The Goldberg Variation

"The Goldberg Variation" is the sixth episode of the seventh season of The X–Files series. The episode belongs to the "monster of the week" type and is not related to the main "mythology" of the series.

The episode's writer wanted it to function "like a Rube Goldberg device," so he wrote a story revolving around the ideas of luck and failure.

The episode title is a pun. It refers both to the cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who was known for drawings of incredibly complex machines made from everyday objects that performed elementary tasks, and to the harpsichord piece "Goldberg Variations" by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Mulder and Scully meet Henry Weems, the luckiest man in the world. He wins $100,000 playing poker against a mobster named Jimmy Catrona, although he doesn't seem to know the basic rules of poker. Suspecting that Weems was cheating, Katrona tries to kill him by throwing him off the 29th floor of the building - however, he lands in a laundry cart, after which he gets up and leaves.

Agents track down Weems, who got a job as a handyman in an apartment building, but he refuses to testify against Katrona. Weems admits that he tried to find a way to get $100,000 to pay for the expensive treatment of a boy named Richie, who lives in the same house.

The bandits are tracking down Weems and are going to kill him. As a result of an incredible combination of circumstances, Katrona and his bandit partner Dominic are killed, while Weems and his girlfriend do not get a scratch. In the end, it turns out that Katrona is an organ donor, and his liver is perfect for Richie, who recovers quickly after the transplant.

The main character of the episode, Henry Weems, becomes unusually lucky after he turns out to be the only survivor of a plane crash. All the events happening to him do not have a clearly positive color, but they lead to the achievement of his goals. At the same time, when he is very lucky, with someone who is next to him, there is an equally big trouble.