Profile: Virgil Webster

Run, E.T.! Peter Coyote is back!

I'm never quite sure how to describe The Inside. I was expecting The X-files, and a show about FBI agents like this certainly has the same flavor, but there are no supernatural elements. There are no aliens or psychics, but such things would ruin the show. X-files had its creepy old guy, but he was a nemesis to the main characters. The intriguing cast of The Inside actually WORK for their creepy old guy.

As Virgil “Web” Webster, Coyote is something of an enigma. He never tells his agents his theories about the serial killers they hunt, not directly. Instead, he'll drop casual comments and clues with which they must use to arrive at the same conclusions themselves. As a mentor, he's something of an Xavier/Magneto hybrid, with just a dash of Cable's Nietzschean methods. Initially, I thought he was just a great detective and teacher. In one episode, after his agents have spent hours inspecting evidence, he walks in the room, takes one look at the items scattered on the table, smiles grimly and says “gotcha”. Soon they're on the trail of a twisted sociopath based on Web noticing a connection instantly that his team had not.

SPOILER WARNING FOR NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS

The last few episodes have begun to show more and more of the darkness within which Web operates. Initially, it showed how he pushes his agents very hard. Each has some problem or personality trait that he'll often exploit in order to catch the trail of their deadly prey. In the pilot episode, one of his best agents is murdered, but we soon learn that she tore her own face off to make her suicide LOOK like the work of the killer they were hunting. His agents are always on that edge, and he brings in beautiful rookie Rebecca Locke, played by Rachel Nichols, to replace her and solve the case. Rebecca has a childhood secret that gives her some insight into the criminal mind, and though she has some traumatic memories, Web makes her use them to get inside and think how the killer thinks, to solve the case. If he pushes his team to the edge, he's teetering on the brink constantly.

Web pushes. He believes the ends justify the means. So what? What's so interesting about that? Aside from Coyote's subdued yet immense presence, the last few weeks have really revealed some scary facets to his character. Paul Ryan(Jay Harrington), one of his agents, learns that he planted evidence years ago to stop a serial killer who cut out his victim's hearts. On Paul's first case with Web he found a heart buried in the sociopath's garden, but years later Paul pieces together some clues that paint a very different picture. Web followed the killer one night, and though he was too late to save the victim he did interrupt the process and the killer fled. When efforts to resuscitate her failed, Web himself cut out her heart and planted it in her murderer's yard, then called the guy's neighbor and offered her money to testify that she'd seen the killer out digging. Her lie comes out and the killer is released. I won't go into how his situation eventually resolves, but Paul nearly quits, at one point turning in his badge and gun. He returns and demands respect from Web, and learns that Web is suspended pending an investigation into how he handled that case. In a truly creepy follow-up episode, the story bounces between the agents hunting yet another serial killer, and Web making bizarre requests of a prostitute. One isn't sure where it's all leading until the end, when the stories converge and we see that Web asked the hooker to dye her hair, wear certain clothes, and walk a certain way as bait for the psycho-of-the-week. He makes her into a nearly irresistible match of the killer's first victim to lure him into a trap. Web is eventually reinstated, and the team is surprised that Paul supported him after their recent clash. Paul explains that he felt the world was a safer place with “Web in here.” Rebecca adds, “'In here.' As in not out there.” The episode ends with Web staring out the window of his office into the darkness of his own reflection.

SPOILER WARNING OVER

The Inside is a great show with interesting stories, and an excellent cast which also includes Adam Baldwin. Since it's all of these things AND is airing in the Summer on Wednesday nights at 9 PM on FOX, I'm not going to let myself get too attached to it. Tomorrow night, for example, they're already preempting it for yet another reality show, this time involving bad dancing or something. But after the last few episodes, Virgil Webster is easily my favorite ambiguous television character, the kind we only get occasional glimpses of with Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor. Outside, Web could be just as unpredictable and scary as the serial killers he and his team catch. It's a good thing he's on The Inside