(think: Twin Peaks, and I'm not talking about Kyle MacLachlan, who is one of the two leads) robbing a bank (brutally shooting everyone in his path) and roaring off in a Ferrari, with the cops in hot pursuit, blaring aforementioned now-very-corny-sounding music at top volume. He is eventually forced to crash and then shot multiple times and burned up when the Ferrari explodes in the time-honored movie fashion. However, he is apparently not dead yet, to the disgust of the detective who recount to his doctor all the mayhem he has perpetrated over the past week or so (this isn't his first bank, and he's also killed kids with knives), even if he looks like he'll never wake up. However, he does, and he drags his fatally damaged body over to the bed next door, opens his mouth wide, and... cue disgusting alien symbiote!
And now Kyle MacLachlan makes his appearance, introducing himself to the lead LA detective (an actor I've never heard of who looks like a soap star) as FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher from Seattle (and this was before Twin Peaks!) who has been following the man. Of course, the fact that the man is dead is supposed to close the case, but clearly this "FBI Agent" already knows that this is not some ordinary fugitive. In fact, he has been following a series of men, each of which had no history of violence or criminality until very recently, and the first of whom (says Gallagher) killed his partner. They then get word of another body, which we know about because we have already seen the current symbiote host (who looks about 60 and has convincingly alien starey eyes, but who is a sub-optimal host because he has advanced heart disease (he was in hospital for a reason)) stealing tapes and a boombox from a music store on Melrose and smashing the clerk's head in when he objected. He then eats at a diner
(playing his tapes loudly, to the annoyance of the other clientele) before ripping off another Ferrari (killing the car dealer, played by the guy who played Becker's boss in The Rockford Files, in the process). He also makes off with the wallet of the guy who was about to buy the Ferrari, who turns out to be an arms dealer, which provides him with a nice arsenal. However, he realizes he hasn't got long as the body keeps keeling over, and the symbiote pokes little tendrils out of his arm, forcing him to bandage himself with duct tape. Then it's off to a strip club where he switches to one of the strippers.
Meanwhile, after clashing with the strangely alien (is that just because it's Kyle MacLachlan?) Gallagher, our Detective Tom Beck has warmed to him a little (despite his love for driving his sports car dangerously fast) and invites him home to meet his family. Gallagher seems strangely drawn to Beck's young daughter, and they exchange inexplicable glances. Gallagher also reveals that the fugitive also killed his wife and daughter (you'd think he'd lead with that) and that he comes from a town located [points upward] that Beck's wife interprets as meaning "up North," even though its name sounds very non-American.
Gallagher and Beck almost get the symbiote when they corner the stripper on the roof of a warehouse. She's pumped full of holes and out of ammo, at which point Gallagher drops his gun and pulls out a strange item that looks like a melted lump of silver and points it at her, apparently waiting for the symbiote to emerge.
But our stripper says "it's not over" and jumps off the building. Then, before Gallagher can get to the corpse, the symbiote hops to the dog of the chief of police. Meanwhile, Beck does some digging around and finds out that Agent Lloyd Gallagher is dead, apparently killed by his partner Stone, who looks an awful lot like Kyle MacLachlan. So he slaps Gallagher in jail, and gives his molten silver lump to the station nerd to examine. Of course the symbiote hops to the Chief (sidenote, the way you can tell that someone is the symbiote is that it does a funny thing with its tongue, and somehow they even get the dog to do that) and the next day he's on his way to kill "Gallagher" when he hears the nerd set off the alien symbiote-killing-gun (which destroys walls, but has no effect on humans, which is why Gallagher had to wait for the symbiote to leave the stripper and couldn't just shoot her with it). Anyway, the "Chief" gets the zapper, so now he can't be killed, right? Except, he runs into Beck and gives away that he's not the Chief by saying "I shot you once, I'm looking forward to shooting you again," at which point Beck gets the zapper back (showing great presence of mind) and runs to spring Gallagher before the Chief can get to him.
From then on it's non-stop carnage, involving just about every cop we've been introduced to so far, plus a Senator/Presidential candidate. Oh, and throw in a flamethrower. But, alas, the symbiote does get to shoot Beck again, and he's a goner, right? But can "Gallagher" do something about it? And what does Beck's daughter know?
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