"Signs and Wonders" is the ninth episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on January 23, 2000. It was written by Jeffrey Bell, directed by Kim Manners. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Signs and Wonders" earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.5, being watched by 13.86 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews from television critics.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate the Church of God with Signs and Wonders, a church where the Bible is read literally, and punishment is dealt deftly, after a small town church is the site of a number of ritualistic-like murders. But soon the agents realize that the difference between the peaceful religious and the fanatics may not be very much at all.
Bell wished to write a "down-and-dirty" horror story about a snake-handling church. Furthermore, Bell wanted the true antagonist of the episode to remain hidden until the very end. In order to do this, the script was written so that Mulder suspected the wrong individual. According to executive producer Frank Spotnitz, the theme of the episode was "intolerance can be good", in some cases. The episode used live rattlesnakes; at any one time, there were between six and fifty snakes on the set.
Plot
In Blessing, Tennessee, Jared Chirp, while attempting to flee his home, is attacked by rattlesnakes inside his car and killed. Federal agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), confer with Reverend Mackey of Blessing Community Church and investigate Reverend Enoch O'Connor, pastor of a fundamentalist, snake-handling congregation, who is the prime suspect. Later, a Community Church congregation member named Iris tells Reverend Mackey that she feels guilty because Jared called the night he died wanting to speak to his pregnant girlfriend, Gracie, but she was already asleep and Iris didn't want to wake her. Later that night, Iris is bitten when her staple remover turns into a snake; she promptly goes into the bathroom to clean the wound, but is killed when snakes appear everywhere in the bathroom.
Mulder and Scully question Gracie and discover that she is O'Connor's daughter and was banished from the congregation and her home following her pregnancy. The agents return to O'Connor's church to search it. Scully is attacked by O'Connor, who thrusts her hand into a rattlesnake's cage but is stopped by Mulder. O'Connor is arrested and, while in his cell, is attacked by dozens of snakes. He is taken to the hospital, barely alive, but is not given antivenom because Gracie insists it would go against his religious beliefs. When she is alone with him in his hospital room, O'Connor's wounds begin to spontaneously expel the venom, and he regains consciousness, takes Gracie, and flees. After Mulder and Scully find test results at Jared Chirp's house revealing that he was infertile, Reverend Mackey tells them that Enoch O'Connor is the father of Gracie's child.
Meanwhile, O'Connor takes Gracie back to his church and baptizes her. Gracie spontaneously goes into labor, and she gives birth to live snakes. O'Connor goes to Mackey's church and attempts to kill him, but Mulder intervenes and saves Mackey, wounding O'Connor. In the ambulance, Gracie tells Scully that Mackey is the real father of her baby and that he killed the others to prevent them from knowing the truth and to destroy O'Connor's congregation. Back at the church, Mulder realizes O'Connor was innocent all along and confronts Mackey, but he locks the door and summons snakes, which promptly attack Mulder. Scully is able to break down the door and save Mulder in time. Mackey disappears, but resurfaces in Connecticut, having changed his name to Reverend Wells, and joins another church. After he accepts his new post, he sits at his desk, removes a live mouse from a box, then sits back as a snake emerges from his throat and devours it.