Two rewatches. Two very different reasons.
I’ve been thinking about doing two rewatches: The X-Files and Game of Thrones.
And the funny thing is, they live in completely different rooms of my brain.
Game of Thrones lives there rent free. It keeps generating plot bunnies, fix-it fics, canon-divergent disasters, political marriages, emotional reparations, Jaime Lannister problems, Sansa Stark defense essays, and the occasional “what if this one decision accidentally reshaped the continent?” situation.
But I do not know Game of Thrones by heart.
I watched most episodes from seasons 1 to 6 only once. I may have skipped half of season 5 because sometimes self-preservation is a noble calling. I remember the emotional impact, the big arcs, the performances, the wounds, the crimes, the dragons, the family rot — but if I’m going to talk about it properly, I need notes.
So the GoT rewatch is research.
It is me going back with hindsight, affection, rage, and a notebook.
Expect young Sansa defense from day one, because we are not doing 2011 Sansa hate in this house. She was a sheltered child raised to believe in songs, courtesy, queenship, and marriage. The tragedy is not that she was “stupid.” The tragedy is that the songs lied.
Expect Cersei cheekbone reports, because Lena Headey weaponised bone structure and contempt like a woman personally appointed by the gods of television.
Expect Nikolaj Watch, because my Nikolaj Coster-Waldau problem arrived later but it arrived with paperwork, cheekbones, and emotional damages.
Expect foreshadowing notes, especially around Daenerys, because “Mad Queen Dany came out of nowhere” and “Dany was always evil” are both boring takes. The seeds were there early. The problem was not the destination. The problem was that the final seasons stopped doing the emotional and political math on screen.
And expect me to point at Jaime and Jon and say: the characters survived the show, even when the writing dropped them down a ravine.
Then there is The X-Files.
That one is different.
I’m not going back because I forgot it.
I’m going back because I know it too well not to.
I’ve loved The X-Files since it first aired in Italy on 29 June 1994. That is almost thirty-two years of my life spent with Mulder, Scully, damp Vancouver forests, basement lighting, government conspiracies, motel rooms, monsters, trauma, trust, and Chris Carter saying things about Mulder and Scully’s relationship that made every shipper on earth collectively roll their eyes and open a fanfic tab.
My friends used to test me with episode openings and screencaps. I could tell them the episode, the season, the writer, and the director.
This is not nostalgia.
This is expertise with a flashlight.
I am a die-hard MSR shipper, but not the kind who needs every episode to worship at the altar. I will defend “3.” I will defend “The Field Where I Died.” I will defend Oubliette, The Calusari, Firewalker, and other less-discussed episodes with a legal brief and a shovel.
I can quote Pusher and The Post-Modern Prometheus.
I watched Paper Hearts three times in a row because apparently I looked at psychological devastation and said, “Again.”
I also despise many Darin Morgan episodes because, yes, he is clever, yes, he is funny, yes, he is structurally brilliant, and yes, he often writes Mulder like a moron. I said what I said.
The X-Files rewatch will be about Mulder damage reports, Scully skepticism appreciation, MSR as trust before romance, monster-of-the-week as emotional mirror, underrated episode defense, and a lot of side-eye for Chris Carter.
Because one thing you learned very quickly in X-Files fandom was this:
Never trust Chris Carter with Mulder and Scully.
Trust the text.
Trust the glances.
Trust the hallway silences.
Trust the hospital beds.
Trust the motel rooms.
Trust the hand at the small of her back.
Trust fanfiction, because fanfiction has been the universal coping mechanism of shippers since 1993.
So yes.
Two rewatches.
For Game of Thrones, I’m going back because the characters still generate stories, and I need to understand the bones again.
For The X-Files, I’m going back because the bones are already in my hands.
Welcome to the basement.
Previously on emotional damage.
Longer versions, extended essays, rewatch notes, and full emotional autopsies will live on Ko-fi.
Because apparently my fandom damage has become a filing system.
