Case 07, File 18: Brand X

AKA: Actually Not The Grossest Anti-Smoking PSA

Cigarettes are a big part of The X-Files' identity, but they ended up getting pigeonholed in an odd sort of way. Our main villain (or the face of the main villains, if we want to get pedantic) is so identified with his smoking habit, it was his name for most of the series (I still call him that in these very reviews, because Spender is someone else). This led to a paradoxical inability to let any other character smoke (I guess Fletcher smoked?) which incidentally made a lot of episodes set in the 50s historically hilarious. So I guess it made sense to eventually let the anti-cigarette sentiment that was huge in the 90s and 2000s, permeate an episode, but it does seem weird that it took them so damn long.

Our episode kicks off with Skinner and some other FBI Agents hanging around a Dr. Scobie's house, cause he's going to testify against the tobacco company he works at in the morning. And he probably should have written some of the shit he was gonna say down, cause the next morning he's missing most of his face. And is dead. Obviously. That seems weird to Skinner, so he calls in his Weird Shit experts, Mulder and Scully. Scully heads off to do the autopsy while Mulder gets fixated on a bug he found. It's relevant, I promise.

Mulder goes with Skinner to interview Scobie's boss, Dr. Voss, at the tobacco company, but the company's lawyers sort of enforce that he answer the questions unhelpfully, so Mulder and Skinner leave after some sniping. Scully meanwhile has discovered that Scobie died of asphyxiation because of damage to his lungs. I promise that's relevant too. That night a weird dude appears at Voss' house and demands cigarettes because he had an arrangement with Scobie, and later the same weird dude (whose name is Weaver) gets into an argument with his neighbor, until his neighbor collapses coughing and ends up covered in bugs and also missing most of his face.

So when our heroes discover the body, and also the bugs, Mulder is quite certain that the bugs are responsible, and so they go to interview the other tenants, Mulder getting to interview Weaver, who is uh...just kind of a dickbag. After a quick visit to an entomologist and Mulder going back to yell at Voss (and then a company fixer yelling at Voss), Voss goes and gives Weaver some money and suggest he leave town and Weaver, being a total dickbag, takes the money and tells him he's not gonna.

I don't have a funny caption, I just think this is a fun shot.

Meanwhile, back with our heroes, Scully discovers that what's killing these people is tobacco beetle eggs making it into their lungs and which then hatch, chew up their lungs and climb out, also chewing up the victim's face. Yeah gross. And it's even worse when Mulder starts coughing up blood and everyone realizes that he's got the bugs in his lungs too, and a quick vacuum of his lungs proves it. That's also gross, this episode is gross.

So as they're raiding the tobacco company trying to save Mulder's life, Voss has a change of heart and tells Skinner everything: They were trying to genetically engineer a less deadly kind of cigarette but accidentally created cigarettes that got beetle eggs in your lungs via smoke, and Weaver is the only test subject who survived. They try to track him down, but he's bolted and left a bug infected Morley fixer behind. Still gross.

After some runaround and Mulder getting worse, but being too weak for surgery, Skinner finally tracks Weaver to the cigarette company, where he's attacked Voss and stolen the cigarettes. Weaver gives a big speech about how Skinner won't shoot him cause he needs Weaver, and Skinner in response, shoots him. When they get him to the hospital, Scully notices the nicotine stains on Weaver's fingers and realizes that nicotine will kill the bugs, which it does (Weaver was the only test subject who smoked heavily to kill the bugs). And thus the episode ends with Mulder cured but tempted to start up smoking. Dun dun d-oh they never follow that up? Okay.

Brand X isn't a great episode, but it's one I like a lot. It has a lot going for it, frankly, which we'll get to, but it also is a final dividing line in the series; This is the final horror themed Monster of the Week episode of the original Mulder and Scully era, with all of the remaining ones being more comedy slanted (yes I'm still banging on about this, I'm locked inside a lot and I'm feeling melancholic). And while it's not the strongest note this era could go out, maybe a stronger one would be less representative of the era as a whole.

"Okay so he died of an allergi-oh that's the other bug episode? Alright."

I think the biggest boon this episode gets is from its main villain (ish, the tobacco company is still more responsible. I guess even in The X-Files, the main villain is capitalism). Weaver doesn't get a massive amount of screentime, but he's got some very strong characterization; He's an unrelentingly self centered dick. From the first moment where he yells at his neighbor that he's allowed to smoke in a no-smoking area, because America, he's defined as someone who prioritizes his own desires ahead of anyone else's rights and safety (which makes him an alarmingly prescient character these days) and makes his decisions make a lot of sense.

Of course it's a pretty gross episode too, and I mean that as a compliment. The central concept is an incredibly, horrifyingly gross one, and the episode does as much as it can with it; Just the sight of the victims missing most of their faces is enough to get your skin crawling, and the visual of the dead dude's lungs crawling with worms is enough to gross out both Mulder and Skinner. If you're into disgusting horror concepts, this episode is certainly for you.

The Mulder subplot is one element I'm a little more iffy on, at least partially because I want more Duchovny dammit, our time is running out. It works well as a third act raising of the stakes, but it also means the episode has to run out of mystery before Mulder gets sick, cause our time is limited and we need to keep the plot moving. At that point we know more or less all of what's going on (and Voss kindly fills in the rest) which means the plot of the episode is just about tracking down Weaver, which is a little more dull, since Weaver has to gain ninja skills to stay on the run (how did a middle aged, out of shape, heavy smoker disappear from view in an instant? Who knows!)

Not to say that the episode doesn't do good menace. Weaver has great screen presence and once we know what's going on, the episode manages to make the act of lighting a cigarette menacing, helped along by Weaver's casual disregard for everyone who isn't him. The final confrontation between Skinner and Weaver is really solid, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was what put Weaver's actor on the map (more on that in the future celebrity bit).

"Would you like to play a game?" There. I made the reference. Are you happy?

If there's one way the script is a bit of letdown, it's in the theme. I made jokes about the episode being an anti-smoking PSA, but it kind of tries to have it both ways, portraying the cigarette company as evil enough to try and cover up their mistakes at all costs, but still caring enough to try and develop a safer cigarette (which, let's be honest, has never been on the tobacco company's minds). I've mentioned this before, but I wonder how much of this comes from being a show constitutionally distrustful of authority, while still being about authority figures. Might investigate that further.

Regardless, Brand X is a decent little Monster of the Week, a clever mystery wrapped around some gross set pieces and a solid villain. Some people might argue that we need a little more than that out of an episode now that we're nearing the end of season seven, but that's really all I need to be content. So while I'll acknowledge it's not a great episode, it's a fun time with Mulder and Scully and that's all I needed at this moment.

Case Notes:

• I'm not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for shots like the opening one of this episode, where the smoke on the chimney looks like fog for a little bit.
• It seems like it's a bad idea to try and convince your husband not to testify in front of the Assistant Director of the FBI.
• Speaking of, do FBI directors usually pull protection duty like this? Or am I overthinking it?
• The bugs on the ice are the first real indication of how icky this episode is gonna get.
• The visual of the cold open victim with his face partially eaten away is a good one to open the episode on.
• I like the implication from this and Chimera, that Mulder and Scully are officially Skinner's "Weird Shit" consultant.
• Mulder notices the beetle in the glass because of course he does.
• The shot of Mulder and Skinner sitting across from Dr. Voss and the entire table full of lawyers is cute.
• Mulder throwing the non-answer back at the lawyer is also cute. Mulder is in good form in this episode.
• I like Skinner's incredulous reaction to Mulder bringing up Killer Bugs, like Mulder and Scully haven't dealt with Killer Bugs like 3 times before this.
• I like that Weaver's response to being told not to smoke is just to yell "AMERICA MAN!" That feels pretty real.
• Mulder latched onto his insect theory pretty hard. He's right of course, but imagine how silly he'd look if he hadn't.
• I like how annoyed by Weaver Mulder seems. He seems like a genuinely unlikeable person, but not in an over the top way, just an consistently annoying way.
• I like the scene with the entomologist, The X-Files writes good science nerds when it wants to.
• I like both Mulder and Skinner being grossed out by Gastall's lungs while Scully is unaffected.
• The bit with Mulder the larvae sucked out of his lungs is incredibly gross and very neat at the same time.
• The lawyer seems to be good at the law and very bad at how to talk to someone else. Like, when someone has just said their agent is dying, mayyyyybe keep the fact that you think the info to save him is the property of your corporation to yourself, it seems like that's less likely to get you shut down. Or punched.
• I would very much not like to see Brimley with bugs swarming out of his mouth.
• Weaver's complete refusal to heed even the most sensible No Smoking sign is one of the things that makes him feel so real, and also means I don't care if he gets killed.
• Also super gross? Beetle crawling out of Mulder's nose.
• I admit, I find the ending (that the amount of nicotine Weaver was intaking was killing the beetles) to be kind of clever, I'm not made of stone.
• Scully's disapproval is enough to keep Mulder from starting smoking despite having been loaded up with nicotine. Love it, love everything about it.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Until I manage to get a slice of the tobacco companies in my lawsuit, I am quite poor, so give it a look.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Weaver is played by Tobin Bell who, after years of hanging around various movies and tv shows in secondary roles (he was the owner of the record shop in the Seinfeld episode The Old Man) became well known for his role as Jigsaw in the Saw franchise. And while I don't like the Saw movies (never have, never will) I will admit he's got killer screen presence and I understand why they wanted him hanging around, even though he died in the 3rd movie.