In honor of Valentine's Day this week, The K Files investigates one of the spookiest monsters on the X Files: love. Celebrate the FBI partner of your heart with season 7's The Rain King.

Open the heart-shaped case file below:

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[powerpress]

This was the first episode of the show written by then newbie, Jeffrey Bell, who subsequently worked on seasons 6-9 of TXF, then inherited show-runner responsibilities on Angel from Joss Whedon for that show's final two seasons.

Bell purposely wrote character, Holman, the guy responsible for all the weather wackiness, to reflect Mulder and Scully and the way they repress emotions: "Here you have a guy who's affecting the weather because he's repressing his emotions...and who better to help him than two people whose emotions are repressed and never express their feelings for each other?"

The episode is unusually shmoopish for the show - rarely do we see such a lighthearted romp for Mulder and Scully. But the sugary coating belies many clever details in the writing and filming, such as the Over the Rainbow theme and decorations at the dance that underscore a theme of transformative love, a love which knocks you out of this world (see pics below). The MSR at this time was still very much repressed, as we're so close and yet so far from open declarations of love and sneaking smooches on cases (see Millennium), but this episode definitely serves as a road sign on en route to those two in bed together in Requiem.

This episode is also jam packed with quotable XF quotes. Duchovny wins for his many Mulder moments but, "That cow had my name on it," is our personal favorite. And Scully gives one of the best, most prurient speeches in the whole show to Victoria Jackson's Sheila:

"Well, it seems to me that the best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is... suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with. The storm drains are filling up. Let's get out of here."

It's pretty clear that Danacakes is speaking from experience on this one, yet she still resists when characters in this episode assume she and Mulder are a couple. All we can say is, they're not yet there emotionally - it won't be until Mulder identifies Scully as his "touchstone" in Amor Fati and Scully chooses the life with Mulder over Waterston in All Things that we're full steam ahead. And we do man steam...Happy Valentine's Day, Philes.