Original Air Date: April 13th, 2001
Synopsis: Byers and Jimmy break into a prison and pose as inmates to contact a death-row convict who mother believes his conviction is the result of a conspiracy. Also, is the King still alive?
Written by Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Vincent Misiano
Guest Cast: Darren Burrows as Douglas Pfeiffer, Robert LaSardo as Lowry, Badja Djola as Spike, Kevin McNulty as Jeremy Wash, Aaron Pearl as Officer Tollin, Betty Linde as Alberta Pfeiffer, Gardiner Millar as Runselhoff, Theodore Thomas as Thomas Eames/Elvis, Mark Acheson as Trusty, French Tickner as Shopkeeper, Billy Mitchell as Emcee
Notes:
- Stephen Snedden's Jimmy character does an Elvis impersonation in this episode. He practiced day-in and day-out, which subsequently annoyed the rest of the cast and crew!
- Darren Burrows of "Northern Exposure" fame appears in this episode as Pfeiffer. He also played Bernard in "The X-Files" episode "Monday."
- The title might be a play on "Maximum Bob", a novel by Elmore Leonard, about a Florida hanging judge. It was also a summer replacement series starring Beau Bridges. It may also be a homage to the real "Maximum John," Sirica, the presiding judge in the trials of the "Watergate" conspirators (H.R. Haldeman, G.Gordon Liddy, etc).
- Guest star Kevin McNulty has also made appearances on "The X-Files" in "Squeeze", "Soft Light", and "Apocrypha" (returning to the role of Agent Fuller from "Squeeze") and he has appeared in several "Millennium" episodes. Guest star Robert LaSardo was "Cissy Alvarez" in "The X-Files" episode "The Amazing Maleeni."
- The Sam Houston Motor Lodge is an in-joke. It was used in the "The X-Files" episode "Bad Blood," written by Vince Gilligan who co-wrote this episode.
- The tunes for this episode were Elvis Presley classics. Jimmy does a decent rendition of "(You Ain't Nothin' but a) Hound Dog," and the boys are behind bars to "Jailhouse Rock."
- Lost from this episode are clips from two or three scenes involving backstory on Doug Pfeiffer. When Alberta comes to the Lone Gunmen, she shows the Gunmen a small, rather expensive collectors figurine. She explains that her son, when he was young, knew that she loved them, and so he would save up his money and buy a new one for her every week. In the scene where Byers first approaches Pfeiffer in the infirmary, the figurines are mentioned as something Pfeiffer's mother had said about him. In the scene where Pfeiffer calls Byers over to talk, he says that he wants to talk about the figurines, then says that he didn't buy them for his mother, he'd stolen all of them, and hence had never been the person his mother thought he was.
Episode review