X-Files S7E3: Food for thought

Sestra Amateur: 

Looks like we get a break from the ongoing mythology for this monster-of-the-week episode. In Costa Mesa, California, a guy at the Lucky Boy Burgers drive-thru gets into a pissing contest with an unseen employee insisting they are closed for the night. This customer just doesn’t take the hint and ends up on the menu while his car drifts driverless across the street. Not so lucky for him after all. And I must point out that his car has one of my favorite fake license plates: 2GAT123. Spotting that in movies and TV episodes is like listening for the Wilhelm Scream.

Three days later, it’s business as usual at Lucky Boy. Insecure Rob Roberts (played by Blindspot’s Chad Donella) is working the counter when our intrepid heroes stroll in to ask about the bloody "Free fer Friday" button they found in the murder victim’s car. All of the employees have their buttons except for Derwood Spinks (played by Supernatural’s Mark Pellegrino). Derwood makes himself a suspect, but Rob seems like the nervous one. Roberts discreetly listens to Sculder discuss the facts of the case. 

Fox’s theory -- the victim’s brain was eaten. So are we looking at a Return of the Living Dead situation or a Hannibal situation? Rob goes home and throws away his bloodstained work shirt. Luckily, Mulder already suspects him and shows up at the apartment. Fox catches Rob in a lie and thinks he’s solved the case. But we still have 32 minutes to kill, so let’s see how they can drag out the story. Here’s one way -- show us how Rob starts to deteriorate without consuming brains. Let’s give him props for trying to control his appetite with gum and self-help tapes. Too bad a guy in a car keeps annoying Rob because that makes him the perfect dinner.

Spinks breaks into Rob’s apartment and admits to being an ex-con. He knows Roberts is the killer and blackmails him. I’m surprised he didn’t just kill Derwood right then, but there’s still 28 minutes left in the episode. Outside, Rob runs into Mulder, who unsettles him even more. Rob attends a mandatory meeting with Dr. Mindy Rinehart, played by Nashville’s Judith Hoag. Roberts attempts to control his hunger while trying to understand his own motivation for killing but leaves when Mulder calls the shrink’s office. (Nice going, Fox.) 

Rob goes to work and pictures the cooking hamburgers as brains. Spinks arrives and upsets everyone while picking up his final paycheck. Roberts ransacks Derwood’s apartment looking for evidence but can’t find it. Spinks returns home as a hiding Rob reveals his true nature -- he’s not a zombie and he’s not Lecter. And he has a serpent tongue that stabs into Derwood’s brain. Afterward, Rob returns to Dr. Rinehart and admits he can’t control his hunger. She thinks he’s bulimic and tries to get him to attend an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. Aside from her Peter Jennings fixation, she seems like a nice lady.

Sculder are waiting for Rob when he returns home. They’re now investigating Derwood’s disappearance. Mulder thinks Spinks is dead and tries to push Rob’s buttons by referring to the killer as a freak and monster. But they don’t arrest him so Rob attends the OA meeting, where he runs into his nosy but nice neighbor, Sylvia. Rob shares with the group, but his hunger gets the better of him and he later eats Sylvia. 

The next morning, Rob trashes his own apartment and frames Spinks. Sculder arrive but aren’t buying it. They’ve also learned the man in the car was a private investigator following Sylvia. Sculder leave and Dr. Rinehart shows up to check on his welfare. She confronts him about killing the man at Lucky Boy and claims she wants to help him. He reveals his true nature and Mindy takes pity on him. Sculder re-enter the apartment at gunpoint and Fox shoots Rob to death when he charges them. The moral of the story: Don’t be something you’re not. I guess this would be The X-Files equivalent of an afterschool special. 

Sestra Professional: 

As Sestra Am succinctly put it while forwarding her portion of the "Hungry" meal to me, there's not much meat on this one. That's OK, considering the season openers were so heavy. My brain felt drained from the weight of the information doled out in those episodes. It wouldn't have given RobRob much sustenance.

I tend to have fast-food cravings every six months or so, but when Vince Gilligan's bottle ep comes up in the rotation, that time period tends to get extended. I don't think Gilligan had that problem, this feels like a variation on themes he developed in the 1998 film Home Fries and later continue with in Breaking Bad. How long do you think it took him to come up with the name Rob Roberts, by the way? But that's the point of this episode. The tone seems to fall in direct opposition to the previous two episodes, but Gilligan doesn't overcook it and smartly plates some moral morsels on the side. 

Grandfather clause, man: We start off with the gnarly-haired drive-thru customer threatening to call the franchise's home office if he doesn't get served. Seriously, at that time of night? Anyway, I was more concerned with how RobRob was going to get to the brains through that mess of Mick Hucknall hair. 

I hope Mulder got a few weeks off from his problems before diving into this case, although it doesn't seem to be particularly taxing on him. Fox's "does that ring a bell inquiry" would have really landed if it was a Mexican fast-food establishment. 

We'll have it our way: Well, Mulder didn't lose his sense for the more outrageous theories, diving right into the theory of the brain being slurped out like someone who gets a Shamrock shake after 11 months of waiting. Of course, he's right in various suppositions, if not the particular suspect at the outset.

But this is RobRob's story of internal turmoil with Sculder serving as the supporting players. Dana doesn't even get to go with Fox to RobRob's apartment for follow-up questions about discarded beef and dumpsters. It doesn't seem like motivational tapes are gonna work on this kind of problem. RobRob doesn't have your garden-variety eating disorder, salads aren't a viable craving substitute.

This is like 'good cop, insane cop': Prime suspect Derwood Spinks can't keep a job at which he wears a paper hat, but he can figure out who the attacker was before our heroes do. Can't have that, so he just had to go, although Derwood could hardly be considered brain food. Dr. Rinehart and Sylvia are too good to be true, but it's a bit of fun to wait and wonder if and when they'll be the next victims of RobRob's compulsions. Not quite as entertaining to see Mulder and Scully overcooked, but that's just because we're invested in them and their usually superior intellect. 

RobRob's incredible confession at the Overeaters Anonymous meeting is the best thing on the episode's menu. Chad Donella feasts upon the words, did anyone else want to dig into a juicy steak at the conclusion of the ep? Fast-food restaurants may be out, but I think we'll be OK with something more upscale. At least that's the way I will rationalize it.

Meta entrees: David Duchovny was finishing up Return to Me while Gillian Anderson was wrapping The House of Mirth, so the duo was only available for a combined two days of shooting that week. That suited Vince Gilligan, who had hungered to write an episode that enabled the writer to "take a bad guy and spend enough time with him to understand him so that he becomes sympathetic," he said in the official episode guide. ... Director Kim Manners wasn't too high on the concept, according to Gilligan. "I remember getting really offended," the writer said in The Complete X-Files. "I have to say maybe it's best to give Kim episodes he really doesn't like because I think he directed the hell out of that episode." ... Steve Kiziak, who often served as Duchovny's stand-in, got to be in front of the camera as the private investigator of the same name. ... Gilligan delivers his usual shoutout to paramour Holly Rice via Lucky Boy manager Mr. Rice.

Guest star of the week: Donella chows down on the role, bringing to it exactly what Gilligan envisioned. Sure, RobRob's a monster, but at least he feels bad about his predilections. Through his weird eyes, we draw parallels between his dark life and our own desire to fit into the world.