Fans of The X-Files—Scully/Mulder shippers, especially—are still recovering from the social media storm that hit last night when Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny did what they do best by torturing us with their love. Anderson joined Duchovny on stage at The Cutting Room in New York, where he was performing songs from his new album, because he’s a singer now.
Making her way to the mic, Anderson stopped for a quick kiss with no warning whatsoever for the innocent, unsuspecting audience members, who instantly lost their shit. “Can we play some real music, please?” Anderson asked. “Can you both chill?” the fandom asked back, collectively hyperventilating.
But neither had any chill, as they proceeded to sing a duet of Neil Young’s “Helpless.” After the first chorus, Duchovny whispered something in Anderson’s ear, making her laugh, and making some of us believe in love again. Then they fistbumped. Honestly, how dare they? At least they didn’t kiss again, right? No, they totally did. If this is all just an elaborate way to boost ratings for Fox’s X-Files event series…well, it’s working.
As if he had no regard for all the overwhelmed people furiously retweeting and screencapping videos of the first performance, Duchovny called Anderson up to the stage again to close out the night with Sly & the Family Stone’s “Thank You.” Dream girl Gillian Anderson brought along a tambourine this time and showed off some more dance moves. By this point, fans had just melted into puddles, becoming actual x-files.
The X-Files’ return finally has a release date set for Sunday, January 24, 2016, and Duchovny has said that he and Anderson are going to give better performances this time around. Might those performances include a musical number or two? Look, we’re not saying there should definitely be a musical episode of The X-Files, but there should probably be a musical episode of The X-Files. At least we’ll always have The Cutting Room.