Lights up on a dingy nightclub. Specifically, lights up on a mouth on a mike, yammering a list obscure facts and statistics, prompted from questions from the audience. Trouble is, no one knows when he's right. "Look it up when you get home!" the speaker says. Mr. Memory has no drummer to go bud-dum-dum-tsh! Some Russians and a silver-haired Clearly Evil American Man are sitting at a table, menacingly. At the bar, they see the dude they're supposed to meet. He's a four-eyed geek who looks pleased with himself. The silver-haired CEAM heads over, and the geek is like, "Want to buy me another Jack and Coke?" Hey! Except for the "Coke" part, that's my drink. Soda is for babies. The geek is like, I know tons of stuff about you, stuff your wife doesn't know, and how does two grand sound? The silver-haired dude looks like he has that on him, and slinks off to the men's room. The Russkies watch, and then the geek follows.
Once in the can, the geek takes a look around -- red, dank walls, wooden stalls, what looks like a traveling-fair poster hanging askew -- and doesn't see the silver-haired blackmail candidate. Instead, Skinner pops out, grabs the geek by the collar, and mutters, "You son of a bitch!" Skinner! What happened to the X-Files? I mean, "your sense of ethics?" Back in the lounge, Mr. Memory continues his act until he is interrupted by two gunshots, blam blam. Murmurs grow; a bartender dashes to the john and dramatically opens the door to reveal the geek lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Oh, say can you see? The credits.
Oh my god, it's Jimmy, standing in front of a drab background and -- shudder -- speaking to the camera. Wow, I just found something I hate more than voice-over. He's analogizin' in his aw-shucks way, talking about football and helmets and how we all wear a metaphorical helmet (though he doesn't say, and possibly doesn't know the word "metaphorical") in our lives. Even Jimmy wears the invisible helmet, hiding things about himself from us. Dude, you do not. Your face is readable from a hundred paces. Anyway, the helmet thing has something to do with this week's episode, which starts with a screen shot of the issue of The Lone Gunman -- headline: "Lick it, Stick it and Trip." Nice one. Frohike says that this one will win them the Pulitzer. Yeah, and this recap will win me a Webby. No, really, it's satisfaction enough to do the work. Anyway, Langly asks Jimmy for his "check," and Jimmy makes one out to the printers for $1,381. The price of newsprint has gone up, and Jimmy is feeling the pinch. Oh man, this recession is hitting everyone, even kindly, dim-witted, rich hunks. So, Jimmy goes off to the printers and asks where Byers is, since he usually comes along for the ride. Langly and Frohike didn't hear him come in last night. "What do you think it is, a girl?" Then they both snigger. Um, last I checked, Byers was considered attractive by our board posters, so knock it off, you two. Jimmy ambles off, grinning. Yeah, laugh it up, hunkasaurus.
Once outside, Jimmy is crushed to see they're towing his fancy black sports car. Oh no! Then Jimmy makes a "damn" face for about half an hour while the Lone Gunvan chugs in behind him. Jimmy turns to see Byers exit -- with a lady! Carol. She needs a murderer caught. She's a pretty redhead who doesn't remove her invisible football helmet...I mean, "her sunglasses."
Inside the Lone Gunpad, Frohike and Langly have their chins in their hands as they take in Carol's sad tale. They looove her, and want to have ten thousand of her babies. Little hearts are exploding around their heads as chirping birds circle madly. It's really subtle, but if you squint, you'll see them. The geek was Carol's brother. She says they were estranged for the last few years, making this even harder to take. Frohike and Langly are like, drool drool, we're so sorry. Carol goes on to say that...she can't go on, and Byers says the geek's body was "cremated by accident -- a coroner's error." Carol puts her hand on his; the two love-struck hackers notice, and snap out of their reverie. And how do these two know each other? From college. "My brother Jeff was John's roommate," Carly says. Mm-hmm. Jeff the Geek had programmed his computer to send an email in case of his death, and it says that the identity of his murderer will be on a website that Byers says has already been wiped clean off the server. Dang. A cover-up. That means I have to keep recapping. Too bad I can't step in and just tell them Skinner did it.
We get an exterior shot of the Nightclub of Skinner-Murders, and then we see Langly holding the men's room door for Carol. She is rather vampy, in a subdued way: Black leather trench coat, black kitten heels, a quiet handbag, tight red top and dove-gray pencil skirt. Yowsa. But I guess that dank bathroom reeks. Langly asks, "What died in here?" and then makes a fast mea culpa. They decide that there's nothing to see; then a toilet flushes and out comes Mr. Memory. Jimmy, of course, is agog. Is he ever not agog? Jimmy makes like a fanboy for a while until Carol shows Mr. Memory a photo of her dead brother. Mr. Memory says, "He got moidered here, that's all I know." But he's lying; he swiped the dead guy's glasses. And, the glasses are homemade video-camera glasses.
The silver-haired Clearly Evil Man and a woman are walking a dog in a grassy park. The dog poops, and they fight over who has to pick it up. "Stupid dog," says the man as he pulls out a baggie. "Stupid poop humor," I say as I type this recap. Then Skinner emerges from behind a bush, and says he knows "the feeling, cleaning up someone else's mess." Oh, how neat! They made the poop a part of the plot! And by "neat" I mean "gross." What happened to the guy, Fremin? He hasn't contacted the CEM "since." Since the moider, you mean? "Fremin" sounds Russian, doesn't it? Skinner grimaces and says he's taking away CEM's computer and internet access. Why? "Because you can't keep it in your pants, Casanova," says the woman. Oh. Skinner stalks off, and there's a keyboard "bamp" as we get a shot of the dog, with poo nearby.