Phyllis Paddock

Phyllis H. Paddock (played by Susan Blommaert) was the identity taken by a being of demonic origin while posing as a substitute teacher at Crowley High School in Milford Haven, New Hampshire. ( "Die Hand Die Verletzt")
== History ==
Paddock was listed in the FBI database as a Master of Arts graduate of the University of California in Los Angeles, who had been active as a substitute teacher for over 20 years. Previous employment included Grossmont Union High School District (1974-1979), Los Angeles Unified District (1980-1989) and St. Louis Municipal High School (1990-1994). over the course of two decades before she rather suddenly appeared mid-term in place of one Mr. Kingary at Crowley High School in January, 1995. Despite this, not a single member of the school's faculty could recall hiring Mrs. Paddock following her arrival.
==Summoning==
The members of the school's PTA were descendants of witches who practiced the dark arts, and they kept faith with their ancestors' ancient ways. However, over time they had become lax in their practice of the religion, and they had also watered down some of the more cruel aspects of their rituals. One night in 1994, a group of four students, Dave Duran, Jerry Stevens, Kate, and Andrea, decided to hold a mock seance in the woods surrounding the town, and through their actions they (unintentionally) invoked the demon Azazel. While three of the teens scatter, Jerry Stevens is caught by the demon and gruesomely killed. The very next day, Mrs. Paddock introduced herself as the new substitute teacher at the surviving students' high school and with her presence, strange happenings began to occur in town, such as the rain of frogs and counterclockwise movement of water swirls. Whether or not Mrs. Paddock was Azazel itself or simply one of the demon's minions is left unclear, but she possessed extremely dark powers. It was she who was responsible for the death of the student in the forest; she tore out his eyes, ripped out his heart, and displayed his remains in a ritualistic manner. 
During one of her classes, Agents Mulder and Scully arrived to question Dave Duran, who clumsily attempts to flee through a narrow window. At the end of the lesson, Paddock asks Kate and Andrea to stay and privately tells them that they can talk with her about "what happened" before allowing them to leave. The next day, she has her biology class dissect pig embryos, during which she makes a student, Shannon Ausbury, hallucinate that the dead piglet is moving and squealing, causing her to have a panic attack. Afterwards, Shannon falsely accuses her stepfather of gratuitous ritualistic sexual abuse and infanticide through "recovered memory therapy". Later on, Shannon returns to school to repeat the dissection test for her final grade under the supervision of Mrs. Paddock. During the exam, Paddock goes back into her office and holds a minor fire ritual using Shannon's bracelet, which forces the girl to slit her own wrists using the scalpel. Her suicide served as a punishment for the coven's leader, Jim Ausbury, who was Shannon's stepfather. She feigns sorrow when Shannon's lifeless body is discovered and acts distraught while she is questioned by Mulder and Scully, but secretly gives them a stone-faced side eye when Mulder shares with Scully that there were no records of her hiring. Mulder went to Ausbury's home to question him, discovering that he was indeed involved in dark practices.
Using powers elicited from several more satanic rituals conducted within her office, Paddock put in a fake call to Mulder, saying that she was Scully and that she was in trouble at the high school. The agent handcuffed Ausbury in his basement and then went to assist ; while he was gone Paddock sent a python to crush and devour the helpless man. When Scully actually showed up at the high school, she pretended to have been assaulted by the PTA and shifts blame for the deaths onto them. She then used manipulation to bring about the deaths of the remaining three members of the coven. They had intended to sacrifice and Scully to renew their devotion to their religion, but Paddock instead used mind control to cause one of the group to shoot his brethren before turning the gun on himself.
It was revealed that Azazel was extremely displeased that they had neglected to pay sacrifice to him for so long, and thereby punished them for their misdeeds. In Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson propose that the episode is a parody of people who pay "lip service" to their religions, only partaking and invoking religious rights and practices when convenient, as well as distorting them to fit their own agenda. Jim Ausbury admits that while his sect practiced satanism they watered it down and spared the more gruesome aspects of it, fitting the idea of only using religion when it suits a person. It is likely Paddock's spread of havoc was also punishment for the sects ill-following practices. She not only spared the lives of Mulder and Scully, but also left them alone for the most part, departing with a note on a blackboard that read, "Goodbye. It's been nice working with you". Implying that she not only had no ill-will to the agents but saw them as situational allies in the punishment of the sect.
==Powers & Abilities==
Whether or not Mrs. Paddock was Azazel or a demon remains a mystery. However, she possessed extraordinary powers:
* Witchcraft: She is able to use her dark arts to accomplish supernatural feats.
**Mind Control - Through a ritual, she could make people do something involuntarily, as she did with Shannon and Calcagni.
**Electrokinesis - Through a ritual, she could manipulate technology, such as computers and phones. She could alter data, as she did with Scully's laptop or imitate the voice of someone else in phone call, as she did with Mulder. She seems to have caused the power outage and with her departure the power comes back.
*Ophidiokinesis: She could exercise control over a python and use it to attack people. The snake had extraordinary eating ability, rapid digestion and regurgitated just the bones.
*Limited shapeshifting: During her snake-control, she could morph her eyes, gaining a serpentine appearance.
Paddock, Phyllis
Category:Monster of the Week
Category:The X-Files characters
Category:Mutants
Category:Beings and creatures