|
"The Goldberg Variation" is the sixth 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 December 12, 1999. It was written by Jeffrey Bell, directed by Thomas J. Wright, and featured guest appearances by Willie Garson and Shia LaBeouf. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "The Goldberg Variation" earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.8, being watched by 14.49 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed-to-positive reviews. 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 a mysterious man named Henry Weems, who appears to be the luckiest man in the world. The title is a dual reference to Rube Goldberg machines and the ''Goldberg Variations'' by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bell's original draft of the episode opened with a man falling thirty-thousand feet from an airplane and walking away unharmed. Due to budgetary reasons, the intro was later changed to a man falling out of a building. Willie Garson—who had appeared in the third season episode "The Walk"—was cast as Henry Weems, breaking a "long-standing rule" on the show to not recast previous actors. The first cut of the episode was four minutes under-time, and so various insert shots and new scenes had to be filmed in order to compensate. ==Plot== In Chicago, a man by the name of Henry Weems wins $100,000 playing poker against a mobster named Joe Cutrona, though Weems appears ignorant of the basic rules of poker. Suspecting that Weems cheated, Cutrona attempts to kill him by throwing him off the 29th story of the building they are in. After Weems lands in an access hatch to a basement, he stands right back up and walks away, completely uninjured. Two agents in a car stationed outside witness the event and eventually tell Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who promptly take the case. Mulder initially believes the man has the ability to cure himself, but Scully thinks he may just be very lucky by landing in a pile of laundry that was right under the access hatch. The agents track down Weems, a handyman at an apartment building. He refuses to testify against Cutrona. Weems has a fascination with Rube Goldberg machines. As such, his apartment is filled with them. After meeting with Weems, Scully concludes that there is no X-File, but Mulder believes that his luck ''is'' the X-File in question. As the agents begin to leave the complex, one of Cutrona's enforcers comes to kill Weems. However, the assassin dies in an improbable cascade of events reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine: after being distracted when Mulder buzzes the intercom (when he forgot the car keys), he accidentally shoots a lamp that knocks over an ironing board, then trips over the ironing board and ends up getting strangled in a fan. The two agents rush back up stairs and find Weems unscathed. Weems notes he was also the sole survivor of a commuter jet crash that killed 20 people in December 1989, where he was placed in Seat 13 of Flight 7: lucky numbers. Weems picks up a lottery ticket and wins $100,000 but learns that it would take 12 months to get the money, so he throws the ticket away. A man picks the ticket out of the trash and is then hit by a truck after Weems warned him (to no avail) that "something bad will happen." Later, Mulder comes to question Weems again and another one of Cutrona's enforcers comes to kill Weems but his bullet ricochets off Weems' pocket knife, barely grazes Mulder's arm, and hits and kills the enforcer. Weems confesses that he's been trying to find a way to get $100,000 to pay for an expensive medical treatment for the serious illness of a boy in his apartment building named Richie (Shia LaBeouf). Weems attempts at getting the money, however, have brought him above the radar. Later, after Weems is hit by a car, it appears that Henry's lucky streak has reached its end. Cutrona kidnaps Richie's mom, Maggie, to stop Henry from testifying against him. Weems turns himself in to Cutrona so he would let Maggie go; instead, they plan to kill him. As they are about to execute Weems in the basement (where Maggie is also being held), Cutrona and his mobster partner, Dominic, are killed in a bizarre turn of events, whereas Weems and Maggie are unharmed as Mulder arrives with backup. In the end, it turns out by surprise that Cutrona is an organ donor and a perfect match for Richie, who gets the treatment and lives. Weems then activates a toy Goldberg machine that he made for Richie earlier.〔 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「The Goldberg Variation (The X-Files)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|