Vince Gilligan Co-Wrote 'The X-Files' Most-Watched Episode With 29.1M Viewers — and It's Still Terrifying

Whether you love him because of his work on Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, or the Apple TV hit Pluribus, Vince Gilligan is a creative force to be reckoned with. For decades, he has told some of the most popular stories on television, but his career started long before he created Walter White. Back in the '90s, Gilligan got his start on The X-Files, and it was episodes like "Leonard Betts" — an hour that drew in a whopping 29 million viewers — that set him apart as one of the show's most inspired writers. Even today, this episode will make your skin crawl. Or perhaps just shed off altogether...

"Leonard Betts" Is a Chilling Tale Full of the Best of What 'X-Files' Has To Offer

Penned by Gilligan, Frank Spotnitz, and John Shiban, and helmed by veteran X-Files director Kim Manners, "Leonard Betts" is an unconventional monster story that puts FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) in the middle of a strange case with multiple bodies that don't seem to add up. Even stranger is that all of these bodies belong to the same individual, a man known as Leonard Betts (played by Paul McCrane) among other names, who worked as an EMT in Pittsburgh before being decapitated in a car crash. But this decapitation only slows Betts down, as the man regrows his own head and walks on out of the morgue. Even stranger, Betts has an uncanny ability to detect cancer in the bodies of others, which he then consumes as a way to keep himself alive.

"Leonard Betts" was memorable because it aired right after the 1997 Super Bowl. "We knew we'd get a huge audience," Gilligan explained to Chris Knowles and Matt Hurwitz in The Complete X-Files: Revised and Updated Edition. "Chris really wanted to grab viewers who had never seen us before, and we knew the best way to do that would be with a really creepy stand-alone monster story." Originally, Season 4's "Never Again" was slated to air after the televised sporting event (which Fox had secured the rights to that year), but Chris Carter and company decided to swap it with "Leonard Betts," which was a bit more of a traditional X-File. This was ultimately the right call, and although the show's overall ratings didn't improve dramatically, the turnout for "Leonard Betts" was remarkable.

Part of what makes this Season 4 X-Files episode particularly unsettling is that we aren't exactly sure what the mutant's goals are beyond survival. In working as an EMT, it appears at first that Betts uses his abilities to help others, and yet, it soon becomes clear that he is more out for himself than anyone else. "You have something I need," he tells his victims, carving out cancerous tumors to ultimately feed his own biological needs. It's this idea that leads to the frightening visual sequence of Betts shedding his own skin like a snake, with his new flesh appearing from the inside of his mouth. It's a harrowing picture that unsettled post-Super Bowl audiences at the time. Couple that with all the Betts heads used in the episode, and it's clear that this was the perfect X-Files episode to air as a post-game show.

'The X-Files' Was Always at Its Best With Vince Gilligan on the Show

"Leonard Betts" is more proof thatThe X-Files was always at its best when Vince Gilligan was around. Sure, Glen Morgan and James Wong were creative giants on the show, and others like Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz were consistent driving forces behind the entire series. But Gilligan — who arrived on the show in its second season — was best known for his prolific contributions to the series in the way of unique character studies that challenge not just the viewer, but also Mulder and Scully. We see this especially in episodes like Season 6's "Drive" (which features his future Breaking Bad leading man Bryan Cranston), Season 5's "Bad Blood," and here in "Leonard Betts." Not only does the episode challenge our heroes in what they might believe about the advancement of human evolution, but it offers a particularly chilling revelation to Scully that would shape her life for years to come.

Although there were events leading up to this episode that ultimately serve as a prelude to Scully's cancer arc, "Leonard Betts" is where that story officially begins. Here, Gilligan reveals to both the audience and Scully herself the truth about her diagnosis, and though the plotline doesn't factor in until two episodes later with "Memento Mori," it makes "Leonard Betts" quite important in the grand scheme. As a solid X-File on its own that showcases the differences between Mulder and Scully, this Season 4 classic is some of Gilligan's best work on the show, which is saying something when you consider that he penned or co-penned a whopping 30 episodes of the series total.

The X-Files is available for streaming on Hulu in the U.S.