“Roland” is episode twenty-three of season one of The X-Files.
The episode opens in the Mahan Propulsion Laboratory at the Washington Institute of Technology in Colson, Washington. A janitor is cleaning the floor and he tries to open a door with his key card and code, but fails. There seems to be something wrong with the janitor. A man in a lab coat watching tires of this and takes the card, asking for the janitor, Roland’s, number. He enters and tells him how easy it is.
An engine is being tested and two men are arguing. One will not let the engine destroy itself. The man who helped Roland, Keats, enters and asks what is happening. One says that the other, Surnow, pulled the plug on the test. Surnow says he is protecting four years of work; the third man, Nollette, says that without results the work will add up to nothing, as the plug will be pulled.
Keats agrees that the test should have been continued with, but Surnow says that someone is going to crack Mach 15 and he’s not going to jeopardise their chances because the other two want their names in print. Keats, after commenting that it’s the print that gets the money, follows Nollette out. Surnow works on a whiteboard as Roland mops the floor, then opens the door to and enters the testing chamber.
Once inside, the door closes. Surnow notices and sees Roland on a keyboard. He tries to get Roland to open the testing chamber door. Instead, Roland starts the engine. Roland heads to the whiteboard and corrects the last line as Surnow is finally pulled into the engine.
Mulder and Scully are at the scene; Mulder says that it’s the project that everyone says doesn’t exist, but it does. The Icarus Project; the next generation in engines. Double the speed for half the fuel. In theory; Surnow is the second scientist on the team to die in six months. No, to Scully’s question, Mulder doesn’t think UFOs are involved. The answer is unexplainable but not unidentifiable.
Keats says he discovered Surnow this morning. What was left of him. As to how Surnow was trapped inside, someone must have shut him in. Mulder mentions a Dr. Arthur Grable, who was killed in an auto accident in November. Nollette introduces himself and Scully asks him if he’s sure Grable’s death was an accident, as this is the perfect target for industrial espionage. Mulder asks who wrote the bottom formula on the whiteboard, because it doesn’t match the other handwriting. No-one believes Roland is capable of anything.
Roland is at the Heritage Halfway House making something for a friend, Tracy, when Mulder and Scully arrive. Mulder comments that Roland must like stars, and Roland says the number 147. Then points to Scully’s star-patterned top. Mulder says Roland must like numbers too, and Roland has a flash of someone, then freaks out and drops the stars. As Roland is calmed down, Mulder swipes a sheet of paper with Roland’s writing on it.
At the FBI regional headquarters, a handwriting analyst says the formula is clearly the work of a fourth person. Mulder hands over the sheet with Roland’s handwriting on it for her to compare. Scully asks if Mulder really thinks Roland, with an IQ of barely 70, is capable of such a thing. They are talking about this when the analyst interrupts; Roland clearly didn’t write the fourth line.
That night, Roland is asleep when he has a dream about Keats and wakes up. In Building 214 of the Mahan Propulsion Laboratory, Keats is working at a computer, listening to music, when the door is unlocked. He notices the noise, but doesn’t see anything. Then Roland hits him over the head and drags his body to a container of liquid nitrogen. Roland, as in his dream, sticks Keats’s head into the container, then drops the body. There is a smashing noise, Roland crunches a frozen ear underfoot then there is a typing noise.
The outline of Keats’s body has no real head but many, many small pieces. Mulder checks the computer and notices that someone accessed a file called ‘Arthur’ after Keats was dead and worked for about five hours. The file needs a password, and Mulder suggests Scully try a number. One written on Roland’s piece of paper. It works. Someone has been continuing with Grable’s work after he died.
Roland speaks to Mulder and Scully again. It seems Grable got him the job. He also, when Mulder asks when Roland last spoke to Grable, says that he died. But when people die, they are supposed to go away, not come back. Scully wants Roland’s files, and discovers that Grable went to the halfway house specifically to find a mentally challenged person. Perhaps the accident was staged. Mulder looks into Roland’s files and says his records were sealed when he went to the halfway house, just before he turned three. His birthday is the same as Arthur Grable’s.
Going by a memory of Roland’s, and what was found, it seems he is Grable’s twin, only a lot less smart. He is also being influenced in some way, running away when one of his visions shows him hurting Tracy. As to whether Arthur Grable faked his own death; well, the faking part doesn’t seem likely. Given that Arthur Grable’s head is currently frozen, awaiting a new boy to be grown sometime in the future. Yet, Roland does appear to be continuing with Grable’s work.