X-Files S8E4: Meep, meep

Sestra Amateur: 

Don’t let the title fool you; there are no Wile E. Coyotes in today’s episode "Roadrunners." In Utah’s Sevier Desert, a bus stops for a pill-popping Walkman-playing hitchhiker. He’s not very grateful to the driver but takes the ride anyway. He’s then annoyed when the bus stops and everyone exits. No one will tell him what’s going on, especially when the bus driver bludgeons a handicapped man to death and the passengers swarm him. And that’s why you shouldn’t hitchhike.

One week later, Scully is on the case. She’s lead investigator and crime-scene evidence collector rolled into one, although I doubt she strung up the yellow tape. That was probably the local popo. There’s no cell phone service for her basic Nokia, but luckily there’s a phone booth in the middle of nowhere so she can call Doggett. Turns out the dead handicapped man was perfectly healthy a mere six months earlier. Glycoproteins -- you know, mucus -- are the common link between this case and a recent similar one, but Dana needs John to locate the X-file for her. Wouldn’t the mucus have dried up if left in the Utah desert for a whole week?

The bus passes the phone booth, capturing Scully's attention for some reason. While searching for it, Dana meets Gas Station Man (the show doesn’t give him a name and neither does IMDb). He has no gas to sell her, but generously fills her tank – that is not a euphemism – after he learns she’s a medical doctor. After Scully's gone, he meets with Bus Driver (another nameless character) and the recently picked up hitchhiker to tell them “help is coming." 

Dana's car stalls down the road and she returns to the gas station utterly ticked off. (And that’s why you shouldn’t take free gas from a stranger.) GSM directs her to a house down the road that has a working phone. Mr. Milsap, the homeowner, claims his phone is temporarily dead and offers Scully a room for the night. She tries to get assistance from a nearby bible group but they ignore her. Dana caves and takes the room while the townsfolk mass outside the house. This episode is really not helping to promote Utah’s tourism. 

Mr. Milsap – Ronnie, is that you? – asks Scully to tend to the stranger in his house since he's seizing. (Wow, Milsap's song "Stranger in My House" is really stuck in my head now.) Doctor Dana notices he has a spinal injury and demands they take him to a hospital, but that’s not going to happen. Meanwhile, Doggett calls the sheriff in charge of the murder investigation and learns Scully is missing. He tells Sheriff Ciolino to send deputies to look for Dana while John arranges to get the phone number from the booth she used to call him. I’m sure he’ll find her … "Any Day Now." 

The stranger regains consciousness but has no recollection of the murder, what happened to him or even his own name. He thinks the townsfolk are taking good care of him while Scully views it as more of a worship situation. She realizes the injury to his back is actually a burrowing parasite and tries to pull it out. She’s … partially successful. And Doggett learns the last person who used the pay phone before Scully was Hank Gulatarski, the hitchhiker-turned-parasite host reported missing by his family. Dana leaves her gun with Hank and escapes to find transportation. Milsap and Bus Driver immediately enter the room and Hank – who is no longer Hank – tells them he needs a new body.

John meets with Sheriff Ciolino and FBI agent Mayfield in Utah and shows them the related unsolved case files dating back to 1991. (Shouldn’t most of them have been lost to the office fire of ’98?) Meanwhile, Scully finds the bus, but everyone finds Dana and she realizes she’s in a heap of trouble as they forcibly restrain her. They bludgeon Hank to death and Bus Driver approaches Scully while holding the squirming wormlike parasite. Dana plays the baby card, but these zealots ignore her and complete the ritual. I guess they "Wouldn’t Have Missed It For The World." 

Milsap, Bus Driver and GSM try to convince Scully she will be the appropriate host for “Him." Jeez, guess "There Ain’t No Getting Over (That)." Luckily, Doggett soon shows up asking questions. He doesn’t believe Milsap and Bus Driver, so John tips off the sheriff, enters the house, punches GSM and saves Scully. They try to hotwire the bus, but get sidetracked because Doggett has to cut into Scully’s back to remove the parasite before it gets to her brain. The zealots force their way onto the bus as John yanks out the creature and shoots it dead. 

Stunned by the death of their … whatever that was, the townsfolk let Doggett carry Dana to safety while local police arrive to arrest everyone. One week later, Scully is well enough to leave the Utah hospital where she was recuperating. John tells her the 47 cult members are all claiming a religious persecution defense. Dana admits she was wrong to pursue a case without Doggett, who is pleased when Scully says she won’t do it again. When it comes to his new partner, Doggett is clearly a "Stand by (My Woman) Man." 

Sestra Professional: 

There's not a lot of meat on the bones of this one. In fact, the slug the cult worships probably doesn't have any bones at all. But it does provide the next logical step in Doggett's progression -- namely getting to save Scully. Don't fear, John, there are only millions of fans watching your every step and examining your every word when it comes to the care of our only lead left standing. In other words, Doggett, you gotta get it right.

Fortunately Vince Gilligan lets him do so and then some within the confines of this script. This is one of the highlights of Season 8 for me. "Roadrunners" easily could have fit into the old context of the show, but slots in appropriately into our Mulder-less transformation. 

I don't have a great memory for mucus: That'll learn ya, Dana, going on the road without your new partner, even for a simple consultation. She winds up in a town that apparently belongs in the Deliverance hall of fame. So she never really had much of a chance, even though she's keenly aware things are definitely not right there. 

Nevertheless, despite the fact that Scully doesn't believe what the residents are telling her for a second, she winds up handing her gun over to the guy she believes is the victim. You can't even trust people going through grand mal seizures any more. But it's a nice twist in the proceedings to be sure.

Meanwhile John doggedly (pun intended) tries to locate her. He shows local law enforcement a photo of a John Doe, we should put a pin in that sucker because we'll need it next season. Thank goodness he's so thorough that he was able zip through the case files, maybe he got the ones destroyed from the fire from Skinner's office. Now he has memory for mucus after all!

That thing in my spine is a him?: Hey, Scully doesn't need a creature inside her to be adored. Mulder may not be around to gaze at her, but she's got legions of Dana devotees at her beck and call. And now there's John too. The Scullyacs probably didn't appreciate her having to apologize to him in the final scene, but it really was the only mature thing to do.

But back to the desert town, for Dana's deliverance really gave Gillian Anderson a chance to cut loose as Scully curses at and threatens the townspeople from hell. Really, are you people just so bored that you're willing to worship a slug? 

Kudos to John for his keen insight, not only for nothing that Milsap was packing, but for calling for backup so that the same thing didn't happen to him. Dana, you probably could call him John instead of Agent Doggett when you're tied to a bedpost with a creature squirming around your spine. 

That was a fairly gross denouement -- in The Complete X-Files, producer Paul Rabwin recalled some cameramen "started to lose it" over the gruesome effects. But it was a nice way for John to literally carve out his niche in our story. And then he carries Scully to safety. Come on, X-Philes, you've gotta be growing attached to him by now, another pun intended. 

Meta mollusks: Either way, that's exactly what Gilligan intended. "I wanted to have this gangbusters episode, one that showed how Doggett was a good guy; someone to be counted on and who could be trusted by Scully," he said in The Complete X-Files. And Robert Patrick added that fans who didn't appreciate Dana having to apologize could look at it a different way. "The whole essence of the scene was, 'Look, I'm here for you. I've got your back. We're partners now.' And you give that the weight of a Marine saying to someone, 'I'll jump on a grenade for you, so you can trust me.'" It was meant to reassure fans, not to irk them. 

Guest star of the week: Going with Lawrence Pressman as Mr. Milsap, whom I know best as Jane Fonda's bit-of-a-dick husband, Dick, in 9 to 5. The other townspeople ... and their "victim" ... and the local police seem kind of cardboardy, but Pressman makes more out of Mr. Milsap. It's no small feat. The veteran actor makes his character stand up and stand out, providing a reason why a group of backwoodsers would follow him in the first place. Other than the fact that they have nothing else to do with themselves, that is.