X-Files S1E23: 'Rain Man' to the nth power

Sestra Amateur: 

Roland, Roland, Roland
Mop those floors, oh, Roland
Clean the rooms, oh, Roland
Roland!

Now that Rawhide is out of my head, let’s get started. Roland is a simple man working as a janitor at Mahan Propulsion Lab in Washington. He’s having trouble with his access card, so a condescending scientist helps him. In Roland’s defense, don’t most access card require a swipe then a code? 

Roland is cleaning while Doctors Keats, Surnow and Nollette argue about their experiment, which isn’t working properly. Keats and Nollette leave while Surnow continues to work on the project. Roland traps Surnow in the wind-tunnel experiment and replaces some of the equations on the scientists’ board with his own. Roland starts the program, which results in Surnow dying a presumably messy death. You gotta love subtitles -- "squish" was definitely the right word for this one. I guess Roland didn’t realize he’s the one who’s going to have to clean up that mess.

Sculder investigate because this is the second death of a scientist who was working on the Icarus Project at Mahan. The research and experiments are attempting to double supersonic speeds while using half the fuel. Sounds like a great idea. Dr. Arthur Grable died first in a nasty car crash. Mulder notices the difference in handwriting on the equation board. Dr. Keats is convinced Roland is too stupid to be involved. Sculder interview Roland at his halfway house, where he demonstrates some proficiency with numbers before having a spaz attack. 

Mulder takes a sample of Roland’s handwriting, but an expert rules him out as being the contributor on the equation board. Meanwhile, Roland has visions of killing Keats so he goes to the lab and shoves Keats’ face into liquid nitrogen. Chilling. The next morning we get to see the most disturbing chalk outline ever. (Please note that black tape was used instead of chalk and is considered a perfectly acceptable substitute.) Mulder realizes someone accessed Arthur’s computer files after Keats’ murder, but the program is password protected. Mulder uses the code he found at Roland’s halfway house and it gets him into the system. 

Roland has dreams (flashbacks?) of boys being separated. Sculder learn Grable hired Roland and they are identical twin brothers. Roland is later talking to his girlfriend, Tracy, when he gets visions of strangling her. Luckily, he fights those urges. Sculder suspect Arthur faked his death until Nollette reveals Arthur’s head was cryogenically frozen after the car crash. But the tank has been experiencing temperature fluctuations. Do they coincide with Roland’s visions or murderous actions? Mulder uses a remote-control spaceship to explain to Roland that something is using him the way he drives the toy. Roland panics again and runs away. Mulder tries to convince Scully that Arthur is psychically working through Roland, but Scully doesn’t buy it and compares Arthur’s current state to a Fudgsicle. Mmmmmm, Fudgsicles...

Sculder think Roland is going after Nollette and want to protect him, but the intended victim's busy sabotaging Arthur’s cryo tank so the temperature continues to rise. Roland/Arthur seem to know they’re running out of time, so Roland feverishly writes out the formulas. He tests the experiment and it is finally successful, but Nollette arrives for the victory. Frank plans to take all of the credit and kill Roland, but the savant smacks the doc upside the head with a keyboard and puts him into in the wind-tunnel experiment. Sculder arrive and are able to get through to Roland, who spares Nollette’s life. Arthur’s brain dies. 

Since Nollette can’t be charged with murdering Arthur, how about vandalism? I’m still not clear on why Arthur wanted Keats and Surnow dead in the first place. Were they also planning to take credit for Arthur’s research? Did they have anything to do with Arthur’s car crash? Is Roland the one who actually had the murderous intentions and they just happened to be fueled by his psychic connection with Arthur? According to Roland’s caretaker, he hadn't previously shown violent tendencies. And a link with Arthur doesn’t explain the violent vision involving poor, innocent Tracy, who did nothing wrong. Sestra Pro, explique s’il vous plait.
 
Sestra Professional:

I had the Rawhide theme playing in my head too before even seeing Sestra Am's portion of the program. Hey, Mulder's psychic-connection theory between siblings plays out before our very eyes.

Perhaps an aeronautics lab isn't the best place for the working world to be politically correct. If the autistic Roland can't enter a four-number combination to get into a room, it probably isn't safe for him to be on the premises. Or anyone else.

Mulder is very quick to see the handwriting on the wall -- especially since it is actual handwriting on a dry-erase board. Our hero's very quick on the uptake in this episode. He seems to identify with Roland rather deeply, there are some very surface parallels with some of the obsessiveness of his own life matching up with Roland's. And he delivers a perfect analogy between the remote-controlled spaceship (of course!) and Roland.

But that puts his usual quipping nature on the sideline. Scully tries to take up the slack every now and then, with lines like "Does this pitch somehow end with a way for me to lower my long-distance charges?" And she did implant a vision of us all needing to have a Fudgsicle. But Mulder does get in one good shot after the episode's money shot -- the liquid nitrogen death. "I don't think they'll be performing this experiment on Beakman's World." 

The Sculder dynamic worked pretty well in this episode. Mulder jumps right to a psychic connection and Scully's in her element delivering scientific data in a laboratory environment, not to mention background on twins fertilized by a single sperm and damaged chromosomes. The X-Files fires on all cylinders when the viewers can understand both leads' rationale.

The episode boasts a phenomenal guest performance by Zeljko Ivanek. Even in the first season, the show drew talent and got exactly what they needed to drive the show. His Roland is struck by severe autism, but he has to deliver manic rages. In the early going, Ivanek keeps you rooting for him, even before Roland's more tender and resulting anguished moments with Tracy bring out a gentler side. And then he's got a bit of a visual portrayal of Dr. Grable to do as well. 

David Nutter, one of The X-Files' early directorial powerhouses, was at the helm for this one. As behind-the-scenes legend has it, it was his least favorite of his six episodes from the first season. But he was very pleased with Ivanek's ability to sell what he considered "weaker material." The Slovenian actor was the only one to test for the role. 

Maybe Roland's violent vision was meant to deter him from the course of his brother's duty, Sestra Am? His brother wanted him focused on his particular task, romance would just have gotten in the way. As for the other dead scientists, Grable doesn't seem to be the most balanced brain in the jar, so maybe he was just saving the worst for last. Dumb brainiac. Or maybe he knew that one of the scientists was going to betray him, but he didn't know which one. Or maybe his brain got freezer burn in there.

Guest Star of the Week: Of course, It's Ivanek. But since I waxed poetic about him already. I'll talk about James Sloyan as Nollette. If you need to shift from exposition to baddest living guy in the ep, this '80s character actor's your man. I particularly enjoyed watching him try to stave off the wind machine.