The X-files

Sanguinarium
Episode: 4X06
First aired:11/10/96
Written by:Vivian Mayhew and Valerie Mayhew
Directed by:Kim Manners

This is a creepy episode about plastic surgery gone bad...

At the Aesthetic Surgery Unit of Chicago's Greenwood, one patient thought to be undergoing a scalp-reduction dies a grisly death, when Dr. Lloyd goes insane during surgery and performs a violent liposuction instead...and literally sucks the life blood out of the man.

Scully and Mulder are called in to investigate the doctor's unusual defense: demonic possession. Scully logically assumes the doctor's sleeping pill addiction caused a psychotic break. When Mulder discovers evidence of a pentagram--an occult symbol of protection-- on the floor of the operating room, he concludes that some kind of magic is at work. Scully is dubious. Another surgeon goes into an uncontrollable frenzy, using a laser to burn through the flesh of a patient's face . Mulder discovers the mark of the pentagram on this body as well -- placed there by Nurse Waite, a practicing witch.

Dr. Franklyn admits that Nurse Waite worked at the clinic ten years earlier when similar deaths had occurred. Scully and Mulder search her house, finding a spooky den of candles, incense, herbs and witchy objects. But Nurse Waite is gone. She's lying in wait for Dr. Franklin; submerged in a tub full of gore in his bathroom. Her sneak knife attack fails, and she's arrested.

Before Nurse Waite can explain herself to Mulder, she dies horribly, in what Mulder recognizes from Nurse Waite's occult books as a classic case of death by hex.

Mulder believes that Waite was trying to protect the patients. We see Dr. Franklyn levitate a few feet above his bed.

Putting all the clues together, Mulder deduces that Franklyn is a black magician. Cursed with the sin of vanity, Franklyn transforms his looks beyond the limits of surgery: using sorcery and human sacrifice. Ten years ago, he had escaped suspicion. Today, he manages to escape even Mulder. Mulder is too late to stop the final sacrifice that completes the spell. Dr. Franklyn slices off his own face, to disappear again. Franklyn, now Dr. Hartman is welcomed aboard at a Los Angeles cosmetic surgery clinic.

Important quotes:
Scully -- "Well, if it’s that simple, why don’t you put out an APB for someone riding a broom and wearing a tall black hat?"
Mulder -- "You jest, Scully, but there’s a good chance that this hex or ritual or whatever it is, may not be finished."

Mulder -- "Probable cause."
Scully -- "On the suspicion of being a witch?"
Scully -- "What could she have been doing in here?"
Mulder -- "Probably not tax returns."

Mulder -- "Well, according to this book people throughout history have coughed up all kinds of things from cue balls to butcher’s knives without any explanation of how they got there."

Mulder -- "Everybody wants to be beautiful, Scully."


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