my top 50 episodes of the x-files
Feb. 4th, 2012 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naushikaWe had to revisit a challenge in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tvrealm, and I decided to do another top 50. This time, because I'm in a really nostalgic mood, I chose to do my favorite episodes of The X-Files.
WHY THE X-FILES? OTHER THAN THIS IS AN AWESOME SHOW? (AND I JUDGE YOU IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A SCIFI FAN AND YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT.) Because The X-Files was groundbreaking tv. It's inspired a lot of the great shows today, at least in part: Lost. Bones. Castle. Fringe. (Hell, everything JJ Abrams has done that isn't Star Trek, really.)
I just. This show. It's an amazing specimen of tv. It's my favorite show ever, and it will always live in the number one spot. At times it's funny, at times its sad, or beautiful, or silly, or dark, or scary, or just honest and true. It's a love story, a story of friendship. Of course it has its shitty episodes, like any show, but its amazing episodes are out of this world. The world of the paranormal is merely its setting, not its plot. It's ultimately a story about people struggling to find meaning.
EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH THE X-FILES, THE END, NOW SCULLY WILL DEMONSTRATE MY EMOTIONS.
So without further ado..
50. Firewalker
Mulder: Well, maybe you should take some time off.
Scully: I've already lost too much time.
OK I GOTTA PUT IN A NOTE. This is actually not a very good episode. lmao. But this was the very first episode of the X-Files I saw. November 18th, 1994. I was 11 years old. And I fell instantly in love. I triple-checked with my parents the date and time of this show, and informed them I would be watching from then on. AND I DID. So, this episode was the start of a magical journey for me, despite how crappy it actually is, so it will always be on a favorites list for me somewhere. <3
49. Pilot
Scully: The answers are there, you just have to know where to look.
Mulder: That's why they put the 'I' in FBI.
OMG THEY'RE BABIES AND IT'S ADORABLE AND IT'S THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL AND IT'S AWKWARD IN ITS OWN SPECIAL WAY AND OMG.
48. Demons
Scully: Although cleared of any wrongdoing in the deaths of Amy and David Cassandra, Agent Mulder still has no recollection of the events that lead to their deaths. His seizures have subsided, with no evidence of permanent cerebral damage, but I am concerned this experience will have a lasting effect. Agent Mulder undertook this treatment hoping to lay claim to his past, that by retrieving memories lost to him he might finally understand the path he's on. But if that knowledge remains elusive, and if it's only by knowing where he's been that he can hope to understand where he's going, then I fear Agent Mulder may lose his course. And the truths he's seeking from his childhood will continue to evade him, driving him more dangerously forward in impossible pursuit.
MULDER IS A WOOBIE
47. En Ami
Cigarette Smoking Man: That which makes miracles, can also make great evil.
SCULLY GOES ON A DATE WITH THE CANCER MAN AND IT'S AWK.
46. Tithonus
Scully: He's right. Tell me, Ritter, did he have any help concocting that story?
Agent Ritter: Look, Fellig is a murderer. Whether or not he did this specific one, I don't care-- not if it buys me a few days in the box with him.
Scully: No judge is going to issue a warrant based on this.
Agent Ritter: No, no, no. I know the judge. We'll have it by noon. You know, Kersh warned me about you.
Scully: Uh, he did?
Agent Ritter: Yeah - you and your partner. God knows his reputation precedes him so I guess I should have seen this coming. You muck up my case, and Kersh'll hear about it. Are we clear, Dana?
Scully: Scully. And we're done with this conversation.
THE EPISODE THAT MADE SCULLY IMMORTAL YOU THINK I'M JOKING BUT I'M NOT
45. Elegy
Scully: (talking to her psychiatrist about Mulder) I guess I never realized how much I rely on him before this. His passion... he's been a great source of strength that I've drawn on.
This is a pretty good time to point out that Gillian Anderson is the BEST. CRYER. EVER. She cries = I cry. Every time.
44. Little Green Men
Mulder: Before I could only trust myself. Now I can only trust you. And they have taken you away from me.
MULDER ANGSTS ABOUT THE X-FILES BEING SHUT DOWN (FIRST TIME OF MANY LOL) AND ALSO ANGSTS ABOUT HIS MISSING SISTER AND ALSO JUST ANGSTS IN GENERAL
43. First Person Shooter
Mulder: We came, we saw, we conquered. And if the taste of victory is sweet, the taste of virtual victory is not Sweet 'N Low, nor the bullets made of sugar. Maybe out past where the imagination ends our true natures lie, waiting to be confronted on their own terms. Out where the intellect is at war with the primitive brain in the hostile territory of the digital world where laws are silent and rules disappear in the midst of arms. Born in anarchy with an unquenchable bloodthirst we shudder to think what might rise up from the darkness.
Haters gonna god damn hate, but this episode is fun. THERE I SAID IT. Also, look at that sweet, sweet philosophy from Mulder. COME ON.
42. Kill Switch
Scully: Electrons chasing each other through a circuit - that isn’t life, Mulder.
Mulder: Yeah, but what are we but impulses? Electrical and chemical through a bag of meat and bones. You’re the scientist. You tell me.
KUNG FU SCULLY.
41. Paper Hearts
Scully: You said it yourself, once - "a dream is an answer to a question we haven't learned how to ask."
MORE MULDER ANGST OVER HIS MISSING SISTER
40. Deep Throat
Scully: You believe it all, don't you?
Mulder: Why wouldn't I?
Scully: Mulder, did you see their eyes? If I were that stoned -
Mulder: Oooh... if you were that stoned, what?
Scully: Mulder, you could have shown that kid a picture of a flying hamburger and he would have told you that's exactly what he saw.
DEEP THROAT, YOU MAGICAL SECRET-SHARING MAN YOU.
39. Field Trip
Scully: Mulder, why did you knock? This is your apartment. And you don't seem the least bit surprised to find me here. And what about the Schiffs? I mean, if they're alive, as you say, then... then where are they? Where'd they go? Mulder, five minutes ago... this room was filled with people attending your wake.
Mulder: Well, what can I say, Scully? I'm here. I'm real.
Scully: Mulder, this is not reality. This is a hallucination. It has to be. And either I am having it, or you are having it or we are having it together.
EVERYONE HAS A BAD TRIP
38. Syzygy
Detective White: These are good kids we're talking about. Outstanding students. And the details they gave... I doubt they could have made them up
.
Scully: Let me guess. They told you about a wild beast entering in on a black mass, the drinking of blood, the sacrifice of an infant or a blond virgin.
Detective White: Yeah. That's right. Excuse me.
Scully: Where's she going?
Mulder: You don't suppose she's a virgin, do you?
Scully: I doubt she's even a blond.
THE PLANETS ALIGN AND EVERYONE TURNS INTO A CATTY BITCH AND IT'S GLORIOUS
37. Colony/End Game
Mulder: I have lived with a fragile faith built on vague memories from an experience that I could neither prove nor explain. When I was 12, my sister was taken from me, taken from our home by a force that I came to believe was extraterrestrial. This belief sustained me, fueling a quest for truths that were as elusive as the memory itself. To believe as passionately as I did was not without sacrifice, but I always accepted the risks - to my career, my reputation, my relationships, to life itself.
WOULD SOMEONE FIND SAMANTHA MULDER ALREADY
36. Quagmire
Scully: I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck. So I named my dog Queequeg. It's funny, I just realized something.
Mulder: It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?
Scully: No. How much you're like Ahab. You're so... consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?
THAT EPISODE WHERE MULDER AND SCULLY HAVE VERBAL SEX.
35. Hollywood AD
Wayne Federman: You're both crazy.
Mulder: Well, why do you say that?
Wayne Federman: (to Mulder) Well, you're crazy for believing what you believe. (to Scully) And you're crazy for not believing what he believes. I'll leave you with that. Thank you.
Mulder: I miss him already.
I have no witty comment for this one because this episode is just hilarious and also adorable. THE END.
34. The Goldberg Variation
Scully: You know in 1998, there was a British soldier who plummeted 4,500 feet when his parachute failed and he walked away with a broken rib?
Mulder: What's your point?
Scully: My point is that if there's a wind gust, or a sudden updraft and, plus, if he landed in exactly the right way, I mean, I don't know. Maybe he just got lucky.
Mulder: What if he got really, really lucky? That's your big scientific explanation, Scully? I mean, how many thousands of variables would have to convene in just the right mixture for that theory to hold water?
Scully: I don't know.
Mulder: Well, thousands.
I DON'T THINK YOU REALLY KNOW EITHER MULDER, I THINK YOU JUST MADE THAT NUMBER UP TBH
33. X-COPS
Scully: Look, Mulder, you want to talk about werewolves to me you can knock yourself out. I may not agree with you but at least I'm not going to hold it against you but this... Mulder, this could ruin your career.
Mulder: [laughing] What career? Scully, I appreciate it. You don't want me looking foolish. I do. I appreciate that.
Scully: I don't want me looking foolish, Mulder.
THEY EVEN USE THE BAD BOYS THEME IT'S SO AMAZING
32. The Amazing Maleeni
Mulder: So, basically he died of a heart attack, somebody crept up behind him, sawed his head off and then glued it back on all in the space of 30 seconds. Does that make sense to you?
Scully: No. Which makes it even stranger still because, as far as I can tell this body has been dead for over a month. I see signs of refrigeration.
Mulder: And yet he performed yesterday. What a trooper.
I really like the secondary characters in this episode. AND SCULLY LOOKS GREAT IN THAT HAT.
31. How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
Scully: I see. The dark, gothic manor... the, uh, omnipresent low fog hugging the thicket of overgrowth... Wait- is that a hound I hear baying out on the moors?
Mulder: No. Actually that was a left cheek sneak.
WHO DOESN'T LIKE A FUNNY AND ALSO SCARY CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY
30. The Rain King
Scully: Well, it seems to me that the best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is... suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.
SPOILER ALERT: SHE'S TOTALLY THINKING OF MULDER RIGHT THERE
29. Irresistible
Scully: It is somehow easier to believe, as Agent Bocks does, in aliens and UFOs, than in the kind of cold-blooded inhuman monster who could prey on the living to scavenge from the dead.
Woobie Scully :(
28. The Unnatural
Mulder: Let me get this straight: a free-spirited alien fell in love with baseball and ran away from the other non-fun-having aliens and made himself black, because that would prevent him from getting to the majors where his unspeakable secret might be discovered by an intrusive press and public and you're also implying that...
Arthur Dales: You certainly have a knack for turning chicken salad into chicken spit.
Ok the thing about this episode is, it makes me cry every time. Like one of those big sobbing breath-hitching kind of crys. IT'S SUCH A SAD STORY. But it makes up for it with ridiculous Mulder/Scully cuteness at the end. And also: JESSE L MARTIN. AND HE SINGS.
27. Piper Maru/Apocrypha
Morgan: What the hell is that?
Mulder: Looks like the fuselage of a plane.
Scully: It's a North American P-51 Mustang.
Mulder: I just got very turned on.
I'm actually kind of a weird X-Files fan in that I actually adore the mythology-related episodes. IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE BUT I DON'T ACTUALLY WATCH THE X-FILES ONLY FOR THE MULDER/SCULLY BITS LOL
26. Pusher
Scully (to Mulder): Please explain to me the scientific nature of the "whammy".
FAVORITE QUOTE EVER
25. Home
Mulder: Well, just find yourself a man with a spotless genetic makeup and a really high tolerance for being second-guessed and start pumping out the little uber-Scullys.
When this episode first aired it had a ~special warning~ before it and then they didn't replay it in reruns for like 3 years because it was sooOOoooOoo "disturbing." These days Fringe gets away with worse, but at the time I suppose it was unusual material for prime time tv, lol.
24. Jose Chung's From Outer Space
Blaine: (about Scully and Mulder) One of them was disguised as a woman, but wasn't pulling it off. Like, her hair was red, but it was a little too red, y'know? And the other one, the tall, lanky one, his face was so blank and expressionless. He didn't even seem human. I think he was a mandroid.
One of the funniest episodes of The X-Files. OF ALL TIME.
23. Squeeze
Scully: Oh my god, Mulder. It smells like... I think it's bile.
Mulder: Is there any way I can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?
ONE OF THE BEST X-FILES VILLAINS EVER. Too bad the actor went on to be super fucking creepy irl. I guess he wasn't acting much. O_O
22. Beyond the Sea
Scully: You set us up. You’re in on this with Lucas Henry. This was a trap for Mulder because he helped put you away. Well, I came here to tell you that if he dies because of what you’ve done, four days from now, no one will be able to stop me from being the one that will throw the switch and gas you out of this life for good, you son of a bitch!
ANGSTY SCULLY
21. Detour
Agent Kinsley: Last year was something of a personal revelation. We were doing an exercise called "Team Builders," where we were given two minutes to build a tower out of ordinary office furniture.
Agent Stonecypher: When I stood on Mike's shoulders and I put that electric pencil sharpener on top of the pile, we both knew - we could never have done it alone.
Mulder: (leaning over to Scully, whispering) Kill me now.
SCULLY SINGS A SONG TO MULDER
20. Sein un Zeit/Closure
Scully: Mulder, what happened? Are you sure you're all right?
Mulder: I'm fine. I'm free.
Omg another episode that makes me cry all the tears.
19. Biogenesis/The Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati
Scully: Are we born only to die? To be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth before giving way to our generations? If there is a beginning, must there be an end? We burn like fires in our time only to be extinguished. To surrender to the elements' eternal reclaim. Matter and gas... will this all end one day? Life no longer passing to life, the Earth left barren like the stars above, like the cosmos.
SCULLY LOOKS PRETTY AND HAS DEEP THOUGHTS WHILE MULDER GOES INSANE
18. Memento Mori
Scully: For the first time, I feel time like a heart beat, the seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning. The numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you–that are you–is a comfort to me now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago, and which began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions. If not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you and look at you, incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.
Holy shit huge quote but I had to. THIS EPISODE HURTS.
17. Je Souhaite
Mulder: I don't know if you noticed but, um, I never made the world a happier place.
Scully: Well, I'm fairly happy. That's something.
Scully is giddy and Mulder kills every human. OH GENIE YOU SO CRAZY.
16. Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip
Scully: I need something to put my back up against, Mulder.
Mulder: I know. I feel the same way. I feel that we've lost so much... but we've got The X-Files, and I believe what we're looking for is in them. I'm more certain than ever the truth is out there, Scully.
Scully: I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers.
MORE MYTHOLOGY, AWW YEAHHHH
15. War of the Coprophages
Mulder: Yeah, I had a praying mantis epiphany and, as a result, I screamed. No, not... not a girlie scream, but the scream of someone being confronted by some before unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet I inhabited. Did you ever notice how a praying mantis' head resembles an alien's head? I mean, the mysteries of the natural world were revealed to me that day, but instead of being astounded, I was... repulsed.
Scully: Mulder... are you sure it wasn't a girlie scream?
Another one of the funniest X-Files episodes. Also, vaguely jealous Scully. Aww yeahhh.
14. Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath
Mulder: 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 help bring you back. But I'm here.
Woobie Scully and Mulder feels ALL THE FEELINGS
13. The Post-Modern Prometheus
Scully: Psychologists often speak of the denial of an unthinkable evil or a misplacement of shared fears, anxieties taking the form of a hideous monster for whom the most horrific human attributes can be ascribed. What we can't possibly imagine ourselves capable of we can blame of the ogre, on the hunchback, on the lowly half-breed. Common sense alone will tell you that these legends, these unverified rumors, are ridiculous.
Mulder: But nonetheless, unverifiable and, therefore, true in the sense that they're believed to be true.
Scully: Is there anything that you don't believe in, Mulder?
Augh this episode is so cleverly written that I can't even express in words how much I love it.
12. Arcadia
Win Shroeder: So, good morning. So how was your first night? Peaceful?
Mulder: (looking fondly at Scully) Oh, it was wonderful. We just spooned up and fell asleep like little baby cats. Isn't that right, Honeybunch?
Scully: (forced smile) That's right, Poopyhead.
MULDER AND SCULLY GO UNDERCOVER AND PRETEND TO BE MARRIED FOR A CASE. NO FURTHER EXPLANATION REQUIRED.
11. Unusual Suspects
Frohike: Me and the narc have a proposition for you.
Langly: What proposition?
Frohike: The coolest hack in the world.
Langly: Say it. [Frohike hesitates] Say it...
Frohike: [grudgingly] ...Your kung fu is the best.
The beginning of the Lone Gunmen!! And how they meet Mulder! And it's full of 80s goodness! I love the Lone Gunmen so much. ;_;
10. Humbug
Sheriff Hamilton: [to Scully] Are you sure it was the brother you saw? Maybe it was the Fiji Mermaid who jumped in the sea and swam back to Fiji.
Mulder: [to Scully] Now you know how I feel.
THIS EPISODE IS SO WEIRD AND I LOVE IT.
09. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
Clyde Bruckman: I have only one dream. I dream it ever night. You're not one of those people who turns everything into a sexual symbol, are you?
Mulder: No, no, I'm not a Freudian, no.
Clyde Bruckman: I'm lying naked in a field of red tulips. I'm not concerned with where I am or how I got there. I'm at peace and it's then that I realize I'm dead. My body begins to turn a greenish-white with spots of purple. Next, the insects arrive. The inevitable follows, putridity and liquescence. Before I know it, I'm nothing but bones. When I start fading to dust, I lose whatever care I still might have had about where my clothes are and as I begin to feel myself slipping away towards I know not what... I wake up. Well, good night.
This episode has a lot of hilarious moments and a lot of sad moments. The X-Files is a total master of the comedy/drama combo. ALSO I FUCKING LOVE THE STUPPENDOUS YAPPI.
OH AND REMEMBER THE COMMENT I MADE ABOUT SCULLY BEING MADE IMMORTAL IN THE EP TITHONUS?
Scully: So, how do I die?
Clyde Bruckman: You don't.
JUST SAYIN.
08. Tunguska/Terma
Senator Sorenson: Well, uh... what are we talking about, little green men, here?
Scully: No, sir. Not at all.
Mulder: Why is this so hard to believe? When the accepted discovery of life off this planet is on the front page of every newspaper around the world? When the most conservative scientists and science journals are calling for the exploration of Mars and Jupiter? With every reason to believe that life and the persistence of it is thriving outside our own terrestrial sphere? If you cannot get past this, then I suggest this whole committee be held in contempt, for ignoring evidence that cannot be refuted.
MULDER AND KRYCEK HAVE SCARY ADVENTURES IN RUSSIA AND SOMEONE GETS AN ARM CUT OFF
07. Ice
Scully: If that’s true, then why didn’t you let us inspect you?
Mulder: I would have but you pulled a gun on me. Now I don’t trust them. I want to trust you.
THIS WAS A SEASON 1 EPISODE AND IT'S ONE OF THE BEST THEY EVER DID. Tension-filled, and omg bonding moments between Mulder and Scully.
06. Monday
Mulder: So you think it's all just fate? We have no free will?
Scully: No, I think that we're free to be the people that we are - good, bad or indifferent. I think that it's our character that determines our fate.
Mulder: And all the rest is just preordained? I don't buy that. There's too many variables. Too many forks in the road. I meant to be on time to work this morning but my waterbed springs a leak flooding my apartment and the apartment below me so that makes me late for the meeting. Then I realize I got to write a check to cover the damages to my landlord but, as I'm walking to work, I realize that that's gonna bounce unless I deposit my pay. So now I got to go to the bank, which makes me even later.
The most depressing use of the Groundhog's Day trope known to man.
05. Small Potatoes
Mulder: I have a theory. Do you wanna hear it?
Scully: Van Blundht somehow physically transformed into his captor and walked out the door, leaving no one the wiser?
Mulder: Scully, should we be picking out china patterns or what?
POD PERSON MULDER.
04. Triangle
Skinner: Use your head, Scully. It'll save your ass.
Scully: Save your own ass, sir. You'll save your head along with it.
Nazis and period dress and time travel, oh my! And Scully kicks serious ass which is the norm. THERE ARE ALSO SOME REALLY COOL LONG SHOTS IN THIS EPISODE WHICH MAKE ME FLAIL MY HANDS IN GLEE.
03. Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II
Scully: Early this morning, I got a call from the police asking me to come to Agent Mulder's apartment. The detective asked me...he needed me to identify a body...
Section Chief Blevins: Agent Scully...
Scully: Agent Mulder died... late last night... from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The summer of 97, when I was 14 years old, I spent every day wondering if Mulder was really dead. IT'S A HELL OF A CLIFFHANGER EPISODE.
And Redux & Redux II are just HEART. BREAKING. When Mulder comes to Scully's bedside in the night, and silently weeps. JESUS. I'M TEARING UP JUST THINKING ABOUT THAT SCENE.
02. Bad Blood
Mulder: (voiceover) Tired, frustrated, and lacking a solid lead, I just wanted to get cleaned up. I had the sheriff drop me at the motel, which is where I ran into you.
Scully: (sitting on the vibrating bed, yelling at Mulder) What do you mean you want me to do another autopsy?! Why do I have to do it now?! I just spent hours on my feet doing an autopsy, all for you! I do it all for you, Mulder! You know I haven't eaten since 6 o'clock this morning, and that was half a cream cheese bagel. And it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light cream cheese! Now you want me to run off and do another autopsy?! (finally notices how beaten up he looks) What the hell happened to you?
Mulder: (voiceover) Finally you left.
Scully: (leaving the motel room) Don't you touch that bed!
Okay, this is THE funniest episode of The X-Files. Oh god it's so good. SO WELL WRITTEN. I've probably seen it upwards of 100 times and I still laugh like crazy every time. And Luke Wilson's in it! lol.
01. Dreamland I/II
Scully: Mulder, it's the dim hope of finding that proof that's kept us in this car, or one very much like it for more nights than I care to remember. (Mulder looks at her fondly) Driving hundreds if not thousands of miles through neighborhoods and cities and towns where people are raising families and buying homes and playing with their kids and their dogs, and... in short, living their lives. While we - we - we just keep driving.
Mulder: What is your point?
Scully: Don't you ever just want to stop? Get out of the damn car? Settle down and live something approaching a normal life?
Mulder: (defensive) This is a normal life. [Scully smiles to herself.]
Two parts comedy, one part existential crisis. This episode is just a tour de force of AWESOME. And Michael McKean is in it! And it's sad and funny and jklfdlfjdskflds JUST SO GOOD.
WELL THAT'S THE END, 10000000 INTERNET POINTS AND COOKIES TO YOU IF YOU ACTUALLY READ THROUGH THIS. <3
tvrealm, and I decided to do another top 50. This time, because I'm in a really nostalgic mood, I chose to do my favorite episodes of The X-Files.WHY THE X-FILES? OTHER THAN THIS IS AN AWESOME SHOW? (AND I JUDGE YOU IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A SCIFI FAN AND YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT.) Because The X-Files was groundbreaking tv. It's inspired a lot of the great shows today, at least in part: Lost. Bones. Castle. Fringe. (Hell, everything JJ Abrams has done that isn't Star Trek, really.)
I just. This show. It's an amazing specimen of tv. It's my favorite show ever, and it will always live in the number one spot. At times it's funny, at times its sad, or beautiful, or silly, or dark, or scary, or just honest and true. It's a love story, a story of friendship. Of course it has its shitty episodes, like any show, but its amazing episodes are out of this world. The world of the paranormal is merely its setting, not its plot. It's ultimately a story about people struggling to find meaning.
EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH THE X-FILES, THE END, NOW SCULLY WILL DEMONSTRATE MY EMOTIONS.
50. Firewalker
Mulder: Well, maybe you should take some time off.
Scully: I've already lost too much time.
OK I GOTTA PUT IN A NOTE. This is actually not a very good episode. lmao. But this was the very first episode of the X-Files I saw. November 18th, 1994. I was 11 years old. And I fell instantly in love. I triple-checked with my parents the date and time of this show, and informed them I would be watching from then on. AND I DID. So, this episode was the start of a magical journey for me, despite how crappy it actually is, so it will always be on a favorites list for me somewhere. <3
49. Pilot
Scully: The answers are there, you just have to know where to look.
Mulder: That's why they put the 'I' in FBI.
OMG THEY'RE BABIES AND IT'S ADORABLE AND IT'S THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL AND IT'S AWKWARD IN ITS OWN SPECIAL WAY AND OMG.
48. Demons
Scully: Although cleared of any wrongdoing in the deaths of Amy and David Cassandra, Agent Mulder still has no recollection of the events that lead to their deaths. His seizures have subsided, with no evidence of permanent cerebral damage, but I am concerned this experience will have a lasting effect. Agent Mulder undertook this treatment hoping to lay claim to his past, that by retrieving memories lost to him he might finally understand the path he's on. But if that knowledge remains elusive, and if it's only by knowing where he's been that he can hope to understand where he's going, then I fear Agent Mulder may lose his course. And the truths he's seeking from his childhood will continue to evade him, driving him more dangerously forward in impossible pursuit.
MULDER IS A WOOBIE
47. En Ami
Cigarette Smoking Man: That which makes miracles, can also make great evil.
SCULLY GOES ON A DATE WITH THE CANCER MAN AND IT'S AWK.
46. Tithonus
Scully: He's right. Tell me, Ritter, did he have any help concocting that story?
Agent Ritter: Look, Fellig is a murderer. Whether or not he did this specific one, I don't care-- not if it buys me a few days in the box with him.
Scully: No judge is going to issue a warrant based on this.
Agent Ritter: No, no, no. I know the judge. We'll have it by noon. You know, Kersh warned me about you.
Scully: Uh, he did?
Agent Ritter: Yeah - you and your partner. God knows his reputation precedes him so I guess I should have seen this coming. You muck up my case, and Kersh'll hear about it. Are we clear, Dana?
Scully: Scully. And we're done with this conversation.
THE EPISODE THAT MADE SCULLY IMMORTAL YOU THINK I'M JOKING BUT I'M NOT
45. Elegy
Scully: (talking to her psychiatrist about Mulder) I guess I never realized how much I rely on him before this. His passion... he's been a great source of strength that I've drawn on.
This is a pretty good time to point out that Gillian Anderson is the BEST. CRYER. EVER. She cries = I cry. Every time.
44. Little Green Men
Mulder: Before I could only trust myself. Now I can only trust you. And they have taken you away from me.
MULDER ANGSTS ABOUT THE X-FILES BEING SHUT DOWN (FIRST TIME OF MANY LOL) AND ALSO ANGSTS ABOUT HIS MISSING SISTER AND ALSO JUST ANGSTS IN GENERAL
43. First Person Shooter
Mulder: We came, we saw, we conquered. And if the taste of victory is sweet, the taste of virtual victory is not Sweet 'N Low, nor the bullets made of sugar. Maybe out past where the imagination ends our true natures lie, waiting to be confronted on their own terms. Out where the intellect is at war with the primitive brain in the hostile territory of the digital world where laws are silent and rules disappear in the midst of arms. Born in anarchy with an unquenchable bloodthirst we shudder to think what might rise up from the darkness.
Haters gonna god damn hate, but this episode is fun. THERE I SAID IT. Also, look at that sweet, sweet philosophy from Mulder. COME ON.
42. Kill Switch
Scully: Electrons chasing each other through a circuit - that isn’t life, Mulder.
Mulder: Yeah, but what are we but impulses? Electrical and chemical through a bag of meat and bones. You’re the scientist. You tell me.
KUNG FU SCULLY.
41. Paper Hearts
Scully: You said it yourself, once - "a dream is an answer to a question we haven't learned how to ask."
MORE MULDER ANGST OVER HIS MISSING SISTER
40. Deep Throat
Scully: You believe it all, don't you?
Mulder: Why wouldn't I?
Scully: Mulder, did you see their eyes? If I were that stoned -
Mulder: Oooh... if you were that stoned, what?
Scully: Mulder, you could have shown that kid a picture of a flying hamburger and he would have told you that's exactly what he saw.
DEEP THROAT, YOU MAGICAL SECRET-SHARING MAN YOU.
39. Field Trip
Scully: Mulder, why did you knock? This is your apartment. And you don't seem the least bit surprised to find me here. And what about the Schiffs? I mean, if they're alive, as you say, then... then where are they? Where'd they go? Mulder, five minutes ago... this room was filled with people attending your wake.
Mulder: Well, what can I say, Scully? I'm here. I'm real.
Scully: Mulder, this is not reality. This is a hallucination. It has to be. And either I am having it, or you are having it or we are having it together.
EVERYONE HAS A BAD TRIP
38. Syzygy
Detective White: These are good kids we're talking about. Outstanding students. And the details they gave... I doubt they could have made them up
.
Scully: Let me guess. They told you about a wild beast entering in on a black mass, the drinking of blood, the sacrifice of an infant or a blond virgin.
Detective White: Yeah. That's right. Excuse me.
Scully: Where's she going?
Mulder: You don't suppose she's a virgin, do you?
Scully: I doubt she's even a blond.
THE PLANETS ALIGN AND EVERYONE TURNS INTO A CATTY BITCH AND IT'S GLORIOUS
37. Colony/End Game
Mulder: I have lived with a fragile faith built on vague memories from an experience that I could neither prove nor explain. When I was 12, my sister was taken from me, taken from our home by a force that I came to believe was extraterrestrial. This belief sustained me, fueling a quest for truths that were as elusive as the memory itself. To believe as passionately as I did was not without sacrifice, but I always accepted the risks - to my career, my reputation, my relationships, to life itself.
WOULD SOMEONE FIND SAMANTHA MULDER ALREADY
36. Quagmire
Scully: I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck. So I named my dog Queequeg. It's funny, I just realized something.
Mulder: It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?
Scully: No. How much you're like Ahab. You're so... consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?
THAT EPISODE WHERE MULDER AND SCULLY HAVE VERBAL SEX.
35. Hollywood AD
Wayne Federman: You're both crazy.
Mulder: Well, why do you say that?
Wayne Federman: (to Mulder) Well, you're crazy for believing what you believe. (to Scully) And you're crazy for not believing what he believes. I'll leave you with that. Thank you.
Mulder: I miss him already.
I have no witty comment for this one because this episode is just hilarious and also adorable. THE END.
34. The Goldberg Variation
Scully: You know in 1998, there was a British soldier who plummeted 4,500 feet when his parachute failed and he walked away with a broken rib?
Mulder: What's your point?
Scully: My point is that if there's a wind gust, or a sudden updraft and, plus, if he landed in exactly the right way, I mean, I don't know. Maybe he just got lucky.
Mulder: What if he got really, really lucky? That's your big scientific explanation, Scully? I mean, how many thousands of variables would have to convene in just the right mixture for that theory to hold water?
Scully: I don't know.
Mulder: Well, thousands.
I DON'T THINK YOU REALLY KNOW EITHER MULDER, I THINK YOU JUST MADE THAT NUMBER UP TBH
33. X-COPS
Scully: Look, Mulder, you want to talk about werewolves to me you can knock yourself out. I may not agree with you but at least I'm not going to hold it against you but this... Mulder, this could ruin your career.
Mulder: [laughing] What career? Scully, I appreciate it. You don't want me looking foolish. I do. I appreciate that.
Scully: I don't want me looking foolish, Mulder.
THEY EVEN USE THE BAD BOYS THEME IT'S SO AMAZING
32. The Amazing Maleeni
Mulder: So, basically he died of a heart attack, somebody crept up behind him, sawed his head off and then glued it back on all in the space of 30 seconds. Does that make sense to you?
Scully: No. Which makes it even stranger still because, as far as I can tell this body has been dead for over a month. I see signs of refrigeration.
Mulder: And yet he performed yesterday. What a trooper.
I really like the secondary characters in this episode. AND SCULLY LOOKS GREAT IN THAT HAT.
31. How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
Scully: I see. The dark, gothic manor... the, uh, omnipresent low fog hugging the thicket of overgrowth... Wait- is that a hound I hear baying out on the moors?
Mulder: No. Actually that was a left cheek sneak.
WHO DOESN'T LIKE A FUNNY AND ALSO SCARY CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY
30. The Rain King
Scully: Well, it seems to me that the best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is... suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.
SPOILER ALERT: SHE'S TOTALLY THINKING OF MULDER RIGHT THERE
29. Irresistible
Scully: It is somehow easier to believe, as Agent Bocks does, in aliens and UFOs, than in the kind of cold-blooded inhuman monster who could prey on the living to scavenge from the dead.
Woobie Scully :(
28. The Unnatural
Mulder: Let me get this straight: a free-spirited alien fell in love with baseball and ran away from the other non-fun-having aliens and made himself black, because that would prevent him from getting to the majors where his unspeakable secret might be discovered by an intrusive press and public and you're also implying that...
Arthur Dales: You certainly have a knack for turning chicken salad into chicken spit.
Ok the thing about this episode is, it makes me cry every time. Like one of those big sobbing breath-hitching kind of crys. IT'S SUCH A SAD STORY. But it makes up for it with ridiculous Mulder/Scully cuteness at the end. And also: JESSE L MARTIN. AND HE SINGS.
27. Piper Maru/Apocrypha
Morgan: What the hell is that?
Mulder: Looks like the fuselage of a plane.
Scully: It's a North American P-51 Mustang.
Mulder: I just got very turned on.
I'm actually kind of a weird X-Files fan in that I actually adore the mythology-related episodes. IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE BUT I DON'T ACTUALLY WATCH THE X-FILES ONLY FOR THE MULDER/SCULLY BITS LOL
26. Pusher
Scully (to Mulder): Please explain to me the scientific nature of the "whammy".
FAVORITE QUOTE EVER
25. Home
Mulder: Well, just find yourself a man with a spotless genetic makeup and a really high tolerance for being second-guessed and start pumping out the little uber-Scullys.
When this episode first aired it had a ~special warning~ before it and then they didn't replay it in reruns for like 3 years because it was sooOOoooOoo "disturbing." These days Fringe gets away with worse, but at the time I suppose it was unusual material for prime time tv, lol.
24. Jose Chung's From Outer Space
Blaine: (about Scully and Mulder) One of them was disguised as a woman, but wasn't pulling it off. Like, her hair was red, but it was a little too red, y'know? And the other one, the tall, lanky one, his face was so blank and expressionless. He didn't even seem human. I think he was a mandroid.
One of the funniest episodes of The X-Files. OF ALL TIME.
23. Squeeze
Scully: Oh my god, Mulder. It smells like... I think it's bile.
Mulder: Is there any way I can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?
ONE OF THE BEST X-FILES VILLAINS EVER. Too bad the actor went on to be super fucking creepy irl. I guess he wasn't acting much. O_O
22. Beyond the Sea
Scully: You set us up. You’re in on this with Lucas Henry. This was a trap for Mulder because he helped put you away. Well, I came here to tell you that if he dies because of what you’ve done, four days from now, no one will be able to stop me from being the one that will throw the switch and gas you out of this life for good, you son of a bitch!
ANGSTY SCULLY
21. Detour
Agent Kinsley: Last year was something of a personal revelation. We were doing an exercise called "Team Builders," where we were given two minutes to build a tower out of ordinary office furniture.
Agent Stonecypher: When I stood on Mike's shoulders and I put that electric pencil sharpener on top of the pile, we both knew - we could never have done it alone.
Mulder: (leaning over to Scully, whispering) Kill me now.
SCULLY SINGS A SONG TO MULDER
20. Sein un Zeit/Closure
Scully: Mulder, what happened? Are you sure you're all right?
Mulder: I'm fine. I'm free.
Omg another episode that makes me cry all the tears.
19. Biogenesis/The Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati
Scully: Are we born only to die? To be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth before giving way to our generations? If there is a beginning, must there be an end? We burn like fires in our time only to be extinguished. To surrender to the elements' eternal reclaim. Matter and gas... will this all end one day? Life no longer passing to life, the Earth left barren like the stars above, like the cosmos.
SCULLY LOOKS PRETTY AND HAS DEEP THOUGHTS WHILE MULDER GOES INSANE
18. Memento Mori
Scully: For the first time, I feel time like a heart beat, the seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning. The numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you–that are you–is a comfort to me now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago, and which began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions. If not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you and look at you, incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.
Holy shit huge quote but I had to. THIS EPISODE HURTS.
17. Je Souhaite
Mulder: I don't know if you noticed but, um, I never made the world a happier place.
Scully: Well, I'm fairly happy. That's something.
Scully is giddy and Mulder kills every human. OH GENIE YOU SO CRAZY.
16. Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip
Scully: I need something to put my back up against, Mulder.
Mulder: I know. I feel the same way. I feel that we've lost so much... but we've got The X-Files, and I believe what we're looking for is in them. I'm more certain than ever the truth is out there, Scully.
Scully: I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers.
MORE MYTHOLOGY, AWW YEAHHHH
15. War of the Coprophages
Mulder: Yeah, I had a praying mantis epiphany and, as a result, I screamed. No, not... not a girlie scream, but the scream of someone being confronted by some before unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet I inhabited. Did you ever notice how a praying mantis' head resembles an alien's head? I mean, the mysteries of the natural world were revealed to me that day, but instead of being astounded, I was... repulsed.
Scully: Mulder... are you sure it wasn't a girlie scream?
Another one of the funniest X-Files episodes. Also, vaguely jealous Scully. Aww yeahhh.
14. Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath
Mulder: 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 help bring you back. But I'm here.
Woobie Scully and Mulder feels ALL THE FEELINGS
13. The Post-Modern Prometheus
Scully: Psychologists often speak of the denial of an unthinkable evil or a misplacement of shared fears, anxieties taking the form of a hideous monster for whom the most horrific human attributes can be ascribed. What we can't possibly imagine ourselves capable of we can blame of the ogre, on the hunchback, on the lowly half-breed. Common sense alone will tell you that these legends, these unverified rumors, are ridiculous.
Mulder: But nonetheless, unverifiable and, therefore, true in the sense that they're believed to be true.
Scully: Is there anything that you don't believe in, Mulder?
Augh this episode is so cleverly written that I can't even express in words how much I love it.
12. Arcadia
Win Shroeder: So, good morning. So how was your first night? Peaceful?
Mulder: (looking fondly at Scully) Oh, it was wonderful. We just spooned up and fell asleep like little baby cats. Isn't that right, Honeybunch?
Scully: (forced smile) That's right, Poopyhead.
MULDER AND SCULLY GO UNDERCOVER AND PRETEND TO BE MARRIED FOR A CASE. NO FURTHER EXPLANATION REQUIRED.
11. Unusual Suspects
Frohike: Me and the narc have a proposition for you.
Langly: What proposition?
Frohike: The coolest hack in the world.
Langly: Say it. [Frohike hesitates] Say it...
Frohike: [grudgingly] ...Your kung fu is the best.
The beginning of the Lone Gunmen!! And how they meet Mulder! And it's full of 80s goodness! I love the Lone Gunmen so much. ;_;
10. Humbug
Sheriff Hamilton: [to Scully] Are you sure it was the brother you saw? Maybe it was the Fiji Mermaid who jumped in the sea and swam back to Fiji.
Mulder: [to Scully] Now you know how I feel.
THIS EPISODE IS SO WEIRD AND I LOVE IT.
09. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
Clyde Bruckman: I have only one dream. I dream it ever night. You're not one of those people who turns everything into a sexual symbol, are you?
Mulder: No, no, I'm not a Freudian, no.
Clyde Bruckman: I'm lying naked in a field of red tulips. I'm not concerned with where I am or how I got there. I'm at peace and it's then that I realize I'm dead. My body begins to turn a greenish-white with spots of purple. Next, the insects arrive. The inevitable follows, putridity and liquescence. Before I know it, I'm nothing but bones. When I start fading to dust, I lose whatever care I still might have had about where my clothes are and as I begin to feel myself slipping away towards I know not what... I wake up. Well, good night.
This episode has a lot of hilarious moments and a lot of sad moments. The X-Files is a total master of the comedy/drama combo. ALSO I FUCKING LOVE THE STUPPENDOUS YAPPI.
OH AND REMEMBER THE COMMENT I MADE ABOUT SCULLY BEING MADE IMMORTAL IN THE EP TITHONUS?
Scully: So, how do I die?
Clyde Bruckman: You don't.
JUST SAYIN.
08. Tunguska/Terma
Senator Sorenson: Well, uh... what are we talking about, little green men, here?
Scully: No, sir. Not at all.
Mulder: Why is this so hard to believe? When the accepted discovery of life off this planet is on the front page of every newspaper around the world? When the most conservative scientists and science journals are calling for the exploration of Mars and Jupiter? With every reason to believe that life and the persistence of it is thriving outside our own terrestrial sphere? If you cannot get past this, then I suggest this whole committee be held in contempt, for ignoring evidence that cannot be refuted.
MULDER AND KRYCEK HAVE SCARY ADVENTURES IN RUSSIA AND SOMEONE GETS AN ARM CUT OFF
07. Ice
Scully: If that’s true, then why didn’t you let us inspect you?
Mulder: I would have but you pulled a gun on me. Now I don’t trust them. I want to trust you.
THIS WAS A SEASON 1 EPISODE AND IT'S ONE OF THE BEST THEY EVER DID. Tension-filled, and omg bonding moments between Mulder and Scully.
06. Monday
Mulder: So you think it's all just fate? We have no free will?
Scully: No, I think that we're free to be the people that we are - good, bad or indifferent. I think that it's our character that determines our fate.
Mulder: And all the rest is just preordained? I don't buy that. There's too many variables. Too many forks in the road. I meant to be on time to work this morning but my waterbed springs a leak flooding my apartment and the apartment below me so that makes me late for the meeting. Then I realize I got to write a check to cover the damages to my landlord but, as I'm walking to work, I realize that that's gonna bounce unless I deposit my pay. So now I got to go to the bank, which makes me even later.
The most depressing use of the Groundhog's Day trope known to man.
05. Small Potatoes
Mulder: I have a theory. Do you wanna hear it?
Scully: Van Blundht somehow physically transformed into his captor and walked out the door, leaving no one the wiser?
Mulder: Scully, should we be picking out china patterns or what?
POD PERSON MULDER.
04. Triangle
Skinner: Use your head, Scully. It'll save your ass.
Scully: Save your own ass, sir. You'll save your head along with it.
Nazis and period dress and time travel, oh my! And Scully kicks serious ass which is the norm. THERE ARE ALSO SOME REALLY COOL LONG SHOTS IN THIS EPISODE WHICH MAKE ME FLAIL MY HANDS IN GLEE.
03. Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II
Scully: Early this morning, I got a call from the police asking me to come to Agent Mulder's apartment. The detective asked me...he needed me to identify a body...
Section Chief Blevins: Agent Scully...
Scully: Agent Mulder died... late last night... from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The summer of 97, when I was 14 years old, I spent every day wondering if Mulder was really dead. IT'S A HELL OF A CLIFFHANGER EPISODE.
And Redux & Redux II are just HEART. BREAKING. When Mulder comes to Scully's bedside in the night, and silently weeps. JESUS. I'M TEARING UP JUST THINKING ABOUT THAT SCENE.
02. Bad Blood
Mulder: (voiceover) Tired, frustrated, and lacking a solid lead, I just wanted to get cleaned up. I had the sheriff drop me at the motel, which is where I ran into you.
Scully: (sitting on the vibrating bed, yelling at Mulder) What do you mean you want me to do another autopsy?! Why do I have to do it now?! I just spent hours on my feet doing an autopsy, all for you! I do it all for you, Mulder! You know I haven't eaten since 6 o'clock this morning, and that was half a cream cheese bagel. And it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light cream cheese! Now you want me to run off and do another autopsy?! (finally notices how beaten up he looks) What the hell happened to you?
Mulder: (voiceover) Finally you left.
Scully: (leaving the motel room) Don't you touch that bed!
Okay, this is THE funniest episode of The X-Files. Oh god it's so good. SO WELL WRITTEN. I've probably seen it upwards of 100 times and I still laugh like crazy every time. And Luke Wilson's in it! lol.
01. Dreamland I/II
Scully: Mulder, it's the dim hope of finding that proof that's kept us in this car, or one very much like it for more nights than I care to remember. (Mulder looks at her fondly) Driving hundreds if not thousands of miles through neighborhoods and cities and towns where people are raising families and buying homes and playing with their kids and their dogs, and... in short, living their lives. While we - we - we just keep driving.
Mulder: What is your point?
Scully: Don't you ever just want to stop? Get out of the damn car? Settle down and live something approaching a normal life?
Mulder: (defensive) This is a normal life. [Scully smiles to herself.]
Two parts comedy, one part existential crisis. This episode is just a tour de force of AWESOME. And Michael McKean is in it! And it's sad and funny and jklfdlfjdskflds JUST SO GOOD.
WELL THAT'S THE END, 10000000 INTERNET POINTS AND COOKIES TO YOU IF YOU ACTUALLY READ THROUGH THIS. <3
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 04:20 am (UTC)I was 11 turning 12 and I was depressed for the first month. This is fairly accurate.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 04:22 am (UTC)Let's talk Bad Blood, because it's amazing how when it's Mulder's point of view, Scully looks beyond gorgeous. And the subtleties of him looking like a mess, vs. how he treats Scully. I love that episode beyond reasoning.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 08:36 am (UTC)