Originally Aired 11/15/98
“The slower you go, the faster you die.” I really love that tag line for this episode since it perfectly sums up this fast-paced, forty-five minute thriller. Initially I thought it was a Speed knock-off since Mulder is forced to drive at a high-speed; in fact Mulder even makes reference that he “saw that movie.” Instead it focuses on Mulder and the man holding him hostage, Patrick Crump (played excellently by Bryan Cranston), who’s much like other villains on The X-Files. Its a trait of the episode’s writer, Vince Gilligan, to put his villains in situations where they’re only acting that way through some force they can’t control; Leonard Betts devoured cancer to survive, now Crump has to travel at a high speed to dull the painful noise in his head so it won’t explode. See, that even sounds strange on paper, but it’s the focus on the character of Crump that makes this story work.
I love the imagination involved in the creation of many X-Files cases because the staff of writers took ordinary objects and twisted them into scary situations. Morgan and Wong wondered what would happen if someone crawled out of an office air vent, which gave birth to Eugene Tooms in Season One’s “Squeeze.” Vince Gilligan’s inspiration behind “Drive” was actually someone spinning on a carnival ride that was taken hostage. He even based it on actual military projects, Project HAARP and Project ELF.
It seems this episode has aged incredibly well, or perhaps its been given much more attention in hindsight because of its connection to Breaking Bad. I’ve actually waited longer than the entire time Breaking Bad was on the air to watch this again, now that I have a new found respect for Cranston’s range of acting. Prior to watching this episode and Breaking Bad, I was only familiar with Cranston in comedic roles on Malcolm in the Middle and Seinfeld. Crump’s moments in the car with Mulder are what set this episode apart from other government experiments gone wrong, such as “F. Emasculata.” We weren’t able to feel sorry for those victims of a conspiracy on the same level that we do with Crump.
Gillian Anderson also gets to have fun in this episode as the giant flash lights from past seasons make their return. She’s even in the field searching for the source of Crump’s predicament in a haz-suit while another head explodes; I’m betting that scene was the inspiration for JJ Abrams’ Fringe. Scully’s scenes echo past seasons that were spent in darkened labs and exploring by flashlight, while Mulder’s car ride with Crump across the Western states showed off the new L.A. setting for the series. Besides the location change, another development for Season 6 was the removal of Mulder and Scully from the X-Files. It happened once before but Mulder seemed to end up investigating X-Files cases anyway, so I like how this time it wasn’t a case that was brought to him, instead they stumbled on it by watching television at exactly the right time. Another change this season was a new supervisor for Mulder and Scully, Assistant Director Kersh, and from the start he’s not putting up with any of Mulder’s antics. “Drive” is The X-Files at it’s peak, continuing the brillance from Season 5, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing.
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