A cosmetic surgeon in a Chicago hospital kills a patient after carving away much too vigorously with the scalpel. The surgeon claims that he was possessed during the incident. Scully notes how the surgeon is taking a controversial sleep aid whose long-term effects are unknown, while Mulder is more interested in burn marks in the shape of a pentagram on the operating room floor.
Several doctors at the hospital are trying to cover something up, and one creates a series of pentragram dots on another patient's stomach. The stomach is killed soon after by another doctor, also taking the sleeping pills. Dr. Franklin tells the agents that a nurse named Rebecca Waite, an employee at the time of several other "accidental" deaths 10 years ago, has recently returned to the hospital. Waite performs some kind of ritual at her home; the agents search the home after seeing a pentagram symbol on the door and find the altar.
Waite, hidden in a bathtub full of blood, attacks Franklin, but is overpowered and caught. She warns the agents that she tried to stop Franklin but he was too powerful, then vomits up blood and straight pins. Franklin takes a lie-down...about two feet off the bed. Waite dies, and in studying a book on witchcraft Mulder realizes that the dead patients' dates of births match the witch's sabbaths and wonders if Waite is trying to save the patients with the pentagrams.
After another patient death, the agents look into the prior fatalities and realize that a "deceased" doctor looks a good deal like Dr. Franklin with a little tinkering. Mulder wonders if he was using blood sacrifice to stay young, and now continues to do so. Franklin transfers some surgical implements into another doctor's stomach, but other surgeons manage to save her. Another patient isn't so lucky, however, and is apparently the last sacrifice Franklin is looking for; he gives himself a new face and absconds to Los Angeles.
Richard Beymer, who plays Dr. Jack Franklin, is best known for playing Tony in West Side Story and Benjamin Horne in Twin Peaks. Andrew Airlie, who plays an attorney, also has a role as Mr. Oliver on Reaper.
Episode Body Count
Liposuction patient: dies after Dr. Lloyd goes to town with a scalpel.
Skin peel patient: dies after Dr. Ilaqua burns a whole through her head with some sort of laser drill.
Rebecca Waite: dies from internal bleeding when Dr. Franklin manages to transfer hundreds of straight pins into her digestive system.
Chemical peel patient: dies after Dr. Kaplan dissolves her face in phenol.
Four patients: number of victims from the incidents 10 years prior.
Another patient: also dies after a doctor loses it.
Scully also notes how there are upwards of 80,000 doctor error deaths, but I'll call the Gimpy Rule on massive casualty counts on that one.
Humans: 9
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0
Cumulative Body Count (79/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)
Humans: 976
Creatures: 59
Aliens: 48
Grand Total: 1,083
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