I saw a rumor floating around the Internet recently that only confirms what I’ve thought all along about Scully’s inability to die or be killed. Could Mulder’s partner really be immortal? If so, this could be of major importance in the revival.

1. In the season 3 episode “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” Mulder and Scully meet a psychic who can predict how people will die. When Scully asks him how she dies, he says quite confidently, “you don’t.” Okay, so that’s weird. He might be lying though. Or joking. We really don’t know. Besides, Scully comes really close to dying of cancer in season 4, right? Well Scully doesn’t actually become immortal until season 6.
2. Scully’s supposed immortality comes in the season 6 episode “Tithonus,” who in Greek mythology is a character who lives eternally, but begs for death. This is the plight of the character we find in “Tithonus,” written by Vince Gilligan. Alfred Fellig is a photographer who once cheated death by looking away from him and letting someone else die in his place. Now, after living over 100 years and unable to die, Fellig shows up at crimes scenes, having a sense of when people are about to die, trying to snap a shot of death so he can finally escape. Scully questions why he would want to do such a thing. How can you have too much life? She asks. There’s too much to learn and to experience. Fellig responds that 70 years is long enough. After you see everyone you know die, you start to think about the big thing they all get to experience, and that you miss out on. At the end of the episode, Scully is fatally shot. Fellig tells her to close her eyes—not to look at death—and he takes her place. This means Scully takes Fellig’s place as the one who cheated death—the immortal one.
3. A scant 4 episodes later in “Monday,” Mulder and Scully are caught in some sort of time loop in which the day starts over and over without their memories of it ever having happened. What causes the day to reset? It seems to be Scully’s death. While trying to get a bank robbery under control the bank blows up with her inside it again and again. The theory is that since Scully can’t die, this event can’t happen, and so the day resets until Mulder and Scully able to get it right—with Scully walking out alive. The fact that another character dies in Scully’s place makes the theory all the more interesting. It would seem that for this gift, a high price must be paid. That for one to receive eternal life, other lives must be sacrificed.
4. Scully’s ouroboros tattoo that she receives in the season 4 episode, “Never Again,” while contemplating her terminal cancer diagnosis, is an ancient symbol for immortality. The snake biting it’s own tail has no beginning and no end. Her sudden urge to get this tattoo, which calls to her immediately upon entering the shop, foreshadows her journey to come—how she comes to the brink of death with her cancer, but will continue to live, maybe forever. Speaking of sacrifice, and the balance of life and death in the universe, the ouroboros is also associated with the unity of all things. Indeed, she seems to be destined for this, and on The X-Files, nothing is coincidental or unintentional.
5. Most importantly, when asked if there is any credence to the theory of Scully’s immortality, Chris Carter recently told the Huffington Post: “It’s certainly been suggested, but I can tell you this: stay tuned for episode 6.” Now, Chris Carter is infamous for these vague responses to questions, and wants everything to be a complete surprise for the fans (which we love him for). So this could just be a marketing strategy to get people even more excited about the revival and to make sure they watch until the very end. Or, it could be we’re in for one hell of a finale. Possibly one where only someone who can’t die can save the day. I can hear Mulder now….“I’ve had a theory that I’ve kept to myself for a long time.” Scully, ever the skeptic, would be hesitant to believe such a thing about herself. I always wondered where the show would go with this. Could Scully’s immortality be the key to something big in the show’s mythology? And will she remain immortal? I for one, have never been more eager to find out.