Dana Scully

Dr. Dana Katherine Scully (born February 23, 1964) is a fictional character on the television series The X-Files, played by Gillian Anderson. She is an FBI Special Agent and partner on the X-Files with Special Agent Fox Mulder. These two work out of a cramped basement office at FBI headquarters to investigate unsolved cases labeled "X-Files". In contrast to Fox Mulder's credulous "believer" character, Scully is the skeptic (a role-reversal of sorts for television characters at the time the X-Files first aired). She is also Catholic, which often creates moral dilemmas for her.

As with Mulder, work takes up a major part of her life, and she rarely dates or spends time with friends. She usually wears a small cross pendant which was given to her on her 13th birthday, although in the fifth season episode Christmas Carol it is shown that she received the cross as a Christmas present. She lives alone in a small apartment (Apt. 35, 1419 of an unknown street, in Georgetown, a neighborhood of Washington, DC).

Biography

Early life and education

Scully was born on February 23, 1964, presumably in Maryland, to Margaret ("Maggie") and William ("Bill") Scully. She has an older brother, William "Bill" Jr., an older sister, Melissa ("Missy"), and a younger brother named Charles (or Charlie), who is never seen on the show (except in flashbacks). She grew up in Annapolis and later in San Diego when her father, who was in the US Navy, transferred to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. As a young girl she was somewhat of a tomboy, though afraid of snakes. This carried on to some degree even into her high school years, as she was more extroverted and daring, sometimes secretly smoking her mother's cigarettes, participating at least once in a seance, and accidentally setting fire to some nearby woods at a party with her prom date and friends. By the time she joins the FBI, however, she has grown more introverted, and almost always admonishes Mulder when he violates FBI protocol. At the University of Maryland, she earned her B.S. in Physics. Her undergraduate thesis was entitled "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation." Afterwards, Scully decided to become a medical doctor, but while finishing medical school, she was recruited by the FBI, which she accepted, mostly because she felt she could establish herself there. Her father, however, felt strongly against her joining the FBI, and the two became somewhat estranged. Upon being partnered with Mulder, she retained her medical skills by acting as a forensic pathologist, often performing or consulting on autopsies of victims on X-Files cases.

Love life

Although never much of a social butterfly, Scully dated occasionally, many of whom made an appearance in her life during her time on the X-Files, beginning with her twelfth-grade boyfriend and prom date, Marcus. (Small Potatoes, 4x20)

Upon her admittance into medical school, she carried on an affair with her married instructor, Dr. Daniel Waterston. Unable to deal with the potential fall-out to Waterston's family should they discover the affair, she transferred to the FBI, though the truth was later discovered by her former friend (and Waterston's daughter) anyway, creating an ambience of bitterness when Waterston re-entered Scully's life on his deathbed. (all things, 7x17)

After her entrance to the FBI's Academy at Quantico, Scully began a year-long affair with her older instructor, Jack Willis (Lazarus, 1x14) with whom she shared a birthday. Unfortunately, Willis' life was cut short when he was involved in a shoot-out with Warren Dupree, which resulted in Dupree's reincarnation in Willis' body for a short time. Dupree, in Willis' body, eventually dies as a result of insulin deprivation from Willis' type-1 diabetes.

Even before her assignment to the X-Files, Scully was known for her professionalism in the work place, though during their investigation into deaths indicating handiwork of the "Jersey Devil", Scully did agree to a date with a handsome divorcee that she met at her godson's birthday party. (The Jersey Devil, 1x04) However, she realizes the importance of her dedication to her work, and decides to focus on her work instead, compounding Mulder's confusion and irritation with his discovery of her nearly having sex with strange cult member named Brother Andrew (Genderbender, 1x13) before it became obvious that Andrew, like all members of the Kindred, exhibited a strange ability for seduction.

Things remained relatively calm on the dating scene for Scully, until an investigation into a murder when she encounters Ed Jerse, a man embittered at his recent divorce who commemorated the event with a Bettie Page-type tattoo monikered with "Never Again". Giving herself over to impulse, she gets a tattoo of a serpent eating its own tail and sleeps with Jerse, resulting in his tattoo to jealously compell him to murder Scully. Jerse is restrained and arrested, while Scully returns to work to contemplate her life. (Never Again, 4x13)

Scully unwittingly becomes the object of a writer's unrequited affection. (Milagro, 6x18) Phillip Padgett reveals his obsession with Scully to her in the course of an investigation, to the extent that he moved into Mulder's building just to catch a glimpse of her. Despite Padgett's efforts, at the end of the episode, he draws the conclusion that Scully is "only trying to get his attention, but he doesn't know it," which many take to as an implication of Mulder.

Towards the end of her run at the X-Files, her relationship with Mulder clearly crosses over into the romantic sphere. The first peek at something non-platonic between Mulder and Scully is evident by a shared dance between the two at a Cher concert, though the episode was to be taken as a fantasy. (Post-Modern Prometheus, 5x06) It is further cemented when Mulder, having slipped back into 1939 while searching for the Queen Anne luxury liner, shares a passionate kiss with Scully's 1939, Secret Service doppelganger. After he awakens in a hospital in the present time, he tells Scully that he loves her. (Triangle, 6x03) Mulder's affections for her seem permanently placed during an investigation where she hypothesizes spontaneous human combustion, prompting Mulder to quote, "Dear Diary: Today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion." (Trevor, 6x17) Mulder helps bring out her lighter side, evident by their decision to use FBI funds for a "night out" during a movie premiere (Hollywood AD, 7x18) and enjoying the movie Caddyshack at Mulder's apartment. (Je Souhaite, 7x21)

After Mulder's abduction, coinciding with Scully's announcement of her pregnancy (Requiem, 7x22), there is little doubt Scully's child was conceived with Mulder. Scully remains haunted by his absence, despite the comfort of the child within her. When Mulder is discovered months later, Scully is unable to maintain her composure. (DeadAlive, 8x15) Uncovering the plot against Scully's unborn child, (Essence, 8x20) Mulder pulls out all the stops to protect her. When Mulder again disappears off the scene, a very distraught Scully explains that she doesn't know where he is (Nothing Important Happened Today, 9x01). When the previously-believed-dead Jeffrey Spender resurfaces as a disfigured man thought to be Mulder, Scully is quick to dismiss him, in spite of the DNA evidence proving him as Mulder (William, 9x17).

Finally, in the two-part series finale (The Truth, 9x19 and 9x20) Mulder admits that William is his son. Scully confirms that when she shares with Mulder that she gave William up for adoption, saying, "Our son, Mulder... I gave him up. Our son. I'm so afraid you could never forgive me." At the actual climax of the show, Mulder and Scully are seen together, hiding in a hotel room, in bathrobes, with little doubt as to how they decided to make up for lost time.

Joining the X-Files

Scully initially worked for the FBI at the Academy in Quantico, teaching classes, a position she returned to on occasion when the normal functioning of the X-Files office was placed on hiatus. The X-Files themselves are unexplained and unsolved cases that were shelved by the FBI for various reasons. Prior to Scully joining the X-Files, Mulder had worked for a short time with another agent, Diana Fowley. She, however, was soon transferred, and for about a year, Mulder was left alone to use the X-Files for his own investigations. The Syndicate, the shadow government that served in The X-Files as the behind-the-scenes puppet masters, knew of Mulder's consuming drive to reveal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life, mostly through high ranking member, The Cigarette Smoking Man, the series' main antagonist. Because Mulder had become too high profile, they could not simply kill him, and so devised a strategy to invalidate his work by using Scully to debunk his investigations into the paranormal, because she had a great understanding of hard science as well as a naturally skeptical personality. Scully, although not directly advised to invalidate Mulder's work, immediately understood why she had been assigned to the X-Files. However, Scully did not follow through as the Syndicate had hoped she would, but observed, as a scientist first, the evidence objectively and honestly. The Syndicate soon dropped this endeavor, and Scully remained part of the X-Files office, providing an intelligent, down to earth, empirical opposite to Mulder's more maverick character. Over the years of working as a team, a deep bond of respect and affection would develop between the two.

Work on the X-Files

During the first season, Mulder and Scully are initially untrusting of one another. Mulder sees her as the FBI's way of quietly discrediting him, while Scully sees Mulder as headstrong and arrogant. The two gradually form a close bond, however, thanks to the often dangerous cases they worked on together. Scully's father died of a massive coronary in the critically-acclaimed first season episode Beyond the Sea (1x12). By the end of the season, and despite many intriguing, albeit still unresolved investigations, the X-Files office is shut down, and Mulder and Scully are sent to work in different sections.

In the season 2 episode Ascension (2x06), while working at the FBI academy, Scully is kidnapped by an ex-FBI mental patient named Duane Barry, who trades her to a military covert operation that was working with the alien conspirators, and is eventually returned in a coma (One Breath, 2x08). After she awakens, the X-Files are reopened, and she returns to work almost immediately, telling Mulder that she needed her work to help keep her going. Her abduction experience would later come to serve in an important capacity to the X-Files mythology.

At the beginning of the third season, The Syndicate attempts to have Scully murdered, but in a case of mistaken identity, ends up killing her sister, Melissa. Scully pursues her sister's murder investigation after the FBI drops it (from influence by the Syndicate), and manages to track down the assassin. The hitman, however is soon killed himself, leaving Scully without any justice for her sister, but strengthening her devotion to the X-Files, and the truth. Scully finds out that a hi-tech microchip was implanted in the back of her neck during her abduction. (The Blessing Way, 3x01) After having it removed, she developed cancer which was diagnosed in the fourth season (Leonard Betts, 4x14). She is hospitalized after her cancer becomes terminal. (Redux, 5x02) Around this time, she greatly began to introspect about her life and was having a dramatic renewal of her faith. Later, Scully is saved when Mulder breaks into The Pentagon to retrieve another chip to be implanted back into her neck, which may have caused her cancer to go into remission, though never explicitly revealed.

While visiting her brother in California, she receives a phone call from a voice that sounds identical to Melissa's (Christmas Carol, 5x05) which prompts her to drive to a home she has never been to before. Upon her arrival, Scully finds herself in the middle of an investigation concerning the hours-old suicide of the homeowner's wife, Roberta Sim. Almost immediately, Scully becomes obsessed with the deceased's three-year-old adopted daughter, Emily, convinced that she is the biological daughter of Melissa. However, after performing medical tests, Scully is shocked to discover that she is actually Emily's mother (Emily, 5x06) and after the adoptive father is slain, immediately petitions the courts for custody. Unfortunately, Emily is executed by the nefarious alien bounty hunter. When Scully buried her, she believes that she is burying any chances of having children with her. Miraculously, after being hospitalized some time later, she discovered that she was pregnant, in the show's seventh season finale, Requiem, (7x22).

At the start of the eighth season, Mulder had been abducted and was missing. Special agent John Doggett was brought in to work with Scully to find Mulder. After about eight years of working with and becoming very close to Mulder, Scully had slowly become more open to believing in paranormal phenomenon. The search for Mulder soon proved fruitless, and Doggett was assigned to work with Scully on the X-Files, during which time Scully now shifted to being more of "the believer", and Doggett as "the skeptic". Later in the season, Scully decided to take maternity leave. Soon, she found that she was being surveiled by the New Syndicate because of her unborn child. She eventually tried to flee the conspirators with the help of Monica Reyes, and the child, named William after his grandfather (Fox Mulder is presumably the child's father; see his entry for more information), was born at the end of the season. About this time, Mulder, who had returned and survived his abduction, was fired from the FBI by Deputy Director Kersh, and Scully left the field to teach Forensics at Quantico, with the X-Files division now being run by Doggett and Reyes.

In the last season of The X-Files, William was given up for adoption, after having been kidnapped, but eventually found. Scully felt she could no longer provide the safety that William needed. William was a "miracle child", and of some unknown importance to the extraterrestrial conspiracy. He demonstrated extraordinary powers, including telekinesis.

In the series finale, Mulder was wrongfully accused for the death of Knowle Rohrer, and promptly tried and sentenced to death by a military court (controlled by the conspiracy). Mulder eventually escapes, and with Scully, find and have a final confrontation with Cigarette Smoking Man. As of the end of the series, she and Mulder are currently on the run from the New Syndicate, to protect themselves and their son William, and find the truth.

Faith

Through out the series, her Catholic faith serves 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. She frequently struggles with the concepts of good and evil, especially in regards to people and their actions.

Perpetually around her neck is a golden crucifix, first made obvious in the course of her abduction (Ascension, 2x06) when it is the only item left behind in Duane Barry's getaway car. In her absence, it becomes a talisman for Mulder, who wears it faithfully (3, 2x07) until she miraculously reappears in a DC hospital. (One Breath, 2x08) After she recovers, he returns the cross to her.

The abduction visibly tests the limits of her faith, when she begins to exhibit symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder on a case involving a murdering fetishist named Donnie Pfaster (Irresistible, 2x13) whom she begins to believe is the devil. This psychological revictimization continues after Pfaster escapes from prison five years later and again attempts to kill her (Orison, 7x07), ending only after he is finally shot.

About a year after the first Donnie Pfaster incident, Scully is further conflicted when protecting a young stigmatic by the name of Kevin Kryder, whose life is threatened by a psychotic "instrument of God". (Revelations, 3x11) Skeptical of the nature of the boy's claims but unable to deny what she has seen, Scully is unable to respond when the boy prophetically asks, "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 very philosophy of faith and religion cause an argument between Mulder and Scully, with Mulder differing to science and Scully revealing, "I believe in the idea that God's hand can be witnessed. I believe he can create miracles, yes."

Her belief in the evil nature of men is reaffirmed in the cantation of Gerry Schnauz, Jr., a schizophrenic man who preformed a lobotomy on a woman whose case Scully and Mulder are investigating (Unruhe, 4x02). Schnauz selects his victims based on photographs depicting them as "falling prey to Howlers," or images of demons. Schnauz obtains a picture of Scully being consumed by Howlers and attempts to lobotomize her, but is interrupted in the process and killed. Later, Scully writes in her journal, "My captivity forced me to understand and even empathise with Gerry Schauz — my survival depended on it. I see now the value of such insight. For truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them, we must venture into their minds. Only in doing so do we risk letting them venture into ours."

The diagnosis of cancer resulting directly from her abduction (Memento Mori, 4x15) forces Scully to begin contemplating her own mortality. She writes in her journal, "For the first time, I feel time like a heart beat. The seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning." She also conceptualizes her cancer with religious overtones, writing, "In med school, I learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A dark stranger who takes up residence, turning its new home against itself. This is the evil of cancer, that is starts as an invader but soon becomes one with the invaded, forcing you to destroy it but only at the risk of destroying yourself. It is science's demon possession. My treatments, science's attempt at exorcism." A short time later, while working a case featuring a mentally disabled man who apparently experiences apparitions of the dead (Elegy, 4x22), she is again forced to evaluate her impending mortality when she experiences an elegy herself, supporting Mulder's theory that "only the dying can see the spirits of the dead."

Despite her the parameters of her faith, she is resistant to the Church being forced upon her, evident by the well-intentioned meddling of Father McCue (Gethsemane, 4x24) at the request of Scully's mother, Margaret. After gentle prodding from McCue about rejoining the Church to obtain more strength, she replies, "I have strength and I'm not going to come running back now; that's just not who I am. I'd be lying to myself and to you." Although the severity of her illness increases and pushes her to the brink of death, Scully does not return to the church, though she does ponder the existence of miracles. (Redux I, 5x03)

After her own miraculous recovery, Scully struggles to accept that she will never have children (Christmas Carol, 5x05) a revelation that again prompts Margaret to invite Father McCue over. Scully again resists conversations regarding returning to the Church. Before she learns Emily is her daughter, Scully places the gold cross around her neck. After Emily's death, Scully demonstrates an evident confliction, having Emily's memorial service in a Catholic church. (Emily, 5x06)

However, several months later, at the request of Father McCue, Scully gets involved in a case concerning a paraplegic girl who is found dead in kneeling positions with her palms outstretched. (All Souls, 5x17) After Scully discovers the girl is part of a set of quadruplets and two more are murdered, Father McCue shares with her the story of the seraphim and the nephilim, which Scully interprets as a possible explanation for the deformations and deaths of the girls. Scully continues to have visions of Emily, and when the last girl dies, Scully believes she is returning the girl to God. Upon her return to D.C., she goes to confession to gain a peace of mind and acceptance for Emily's death.

Despite the strides in her faith, Scully is caught in the cross-hairs of uncertainty, writing, "It began with an act of supreme violence — a big bang expanding ever outward, cosmos born of matter and gas, matter and gas, ten billion years ago. Whose idea was this? Who had the audacity for such invention? And the reason? Were we part of that plan ten billion years ago? Are we born only to die? To be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth before giving way to our generations? If there is a beginning, must there be an end? We burn like fires in our time, only to be extinguished, to surrender to the elements' eternal reclaim. Matter and gas... will this all end one day? Life no longer passing to life, the Earth left barren like the stars above, like the cosmos. Will the hand that lit the flame let it burn down? Let it burn out? Could we, too, become extinct? Or if this fire of life living inside us is meant to go on, who decides? Who tends the flames? Can he reignite the spark even as it grows cold and weak?" (Biogenesis, 6x22)

With the escape of Donnie Pfaster, orchestrated by Reverend Robert Gailen Orison, (Orison, 7x07), Scully is forced to confront the issues of her faith. The issue again causes an argument between Mulder and Scully, with Mulder remarking, "God is a spectator, Scully. He just reads the box scores," which could potentially reveal a belief in deitism and Scully insisting that God works through people. Later, when she is forced to shoot Pfaster in self-defense, this knowledge, causes her anxiety, as she questions whether it was God compelling her to kill Pfaster or "something else."

Immortality

There are hints given throughout the series that Scully may actually be immortal. The earliest known reference to this occurs in Season 3, during the episode Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose (3x04). Mulder and Scully investigate a man (Clyde Bruckman) who can predict how people are going to die. When Scully asks Bruckman how she is going to die, he replies, "You don't."

The immortality thread picks up three seasons later in Tithonus (6x10). Scully investigates Alfred Fellig, who takes photographs of dead people. We learn that he also has the ability to predict death. His ability, however, is very different from Bruckman's; Bruckman could predict how people die, but cannot predict when it will occur. Fellig can predict that someone will die soon, but he cannot predict how. Fellig tells Scully that he himself is immortal. Death came for him once and missed; it took someone else instead. At the end of the episode, Scully is shot by her new temporary partner. Before she can die, Fellig asks her to look away. Scully passes out. When she wakes up, Fellig has died. Mulder suggests that Fellig took her place in death. Death missed her just as it missed Fellig years ago. If that is true, she may be as immortal as he was. Fellig lived to be over 140 years old.

Trivia

Scully has two children, Emily and William. Emily was the result of Scully's ova being harvested during her abduction, and died shortly after Scully discovered her existence.
Scully is 5'3", has either blue or blue-green eyes, and is of Irish heritage.
In the episode Humbug (2x20), Scully accepts a cricket from Dr. Blockhead and seemingly eats it. After she and Mulder leave, she shows Mulder that she had used a sleight of hand and hands the cricket to Mulder intact. In the scene, Anderson actually did put the cricket in her mouth, but did not swallow it. A different cricket was used for the later scene.
Scully had a small Ouroboros snake tattooed on the small of her back in Philadelphia in 1997 (Never Again, 4x13). Gillian actually has a small tattoo on her right ankle, which was digitally removed in a scene from the 1998 episode, Chinga (5x10).
One of Scully's favorite movies is The Exorcist.
In episode Sunshine Days, she reveals that her guilty pleasure is The Brady Bunch which she is somewhat embarrassed by.
Her favorite book is Moby Dick. Her father used to read to her from the book when she was young, and she came to nickname her father "Ahab" from the book, and in return, he called her "Starbuck". She later named her dog "Queequeg", also after a character from the book (the dog later met an untimely demise in Quagmire (3x22), eaten by either an alligator or a sea monster). She also enjoys books by Jose Chung.
Scully speaks German (Unruhe, 4x04), which she learned in college, and has a passing understanding of Greek. (Hollywood A.D., 7x18).
A number of people have died in her apartment.
Opposite of their character portrayals in The X-Files, it is reported that Anderson believes passionately in the existence of the paranormal, including alien life, while David Duchovny is much more tempered than Fox Mulder, and "open to possibilities."
Scully also made an appearance with Mulder in the "The Springfield Files" episode of The Simpsons, and both Anderson and David Duchovny provided their voices for the episode. In an episode of the ReBoot series, Mulder and Scully were parodied as agents "Fax Modem" and "Data Nully". Anderson provided her voice work for the episode, but David refused to.
Inside the X-Files fan community, Scully has developed her own cult following, named "OBSSE", The Order of the Blessed Saint Scully, The Enigmatic ("The Enigmatic" part most likely comes from a nickname given to her by Max Fenig).
Scully's phone number in the X-Files film is different from the one on the show — 555-0113.
Chris Carter has stated that he named Scully after his favorite sportscaster, Vin Scully. Agent John Doggett (Robert Patrick) was named after Scully's longtime broadcasting partner, Jerry Doggett.
There is a Realtor in Spokane, WA who is also called "Agent Scully". He is a distant relative of Vin Scully.
Scully was portrayed by Tea Leoni, who played as herself, in the movie-within-the-episode Hollywood A.D. (7x19) Leoni is in actuality married to David Duchovny.
She appeared in every episode of the series except for 3 (2x07), Zero Sum (4x21), Unusual Suspects (5x01), and Travelers (5x15).

Quotes

"What I find fantastic is the notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there, you just have to know where to look." — Pilot, 1x79
Mulder: "Unidentified flying objects. I think that fits the description pretty well. Tell me I'm crazy."
Scully: "Mulder, you're crazy." — Deep Throat, 1x01
Mulder: "Don't you believe in the next life?"
Scully: "I'd settle for a life in this one." — Shadows, 1x05
Mulder: "Whatever tape you found in that VCR, it isn't mine."
Scully: "Good, because I put it back in that drawer with all those other videos that aren't yours." — Excelsius Dei, 2x11
"I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers." — Paperclip, 3x02
"Don't you see, Mulder? You're doing their work for them. You're chasing aliens that aren't there, helping them to create the story that covers the shameful truth. And what they can't cover, they apologize for. Apology has become policy." — 731, 3x10
Mulder: "I think you better get up here."
Scully: "What is it?"
Mulder: "It appears that cockroaches are mortally attacking people."
Scully: "I'm not going to ask you if you just said what I think you just said because I know it's what you just said." — War of the Coprophages, 3x12
Mulder: "Modell psyched the guy out. He put the whammy on him."
Scully: "Please explain to me the scientific nature of 'the whammy.'" — Pusher, 3x17
"Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, just in contradiction to what we know of it." — Herrenvolk, 4x01
Mulder: "Dana, if um... early in the four years we've been working together... an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that... we'd been friends together in other lifetimes... always... wouldn't it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?"
Scully: "Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn't change a day. Well, maybe that Flukeman thing." — The Field Where I Died, 4x05
Priest: "Has it occurred to you that maybe this, too, is part of what you were meant to understand?"
Scully: "You mean, accepting my loss?"
Priest: "Can you accept it?"
Scully: "Maybe that’s what faith is." — All Souls, 5x17
Mulder: "He's over here, getting dating advice."
Scully: "From who?!"
Mulder: "Yours truly."
Scully: "...the blind leading the blind." — The Rain King, 6x07
"The truest truths are what hold us together, and keep us painfully, desperately apart." — Trust No 1, 9x08
Scully: "No, I don't see the horns right there." on surgical glove
Detective White: looking at Mulder "I assume you'll call me if you need anything further." [to Scully "If it's no bother, if it's not too big a deal, maybe you can get me a few photographs of that thing which bears absolutely no resemblance to a horned beast."
Scully: "Sure, fine." on other glove "Whatever." — Syzygy, 3x13

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