| "Leonard Betts" | |||
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| The X-Files episode | |||
Leonard Betts, a cancer-eating mutant, creating a duplicate body |
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| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 12 |
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| Directed by | Kim Manners | ||
| Written by | Vince Gilligan John Shiban Frank Spotnitz |
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| Production code | 4X14 | ||
| Original air date | January 26, 1997 | ||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of season 4 episodes List of The X-Files episodes |
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"Leonard Betts" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on January 26, 1997. It was written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz, directed by Kim Manners, and featured a guest appearance by Paul McCrane as Leonard Betts/Albert Tanner. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Leonard Betts" was Fox Broadcasting Company's lead-out program following Super Bowl XXXI and is the most watched episode, receiving a Nielsen household rating of 17.2, being watched by 29.1 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received positive reviews, with critics complimenting the character of Betts.
In this episode, FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the supposed death and regeneration of an EMT named Leonard Betts, a mutant who subsists on cancer and can regenerate severed body parts.
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In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Leonard Betts, an EMT paramedic, is decapitated when his ambulance collides with a truck. Later, at the morgue, Betts' headless body leaves its cold chamber, knocks out the attendant, steals his clothes, and escapes.
Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate the case. After visiting the morgue, they find Betts' head in a medical waste dumpster. Scully attempts a cranial examination, but just as she begins the procedure, the head's eyes and mouth both suddenly open. Meanwhile, Mulder goes to Betts' apartment, where he finds the attendant's clothes and the bathtub filled with povidone-iodine. Mulder believes that despite being decapitated, Betts is still alive and was inside his apartment. When Mulder leaves, Betts—who has regrown his head—rises out of the bathtub.
Mulder interviews Michelle Wilkes, Betts' former partner, who recollects his ability to detect cancer. When an interior slice of Betts' polymerized head is examined, the agents discover that his frontal lobe displayed signs of pervasive cancer. Mulder has Chuck Burks subject the slice to an aura photography test; the final image shows corona discharge that takes the appearance of human shoulders.
Using fingerprint records, Scully learns that Betts had an alter ego named Albert Tanner. The agents visit his elderly mother, Elaine, who claims that "Albert" died in a car accident six years previously. Meanwhile, Wilkes tracks down Betts at another hospital and confronts him. After an apology, he gives her a lethal injection of potassium chloride; Betts is then pursued and captured by a security guard. After he is handcuffed to his car, Betts escapes by tearing off his thumb. The agents search the car the next morning, finding disposed tumors in a cooler. Mulder believes that Betts subsists on the tumors, and that his nature makes him the embodiment of a radical leap in evolution.
Upon learning that the car is registered to Elaine, the agents have the police search her home. Elaine recounts how her son endured bullying as a child "because he was different", and says that "he had his reasons" if he killed anybody. Meanwhile, Betts accosts a bar patron and kills him to obtain his cancerous lung. Later, in a storage unit, he seems to shed his body and create a duplicate. When the agents come across the storage unit, the duplicate Betts attempts to flee in a car, which explodes and seemingly kills him. Scully suggests that Betts' first "death" as Albert Tanner was staged, but when they exhume Tanner's casket, they find his body still inside. Mulder becomes convinced that Betts can not only regenerate his body parts, but his entire body itself. Because of this, he believes that Betts is still at large.
At Elaine's behest, Betts removes a cancerous tumor from her body before summoning an ambulance. The agents, already staking out Elaine's house, encounter the paramedics when they arrive. Scully accompanies Elaine to the hospital while Mulder conducts a search of the neighborhood. However, after arriving at the hospital, Scully realizes that Betts has stowed himself away on the roof of the ambulance. Betts locks her inside the ambulance with him, calmly but apologetically telling her that she has "something I need". This leads Scully to realize that she herself has cancer. After a struggle, Scully kills Betts by pressing charged defibrillator paddles against his head. Scully remains silently stunned by the revelation of her illness. Later, in her apartment, she wakes up with a nosebleed, confirming her disease.[1]
According to Jan Delasara, one of the major themes of "Leonard Betts" is the exploration of "irresistible physical drives."[2] In Betts' case, his desire to kill is due to a biological need, not a malevolent desire to murder.[3] The A.V. Club's Todd VanDerWerff, in his review of the episode, wrote that "It also helps that Leonard's such an understandably human monster. On some level, he just wants to survive, and he's not happy about what he has to do to be able to survive."[4]
"Leonard Betts" serves as the first story in a multi-season story-arc that features Agent Scully being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Dean Kowalski argues that Scully withholding the knowledge of her cancer from Mulder is an example of psychological egoism in a protagonist.[5] He reasons that by not telling her partner, she is withholding the information in an act of self-interest.[5]
Former teenage actor Paul McCrane, who later went on to play the noted role of Dr. Robert Romano on ER, was cast to play the role of Leonard Betts.[6] McCrane had to spend hours in makeup in order to get the right effect and his eyes were colored with specifically made contact lenses.[6] Many of the scenes were physically exerting. The autopsy scene involved McCrane positioning himself through a hole in the table and sitting perfectly still, giving the illusion of a disembodied head.[6] The scene in the bathtub required McCrane to spend several minutes motionless underwater.[6] The shot in which a new Betts emerges from the old one's mouth was created by Toby Lindala. Lindala used shots of McCrane intercut with shots of a puppet with full-functioning mouth and eyes.[6] Laverne Basham and Lindala were later both nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Makeup in a Series.[6] In addition, the machine that created a slice of Betts' head was designed by Ken Hawryliew.[6]
John Shiban, who helped write the episode, considers the episode to be "a great X-Files story" and very important because it established the story-arc featuring Scully's cancer.[7]
"Leonard Betts" premiered on the Fox network on January 26, 1997 immediately following Super Bowl XXXI.[8] The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 17.2 with a 29 share. It was viewed by 16,495,000 households and over 29.1 million people.[9] It is the most watched episode in the entire run of The X-Files.[9]
The episode positive praise from critics. The A.V. Club gave the episode an A, noting that "'Leonard Betts' deserves to be remembered [...] There's very little in this episode that doesn't work. 'Leonard Betts' isn't the best episode of The X-Files, but it signifies that we're moving into one of the show's very best periods, and it does so with a confidence and verve that the series didn't always display."[4] Many critics praised the tenacity of the writers for airing an episode featuring such a creepy character after the Super Bowl. Writing for Den of Geek, John Moore listed Betts as one of his "Top 10 X-Files Baddies", writing that "Fox had the Superbowl, the Superbowl happens on a Sunday, Fox decides to run the show in the prime slot after the big game... [...] So, did, they soft-pedal things in order to grab a wider audience? Er... no. Instead they decided to feature a cancer-eating living tumour that could re-grow his own limbs at will. That's why I love the X-Files."[8]
The character of Leonard Betts itself has also attracted positive criticism. Connie Ogle from PopMatters ranked the character among the "greatest" monster-of-the-weeks, describing him as someone who could "grow back his own head after being decapitated, a feat that resulted in the show’s best-rated episode."[10] The A.V. Club's Todd VanDerWerff praised the humanistic way Betts was presented.[4]