FBI agents Mulder and Scully have gotten themselves involved in UFO conspiracies and monster hunts, but they even get entangled with the big game on Super Sunday. Not only did The X-Files get the coveted post-Super Bowl TV slot back in Season 4, but it was the same season that unleashed the “Buffalo Bill Curse” with long-standing consequences that have seemingly affected the football team for decades. While it might be difficult to untangle the alien mythology, the truth about how connected The X-Files is with the history of the Super Bowl is known.
This Post-Super Bowl Episode Had One of the Weirdest ‘X-Files’ Monsters
Season 4 is an important chapter for the series. On-screen, the storytelling was hitting a peak, with the underrated episode about past lives or the disturbing episode that was banned from re-airing on TV for three years. Off the screen, Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny both won the Primetime Emmy for their performances as Scully and Mulder this season; of the pair, Anderson went on to be the solo winner of a Golden Globe. It was also when The X-Files reached the biggest audience of its whole run when it aired right after Super Bowl XXXI.
“Leonard Betts” has Mulder and Scully discover a man who might just be a leap in human evolution. Leonard Betts (Paul McCrane) is an EMT who eats cancerous tumors and whose body is made entirely of cancerous cells — which has given him regenerative abilities. Getting decapitated during a car accident in the opening scene isn’t the end, Betts’ headless corpse just needs the time and privacy to regrow his missing noggin. But with the FBI agents on his trail, Betts soon becomes desperate and resorts to murder to keep his secret hidden.
Over 29 million viewers watched “Leonard Betts” after the biggest game of the NFL season. It was a standalone “Monster-of-the-Week” episode without the complicated alien mythology that might have alienated new viewers. In other words, it was the best kind of episode for both long-time fans and new ones, featuring a strange monster that only The X-Files could have come up with. During an autopsy, Scully is scared by Leonard’s head suddenly opening its eyes and mouth, long before TV audiences would see Kathy Bates playing a more lively decapitated head on AHS: Coven. Later in the episode, when Leonard has to self-reproduce himself, how does he do it? The X-Files has Leonard grow a new self from out of his mouth in a painful scene reminiscent of the body horror of The Substance. But the episode’s final twist is even more shocking for how it changed Scully’s life.
‘The X-Files’ Season 4 Introduced a Major Story Arc for Dana Scully
When Betts is cornered by the FBI agent, he wants to kill her, because in his words, “I’m sorry, but you’ve got something I need.” If that didn’t clue viewers in on Scully’s incoming cancer diagnosis, the ending finds her waking up in bed, coughing and with a nosebleed, until the episode “Memento Mori” confronts it head-on. It let Gillian Anderson deliver emotionally charged performances, even if the story arc could be inconsistent about when it was or when it wasn’t mentioned. Although Season 4 got the special honor of a post-Super Bowl TV slot, it would also be the season where a line of dialogue seemed to summon a curse on the Buffalo Bills.
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A Super Bowl Curse That You Can Blame on This ‘X-Files’ Villain
Some episodes earlier, Season 4’s “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man,” offered an origin tale for the series’ mysterious villain, the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). He is blamed not only for political assassinations but an apparent “Buffalo Bill Curse.” During a secret meeting that exposes how the world is controlled by a select group, the Cigarette Smoking Man is in charge. He dislikes movies, so he shows no interest in rigging the Oscar nominations, but he demands that the Buffalo Bills never win a Super Bowl game. And his power is undeniable. He takes credit for the “Miracle on Ice” victory in the 1980 Winter Olympics.
It would seem the fictional character’s words became very real. So much so, actor William B. Davis made a public announcement ahead of the recent AFC Championship Game to finally put an end to his “Curse.” “I am today officially removing my curse on the Buffalo Bills,” Davis wrote on Facebook. “If they are able to defeat Kansas City I will permit them to go on and win the Super Bowl.” But it wasn’t enough. Those who are superstitious might believe the years it was left to go unchecked seemed to make it too strong. For over 30 years, The X-Files loved diving into conspiracies, so it makes life a little stranger to know the series might have created its own “X-File” when it started a Super Bowl curse that it couldn’t put an end to.
The X-Files
- Release Date
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1993 – 2017
- Network
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FOX
- Franchise(s)
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The X-Files
