Season 11 of the sci-fi show premiered on Fox on Wednesday night.
Gillian Anderson's threats to quit The X-Files have gotten an official response.
The 49-year-old actress has previously said that after this season of X-Files airs, she's done playing Agent Dana Scully. The 11th season of the sci-fi series premiered on Fox on Wednesday.
The show's creator, Chris Carter, responded to Anderson's claims during a Reddit AMA with fans on Tuesday, saying, “For me, the show has always been Mulder and Scully. So the idea of doing the show without her isn’t something I’ve ever had to consider.”
He also hinted that the season finale might address Anderson's need to leave. When a fan asked if Scully received "a proper goodbye," Carter teased, “I think you will want to sit down and watch the finale very carefully.”
Carter was also asked about Anderson by Entertainment Weekly ahead of the revival's latest 10-episode installment, to which he says she might be written off but she may also come back, which is exactly what we'd expect to hear from the creator of The X-Files.
"I always end it as if it were the last one," he told the mag. "It’s become a thing you come to anticipate with this show with 'The Erlenmeyer Flask' in season one -- we closed The X-Files and killed off a beloved character [Deep Throat, played by Jerry Hardin]. Things are often sacrificed in the finale. That’s the interesting thing for me. There’s a vertical corner in the final that I think will get people’s attention…"
It's the season 11 premiere that had fans truly abuzz, however -- and not in a good way.
In "My Struggle III," the paternity of Scully's son, William, was brought into question once again. It appears that not only is William not the son of Scully and Fox Mulder (David Duchovney) -- a question that has been brought up by the show before -- he's the progeny of Cigarette Smoking Man, thanks to "science -- alien science."
Translation: the show added in a backstory that Scully was essentially raped by the series' villain. Judging by initial fan reaction, the plotline is being seen as an extraordinarily unnecessary, even sexist move, as well as a pretty good added reason for why Anderson may be done with the show -- seeing as this isn't the first time the show has poorly flittered with sexual abuse. Additionally, she's slammed the show for hiring an all-male writing staff for season 11, noting on Twitter that only two episodes in its entire run have been written by women, and pointed out that she was originally offered half the pay that Duchovney was to return to the cult classic.
Fans are not pleased, quickly taking to Twitter to share their feels on the vile plot twist and attempt to defend Scully's honor.
And this tweet is really the one that sums up the entire episode nicely:
If rape was the plot twist in an already confusing episode questioning X-Files mythology, we really can't imagine what Carter has in store for the finale.
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