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* HillbillyIncest: The episode is about a murderous, inbred clan terrified of losing their home to urbanization. They live in the rural small town of Home, Pennsylvania. The [[EvilMatriarch matriarch]], Mrs. Peacock, is involved in [[ParentalIncest incestuous relationships with her sons]], one of them being the father of the other two.
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* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Mrs. Peacock accusingly snarls at Mulder and Scully that they're "Yankees". Otherwise averted; the Peacocks are savage and animalistic towards ''everyone'' that isn't part of their family unit.
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* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Mrs. Peacock accusingly snarls at Mulder and Scully that they're "Yankees". "Yankees" and express pro-Confederate sympathies. Otherwise averted; the Peacocks are savage and animalistic towards ''everyone'' that isn't part of their family unit.unit.
* RealityIsUnrealistic: People took objection to Mulder and Scully's dialogue in the episode being cruel and detached, but such flippancy is pretty common among professions that deal with a lot of death and destruction, such as firemen, policemen, soldiers, and the like, both as a coping mechanism and by being desensitized after being exposed to so much misery in the first place.
* RealityIsUnrealistic: People took objection to Mulder and Scully's dialogue in the episode being cruel and detached, but such flippancy is pretty common among professions that deal with a lot of death and destruction, such as firemen, policemen, soldiers, and the like, both as a coping mechanism and by being desensitized after being exposed to so much misery in the first place.
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* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: At the start, Mulder expresses some nostalgic longing for a life in a sleepy small town like Home and enjoys visiting the town for the case because of it. By the end of the episode, he's seen firsthand that even quaint little villages can have nightmares lurking in their shadows.
* EvilReactionary: The Peacocks are an entire family of theme, being violently opposed to the urbanization of Home and raging futilely against the changing world around them. If they had their way, Home would remain the idyllic rural backwater it is forever.
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* ShoutOut: To ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow''. When Mulder expresses his desire for idyllic life in an American wholesome town, Scully says it would be like living in Mayberry. The local Sheriff's name is Andy Taylor (Mulder is kinda excited and asks if that's for real). His Deputy's name is Barney. But not Barney Fife (which Mulder hoped for, apparently). It's Barney Pastor.
* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Music/JohnnyMathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wife.
* SouthernGothic: A standout homage to the genre, featuring the crumbling decay and mind-bending horror of a rural, inbred Southern family's small manor with the changing world around them.
* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Music/JohnnyMathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wife.
* SouthernGothic: A standout homage to the genre, featuring the crumbling decay and mind-bending horror of a rural, inbred Southern family's small manor with the changing world around them.
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* ShoutOut: ShoutOut:
** To ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow''. When Mulder expresses his desire for idyllic life in an American wholesome town, Scully says it would be like living in Mayberry. The local Sheriff's name is Andy Taylor (Mulder is kinda excited and asks if that's for real). His Deputy's name is Barney. But not Barney Fife (which Mulder hoped for, apparently). It's Barney Pastor.
** The deformed baby's burial in the intro is very evocative of ''Theatre/BuriedChild'', a play that discusses many similar themes of corruption and the collapse of traditional life styles in rural communities.
* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Music/JohnnyMathis is used for both a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car andall. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wife.
all.
* SouthernGothic: A standout homage to the genre, featuring the crumbling decay and mind-bending horror of a rural, inbred Southern family's small manor contrasted with the changing world around them.
** To ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow''. When Mulder expresses his desire for idyllic life in an American wholesome town, Scully says it would be like living in Mayberry. The local Sheriff's name is Andy Taylor (Mulder is kinda excited and asks if that's for real). His Deputy's name is Barney. But not Barney Fife (which Mulder hoped for, apparently). It's Barney Pastor.
** The deformed baby's burial in the intro is very evocative of ''Theatre/BuriedChild'', a play that discusses many similar themes of corruption and the collapse of traditional life styles in rural communities.
* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Music/JohnnyMathis is used for both a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and
* SouthernGothic: A standout homage to the genre, featuring the crumbling decay and mind-bending horror of a rural, inbred Southern family's small manor contrasted with the changing world around them.
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* DaylightHorror: Most of the episode takes place during the daytime and afternoon, including the climax. Though some of the freakiest moments, namely the inbred child's death and the Sheriff's murder, take place during the dark too.
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* BodyHorror: The Peacocks are walking embodiments of it, so deformed from centuries of incest that they barely look like people anymore and most of their young are stillborn.
* BoobyTrap: The Peacocks wire up a number of them on their property, such as an axe rigged to swing at intruders.
* CentralTheme: Change in rural communities and how the people there respond to it, as well as the lengths some people will go to in order to defend their ways of life.
* ChekhovsGun: Sheriff Andy mentions early on that the town is so quiet, peaceful, and interconnected that nobody even bothers to lock their doors at night. This later ends up getting him and his wife killed when ''they'' don't think to lock their doors, allowing the Peacocks to easily enter their home and bludgeon them to death.
* BoobyTrap: The Peacocks wire up a number of them on their property, such as an axe rigged to swing at intruders.
* CentralTheme: Change in rural communities and how the people there respond to it, as well as the lengths some people will go to in order to defend their ways of life.
* ChekhovsGun: Sheriff Andy mentions early on that the town is so quiet, peaceful, and interconnected that nobody even bothers to lock their doors at night. This later ends up getting him and his wife killed when ''they'' don't think to lock their doors, allowing the Peacocks to easily enter their home and bludgeon them to death.
* DeadAllAlong: Horrifically inverted. The townsfolk are all under the impression that Mrs. Peacock died in a car accident years ago. In truth, she shares her son's unearthly durability and inability to feel pain, and is still alive producing new Peacocks and directing her sons' actions.
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* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: The Peacocks.
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* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: The Peacocks.Peacocks, a severely inbred family willing to do anything to maintain their secluded lifestyle.
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* KarmaHoudini: Mrs. Peacock and the youngest son get away in the end.
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* HillbillyHorrors: One of the darkest, freakiest examples of this trope put to screen.
* HopelessWar: The Peacocks are fighting an impossible-to-win war against the modernization that's overtaking their hometown. By the end, the entire family is dead aside from Mrs. Peacock and her youngest, making things bleaker for them than ever, but they keep going.
* HumanoidAbomination: The Peacocks are so deformed from decades, maybe centuries of inbreeding — possibly in addition to other things — that they may well no longer count as human. At times they act more like animals.
* {{Hypocrite}}: For all that the Peacocks rage against "outsiders" interfering in their town, it's abundantly clear that they themselves are outsiders to the town, being a reclusive family of inbred freaks who terrorize their neighbors the few times they deign to interact with them.
* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: While the strict events of the episode are a one-off MonsterOfTheWeek affair, it contains a great deal of thematic foreshadowing for later events in the MythArc, like Scully and Mulder's conversation about motherhood and genetics.
* KarmaHoudini: Mrs. Peacock and the youngest son get away in theend.end, though how long they can continue to do so is debatable at best.
* LogicalWeakness: The Peacocks' monstrous nature and abilities are the result of massive inbreeding, so naturally they're also very ill and each generation is more malformed than the last, with stillbirths being frightening common. Furthermore, their inability to feel pain means that they often don't realize when they're injured and have to examine each other for wounds after fights.
* HopelessWar: The Peacocks are fighting an impossible-to-win war against the modernization that's overtaking their hometown. By the end, the entire family is dead aside from Mrs. Peacock and her youngest, making things bleaker for them than ever, but they keep going.
* HumanoidAbomination: The Peacocks are so deformed from decades, maybe centuries of inbreeding — possibly in addition to other things — that they may well no longer count as human. At times they act more like animals.
* {{Hypocrite}}: For all that the Peacocks rage against "outsiders" interfering in their town, it's abundantly clear that they themselves are outsiders to the town, being a reclusive family of inbred freaks who terrorize their neighbors the few times they deign to interact with them.
* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: While the strict events of the episode are a one-off MonsterOfTheWeek affair, it contains a great deal of thematic foreshadowing for later events in the MythArc, like Scully and Mulder's conversation about motherhood and genetics.
* KarmaHoudini: Mrs. Peacock and the youngest son get away in the
* LogicalWeakness: The Peacocks' monstrous nature and abilities are the result of massive inbreeding, so naturally they're also very ill and each generation is more malformed than the last, with stillbirths being frightening common. Furthermore, their inability to feel pain means that they often don't realize when they're injured and have to examine each other for wounds after fights.
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* {{Mundanger}}: The monsters of the week are not paranormal, just monstrous.
* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Deputy Paster's reaction to Mulder's joke about whether his last name is Fife.
* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Deputy Paster's reaction to Mulder's joke about whether his last name is Fife.
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* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The Peacocks don't appear to be out and out supernatural; their monstrous appearances, freakish strength, and seeming inability to feel pain could all be at least somewhat plausibly explained by their severely inbred nature… but those traits are ''so'' pronounced and they exhibit so many borderline inhuman qualities (like locating the Sheriff's wife by ''scent'' as if they were bloodhounds) that you really have to question if inbreeding could explain it all or if they even qualify as human anymore.
* {{Mundanger}}: The monsters of the week are not paranormal, justmonstrous.
monstrous. Downplayed, as the Peacocks are ''so'' inbred and inhuman acting that there may well be something less than natural about them (aside from the obvious).
* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: DeputyPaster's Barney ''Paster's'' reaction to Mulder's joke about whether his last name is Fife.
* {{Mundanger}}: The monsters of the week are not paranormal, just
* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Deputy
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* OutOfGenreExperience: Mulder and Scully step right into the middle of a SouthernGothic horror story.
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* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Mrs. Peacock accusingly snarls at Mulder and Scully that they're "Yankees". Otherwise averted; the Peacocks are savage and animalistic towards ''everyone'' that isn't part of their family unit.
* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: Neither Sheriff Andy nor the Peacocks are pleased about the modernization and urbanization that Home is going through, feeling the change is going to take away a lot of what makes the town great. The difference between them is that Andy accepts that change can sometimes be positive and is willing to make peace with it, whereas the Peacocks will fight to the death to enforce their traditional life.
* RuleOfSymbolism: While the Peacocks are on their way to kill the Sheriff, Mulder is watching a nature documentary about African hunting dogs. The narration in the documentary is hauntingly appropriate to what the Peacocks are about to do, not to mention the way they behave in general.
-->"The eldest dominant male of the pack moves in to ensure that the prey has been killed, encircling the prey to let the others know it is safe to approach."
* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: Neither Sheriff Andy nor the Peacocks are pleased about the modernization and urbanization that Home is going through, feeling the change is going to take away a lot of what makes the town great. The difference between them is that Andy accepts that change can sometimes be positive and is willing to make peace with it, whereas the Peacocks will fight to the death to enforce their traditional life.
* RuleOfSymbolism: While the Peacocks are on their way to kill the Sheriff, Mulder is watching a nature documentary about African hunting dogs. The narration in the documentary is hauntingly appropriate to what the Peacocks are about to do, not to mention the way they behave in general.
-->"The eldest dominant male of the pack moves in to ensure that the prey has been killed, encircling the prey to let the others know it is safe to approach."
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* SouthernGothic: A standout homage to the genre, featuring the crumbling decay and mind-bending horror of a rural, inbred Southern family's small manor with the changing world around them.
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Already covered by Mundanger.
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* ParanormalEpisode: inverted big time, this is the one episode of the series with no supernatural or paranormal content at all, just a tragic family tale. Yet conversely it is considered by fans as possibly the most horrifying and disturbing of the show.
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* ParanormalEpisode: inverted big time, this is the one episode of the series with no supernatural or paranormal content at all, just a tragic family tale. Yet conversely it is considered by fans as possibly the most horrifying and disturbing of the show.
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Trope cut per TRS
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* StockEpisodeTitles
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* DarkerAndEdgier: Even in the very serious and grim series, this episode takes the cake as one of the darkest, most violent, and most disturbing in the entire show. It was the first to have a Parental Advisory warning and the only one to be a TV-MA where other episodes were rated TV-PG. It was also barred from being reran for years. Reportedly, Creator/TuckerSmallwood asked a member of the crew if this kind of material was normal for the show. He was allegedly told, "This is awful even for us." Despite that, it's also considered one of the best episodes of the entire series.
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* DarkerAndEdgier: Even in the very serious and grim series, this episode takes the cake as one of the darkest, most violent, and most disturbing in the entire show. It was the first to have a Parental Advisory warning and the only one to be a TV-MA where other episodes were rated TV-PG.TV-14. It was also barred from being reran for years. Reportedly, Creator/TuckerSmallwood asked a member of the crew if this kind of material was normal for the show. He was allegedly told, "This is awful even for us." Despite that, it's also considered one of the best episodes of the entire series.
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* DarkerAndEdgier: Even in the very serious and grim series, this episode takes the cake as one of the darkest, most violent, and most disturbing in the entire show. It was the first to have a Parental Advisory warning and the only one to be a TV-MA. It was also barred from being reran for years. Reportedly, Creator/TuckerSmallwood asked a member of the crew if this kind of material was normal for the show. He was allegedly told, "This is awful even for us." Despite that, it's also considered one of the best episodes of the entire series.
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* DarkerAndEdgier: Even in the very serious and grim series, this episode takes the cake as one of the darkest, most violent, and most disturbing in the entire show. It was the first to have a Parental Advisory warning and the only one to be a TV-MA.TV-MA where other episodes were rated TV-PG. It was also barred from being reran for years. Reportedly, Creator/TuckerSmallwood asked a member of the crew if this kind of material was normal for the show. He was allegedly told, "This is awful even for us." Despite that, it's also considered one of the best episodes of the entire series.
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* {{Mundanger}}: The Monsters of that week were not paranormal.
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* {{Mundanger}}: The Monsters monsters of that the week were are not paranormal.paranormal, just monstrous.
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Dewicked trope
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* AdultFear: Bucketloads of it. Imagine that such a nasty family lives in your neighbourhood. Or that your baby will be born with such horrible deformities. It's even present in-universe with Scully's uneasiness and anxiety over the issue.
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* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Music/JohnnyMathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wide.
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* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Music/JohnnyMathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wide.wife.
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* DarkerAndEdgier: Even in the very serious and grim series, this episode takes the cake as one of the darkest, most violent, and most disturbing in the entire show. It was the first to have a Parental Advisory warning and the only one to be a TV-MA. It was also barred from being reran for years. Reportedly, Tucker Smallwood asked a member of the crew if this kind of material was normal for the show. He was allegedly told, "This is awful even for us." Despite that, it's also considered one of the best episodes of the entire series.
to:
* DarkerAndEdgier: Even in the very serious and grim series, this episode takes the cake as one of the darkest, most violent, and most disturbing in the entire show. It was the first to have a Parental Advisory warning and the only one to be a TV-MA. It was also barred from being reran for years. Reportedly, Tucker Smallwood Creator/TuckerSmallwood asked a member of the crew if this kind of material was normal for the show. He was allegedly told, "This is awful even for us." Despite that, it's also considered one of the best episodes of the entire series.
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* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Johnny Mathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wide.
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* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, Wonderful", a cheery tune by Johnny Mathis Music/JohnnyMathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wide.
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* AngstWhatAngst: Mulder and Scully are remarkably dismissive of Deputy Pastor's death, considering they were more or less responsible for it in the first place. They almost casually observe the animalistic nature of the Peacocks as they tear the deputy apart, and two minutes later they're making ''Babe'' jokes.
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* TheNoseKnows: After the Peacocks kill Sheriff Taylor, they realize someone else is in the room by smelling her.
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Incest Is Relative is more of an index.
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* IncestIsRelative: The Peacock family involve a female matriarch who engages in incestuous relations with her sons, one of them is the father of the other two sons. The mother has also given birth to severely deformed offspring which she and her sons murder during infancy.
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* VillainousIncest: The Peacock family involve a female matriarch who engages in incestuous relations with her sons, one of them is the father of the other two sons. The mother has also given birth to severely deformed offspring which she and her sons murder during infancy.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfileshome.png]]
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfileshome.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfileshome_4.png]]
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* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, wonderful", a cheery tune by Johnny Mathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all.
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* SoundtrackDissonance: "Wonderful, wonderful", Wonderful", a cheery tune by Johnny Mathis is used for a horrible murder and son/mother mutant sex, trying to conceive another child in a rocking car and all.all. And it's ''also'' played during the murder of the Sherrif and his wide.
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->''"They'll be coming now. We knew this day was going to happen. That they'd try to change the way things are. All we can do about changing things... is be ready for it... be ready for them. Let them know, this is our [[TitleDrop home]] and this is the way it's going to stay."''
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