Case 08, File 04: Roadrunners

AKA: I Gotta Make This One "Meep Meep," Don't I?

One aspect of The X-Files that gets lost on rewatches is that it was, for the most part, playing horror tropes straight at a time when horror was increasingly leaning on ironic mockery and parody (Scream hit right in the middle of The X-Files' 3rd season). But as the series wore on and the characters lived through more and more horror stories, it became inevitable that they would start to figure out when they're in another one. Or at least get a sixth sense for when they're getting manipulated.

Our episode starts on a hitchhiker somewhere in the Utah desert, getting picked up by a bus. In my experience buses don't generally pick up hitchhiker's, which should have been this dude's first sign shit was weird, because the second sign is when the bus pulls over in the middle of the desert and everyone on the bus decides to beat one of their members to death and then grab the hitchhiker. A few days later, Scully is out in the desert looking into it (it turns out the dead guy had the spine of a 90 year old) and having awkward conversations with Doggett, who she left in DC, on a payphone. She tells him to look up some old similar cases with...glycoproteins?

After following a bus into a remote desert town, Scully asks for some directions or some gas, and gets a little bit of the latter, but none of the former. Oh and it turns out that the town has the hitchhiker, and is very interested in Scully cause she's a doctor. Oh and it turns out that the gas can was filled with water that kills her engine. Oh and it turns out the only phone in town is dead and everyone in town is too engrossed in...Bible stuff? to help her out. But one of the locals is willing to rent her a room, naturally.

This makes Scully decide she's probably being played, so she keeps a tight hold of her gun, but when the townees tell her that they need her help caring for the hitchhiker who has sustained a mysterious injury on his lower back and also has a...thing? Moving around under his skin. Back in DC, Doggett finds out Scully is missing and decides to send the local police to find her, while still digging around to find out stuff about the cases Scully sent him to find.

Back in Utah, Scully has groked that shit is weird and that the people around here are probably responsible for the murder out in the desert, and also they probably have a car. So she leaves the hitchhiker with her gun in case he needs to defend himself, and heads off to go find a car. She finds the bus, but it turns out whatever is in the hitchhiker's spine is also in his brain, and he betrays her, allowing the cult to capture her. They then beat him to death, pull a slug...thing? out of his brain and prepare to stick it in Scully when rescue come-oh wait, no they totally just stick the slug thing in her.

Oh shit, remember payphones?

She's mighty peeved about that and Doggett has arrived in Utah, using info like the last place Scully called from or the old case files to try and figure out where she is, eventually arriving in the town. The locals shoo him away, but he too groks that something is weird and sneaks back in, freeing Scully. They initially try to flee but when the locals show up at the bus and also the slug thing is going into Scully's brain, Doggett cuts it out and shoots it. And thus the episode ends with the cultists arrested and Scully admitting she made a mistake leaving Doggett behind. Oh and Mulder's still on the spaceship.

Roadrunners isn't an all time classic episode, but honestly, I dug it more than I remembered. It's very much a late series episode, trying to find novelty in a well worn plot setup and pushing the acceptable content as far as it can before the Fox censors tell them to cut it out. And that's fine, we're in Season Eight, I prefer that the series is trying to find new ways to approach the same stories, especially since it's still trying to mine drama out of Scully and Doggett's awkwardness. It might not be perfect, but it gives me some hope going forward that the upcoming seasons will be an okay time.

The big winning element in this episode is, in my opinion, the script. It has a lot of good parts, from Scully and Doggett both still being believably awkward to Scully basically immediately realizing the town is up to no good (even if she does end up getting played by the slug-possessed hitchhiker), but the big shocking story turn is when the slug actually gets Scully. We're so used to our heroes escaping by the skin of their teeth and it's late enough in the episode that we could be going into the end of the episode, so the cult actually grabbing Scully is solid, it's surprising and it raises the stakes.

"Are you cold? Oh, good hunter."

The stakes are pretty gross ones too, the episode is quite gruesome in a way the series hasn't really been since Hungry at the most recent. The effect on the slug under someone's skin and the big gaping wound is really solid, and while we don't see much of it on screen, the direction of the final scene where Doggett performs impromptu surgery on Scully is very intense. And I like that the series is sparing in its gore, Hannibal for example got so addicted to throwing gruesome stuff up on screen that it got hard to take seriously after a while.

The downside is that the villains of the piece are pretty flat. Yeah they're a cult worshiping a slug thing (which they apparently think is the 2nd Coming of Christ?) but that's all we get. What exactly is the slug thing, where did they get it, how did they figure out how it works? I know, I know, not knowing is scarier, but I'd like some information to work with. It doesn't help that the Cult doesn't seem to have much personality. They're kind of nice in a deeply offputting way, which isn't terrible, but they never grow much in the way of other dimensions. I was hoping to see that facade crack a little, give them a little more anger.

The episode is also leaning pretty hard on the new partnership, which I feel like the series will be leaning on for a while. Last episode did an okay job with it, but this episode does a really good job with it. Scully leaving Doggett behind makes a weird amount of sense given how awkward they were in the last episode, and I like that Doggett handles the issue in a suitably Doggett way. They're still feeling out his characterization and finding ways in which he's unique from Mulder, and just seeing him stay in DC rather than just jump into the field is a good, albeit small, way to do that.

The cultists are lucky they got arrested or else Scully would have murdered them all with her bare hands.

I'm a firm believer in taking a series as it is, rather than how you wish it was. I can wish The Simpsons wrapped in season 9 or that Twin Peaks didn't have that run of bad episodes in season 2, but that's not the world I get to live in. So regardless of how I might feel about the upcoming slate of episodes, they're part of the fabric of The X-Files, for good and ill. And if I have to engage with them, I hope they can at least be as solid as this one.

Case Notes:

• Buses don't generally stop for hitchhikers, so this dude should probably be suspicious right off the bat.
• Also, the dude complains that the bus driver didn't see him, but she did stop for him, so what's his issue?
• It seriously takes the hitchhiker entirely too long to figure out something isn't kosher.
• Can local corners just randomly call in FBI Agents? Or is it too late in the series to worry about stuff like that?
• "I don't have a great memory for mucous" is the first Doggett line to get a laugh from me.
• Scully's cell phone not working out in the desert is as obvious a checkov's gun as the series ever gets.
• Look overly-friendly gas station guy, I know what "Like minded people trying to keep the modern world at bay" means in a horror setting, even if Scully doesn't.
• I like that the moment Scully's car stops working she goes into defensive mode, it's good that she's questioning his explanations.
• If Scully saw the entire town gathering outside with lanterns it would kind of give the game away.
• The cult is very bad at pretending they're not sinister. Couldn't even come up with an explanation for how the hitchhiker got injured.
• Holy shit, Doggett called Danny. How does Doggett know Danny?
• Scully has cottoned on to the fact that the town is involved in the murder and that's pretty solid.
• Scully giving the dude her gun is probably a bad idea, come on Scully, think.
• Doggett did some detective work back in DC, good on you Doggett.
• Very solid use of a dutch angle on the shot of Scully when she gets grabbed by the cult.
• The scene where the cult murder the hitchhiker and pulls the slug out of his skull is VERY gross and Anderson sells the shit out of it.
• Scully actually getting infected by the slug thing is an such an unexpected turn for the series.
• The slug thing looks like the Infant Old One from the Childhood's Beginning ending of Bloodborne.
• Doggett figuring out that the town is up to no good because he noticed the guy had a gun is good characterization.
• Scully is just so intensely badass that she tells Doggett to do impromptu surgery on her neck.
• I get that we need the wrap up scene to tell us that Scully is gonna be okay (and so that Scully can say that she's learned to involve Doggett), but Doggett standing out there with Scully in his arms would be a good shot to end on.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I can afford to start my own cult around a slug-thing.

Future Celebrity Watch:

William O'Leary who plays Overly Friendly Gas Station Guy is kind of straddling the line between future and past fame. He had already played the brother on Home Improvement and was going to end up playing a character named Xaviax on Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight. I've never watched either of those, but Xaviax is a hell of a name.