SPOILERS!  Hungry: Off the Top of My Head

Well, that's an ironic name for this post, isn't it? ;)

BTW, for those of you trying to remain unspoiled, I mention the
teaser for next week at the end of this post.  Bail now if you
don't want to read anything about it.

Some things that come to mind as I re-play this ep in my head:

-  Robert Roberts: what the hell were his parents thinking? 
(Could say the same for Derwood, I suppose...)

-  Anybody else find Rob to be a mixture of Emilio Estevez and
those young men from D.P.O. and Schizogeny?

-  Rob sure had nice apartment for a guy who lives alone in
Orange County, CA paying his bills by working at a burger joint.
 Sure, it wasn't a palace, but it wasn't a dump either.

-  Ditto on Rob's car -- looked awfully new to me.  What kind of
a car *was* that, anyway?  And I thought *I* had a small car.

-  Similar thoughts on Derwood's place.  OK, *he* lived in a
dump, but it was a *house*, for God's sakes.  Did somebody not
check what rents run in southern CA?

-  Anybody else flash back to Skinner in Zero Sum when Rob
dropped the garbage bag containing his bloodied clothes on the
floor?

-  Why did Derwood get fired, anyway?  Because he forgot his
"Friday pin" on a non-Friday?  Forget extortion, Derwood, you
could have sued your former employer for a bundle.

-  I got a good chuckle out of Steve Kiziak, P.I.  I hope he
gets a few more lines in his next TV role, though -- I think he
said less here than he did back in February when he was on The
Tonight Show with DD. <g>

-  It gave me the creeps when Rob was in Derwood's closet
"undoing" his face.  Nice effect there, as well as that "tongue
thing."  :: cringes ::  Can't say I felt bad for Derwood,
though.

-  Anybody else want to slap that Dr. Mindy around when she gave
Rob the "mirror speech"?  Grrrrrrr....

-  "Anybody else", part 3:  was anyone else uncomfortable
listening to Mulder from Rob's POV?  It was a very different
Mulder than the one we normally hear, the one we/Rob eavesdrop
on at the beginning of the ep.  Mulder sure as hell knows how to
make his suspects squirm.  At least, he made *me* squirm, and
not for the usual reason.  (SHEESH!  Did I really just write
that...?!?)

-  Did I understand the ending correctly?  Rob committed
suicide?  If he truly intended to go after Mulder's brain,
wouldn't he have just used that Amazing Projectile Tongue?

-  Speaking of the ending, I liked the fade out.  Nice touch.

So, what did the rest of you think?  This MOTW ep neither
excited me (like, say, Pusher) nor irritated me (like, say, Agua
Mala).  This was kinda on an Arcadia scale for me, I think, but
without the interesting Moose/Squirrel interaction of that ep. 
On the plus side, though, I'm glad to see 1013 trying new
things, and not sitting back on their asses.

Gotta also mention the teaser for next week.  Don't blink in the
first second and a half, or you'll miss Mulder saying "Happy New
Year, Scully."  He looks -- wistful?  I'm not sure how to
characterize the look on his face; can somebody else jump in
with a description?  His left arm appears to be in a sling, as
the spoilers said it would be.  (Yes, I'm a happy spoiler
junkie. <g>)  The rest of the teaser made my mouth water for a
good, scary MOTW.  I sure hope that's what we get, although if
the ending is as the spoilers say I'll be a happy camper
regardless of what happens in the first 55 minutes of the ep.
<g>