The Infamous X-Files Episode That Terrorized Fans By Completely Changing The Show

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 13 seconds ago

Most of the time, it’s a kiss of death for a genre TV show when the writers try to make big changes. True Blood went off the rails when it abandoned its small-town, Southern gothic drama in favor of nonstop supernatural slugfests. Dexter went from being a taught procedural with a killer twist to being an endless melodrama, culminating with arguably the worst finale in television history. Even Riverdale transformed its grounded adaptation of Archie Comics into supernatural storytelling that felt like an endless fever dream.

However, would you believe that one of the most iconic genre shows ever made created a thrilling episode by completely abandoning its entire premise? The X-Files is famously about Mulder and Scully investigating government conspiracies, aliens, and various monsters of the week that go bump in the night. But the episode “Irresistible” was written by showrunner Chris Carter without any paranormal elements whatsoever, creating a fan-favorite thriller of a story that feels like it belongs to a different show altogether.

He’s Scarier Than Any Alien

In case you somehow don’t know, The X-Files was a show shaped almost entirely by Agent Fox Mulder’s quest to prove the existence of aliens and other paranormal phenomena. His partner, Agent Dana Scully, is a skeptic, and most episodes of the series feature a tug of war between their very different perspectives. Mulder will always argue that their latest case is proof of his wild theories, while Scully will offer a more grounded and scientific explanation for otherwise fantastic phenomena.

However, X-Files showrunner Chris Carter threw the show’s formula out the window when he wrote “Irresistible,” an episode where Mulder and Scully have to stop a murderous necrophiliac (although, thanks to network censoring, they had to refer to him as a “death fetishist”). Despite how different this episode was, fans really loved it. A large part of that came from the great characterization in this episode, which Carter thought would have been impossible without ditching the show’s trademark supernatural elements.

Scully Was Never Closer To Death

“I think I was able to explore the character of Scully in a way I wouldn’t have been able to with a supernatural theme,” he told X-Files Confidential. “Sometimes even more scary than the things we can imagine are the things that are unimaginable, which is that the man standing next to you could be this kind of guy.” Basically, the showrunner of the world’s spookiest series acknowledges that some viewers aren’t going to be all that scared of intangible threats like aliens and far-reaching government conspiracies. However, they might be absolutely terrified at the thought that a random stranger could be a secret killer with a fetish for dead bodies. 

What did we learn about Scully from this X-Files episode? Chris Carter wanted to explore “what she is most afraid of,” which turned out to be “dying at the hands of someone—creature or not—and she is helpless to do anything about it.” This refers to the heart-stopping climax of “Irresistible,” in which she is kidnapped by Donnie Pfaster, who has awful plans for her body, both before and after he murders her. She escapes and is ultimately saved, but she uncharacteristically breaks down in Mulder’s arms, which is evidence of how deeply this trauma affected her.

The Banality Of Horny Evil

Interestingly, the closest thing to a supernatural element in “Irresistible” is that a captured Scully sees Pfaster transform into the Devil. Carter based this on some grim accounts from surviving Jeffrey Dahmer victims who reported that he shape-shifted in front of them. “Sometimes the face of evil can become frighteningly real and distorted through a prism of your own unconscious fears,” Carter said. “That’s what we were playing with.”

In retrospect, “Irresistible” was a huge gamble: it completely abandoned The X-Files’ paranormal formula and put a beloved character in mortal peril, where she had to face her greatest fear. But the gamble paid off, as this is one of the fandom’s favorite early episodes of this iconic ‘90s show. It fleshed out Scully’s character and introduced a chilling new villain, all while fleshing out this fictional universe. Showrunner Chris Carter wrote an episode unlike anything fans had seen before, and its success effectively validates Mulder’s personal philosophy: sometimes, you have to break all the rules in order to achieve greatness!