Season seven, often seen by many devotees as straying from the series' roots, ironically harks back to previous episodes with it's third sequential and first stand-alone episode, "Hungry." Much in the same way that Eugene Tooms ("Squeeze, Tooms") required human livers, Virgil Incanto ("2Shy") fed on body fat, and the guy from "Teliko" needed pituitary glands for subsistence, Rob Roberts gets his calories from brain matter. While this could have made for a pedestrian re-tread of themes from the aforementioned previous episodes, writer Vince Gilligan (known for having penned classics like "Pusher" and "Folie a Deux") changes things up a bit by telling the story from the monsters' perspective. All Roberts wants is a normal life without the impulsions of a monstrous appetite, pardon the pun. This makes for an episode with greater psychological depth than the average MOTW, however, a few things prevented me from fully enjoying it as a whole. First, the psychiatrist character seemed awfully contrived, from her inexplicable purpose in the plot (what fast-food joint would be so generous as to hire a counselor for their minimum-wage employees?) to her corny lines in the final scene. Second, Mulder's goading behavior seemed annoyingly excessive and reminiscent of last season's "Terms of Endearment." If he had been any secondary character he would not have survived to the end of the episode.
When analyzing the stand-alone episodes it's essential to view them both within their own context and within the canvas of the series. When viewed in the former, "Hungry" would get a 6 from me. It's Gilligan's ability to take the premises of episodes past and re-work them into new and innovative formats that make this one more worthy of an 8. I'll go half way and give it a 7. No more drive-thrus for me.