You know Scully made us gay and maybe you’re ready for Scully to make you gay(er) too. But where to start? For some, starting at Episode 1, Season 1 of a nine-season behemoth is a little much. Sometimes you need to dip your toe in first and you need some overly-enthused queer weirdos to point you in the right direction. Well, friend, this is your lucky day.
1. Bad Blood
Rachel: Is this episode perfect? It might be perfect. Scully is on point, Mulder is point, Luke Wilson is on point and he’s not even really on the show. Scully’s constant eye rolling at Mulder and constant bedroom eyes at Luke Wilson are an excellent primer on why she is the greatest: she’s snarky and dry-witted and super smart and totally ready to get down. Scully, if it were up to me, you would never have to pay for the Magic Fingers on hotel beds. It also illustrates one of the greatest things about the X-Files and the thing that X-Files haters never seem to get: the X-Files is already better at making fun of itself than you ever will be, so sit down.
Stef: The X Files’ funny episodes are always hit-or-miss by a fairly wide margin, but this one is a goddamn home run and a half. “Bad Blood” cleverly takes us through the first half of a case from both detectives’ very different perspectives. It’s a real treat to see how Mulder and Scully behave through each others’ eyes, and it’s also kind of fascinating to see how they view themselves; Mulder seems to think he second-guesses himself more than he actually does, but Scully is pretty on-point. It’s nice to see that the kid from “The Sandlot” had at least one more big acting gig, this time as a glowy-eyed pizza vampire.
2. Killswitch
shipping scully and invisigoth 4ever
Rachel: What if the internet was really like this? I wish I had seen this when I was 14, because it would have given me way more to hope for blindly and then be deeply disappointed about than Disney movies ever did. Do you want to be the cyberpunk goth internet girl or date her? How much would this episode could have been improved by the inclusion of Julia Stiles in Hackers? I have a lot of questions.
Stef: I did see this episode when I was 14 and I remember feeling strongly enough about it to write fervently about it in my diary. In retrospect, I probably had a giant crush on the character of Invisigoth and I definitely envied her ability to upload herself to the Internet – my (admittedly geeky) teenage dream. I may or may not have tried to make some take on Invisigoth into my AIM screen name at one point, because I was very cool. This isn’t really a particularly Scully-centric episode, but you do get to see her kick some ass in a surreal action sequence where she beats the shit out of some sadistic nurses, so there’s that. Also, this is what email looks like in “Killswitch,” which kills me:
3. Quagmire
Rachel: This is not my favorite X-Files episode of all time, but it is very close to it. When the episode “Detour,” which is in fact my favorite of all time, came out, critics complained that it was essentially just a rehashing of this episode in that the real focus was just Mulder and Scully hanging out, specifically hanging out overnight in an unsafe wooded area and talking about their feelings while waiting for dawn. Um, that’s awesome? Frankly I feel a little cheated that we didn’t get more than two episodes of this. Also, Queequeg’s performance in this episode is one for the ages; no Pomeranian actor since has been able to measure up.
Stef: Despite being one of the less successful comedic episodes (sorry Rachel), “Quagmire” has wormed its way into our hearts because of the time we get to spend with Scully’s Pomeranian, Queequeg. Because Mulder drags Scully out to this case fairly unexpectedly, she has no choice but to bring her little dog along. Queequeg smiles dimly at everyone from the backseat of their rental car, trots merrily right through a murder scene (which you’d think at least Scully would have a major issue with, forensics-wise) and ultimately meets his demise at the hands (jaws?) of the mysterious swamp monster. His death leads Scully to draw parallels between Mulder and Ahab, both blindly seeking something they will never achieve, blah blah blah – this was a very peculiar way to react to the death of a pet. O Queequeg, we hardly knew ye – an important character in X Files mythology who never got his time to truly shine.
4. Never Again
morning after shirt yeahhhhh
Rachel: This episode is a real emotional roller coaster for Scully fans. I love that Scully gets laid — get it, Scully! You work too much! — but this made me feel like when I was a sophomore in college and would have to trail my roommate when we went to parties in order to run interference on gross dudes who she was too polite to fend off. (My roommate was very pretty.) Combine that with the feeling I also had when one of my coworkers had a drunken stick-and-poke party and then proudly showed off his freshly and poorly inked legs; see, there are a lot of complicated feelings here. I feel like a real feminist critic would have a lot to say here. The patriarchy, etc.
Stef: Yo, I’m always really excited when Scully gets to have something along the lines of a personal life, but really Scully? This guy? You’re Dana Scully! You’re a medical doctor and a total babe; you look good whether you’re all sweaty from running after UFOS through a cornfield, freshly stung by an alien-disease-carrying bee or elbow-deep in an extraterrestrial corpse. Surely you could have your pick of anyone you wanted! But instead, Scully goes for the kinda creepy recent divorcée who has Jodie Foster’s voice screaming at him through a really silly tattoo. Then Scully gets a friggin’ TRAMP STAMP like she’s on medical doctor spring break in South Beach. I have a lot of questions about Scully’s taste in a lot of things. No matter what happens to Scully for the rest of the entire series, I always take time to remember that under that classic blazer with the huge shoulderpads, Scully has a lower back tattoo… and a wild side.
5. War of the Coprophages
i tried really hard to capture one of scully’s classic eye rolls in this episode but they don’t translate well to screenshot
Rachel: This episode is everything. It combines all the best things about Mulder and Scully’s dynamic (somehow the best Mulder/Scully episodes are the ones where they aren’t actually together and are just working together via telephone. Why is that? What would have happened if Mulder and Scully could gchat?) as well as a full episode of Infested and, for some reason, a Playboy Bunny runner-up as a hot scientist. What else could you want out of television? That wasn’t rhetorical, that was a serious question. What more is there?
Stef: You guys, Mulder is SUCH a lesbian. In every episode where Scully has maaaaybe the most potential of sparks with any other character, Mulder gets hilariously jealous and defensive. “War of the Coprophages” is that rare episode where the tables are turned, and Scully’s withering disdain in the face of Mulder’s crush object (a bubbly entomologist named Bambi) is completely priceless. She can barely say the doctor’s name without raising an eyebrow and sneering a little. Other than that, my #1 feeling about this episode is that bugs are gross.
6. All Things
pondering holistic medicine but perhaps also lesbianism???
Rachel: When Stef and I were talking about this, I was really afraid I had made this episode up in my head. I was trying to describe it as “like, that one where Scully does a bunch of new-agey stuff? Stuff glows? I feel like there are a lot of people wearing purple?” Lo and behold, it exists, and is even more ridiculous than I remembered! You know when your aunt went through that phase of buying into The Secret really seriously and wore a lot of flowing tunics and scarves? This is like if your aunt became an episode of television. This is sort of a meh Scully episode because I feel like my concept of who Scully is would roll her eyes and roll up out of there in the first five minutes of this episode, but it’s a CRUCIAL Scully episode in that this is the only episode actually written and directed by Gillian Anderson, which means that this is what Gillian Anderson thinks of Scully as being. Fascinating!
Stef: I don’t know how but somehow Rachel managed to find one X Files episode with lesbians in it. Not only that, but two seconds after the lesbians appear, Scully informs one of them that she is a medical doctor, which means you get to take a drink.
FIRST. No, but really, this was everything I hoped it would be.
OMG. I think you’re right. I clearly remember having a huge, gay crush on Scully (coupled with a rich fantasy life about her) as a young girl. To this day, I have a major thing for red heads.
Stef, I demand a fully fleshed out X-Files drinking game by the time you get off that mountain. And stories. And photos. Take photos.
I heart the X Files and both of you for this post.
A friend of mine went to a panel with Gillian Anderson on it and she no shit opened with, “well first of all, I’m a psychic”. True story. Which means, obvs, that she has intuited all of your sexual thoughts about her. Hot.
DAMN IT. Don’t tell me the A-Camp where I had to go to a straight wedding is the one where the X-Files lesbian drinking game is invented!
Also, remember when you were little and you thought you were the first person that wondered about whether we all see colors the same? Yeah I’m embarrassed to admit I thought I was the only one who realized their lesbianism through Agent Scully. Who else thought their crush mean the “Just wanted to work in the FBI too”?
Wow. *crush meant they Note to self – post after you’ve woken up.
I’m not at A-Camp either, sadly.
I’m feeling left out because I didn’t have the Scully sexual attraction when I was younger. To this day I lack the obsession with redheads that seems to afflict those around me. No disrespect ginger folk, I love you, I’m just not automatically drawn to you based on your hair colour.
I did, however, have a huge crush on Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks.
Gillian Anderson is in an Irish drama-y thing atm and shes looking younger than she did in x-files… well like the same or a lil younger how is this possible… shes niiiiice!! ha
Oh, it totally happened to me.
I was disappointed that they seemed to make Scully more fragile as the series went on though – compare her actions in ‘Ice’ (one of my faves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_%28The_X-Files%29), dive tackling people, or a bit later in the season where SHE SHOOTS MULDER in the shoulder for being an paranoid LSD wacko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi_%28The_X-Files%29). Later on in the series she really doesn’t have the same chutzpah.
Queeequeeeeeeeg! RIP little buddy! They totally did that thing where a minor character suddenly is awesome and you connect to them just in time for them to die. I kept watching for Queequeg to come back from the dead, but he never did (although his collar did reappear iirc).
I have so many X-Files feels but I’ll leave it at saying I, too, always loved the funny episodes, particularly the ones like the War of the Coprophages and Bad Blood where you see the Mulder and Scully dynamic from a Mulder vs. Scully point of view.
Oh, Scully. My crush never faded. When I saw the first movie and there was a shot of Scully in a tailored suit and those chunky heels as tall as the screen? I gasped. Out loud. It was so hot.
Also, I shipped the crap out of Scully and Reyes, because shit was really wacked out and boring right about then.
It was super boring most of seasons 8 and 9 with some exceptional episodes thrown in to force me to continue watching. I really hated Reyes though. I think because there was less Gillian Anderson and she sort of felt like her replacement and I was like, ummm no, I knew Dana Scully, and you are no Dana Scully. I find her less maddening in rewatches, but old grudges are hard to completely bury.
after all these years, i am still in love with scully
Yes, Scully was and still is an amazing combination of charm, intelligence and confidence. I remember thinking if I was agent Mulder I wouldn’t be wasting time.
I’ve been saving this for a special occasion RE: x-files vs. CSI http://i.imgur.com/jOfKB.jpg
Yep… seen every single episode. Bad Blood was definitely one of my favorites. But watching bloopers of x-files on youtube.. you wonder how they ever got anything filmed.. because Gillian Anderson is always busting out laughing. She can not hold it in to save her life! Fave blooper of all time has to be of the one during the pilot where they’re standing in the rain and the mud and the rain and the mud…. XD LOVE IT!
Yes! I remember spending hours on youtube watching The X-files’ bloopers. That pilot blooper is priceless, Gillian Anderson is always so funny. Aaand the x-files and everything related to it is undeniably amazing x)
OMG. Scully (Gillian Anderson) was my first full-fledged female celebrity crush. I obsessively watched every episode of the X-Files and even bought tickets to see Gillian Anderson live in a play in London. While I can’t quite claim she made me gay, she definitely was a major part of my queer beginning. I <3 Scully so hard.
I've been re-watching Battlestar Galactica (love Kara Thrace), but I may need to take a break to re-watch these X-Files episodes.
….Aaaand I’m watching the X-Files. Oh Season 1 Scully in her 1990s beige high-cut underwear in the pilot episode…
OMG OMG OMG AUTOSTRADDLE STOP DOING THIS TO ME
Omg, you guys, you’ve totally chosen some of the greatest episodes ever. Could this site get any better?!
Oh lord guys, I have so many Scully feelings.
I love Scully (and Gillian Anderson) so much. She was one of my first TV crushes, along with Susan Lewis from ER.
Also Bad Blood is the best episode, and the reason Luke Wilson will always be my favourite Wilson brother. The bit where he’s all buck-toothed and “y’all must be the guv’ment people” can make me laugh regardless of what kind of mood I’m in.
I definitely rocked a Scully haircut back in the day. Yet another reason I should have known I was gay a bit sooner.
I feel the same way about my undercut in high school.
gillian anderson was really hot and tragic in bleak house too
this might be my favorite thing ever posted on this website, and that’s saying a lot.
I’m leaving this here for no other reason than because Scully:
AUTOSTRADDLE IS THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE AFTER 6 YEARS I JUST STARTED RE-WATCHING THE WHOLE SERIES. YOU POSTED THIS ARTICLE ON THE DAY I WATCHED SCULLY FOR 7 HOURS.
TRUST NO ONE.
This post just made my entire day. Agent Scully DID turn me queer! Okay, maybe she didn’t, but the X-Files was definitely when I realized that all of my girl friends were crushing on Mulder and I was the only one head over heels with Scully.
Random trivia, I actually saw War of the Coprophages as part of an insect film fear festival thing and Dr. Bambi is actually named for a University of Illinois etymologist and she’s super amazing and charming and funny. And I asked Chris Carter why he killed Queequeg. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was basically, “Yeah, sorry about that. We were young and insensitive. I wouldn’t have written it that way today.”
I’m sure I remember an interview with Darin Morgan where he said that he was mad he didn’t get to kill Queequeg, as he wrote the dog into the show.
I think Scully shares equal blame for my gayness with Sam Carter of Stargate SG1, which was on during roughly the same period.
This is the best post to ever be posted. I am devoting this evening to being relesbianized by Dana Scully in these episodes.
Relesbianized may be my new favorite word!
Yeah, definitely thought that this was going to be about Stef’s cat who used to be an active member of asschat.
I used to be such an X Files fanatic. I used to scrapbook all the newspaper and magazine clippings I could find! Also, I had a giant poster of Gillian Anderson on my wall and somehow my mother was surprised when I came out :P
When me and my wifey are cleaning our guinea pigs’ cages we put on dvds of shows we’ve seen before but not in a long time. We’ve worked our way through Xena, Buggy, and now we’re on season five of the X Files. I am crushing SO hard!
That should have read “giant poster of Gillian Anderson IN HER UNDERWEAR”. Makes more sense! And if that didn’t give it away, then the Xena and Gabrielle and Carrie Anne Moss ones should have done it!
I was a mad X Files fan but didn’t realise it was all about Scully … even though I kept for many years a magazine cover (can’t recall which one) that featured Scully in bed with Mulder on one side and I think the show’s creator on the other, she was smoking and SMOKING and had this particular look in her eyes … of course it all makes sense now ……
I had no idea that there were other people who had huge lezzie crushes on Scully as a youth and were as intelligent and obsessed as I! Thank you so much for this!
This is crazy. I thought I was the only one! Total teen obsession and it was all about Scully….. I full-on lost it at my sister when she taped over an episode…I think it was Jersey Devil. Haven’t thought about X Files in forever so thanks for this!
THIS just made my whole day.
Loved Scully since I was 12. I am so thankful for this posting!
<3 Gillian Anderson
this is me!!! i was obsessed with the x-files and, in retrospect, it’s TOTES because i wanted to enjoy some sexy time with gillian anderson.
This is going to score me such points with my girlfriend. Thanks!
Scully is such an important character. Gillian Anderson circa 1996 is so gorgeous that I sometimes have to rewind whole scenes because I would miss important dialogue because I would be staring at her mouth instead of listening to her lines.