The Great 'X-Files' Rewatch: season 1, episode 22, 'Roland'

In this second-to-last episode of the first season of the nascent X-Files series, we find Chris Carter working with an extremely sensitive topic that's been dealt with quite poorly over the years on the silver and small screens: developmental disability. When I think of how many times I've seen a terrible portrayal of a person with a developmental disability on TV, it makes me cringe. Riding the Bus With My Sister, I Am Sam … I mean, the list goes on and on. There's always this underlying feeling that these people aren't people at all; they're different, objects of shame and sorrow. Why else would Rosie O'Donnell or Sean Penn play these characters? To expose the world to the plight of the developmentally disabled? (Yeah, right. Actors are always thinking gold statue, no matter what they say about their moral ethic.) Developmentally disabled people get a bad rap.
  Not so, says Chris Carter, resoundingly, with this top-notch episode. Carter makes Roland, a developmentally disabled janitor at a rocket science laboratory, the unequivocal star of the show—a creepy, double-life-living savant who, like a puppeteer, orchestrates the arc of the plot from stunning beginning to climactic end.

  The actor who portrays Roland, Zeljko Ivanek—whose recent credits include turns on NBC's The Event and HBO's True Blood—does a subtle, not-super-embarrassing job of playing a developmentally disabled individual. I imagine Carter telling Ivanek to act like a normal person with a disability, instead of a disabled person attempting to "fit in." He doesn't overdo his lines or his actions. This is another tour-de-force moment for an at-the-time not-so-well-known actor. I'm sure it helped him get the later roles that seemed to flow in after that episode.
  Now, if I were to tell you any more about Roland, I'd pretty much be giving away the entire episode, so I'll leave it at this. But as far the rewatch goes, this is one of the better episodes in season 1—and has one of the finest twists in its climactic final minutes. A must-watch, no questions asked.