The X-Files: What Happened To Mulder and Scully After The Series Ended

There was a 14-year gap between The X-Files‘ original end and its 2016 revival, and here’s what we know about what Mulder and Scully did in between. Most shows are lucky to last two seasons, so even by ending in 2002 after nine, The X-Files was already part of some pretty elite company. A genre-defining program of the 1990s, perhaps what’s more impressive about The X-Files is that the overall franchise has never really slowed down, putting out movies, video games, comic books, and more to keep fans stimulated.

Once the 2010s TV revival craze began – which thankfully seems to have died down a tad, as things were going overboard – it became a pretty safe prediction that The X-Files would return to TV, provided stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson would agree to come back to their iconic roles. After some contract hashing out – especially on Anderson’s part – they both signed on the dotted line, and X-Files season 10 premiered on FOX in early 2016.

Still, while Duchovny spent some time experiencing some Californication and Anderson played mind games with Hannibal Lecter, Mulder and Scully’s lives in between season 9 and season 10 weren’t nearly so splashy and public. While not much is known about what they got up to, the 2008 movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe does fill in a few gaps and provide some context clues.

X-Files: What Happened To Mulder and Scully After The Series Ended

Fans will recall that The X-Files season 9 ended with Mulder and Scully escaping with help from their friends and colleagues, after a bogus show trial accusing Mulder of killing a man – actually a super soldier – who wasn’t dead. Despite their predicament, the pair vows to keep fighting against those trying to silence them. By 2008, in I Want to Believe, Mulder and Scully are living together in a remote house, and it’s clear they have been for quite some time. Mulder has kept off the grid, as the FBI tells Scully they’re looking for him. Still, the most logical place for him to be is with Scully, so it seems they’re just keeping him a fugitive so he’ll stay quiet, not because they want to catch him.

The FBI makes Scully – who’s returned to working as a medical doctor since leaving the FBI in 2002, this time at a Catholic hospital – an offer, get Mulder to agree to assist them with a bizarre case, and the charges against him will be dropped. It’s a bit unclear why Scully was never charged with anything for her role in helping Mulder escape, which further ties into the idea that the FBI don’t actually care if Mulder gets captured or not. Mulder and Scully accept the offer, work the main case of I Want to Believe, then are free to move on with their lives. Neither is with the FBI when The X-Files season 10 begins in 2016, so it would appear that after 2008’s case, they had no further involvement with the bureau. Mulder and Scully then break-up sometime between 2008 and 2016, for reasons that were never fully explained.

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