The Lone Gunmen Back From The Dead For ‘X-Files’ Revival

Actor Dean Haglund confirmed today on Twitter that The Lone Gunman, a sort of paranoid conspiracy theorist A-Team featured in a recurring basis on The X-Files and briefly in their own spinoff series, will be returning to the franchise when the series revival airs in early 2016.

Portrayed by Haglund, Bruce Harwood, and Tom Braidwood, The Lone Gunmen were introduced in Season 1 of The X-Files as a poorly funded, barely organized team of government watchdogs and conspiracy theorists who had an uneasy alliance with Mulder and Scully. Haglund played Richard “Ringo” Langly, a computer hacker and science fiction enthusiast who was the youngest member of the iconic trio.

The group’s name is a derisive reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, evidenced in the conspiracy theory newsletter they published called “The Magic Bullet.” At first occasional comic relief, the trio became breakout characters over the course of the series and were spun off into their own show, The Lone Gunman, in 2001. That show was cancelled after 13 episodes, ending on a cliffhanger that was resolved in the ninth-season X-Files episode “Jump The Shark.” (They returned as apparitions for “The Truth”.)

The interesting thing? The Lone Gunmen were killed off in the series penultimate episode. How they’ll be brought back for the revival, whether in flashbacks or a reveal that they survived their apparent deaths, has not been said, but Haglund promises more details are forthcoming. Neither Harwood nor Braidwood have offered a statement.

The trio will join fellow returning stars David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi and William B. Davis. New faces include The Flash‘s Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose. The X-Files revival miniseries starts January 24 on Fox.