“Hungry” is episode three of season seven of The X-Files.
The episode begins at night in Costa Mesa, California, and a car pulls into the Lucky Boy drive thru. The driver gets no response and the open sign goes off. The man starts arguing until someone responds, and places an order. Given everything, he would be unwise to eat what he’s ordered. However, when he gets to the drive thru window, there’s no-one there. Only some strange sounds. He pulls himself up to the window, then gets dragged through and his car rolls off.
One server, Rob, arrives at the Lucky Boy and takes over a till as Mulder and Scully arrive with the local police. They want a word with the manager and tell him to gather the employees. They’re investigating a murder. A car was found in a reservoir 10 miles, with a body in the boot. A bloodstained badge only given to Lucky Boy employees was also found. The manager says there are a lot of Lucky Boys; there must be 30 in the county. 32. It’s been a long day.
Only a Derwood Spinks doesn’t have his badge. He must have left it at home. Because it’s only worn on Fridays. He didn’t leave it on a dead guy. Scully points out they didn’t say the victim was male. She and Mulder ask everyone to step outside.
Spinks says he’s off to get some cigarettes and the manager will call headquarters. Rob heads back to the restaurant, where Mulder is telling Scully that this kitchen is cleaner than all the others they’ve been in. Rob uses the drive thru speaker to eavesdrop. The dead man was missing his brain. Scully thinks it was surgically removed; Mulder thinks it was eaten. Some tribes do that in New Guinea. Scully says they are in Orange County. So? Nothing suggests fetishists to Mulder and he thinks the brain was eaten right out of the skull. He’s found what he thinks is blood. And perhaps brain matter. No; the latter is ground beef.
Rob arrives home, where he has a bloody shirt soaking in the bath. It won’t come clean, so he bags it up to throw. Before he can, Mulder arrives. He compliments Rob on his housekeeping, then asks about Rob staying late on Friday night. Yes, he volunteered to close and throw away meat from the freezer, which had broken. The bag is starting to leak. Mulder looked for the meat where Rob said he threw it; it’s not there. Rob is bleeding himself; he says he bit his lip. He hopes Mulder catches the killer. Mulder already has a pretty good idea who it is. After Mulder leaves, Rob throws the bloody sack away, then notices a man watching cross the street. Back inside, Rob gets a call about a mandatory counselling session. He removes his teeth as his stomach grumbles, whilst watching a self-help video on stopping eating and chewing appetite suppression gum. That night, Rob, whose real teeth are disturbing, goes outside and attacks the watcher.
In the morning, Spinks breaks into Rob’s. He lost his job because he did a nickel for attempted murder and no-one knew. He also knows, and has evidence to prove it, that Rob killed the dead man; appetite suppression pills with a blood print on them. Spinks wants everything Rob has got and maybe he will leave town in time. Spinks may be threatening the wrong person.
After Spinks leaves, Rob heads off himself and bumps into Mulder. Mulder asks if Rob saw Spinks. Spinks is the prime suspect. Does Mulder think Spinks did it? No. Scully and the police do. Mulder has someone else in mind. It’s pretty clear who, and it’s pretty clear he doesn’t think Rob is exactly human.
The episode strongly focuses on Rob. Who is addicted to eating brains. He’s trying to stop, which is why he has the appetite suppressors and goes to a help group, but nothing works. Meanwhile, Mulder pops up every now and then, sometimes with Scully, making insinuations as if Rob is the killer and that Mulder knows he is. Which is true.