[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\\
[[Recap/TheXFiles Index]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E01LittleGreenMen 1]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E02TheHost 2]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E03Blood 3]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E04Sleepless 4]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E05DuaneBarry 5]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E06Ascension 6]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E07Three 7]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E08OneBreath 8]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E09Firewalker 9]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E10RedMuseum 10]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E11ExcelsisDei 11]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E12Aubrey 12]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E13Irresistible 13]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E14DieHandDieVerletzt 14]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E15FreshBones 15]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E16Colony 16]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E17EndGame 17]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E18FearfulSymmetry 18]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E19DodKalm 19]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E20Humbug 20]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E21TheCalusari 21]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E22FEmasculata 22]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E23SoftLight 23]] | '''24''' | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E25Anasazi 25]]]]-]]]
'''Season 2, Episode 24:'''
!Our Town
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfilesourtown.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Scully, I think the good people of Dudley have been eating more than just chicken."'']]
->Written by Frank Spotnitz\\
Directed by Rob Bowman

->'''Chaco:''' She's one of us now, part of [[TitleDrop our town]].\\
'''Jess:''' Unless we do something about her, there won't be any town left to speak of.\\
'''Chaco:''' No! No. Once we start turning on ourselves, we're no better than the animals.

Mulder and Scully investigate strange goings-on at a small town chicken processing plant.
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!!Tropes:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: An entire ''town'' of them, thanks to the cannibalism and all.
* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Prionic diseases (such as Creutzfeldt–Jakob) have incubation periods ranging from a few years to a few decades. No one in the community would be showing symptoms within days or even weeks.
* AutopsySnackTime: Scully brings her dinner into the autopsy lab; a big bucket of [[BlackComedy fried chicken]].
* BigDamnHeroes: Mulder shoots the Masked Executioner before Scully gets beheaded.
* CannibalClan: A whole cannibal town, actually.
* CreepySouvenir: The town of cannibals kept their victims heads in a cabinet.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Mulder acquired a tape of a mental patient rambling on about escaping the town. To the casual observer, he doesn't make any real sense, but he keeps saying something about a horrible way to die.
* DamselInDistress: Scully, who is about to be beheaded and eaten.
* DramaticUnmask: After shooting the executioner, Mulder pulls off his mask and finds him to be Sheriff Arens.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Walter Chaco, responsible for the murder and cannibalism of at least 87 people, gives a heartfelt speech about how the town can't turn against its own members or they'd become "an abomination".
* EvilAllAlong: Sheriff Arens.
* AFeteWorseThanDeath: The conspiracy of a bizarre town kills outsiders and turns it into a big celebration. The residents engage in a cannibalistic ritual borrowed from primitive tribes.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: When first visiting the processing plant, Mulder and Scully find out that they use parts of the birds not sold in market to feed other chickens.
* GenreBlindness: Invoked by Chaco, who says the townspeople will doom themselves the moment they begin turning on each other. No one heeds his warning.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Chaco is killed in the ritual he taught to the townspeople.
* HoneyTrap: The first on-screen victim was hitting on one of the women at the factory, so she lured him out into the woods to become a sacrificial victim.
* ImAHumanitarian: People eat people to gain eternal youth in a ritual.
* IAteWhat: When Mulder delivers the quote up top, Scully looks down at her bucket of chicken with a look that says she wishes she'd gotten a salad
* InspiredBy: ''Film/BadDayAtBlackRock''
* LaserGuidedKarma: The town's latest victim manages to infect them all with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, thus ensuring they will eventually all die raving and hallucinating.
* {{Mundanger}}: The threat in this episode is an entire town kidnapping and eating their victims. Scully almost suffers this fate. While the clan do get extended life through the ritual, it's in the background to the actual threat.
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Two examples that also count as LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** Walter Chaco shares his name with Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the home of the disappeared Anasazi tribe, who are theorized to have practiced cannibalism.
** Sheriff Arens shares his name with William Arens, an anthropologist who published a book purporting to debunk several popular myths about cannibalism.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** Chaco Chicken, a nationwide purveyor of poultry products headquartered in Arkansas, sounds suspiciously like Tyson.
** There is no "Jale" tribe in Papua New Guinea; Scully's description of a tribe in that country suspected of cannibalism applies to the Korowai.
* OffWithHisHead: This is how the town's victims are dispatched, and Chaco suffers that same fate.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Thanks to their, err, special diet, everybody looks much younger than they actually are.
* PoliceAreUseless: Sheriff Arens is reluctant to cooperate in Mulder and Scully's investigation and appears disinterested in the whole thing. Justified because Arens turns out to be the executioner of the town's cannibalistic rituals.
* RedHerring: Mulder is attracted to the case because he suspects alien abductions or "foxfire" phenomenon are to blame for disappearances. In a neat twist, his suspicions are disproved almost the moment he and Scully arrive in town. Of course, they soon discover that something much more sinister is happening.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Averted. This episode aired in the US prior to the outbreak of variant CJD in the United Kingdom.
* ShrunkenHead: The semi-[[{{Mundanger}} Mundangerous]] perp of the week has some shrunken heads he claims are fake, non-human souvenir trinkets from his travels as a young man. However, when Mulder busts it open in the third act, he is shocked to find that those heads are actually the victims, with one of them being George Kearns.
* TownWithADarkSecret: And boy, there really is. The town has a group of ritualistic cannibals who feast on others to stay young.
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->''"As of this date, his remains still have not been found."''