Dana Scully

Template:Xfiles character Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character on the Fox Broadcasting Co. television series The X-Files (1993-2002) and in two theatrical films based on the series, played by Gillian Anderson. She is a Special Agent of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation, partnered most often with fellow Special Agent Fox Mulder. They work out of a cramped basement office at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to investigate unsolved cases labeled "X-Files". In contrast to Fox Mulder's credulous "believer" character, Scully is the skeptic, choosing to base her beliefs on what science can prove. She was known to escape death several times over the course of the show, with multiple episodes hinting that she may be immortal.

Dana Scully is 5'3" (160 cm) and has blue-green eyes. Her work as an FBI agent takes up a major part of her life, and as a result she rarely dates or spends time with friends. She formerly lived in Georgetown, in Washington, DC at the address: 107 E. Cordova St. Apt. 35 Washington, DC.

She has appeared in every episode of "The X-Files" except "3", "Zero Sum", "Unusual Suspects", "Travelers", and "The Gift," as well as the 20th Century-Fox films The X-Files, released in 1998 (sometimes subtitled Fight the Future), and The X-Files: I Want to Believe, released 10 years later.

Chris Carter has stated that he named the character after sportscaster Vin Scully, but coincidentally (or perhaps not) Scully was previously a known name in UFO lore. In 1950 the less than credible Behind the Flying Saucers was published; written by Variety columnist Frank Scully. The name Scully was also used in 1976 film All the President's Men, an obvious inspiration for the show, in a list of names who work for the campaign to reelect the president.

Background

Early life and education

Dana Scully was born on February 23, 1964, to Margaret and William Scully, into a close-knit Catholic family. She has an older brother, William Jr., an older sister, Melissa, and a younger brother, Charles, who is never seen on the show (except in flashbacks). Scully's father was a Captain in the United States Navy, who died of a heart attack in 1994. Dana Scully grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and later in San Diego, California. As a young girl, Scully's favorite book was Moby-Dick and she came to nickname her father "Ahab" from the book, and in return, he called her "Starbuck", due to this she named her dog Queequeg.

Dana Scully attended University of Maryland, and earned a B.S. in Physics. Her undergraduate thesis was titled "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation." It is now also understood that she earned her degree in Medicine from Stanford University, a fact that was previously unknown and came to light in a recent interview with show co-writer, Frank Spotnitz. While lasting medical school, she was recruited by the FBI, which she accepted, mostly because she felt she could distinguish herself there. Upon being partnered with Fox Mulder, she maintained her medical skills by acting as a forensic pathologist, often performing or consulting on autopsies of victims on X-Files cases.

Faith

Throughout the series, her Catholic faith served as a cornerstone in her life, although at times a contradiction to her otherwise rigid skepticism. Upon her career in science and medicine, she drifted from her Catholic upbringing but remained somewhat entrenched in her faith.

Scully almost always wears a golden cross necklace, given to her by her mother on her 15th birthday. Upon her abduction ("Ascension", 2x06) it was the only item left behind in Duane Barry's getaway car. Mulder wore it ("3", 2x07) in her absence until she miraculously reappeared in a DC hospital. ("One Breath", 2x08) After she recovered, he returned the cross to her.

The abduction visibly tested the limits of her faith, when she began to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder on a case involving a murdering fetishist named Donnie Pfaster ("Irresistible", 2x13). This psychological revictimisation continues after Pfaster escaped from prison five years later and again attempted to kill her in her home, ending only after she fatally shot him, while Mulder had Pfaster covered. She struggled with what motivated her actions to kill Pfaster, and questioned whether it was God compelling her to kill Pfaster, or "something else." ("Orison", 7x07)

About a year after the first Donnie Pfaster incident, Scully was further conflicted when protecting a young stigmatic by the name of Kevin Kryder, whose life was threatened by a psychotic, apparently suffering from Jerusalem syndrome ("Revelations", 3x11). Skeptical of the boy's claims but unable to deny what she has seen, Scully was unable to respond when the boy prophetically asked, "Are you the one who was sent to protect me?", implying Scully's intervention was the direct work of God. As a result of their experiences on the Kryder case, the philosophy of faith and religion caused a disagreement between Mulder and Scully that continued through out the duration of their work together.

Some time later, the cancer diagnosis forced Scully to begin contemplating her own mortality. However, she resisted the gentle prodding from her family priest, Father McCue, to resume attending church services. When the severity of her illness increased, and pushed her to the brink of death, Scully finally requested ministry from Father McCue, and chose to accept her remission as a miracle. ("Redux", 5x03)

Upon the sudden discovery of her daughter Emily Sim, Scully gave the little girl her cross to wear while she petitioned to adopt her. Before her funeral, Scully retrieved the cross from Emily's casket.

Sometime after her recovery, Scully began to regularly attend Mass again. At the request of Father McCue, Scully got involved in a case concerning a paraplegic girl who was found dead in a kneeling position with her palms outstretched and eye sockets charred. ("All Souls", 5x17) After Scully discovered the girl was part of a set of quadruplets and two more were murdered, Father McCue shared with her the story of the seraphim and the nephilim, which Scully interpreted as a possible explanation for the deformations and deaths of the girls. Scully continued to have visions of Emily, and when the last girl died, Scully believed she was returning the girl to God. Upon her return to D.C., she went to confession to gain peace of mind and acceptance for Emily's death.

Mulder and Scully frequently disagreed on matters of religion. Scully is more inclined to believe that God has a hand in people's actions, while Mulder seems to believe that people are responsible for their own behavior.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Six years after the events of the ninth season, Dana Scully is working as a doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital. She was contacted by the FBI who was looking for Fox Mulder to assist them with the investigation of a missing FBI agent. In exchange for his help charges against him were dropped. Unlike Mulder, Scully was apparently not considered a fugitive after "The Truth". She however maintained her personal relationship with him and in the movie they are living together in rural Virginia. Scully has grown particularly attached to a young boy who is dying of an incurable illness, a patient she doesn't tell Mulder about initially. During the course of the film she has a crisis of faith after she discovers a possible form of treatment for the boy, and she is unsure of whether or not to proceed.

Relationships

Family

• Captain William "Bill" Scully - Scully's relationship with her father was fairly close, but could be tense at times, in part due to his no-nonsense attitude and sense of military professionalism. Examples of this include her desire to prove to her father that she was every bit the equal of her brothers, including one instance in which she shot a snake with a BB gun at the prodding of her brothers, only to feel wracked with guilt afterwards. On one occasion as a child, she stole one of her mother's cigarettes and smoked it, half hoping her father would find out and be angry. Their relationship suffered when she decided not to pursue a career in medicine, and joined the FBI. By 1994, the two seemed to have reconciled before her father suddenly died of a heart attack. Only after he was gone did Scully realize that, despite their differences, her father was indeed proud of her ("Beyond the Sea"). Following her abduction while lying comatose, Scully sees an apparition of her father. Clad in his official Navy whites, he delivers to her a message full of love as he encourages her to live ("One Breath"). William Scully was played by Don S. Davis.
• Margaret "Maggie" Scully - Scully's mother provides support for her daughter's frequent health crises, but sometimes expresses quiet disapproval in Scully's choices. Margaret Scully is frequently seen meddling into Scully's life. She vigorously encourages Scully to rekindle her Catholic faith, often expresses her disapproval in Scully's dangerous job (though she seemed to harbor a certain fondness for Mulder), and insists on hiring a baby nurse for Scully towards the end of her pregnancy. After William's birth, Margaret is extremely protective of Scully and William. In her final appearance, ("Provenance"), she is also seen as reluctant to find the truth because of the danger involved. She was played by actress Sheila Larken.
• Melissa "Missy" Scully - Scully was extremely close to her older sister, who was first introduced when Scully lay dying in Georgetown Memorial Hospital following her abduction. Unlike her skeptical younger sister, Melissa was a free spirit who encouraged Scully to look beyond the realms of science and fact, and trust intuition and nature. Scully was deeply affected by her death, and championed hard to keep her murder investigation active ("Piper Maru"). Melissa was played by Melinda McGraw. Younger versions were played by Christine Viner (in "Piper Maru") and Rebecca Codling ("Christmas Carol").
• William "Bill" Scully Jr. - Scully's relationship with her older brother, also a Naval officer, seemingly mirrors the disapproval she felt from her father ("Gethesmane"). His childhood relationship with Scully could veer from typical sibling rivalry to outright bullying, in one case causing Scully to accidentally kill her pet rabbit in her attempts to hide it from Bill ("Christmas Carol"). Further complicating their relationship is his own steadfast refusal to validate her work, and belligerence towards Mulder (he feels that Mulder is directly the reason for Dana's illness and Melissa's death, and called him "a real piece of work" and "one sorry son of a bitch" to his face.) Bill's wife is named Tara, and they have one son, Matthew. The adult Bill Jr. was played by Pat Skipper; Ryan DeBoer played a teenage Bill Jr. in the episode "Christmas Carol", while Joshua Murray appears uncredited as a younger version in "One Breath".
• Charles Scully - Scully's younger brother who was referred to, but only seen as a boy in flashback in the episode "One Breath".
• Emily and William - Scully's two children. Emily, who died shortly after being found by Scully, was conceived during Scully's brief abduction several years earlier. William, who Scully later refers to as "our (her and Mulder's) son" ("The Truth"), was carried to term and lived with his mother from birth. However, Scully decided to give William up for adoption in order to protect him ("William") when the child was about one year old. William was named for Mulder's father, however this also means he shares the name of his grandfather and uncle on his mother's side of the family, both of whom are also named William.

Romance

Scully was given a reporter boyfriend named Ethan in the original edit of the Pilot episode, but he was subsequently edited out and removed from the storyline.

While in medical school, she carried on an affair with her married instructor, Dr. Daniel Waterston ("all things", 7x17), who may have been the "college boyfriend" mentioned in "Trust No 1." It is never indicated whether or not the relationship became sexual. The end of her relationship with Waterston came about following her decision to go into the FBI. After her entrance to the FBI's Academy at Quantico, Scully began a year-long relationship with her older instructor, Jack Willis, with whom she shared a birthday ("Lazarus", 1x14).

In the episode "En Ami," (7x15) the Cigarette Smoking Man says that she is attracted to "powerful men," to which Scully retorts that he is practicing "pop psychology," a reaction which seems to be more one of discomfort than actual disagreement. Considering her past associations with instructors, mentors, and father figures, this seems plausible.

File:Scullyouroboros.jpg

Scully's tattoo of the Ouroboros.

Scully was set up by a friend, and went out on a date with a handsome but boring divorcé in "The Jersey Devil" (1x04). Several years later, she encountered Ed Jerse while on a case, who showed her a strange tattoo he'd gotten to commemorate his recent divorce. Frustrated over the path her life has taken, she impulsively had drinks with Jerse, and, inspired by his, also got a tattoo of an Ouroboros, a serpent eating its own tail. She spent the night with Jerse (it is unclear whether she slept with him that night), but ergot dyes in the tattoo ink drove Jerse crazy and compelled him to attempt to murder Scully ("Never Again", 4x13).

In "Milagro" (6x18), Scully unwittingly became the object of desire for Phillip Padgett, a reclusive writer. He revealed his obsession with Scully to her in the course of an investigation, providing strangely detailed insight into her life, to the extent that he moved into Mulder's building to be near her. As an X-File case, all of his written work comes to life. In his newest book he wrote that the two made love on his bed, but in reality they were interrupted by Mulder. His love for Scully remained unrequited and he even hints that Scully is already in love with someone else.

Towards the end of the series, her relationship with Mulder clearly crossed over into the romantic sphere. When Mulder was injured in a boat crash, he awakened in a hospital and told Scully that he loved her ("Triangle", 6x03). In the episode ("The Ghosts that Stole Christmas") a ghost that seems to know the inner workings of Scully's mind suggest that her source of intimacy from Mulder comes from her desire to always prove him wrong. By the end of Season 6, Mulder and Scully were increasingly shown doing more light-hearted activities together, such as practicing baseball ("The Unnatural", 6x20), using FBI funds for a "night out" during a movie premiere ("Hollywood, A.D.", 7x18), and enjoying a movie at Mulder's apartment("Je Souhaite", 7x21). In The X-Files film Mulder initiates what would seemed to have been a consensual kiss to Scully, but was interrupted by a bee sting, from a bee carrying the alien virus. In another episode ("Trust No 1", 9x08), a man reveals to Scully that he works for the New Syndicate, and his job requires him and a few other colleagues to spy on her around the clock. Due to this he knows intimate details of Scully's personal life, right down to her "natural hair color". It is suggested by this man that Scully ultimately initiated her and Mulder's sexual relationship, as he remarked that he was very surprised when she invited Mulder "into her bed".

After Mulder's abduction, coinciding with Scully's announcement of her pregnancy ("Requiem", 7x22) there was little doubt that Scully's child was conceived with Mulder. During her pregnancy, Mulder pulled out all the stops to protect her and uncover the plot against her baby ("Essence", 8x20). When Jeffrey Spender resurfaced as a disfigured man claiming to be Mulder, Scully was quick to dismiss his disfigurement, stating, "If that were Mulder, I wouldn't care." ("William", 9x16) When Mulder actually returned, they shared a passionate kiss and grieved together over the loss of their son. She and Mulder became fugitives together.

The last scene of the series finale featured Mulder and Scully in bed, facing an uncertain future together.

In the film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which takes place six years later, Mulder and Scully are still in a relationship and are now living together. Scully was concerned that Mulder's continuing pursuit of the unknown was taking its toll on their relationship and they could not be together if he couldn't "escape the darkness." However, in the "secret ending" after the majority of the credits, Scully is seen in a small rowboat with Mulder - both clad in swimwear and a bathrobe - in a tropical sea, having taken him up on his offer to run away together.

Appearances

Scully appears in every episode of the nine-season series except:

• Season 2: "3"
• Season 4: "Zero Sum"
• Season 5: "Unusual Suspects" and "Travelers"

Other Appearances:

• In the Millennium (also created by Chris Carter) episode "Lamentation," The main character, Frank Black, visits the FBI building and Mulder and Scully are briefly seen descending a stairway. In fact, they are Duchovny and Andersons' stand-ins.
• An animated version of Scully, which featured the voice acting of Gillian Anderson, would appear on season 8 of The Simpsons, in the episode Springfield Files, as well as Eek! the Cat, on the episode Eek Space 9. The animated television series ReBoot featured characters "Fax Modem" and "Data Nully", obvious spoofs of Mulder and Scully, in the episode "Trust No One". Anderson provided her voice work for the episode, but co-star Duchovny declined.

Pop culture references

• Chris Carter has stated that he named Scully after his favorite sportscaster, Vin Scully. John Doggett was named after Scully's longtime broadcasting partner, Jerry Doggett.
• Scully was portrayed by Tea Leoni, who played as herself, in the movie within the episode "Hollywood A.D." (7x19). Leoni is married to David Duchovny.
• Scully, along with Mulder, is strongly referenced in the song "Mulder And Scully" by the band Catatonia.
• In the online roleplaying game World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment played an April Fools joke on the online community by fictionally creating the "Tinfoil Hat". The Blizzard Tinfoil Hat page stated that if players ate enough of a specific food or drink, agents Sculder and Mully would appear, a reference to Mulder and Scully.
• In a deleted scene in the first season of British comedy Spaced, you can see the main character Tim using Scully as a muse - she is in his head, and she disappears as soon as Tim turns around.
• Maryland punk rock band The Pizza Monsters has a song dedicated to Agent Scully.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Pack", Buffy says to Giles: "I can't believe you of all people are trying to Scully me".
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, Life Serial: Andrew Wells, a member of the nerd Trio, asserts, "Scully wants me so bad."
• In an episode of the television series Angel, a police officer Kendrick says the following to Kate:

Kendrick: “Come on Kate. Everyone knows you’ve gone all Scully. Anytime one of these weird cases crosses anyone’s desk, you’re always there. We used to be friends - what’s going on with you?”

Kate: “Scully’s the skeptic”.

Kendrick: “Huh?”

Kate: “Mulder’s the believer, Scully’s the skeptic.”

Kendrick scratches his head: “…Scully’s the chick, right?”

• In season one of American Dad! both Scully and Mulder appear to be played by two extreme X-files fans at a Science Fiction convention. Mulder was also mentioned by Klaus when Roger tried to imitate the agent's background story in, "The Office Spaceman" of season three.
• In the pilot to Supernatural, Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) manages to sneak himself and his brother into the investigation on a bridge. As two FBI agents approach them, he nods to them and says, "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully."
• In an episode of Roswell, while Michael Guerin and Maria Deluca sneak into Courtney's house, carrying flashlights to investigate her and Maria says the following to Michael:

Maria: Michael! I feel like we're Scully and Mulder or something.

• In Crossing Jordan episode 1x11 Woody says that Jordan and Garret are like Mulder and Scully.
• On the pilot episode of Bones, while trying to convince Temperance "Bones" Brennan that they'll work together, FBI Agent Seeley Booth says "We're Scully and Mulder". These two main characters are often compared to Scully and Mulder in fanbases, since they share the platonic-but-somewhat-flirty relationship made famous on The X-Files.
• On the Doctor Who's spinoff series Torchwood, the characters of Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper are called often called Mulder and Scully.

See also

• List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture

External links

• Dana Scully - X-Files Wiki
• Deep Background - entry on Dana Scully
• Wiki on the X-Files
• Dana Scully Profile at Pop Culture Heroines