12 Essential Vince Gilligan ‘X-Files’ Episodes

Pluribus hits Apple TV next week, marking Vince Gilligan’s return to science fiction after his great successes with crime dramas Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He came aboard The X-Files in season two, originally as a writer; his role later expanded into producer and director, and he also co-created the Lone Gunmen spin-off.

In celebration of Pluribus’ arrival, we’re looking back at 12 essential Gilligan X-Files episodes, which he either wrote, co-wrote, or wrote and directed—and which include some of the series’ most notable standouts.

Soft Light (season 2, episode 23)

The first Gilligan-penned episode was released in 1995 and features guest star Tony Shalhoub as a physicist obsessed with dark matter. When an experiment goes awry, he develops a murderous new power he can’t control. The case—people vanish into thin air, leaving a scorch mark on the floor—is so perplexing that Mulder (David Duchovny) suspects spontaneous human combustion is to blame, but it’s even stranger: the scientist’s shadows have transformed into something lethal.

A third-act twist brings in Mulder’s classified informant, X, whose involvement helps stop the scientist’s accidental reign of terror but also reveals the government has taken an interest in his abilities for its own malevolent purposes.

Pusher (season 3, episode 17)

One of the most malevolent X-Files villains—and one of Mulder’s most formidable foils—gets a showcase in “Pusher,” about a raging egocentric named Modell (Robert Wisden) with suggestive abilities so powerful he can make people jump in front of trains and set themselves on fire. He also mind-controls his way out of murder charges, breezes past security guards at FBI headquarters, and even induces a heart attack in one of Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder’s colleagues by simply speaking to him over the phone. The final scene—in which Modell forces Mulder into a game of Russian roulette—is one of the most suspenseful X-Files sequences ever. The character later returned in the (somewhat less memorable) season five episode “Kitsunegari,” co-written by Gilligan.

Paper Hearts (season 4, episode 10)

A central, ongoing X-Files mystery—the disappearance of Mulder’s sister, Samantha, from their childhood home—gets reinterrogated in this poignant episode. Though the show usually favored the idea that Samantha was abducted by aliens, this entry sees Mulder become convinced that Roche (eerily played by Tom Noonan), a child molester and serial killer he’d helped catch years before, was involved instead. The element of the unexplained enters the story thanks to Mulder’s vivid dreams, which seemingly reveal new details or memories about the loss of his sister—an ache left to continue, unresolved, when he’s forced to kill the manipulative, monstrous Roche at the end of the episode. 

Leonard Betts (season 4, episode 12)

Gilligan co-wrote this episode with fellow X-Files stalwarts John Shiban (who later re-teamed with Gilligan on Breaking Bad) and Frank Spotnitz. It has a hell of an elevator pitch—“headless corpse walks out of a morgue”—and stars Paul McCrane as a man who can not only regrow body parts (including, at one point, creating an entire new body for himself) but also can detect cancer in other people. Since he eats tumors to survive, murder comes into play with that.

It’s a lot, but the episode’s blend of elements—including some wonderfully icky body horror special effects—holds together convincingly. Then comes the knife-twist at the end: when Betts targets Scully, she gets the better of him, but not before he tells the agent that she herself has cancer, a storyline that The X-Files would continue to explore over an extended arc.

Bad Blood (season 5, episode 12)

The dueling perspectives of Scully and Mulder while investigating an (alleged) vampire stalking a small town are used to great comedic effect, making “Bad Blood” not just a Gilligan standout but an oft-cited fan favorite across the entire series. The episode begins with the killer’s seeming demise. We then rewind to see Scully’s take on events (the local sheriff, played by Luke Wilson, is adorable; Mulder acts even goofier than usual, with an extended Shaft reference), then Mulder’s (Wilson’s character is a buck-toothed idiot; Scully is uncharacteristically ditzy and dour). 

Who do you believe? It ends up not mattering in the end as Scully and Mulder’s points of view realign in time for the final twist, but by then the clever format and story have long since cemented “Bad Blood” as an especially excellent monster-of-the-week excursion.

Folie à Deux (season 5, episode 19)

This deeply unsettling episode—overall, Gilligan was more known for helping craft the show’s funnier, quirkier entries, but he also knows how to pull off frights—follows a telemarketer who believes he’s glimpsed irrefutable evidence that monstrous insects are posing as humans. Though Mulder gets caught up in a terrifying hostage situation with the man and his co-workers, the always-curious agent starts to believe that the man may actually be onto something.

Beyond its frightening depiction of office violence and creepy paranoia, “Folie à Deux,” which initially sees Mulder poking into the case on his own, underlines just how important the working relationship is between the agents, even if they very rarely come to the same conclusion. io9 did a full retro lookback at this episode, which you can read here.

Drive (season 6, episode 2)

A decade before he began his acclaimed run as Walter White on Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston guest-starred on The X-Files as an apparently deranged man who kidnaps Mulder and drags him on a wild police chase. Meanwhile, Scully searches for a medical cause behind the man’s need for speed and uncovers evidence that secret government experiments might be the reason instead.

The end of “Drive” sees Mulder and Scully called on the carpet for barging into the case, part of a growing rift between the characters and their FBI bosses that, throughout the series, escalated from “you guys better watch it” to Mulder getting outright fired in season eight.

Monday (season 6, episode 14) 

In this episode co-written with John Shiban, Mulder and Scully live, die, and repeat as part of a time loop that only Pam (Carrie Hamilton)—the girlfriend of a bomb-toting bank robber (Darren E. Burrows)—is aware of… at least until Mulder starts to gradually awaken to what’s happening. The joy of “Monday” is in seeing the events play out again and again with slight variations (always beginning with Mulder having the worst morning ever); the Groundhog Day plot may be a familiar one, but it’s effectively used in this framework, making time itself into the episode’s monster of the week.

Field Trip (season 6, episode 21) 

Gillian and John Shiban co-wrote the teleplay from a story by Frank Spotnitz, which tweaks the “it was all a dream” trope, X-Files-style, with a heavy dose of “we’re in a simulation inside a simulation” too. While investigating perplexing skeletal remains in North Carolina, the agents come under the influence of hallucinogenic spores that make them imagine the world has taken a wildly surreal turn: people who were clearly very dead return, claiming to have been abducted by aliens. Mulder meets an alien. And Scully, who briefly believes Mulder has perished under unexplainable circumstances, is confronted by a string of colleagues who parrot her familiar skeptical reaction to all things X-Files.

While not knowing what’s real from moment to moment makes “Field Trip” an entertaining watch, it also uses its premise to forge a deeper understanding between Scully and Mulder (shared hallucinations will do that to you) as they very nearly escape the episode’s exceptionally freaky villain—a giant fungal organism that feeds on living tissue.

The Amazing Maleeni (season 8, episode 8) 

Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz co-wrote this episode starring the charismatic Ricky Jay—it also happens to be the second episode involving a severed head on this list. Jay plays a magician whose incredible illusion of turning his head completely around seems to go sideways when he’s later discovered decapitated. A twisty script leads the viewer through a whodunit with multiple suspects (including the magician’s twin brother), leading up to a scheme that involves sleight-of-hand and a long con topped with Mulder assembling all the puzzle pieces together for a satisfying climax.

X-Cops (season 8, episode 12) 

The agents head to Los Angeles to investigate an (alleged) werewolf, only to find themselves caught up in an episode of Cops (a fellow Fox series at the time) that happens to be filming in the same neighborhood. The episode leans wholeheartedly into the gimmick, opening with the unmistakable Cops theme and filming in the exact style of the ride-along series—shaky hand-held camera, pixelated faces on certain witnesses, etc. It’s deeply unserious, but it’s also a lot of fun. What you gonna do when they come for you?

Je Souhaite (season 8, episode 21)

Gilligan not only wrote the script, but he also made his TV directorial debut with “Je Souhaite,” which imagines what might happen if a magical genie—you know, capable of granting three wishes—suddenly surfaced in middle America. (The title translates to “I Wish.”) There’s a lot of comedy baked into the storyline, emphasizing the idea that people faced with sudden, unlimited power might make terrible choices, or at least phrase their requests in ways so vague they come out as disastrous—including Mulder, whose attempt at asking for peace on Earth backfires spectacularly. Paula Sorge brings a wry, oddly endearing tone to her performance as “Jenn” that makes for a perfect Mulder foil; there’s also a cute bit where Scully can barely hide her delight at discovering an invisible corpse, the result of another wish-maker’s misguided fantasy.

All seasons of The X-Files are streaming on Hulu. Pluribus premieres its first two episodes November 7 on Apple TV.

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