AIR DATE:  March 29, 1996
Written by Jeff Valaming
Directed by  Tucker Gates

	Hell's Bells, another mediocre X-Files episode.  It always seems
with the X-Files that between episode 18 and the season finale we get
these types of episodes.  In the first season we had "Shapes", "Born
Again", "Roland", and in the second season we had "Fearful Symmetry", "The
Calusari" and "Our Town".  So for the third season we have "Teso Dos
Bichos" and "Hell Money".  "Hell Money" is another episode which just sat
there, it was entertaining in a way, but nothing in it to make it
memorable.  Maybe they should think about doing 19 or 20 episodes a season
instead of 24 so it would be easier for them to avoid these types of
episodes.

	"Hell Money" had a lot of problems and foremost was the pacing
especially when it came to dealing with the father and daughter.  There
were just too many scenes with them in it.  The first scene was to
establish that the daughter was sick and the father needed a lot of money
to cure her.  This was to give him a reason to want to play the game of
organ gambling and for us to see what was really going down.  The second
scene with them after Mulder and Scully leave with Det. Chao was totally
unnecessary since it just reiterated what we were already told in the
earlier scene.  All it did was slow down the episode to a snail's pace,
and the same thing could be said of the gaming scenes, not only did we see
it played once, but three times.  We all knew by the second time how the
game was played and it was a foregone conclusion the father would be
chosen this time so why not just show the man picking the peg and move on. 
Talk about dragging out an episode.  Maybe this would have made a better
half hour show.

	Jeff Vlaming wrote this episode and he also wrote "2Shy" an
episode I wasn't too wild about, and the same problems with "2Shy"
happened with "Hell Money" in that the story and characters were quite
predictable.  Who didn't guess that the father would be picked again even
though the chances of that happening twice in a row was slim or that Det.
Chao wouldn't have been a part of the organ gaming scam?  Nothing in this
story held any suspense because we could see where it was going.  In the
characters we get the concerned father who will do anything for his dying
daughter.  The cop on the take (the mortgage comment was enough of a
warning signal to us that he was in on it), who is conflicted over the
decisions he has made so that at one moment he is slowing down the
investigation and the next moment seems to be helping out, making him a
marked man for death.  My favorite part with Det. Chao was when he had a
change of heart after seeing the dying daughter and knew the father was
going to be killed.  Well, what about all those other people who were
killed for their body parts, did they not have families too?  Also, he was
involved with the person's death so what's one more.
 
	The sad thing is this really could have been a compelling story of
people selling off their body parts to make a quick buck and weird things
happening to people who donated or the ones who used the body parts, but
in the hands of Jeff Vlaming it turns into a predictable mishmash of
nothing.  Is it me or did anyone else think doing the game was an
inefficient way to have people give up their body parts?  It seemed like
an elaborate way to get people to do it.  Wouldn't it have been easier
just to work with these people and give them a few thousand dollars for
their body parts instead of risking exposure by doing the organ donor
game?  Maybe it was a Chinese culture thing about donating organs I don't
understand since I'm just a hick from New Hampshire and there isn't
exactly a big Chinese community here.  The more people involved the more
likely it would be exposed which might explain why we can assume the good
doctor had set up a practice in the cities Mulder mentions where similar
murders took place, and left as soon as it got too hot.  There was a good
story to be had about the moral implications of people selling their
organs for money and the people who encouraged it.  As I stated earlier
there could be some freaky consequences which would be the reason why
Mulder and Scully were there.  As it was I don't see where there really
was an X-File in this episode.  The funeral guard saw three masked men run
behind something and he doesn't even bother to look behind it, and the
guard at the graveyard only had headlights to see from so it wasn't hard
for them to disappear.  It can easily be said it was three people in masks
who were there and not some ghosts so would Mulder and Scully really have
been called in to check it out?

	"Hell Money" is the second episode that made me think "Ah, guys I
think you need a search warrant to be able to do whatever you are
planning."  The first time was in "Our Town" when Mulder busted open the
Frank Purdue type guy's cabinet where he found all those heads.  There was
no way that would have been allowed as evidence in court even under the
good faith deal since there was no reason for Mulder to suspect anything
was criminal in the cabinet.  This same thought occurred to me when Mulder
and Scully entered the building after they see Det. Chao enter it. Sure
Det. Chao had mysteriously left the hospital, but what suspicious activity
was he doing other than entering a building the doctor had his so-called
practice in, and I don't think they could have matched his blood that fast
with the blood on the rug, hell, would they even had any of his blood to
test in the first place.  It was no wonder the doctor had nothing to worry
about being convicted of a crime since the evidence they gathered was
illegally obtained, and no one (hardly believable) was willing to testify.
Oh well, this shouldn't really bother me that much because this is quite
typical of most tv cop shows where the cops do things like this when in
reality cops wouldn't have done such a thing.  It is just annoying since
it was done more as a plot convenience than any real logic to it because
we know Mulder and Scully are a a lot smarter than they were in this
episode.  Oh yeah, they did the old let's not call for backup so we can
put ourselves in needless danger routine when they enter the building.

	This was the first episode this season that was directed by
someone who hasn't directed an X-Files episode in the past and it showed.
Tucker Gates didn't seem to be able to get down the creepy nature of the
X-Files by the slow pacing of the episode and his lack of ability to use
darkness to his advantage.  The past 7 or 8 episodes had either been
directed by Rob Bowman or Kim Manners so I guess they wanted a break
though I don't think even they could have saved this one since Manners
couldn't even save "Teso Dos Bichos".

	A few general comments on "Hell Money":

- Mulder is able to jump to conclusions without any logic when he quickly
concludes that the father is playing some type of game for his organs. 
Considering how throughout the episode Mulder didn't appear to have that
much knowledge on Chinese culture this really was quite a leap.

- The amazing Mulder once again: he is the only police officer who thought
of looking into the grave to see what the three so-called ghosts were up
to.  Are they trying tell me no one else on the San Francisco police force
thought of checking out the grave for themselves, I don't think so. 

	I don't want to give the impression that I totally hated this
episode it was just the bad outweighed the good in "Hell Money" so I
thought I would give a top eight list on the good parts of the episode.

Top Eight Things that were positive about "Hell Money":

8.  The acting was quite good from the supporting cast.  Michael Yama as
the father was good in showing the confusion of a foreign man trying to
cope in a strange land with a sick child without any family to turn to for
support.

7.  Mulder eating sunflower seeds in the backround while Scully questions
Chao about his motives.  It is always nice to see him eat them especially
when he is trying to convey a nonchalant attitude as to what is going on
around him.

6.  The autopsy room scene where we see Mulder walking by a bunch of naked
bodies covered by plastic sheets.  Now that was something different and
slightly eerie.

5.  Someone actually turned on the lights when they entered into a
darkened room when they sensed danger.  Det. Chao when he enter his
apartment after seeing the markings on his door turned on the lights. 
Wow, someone used some common sense when it came to turning on the lights. 

4.  After Scully tells Mulder the sick daughter has been put on the
waiting list for whatever she needs, he grunts and says, I think, "that's
good" in a manner like it's a little late for that now isn't it.

3.  Glad they worked in that line from the Ghostbusters movie when Mulder
says "who you going to call?", and Scully using the line from that Tony
Bennett song when she commented on how the guy who had his heart taken out
had left his heart in San Francisco. Pretty bad puns.

2.  The doctor smoking his cigarette like the Smoking Man does when he's
telling Scully there is no way he will be convicted. Makes one almost
think the X-Files people had thought of having the doctor's motives be a
little bit more cynical than just selling the body parts for profit by
having him working for the Smoking Man.

... and the number one positive thing about "Hell Money"

1.  No killer pussy cats


	"Hell Money" is an episode that could have been better if it had
gone a less predictable course and had a bit more of Mulder and Scully in
it.  The latter always seems to be my least favorite episodes where Mulder
and Scully seemed to run around a lot without doing much and almost
everyone dies at the end which is what we got in "Hell Money", but it
wasn't as bad as it was in "Teso Dos Bichos".  At least in a few weeks it
appears we will have another Darin Morgan episode which means it should be
a good one.


Claudia
E-Mail:  Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

3/30/96

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