Warning: This article contains spoilers for CSI: Vegas season 2 episode 1.

The fate of Gil and Sara has finally been revealed by CSI: Vegas season 2, and it is shockingly similar to the ending that The X-Files heroes Mulder and Scully once experienced. CSI: Vegas season 2 has arrived without William Petersen’s Gil Grissom and Jorja Fox’s Sara Sidle. Fortunately, CSI stalwart Marg Helgenberger’s legacy character Catherine Willows is back to fill in for the duo.

In another bit of welcome good news from the often dark crime series, CSI: Vegas season 2's Gil and Sara appear to have finally gotten their well-earned happy ending. The couple has been central to the success of the series for over a decade and their chemistry kept viewers coming back for more despite the show’s gruesome content, so it is good to see that the duo fared well in retirement. However, what is surprising is the fact that the circumstances of their retirement resemble the happy ending of another famous investigative couple.

Related: Is CSI: Vegas Season 2 Borrowing From An Even Darker Crime Hit?

According to Josh in CSI: Vegas’s “She’s Gone” (season 2, episode 1), Gil and Sara can’t be easily reached by the team because they are “on a boat somewhere near the Arctic circle” now that they’re retired. This image is oddly familiar to one from The X-Files, since Mulder and Scully’s happy ending at the end of 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe was almost the same. Granted, The X-Flies show heroes Mulder and Scully end up in what looks like a slightly warmer climate than the Arctic circle, but otherwise, their fate (until 2016’s short-lived X-Files revival brought the pair back) was still very similar in how it tied up the lives of an investigative couple.

Why Gil & Sara’s CSI Ending Mirrors The X-Files

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It could be argued that, since both shows revolved around a couple who solved creepy crimes together and both shows ended with their respective leads on an idyllic boat trip together in a remote location, CSI: Vegas owes some inspiration to The X-Files: I Want to Believe. However, it is important to factor in the characters of Mulder, Scully, Sara, and Gil. All four investigators have seen all manner of depravity and violence in their careers, and therefore CSI: Vegas’ Sara and Gil are as likely to want some space from the densely populated real world as Mulder and Scully.

Furthermore, while Mulder and Scully arguably need the distance more (since they are evading a shadowy government conspiracy), Gil and Sara spent CSI: Vegas season 1 hunted by a serial killer. They need space from the world for both practical and emotional reasons, meaning their sojourn to the Arctic circle is more than a holiday and can also be seen as something of a security necessity. As such, Gil and Sara’s ending fits their characters just as much as Mulder and Scully’s romantic getaway made sense for them, meaning it is far from a cut-and-dry case of one show copying the other. Still, The X-Files could have had some influence over the eventual fate of the erstwhile heroes from CSI: Vegas.

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