Darin Morgan’s Weird And Wonderful ‘X-Files’ Episodes Are The Ones You Can’t Miss

Morgan’s tenure with the show actually begins a bit earlier than this game-changer from late in Season 2. Darin’s brother Glen Morgan was one of the first writers on the show, penning early creep-out classics like “Squeeze” and “Ice” with his writing partner James Wong. Darin’s first writing credit on the show is for the story of the Glen Morgan / James Wong jam “Blood.” Oh, and he also played the Flukeman in “The Host.” So yeah, the best X-Files episodes were written by its creepiest original monster!

Darin Morgan’s first solo writing credit came later in Season 2, with the episode “Humbug.” In it, FBI Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate a series of murders at a community of ex-sideshow performers. The episode is memorable for a number of reasons, like the puzzle-tattooed, fish-eating Enigma, and the inclusion of ’90s counterculture mainstay Jim Rose. But “Humbug” really made its mark with its tone, which was lighter than the show had previously attempted, albeit still macabre like any good X-Files ep. Morgan’s debut episode proved that the show could go for laughs while not betraying its horror core.

Watch "Humbug" on Hulu

With his second X-Files episode, Morgan knocked it outta the park (kinda like that alien baseball player!). Mulder and Scully are hot on the trail of a serial killer targeting fortune tellers and psychics when they come across help from an unlikely source: Clyde Bruckman (Peter Boyle), a cynical life insurance salesman cursed with the ability to see when everyone around him will die. Whereas “Humbug” brought the jokes, “Clyde Bruckman” brings the darkness with character moments pulled directly from Morgan’s own bout with depression. Oh, and the episode is also responsible for that whole “Scully is immortal” theory that Morgan himself doesn’t even believe.

Not only is “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” most people’s favorite Darin Morgan episode, it is widely considered to be the best episode of the series, period. “Clyde Bruckman” has the statues to back up its revered status. This episode won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series in 1996, and Peter Boyle won Outstanding Actor in a Guest Role for his portrayal of the titular curmudgeon.

Watch "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" on Hulu

This light War of the Worlds pastiche follows Mulder as he unintentionally finds himself in a small town dealing with an outbreak of what appear to be killer cockroaches. This one strikes a balance between the light and dark of “Humbug” and “Clyde Bruckman,” proving that Morgan can also handle the gross out thrills X-Files also regularly provided. Seriously, I could have done without seeing a cockroach burrow inside of a stoned teen’s wrist!

The episode really plays into Morgan’s specific takes on Mulder and Scully too. In all of his episodes, the usually brooding and charismatic Mulder is humiliated ever so slightly, be it Jim Rose knocking his catalogue-ready good looks in “Humbug” or Mulder immediately falling for a researcher named (no joke) Bambi Bernebaum in this one. Gillian Anderson, on the other hand, gets to really lay into Scully’s take-charge tendencies in these episodes, like when she tries to calm a convenience store full of panicking townspeople.

Watch "War of the Coprophages" on Hulu

While I love “Clyde Bruckman” dearly, my personal all-time favorite Morgan episode (and also my favorite X-File ever) has to be “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space,'” a perception-twisting tale about an alien abduction… and the abduction that occurred during that abduction.

The episode follows sci-fi writer Jose Chung, played with equal parts pizzazz and drama by theatre icon Charles Nelson Reilly, as he interviews all the major players in the abduction-within-an-abduction case. Along the way he learns about two different sets of Men in Black, watches an alien autopsy video beside a mortified Scully, and hears the story of Lord Kinbote. The episode is everything that is great about The X-Files, from great Mulder and Scully scenes (Mulder’s yelp, Scully’s intimidation tactics) to laugh-out-loud moments (“A bleepin’ dead alien”) and truly horrifying sequences (those greys!). And it’s all held together by Reilly, a man known for his ’70s tenure as a glorious game show panelist who creates a multi-layered character while mostly remaining seated in a chair.

I mean, I’m biased towards this one because I love CNR. He’s the GIF on my author page, for crying out loud.

While this would be Morgan’s last writing credit on the original run, he did do an uncredited rewrite on “Quagmire” (3×22), which–like all of Morgan’s eps–includes Easter eggs to his other work. Morgan also appeared on-camera as a shape-shifting loser in the Vince Gilligan-written episode “Small Potatoes” (4×20).

Watch "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" on Hulu

Darin Morgan’s initial tenure with the show only lasted two seasons and four episodes, episodes that redefined what the show could do (and also won them two of their three Primetime Emmys). When the show’s comeback was announced, fans were ecstatic to learn that the new season would include more Morgan. Of course considering his history with the show, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” had high expectations to live up to.

The episode lived up to them by being quite possibly the most Darin Morgan-iest episode of all of Darin Morgan’s episodes. It has a fantastic guest star at the center of it, the always delightful Rhys Darby playing a reverse were-creature. It mixes the cerebral (the nature of man!) with the hilarious (man has to do a lot of boring stuff!). And, as with all of Morgan’s chapters, it features a toooon of Easter eggs. The stoners from “War of the Coprophages” come back 20 years later (hello Tyler Labine!), as does Mulder’s red Speedo and a bunch of other shout outs to the previous 200 episodes. Even Darby’s sharp-dressed were-creature is a callback to the show that inspired The X-Files, the ’70s horror anthology Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Morgan’s winning streak continued with 2016’s “Were-Monster,” and it continues in Season 11’s “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat,” a “Jose Chung”-ian dissection of the nature of memory packed with a sure to be fan favorite weirdo played by Brian Huskey and Easter eggs galore. Morgan’s still walking down that bizarre path, and we will follow him anywhere.

Watch "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" on Hulu