9. Home (Season 4, Episode 2)
"The Peacocks built that farm during the Civil War. It still has no electricity, no running water, no heat...they grow their own food, they raise their own pigs, they breed their own cows...they raise and breed their own stock, if you get my meaning." - Sheriff Taylor
This second episode of the fourth season takes Mulder and Scully well out of the city to the tiny town of Home, PA. The deformed body of an infant is found buried in a shallow grave by a group of (now surely traumatized) young boys playing a game of pick-up baseball. Sheriff Andy Taylor (yes, that's his name) recruits the help of the FBI, which sends the X-Files team out to investigate. Learning that the infant was probably discarded due to an unprecedented amount of rare birth defects, Mulder and Scully realize that the child was almost certainly the product of many generations of inbreeding, and the question arises: just how far will these people go to keep it all in the family? "Home" was the only episode of
The X-Files to ever be rated TV-MA. After being showed for the first time in 1996, FOX withdrew "Home" from its network rerun inventory. When shown on cable even today, certain scenes are often edited or removed altogether. The themes of incest and infanticide were (and are) largely taboo on television, and the scene that earned the episode the TV-MA rating
was fairly gruesome, with a truly disturbing soundtrack juxtaposition. Depending on your point-of-view, however, it is either disturbing to the point of turning off the television or to rewinding to watch it again and marvel that yes,
this was on American network television in 1996. Either way, it is a memorable episode, and there is a bit of lightness to counter the horror. Still, if you're not a fan of televised violence or are faint of heart, "Home" may not be for you. Otherwise? Watch and enjoy. It's wonderful, wonderful.