The X-Files Writer Who Became One Of Its Best Villains
There aren’t a whole lot of writers famous for their work on The X-Files, but one of them is the Emmy-winning Darin Morgan. Known for writing funny, off-beat episodes of the usually dark and mysterious series, Morgan would graduate to playing one of the show’s most memorable villains. In the fan-favorite Season 4 episode “Small Potatoes,” Morgan plays Eddie Van Blundht, a shapeshifter born with a tail who uses his strange ability to assault and impregnate women all over his small town.
Humbug
Darin Morgan’s first story for The X-Files was Season 2’s “Humbug.” The first episode of the series to be intentionally comedic, “Humbug” deals with a serial killer who has been murdering sideshow performers for decades.
Real-life sideshow performers were recruited for the episode, including Jim Rose and the Enigma of the Jim Rose Circus. Jim Rose was a minor celebrity at the time, even joining the Lollapalooza tour in 1992 for its second stage.
Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
Most of Darin Morgan’s writing work for The X-Files came during its third season, including the phenomenal “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose.” The episode is ranked on IMDb as fans’ #1 episode, and in 1996 it took home two Primetime Emmy awards—one for Peter Boyle for Best Guest Actor in a Drama, and one for Morgan for Best Writing in a Drama.
Boyle plays the eponymous psychic who is tortured by his ability to foretell how others will die. The story pokes merciless fun not only at the notion of murder mystery solving psychics, but at The X-Files itself.
Darin Morgan writes Bruckman as particularly impatient toward David Duchovny’s Agent Fox Mulder, even going so far as having the psychic hint at fake, embarrassing future deaths for Mulder to mess with his head.
Jose Chung’s From Outer Space
Before the 21st century revival of The X-Files, the final episode Darin Morgan wrote is arguably his best, regardless of Emmy wins or IMDb rankings.
Season 3’s “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” is not only one of the funniest and strangest episodes of the series, but it gets to the very heart of the show’s premise. It tells the story of an alien abduction from multiple points of view, and is ultimately a story about storytelling. It also has the bizarre, quirky honor of featuring both Jesse “The Body” Ventura and the late Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek as intentionally ridiculous Men in Black.
Small Potatoes
Darin Morgan didn’t write Season 4’s “Small Potatoes,” but the part of Eddie Van Blundht was written for him.
When five different women all give birth to babies with tails, Mulder and Scully investigate. Mulder stumbles upon Darin Morgan’s character—a janitor in a medical park—when Eddie is bending over and the agent spots the scar where Eddie’s own tail was surgically removed.
Turns out Eddie Van Blundht was not only born with a tail, but with the ability to change his shape at will and look like anyone he chooses. He assaults his victims by assuming the forms of their husbands (or, in one case, of Luke Skywalker).
Eddie Makes Things Weirder
Ironically, maybe the most memorable thing about “Small Potatoes” has nothing to do with Darin Morgan. Eddie assumes the shape of Mulder himself, forcing Duchovny to play both Mulder and Eddie.
As Eddie-disguised-as-Mulder, he comes very close to seducing Scully—something that’s stopped when the real Mulder kicks down Scully’s door. Afterward, things between the FBI partners are pretty awkward.
