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"Hell Money" is the nineteenth episode of the third season of the science fiction television series ''The X-Files'' and 68th episode overall. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on March 29, 1996. It was written by Jeffrey Vlaming and directed by Tucker Gates. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Hell Money" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.9, being watched by 14.86 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly mixed to positive 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. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate a murder in San Francisco's Chinatown involving masked intruders, strange Chinese symbols, a lottery, and the clandestine selling of body parts. The premise of the episode was based on three major ideas: a pyramid scheme involving body parts, a lottery in a small town, and the corporate beings assembling the destitute in Chinatown. The episode's writer, Vlaming, developed the latter two ideas and series creator Chris Carter merged all three ideas in the finalized script. The episode contained several elaborate special effects shots, most notably the scene wherein a frog bursts out of a victim's chest, which was created by using molds to create a fake human torso that was then placed over an actor. == Plot == In San Francisco's Chinatown, a Chinese immigrant, Johnny Lo, makes his way to his apartment. There, he is confronted by someone telling him to "pay the price", and is overtaken by three figures wearing ''shigong'' masks. A security guard later finds the three figures near a crematory oven, where Lo is being burned alive. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate Lo's death, the latest in a series of fatal incinerations in Chinatown; Mulder believes that ghost activity is behind the deaths, while Scully suspects a cult. The agents collaborate with Glen Chao, a Chinese-American detective with the San Francisco Police Department. When they find a Chinese character written inside the oven, Chao translates it as meaning "ghost." Mulder also finds a scrap of burned paper in the ashes, which Chao identifies as "hell money", a symbolic offering to deceased spirits. The agents locate Lo's apartment, where they find his collection of charms, as well as bloodstains underneath the recently installed carpet. Meanwhile, another immigrant, Hsin, tends to his leukemia-stricken daughter, Kim. To pay for her treatments, Hsin attends an underground lottery in which participants either win money or lose an organ, depending on tiles chosen from a pair of vases. One man wins the lottery but selects a bad tile, and his body is found later that day. Scully performs an autopsy and finds that he had been selling body parts, noticing his numerous surgical scars. The agents question Chao, who claims that the local community maintains a code of silence and does not reveal anything to even him. Chao finds information that leads them to Hsin, who installed the carpet in Lo's apartment. Hsin has a bandage over his eye, having lost it to the lottery earlier. Returning to his home, Chao is confronted by the three masked figures. The agents visit him at the hospital. Meanwhile, Hsin visits the Hard Faced Man, one of the proprietors of the lottery, wanting to end his participation. The man warns him that ghostly fire will consume him if he leaves the lottery. The agents return to the hospital, finding Chao gone. They trace his blood to that on the carpet in Lo's apartment, finding a match. This causes the agents to visit Hsin, but find only his daughter at his apartment. The agents find Chao outside a nearby Chinese restaurant and follow him inside. Hsin wins the lottery, but selects the tile representing his heart. Chao comes in and knocks over the table with the vases, revealing the lottery to be fixed. Mulder and Scully stop the Hard Faced Man seconds before he is about to operate on Hsin. They interrogate him, but because no one who participated will testify against him, it is unlikely he will be prosecuted. Hsin is brought to the hospital and his daughter is placed on an organ donor list. Chao disappears, awakening in a crematorium oven before he is burned alive.〔Lowry, pp. 187–190〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hell Money」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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