What We Know About 'The X-Files' Tad O'Malley

This is not a drill — Mulder and Scully are about to return to our small screens and, when they do, I feel confident that everything will be right with the world. A lot has changed since the original series concluded in 2002 and I have a feeling that Mulder will be even more convinced that conspiracies abound than he was in the '90s. (Yeah, I didn't think it was possible, either.) But, it turns out that he'll meet his match because word on the street is that a new X-Files character, Tad O'Malley, is even more paranoid than everyone's favorite UFO-hunting FBI agent.

Tad O'Malley is one of several new additions to The X-Files roster and, according to IMDb, he'll appear in three episodes of the reboot. Since O'Malley is in the first and last episodes, his role will probably be pivotal to the show's mythology arc — Chris Carter has confirmed that episodes one and six will focus on mythology, and everything in between will function as standalone episodes. According to Entertainment Weekly, Tad O'Malley is a "a charming web-series host" who will join forces with Mulder and Scully to investigate (what else?) a government conspiracy — and his theory certainly sounds like a doozy because it involves everything from global warming to NSA spying to FEMA prison camps.

From the sounds of it, O'Malley is quite the extremist — he even goes so far as to describe 9/11 as a "false flag operation" which he claims is linked to a conspiracy that dates back to Roswell. In the same Entertainment Weekly article, Chris Carter describes him as "a character who casts everything in doubt.” It's not exactly a shock that O'Malley will manage to rally Mulder to his cause — what is considerably more surprising is that the ever-skeptical Scully will apparently support his "overall position" as well. (But, if the past is any indication, I'd venture a guess that she'll require a great deal of convincing.)

O'Malley will be played by Joel McHale, who's best known for his comedic work — so he initially seems like an unlikely choice for The X-Files, which is not just a drama, but often a decidedly dark one. However, his performance at the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Dinner was enough to convince Carter that he'd found the perfect man to play O'Malley. “I cast Joel after seeing his appearance at the White House Correspondents dinner, which was hilarious,” Carter explains in this preview video. “He had exactly the quality I was looking for.”

McHale is just as excited for the revival as us — he told E! that The X-Files is one of his favorite shows and he can't wait to hunt for aliens alongside its now-iconic leads, Mulder and Scully. What will the trio uncover? I can't wait to find out — but I predict that Scully will be doing a lot of her signature eye-rolling now that she has not one but two paranoid men to deal with.