Entertainment
The Best X-Files Episode Completely Changed The Show
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Every X-Files fan has a favorite episode, from darkly whimsical one-offs like “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” to iconic mythology stories such as the Anasazi trilogy. Personally, my favorite has always been “One Breath,” which returns the abducted Scully to Mulder, deepening their relationship and giving the show a heretofore unseen spiritual side. It turns out that was completely intentional: the episode writers had feared that The X-Files was becoming overly bleak, so they went out of their way to create a story in which the paranormal served as a source of comfort and strength.
Like many of the best early X-Files episodes, “One Breath” was scripted by the writing duo of Glen Morgan and James Wong, and Morgan was quoted in X-Files Confidential as believing that the show had become too dark: “The show had been so dark and bleak, and Jim and I feel that there is a side to the paranormal that’s very hopeful,” he said. With “One Breath,” the writers “wanted to do that side of it.”
The Softer Side Of The Supernatural
How did the episode portray the softer side of the supernatural? Previously, Agent Scully had been kidnapped, first by a mentally ill man named Duane Barry and second by, seemingly, aliens. In “One Breath,” she suddenly reappears in a hospital, with Cigarette Smoking Man later taking the credit for returning Scully to Mulder because he likes them both. But it’s unclear if Scully will ever wake up from her coma, and she (as a medical doctor) left in her will very specific instructions to remove her from life support if she ever ended up in such a condition.
Mulder and Scully’s family (her mother and sister) are understandably worried about Scully because it looks like she might never wake up, and the doctors will soon be legally forced to pull the plug. This evokes very different reactions among her loved ones: Mulder becomes obsessed with finding and killing the people who abducted his partner, while Scully’s hippie sister (she’s into all things mystical) thinks he just needs to spend time with Scully. This culminates in a scene where she encourages him to visit a seemingly dying Scully, but Mulder is in the midst of an active plan to ambush and kill Scully’s kidnappers.
Mulder Vs. Mysticism
In an effort to convince him to go see Scully, she drops some very New Age wisdom: she tells him that “I don’t have to be psychic to see you’re in a very dark place…willingly walking deeper into darkness cannot help her at all.” She starts to say “Only the light” before Mulder interrupts, telling her, “Enough with the harmonic convergence crap…you’re not saying anything to me.”
That’s when Melissa Scully gets fairly blunt, telling Mulder to “drop your cynicism and your paranoia and your defeat.” After this, she tells him something that writer Glen Morgan considered the most important line in the episode. “Just because the belief is positive and good doesn’t make it silly or trite.”
The Woman Who Taught Hope To Mulder
After these and a few choice other words (“I expect more from you…Dana expects more”), she leaves, and Mulder ultimately abandons his revenge plan in order to visit Scully in the hospital. This was always an emotionally moving scene, but knowing that the writers fully endorsed Scully’s New Age sister changes everything. After all, X-Files writers typically script most of the show from Mulder’s perspective, and he has embraced cynical paranoia as a way of simply surviving in a world where shadowy government forces can and often do try to kill him whenever his crusade to uncover the truth becomes inconvenient.
This paranoia is so baked into Mulder’s personality (and, accordingly, the show’s DNA) that it is part of arguably The X-Files’ most famous catchphrase: “trust no one.” Notably, “One Breath” writers Glen Morgan and James Wong played a major role in the show’s bleak paranoia by writing seminal early episodes like “E.B.E.” (where Mulder’s government ally Deep Throat lies to him to protect a major coverup involving a hunt for an alien) and “Little Green Men” (in which a senator sends Mulder to a Puerto Rican SETI station, where he is nearly killed by both an alien presence and a military artworks squad).
Mulder Gives Scully A Hand
That bleakness never truly went away, either, as they later wrote the controversial Season 4 masterpiece “Home,” where inbred hillbillies with a mommy fixation terrorize small-town America. But for one brief, shining moment in Season 2, they presented a different perspective: that paranormal phenomena could be a force for good and that the only way to cure depressive paranoia is earnest and unshamed love. Mulder chooses love over revenge, holding Scully’s hand and talking to her throughout the night. She miraculously wakes up the next day, with medical science unable to explain how she managed such an inexplicable recovery.
Admittedly, Beatles-like message (all you need is love!) is very different from the rest of the series, and one that wouldn’t really survive past this episode. But iconic X-Files scribes Glen Morgan and James Wong used “One Breath” to teach Mulder a very necessary lesson: the truth he is relentlessly seeking has been right in front of him the entire time. That truth is his love for Scully, something that would always be enough to save both of them, even when (especially when) all hope seems lost.
Entertainment
BookCon 2026: Authors Rachel Reid, Stephanie Archer talk hockey romance and how it could change the sport for the better
With the fervor of Heated Rivalry, there’s a fierce desire among book readers for even more hockey. On Sunday, April 19, at BookCon, the “You Had Me at Hockey: A Look at One of Sports Romance’s Hottest Genres”, authors Rachel Reid (Heated Rivalry, Game Changer), Emily Rath (Pucking Around), Ngozi Ukazu (Check Please), Stephanie Archer (The Wild Card), and Kate Cochrane (Wake Up, Nat & Darcy) were joined by moderator and fellow author Bal Khabra (Collide) to discuss the rise and continued success of hockey romance.
Khabra kicked off the panel, asking just how hockey became so popular. Ukazu joked that it was as if the genre “escaped containment,” like when the Omegaverse went mainstream, while Reid described the mystery around hockey, saying, “what [the players] are doing seems impossible.” Archer also added that the sport itself is exceptionally hard on the body, and the celebrity around players, especially in Canada, is fun to play with.
But there’s more to the genre’s success than the tropes. “It has to be said,” Rath argued, “that the cornerstone of why this is so popular in publishing is racism.” She went on to say that straight, white women’s voices dominated the romance genre for so long, pointing out that hockey is also the whitest sport. Among major league sports, the NHL is the most predominantly white. In 2022, ESPN reported that 83.6% of league players and staff were white, compared to the NFL, where 25-27% of players are white, or the NBA, where white players make up 17.5% of the league.
Mashable Top Stories
Zooming into the genre, the authors also spoke about the writing process. They dove into the deeper aspects of their work, even the smut. Rath said, “I think the least sexy thing you can ever do is write a sex scene.” A similar sentiment came up during Reid’s Saturday panel, where she described using the sex scenes to further the emotional arc. When readers ask authors if they can skip the spice, Archer says of her own books, “No, you can’t skip the sex scenes. You’re missing so much character development if you don’t go on the journey with them.”
The panel turned to the future, too. Many of the authors write BIPOC and queer representation into their novels, in a genre that often centers on whiteness and homophobia. “We’re writing the world as we want it to be,” Rath said.
Reid has found that there is progress toward a future that these authors and their readers want to see, saying that the NHL is interested in working with them. “People on the inside, they really want to work toward change and want to make this happen.”
With the hockey fandom at an all-time high, there’s a whole team behind these authors ready to drive change.
Entertainment
Save on gas (and everything else) with a $15 BJ’s membership
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Credit: BJ’s Wholesale Club
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Mashable Deals
Let’s start with the obvious, though. Gas prices. Members already get everyday savings at BJ’s Gas, but during this promo window, you’ll get an extra 15¢ off per gallon stacked on top of the usual 5¢ discount — bringing your total to 20¢ off per gallon through April 30.
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Mashable Trend Report
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Entertainment
This $43 bundle quietly upgrades your entire PC experience
TL;DR: This rare Microsoft bundle deal gives you a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows and Windows 11 Pro for only $42.97 (reg. $418.99) through May 17.
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Looking for an affordable way to make your old PC feel new again? If you don’t have the funds to buy a brand new computer, don’t worry. The Ultimate Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows lifetime license and Windows 11 Pro Bundle is the next best thing, offering your computer a total upgrade for only $42.97 through May 17.
Don’t count out your dusty old PC. This Microsoft bundle is here to give it a total facelift for less than $50. It kicks off with a lifetime license to some of the brand’s most popular tools — Microsoft Office, which you’ll pay for once and enjoy without any subscription fees.
Mashable Deals
You’ll get permanent access to a suite of eight helpful apps with Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows. It includes staples that have been around for decades, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. You’ll also get newer favorites like Teams, OneNote, Access, and Publisher.
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Show your PC some love with the Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows and Windows 11 Pro bundle for only $42.97 (reg. $418.99) now until May 17.
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