What Happened To The Lone Gunmen On ‘The X-Files’?

The X-Files new season is pulling out all the stops. The Season 11 premiere had all sorts of reveals and reversals packed into its runtime, befitting of a show whose tagline is “Trust No One.” Not only did the Spender boys (that’s Jeffrey and Cigarette Smoking) get surprisingly decent plastic surgery, we also learned that–SPOILER ALERT–William’s father is not actually Mulder (and that reveal itself is incredibly… problematic, to say the least).

So what does X-Files have in store during week two of its 2018 season? Well, at least one major surprise–the return of Dean Haglund as Langley! Yep, one-third of the fan-favorite Lone Gunmen is back in action during tonight’s episode, although the circumstances surrounding the character’s return is understandably shrouded in mystery. This is the X-Files. Everything is shrouded in mystery. But, and here’s the big question, aren’t the Lone Gunmen dead? Yeah, they definitely died! Although when and how they died escapes me.

To get you ready for tonight’s episode, I want to go over one of the biggest mysteries in all of X-Files: what happened in Seasons 8 and 9. By the time the original run wrapped up in 2002, a lot of longtime fans (myself included) had moved on… just like David Duchovny. The Mulder-less seasons became inessential viewing to former X-Philes, meaning their developments (like the deaths of the Lone Gunmen) became as cloudy and mysterious as the Cigarette Smoking Man’s smoke. I knew the Lone Gunmen were dead, and I know I’ve read about how they died on Wikipedia a bunch, but I still can’t remember what happened! Let’s break this down.

The Lone Gunmen are a trio of conspiracy theorists that are kinda the less sexy and unsanctioned Mulder and Scully. They are the upstanding yet meek John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood), counterculture “man of action” Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood), and the lanky punk rock computer hacker Richard Langly (Dean Haglund). The trio were basically Mulder’s Mulder, the guys that made the spookiest FBI agent around seem well-mannered. The Lone Gunmen first appeared in the Season 1 episode “E.B.E.” and continued to pop up for an episode or six every single season of the show.

The trio even got their own spinoff, The Lone Gunmen, which was partly run by a pre-Breaking Bad Vince Gilligan. Despite critical acclaim, the show only lasted 13 episodes, airing concurrently with the back half of The X-Files Season 8 (a.k.a. the first Mulder-less season). The wild thing is, the show was such a failure (its ratings were under half of what X-Files was scoring at the time) that Fox execs actually grew to loathe the characters themselves.

With their show over, the X-Files writers wanted to bring the trio back for the final season of the show, but execs fought them every step of the way. The trio were limited to cameo appearances in a few episodes, until Gilligan (and fellow Lone Gunmen EPs John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz) were allowed to give the show the series finale it never got. That X-Files episode was “Jump the Shark.”

The episode was used to tie up loose ends from The Lone Gunmen and also included another guest appearance from Michael McKean as ex-government agent Morris Fletcher. The episode pits the protagonists (the Lone Gunmen, as Mulder is gone and Scully has next to nothing to do in this one) against a bioterrorist who plans to unleash a virus on New York City. The Lone Gunmen stop the plot but, in doing so, lock themselves in a room containing the rapidly spreading virus. Byers, Langly, and Frohike halted its spread to the outside world by sacrificing themselves. The Lone Gunmen were then buried in Arlington National Cemetery, with the show’s cast (including longtime members Scully and Skinner) paying their respects.

That wasn’t the end of them, though. They appeared to Mulder as ghosts in the X-Files series finale in 2002, and then popped up in an elaborate mushroom trip in the truly bizarre Season 10 episode “Babylon.”

And that brings us to tonight, with an episode guest-starring Dean Haglund as hacker and Ramones enthusiast Langly. Is he back from the dead? What about Frohike and Byers? Will The X-Files do something just as crazy as the reveals in last week’s episode? The truth is out there (on Wednesdays on Fox at 8 PM ET).

Where to stream The X-Files