{"id":367580,"date":"2025-11-09T20:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/367580\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T20:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:02:17","slug":"vince-gilligans-5-best-x-files-episodes-to-watch-while-you-wait-for-more-pluribus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/367580\/","title":{"rendered":"Vince Gilligan\u2019s 5 best X-Files episodes (to watch while you wait for more Pluribus)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The twisty science fiction show Pluribus<\/a> might feel like a departure for Vince Gilligan, but the Apple TV series is actually sort of a homecoming<\/a>. Before Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul made Gilligan one of the most celebrated showrunners in Hollywood, he got his start writing about aliens, psychics, and mutants for The X-Files<\/a>. He even worked with Bryan Cranston for the first time on the show.<\/p>\n

Gilligan wrote or co-wrote dozens of The X-Files episodes and co-created the short-lived spin-off The Lone Gunmen. Like Apple TV\u2019s high-concept sci-fi hit Severance<\/a>, the mystery of Pluribus is unraveling with week-to-week releases. If you\u2019re living in suspense, you can fill the void by watching Gilligan\u2019s best episodes of The X-Files. While he penned some great entries in the show\u2019s larger mythology, like season 4\u2019s \u201cMemento Mori,\u201d we\u2019re limiting this list to standalones you can watch in any order, without previous knowledge of the long-running series. The whole show is available to stream on Hulu.<\/p>\n

5 <\/p>\n

\u201cSmall Potatoes\u201d (season 4, episode 20)<\/p>\n

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\n Image: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n

The X-Files was often at its best when it prioritized laughs over suspense and horror, and \u201cSmall Potatoes\u201d is one of the series\u2019 funniest episodes. FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the mystery of a group of babies born with tails, which leads them to a fertility clinic with a remarkable success rate. The culprit turns out to have an extraordinary ability he uses to try to seduce Scully while looking like Mulder \u2014 absolute catnip to fans hoping for romance between the partners.<\/p>\n

4 <\/p>\n

\u201cBad Blood\u201d (season 5, episode 12)<\/p>\n

\"Dana
\n Image: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n

Another hilarious episode, \u201cBad Blood\u201d is framed by Mulder and Scully giving conflicting reports to their boss, FBI assistant director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi). Mulder is convinced that he\u2019s staked a vampire in a small town in Texas, and that Scully would acknowledge the supernatural happenings if she hadn\u2019t been distracted by a sexy cowboy sheriff. Scully thinks nothing paranormal was happening, and that she did all the real work cracking the case. It\u2019s a very silly look at the show\u2019s key dynamic and the allure of vampires.<\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\u201cDreamland\u201d and \u201cDreamland 2\u201d (season 6, episodes 1-2)<\/p>\n

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\n Image: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n

Gilligan really liked teasing fans by having people pretending to be Mulder hit on Scully. The rare two-parter that wasn\u2019t a mythology episode, \u201cDreamland\u201d follows a mishap at Area 51 that leads to Mulder swapping bodies with Morris Fletcher (frequent Christopher Guest collaborator Michael McKean), one of the base\u2019s leaders. Fletcher seems pretty happy with the situation, while Mulder has to deal with Fletcher\u2019s awful home life, and desperately tries to find a way to swap back. McKean and Gilligan reunited on Better Call Saul.<\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\u201cMonday\u201d (season 6, episode 14)<\/p>\n

\"Dana
\n Image: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n

Every genre show that goes on long enough winds up doing a time-loop<\/a> episode, and The X-Files was no exception. Gilligan and John Shiban co-wrote \u201cMonday,\u201d where Mulder and Scully repeatedly die in a bank robbery gone wrong. While most time-loop stories make their protagonists unravel the mystery of how to restart normal time, in \u201cMonday,\u201d the robber\u2019s girlfriend Pam (Carrie Hamilton) has to try to break the cycle. Gilligan slipped in a reference to \u201cDreamland,\u201d with the repeating day starting with a leak in the waterbed Fletcher bought while in Mulder\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

Season 7, Episode 3: \u201cHungry\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Image: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n

The X-Files goes Columbo in \u201cHungry,\u201d which follows the monster of the week\u2019s perspective instead of Mulder and Scully. Rob Roberts (Chad Donella) is a fast-food worker who craves human brains, trying to ward off his hunger by taking diet pills and going to Overeaters Anonymous meetings. Mulder always comes off as a little crazy, but never more so than when he\u2019s doggedly pursuing Rob.<\/p>\n

All episodes of The X-Files are streaming on Hulu. Individual episodes and seasons are available to buy on Amazon, Apple, and other digital platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The twisty science fiction show Pluribus might feel like a departure for Vince Gilligan, but the Apple TV…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":367581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-367580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115521529620279517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}