Our journey through The X-Files continues with the game-changing Season Two. We may be through two-thirds of Season Three already in our rewatch (join us on Twitter on Friday nights at 7:30 EST with the hashtag #TrustNoOne!) but that doesn’t mean we weren’t going to reflect on the iconic Season Two which saw two mythology arcs that changed the face of the show as we knew it and became some of the gold-standard of 90s television. Read on for all our feels. — Kim
- Favorite Mythology Episode?
Sage: This question feels particularly unfair when the two most impactful (and technically excellent) of the show’s mythology arcs happen in Season Two. But the answer is still easily “Anasazi.” How could it not be?
I’d venture that the majority of X-Files fans will always care less about the conspiracies in their totality than they do about how those conspiracies warp the lives of our heroes. And in the first episode of this three-parter, we learn that Mulder’s entire existence has been shaped by the Syndicate’s actions and the subsequent cover-up — to a far greater degree than he was previously aware — and it is devastating. It’s also a revelation we barely have time to process before the shocking return of Alex Krycek, who we haven’t seen for nineteen episodes, and his hit on Mulder’s cowardly father.
But wait, there’s more: Mulder and Scully have encrypted evidence of the government’s knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrials in hand, and the tape includes several mentions of Scully’s name. Mulder is being slowly driven insane by his building’s tainted tap water and punches Skinner square in the face in view of several witnesses. Scully undresses Mulder off-screen (it’s the only possible explanation!) after he stumbles into her apartment, and three scenes later, she shoots her partner to save him from being sent to jail for double murder. Not to be outdone, CSM orders for a boxcar in the middle of the desert containing the corpses of dozens of alien lifeforms — and possibly Mulder — to be set on fire. To paraphrase Judy Geller at that one Thanksgiving, “That’s a lot of information to get in 42 minutes.”
“Anasazi” really does the most, pushing the show’s mythology forward in at least half a dozen distinct ways. Yet it doesn’t sacrifice character for plot, and it gives the actors some meaty moments to chew on. Best of all, it exposes that the agents and their work are now inextricably intertwined, when Mulder’s family history runs parallel to that of the Syndicate, and Scully has been implicated in something covert, evil, and unimaginably far-reaching against her will.
Kim: When we decided to do these posts, I told myself I wasn’t going to pick “Anasazi” for this question because it is so intrinsically tied to Season Three’s “The Blessing Way” and “Paper Clip” and the abduction arc, which changed the entire course of the show, is RIGHT THERE but here I am, choosing “Anasazi” for my favorite mythology episode of Season Two.
I’m nothing if not predictable.
Because at the end of the day, as great as “Anasazi” is as part one of a trilogy, it also stands on its own as an incredibly strong episode. It’s the best season finale of the series, and that’s saying something considering that The X-Files nails every single season finale for nine seasons. It’s as powerful now as it was the first time I saw it in the summer of 1998. (Will I ever not SCREAM when Krycek appears in the mirror lying in wait to kill Bill Mulder? No.) The abduction arc and the Anasazi arc both blow the world of The X-Files wide open. Sage and I infamously went back and forth over which trilogy represented the best of the show when we picked our top 15 episodes for the show’s 20th anniversary. For me, “Anasazi” wins because as great as the abduction arc is, it sidelines half of our dynamic duo, even if it is out of necessity. Seeing Scully down in the trenches with Mulder will always do it for me. We go from Scully saying she wouldn’t put herself of the line for anyone other than Mulder in “Tooms” to seeing her actually do it, going so far as to literally shoot to save him from himself. It’s a certified banger and not just the best of the series, it deserves a place in the television hall of fame.
- Favorite Standalone Episode?
Kim: Don’t get me wrong. I love how The X-Files explores the paranormal and how it delves into science fiction, challenging our beliefs in life beyond this planet and believing in the unbelievable. Obviously I do, I wouldn’t watch the show to begin with if not. But I also love how The X-Files can poke and probe at the human psyche and posit that human beings can be far more monstrous than any alien threat could ever be. “Irresistible” would not be out of place in a season of Law & Order: SVU or Bones and for me, that’s what makes it so great. Sometimes there’s nothing more comforting than a good ole procedural episode about a necrophiliac death fetishist. The horror and depravity of Donnie Pfaster is something truly unexplainable, something that your basic “well, he hated his mother” explanation can’t fully satisfy the WHY of it. That alone makes it worthy of being called an X-File.
Plus, I am ALWAYS a sucker for a classic hurt/comfort situation and boy, that last scene with Scully’s stubbornly brave “I’m fine, Mulder,” and the chin wobble and the gentle way Mulder tilts her face up to look at him and the way she collapses into his solid embrace and the way he cups the back of her head as she cries into his shoulder? The way he 100% sneaks a kiss to the crown of her head? Bitch, that’s the stuff of Gossamer Archive legend. Does it make me a bad feminist because I absolutely eat that shit up? Maybe. But I will say this about The X-Files. Three episodes later, Mulder is the one in peril and Scully is the one moving mountains to save him. Equal opportunity hurt/comfort!!!
Sage: Some truly classic MOTW episodes come out of this season, including the writing debuts of fandom faves Darin Morgan and Vince Gilligan. So color me surprised that I’m choosing an hour by Chris Carter of all people for this question. When he’s on, he’s on, and that’s how we got “Irresistible,” I guess.
Not to sound too incredulous, but given what we’re in for in the future with this show and womanhood, “Irresistible” is surprisingly nuanced in its portrayal of Scully’s visceral response to the case and Pfaster, as well as the obliviousness of the men around her to it. It’s not a matter of gore and violence, it’s a matter of motive, and neither her partner nor Agent Bocks (a delightfully Dragnet-y Bruce Weitz) understand how exhausting and frightening it is to be constantly aware of the hatred of women that drives their suspect. The network nixed Chris’ initial plan to make Pfaster’s escalating interest in necrophilia explicit, but the intention bleeds through, to horrifying effect.
Gillian is excellent in this episode — and barely out of the delivery room, god love her. Nick Chinlund gives a hall-of-fame guest performance that still chills me to the bone. And while there’s an unfortunate ret-con waiting for us in the future, “Irresistible” hinges on the show’s commitment to portraying a villain who’s only supernatural in the sense that the things he does and wants to do can barely be classified as human. Good, good stuff.
- Least Favorite Episode?
Kim: Listen. I understand that Gillian Anderson needed to miss an episode to have a baby. (A SINGLE EPISODE. The woman is a hero and an icon.) I understand that Gillian’s miniscule maternity leave meant that we would have a solo Mulder outing, but did that outing have to be “3”? What kind of nonsense, low-rent, faux Red Shoe Diaries nonsense was that??
Sage: It’s not that there aren’t several contenders for this dubious honor in Season Two, it’s just that the placement of “3” makes it so egregious that there’s simply no other way to go. (Maybe next time, “Fearful Symmetry.”) Right smack in the middle of one of the most meaningful, beautifully realized arcs of the show, we get this miserable attempt at a supernatural erotic thriller. If “3” were content with feeding us an absolutely snooze-worthy take on the vampire myth, that might be enough to doom it. But it also features such a wildly out-of-character Mulder that I have to wonder if Chris Carter even had time to glance at the script before it went into production. At the very least, David is extremely hot in it (and wearing a missing Scully’s chain like a true Byronic hero)… and “Bad Blood” is now a mere two seasons away.
- Scariest Episode?
Sage: Not only is “Die Hand Die Verletzt” the scariest episode of The X-Files Season Two, it is the scariest episode of The X-Files full stop, and, dare I say, the second scariest episode of television that I personally have ever seen. (The title will always and forever be held by Six Feet Under’s “That’s My Dog.” If you know, you unfortunately know.) Listening to the episode of Kumail Nanjiani’s podcast where they discussed this one was a wild experience, because while I get the satire of the satanic school board, I am too scarred by Mrs. Paddock and the fetal pig to ever consider this one of the series’ comedies.
Susan Blommaert is so good in “Die Hand Die Verletzt” that she gives me the creeps in other, otherwise innocuous things. (This is very inconvenient since she’s a very busy character actress and has been for decades.) And while the cowardly parents and teachers using the devil’s influence to quash their petty squabbles and keep their small town in white, middle-class line are certainly meant to add a bit of dark humor to the proceedings, their brand of bureaucratic, “who me?” evil reads much differently in 2022.
Kim: I know I talk about the VHS releases a lot and I will continue to do so because they are what birthed me into this fandom. I’ve already talked about my love for “Irresistible,” now allow me to rhapsodize about its VHS companion, “Die Hand Die Verletzt,” aka the only episode of The X-Files that actually, truly, madly, deeply scared the ever-loving shit out of me. I don’t know if it was because I was already disturbed from watching “Irresistible” or because I’m a product of a relatively conservative Christian upbringing that absolutely did not fuck with the devil or demonic possession but this episode left me pressing the pause button on the VCR so I could run around the house turning every single light I could on whilst chanting to myself, “It’s only a TV show, it’s only a TV show.”
That’s a lie. I know exactly what did it. It was that fucking scene where the fucking door to the basement creaked open and the goddamn snake of Satan slowly slithered down the stairs towards its unsuspecting victim. X-Files lore tells us that the actor Dan Butler, who played Jim Ausbury, was genuinely terrified of snakes and therefore his horror in that scene is completely real. Same, my dude, same. The very thought of that scene makes me want to curl up in the fetal pig position even now, twenty-four years after seeing it for the first time. I can’t IMAGINE actually filming it, he deserves a goddamn medal.
- Underrated Episode?
Kim: My criteria for this category is basically me saying, “Well, I enjoyed that one much more than I remembered” once the credits roll or me turning to Sage halfway through the episode and saying, “Y’know, this one is not that bad!” It sounds like backhanded praise but y’all, there are some episodes of this series that I truly had convinced myself were clunkers. Sometimes, like with “Fearful Symmetry,” my memory served me correctly because good lord, that episode is awful. And sometimes, like with “The Calusari,” I realize that I may have perhaps unfairly written an episode off when I shouldn’t have.
I mean, look. “The Calusari” is a fine and solid episode. It’s bottom middle, especially in Season Two, which has so many highs, but it gets the job done. I always enjoy when The X-Files explores religious mysticism. That shit is freaky!! The whole episode has a very Exorcist feel and has some genuinely terrifying sequences from a very Scream-esque death via garage door (that actually pre-dates the movie, so maybe I should say Tatum’s death is X-Files-esque) to the harrowing final ritual the Calusari perform to separate the souls of Charlie and Michael. Joel Palmer’s performance is everything you could want from a creepy child (he eerily resembles Henry Thomas in E.T. too) and it’s one of the few episodes written by a woman. At the end of the day, it’s not an episode I would ever recommend to someone, but it’s one I would definitely sit and watch if I came upon it channel surfing. And sometimes that’s all an episode of television needs to be, especially when there’s a 25 episode order to fill.
Sage: I love mythology episodes that don’t initially come across like mythology episodes, because they make the series feel more whole and cohesive. For this and a few other reasons, “Red Museum” really stood out to me during this rewatch. It was originally meant to be a crossover with Picket Fences (the networks quashed those plans), which explains the quirkiness — not usually a quality I associate with our show’s conspiracy stories. There’s a lot going on in “Red Museum,” the plot packing in everything from a vegetarian cult to the death of Deep Throat’s assassin. But it all cleverly hangs together somehow, while leaving behind some tantalizing bread crumbs. (What is Purity Control??) This mid-season episode is also home to one of the most underrated shipper moments of the early years: Mulder gently wiping sauce from the corner of Scully’s mouth while they’re sampling some of the town’s famous barbecue, a move she visibly finds charming. We’re not even a quarter of the way through this slow-burn canon, and these two are already killing me.
- Best Mulder Moment?
Kim: David Duchovny really steps up to the plate and hits it out of the park in the “Duane Barry” trilogy. Full transparency, I was going to cheat on this one and just name his performance across all three episodes as my best Mulder moment of the season. The range he has! We get to see Profiler Mulder in his hostage negotiations with Duane Barry. We get to see broken and despondent Mulder, desperate and vengeful Mulder, and soft, gentle Mulder in “One Breath.” We get to see him go absolutely feral as he interrogates Duane Barry in “Ascension.” It’s all so, so, so good. But I think what sticks with me the most out of the trilogy is Mulder’s dogged determination in his initial pursuit of Duane Barry which culminates in a race up Skyland Mountain in a creaky cable car that’s pushed to its limits. It’s one of the most tense and visually thrilling sequences of the entire series and Duchovny famously insisted on doing as many of the stunts as the show’s insurance policy would allow and then some. Just call him the Tom Cruise of the Small Screen.
Sage: Not to overstate it, but in “One Breath,” Mulder comes to a crossroads, and the path he takes quite simply redefines his life. In the wake of Scully’s return, he’s handed a gift-wrapped opportunity to both get answers and take revenge. And especially for someone who has, up until now, lived his life so recklessly and with an almost mythic disregard for his own wellbeing and reputation, it’s tempting. But Mulder is no longer alone, and no matter how hard he may try to convince himself that he would be taking that revenge for Scully, he knows that he would really be doing it for himself.
I love the way that the Scully family represents the spiritual and throws into relief Mulder’s discomfort with death and with the idea of crossing over, and that Melissa already — almost certainly because of everything her sister has told her about him — clocks his avoidance of that hospital room for what it is: fear. His natural mode is to keep moving, to channel his anger over what’s been done to his partner into some kind of action. It’s not easy for Mulder to give up on that. But when he does, he feels the power of it, and understands how showing up for her, just to be there and give her his energy, is his job now. It makes me weepy every time.
- Best Scully Moment?
Sage: I get such a kick every time Scully rolls up to a situation already in progress and asks to speak to the manager. The two instances I’m thinking of in Season Two are in “Duane Barry,” when she interrupts the hostage negotiation to tell the agent in charge he’s doing it wrong, and in “End Game,” when she shouts at the field hospital staff until they take Mulder out of the warming bath and put him on ice. In both cases, she probably saved his life. She’s the only good Karen I know.
Kim: We don’t get to see much of Scully’s sense of humor in these early seasons as she’s usually playing the straight person to Mulder’s many quips with many an eyeroll or dry comeback. When it does come out though, it’s playful and surprisingly wicked, from the way she skewers Phoebe’s accent to freak Mulder out in “Fire” (Sage’s Scully moment of Season One) to the way she helps herself to a live grasshopper in “Humbug,” popping it her mouth without even flinching, much to the surprise of the two men she’s with. It’s the way she deadass looks Blockhead in the eye and thanks him before she does it because she KNOWS he was expecting her to be grossed out. It’s in the way she smugly waggles her eyebrows and smirks before she walks away. And THEN it’s in the way she has the fucking nerve to teasingly pull said grasshopper out of Mulder’s ear just to show him that it was a sleight of hand trick. (Always dedicated to her craft, Gillian Anderson infamously actually ate the bug in the take that made it to the episode, mainly to gross David out. No choice but to stan.)
- Best Shipper Moment?
Kim: How can I properly put what the last act of “One Breath” means to me in words? I don’t know if I can. All I can say is that it’s made me into the kind of shipper I am today. First of all, we have Mulder sacrificing his opportunity to get answers in order to keep vigil at Scully’s bedside. It’s so interesting to me that Mulder is so willing to believe in the paranormal and in the unexplainable yet he always tends to struggle with and be skeptical of religion. But if he believes in one thing, just one thing, he believes in Scully and in the strength of her convictions (and her goddamn science and rationalism.) “I feel, Scully, that you believe you’re not ready to go. And you’ve always had the strength of your beliefs. I don’t know if my being here will bring you back…but I’m here.”
WHEW. Just that is enough, honestly. But when Scully gives his words back to him in her recovery room, telling him that she had the strength of HIS beliefs, confirming that not only did she know that he was there as she hovered in that liminal space between life and death, but she HEARD HIM and he gave her the strength to come back?? Between that and a VHS of “Superstars of the Super Bowl,” it’s most definitely a reason to live.
Sage: I’M SORRY, I have two. They are the OTP of my lifetime, and I cannot be chill about them. I did limit myself to one serious moment and one flirty, because I love you folks and I respect your time. You’re so welcome.
Semi-serious moment first: The beginning of Season Two is the first time we see Mulder and Scully separated, and while he’s taking it worse, neither of them is taking it what I would call “well.” And, like…simply moving on is not even entertained as an option. The Syndicate said “You’re broken up,” and Mulder and Scully replied, “No, we’re just long distance now.”
There’s something so intimate about not only recording your voice for someone but also speaking directly to them in those recordings, so yes, there’s romance in how they communicate via case notes in the time that they’re apart. Mulder and Scully’s individual work shouldn’t be each other’s concern anymore, but it’s like they’ve forgotten how to move through the world without reaching out for that hand in the darkness. The lengths they go to stay connected — and the way they sublimate their feelings through that work — really punched me in the gut this time around.
On a saucier note, let’s fast-forward to “Soft Light,” and the scene in which Scully introduces Mulder to her former student, Detective Ryan. We already know from “Jersey Devil” that Scully has been known to talk about her partner with her friends (He’s cute! He’s a jerk! He’s both!), so it’s quite believable when Ryan says she’s “heard a lot about” him. And if the tone of that comment wasn’t clear enough, Mulder bending down to mutter a flirty “We’ll talk later” in Scully’s ear and her subsequent caught-but-pleased smile do the rest of the job.
- Thirstiest Moment?
Kim: I am but a simple, basic woman so I am going to give the simple, basic answer and say the red speedo. Honestly, I still can’t believe they let David Duchovny do that on NETWORK TELEVISION, even if it was the slightly less family-friendly 9 PM on a Friday night slot. At the end of the day, yes, the red speedo may be the most basic answer to this question, but things become basic for a reason. The speedo is iconic and it’s one of the defining watercooler moments of the whole series. That little red scrap of fabric now resides in The Smithsonian and David proved that he can still rock the look 27 years later in a pitch-perfect cameo in The Chair. Yeah. I’m fine with being basic.
Sage: Everyone is hot (and their hairstyles are finally settling!), but Assistant Director Skinner earned this one. Skinner/Scully is a beloved crack ship because their scenes give it a ton of oxygen, and the appeal is no more apparent than in “End Game,” when Skinner reconsiders his initial reluctance to obtain for her the information she needs to find Mulder. And the only way of getting it, apparently, is by beating the ass of Mr. X, already established as a bad bitch you don’t want to cross.
The way we learn who won this fight is by Skinner showing up at Mulder’s door breathing heavily, glistening with sweat, and still bleeding from the lengths he went to in the name of doing what Scully asked. It’s always hot when he shows up for his two favorite unruly agents, but especially when he puts himself on the line physically and especially when it runs up against Mitch and Gillian’s natural chemistry.
Bonus BTS sexiness: The initial take of the fight didn’t look real enough for director Rob Bowman, so they tried it again with Steven Williams and Mitch doing it their own damn selves. Mitch shoved Steven into the wall so hard that they broke the set. Just something to think about! I know I will.
- Grossest Moment?
Kim: Listen, it’s a pretty gross season from everything regarding Flukeman to the incredibly phallic way the spores burst out of people’s necks in “Firewalker.” But in a post-COVID world, I have to give it to the bulbous exploding sores in “F. Emasculata,” which were gross to begin with but are made ten billion times grosser after dealing with a global pandemic for the past two and a half years. Scully, love of my life, hero to all, girl, you are a MEDICAL DOCTOR. How are you not wearing like five N95s around these people?????
Sage: “F. Emasculata” is a much different watch in a post-pandemic world, but a pulsating pustule is a pulsating pustule, whenever you happen to be looking at it. A very disgusted hats off to the makeup and effects departments for rigging wounds that exploded bodily fluids whenever the story required it.
- Funniest Moment?
Sage: “Humbug” writer Darin Morgan’s disdain for Mulder as a character is the stuff of fandom legend (and truth), and only acceptable because he channels it in the most entertaining ways. It’s both shade and genius to determine that a community of freaks, who revel in their strangeness, would see classically handsome, white-bread Fox Mulder as the antithesis of everything interesting, unique, and radical. “You see, I’ve seen the future and the future looks just like him,” Dr. Blockhead tells Scully, as Mulder unconsciously poses out in the distance. “Imagine going through your whole life looking like that.”
Kim: The shot of Mulder standing in the sunlight with his hands on his hips looking like Adonis as he stares into the distance all dreamy like in “Humbug” is forever seared into my memory, and not just because David Duchovny looks gorgeous. No. It was the moment where I was like…is this show making fun of its leading man and his sex symbol status? When the script is written by the brilliant Darin Morgan, the answer is always yes, of course it is.
- Best Monster/Villain?
Kim: Alex Krycek is the character we had no idea The X-Files needed until he showed up all wet behind the ears and too eager to work with Mulder. Obviously, we already have a big bad in Cigarette Smoking Man, but there’s something about a nemesis who is also a contemporary. I love how they bring Krycek on, how at first he’s just more of a thorn in Mulder’s side over the course of the case in “Sleepless,” how it seems like he’s just gonna be one of those one and done obnoxious and by the book agents who always pop up in a procedural.
The reveal that Alex is actually a mole for CSM at the end of the episode is brilliant because it creates a true sense of dread to see him working with Mulder through the entirety of “Duane Barry” and “Ascension.” Then he fucking disappears and doesn’t come back until the season finale, a whopping nineteen episode later, and it’s one of the most shocking moments of the series. I think my favorite thing about Krycek is that at the end of the day, his only loyalty is to himself and whatever will help him survive another day. I’m always delighted when he shows up and to this day, whenever Nicholas Lea pops up in a series I scream “DO NOT TRUST THAT MAN” at my television.
Sage: Can’t beat the literal devil from the Bible and other related works. It’s gotta be Mrs. Paddock and her pet anaconda.
- Right in the Feels moment?
Sage: I remember the first time I watched it feeling a little cheated by how brief Mulder and Scully’s first scene together after she wakes up in “One Breath” is, but all it took was time and life experience for me to appreciate it so much more. At this point, they’ve still only known each other for little more than a year, and her family is there, so it’s no wonder that Mulder is so sweet and tentative about encroaching on their time. And since there is an audience, we can only guess at what else he might have wanted to say to her in that moment. Scully, however, is warm and open from whatever she just experienced, and she harbors no such inhibition.
“I had the strength of your beliefs,” she tells him, simply and directly, and wow. I mean, what a thing to say to someone when you’ve returned from the brink of actual death! It stuns Mulder a little, because he’s so used to being the pebble in everybody’s shoe and not at all to the idea that he could have changed someone for the better. (Alexa, play “For Good.”) There are a lot of lines exchanged between these two that could be translated into an “I love you,” were the interpreter so inclined, and this is one of the earliest.
Honorable mention to Frohike, Scully’s #2 admirer, showing up to the hospital dressed to the nines to pay his respects.
Kim: Sit down, folks. I’m gonna tell you why Bill Mulder is a bastard who, quite frankly, deserved what he got when Alex Krycek gunned him down in his own home.
Fox Mulder’s entire life has been defined by his sister’s abduction and his subsequent search for answers. The loss of Samantha created this gaping wound in his heart that has never healed, so it’s no wonder that when she mysteriously shows up in “Colony” that he takes everything she says at face value despite the overwhelming amount of red flags. He desperately wants everything she says to be true because it means he will finally, finally be absolved of what he considers his greatest sin and relieved of this burden. It’s already heartwrenching when he’s put in the position of having to choose between Scully and his long lost sister because of course he’s going to move heaven and earth to save his partner. (I gotta give it up to Fauxmantha for her willingness to put herself on the line here. She knows there are more of her and there’s only one Scully.) It’s devastating when it all goes to shit on the bridge and Mulder has to helplessly watch as he loses his sister yet again. And then…AND THEN Mulder has to tell his father about it. I don’t know what word is worse than devastating. Maybe there are no words to truly capture how awful this is.
MULDER: Samantha’s gone… Dad. I lost her.
BILL: What do you mean, you lost her?
MULDER: There was a man… he was holding my partner hostage in exchange for Samantha.
BILL: You let this man take your sister. Isn’t that what you’re trying to tell me?
MULDER: I, I can’t explain it to you, but, um… I believed I was doing the right thing, Dad.
BILL: Was this your decision?
MULDER: Yes. I’ll tell Mom.
BILL: Do you realize what losing her again is going to do to your mother? (They look at each other. Mulder is about to cry.) Do you?
(Mulder tries to say something but can’t. He looks down at the floor, crying.)
MULDER: I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry. I’m… I’m sorry.
And this…this is why Bill Mulder can rot in hell. FIRST OF ALL, the man offers zero comfort to his son, who is standing before him completely broken. Second, this man knew the whole time that it wasn’t really Samantha because he knows what HAPPENED to Samantha because HE WAS THE ONE behind it. Like how little of a soul do you have to have to not only perpetuate this lie that has tormented your son his whole life but then have the NERVE to be like, “Do you know what this is going to do to your mother?” when he confesses his guilt over losing her again. What a fucking monster, I swear to God.
- Best “Mulder, you’re lucky you’re so cute” moment?
Kim: Fox Mulder dragged Dana Scully to Minneapolis for a case that he KNEW wasn’t an X-File just so he could take her to a football game, a sport which she has never expressed any interest in before. Sir. You could just ask her out to dinner. It would be significantly easier.
Sage: It’s one of those lines I know well but forgot was coming, so in “Aubrey,” when Mulder tells Scully that one of the reasons he wants to take the Chaney case is because he’s “always been intrigued by women named B.J.,” I screamed. You are at work, sir. Someone collect this man.
- Best Guest Star?
Kim: Season Two had a full roster of future television icons making guest appearances, from Terry O’Quinn to Bradley Whitford to Tony Shahloub. With all respect to those men, I am going to go with Melinda McGraw as Melissa Scully. It’s a tall order casting Dana Scully’s big sister, but from the moment we see Melinda on the screen it’s like we know exactly who she is with her Stevie Nicks-esque dresses and the crystal choker. Yet for all her witchy vibes, Melissa never comes off as flighty and that’s all down to the gravitas that Melinda brings to her performance. She’s really the only one can get through to Mulder in “One Breath,” both because she speaks his language and she remains the fiercest of advocates for her sister through everything. In a single episode, Melissa Scully becomes one of the more beloved characters in the X-Files universe, and you can’t ask for more than that when it comes to a guest star.
Sage: Duane Barry is an operatic role for a genre series guest star, and Steve Railsback makes the absolute most of it, eliciting pity and fear in equal measure. And while the character of Daniel Trepkos is ever so slightly less operatic, I will always be here for young and hunky Bradley Whitford in a little headband.
- Favorite 90s Fashion?
Sage: Mulder’s cornflower blue scoop-neck Wal-Mart tank top from “Anasazi,” easily.
Kim: I really love the green shawl-neck blouse that Scully rocks in “Anasazi.” Her wardrobe usually consists of so many neutrals, with the occasional foray into muted jewel tones, so it was lovely seeing a pop of color. (Green! On a redhead! What a concept.) Plus, it draped beautifully on her and felt really feminine.
- Sum up your feelings about the season.
Sage: IMO, Season Two is quite literally when my show becomes my show. It introduces some of our most important recurring characters, and so much of what happens will continue to reverberate throughout the rest of the series. The happy accident of Gillian’s pregnancy (not saying that was an accident, lol, just that the writers room was expecting to have her for a full season) changed everything, and how lucky we are that it did. Her abduction raises the stakes considerably and binds her and Mulder together permanently in this fight. With Samantha’s abduction in the past, Scully being taken adds an urgency to the nefarious conspiracy that was missing in Season One. And on Mulder’s end, he’s forced to confront his own family’s complicity in the very cover-up he’s trying to expose. It’s a lot, but David and Gillian are both up for the challenge.
All in all, the mythology episodes outshine the MOTW episodes in this season, but that list still includes some classics — “Irresistible,” “Humbug,” and “The Host” among them. You can tell that the writers are now writing more towards the characters as we’ve come to know them, as well as the actors and their strengths. There are still some misses, to be sure, but it’s beginning to feel less like we’re throwing everything at the wall.
Kim: Everything about Season Two is bigger and bolder and more exciting, building on what was already a pretty fucking big and bold and exciting debut season. What’s truly amazing is that there is zero evidence of any growing pains that could come along with more hype and a bigger budget. In fact, the bigger the scale of Season Two got, the more confident it got in its storytelling. There’s just…zero hesitation in every aspect of the show. David and Gillian are more confident in their characters and in their chemistry. The visual style of the directing roster is stronger, the writing is sharper, with distinct voices starting to emerge from within the staff, voices that will shape the rest of the series from Frank Spotnitz to Darin Morgan to God himself, Vince Gilligan.
The season feels massive and not just because of that twenty-five episode count. It feels like we live a thousand different life times between “Little Green Men” and “Anasazi.” Sure, there are some clunker episodes along the way and they stand out because everything else is just so fucking good. Whatever the opposite of a sophomore slump is, that’s what Season Two of The X-Files is.
Do you have any favorite memories from Season Two? Let us know in the comments and follow along with us on Twitter every Friday night as we continue Season Three.
[…] Alas, she was sacrificed to the plot gods. But not before making an impact on Mulder. I wrote in the Season Two post about Melissa confronting Mulder about his avoidance when Scully was in the hospital, and I think […]