Byers, Langly and Frohike: the three paranoid, conspiracy theory-loving, jacks-of-all-trades on The X-Files.
One or all of them appeared in 39 of the show's 202 episodes, along with showing up in the first movie. Outside of the core duo of Mulder and Scully, and maybe a few key side players like Walter Skinner, John Doggett or Alex Krycek, the trio known as the Lone Gunmen — so named after the underground conspiracy magazine they published — are one of the most identified entities associated with The X-Files.
They even starred in their own spinoff series, though it only lasted a single season of thirteen episodes. (It had a killer James Bond-meets-Mission: Impossible title sequence, though.) They were sort of like the hacktivist group "Anonymous" — before there was even an Internet.
A new report (mirror) says that the Lone Gunmen trio will be returning for the show's revival, when it premieres in January. And rightly so; it wouldn't be The X-Files if they didn't turn up at least once. Actor Dean Haglund, who played Langly on the show, told an audience in Sydney, Australia that he and his cohorts Bruce Harwood and Tom Braidwood have been brought on board the returning show.
But there's a gigantic elephant in the room here. In The X-Files' ninth and final season, not terribly long after The Lone Gunmen was canceled by Fox, the trio returned for a special episode that wrapped up the loose ends left by Gunmen's cancellation. That episode ended with Byers, Langly and Frohike sacrificing themselves to save the lives of others. It was the final period at the end of the Gunmen's almost ten-year story.
So how will the Gunmen return from the dead for the new show? The simplest explanation is that they faked their deaths all those years ago. An issue of The X-Files: Season 10 comic book took that very approach to bring them back into play. Another possibility is that they'll appear in flashbacks.
We'll have to wait until January to find out how Chris Carter and his writing staff resurrect the Lone Gunmen. The six-episode season is currently filming in Vancouver.
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