Hungry

Mulder and Scully hunt a killer who eats his victims' brains out of their skulls.

Hungry had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it didn't realise very much of that potential and ended up resembling a low-budget horror flick. Which was a shame.

The episode succeeded in arousing some sympathy for Rob Roberts, through his attempts to ignore his cravings, his insecurity and his enormous guilt. Unlike a lot of X Files monsters, he was a character I think many people would be able to relate to on some level. My personal favourite line to show this was Rob's assertion that "I'm sick and tired of pretending that I'm something that I'm not." It reinforced an interesting issue raised by the episode - genetic predisposition versus conscious thought. Rob killed to survive, just like all predators, acting on animal instinct. But he knew it was wrong and caused suffering, applying human morality to his situation, unlike carnivorous animals (except of course for humans). He saw himself as a "monster," but couldn't stop killing. So how far was he responsible for his actions? And to what extent is anyone responsible for their actions? Is it all determined by our genes? These were some interesting themes which the writers didn't expand on.

When watching Hungry (and in the previous paragraph), I assumed that Rob's desire to stop killing was fuelled by the fact that he didn't want to cause any more suffering. I still think that's a possibility. But I liked being given an alternative explanation in the form of Mulder's "It knows that the more it feeds on humans, the closer it gets to getting caught." It made me wonder if Rob wanted to stop simply so he wouldn't be brought to justice.

Now it's time for the big but (no jokes about the size of my butt please). There were just too many incidents that looked like scenes out of bad horror movies to make Hungry a good episode and Rob a truly sympathetic character. The list is long but here are a few things I thought really didn't work:

The chewing and rumbling stomach sounds effects were laughable. I found the brains on the hotplate really funny, and the removal of Rob's eyes, teeth and ears was fairly unconvincing, as well as vaguely reminiscent of the remake of The Fly. The ear falling on the floor was ridiculous, and the less said about Rob's proboscis the better. As a fan of dodgy horror films, I did actually enjoy most of those moments. But I shouldn't be getting my fix of cheesy horror from The X Files.

That Lucky Boy statue was fairly sinister, especially when Rob's voice started coming out through his mouth. Maybe that was just me. I suppose the teaser was proof that fast food never did anyone any good J . The conveniently placed microphone which enabled Rob to eavesdrop on Mulder and Scully reminded me of Terms of Endearment, when their conversation was picked up by a baby monitor. Mulder and Scully didn't seem to appear as often as they usually do, but I enjoyed most of their scenes, especially the one in the restaurant at the beginning. There was some nice dialogue there, and I really liked Gillian Anderson's quick, exasperated delivery of "Thirty-two" after Rice pointed out that there were "something like 30 [Lucky Boys] in Orange County." Hey, simple things amuse me. I wasn't so keen on Mulder's scene with Rob in which he said Rob could get him "a cheeseburger and a large order of fries." It may or may not have been intended as such, but it seemed mocking and unfair.

Something interesting occurred to me during the "good cop, insane cop" scene - I wondered if Scully had already come round to Mulder's theory. She seemed to be holding Rob's eye (not literally, obviously J ) rather than looking away in semi-embarrassment like she often does when Mulder is sharing an incredible theory with a member of the public. As we hadn't seen much Mulder-Scully discussion, it seemed possible that Mulder's theorising and the shard of tooth in the victim's skull had coaxed her closer to agreeing with Mulder. A vaguely related comment - I found it hard to believe that Scully wouldn't know an important detail of the case like the fact that the brain had been eaten.

There were a few times in this episode when Mulder and/or Scully leapt on assumptions made by other characters as indications of guilt. I realise they have to investigate every angle, but is it really unreasonable not to carry your Free For Fridays badge with you all week? Or to refer to a murder victim as "some dead guy"? Or to assume, when you're told that an ex-convict and suspect in a murder case has disappeared, that he's left town? I didn't think so, and while they obviously had to check it out (and of course Rob was lying), they seemed to treat these assumptions as incriminating evidence.

I found Dr. Reinhardt annoying and patronising for most of the episode. She redeemed herself a little at the end, when she bravely (or stupidly) confronted Rob alone. As a psychologist, she had an advantage over the average person in talking to him, but it was still a dangerous situation to put herself in. The one thing I really objected about the character was her comment to Rob, "Do you think that looks like a bad person?" I know it was supposed to boost his self-esteem, but the reason "bad people" are so dangerous and frightening is that no-one looks like a bad person. Otherwise life would be easy, you'd just have to stay away from people with BAD PERSON tattooed across their foreheads. Let's just be glad Reinhardt didn't work on the Donnie Pfaster case.

Rob's death was almost touching, but just strayed slightly onto the wrong side of cheesy, with the blurring of the image and the much-used line "I can't be something I'm not." At least the episode wasn't tied up with a Mulder voice-over though. The worst line in that scene, if not the whole episode, was Reinhardt's "Be that good person I know you mean to be." She would know better than I would if that's the kind of thing people respond to, but it made be cringe. I mean really cringe.

One final comment - I loved the fact that the BBC introduced Hungry with the doner meat 2 logo J .

Best Lines

Mulder: You know how they always say you never want to see the kitchen of any of your favourite restaurants?

Scully: Somehow I don't think Lucky Boy would make that list.

Mulder: There are certain tribes in New Guinea that consider human brains a delicacy.

Scully: Yeah, but Mulder, we're in Orange County.

Mulder: Yeah, and what's your point?

Mulder: Oh my god, is that brain, is that brain matter? There?

Scully: No, I'd say that's ground beef.

Rob: I'm sorry, but this is like good cop, insane cop.

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