In Costa Mesa, CA, a longhaired young man car
pulls into a drive through restaurant, Lucky Boy. It is
closed but an attendant answers through the speaker and
finally agrees to takean order. When the driver, Donald
Pinkau, gets to the window, nobody is there. He hears some
wierd slurping noises coming from within, as he looks into
the window, something grabs him and pulls him into the
kitchen.
The rest of the
story is told from the perspective of Rob Roberts . Three days after the murder he arrives for
work. He gives himself a pep talk, "You are your own man,
and you control everything you do." Mulder and Scully enter
the restaurant investigating the murder. They ask the manager, Mr.
Rice, to gether all the employees and explain to them about
the murder. Pinkau's car was found ten miles away in a
reservoir. A button was found in the car that is issued only
to employees of Lucky Boy. Mulder aks to see them, everyone
has them, and the only employee who can't produce his is
Derwood Spinks. He says that he left it at home, because he
only needed it on Friday, and that he didn't leave it on
"some dead guy". Scully tells him that they never said that
the victim was male.
Sending employees
outside, Mulder and Scully search the restaurant. Rob sneaks up to a window and overhears that
Pinkau's brain had apparently been eaten through a hole in
his skull. Mulder thinks that a "proboscis" was used and
that the kitchen itself was the crime scene.
Rob goes home and pulls out his "Lucky Boy"
uniform out of his bathtub, which is filled with blood. The
shirt is still pink and he puts it in a garbage bag, ready
to take it out, when Mulder knocks. Mulder asks Rob a few
questions and learns that Rob had stayed late on Friday to
throw out some old meat that was spoiling. Mulder checked
and the meat was not in the dumpster, even though the
garbage had not been collected since Friday. The garbage bag in Rob's hand starts to
leak out blood, and Rob keeps looking at it. Mulder all of a
sudden says "Blood" and Rob tenses. Mulder points to Rob's
lip which was bleeding, and Rob says that he bit on it. As
Mulder leaves, Rob looks at his blood covered fingers and
sucks it off.
Later, While Rob
is looking at a man watching his building from a maroon car, a Lucky Boy employee assistance
counselor, Dr. Mindy Rhineheart, phones to ask him to a
counseling session. Rob takes his teeth out of his mouth to
reveal a set of sharp shark like teeth. As his stomach
starts to growl loudly, he eats some appetite suppressant
pills, and watches a video about willpower to stop eating.
While watching he also eats some diet gum. At night, Rob
goes out to the man (the man is Steve Kiziak, Duchovny's
photo double) in the car, bares his teeth and
attacks.
In the next scene, Derwood breaks into Rob's
apartment and wakes him up. Derwood got fired last night. He
is an ex-con and the prime suspect in the murder. He found
Rob's diet pills when he opened up Sunday - there was a drop
of blood on the pill bottle. He wants a payoff to keep
quiet, Rob's VCR and some other things. As Rob leaves home
later Mulder stops him. He tells Rob that Derwood is the
main suspect, but Mulder thinks is someone else who has a
compulsion to kill.
Rob goes to the
employee assistance counselor, Dr. Rhineheart. His stomach
rumbles, but he fights down his appetite. She saysmurderers are not monsters. Deep down even the
worst of us wants to be good. Robert leaves, because he
didn't want to hurt her. At work, Rob is looking at the
hamburgers grilling, when suddenly he sees brains grilling.
Later, Rob goes
to Derwood Spink's residence and searches for the bottle.
Derwood arrives home and finds the place in shambles. He
searches his apartment, carrying a baseball bat, and finds
Rob. Rob pulls off his hair, pulls off his ears, pulls out
his eyes, then he attacks and a proboscis from his mouth
shoots out to Derwood's head.
Rob returns to the counselor's office, looking
normal again. He has compulsions that he can't put off. She
thinks he's talking bulimia and doesn't understand that he
kills to feed. She tries to build his self-esteem. He
touches his head and an ear falls off. He puts it back on
and she doesn't notice. He says he really is trying to do
right.
Rob gets home and
his landlady, Sylvia, tells him that Mulder and Scully were
waiting for him to talk about Derwood, who was missing.
Mulder saw him in Rob's neighborhood yesterday. Mulder
thinks he's dead, not missing. Scully found a bit of what
seems to be a tiny shark's tooth embedded in the first victim's brain. Mulder says they're looking for a
monster with a biological imperative to eat.
Rob goes to the
Overeaters Anonymous meeting, that Dr. Rhineheart had asked
him to attend - his landlady is there and notes that it's a
small world. He tells the group about how his cravings for
meat have become to powerful to resist. His description
enthralls the participants. When they get home, Rob sees the
landlady, Sylvia, to her door, then has a stomach rumbling
attack. He knocks on her door again, and removes his
teeth.
Later, Rob looks
out of his window as the garbage truck picks up his can and
dumps it. The landlady was in it. He trashes his own
apartment to make it look like a killer broke in, when
neighbors complain about the noise. He shouts at them to
call for police. Rob used a baseball bat from Derwood's
house, keeping his fingerprints off it. Rob tells Mulder and
Scully that Derwood blackmailed him, indicating that Derwood
was the killer. Scully asks him what Spinks was blackmailing
him about. He says that on Friday night, both Spinks and Rob had
stayed late at the restuarant, and Rob had seen Spinks clean
a lot of blood. Spinks had threatened to kill him, if he had
told that to anyone. Mulder
tells him, that the man in the car was a private eye by the
name of Steve Kiziak, hired by Sylvia's ex-husband to spy on
her. He was also missing. Rob lied that he hadn't noticed
him parked outside his apartment.
After the agents leave Dr. Rhineheart drops in and
finds Rob packing - he says he's going to a friend's house.
She sensed that there were things he wanted to talk about
but couldn't. He has quit Lucky Boy. Maybe his biological
imperative to eat is natural. He is sick of pretending that
he is something he is not. She has the leap of understanding
that he killed Pinkau and tells him that she wants to help
him. As she asks him to turn himself in, police drive up. He shows her that he is a monster by
removing his hair and ears and displaying his teeth ("You
dont believe in monsters, How about now?!") She is
sympathetic. Mulder and Scully burst in with guns drawn.
They found Sylvia's body. Mindy says, "be that good person I
know you mean to be." But Rob attacks and Mulder shoots him.
As he dies he says he attacked because "he can't be
something he is not" He smiles as the cameras show Mulder,
Scully and Mindy from Rob's eyes, as his eyes close, the
picture fades to black.
