Brand X

Written by: Steven Maeda and Greg Walker
Directed by: Kim Manners

Summary
Skinner is protecting a man who is going to give evidence against a large tobacco firm, Morley, and his wife. He and several other agents are staying at their house, but late at night the woman goes to check on her husband who is in the bathroom. The door is stuck and when Skinner forces it, the man is lying dead behind it. The lower half of his face has been eaten away, exposing his jaw.

Skinner calls Mulder and Scully to the scene, and asks Scully to perform the autopsy. He is in trouble with the Director of the FBI. Dr. Scobie (Jim) had received death threats, presumably from Morley. Mulder thinks it may be unlikely he was murdered as it would be too high profile. He and Skinner go to Morley but the board of directors and their lawyers refuse to answer any questions, saying they have a corporate confidentiality policy.

Another chemist at Morley, Dr. Voss arrives home and is approached by a strange man. He and Dr Scobie had had a deal - Scobie provided him with free cigarettes, and Voss gives him some more. Meanwhile, Scully's autopsy shows the damage was not caused by any sort of acid. Mulder thinks it wasn't a homicide - he found a tobacco beetle in the room and thinks they may have something to do with it. The strange man's neighbour complains about his smoking as there is a ventilation hole between the walls of their bedsits. The neighbour is then found with the same cause of death as Scobie. He is surrounded by beetles which have left when the agents get there.

Mulder knocks on the door of the strange man, whose name is Darryl Weever. While being asked about the death, Weever smokes. Mulder goes to see Dr. Voss, and asks him about the beetles. Voss doesn't say anything, and when Mulder has left the head of security phones Voss - he saw Mulder visit and threatens Voss. He asks Voss where Weever is saying he'll sort things out.

An entymologist looks at the beetle and says it is a mutated version of the tobacco beetle. Tobacco firms have been engineering tobacco plants and these experiments may have affected the bugs. Voss visits Weever, and tells him to leave town, giving him money.

Scully's find beetle larvae inside the second victim's lungs. She realises they must pupate and then leave the body, eating their way out. Mulder starts coughing violently, and there is blood in his hand. At hospital, they use a pump to suck the larvae out of his lungs. But there are still eggs in his system and they can't get them out fast enough. Scully thinks Mulder inhaled the eggs, from smoke from a cigarette. Skinner goes to the Morley building with a search warrant. Voss ignores the lawyers' warnings and tells Skinner about the research. They were engineering a tobacco plant which was safer for health than normal tobacco. But three out of four test subjects died. Weever is the one remaining. At Weever's place the find the head of security alive, but suddenly beetles swarm out of his mouth.

Scully visits Mulder in hospital and tells him they are looking for Weever as he has a tolerance to the bugs. Suddenly Mulder starts to choke and a beetle crawls out of his nose. Later a doctor tells Scully he needs thoracic surgery but she says he's too weak. She wants to wait but that will kill him eventually.

At the Morley building Skinner shoots Weever in the shoulder to prevent him getting away. Scully notices Weever's yellow fingers and realises it is the amount of nicotine in his blood that is protecting him. She arranges to give Mulder a large dose of nicotine which saves his life. Back at work though he admits he's been craving it, and has bought a packet of cigarettes. Scully glares at him and he throws them away, but looks longingly at the bin.

The Good
* Couldn't help laughing at the oh-so-subtle anti-smoking moral in this episode. And passive smoking too. A double whammy.
* Mitch Pileggi showing Skinner's stress at the start.
* Morley's receptionist not caring at all about their FBI badges.
* Mulder refusing to answer the Morley executive's questions claiming FBI confidentiality.

The Bad
* It probably wasn't the best idea to keep Jim's wife in the room when Skinner rolled his body over.
* The writes went a bit OTT with Mulder's sarcastic quips at the start of various scenes.
* Mulder's "bugging me" line - very bad joke.

The Ugly
* The eaten away faces were horrific.
* The beetles swarming out of the still alive head of security.

Analysis
Yikes. I had been getting used to extremely low levels of gore in recent weeks, and here we were hit with some full on facial decay, and some pretty graphic autopsy scenes. Despite the in-your-face (sorry) nature of this, I didn't find the gore gratuitous. The shock factor certainly emphasised how horrific the beetles effect was.

And those beetles had to be the best anti-smoking device ever used on television. If they'd come up with something even more realistic than genetic engineering surely this would put a few people off. Of course the general idea of genetic engineering is believable, and happens in everyday life. But I wasn't convinced that a tobacco firm would put that much research into developing a healthier form of tobacco. They had said already that people would never stop smoking, which is true. I healthier cigarette could be great from an advertising standpoint, but I can't believe they could make them completely non-harmful to health, and then surely being slightly healthier would give people an excuse.

This episode bore some similarities to previous ones, most noticeably 'F. Emasculata' with the aspect of contagion. Not to mention all the bugs in 'War of the Coprophages' (at least the entymologist here wasn't Bambi, though it could have been a great moment for a return). However, I think enough aspects of the episode were original that they got away with it. It did seem fairly harsh that what ultimately defeated the bugs was high levels of nicotine in the body. That little twist did kill off the moral message here somewhat.

And so what about Mulder's newfound nicotine addiction? I think continuity here is a little too much to hope for, and we will probably never hear it mentioned again. Which is a shame; Mulder himself said what a strong addiction it was, and if he's over it by next week I'm sure it will drive people trying to quit crazy. I did think there was a certain irony that Morley is Cancer Man's preferred brand.

Overall this episode was OK. I thought the pacing of the story was a little off - the first fifteen to twenty minutes after the teaser ran quite slowly, followed by a fairly rapid conclusion. The story was plausible, and though retreading some elements seen before on the show, was different enough to avoid accusations of ripping off past episodes. Other than that I don't really have much to say about it. Top marks to the effects department for the eaten faces, and well done to the writers for a tender scene between Mulder and Scully at the hospital (I thought Gillian Anderson was great here too).

I also thought Skinner was very well used. It made sense that such an important case would be given to an Assistant Director, and Mitch Pileggi played his stress when the Director was after him very well.

Best Line
Mulder: I'm sorry. Answering that question would violate FBI confidentiality due to the sensitive nature of our investigation.