The X-Files: 10 Times Mulder and Scully Brought ‘UST’ to Another Level

Ah, “UST.” The bane and bread and butter of shippers everywhere. UST (or Unresolved Sexual Tension) is a hallmark of television but never was it more iconic than with the endless back and forth between The X-Files‘ Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Here are 10 moments that brought that pesky (and wonderful) UST to life.

1. Season 1 Episode 1 — The Pilot

I know. The pilot? But who can forget that iconic motel room scene, lit by actual candlelight and paired with Scully in a robe?

There’s nothing inherently romantic about the scene at all, but Mulder reassuring Scully that the bumps on her back are mosquito bites and therefore not related to the sinister case they’re working on remains one of the most unassumingly intimate scenes in the show’s history.

2. Season 4 Episode 4 — Memento Mori

This is easily one of the hardest episodes of The X-Files to watch. Scully’s fresh cancer diagnosis has put everything into a tailspin, from Scully’s outlook on life to their work on the X-Files themselves.

Mulder enters himself into a desperate race to try and save Scully from what Mulder believes is a cancer connected to a number of other women that had been abducted, as Scully once had been. The culmination of Scully’s chemo and Mulder’s investigation is a long, comforting hug that speaks to the now undeniable closeness of the pair after four years of working together.

3. Season 5 Episode 6 — The Post-Modern Prometheus

Everyone knows “The Post-Modern Prometheus.” It’s that comic book one that’s in black and white, with the gentle monsters and the Cher soundtrack and…well, you know the story.

The final scene sung by a Cher impersonator (Cher later expressed regret that she could not do the performance herself) to “Walkin’ in Memphis” is beautifully capped off by Mulder asking a reluctant, but happy, Scully to dance.

4. Season 5 Episode 19 — Folie à Deux

‘Folie à Deux’ is, on its surface, a standard monster-of-the-week episode that The X-Files is famous for. But it is its poignant post-case hospital scene that really brings the relationship between Mulder and Scully to a quiet, altering edge:

Mulder: Scully, you have to believe me. No one else on this whole damn planet does, or ever will. You’re my one in five billion.

I mean, come on.

5. Film — Fight the Future

You know what insect X-Philes (that’s fans of The X-Files, for the newbies) hate most of all? Bees. It’s bees. The incredible hallway scene in The X-Files’ first foray into film is wrought with tension, from Mulder’s impassioned speech to Scully’s reassuring kiss to his forehead.

In fact, the only thing that stopped that forehead kiss and touch from becoming something much more was–you guessed it–a bee. Fear not, though: if you ever wanted to see what would have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted, the blooper reel has you covered.

6. Season 6 Episode 8 — The Rain King

It’s a screwball episode with a romantic heart, to be sure, and ‘The Rain King’ has quite possibly one of the most important revelations on Mulder and Scully’s relationship squished right in between a high school reunion and flying cows (this is The X-Files, after all). Scully gives a speech that not only exposes her own thoughts on her and Mulder’s relationship but has become a quote deeply entrenched in the friends-to-lovers trope enjoyed by TV audiences today.

Scully: It seems to me that the best relationships–the ones that last–are frequently the ones rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at a person and see more than you did the night before. And that person who is just a friend is suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.

It’s okay, Scully. You don’t have to say his name. We know who you’re talking about.

7. Season 6 Episode 19 — The Unnatural

Look, I’m gonna be straight with you: this is a weird episode. There’s baseball, and aliens, and Mulder and Scully bickering over non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle ice cream. It’s also a personal favorite, thanks to an ending scene that finds Mulder hauling Scully out to a baseball field to properly teach her how to play the sport.

Amidst the arguing over whose hands go where and the instructions on how to actually hit a baseball is an intimate, lighthearted scene that was written and directed by David Duchovny himself. (Wanna watch that scene? Tumblr has you covered.)

8. Season 7 Episode 4 — The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati

After spending an episode trapped in a “are they going to operate on his brain, are they not” conundrum, Mulder awakens to find that the only thing that carried him through his coma-like state was Scully and her belief in him.

Mulder: Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant, my touchstone.
Scully: And you are mine.

Who needs an “I love you” when this exchange exists? Sure, they have their first official on-screen kiss a few episodes later, but nothing says UST like declaring to your FBI partner that she’s the only thing keeping you going in this conspiracy-riddled world.

9. Season 7 Episode 17 — all things

No episode frustrates and delights me like this episode does. It opens on an early-morning Scully examining herself in her mirror before starting her day and follows her out into her bedroom where…a naked Mulder sleeps happily on. What the hell? When did this start?

No one will ever really know (except, perhaps, for the episode’s writer, Gillian Anderson), but the absolute UST turned potential RST is still one of the most hotly debated topics amongst X-Philes everywhere.

10. Season 9 Episode 20 — The Truth

Okay, technically we’re now firmly in the “they did it and they have a kid together” territory, but the reunion between Scully and an imprisoned Mulder is nothing sort of legendary. It’s the final scene of the episode, though, that takes us all the way back to that intimate scene in the pilot: it’s Mulder and Scully, a motel room, and a bed, and a whole future waiting for them.

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What are your favorite Mulder and Scully moments? Are you looking forward to the new season? Leave a comment below!