Because Mulder drags Scully out to this case fairly unexpectedly, she has no choice but to bring her little dog along. 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. Also, Queequeg’s performance in this episode is one for the ages no Pomeranian actor since has been able to measure up. Um, that’s awesome? Frankly I feel a little cheated that we didn’t get more than two episodes of this. 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. Rachel: This is not my favorite X-Files episode of all time, but it is very close to it. Also, this is what email looks like in “Killswitch,” which kills me: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
“Bad Blood” cleverly takes us through the first half of a case from both detectives’ very different perspectives. 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. 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. Scully, if it were up to me, you would never have to pay for the Magic Fingers on hotel beds. 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 is on point, Mulder is point, Luke Wilson is on point and he’s not even really on the show. Rachel: Is this episode perfect? It might be perfect. Sometimes you need to dip your toe in first and you need some overly-enthused queer weirdos to point you in the right direction. But where to start? For some, starting at Episode 1, Season 1 of a nine-season behemoth is a little much. You know Scully made us gay and maybe you’re ready for Scully to make you gay(er) too.