribal disease called Kuru, and reference to flesh eating disease, or as Dr. Robert Wieder (James Morrison) would call it, diffuse cutaneous flesh moniliasis.
Mulder and Scully have their work cut out for them as a displaced Appalachian hillbilly (Billy Drago) uses his knowledge of the black arts to seek revenge on a doctor who failed to prevent his daughter from dying following a severe bus accident. Perhaps failed is the wrong word, the daughter was so badly injured it was only a matter of time that she would succumb to her injuries. Wieder did all he could, and eventually pushed enough morphine into the girl to help ease the transition to her final repose. In that respect, the story challenges the viewer to examine one's attitude toward a similar circumstance should it ever become personal. The moral dilemma posed was an uncomfortable one to say the least.
The story never did get around to the misspelling of the word 'thief', incorrectly written in blood by Orel Peattie (Drago) as 'theef'. What it did was allow Mulder to comment on a former Vice-President's mental lapse when he incorrectly spelled the word 'potato' as 'potatoe'. Dan Quayle had a tough time living that one down, though it's not everyone who can be memorialized in an episode of The X-Files.
Mulder and Scully have their work cut out for them as a displaced Appalachian hillbilly (Billy Drago) uses his knowledge of the black arts to seek revenge on a doctor who failed to prevent his daughter from dying following a severe bus accident. Perhaps failed is the wrong word, the daughter was so badly injured it was only a matter of time that she would succumb to her injuries. Wieder did all he could, and eventually pushed enough morphine into the girl to help ease the transition to her final repose. In that respect, the story challenges the viewer to examine one's attitude toward a similar circumstance should it ever become personal. The moral dilemma posed was an uncomfortable one to say the least.
The story never did get around to the misspelling of the word 'thief', incorrectly written in blood by Orel Peattie (Drago) as 'theef'. What it did was allow Mulder to comment on a former Vice-President's mental lapse when he incorrectly spelled the word 'potato' as 'potatoe'. Dan Quayle had a tough time living that one down, though it's not everyone who can be memorialized in an episode of The X-Files.