Welcome to XOXO, Popverse! Our Valentines gift to you this year is a week-long celebration of all things love and romance in pop culture, from our favorite couples to which superheroes would make the worst dates. (It's the X-Men.) Find our love notes to you right here. 

No disrespect to Jim and Pam or Sam and Diane, but TV's greatest "will they/won't they" for freaks like myself (and perhaps you, dear reader) involves a lot more alien abductions. I'm talking, of course, about the OG supernatural ship, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of The X-Files fame. Ever since Dr. Scully first walked into "Spooky" Mulder's office and started investigating the FBI's weirdest cases, fans wanted to see the pair of agents lock lips - but it took them until season 7, episode 4 to do so.

A quarter century has gone by since Mulder and Scully shared their first kiss, and since it's XOXO, Popverse week here at Popverse, I thought we could join hands and take our own investigative walk down lovers' lane. So with spoiler warnings in full effect (and tin foil hats on), won't you join me in reliving the smoochtacular television event that was The X-Files: 'Millennium.'

Planning a wedding at someone else's funeral

Even though the Mulder/Scully kiss is probably what most fans remember from this story, it's worth noting that this episode of the X-Files is also memorable... as kind of an episode of another show. Millennium, the TV series, was the story of ex-FBI agent Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), a psychic investigator who worked for a secret society known as The Millennium Group. Also created by X-Files originator Chris Carter, the show dealt with more human troubles as investigated by superhuman forces, a kind of reversal of The X-Files. Unfortunately, the series did not catch on like its supernatural predecessor did, and was cancelled after three seasons.

However, creator Carter and other folks at Fox decided that they could wrap up Frank Black's story under the umbrella of a one-off X-Files case, and thus, the identically named 'Millennium' episode was born, with Henriksen eventually signing on to reprise his role. I point this out not just for context as we get into the episode's plot, but as a quick reminder that for Millennium fans tuning in, this show would've been one not to miss, whether a certain pair of FBI agents were locking lips ot not.

It ended with a kiss, how did it start out like this?

But here's what we really want to talk about - what led to the first on-camera confirmation of Sculler (Muldy? I don't know the terminology)? The events of 'Millennium' begin right around New Years' Eve 1999, and with a missing corpse - that of one Raymond Crouch, an ex-FBI agent and member of The Millennium Group. Mulder suspects that there's a necromancer behind the empty grave, and Scully (who is apparently just used to this kinda shit four seasons in) goes along with him to investigate. 

Assistant Director Walter Skinner turns our favorite duo onto Frank Black, who is currently checked into a mental institution. According to Black, Crouch and three other ex-Millennials (we're killing the necromancy industry), believed themselves to be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and committed suicide in attempt to resurrect into something more before the year 2000 arrives.

Anyway, Mulder and Scully do discover some folks getting raised from the dead by the powers of the Millennium Group members, but the result is a lot more "zombie uprising" than it is "lich kings." After tracking down the last of the necromancers, Mulder finds himself trapped in a basement and out of ammo, a couple of zombified agents looking to make him a post-last meal. Fortunately, Scully arrives just in time, blasting away the last zombie and saving the day.

The episode ends with Black being checked out of the institution and being reunited with his daughter, Jordan, whose relationship with him was one of the key throughlines of his cancelled show. With the world set right, Mulder and Scully tune in to the TV just in time to watch the ball drop for the last time in the second millennium AD. As Auld Lang Syne plays in the background, they lean in for a (fairly tame, to be honest) locking of lips, followed by a line that only David Duchovny could deliver.

"The world didn't end," he said, winking so hard at the audience as to draw tears.

I want to believe (in love)

From the moment it aired, the 'Millennium' kiss was a hot topic of conversation among X-Files fans. Some called it unhelpful to the plot, some say it walked a perfect line between friendship and romance, others just sat by their TVs wondering why it happened sooner. Even as recently as 2025, the moment was still eliciting opinions from The X-Files subreddit, with one user 'struggling to consider it 'natural,'" another saying it was "too chaste," and still more speculating that this wasn't really the first Mulder/Scully kiss, just the first one we saw on screen.

It's that last bit that sticks with me, all these years the episode aired. Were there X-Files fans in 1999 viewing this episode and speculating that it might fit into their own, unseen head canon, lacking only the online forums to share that headcanon with the rest of the world? It's hard to know, pre-internet, but it's kind of charming to think so, to imagine a world where ships weren't hot topics of debate that would get you hate from certain Twitter groups, but private, personal fantasies, fantasies that (sometimes) came true.

The X-Files is streaming now on Pluto TV.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

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And much gore. Er, more. Much more.