‘The X-Files’ Season 4, Episode 2: “Home”

Writers: Glen Morgan and James Wong

Original Air Date: October 11, 1996

Watch It On: Netflix

What It’s About: The corpse of a child is found buried in a vacant lot in the small town of Home, Pennsylvania. After an autopsy shows that the child was not just buried alive but also suffered from extensive genetic abnormalities, FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the possible link between the dead child and the reclusive Peacock family, who have inhabited a farm just outside of the small town since the Civil War. With little contact with the outside world, the residents of Home have assumed the Peacocks have kept their lineage intact through inbreeding. Once Mulder and Scully go deeper into the Peacock’s family past, they discover the truth is much more sinister than anyone in Home expected.

Why It’s So Good: The X-Files worked best when it balanced a weird campy quality with genuine terror. “Home” achieves that from its start. On a dark and stormy night, a woman gives birth to… something, and then three deformed individuals bury it in a field. The next morning, a pick-up baseball game uncovers the shallow grave, and FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully arrive in the small town of Home, Pennsylvania, the kind of idyllic small town only seen in the past. And the silly David Lynchian qualities that exaggerate its picturesque nature are abundant. For one thing, the sheriff’s name is Andy Taylor — and his deputy named Barney.

Like David Lynch‘s oeuvre, “Home” plays into the darkness that lies under the surface of the most beatific places; the discovery of the deformed child’s corpse in the baseball field is reminiscent of that severed ear in Blue Velvet. Also like Lynch’s films, the episode incorporates music to set the dichotomous mood — in this case, Johnny Mathis’ “Wonderful, Wonderful,” which plays as the three Peacock brothers roam around Home, eventually arriving at the sheriff’s home where they murder Taylor and his wife. (Mathis, upon reading the teleplay, refused to allow his version to appear in the show.)

The reason why “Home” is so unsettling is the theme of the broken American dream and the way the episode uses classic images of Americana (The Andy Griffith Show, the Civil War, a sandlot baseball game, a pink Cadillac) in extremely dark ways. The show also serves as a cocktail of literary and cinematic references, including the aforementioned Lynch film, William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s documentary Brother’s Keeper, and modern horror classics The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. And, of course, one must acknowledge the impact that “Home” had on television narratives in the last decade; you can see its influence as recently as the finale of True Detective, when the mythical Carcosa was finally revealed.

But the major theme is that deeply rooted, small-town ideal of a resistance to change, which sees many extremes in “Home.” Sheriff Andy Taylor tells Mulder and Scully that he was hesitant to bring in the FBI to look at the case. “I’d like it if the way things around here didn’t have to change,” he tells them. It’s the same sentiment that keeps the Peacock family line, and their way of life, going strong. They’ve managed to keep their skewed, old-fashioned ideals intact by keeping to themselves — both socially and genetically.

The Best Moment: Upon arriving at the Peacock farm, Mulder and Scully try to lure the brothers out of the home by releasing their sheep. In a classic X-Files moment of levity, Scully tries to coax the sheep out of the pen by chanting “Baa ram ewe,” or the sheep password as revealed in the children’s film, Babe.

RELATED: Relax: The X-Files Is NOT Leaving Netflix

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Photos: 20th Century Fox