A mutant fast-food employee struggles against his craving for human brain matter.

Rob's Statement to Overeaters Anonymous

Uh, hi. My name is Robert Roberts. People call me Rob. [Audience calls out: Hi Rob!] I have an eating disorder. I'm definitely a meat-eater, not a vegetarian. I've always had these cravings, my whole life. And just recently -- the last month orso -- they've just become too powerful to resist.

[Tell us about it, someone calls out.]    More Stories The X-Files - 'Hungry' (spoilers) The X-Files - 'Sixth Extinction (Amor Fati)' The X-Files - 'Sixth Extinction' The Cigarette-Smoking Skeptic Speaks    Related Links The X-Files (official) Overeaters Anonymous I guess it's the taste I respond to the most. Salty and juicy. Kind of buttery.The texture of it inside your mouth. Your teeth just sink into it like this juicy cloud. [Audience members look at each other, smiling and nodding.]

And it tastes so good. You don't even want to swallow it. You just want to work it around your taste buds until your eyes roll right back into your head. [Heart beating loudly, Rob visualizes brain inside bald listener's head. Awkward silence as he regains his train of thought.] Anyway, it's a real problem.

Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Kim Manners

Costa Mesa, California. Night. A car enters the drive-through lane at a Lucky Boy fast-food restaurant. The driver, a long-haired young man, tries to place his order through the intercom, but is told, "Sorry, we're closed." The driver insists, yelling and leaning on his horn, and is allowed to place his order.

"Hungry" is unusual among X-Files episodes in that the plot unfolds from the monster's perspective, revealing him to be a somewhat sympathetic figure whose first two victims are highly dislikable.

However, this bit of originality does not rescue the episode from a familiarity bordering on the mundane. It's not the first time we have seen genetic mutants who have an affinity for human body parts.

Indeed, the unusual perspective eliminates the suspense and intellectual tension normally involved in an X-Files investigation, leaving Mulder and Scully to mutate into cardboard characters.

In any event, a hungry fast-food employee seems like awfully small beer at a time powerful extraterrestrial and supernatural forces appear to be gathering for a battle of apocalyptic proportions. A standalone episode such as this will not fulfill the viewers' cravings for development of the series.

Could it be that Mulder and Scully look bored in this episode precisely because they know they have bigger patties to fry?

Or is it remotely possible that Rob's hunger -- heightened in the "last month or so" -- became uncontrollable due to a broader increase in the level of paranormal activity related to the progress of the series' overarching "mythology arc"?

"Proboscis" is a term normally applied to a human nose, an elephant's trunk, or an insect's tubular eating appendage. In Rob's case, it appears most similar to the latter.

Mulder goes to New England to learn about magic in "Chimera".