X-Files S4E2: There's no place like Mayberry

Sestra Amateur: 

It’s time for a nice, sweet family-friendly episode of The X-Files. Luckily, this one is a bottle ep because it’s pretty repulsive. The score is catchy, though. It starts with a woman in labor inside a remote farmhouse in Home, Pennsylvania. After the bambino is born, the deformed men witnessing the event bury the crying baby in a shallow, muddy grave. 

Sometime later, local boys are playing baseball near the property. The batter disturbs the baby’s final resting place and stains his sneakers when he digs in at the plate. Scully and Mulder report to the scene and meet with Sheriff Andy Taylor, who is not played by Andy Griffith. Mulder gets nostalgic for days of yore while Scully cracks about how Mulder can’t live without a cell phone. Dana, I can list at least five examples of Fox not having his cell phone and how it adversely affected you, him and your cases.

Mulder asks the sheriff whether he interviewed the farmhouse residents who have been watching Sculder. Taylor explains the tragic history of the Peacock family and implies they evolved into an inbred, ignorant lot who couldn’t be involved in the baby’s death. Considering the proximity of the body and the condition of the baby, the Peacock house should have been everyone’s first stop. 

Scully's autopsy confirms the baby was alive when buried. Afterward, the agents discuss having children. No, not together. Considering the direction of the first episode of Season 11, this conversation is rather disturbing, especially when Fox suggests Dana find a man with spotless genetic makeup so she can pump out uber-Scullys. On the upside, corrective lenses, alien abduction and conspiracy theories aside, the Mulders allegedly pass the genetic test. Fox thinks the baby’s young parents panicked. Dana is already on the inbred bandwagon … for the investigation. Mulder doesn’t think there’s a living female in the Peacock family because the brothers don’t have a sister and their mother supposedly died 10 years earlier.

Sculder find the birthing location inside the Peacock home. Luckily, the boys left some glaringly obvious footprints in the blood which match the ones Scully recovered at the burial site. Meanwhile, someone is hiding and listening as our heroes discuss their next moves. Dana calls the sheriff to update him. After providing some details about the Peacock family, Taylor considers carrying his gun again. But he decides against it, so that should bite him in the ass later. 

In his motel room, Mulder is wrestling with the TV antenna … remember those days? The Peacocks take a road trip and quickly ruin Johnny Mathis’ song "Wonderful! Wonderful!" for me. I’d rather think of Chances Are with Robert Downey Jr. and Cybill Shepherd when I hear it, not the Three Inbred Musketeers. They arrive at Sheriff Taylor’s house and beat him and his wife to death with bats. 

Deputy Barney Fife, I mean Barney Paster, is now in charge. He gives the baby’s DNA reports to Scully, and they indicate more genetic abnormalities than even she expected. Paster is ready to join their fight and kill the Peacocks, who are giving each other a very creepy pep talk about keeping their way of life.

The trio decide against calling for backup for expediency's sake and head to the Peacock farm. Paster takes the booby-trapped front door, so deputy go bye-bye. Sculder try to divert the Peacocks by chasing away the pig stock with Dana using dialogue from Babe to move them along. (“Nah-ram-ewe!” I’ve never seen Babe, but that line once popped up in an episode of How I Met Your Mother.) The pigs make a run for it while the FBI piglets head into the house. They find family photos which indicate the inbreeding has occurred for generations. 

Mulder finds a woman who has no arms and legs under the bed. He thinks she’s a traumatized victim but Scully confirms she’s Mrs. Peacock … in the bedroom … with the photographs. Mama chooses to stay, which clearly disturbs Mulder. Scully tries to reason with Mrs. Peacock, who views the world – and her boys – differently than “normal” people would. The boys return to the house and are unprepared for a gunfight with Sculder. Two of the boys die, but one gets away with Mama. They talk about finding a new home and starting again, which is not wonderful! wonderful! 

Sestra Professional:

My, how times have changed. Back in the day, "Home" was deemed so graphic that it came with a viewer's discretion warning and famously only aired on Fox the one time. Now it seems it tame. I mean not tame in the sense of babies squishing out of birth canals and getting buried, but tame in the sense of what's become acceptable on television since. By the way, it's probably important to note the infant stopped crying before being placed in the shallow grave -- cause the show's most experienced director -- the late, great Kim Manners -- said on the episode's commentary that was a point of contention for the network. 

"I did, perhaps, the most awful shot of my career when I shot the baby's (point of view) as it was placed in the hole, and the mud was being placed over the lens," Manners said in The Complete X-Files.

So Glen Morgan and James Wong returned to the fold after Space: Above and Beyond didn't fly and delivered one of the series' seminal episodes, reportedly with a desire to produce a truly dark and controversial show. Point, Morgan and Wong. But it's not just the gory nature of the case that makes it so wonderful wonderful, the returning writers really know the characters, and they delve more into who Mulder and Scully are as people while grossing everyone out. Dana wants to be a mom -- and this is a theme that will be examined down the line -- so she's empathizing with the mother of the baby. Since shippers consider Fox a candidate for dadhood, they're happy to learn his family history is in the clear.

There's something rotten in Mayberry: Somehow there's quite a lot of fun to be had in this episode too, and not just because Home, Pennsylvania seems akin to a certain Andy Griffith program. Just to point out Scully's precognitive powers, she likened Home, Pennsylvania to Mayberry before we learned the sheriff's name was Andy Taylor. Morgan and Wong strike the most delicate and precarious of balances because the crimes are so violent and the Peacocks' situation so off-putting.

I don't know if it's due to Dana's heightened sensitivities on this case or what not, but she is really on her game here. Not only does she realize the sons overheard the agents talking during their search of the house, she even solves how an infant with that many birth defects could have been born of the Peacock's mother before she learns the matriarch is still alive. Using a pop-culture Babe reference only makes Scully more of a ... well, I'll say it, babe. (Although note to Dana, the pig in the movie uses that phrase to move the sheep, not fellow oinkers.)

I knew we couldn't stay hidden forever: Mulder's big contribution to the proceedings proves to be obvious statements on the boys' undiluted animal behavior and how our heroes are intruders trying to stop the Peacocks from obeying the most savage laws of nature. Better luck next episode, Fox, you may now return to smelling baseballs at your leisure.

Sestra Am was reminded of the final moments of the just-aired Season 11 opener during Sculder's genetics discussion, but Mama Peacock's diatribe -- "I can tell you don't have no children. Maybe one day, you'll learn. The pride, the love. When you know your boy will do anything for his mother" -- really hit home for me in a similar way. Exactly what would Scully's son do for her and are we going to find that out before it all ends?

More than Mama meta: According to the official fourth-season episode guide, put Cadillac down in the not- offended column when it comes to "Home." Manners said the company sent the show a thank-you letter for putting one of their products in the ep. ... In The Complete X-Files, Morgan said "Wonderful! Wonderful!" was used because he liked when a song runs contrary to the action on screen. "Certain songs have a creepy, icky quality that none of us have really openly acknowledged." But Mathis wouldn't let the show use his version, so a sound-alike was dispatched. ... The Peacock's homestead also was used as serial killer Harry Cokely's home in Season 2's "Aubrey." ... A Peacock sequel was planned for sister show Millennium, but FOX gave it the kibosh, according to The Complete X-Files. ... Morgan has often said a story from Charlie Chaplin's autobiography about a quadruple amputee inspired this tale.

Guest star of the week: At Morgan and Wong's behest, during the fourth season we see quite a bit of personnel from the one-season-and-done Space: Above and Beyond, starting with Tucker Smallwood. He's both charming and naive as Sheriff Andy Taylor in a most perfect Griffith manner, but he also fits into The X-Files sensibility perfectly before the character's unfortunately early and untimely death.