Hell Money is one of those episodes that seemingly has nothing wrong with it but has always irked me for some reason. After rewatching it I have figured out what it is that bugs me and have been able to look past it and consider the rest of the episode. I will get to explaining this after a little synopsis.
China Town, San Francisco, CA. A security guard finds a Chinese man burned alive in a furnace. Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate. A local Chinese cop helps out to help with translation and to explain cultural details about the Chinese to Mulder and Scully. As with typical "ethnic folklore" episodes that we see throughout the series the cop turns out to know more than he lets on and is actually working against the agents to cover up a "game" going on on the black market. Desperate Chinese men gather to participate in a sort of lottery. The chances of winning such a lottery are slim indeed. Not only do you have to have your name drawn but then this only gives you the opportunity to choose another tile from another jar, only one of which will allow one to win the money. All the others cause one to lose an eye, liver, or heart to the black market. The game is eventually discovered to be rigged and Mulder and Scully help shut it down.
I like this episode because of the twisted nature of the game and the gruesome scars they find on the dead man with the frog inside him. I also like how the main Chinese doctor guy is like the Chinese version of the Cigarette Smoking Man. The one element that bothers me about this episode which I was referring to earlier is the fact that there is absolutely nothing paranormal about the episode. This in itself does not bother me. Its the fact that, to cover up the fact that there is no paranormal element, the writer's felt it necessary to make allusions to ghosts throughout the entire episode. Rather than just tell a twisted story about a twisted game it was like they had to justify it not having anything paranormal about it. It just bugs me. Despite this however I do still like the episode and give it a 8 out of 10.
China Town, San Francisco, CA. A security guard finds a Chinese man burned alive in a furnace. Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate. A local Chinese cop helps out to help with translation and to explain cultural details about the Chinese to Mulder and Scully. As with typical "ethnic folklore" episodes that we see throughout the series the cop turns out to know more than he lets on and is actually working against the agents to cover up a "game" going on on the black market. Desperate Chinese men gather to participate in a sort of lottery. The chances of winning such a lottery are slim indeed. Not only do you have to have your name drawn but then this only gives you the opportunity to choose another tile from another jar, only one of which will allow one to win the money. All the others cause one to lose an eye, liver, or heart to the black market. The game is eventually discovered to be rigged and Mulder and Scully help shut it down.
I like this episode because of the twisted nature of the game and the gruesome scars they find on the dead man with the frog inside him. I also like how the main Chinese doctor guy is like the Chinese version of the Cigarette Smoking Man. The one element that bothers me about this episode which I was referring to earlier is the fact that there is absolutely nothing paranormal about the episode. This in itself does not bother me. Its the fact that, to cover up the fact that there is no paranormal element, the writer's felt it necessary to make allusions to ghosts throughout the entire episode. Rather than just tell a twisted story about a twisted game it was like they had to justify it not having anything paranormal about it. It just bugs me. Despite this however I do still like the episode and give it a 8 out of 10.