It isn't “spooky season” unless we discuss the show that has lent so much to television culture through its exploration of unexplained phenomena and the existence of extraterrestrial life. The X-Files ran for 11 seasons with 2 feature films, and despite having first aired over three decades ago, the legacy this show has left behind is nothing short of amazing.
The show amalgamated the somewhat inexplicable with scientific fact, by way of its main characters. Special Agent Dr. Dana Scully is a medical doctor, a forensic pathologist, and much to her partner’s dismay, a skeptic; Special Agent Fox Mulder is a zealous criminal profiler whose work and personal experiences have labeled him as a conspiracy theorist with a concentration in paranormal investigations.
Together Mulder and Scully dare to uncover what many may not…which can get weird and creepy. Spoilers ahead!
1. Home (Season 4, Episode 2)
“Only on Halloween would we dare air an episode so controversial it's been banned from television for three years. Consider yourself warned.”
It’s no surprise that this disturbing episode tops the list. ‘Home’, banned for three years from airing on television, was the first and only episode of the series to receive a TV-MA rating upon broadcast. Written by James Wong and Glen Morgan, the monster-of-the-week episode sees Mulder and Scully traveling to the rural town of Home, Pennsylvania to investigate the improper burial of a recently newborn and deformed baby. They discover that in a nearby house live three brothers whose family history involves incest and inbreeding, which leads to the trio becoming abnormally strong with violent impulses.
Inside the home under a bed, the agents find a woman revealed to be Mrs. Peacock, the mother of the three brothers who continues to have inbred children. After Mulder and Scully are attacked by the brothers, one receives fatal gunshots while another impales himself on a booby trap. The third brother escapes with the mother, seemingly planning to start their own clan and ‘keep it in the family’.
Unlike some of the other episodes in this list, Home does not mention extraterrestrial involvement or government conspiracy. Its aberrant nature exists simply because it hits too close to home, having been inspired by real-life events.
The content of the episode is unsettling, to say the least. I’ll never hear that song ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ in the same light ever again.
2. Grotesque (Season 3, Episode 14)
“That’s what always amazed me about you, Bill. How you never fit your own profile. No one would ever guess how really mean-spirited you are.”
Fox Mulder. Full-time FBI profiler, part-time psychic.
This is an x-file to remember. This criminally underrated episode explores madness and Mulder’s empathy and alignment toward it, which were not touched upon until Grotesque’s debut. This episode explores what happens when one becomes the monster that they hunt.
Initially, this episode does not follow the pattern of those that came before. Before the title sequence, we’ve already seen the serial killer John Mostow being arrested by an FBI task force, overseen by Bill Patterson. Mostow’s apartment is completely covered in drawings of gargoyles, something which intrigues Patterson. A former coworker of Mulder and a man who’s been disappointed (like many others) by Mulder’s decision to throw away a promising career to hunt aliens, Patterson manages to get under Mulder’s skin in a way that others from his past have not.
There’s a lot that this episode covers and while it does not contribute to the overarching plot of the show, it is a character study and opens viewers to Mulder’s questioning mind and addresses the concept of insanity not just through the lens of a suspect but by the inclusion of Mulder in that downward spiral.
The lighting in this episode is baleful, the gargoyles haunting, and the atmosphere ominous; it’s no wonder that the episode won an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography in a series.
“We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man’s character is his fate, this fight is not a choice, but a calling. Yet sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter, breaching the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monsters without to turn within. And we are left alone, staring into the abyss…into the laughing face of madness.”
3. Squeeze (Season 1, Episode 3) & 4. Tooms (Season 1, Episode 21)
The one that started it all.
This list would be incomplete without mentioning the first ‘monster of the week’ episode of the series and the infamous organ-consuming Eugene Victor Tooms who re-emerges every 30 years to consume five human livers which sustains him during his 3-decade-long hibernation in a self-made nest constructed from newspaper and bile.
Tooms is a mystery, even to Mulder who believes he is linked to murders dating back to 1903 but cannot produce circumstantial evidence to support his claims. He does know, however, that the long elongated fingerprints at the crime scene have been documented in the X-Files and digitally elongates Toom’s rather normal fingerprints to show Scully that they match those at the crime scene, and from that he extrapolates that Tooms must somehow be able to squeeze and stretch his body to fit tight spaces.
Tooms realises that Mulder and Scully are onto him and squeezes through an air vent in Scully’s apartment intending to kill her but Mulder apprehends him and Tooms is institutionalized where he builds yet another nest.
Even though it’s still very early on in their partnership, we’ve already begun to watch it cement in place and Scully’s decision to align herself with Mulder, despite being discomforted by the teasing term “Mrs. Spooky” is just a glimpse of what their partnership holds in store. Herein lies the basis of their relationship - mutual respect. She acknowledges that he holds different beliefs and is more open-minded and willing when it comes to the existence of extraterrestrial life, while he has accepted that her principles are founded on science and fact and any deviation from such would be uncharacteristic for her.
“Mulder’s ideas may be a bit out there but he is a great agent.” - Dana Scully. This pretty much sums up Fox Mulder.
Doug Hutchinson reprised his role as Eugene Tooms in Tooms where he sets out to frame Mulder for murder after he attends Tooms’ release hearing but is dismissed by the hearing’s panel. Tooms was the first of the monster-of-the-week characters to receive a follow-up episode and introduced Assistant Director Walter Skinner who would only appear once in the first season.
Skinner and Cigarette Smoking Man’s presence in the episode is no more than an attempt to distract and dissuade the agents from pursuing the case any further. Interestingly, and what will undoubtedly become a recurring theme, is the bureaucratic resistance which holds two stances: skepticism regarding the nature of the X-Files cases and how Agent Mulder approaches them (and later, Agent Scully) and fear, an unease towards the Agents’ continued investigation to unearth the truth which lies close to the lies which the Syndicate and the government have paid dearly to keep hidden. Skinner and CSM are aware that any effort to throw Mulder and Scully off the scent will push them closer, proving the validity of Mulder’s claim.
Therefore Squeeze, and the ‘sequel’ Tooms serve to remind us of the bigger picture at hand, that it’s not all about aliens and UFOs, but that each case is a layer peeled and that the monster-of-the-week episodes are in fact connected to the mytharc.
5. The Host (Season 2, Episode 2)
The ‘Flukeman’, one of the earlier genetic mutant monsters-of-the-week, happens to be one of David Duchovny’s favourites in the series. The sewer-dwelling creature created in a “soup” of radioactive waste was played by one of the show’s most beloved writers Darin Morgan, brother of Executive Producer Glen Morgan, who co-wrote the infamous episode ‘Home’.
The Host marks the first episode in which Mulder and Scully work closely together since being resigned to different sections, and their investigation leads them to the discovery of a sufficiently creepy blood-sucking worm infecting its victims with flatworms. Up until the point of its debut, the Flukeman was unlike any other X-Files creature we’d ever seen, with its scolex with four prongs transferring its larvae through its bite. What’s truly creepy is its ability to regenerate its body, thus Mulder’s gunshot to the worm creature isn’t fatal.
The Host also introduced ‘X’, the successor to Mulder’s former Syndicate informant, Deep Throat.
6. Die Hand Die Verletzt (Season 2, Episode 14)
Satan-worshipping high school teachers being punished for their lack of faith - it doesn’t get creepier than that. Kim Manners’ directorial debut covers multiple topics from sexual abuse to human sacrifices. The mid-nineties had developed a mass hysteria surrounding the occult and this episode goes all out with its chants, candles, and the Devil herself. This episode spared no expense in pursuit of its plausibility.
Die Hand Die Verletzt earns its place on this list not just for the demonic practices of the school staff but for the reality behind it all. A traumatized teenager tearfully confessing about the habitual rape she suffered, witnessing the deaths of her babies and her sister.
Similar to Home, this episode feels satirical and the juxtaposition of a small close-knit town and a satanic coven isn’t lost on me.
7. Leonard Betts (Season 4, Episode 12) & 8. Elegy (Season 4, Episode 22)
Leonard Betts introduced a story arc that has haunted viewers for decades. Prior to this episode, Agent Scully had developed terminal cancer which had gone undetected after her abduction in 1994.
When Betts’ former partner Michelle recalls the deceased’s uncanny ability to detect cancer in patients and when Betts’ head is examined, Mulder and Scully discover signs of pervasive cancer. They hypothesize that Betts subsists on cancer (based on tumors found in a cooler inside of his car) and that he can regrow parts of his body. After locating Betts on the roof of an ambulance, a scuffle ensues between him and Scully where he apologetically tells her that she has something he needs, where we then make the connection that Scully must have cancer, the one thing that Betts feeds on.
Ultimately the events of the episode aren’t what puts it on this list; there’s the strong banter we’ve come to expect between Mulder and Scully, the ever-convincing pseudo-science, and a grounded plot with good pacing. No, it’s the bitter aftertaste we’re left with following the cancer revelation. Unbeknownst to her this is the line he tells to all his cancer-riddled victims and the small window between us making the connection and Scully making her own, throws us off kilter for a while. Leonard Betts takes place halfway through season 4 and there is still much to consider regarding the mytharc and Mulder’s journey of discovery that leaves first-time viewers scared and worried for Agent Scully’s future.
Elegy is more than your classic ghost story. By this point, Scully’s cancer has been officially diagnosed and though she continues to work, she is forced to confront her mortality after experiencing monochrome apparitions, while investigating the crimes of a throat-cutting serial killer whose victims appear as ghost-like images to an autistic man working in a bowling alley.
“What is a death omen if not a vision of our own mortality? And who among us would most likely be able to see the dead?” Mulder’s words cut deep for Scully who collapses under the emotional turmoil that has been quietly plaguing her.
Elegy, though no more horrific than some of the other X-files, has been the only monster-of-the-week episode to give much attention to Scully’s cancer. In a way, the real monster isn’t the cancer-consuming regen, nor the haunting phantasmagoria, but the reality of death, no matter how inevitable.
9. Ghost in the Machine (Season 1, Episode 7)
Ghost in the Machine explored the prescient fear of artificial intelligence and its power. Most of the episodes on this list have been alien or human, or a hybrid of sorts but Ghost in the Machine presents a real concern - how much control does technology really have over us?
The subtlety of the episode is what’s particularly compelling. The almost thirty-degree tilt of the camera during suspenseful scenes, the sentient technology stalking Scully, the operating system’s point-of-view through security cameras, and Mark Snow’s eerie score for the episode all contribute to the creepy undertone.
The episode is not without the fear of government influence, with reminders that nothing is outside of their control, not even killer computers. By making technology the villain, Ghost in the Machine played into the ‘90s concern of invasive automated computer systems, still relevant, if not more relevant, to this day.
10. Irresistible (Season 2, Episode 13)
This list would be incomplete without mentioning the sinister Donnie Pfaster, a death fetishist who kidnaps and kills women, eventually kidnapping Scully, forcing her to confront her buried trauma caused by her abduction earlier in the season.
Though we see glimpses of Pfaster in his demonic form, Irresistible is chilling in its simplistic nature. A sociopathic serial killer with no justification for his crimes is unsettling all on its own, with no need for the inclusion of paranormal or supernatural elements. But the knowledge that those like Pfaster walk among us disguised is horrifying enough. The moment when Mulder and Scully unknowingly walk past their suspect in a holding cell is an implicit display of how evil lives silently among us.
Irresistible manages to acknowledge Scully’s trauma without casting it as the focal point, using a common horror trope, and tying it to the mytharc plot of the series.
“But our fear of the everyday, of the lurking stranger, and the sound of foot-falls on the stairs; the fear of violent death and the primitive impulse to survive, are as frightening as any X-file, as real as the acceptance that it could happen to you.”
What episodes have creeped you out the most? Have I missed any? Let me know in the comments below or on X/Twitter @_favcrime!
