It’s impossible to overstate the influence of The X-Files. Horror fans can spot its cultural ripple effects everywhere from Buffy to The Conjuring to Sinners. The show traversed countless subgenres and tonalities, including queasy body horror, B-movie monster yarn, and even frothy romantic comedy. For the uninitiated, wading into the paranormal investigations of Agents Scully and Mulder can feel like braving a haunted house with nothing but a flashlight. Fear not – if you’re in the mood for some Halloween-season thrills, we’ve chosen the scariest episode from each of the show’s nine original seasons.

The Scariest Episode From Every Season of The X-Files

Season 1: “Beyond the Sea” (Jan 7, 1994)

Owing much to The Silence of the Lambs, “Beyond the Sea” drums up genuine psychological scares by drawing the viewer into Scully’s precarious headspace. Her staunch rationalism falters when she encounters an unsettling vision of her dead father, setting the stage for a dizzying mind game between her and serial killer Luther Lee Boggs, portrayed with demented gravitas by Brad Dourif, a genre icon at the peak of his powers here. Thanks to a devastating performance from Gillian Anderson, this early episode broke the doors open on Scully, proving the show was as much about her journey through the unknown as it was her partner’s.

Season 2: “The Host” (Sep 23, 1994)

The show’s makeup effects team brought a cavalcade of nightmare visions to life throughout the franchise’s run, but none more stomach-turning than the Flukeman from this Season Two creature feature. Mulder investigates dead bodies in the New Jersey sewer system. The culprit? A parasitic flatworm with the size and physiology of a human. With Anderson’s pregnancy limiting her screen time, the episode has plenty of breathing room to linger on the gnarly attacks and dead-eyed visage of the Flukeman (played by Darin Morgan, who’d later pen some of the show’s most vaunted episodes). Not only does “The Host” feel like Creature from the Black Lagoon with an extra veneer of ick, the connection of Flukeman’s origins to the Chernobyl disaster adds a chilling layer of human culpability. “Nature didn’t make this thing,” Mulder intones. “We did.”

Season 3: “Wetwired” (May 10, 1996)

“Wetwired” tackled screen addiction over a decade before smartphones crawled into our hands and changed our brains forever. Paranoid vibes dominate this episode, in which binge marathons of cable news and game shows drive ordinary citizens to homicide. Scully soon gets pulled asunder by the nefarious broadcasts, causing her to turn against Mulder. “Wetwired” blends the show’s case-of-the-week format with its ongoing conspiracy saga to produce a high-anxiety thriller that presages our modern miasma of doomscrolling, fake news, and AI-induced psychosis. Along with the show’s other tales of techno dystopia (“Blood,” “Kill Switch”), consider “Wetwired” a proto-Black Mirror – with the added tension of composer Mark Snow’s slithering synth score that creeps under your skin.

Season 4: “Home” (Oct 11, 1996)

The X-Files cross-pollinated horror with related genres, but “Home” is perhaps the lone installment that feels like pure horror in its most undiluted form. Mulder and Scully investigate a grisly infanticide and run afoul of the Peacocks, a reclusive trio of brothers with unspeakable secrets. The dark power of “Home” pervades every frame. Behold the episode’s gorgeously photographed cold open, gruesome kills, and shiver-inducing reveals, all in service of the writers’ twisted treatise on family. “Home” was birthed at the top of Season Four, when the show found itself on a meteoric cultural ascent. The show’s growing popularity may explain why writers Glen Morgan and James Wong felt bold enough to send The X-Files into unhinged Texas Chainsaw Massacre territory. They may have overplayed their hand: this episode was famously banned from reruns after its initial airing.

Season 5: “Chinga” (Feb 08, 1998)

As the show’s profile continued to rise, the inevitable occurred: horror titan Stephen King reported for writing duty. The result is a sharp Gothic chiller with squirm-inducing set pieces. While on vacation, Scully happens upon murder and mayhem in (of course) Maine. While the local citizens are quick to blame Melissa, a single mom to a young girl named Polly, Scully hones in on the true source of evil: Polly’s doll, which can push victims to graphic acts of self-harm. Melissa’s eerie premonitions of death round out the incredible visuals of this episode, also notable for sending Scully on a solo adventure and nudging her yet another step closer toward acceptance of monsters and madness.

Season 6: “Drive” (Nov 15, 1998)

As production moved from Vancouver to sun-dappled Los Angeles in Season Six, the scripts themselves also veered toward sunnier stories, reflecting the writers’ continued hope to replicate the success of comedy installments like “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” or “Bad Blood.” Nevertheless, this season still offered more intense fare like “Drive,” a pulse-pounder about a Nevada man whose head will explode unless he drives westward – and fast. The episode owes much to the quick wit of Vince Gilligan, one of the show’s most seminal writers. Gilligan would go on to create Breaking Bad, starring Bryan Cranston, whom he cast based on the strength of his guest turn in “Drive” as the afflicted man who takes Mulder hostage on his westward race against time. All the earmarks of Breaking Bad are here: can’t-look-away tension, character-driven thrills, and mordant humor belying a pervasive air of rage and doom.

Season 7: “Millennium” (Nov 28, 1999)

Season Seven also ran heavy on lighthearted oddities, but it did offer darker outings on occasion, especially when Carter leveraged The X-Files to tie up loose threads from his prematurely cancelled Millennium. Mulder and Scully call upon that show’s tortured hero, Frank Black (the wry and lugubrious Lance Henriksen), to help them thwart a small cult of FBI agents hellbent on bringing about the apocalypse by turning themselves into zombies. (Hey, it makes sense when you watch it – mostly!) The undead are depicted with moody flair, keeping goofiness to a minimum, and the satisfying climax offers us a glimpse of a monster-fighting trio that could have been. Meanwhile, for fans who are adamant anti-shippers of Mulder and Scully, this episode is the season’s scariest for an entirely different reason.

Season 8: “Roadrunners” (Nov 26, 2000)

With David Duchovny absent from half of Season Eight. Terminator 2’s Robert Patrick was introduced as Scully’s new partner, the stoic and steely-eyed John Doggett, and Scully became the unequivocal narrative center of The X-Files. The writers returned to the show’s darker roots as a way to level-set against the seismic changes. “Roadrunners” is the most stellar beneficiary of these shifts in cast and tone. Unable to fully warm to her new partner, Scully ventures alone into a secluded village to investigate the whereabouts of a missing tourist and realizes something is ever so off about the townspeople. The episode features the mounting social/psychological dread of The Wicker Man, coupled with the disgusting body horror of Alien, and Anderson discovers new shades of grief and resilience in Scully during this flawed yet compelling post-Mulder era.

Season 9: “Daemonicus” (Dec 2, 2001)

With Duchovny fully departed from the cast, the final season of the show’s original run saw Doggett paired with a new partner Monica Reyes (the effervescent Annabeth Gish), with Scully downgraded to a mere consultant for her X-Files comrades. Meanwhile, the writers continued to favor grislier stories such as “Daemonicus,” about a mental patient who may be wielding demonic forces against our trio of heroes. Director Frank Spotnitz goes heavy on the stylistic portents of doom to great effect, employing shots of roiling clouds and sound design laden with eerie whispers to conjure a world besieged by inescapable evil. Even the editing team gets in on the fun, offering up unusual scene transitions to underscore the episode’s mysterious boardgame motif. The episode’s true horror highlight: a projectile vomit scene that lasts for forty-some-odd seconds. Somewhere William Friedkin is saying, “That’ll do, effects team. That’ll do.”

We had a damn great time during our stay at Hell Motel this summer. However, they recently asked us to check out when the season finale dropped. The episode, ‘Grand Guignol,’ delivered a few more shocking surprises. It also packed quite a few meta moments and easter eggs for Slasher fans who followed this crew to the Cold River Motel. With so much going on, many people are still confused about whether Paige (Paula Brancati) or Andy (Jim Watson) was our bonus Baphomet.

As Horror Press’ resident Hell Motel Lady, and nerd with too much time on her hands, I’m here to break down the season finale. If you’ve seen it, continue reading to learn how I reached my conclusion. If you haven’t seen the finale yet, then save this for later because I’m packing spoilers.

The ‘Grand Guignol’ Recap

The episode, written by Hell Motel co-creators Ian Carpenter and Aaron Martin, spends a lot of time playing with the audience. Right up until the very end, they allow viewers the chance to doubt themselves. They also gift us various lines that could mean a couple of different things. The season finale catches up with Paige and Andy after the events of the most recent Cold River Motel massacre. As the only two survivors, they both have some shared trauma, but have drifted apart.

Paige has found herself back in the Doomed Service franchise playing Caitlyn Ridgeley (Lauren Lee Smith) again. This time, she’s leading a new requel that will kickstart a trilogy. To make things even better, her director, Aaron Berrance (Breton Lalama), seems receptive to her having more input in the films. Meanwhile, Andy is teaching at a college where the students don’t want his lectures on comedy. They want him to talk about horror and how he survived a fairly recent murder spree.

After a particularly grueling day of students trying our suspect, er, professor, he heads over to Paige’s place for dinner. She is finally returning a text he sent while she was filming. She wants to make him a meal and invite him to a special early screening of the newest Doomed Service movie. We also get a peek at Paige’s gorgeous apartment filled with Doomed Service merch. This sheds light on just how much this franchise means to her and forces the audience to wonder what lengths she would have gone to for a chance to return to the franchise.

No One Gets Out of this Season Alive

This also strikes Andy as odd. He finally brings up that he found Portia’s heart in Paige’s ceiling at the motel. Paige pins that on Floyd (Gray Powell) and Shirley (Yanna McIntosh) and asks why Andy didn’t take his suspicions about the heart in her room to the police. He claims he didn’t know what to think but knew he had to protect her. Obviously, the heart business and wine results in them moving the conversation to the bedroom. Afterwards, Andy asks Paige about this new Doomed Service entry and admits he has seen all of the movies. Paige tells him that this one gives Caitlyn a daughter, and Andy points out that the real Caitlyn didn’t have a daughter. This is when my wig was snatched, and I realized Andy was the third killer the whole time. However, the writers were not done toying with us yet.

Andy and Paige go on this date to Doomed Service, and clearly, things get stabby. After Paige is humiliated by finding out they killed her character off after she told the crowd she would be around for a trilogy, all hell breaks loose. The audience is confused by Caitlyn’s crime scene photos, which interrupt their supernatural slasher film inspired by Caitlyn’s murder. Aaron asks where the projection booth is, and Andy gives him directions before allegedly going to find the light switch. So, it’s suspicious he knows his way around the theater, but the lights do not come on. However, Aaron is wearing his guts on the outside after meeting a mysterious figure in a hallway. Coincidence?

A Bloody Ending

We all have to be looking at Andy differently, but it wouldn’t be as fun if he just owned his shit and confessed. Instead, he tries to blame Paige for killing Aaron and the Hell Motel Squad (trademark pending). This is when Paige starts asking the serious questions, and we find out Andy loved Caitlyn. Andy tells her what a great woman the real Caitlyn was and shares his thoughts on the reductive character Paige has turned her into. Things get heated, and Andy moves too quickly toward Paige, so she instinctively runs him through with the weapon Aaron pulled out of his guts and left nearby. As Andy bleeds out, Paige apologizes for her part in the films and tells him she never considered how people who knew Caitlyn might feel about them.

It seems like Andy is accepting her apology as he dies on the floor. However, the police kick in, and he starts screaming that Paige is trying to kill him. In the confusion, Paige stands up with the machete and asks him to tell the truth. The cops shoot her in her glorious eveningwear, and she falls down next to Andy. His spiteful ass thought he would have the last word, but Paige tells him she will see him in hell. This is when the Hell Motel season finale really earned the episode title, ‘Grand Guignol’.

A Professor and a Killer

Andy was the extra Bathomet running around this season of Hell Motel. The revelation that Caitlyn is his mother explains Andy’s views on the genre and his reactions to certain conversations this season. This development sheds a new light on his instant bond with Paige. It also explains why he felt he had to protect her instead of telling people she had a heart in her ceiling when they were rescued in the previous episode. He didn’t allow her to live just because she seemingly felt bad for her role in sensationalizing a murder. He spared her because she’s a mother figure of sorts.

I’m not going to walk us through Psych 101, but Andy becoming a murderer makes too much sense. Andy’s motives for this killing spree add so many layers to everything he said and did this season. All of his scenes carry more weight because we assumed we knew Andy’s intentions. However, we never even scratched the surface.

One example is when Aaron is telling Paige that she’s no longer valuable to the Doomed Service franchise. Andy is not just feeling bad for his co-survivor and possible new girlfriend. He is also hearing that his murdered mother is no longer relevant to these movies that have been profiting from his pain for most of his life. Knowing the real reason he is pissed at this moment made me recall the times Andy froze when looking at Floyd as Baphomet. Our little murderous professor was facing his mother’s murderer, and that was making things a bit too real. So, he was being put through a lot this season while trying to take a stab at the genre he has beef with.

Why Andy Being the Killer Works

There was one point of view that Hell Motel was missing this entire season. In a season that holds a mirror up to true crime media, creators, and connoisseurs, it felt odd not to hear from a victim’s loved ones. I thought Paige was Caitlyn’s daughter, but that would have taken away from her arc dovetailing with Caitlyn’s story. So, having Andy be the son of the victim is a very smooth fix. After all, he grew up watching his trauma become profitable as his mom’s humanity was forgotten.

Andy being the murderer, not only snags a Psycho nod, but it also gives us insight into how this killer was made. It’s not fun being constantly reminded of a loved one’s murder. More importantly, watching the media spin your pain for clicks and headlines triggers a special kind of rage. Hell Motel would have felt incomplete (for tons of reasons) without Caitlyn’s angry offspring.

To add another insult to all of the strays Andy caught this season, his mother’s killers were never caught. People harassed his dad into an early grave (to be fair, it is usually the husband). However, it became a cold case, leaving Andy without anyone to direct his grief and rage at. At least until he came face to face with the murderers and watched Paige deal with them in the previous episode, ‘Cat and Mouse’. He might have started his Hell Motel journey as a simple mission killing spree. However, our sweater king was also thrown a couple of surprises.

The Last Page on Paige

Most viewers blamed Paige all season (and I am guilty of that too). That would have put too much on our final girl’s plate though. She was here as a commentary on how the industry treats women of a certain age. Andy’s confusing Mom Goggles, and her weird attachment to this character aside, Paige’s ending dovetails beautifully with Caitlyn’s. When Aaron tells Paige that they used her to bring the old fans back to the franchise. The reasoning is that they have a new young actor, Paula Lynde (Raíssa Souto). She will keep the old audience and pull in a younger crowd. Aaron is saying the tragedy that started it all, and the woman who played the infamous victim, are no longer relevant. While she might be “too hot to die,” she’s not too hot to be shoved out to pasture for a new model.

The actor (and the victim that her character was inspired by) are no longer trendy. There are so many fun threads to pull at this season of Hell Motel. However, this idea of what we as a society make popular and how quickly we discard it is what stands out to me. Not all true crime podcasters, authors, fans, etc. are ghouls. Yet, the genre does seem to be built on sensationalizing horrific events. So, it’s not lost on me that the final scene of the episode is an actor auditioning to play Paige in a movie about this bloody night.

Is This About Us?

This season holds a mirror up to all of us, including horror fans who like to pretend some of our favorite films do not have real-world ties. It’s asking us to sit with that for a moment and think about how we got here as a species. Sure, it is easy to get lost in the snowblowed frat boys and skinless cooks at this murder buffet. However, the show is also an examination of our own relationship to the media we consume. After all, it is easy to become desensitized after living such unprecedented lives.

Hell Motel gave us plenty to chew on (even though Eric McCormack’s Chef Hemingway died before breakfast). I’m thinking about the lifespan of a trend in this era, where none of us can focus on anything for longer than a few seconds. What becomes of the surviving family members when the rest of the world decides they are ready to close the book on their life-changing tragedy? When the memes die down, and the media thinks their stories no longer bleed enough to lead anymore, what then? I don’t know what to do with all these thoughts yet. However, each of us might want to unpack these ideas as we consume so much information via social media.

That’s All I Know About That

I do not have answers to the questions the season poses. I don’t have an eloquent statement to end this article with or a list of actionable items.  What I do know is that Andy was literally cutting up at the Cold River Motel, and that Paige got to be a real final girl for a few moments. I also know I had a damn good time being Horror Press’ Hell Motel Lady this season. Fingers crossed I get to whip that self-made title out again soon!