Quentin Tarantino Almost Directed a Controversial Episode of THE X-FILES Involving Agent Scully

Did you know that director Quentin Tarantino almost directed an episode of The X-Files? This show is one of my all-time favorites, and it would have been pretty cool to see Tarantino direct an episode of it! The episode that he was supposed to direct actually ended up being one of the more controversial episodes, titled “Never Again” which was the thirteenth episode of Season 4.

The reason that Tarantino didn’t end up directing it was due to a technicality regarding the Directors Guild of America. His involvement was shut down after the Directors Guild of America found that Tarantino failed to join the union after directing an episode of ER, which violated an agreement between the two parties.

The episode was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, and it put the focus on Agent Scully. In the episode, while Agent Mulder (David Duchovny) is vacationing, Scully (Gillian Anderson) finds herself attracted to a handsome divorcee whose Betty Page-like tattoo seemingly has a mind of its own.

The episode came after Anderson said she wanted to see her character Scully explore an intense and passionate relationship between Scully and another man. While the episode is now considered one of the best, at the time it aired, a lot of fans felt Scully was out of character. When responding that that criticism, Anderson said: "I don't think that what I did here was out of character for Scully. The only thing different is that the audience hadn't seen it before."

I actually liked the episode because it was so different than a lot of the episodes we were getting, and we also got to see a darker side of Scully, which was rare in the series. While the episode did focus on Scully’s attraction to another man, it also dove deeper into the relationship between Mulder and Scully and their intimate feelings for each other.

Anyway, it would have been interesting to see Tarantino direct this episode! But, that’s not how things played out and it ended up being helmed by Rob Bowman.