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Dana Scully is one of the lead characters in the Fox TV series The X-Files and in the movie The X-Files. Scully was played by actress Gillian Anderson.
Biography
Dana Katherine Scully was born February 23, 1964. Scully is a skeptic and works with Fox Mulder on many of his paranormal and UFO cases from their shared office space in a cramped basement of the FBI building in Washington, DC.
She is Catholic, which creates many moral dilemmas for her. She is a dedicated agent and devotes her life to Mulder and his friends, and rarely dates or spends time with other friends. Scully wears a small golden crucifix given to her on her 13th birthday. She lives alone in Apartment 35, at number 1419 of an unknown street in Georgetown.
Born to Margaret ("Maggie") and William ("Bill") Scully, Scully has an older brother, William "Bill" Jr., an older sister, Melissa ("Missy"), and a younger brother named Charles ("Charlie"), who is seen only in flashbacks).
She grew up in Annapolis and moved to San Diego when her father, who was in the U.S. Navy, transferred to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. As a young girl she was something of a tomboy, though afraid of snakes. As Scully became more extroverted and daring, she sometimes secretly smoked her mother's cigarettes, participated at least one seance, and accidentally set fire to some nearby woods during a party with her prom date and friends.
By the time she joined the FBI, however, she was more introverted, and almost always admonished Mulder when he violated FBI protocol.
At the University of Maryland, she earned her B.S. in physics. Her undergraduate thesis was entitled "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation." Afterward, Scully decided to become a medical doctor, but while finishing medical school, she was recruited by the FBI.
She accepted, mostly because she felt she could establish herself there. Her father, however, argued strongly against her joining the FBI, and the two became somewhat estranged. While partnered with Mulder, she retained and exercised her medical skills by acting as a forensic pathologist, often performing or consulting on autopsies of victims on X-Files cases.
Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.
episode-Related Personal History
Although never much of a social butterfly, Scully dated occasionally. Many of the men she dated made an appearance in her life during her time on the X-Files, beginning with her twelfth-grade boyfriend and prom date, Marcus ("Small Potatoes," Season 4, episode 20).
During her enrollment in medical school, she carried on an affair with her married instructor, Dr. Daniel Waterston. Unable to deal with the potential fall-out to Waterston's family should they discover the affair, she transferred to the FBI, though the truth was later discovered by her former friend (and Waterston's daughter) anyway, creating an ambience of bitterness when Waterston re-entered Scully's life on his deathbed ("all things," Season 7, episode 17).
After her entrance to the FBI's academy at Quantico, Scully began a year-long affair with her older instructor, Jack Willis ("Lazarus", Season 1, episode 14), with whom she shared a birthday. Unfortunately, Willis's life was cut short when he was involved in a shoot-out with Warren Dupree, which resulted in Dupree's reincarnation in Willis's body for a short time. Dupree, in Willis's body, eventually died as a result of insulin deprivation from Willis's Type 1 diabetes.
Even before her assignment to the X-Files, Scully was known for her professionalism in the workplace. During their investigation into deaths indicating handiwork of the "Jersey Devil," Scully agreed to a date with a handsome divorced man that she met at her godson's birthday party ("The Jersey Devil," Season 1, episode 04). However, she realizes the importance of her dedication to her work, and decides to focus on her work instead, compounding Mulder's confusion and irritation, particularly when he discovered that she nearly had sex with a strange cult member named Brother Andrew ("Genderbender," Season 1, episode 13) before it became obvious that Andrew, like all members of the Kindred, exhibited a strange ability for seduction.
Things remained relatively calm on the dating scene for Scully until an investigation into a murder brought her an encounter with Ed Jerse, a man embittered at his recent divorce, who commemorated the event with a Bettie Page-type tattoo and the words "Never Again." Giving herself over to impulse, she gets a tattoo of a serpent eating its own tail and sleeps with Jerse. The result is that his tattoo jealously compels him to try to murder Scully. Jerse is restrained and arrested, while Scully returns to work to contemplate her life ("Never Again," Season 4, episode 13).
Scully unwittingly becomes the object of a writer's unrequited affection ("Milagro," Season 6, episode 18). Phillip Padgett reveals his obsession with Scully to her in the course of an investigation. His obsession is so strong that he moved into Mulder's building just to catch a glimpse of her. Despite Padgett's efforts, at the end of the episode, he draws the conclusion that Scully is "only trying to get his attention, but he doesn't know it," which many fans take to be a reference to Mulder and a possible romantic connection between the two.
Toward the end of her run at the X-Files, Scully's relationship with Mulder clearly crosses over into the romantic sphere. The first peek at something nonplatonic between Mulder and Scully is evident in a shared dance between the two at a Cher concert, though the episode was to be taken as a fantasy ("Post-Modern Prometheus," Season 5, episode 06). It is further cemented when Mulder, having slipped back into 1939 while searching for the Queen Anne luxury liner, shares a passionate kiss with Scully's 1939 Secret Service doppelganger. After he awakens in a hospital in the present time, he tells Scully that he loves her ("Triangle," Season 6, episode 03). Mulder's affection for her seems permanently fixed during an investigation in which she hypothesizes spontaneous human combustion, prompting Mulder to quote, "Dear Diary: Today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion" ("Trevor," Season 6, episode 17). Mulder helps bring out her lighter side, evident by their decision to use FBI funds for a "night out" during a movie premiere ("Hollywood A.D.," Season 7, episode 18) and their mutual enjoyment of the movie Caddyshack at Mulder's apartment ("Je Souhaite," Season 7, episode 21).
After Mulder's abduction, coinciding with Scully's announcement of her pregnancy ("Requiem," Season 7, episode 22), there is little doubt that Scully's child was conceived with Mulder. Scully remains haunted by his absence, despite the comfort of the child within her. When Mulder is discovered months later, Scully is unable to maintain her composure ("DeadAlive," Season 8, episode 15). Uncovering the plot against Scully's unborn child, ("Essence," Season 8, episode 20) Mulder pulls out all the stops to protect her. When Mulder again disappears from the scene, a very distraught Scully explains that she doesn't know where he is ("Nothing Important Happened Today," Season 9, episode 01). When the previously-believed-dead Jeffrey Spender resurfaces as a disfigured man thought to be Mulder, Scully is quick to dismiss him, in spite of the DNA evidence proving him to be Mulder ("William," Season 9, episode 17).
Finally, in the two-part series finale ("The Truth," Season 9, episode 19 and episode 20), Mulder admits that William is his son. Scully confirms that when she shares with Mulder that she gave William up for adoption, saying, "Our son, Mulder . . . I gave him up. Our son. I'm so afraid you could never forgive me." At the actual climax of the show, Mulder and Scully are seen together, hiding in a hotel room, in bathrobes, with little doubt as to how they decided to make up for lost time.
Career and Partnership History
Scully initially worked for the FBI at the academy in Quantico, teaching classes, a position she returned to on occasion when the normal functioning of the X-Files office was placed on hiatus. The X-Files themselves are unexplained and unsolved cases that were shelved by the FBI for various reasons. Prior to Scully's joining the X-Files, Mulder had worked for a short time with another agent, Diana Fowley. She, however, was soon transferred, and for about a year, Mulder was left alone to use the X-Files for his own investigations. The Syndicate, the shadow government that served in The X-Files as the behind-the-scenes puppet masters, knew of Mulder's consuming drive to reveal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life, mostly through high-ranking member Cigarette-Smoking Man, the series' main antagonist. Because Mulder had become too high-profile, they could not simply kill him, and so devised a strategy to invalidate his work by using Scully to debunk his investigations into the paranormal, because she had a great understanding of hard science as well as a naturally skeptical personality. Scully, although not directly advised to invalidate Mulder's work, immediately understood why she had been assigned to the X-Files. However, Scully did not follow through as the Syndicate had hoped she would, but observed the evidence as a scientist first, evaluating the data objectively and honestly. The Syndicate soon dropped this effort to invalidate Mulder's work via Scully, and Scully remained part of the X-Files office, providing an intelligent, down-to-earth, empirical opposite to Mulder's more maverick character. Over the years of working as a team, a deep bond of respect and affection would develop between the two.
Season 1
During the first season, Mulder and Scully were initially untrusting of one another. Mulder saw her as the FBI's way of quietly discrediting him, while Scully saw Mulder as headstrong and arrogant. The two gradually formed a close bond, however, thanks to the often dangerous cases they worked on together. Scully's father died of a massive coronary in the critically acclaimed first-season episode "Beyond the Sea" (Season 1, episode 12). By the end of the season, and despite many intriguing, albeit still unresolved investigations, the X-Files office was shut down, and Mulder and Scully were sent to work in different sections.
Season 2
In the Season 2 episode "Ascension" (Season 2, episode 06), while working at the FBI academy, Scully is kidnapped by an ex-FBI mental patient named Duane Barry, who trades her to a military covert operation that was working with the alien conspirators, and she is eventually returned in a coma ("One Breath," Season 2, episode 08). After she awakens, the X-Files are reopened, and she returns to work almost immediately, telling Mulder that she needed her work to help keep her going. Her abduction experience would later come to serve an important role in the X-Files mythology.
Seasons 3–7
At the beginning of the third season, The Syndicate attempted to have Scully murdered but, in a case of mistaken identity, ended up killing her sister, Melissa. Scully pursued her sister's murder investigation after the FBI dropped it (because of influence by the Syndicate), and managed to track down the assassin. The hitman, however, was soon killed himself, leaving Scully without any justice for her sister, but strengthening her devotion to the X-Files and to the truth. Scully found out that a hi-tech microchip was implanted in the back of her neck during her abduction. ("The Blessing Way," Season 3, episode 01). After having it removed, she developed cancer, which was diagnosed in the fourth season ("Leonard Betts," Season 4, episode 14). She was hospitalized after her cancer became terminal. ("Redux," Season 5, episode 02). Around this time, she began to introspect about her life and was having a dramatic renewal of her faith. Later, Scully was saved when Mulder broke into the Pentagon to retrieve another chip to be implanted back into her neck. This may have caused her cancer to go into remission, though this was never explicitly revealed.
While visiting her brother in California, she received a phone call from a voice that sounded identical to Melissa's ("Christmas Carol," Season 5, episode 05), which prompted her to drive to a home she had never been to before. Upon her arrival, Scully found herself in the middle of an investigation concerning the hours-old suicide of the homeowner's wife, Roberta Sim. Almost immediately, Scully became obsessed with the deceased's three-year-old adopted daughter, Emily, convinced that she was the biological daughter of Melissa. However, after performing medical tests, Scully was shocked to discover that she herself was actually Emily's mother ("Emily," Season 5, episode 06) and after the adoptive father was slain, immediately petitioned the courts for custody. Unfortunately, Emily was executed by the nefarious alien bounty hunter. When Scully buried her, she believed that, with her, she was burying any chance of having more children. Miraculously, after being hospitalized some time later, she discovered that she was pregnant, in the show's seventh-season finale, "Requiem," (Season 7, episode 22).
Season 8
At the start of the eighth season, Mulder had been abducted and was missing. Special agent John Doggett was brought in to work with Scully to find Mulder. After about eight years of working with and becoming very close to Mulder, Scully had slowly become more open to believing in paranormal phenomena. The search for Mulder soon proved fruitless, and Doggett was assigned to work with Scully on the X-Files, during which time Scully shifted to being more of "the believer," while Doggett functioned as "the skeptic." Later in the season, Scully decided to take maternity leave. Soon, she found that she was being surveilled by the New Syndicate because of her unborn child. She eventually tried to flee the conspirators with the help of Monica Reyes, and the child, named William after his grandfather (Fox Mulder is presumably the child's father), was born at the end of the season. About this time, Mulder, who had survived his abduction and returned, was fired from the FBI by Deputy Director Kersh, and Scully left the field to teach forensics at Quantico, with the X-Files division now being run by Doggett and Reyes.
Season 9
In the last season of The X-Files, William was given up for adoption, after having been kidnapped, but eventually found. Scully felt she could no longer provide the safety that William needed. William was a "miracle child," and of some unknown importance to the extraterrestrial conspiracy. He demonstrated extraordinary powers, including telekinesis.
In the series finale, Mulder was wrongfully accused of causing the death of Knowle Rohrer, and promptly tried and sentenced to death by a military court (controlled by the conspiracy). Mulder eventually escaped. With Scully, he found and had a final confrontation with Cigarette-Smoking Man. As of the end of the series, Scully and Mulder were currently on the run from the New Syndicate, to protect themselves and their son William, and find the truth.
Scully's Religious Beliefs
Throughout the series, Scully's Catholic faith served as a cornerstone in her life, although at times it seemed a contradiction to her otherwise rigid skepticism. In her career in science and medicine, she drifted from her Catholic upbringing, but remained somewhat entrenched in her faith. She frequently struggled with the concepts of good and evil, especially in regard to people and their actions.
Perpetually around her neck was a golden crucifix, first made obvious in the course of her abduction ("Ascension," Season 2, episode 06) when it was the only item left behind in Duane Barry's getaway car. In her absence, it became a talisman for Mulder, who wore it faithfully ("3," Season 2, episode 07) until she miraculously reappeared in a DC hospital ("One Breath," Season 2, episode 08). After she recovered, he returned the cross to her.
The abduction visibly tested the limits of her faith, when she began to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder on a case involving a murdering fetishist named Donnie Pfaster ("Irresistible," Season 2, episode 13) whom she began to believe was the devil. This psychological re-victimization continued after Pfaster escaped from prison five years later and again attempted to kill her ("Orison," Season 7, episode 07), ending only after he was shot to death.
About a year after the first Donnie Pfaster incident, Scully was further conflicted when protecting a young stigmatic by the name of Kevin Kryder, whose life was threatened by a psychotic "instrument of God" ("Revelations," Season 3, episode 11). Skeptical of the nature of the boy's claims but unable to deny what she had seen, Scully was unable to respond when the boy prophetically asked, "Are you the one who was sent to protect me?" (implying that Scully's intervention was the direct work of God). As a result of their experiences on the Kryder case, the very philosophy of faith and religion caused an argument between Mulder and Scully, with Mulder deferring to science and Scully revealing, "I believe in the idea that God's hand can be witnessed. I believe he can create miracles, yes."
Her belief in the evil nature of men was reaffirmed in the case of Gerry Schnauz, Jr., a schizophrenic man who performed a lobotomy on a woman whose case Scully and Mulder are investigating ("Unruhe," Season 4, episode 02). Schnauz selected his victims based on photographs depicting them as "falling prey to Howlers," or images of demons. Schnauz obtained a picture of Scully being consumed by Howlers and attempted to lobotomize her, but was interrupted in the process and killed. Later, Scully wrote in her journal, "My captivity forced me to understand and even empathize with Gerry Schnauz—my survival depended on it. I see now the value of such insight. For truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them, we must venture into their minds. Only in doing so do we risk letting them venture into ours."
The diagnosis of cancer resulting directly from her abduction ("Memento Mori," Season 4, episode 15) forced Scully to begin contemplating her own mortality. She wrote in her journal, "For the first time, I feel time like a heartbeat. The seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning." She also conceptualized her cancer with religious overtones, writing, "In med school, I learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A dark stranger who takes up residence, turning its new home against itself. This is the evil of cancer, that it starts as an invader but soon becomes one with the invaded, forcing you to destroy it but only at the risk of destroying yourself. It is science's demon possession. My treatments, science's attempt at exorcism." A short time later, while working a case featuring a mentally disabled man who apparently experienced apparitions of the dead ("Elegy," Season 4, episode 22), she was again forced to evaluate her impending mortality when she experienced an apparition herself, supporting Mulder's theory that "only the dying can see the spirits of the dead."
Despite her adherence to the parameters of her faith, she was resistant to the church's being forced upon her, as was evident through the well-intentioned meddling of Father McCue ("Gethsemane," Season 4, episode 24) at the request of Scully's mother, Margaret. After gentle prodding from McCue about rejoining the church to obtain more strength, she replied, "I have strength and I'm not going to come running back now; that's just not who I am. I'd be lying to myself and to you." Although the severity of her illness increased and pushed her to the brink of death, Scully did not return to the church, though she did ponder the existence of miracles ("Redux I," Season 5, episode 03). After her own miraculous recovery, Scully struggled to accept that she would never have children ("Christmas Carol," Season 5, episode 05), a revelation that again prompted Margaret to invite Father McCue over. Scully again resisted conversations about returning to the church. Before she learned that Emily was her daughter, Scully placed her gold cross around Emily's neck. After Emily's death, Scully demonstrated an evident conflict in her personal beliefs, having Emily's memorial service in a Catholic church ("Emily," Season 5, episode 06).
However, several months later, at the request of Father McCue, Scully got involved in a case concerning a paraplegic girl who was found dead in a kneeling position with her palms outstretched ("All Souls," Season 5, episode 17). After Scully discovered that the girl was part of a set of quadruplets and two more were murdered, Father McCue shared with her the story of the seraphim and the nephilim, which Scully interpreted as a possible explanation for the deformations and deaths of the girls. Scully continued to have visions of Emily, and when the last girl died, Scully believed she was returning the girl to God. Upon her return to D.C., she went to confession to gain peace of mind and acceptance for Emily's death.
Despite the strides in her faith, Scully was caught in the cross-hairs of uncertainty, writing, "It began with an act of supreme violence—a big bang expanding ever outward, cosmos born of matter and gas, matter and gas, ten billion years ago. Whose idea was this? Who had the audacity for such invention? And the reason? Were we part of that plan ten billion years ago? 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. Will the hand that lit the flame let it burn down? Let it burn out? Could we, too, become extinct? Or if this fire of life living inside us is meant to go on, who decides? Who tends the flames? Can he reignite the spark even as it grows cold and weak?" ("Biogenesis," Season 6, episode 22).
With the escape of Donnie Pfaster, orchestrated by Reverend Robert Gailen Orison, ("Orison," Season 7, episode 07), Scully was forced to confront the issues of her faith. The issue again caused an argument between Mulder and Scully, with Mulder remarking, "God is a spectator, Scully. He just reads the box scores" (which could potentially reveal Mulder's belief in deism) and Scully insisting that God works through people. Later, when she was forced to shoot Pfaster in self-defense, this knowledge caused her anxiety, as she questioned whether it was God compelling her to kill Pfaster or "something else."
There are hints given throughout the series that Scully may actually be immortal. The earliest known reference to this occurs in Season 3, during the episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (Season 3, episode 04). Mulder and Scully investigated a man (Clyde Bruckman) who could predict how people were going to die. When Scully asked Bruckman how she was going to die, he replies, "You don't."
The immortality thread was picked up three seasons later in "Tithonus" (Season 6, episode 10). Scully investigated Alfred Fellig, who took photographs of dead people. We learned that he also had the ability to predict death. His ability, however, was very different from Bruckman's; Bruckman could predict how people would die, but could not predict when it would occur. Fellig could predict that someone would die soon, but he could not predict how. Fellig told Scully that he himself was immortal. Death came for him once and missed; it took someone else instead. At the end of the episode, Scully was shot by her new temporary partner. Before she could die, Fellig asked her to look away. Scully passed out. When she woke up, Fellig had died. Mulder suggested that Fellig took her place in death. Death missed her just as it had missed Fellig years ago. If that was true, she might be as immortal as he was. Fellig had lived to be over 140 years old.
Trivia
- Scully had two children, Emily and William. Emily was the result of Scully's ova being harvested during her abduction, and died shortly after Scully discovered her existence.
- Scully is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, has either blue or blue-green eyes, and is at least half Irish.
- In the episode "Humbug" (Season 2, episode 20), Scully accepted a cricket from Dr. Blockhead and seemingly ate it. After she and Mulder left, she showed Mulder that she had used a sleight-of-hand trick and handed the cricket to Mulder intact. In the scene, Anderson actually did put the cricket in her mouth and chewed it thoroughly, but did not swallow it. A different cricket was used for the later scene.
- Scully had a small Ouroboros snake tattooed on the small of her back in Philadelphia in 1997 ("Never Again," Season 4, episode 13) but had it removed shortly afterward (still in the same episode) for health reasons. The red dye used contained a dangerous parasite. The tattoo cannot be seen when she is taken out of the Cryopod in the movie The X-Files: Fight the Future or when she is chained to a bed in "Roadrunners" (Season 8, episode 05). Gillian Anderson actually has a small tattoo on her right ankle, which was digitally removed in a scene from the 1998 episode "Chinga" (Season 5, Eisode 10).
- One of Scully's favorite movies is The Exorcist.
- Her favorite book is Moby Dick. Her father used to read to her from the book when she was young, and she came to nickname her father "Ahab" from the book, and in return, he called her "Starbuck." She later named her dog "Queequeg," also after a character from the book (the dog later met an untimely demise in "Quagmire" (Season 3, episode 22), eaten by either an alligator or a sea monster). She also enjoyed books by Jose Chung.
- Scully speaks German ("Unruhe," Season 4, episode 04), which she learned in college, and has a passing understanding of Greek ("Hollywood A.D.," Season 7, episode 18).
- A number of people have died in her apartment.
- In opposition to their character portrayals in The X-Files, it is reported that Anderson believes passionately in the existence of the paranormal, including alien life, while David Duchovny is much more tempered than Fox Mulder, and "open to possibilities."
- Scully also made an appearance with Mulder in "The Springfield Files" episode of The Simpsons, and both Anderson and Duchovny provided their voices for the episode. In an episode of the ReBoot series, Mulder and Scully were parodied as agents "Fax Modem" and "Data Nully." Anderson provided her voice work for the episode, but Duchovny refused to.
- Inside the X-Files fan community, Scully has developed her own cult following, named "OBSSE" (The Order of the Blessed Saint Scully, The Enigmatic). "The Enigmatic" part most likely comes from a nickname given to her by Max Fenig.
- Scully's phone number in the X-Files film is different from the one on the show—555-0113.
- Chris Carter, the creator of the series, has stated that he named Scully after his favorite sportscaster, Vin Scully. Agent John Doggett (Robert Patrick) was named after Scully's longtime broadcasting partner, Jerry Doggett.
- There is a realtor in Spokane, Washington, who is also called "Agent Scully." He is a distant relative of Vin Scully.
- Scully was portrayed by Tea Leoni, who played as herself, in the movie-within-the-episode "Hollywood A.D." (Season 7, episode 19). Leoni is in actuality married to David Duchovny.
- Scully appeared in every episode of the series except for "3" (Season 2, episode 07), "Zero Sum" (Season 4, episode 21), "Unusual Suspects" (Season 5, episode 01), and "Travelers" (Season 5, episode 15).
- It has been suggested that her last name is an ironic play on author Frank Scully, who wrote the first popular book on UFOs, [[BEHIND THE FLYING SAUCERS]]. The book is considered sensationalistic and some consider the author gullible: the opposite of Dana Scully.
Quotes
"What I find fantastic is the notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there, you just have to know where to look."
—"Pilot", (Season 1, episode 79).
Mulder: "Unidentified flying objects. I think that fits the description pretty well. Tell me I'm crazy."
Scully: "Mulder, you're crazy."
—"Deep Throat" (Season 1, episode 01).
Mulder: "Don't you believe in the next life?"
Scully: "I'd settle for a life in this one."
—"Shadows" (Season 1, episode 05).
Mulder: "Whatever tape you found in that VCR, it isn't mine."
Scully: "Good, because I put it back in that drawer with all those other videos that aren't yours."
—"Excelsis Dei" (Season 2, episode 11).
"I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers."
—"Paper Clip" (Season 3, episode 02).
"Don't you see, Mulder? You're doing their work for them. You're chasing aliens that aren't there, helping them to create the story that covers the shameful truth. And what they can't cover, they apologize for. Apology has become policy."
—"731", (Season 3, episode 10).
Mulder: "I think you better get up here."
Scully: "What is it?"
Mulder: "It appears that cockroaches are mortally attacking people."
Scully: "I'm not going to ask you if you just said what I think you just said because I know it's what you just said."
—"War of the Coprophages" (Season 3, episode 12).
Mulder: "Modell psyched the guy out. He put the whammy on him."
Scully: "Please explain to me the scientific nature of 'the whammy.'"
—"Pusher" (Season 3, episode 17).
"Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, just in contradiction to what we know of it."
—"Herrenvolk" (Season 4, episode 01).
Mulder: "Dana, if um . . . early in the four years we've been working together . . . an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that . . . we'd been friends together in other lifetimes . . . always . . . wouldn't it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?"
Scully: "Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn't change a day. Well, maybe that Flukeman thing."
—"The Field Where I Died" (Season 4, episode 05).
Priest: "Has it occurred to you that maybe this, too, is part of what you were meant to understand?"
Scully: "You mean, accepting my loss?"
Priest: "Can you accept it?"
Scully: "Maybe that’s what faith is."
—"All Souls" (Season 5, episode 17).
Mulder: "He's over here, getting dating advice."
Scully: "From who?!"
Mulder: "Yours truly."
Scully: ". . . the blind leading the blind."
—"The Rain King" (Season 6, episode 07).
"The truest truths are what hold us together, and keep us painfully, desperately apart."
—"Trust No 1" (Season 9, episode 08).
Scully: "No, I don't see the horns right there." [snaps on surgical glove]
Detective White (after looking at Mulder): "I assume you'll call me if you need anything further." [leaves]
Mulder (to Scully): "If it's no bother, if it's not too big a deal, maybe you can get me a few photographs of that thing which bears absolutely no resemblance to a horned beast."
Scully: "Sure, fine." (snaps on other glove) "Whatever."
—"Syzygy" (Season 3, episode 13)
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