X-Files rule #1: Don't be in the teaser. If you're not Mulder or Scully and you're in the teaser, you're going to die before it's over.

A kid pulls up to the Lucky Boy drive-thru speaker. As he's there, the light goes out, indicating they're closed. The kid argues with the speaker face (here, Samantha says: "I'd never argue with someone who's going to give me food!"), yelling his order. The speaker tells him to drive through. He pulls up to the window, hearing weird noises but not seeing anything. Like a dumbass (or a KU football player), he crawls out of his car and leans into the drive thru window, whereupon a monster sucks him through it. The car rolls off.

A kid, who we soon find out is named Rob, parks his car in the Lucky Boy parking lot three days later. He pulls on his paper hat as he walks into the restaurant, saying to himself, "You are your own man, and you control everything you do."

As he prepares to work the counter, our two agents walk in, and one gets the sensation that they have never in their lives been inside a fast food restaurant. They ask to see the manager, then ask him to gather his employees. They're investigating a murder, a car found with a body in the trunk and a bloody Lucky Boy "Free Fer Fridays" button. After some discussion about how many Lucky Boys they have to visit that day, Mulder asks everyone for their buttons. Only one person doesn't have his button, a slacker employee by the name of Derwood Spinks. Derwood suggests that he doesn't have it because it isn't Friday, but helpfully adds that he didn't leave it on no dead guy. Scully shouts "A-HA!!" in her head before informing Derwood that no one mentioned that the victim was male.

Whatever. They ask everyone to step outside so they can take a look around. Sneaky boy that he is, Bob turns on the drive thru microphone so he can hear what the agents are talking about.

Mulder notices that the kitchen seems exceptionally clean, indicating that someone may have cleaned it to cover up evidence. They discuss the fact that the kid's brain was sucked out of a hole in his head during one of their trademarked conversation where Mulder uses the word "proboscus," and they find blood under one of counters.

Mulder goes to see Rob in his apartment. (During this scene in particular, it becomes awfully clear that Duchovny is counting the days left until he doesn't have to do this anymore.) He asks Rob some questions about what happened while he was closing on Friday and 35 pounds of meat that Rob claims he threw in the dumpster but was gone before the schedule trash day. He fails to notice the trash bag leaking red-tinted liquid not four feet from where he's standing.

After Mulder leaves, Rob takes the bag and throws it directly on the trash truck that conveniently appears. He exchanges words with a man sitting in a bright red car across from his building, then goes back inside and takes out his human teeth. Meanwhile, the answering machine clicks on and records a message from a psychiatrist hired by Lucky Boy to talk to employees about what's happened. Rob pops in a weight-loss motivation tape and chews an entire box of Slim-Chew gum. He looks at the man outside in the car as his stomach growls.

Frankly, the man outside deserves to die, since he's apparently conducting some sort of surveillance from his bright red car. Rob obliges by going out and showing him his shark teeth before lunging at him through the window.

Rob is sleeping peacefully on his couch (a tip from Mulder?) when a boot belonging to Derwood appears on his chest. Derwood (who's done "nickel" for attempted murder, you see) is upset because he got fired because Scully thinks he's the prime suspect. He says he's not really worried about that, because he found some diet pills belonging to Rob when he opened the store on Saturday, and noticed blood on the bottle. He promises to return the bottle in exchange for Rob's TV, VCR, and cash.

During this negotiation, Rob's neighbor Sylvia pops in to tell Rob about the guy in the red car, who she surprisingly hasn't seen since last night, but maybe Rob should keep an eye out.

Yeah, okay. Derwood leaves, and Rob heads out to his car to go see the shrink. Mulder stops him and tells him that he just saw Derwood around the corner, and did he happen to be coming from Rob's apartment? No, no. Mulder asks him about who has keys to the padlock on the dumpster, then trots off.

Rob goes to the shrink's office, where she starts asking him some random questions. He takes a long look at her forehead before asking her what kind of monster would do this murder. The touchy-feely psychiatrist tells her that all people are really good at heart, even the brain-sucking people.

Agent Mulder gives her a call in the middle of the session (hell of a psychiatrist) but she says into the phone that she can't answer his questions because it would violate confidentiality. Rob hears this and bolts.

He goes to work, and as he's frying up some burgers, he looks down and sees brains in their place. (Samantha told me they were real, that she read about some production assistant who had to go to a slaughterhouse and find brains that would look human. They must have smelled just dandy, sizzling on the griddle.) Derwood comes in to pick up his last check, announcing on his way out that he used to "dip his boys" in the cole slaw. (I shudder to think how often that really happens.)

Rob breaks into Derwood's apartment, looking for his pills. Derwood comes home and realizes that Rob's probably there. He starts yelling at him, and we see Rob in the closet. He takes off his hair, peels off his ears, and takes out his contact lenses. He emerges from the closet hairless, earless, and looking like he got an extra helping of the black oil in his eyes. He shoots out his tongue and puts a hole in Derwood's forehead, then looks real sorry about it.

Poor brain-eating monster Rob returns to the psychiatrist's office. He tells her that the thinks he needs help to control his compulsions to eat, he just doesn't tell her what he eats.

She babbles on about funhouse mirrors, then gives him information about an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. (Fortunately, she had her back turned when his ear fell off.)

Mulder and Scully catch up with Rob at his apartment and questions them about Derwood Spinks. Mulder, after giving the caveat of not being able to speak for his partner, spouts off to him about a monster with a biological imperative to eat brains as well as a moral code, which is evidenced by the fact that the meat disappeared, i.e., the monster attempts to find other ways to satisfy its hunger.

Bob goes to the OA meeting where he runs into his dear neighbor Sylvia. He introduces himself and stands up to talk about his cravings and describes the taste and feel in his mouth. He sees the outlines of some nice juicy brains in the back of some bald guy.

He and Sylvia go home, though they have a nice conversation, then she bids him good night and goes into her apartment. It takes him all of five seconds before he returns to her door, knocks on it, and pulls out his teeth. Poor Sylvia.

Well, our little brain-eater is getting sloppy. He looks out his window and watches Sylvia fall into the garbage truck from his can. He doesn't even bother wrapping her up first.

He picks up Derwood's baseball bat, steps out of his apartment and locks it, then breaks back in, trashing his own place. When someone yells about the noise, he screams at them to call the police.

Mulder and Scully return. Rob tells them a big whopper of a lie, that Derwood came to his apartment to kill him, because he had caught Derwood cleaning up blood at the restaurant.

Mulder shows him a picture of the guy in the red car, a private investigator hired by Sylvia's ex-husband. Rob claims he didn't notice him. They go off to track down Sylvia, despite Rob's helpful advice that she probably isn't home.

The insane psychiatrist comes over to Rob's house (a shrink that makes house calls?) to find him packing. She tries to make him talk about it, but he just puts her off, and here's where my tape ends because I pre-set the VCR to record from 9 to 10 but football pushed everything back about five minutes. But he pulls his hair, ears, and teeth off for the shrink, who tells him he's still a pretty hot guy.

Mulder and Scully burst in, just in time, of course, and try to get Brain Boy to turn himself in, but he pretty much kills himself by charging them. I think he said something really pithy as his dying words but I can't remember what they were.

Next week ("Millennium"): Mulder and Scully enlist the help of Frank Black, a profiler who used to have his own damn show, to solve a particularly difficult.... oh, come on. They kiss. Of course, that's not why I'll be watching, but I thought you might be interested.