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'''Season 6, Episode 15:'''
!Arcadia
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfilesarcadia.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:What do you get when you cross ''The X-Files'' and every {{sitcom}} you have ever seen? This episode.]]
->Written by Daniel Arkin\\
Directed by Michael Watkins

->''"A.D. Skinner, in assigning us this case, thought a fruitful approach to the investigation would be if we went undercover posing as prospective home buyers, as this planned community would seem to hide a dark, possibly murderous conspiracy of silence."''
-->-- '''Dana Scully'''

Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple in a planned community where there have been several mysterious disappearances.
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!!Tropes:
* BigDamnHeroes: Big Mike at the end.
* BotheringByTheBook: At one point, Mulder orders the house's front yard to be dug up in order to possibly locate the bodies of the previous home owners and exhume their remains. As cover, he claims to be putting in a pool. When confronted by the neighbors about how a pool in the front yard is obviously against Association rules, he takes some satisfaction in pointing out that he's putting in a ''reflecting'' pool, not a ''swimming'' pool, which is not prohibited by the rulebook.
* CharacterNameAlias: Mulder and Scully go undercover as "[[Series/TheDickVanDykeShow Laura and Rob Petrie]]".
-->'''Mulder:''' Like the dish.
* ControlFreak: Gene Golgolak the homeowners' association president is a particularly [[DisproportionateRetribution murderous]] example of one.
* CosmeticHorror: Mulder's "woah!" when seeing Scully in a green mud mask.
* TheDragon: Win to Gene, and although a jerk, he's not comfortable with the tulpa's violence and tries to enforce the peaceful solution first.
* GuysAreSlobs: Mulder is a mild one, tossing his sweatshirt in the corner of the bedroom (& Scully throws it back at his face), and he leaves his shoes on the bed before Scully kicks him out of the room.
* HamAndCheese: In-universe example, as Mulder is having entirely too much fun playing his role of a yuppie, suburbanite househusband, much to Scully's annoyance.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Golgolak was killed by his own tulpa.
* HypocriticalHumor: Mulder annoys Scully with his MeetCute cover story, claiming they met at a UFO conference with Scully being the one more into it. "She's into all that New Age stuff. I don't know why she falls for it."
* KarmaHoudini: Downplayed with Win, who tried futilely to keep the tulpa away, didn't actually cause Big Mike's death, and helps end the tulpa's reign of terror by leaving Gene to its mercy. But, however unhappily, he ''did'' go along with things until his own family got caught up in it.
* KarmicDeath: Golgolak ends up beaten to death by the tulpa he summoned and set upon others for their transgressions against the Home Owners Association rules... because he's handcuffed to a mailbox at the time, which ''definitely'' isn't in the Association rulebook as a permitted decoration.
* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Win sours on Gene after his wife gets caught up in the carnage, an incident he blames Gene for.
* MonsterOfTheWeek: It's a {{tulpa}}.
* NoOntologicalInertia: The tulpa crumbles down the moment Gogolak dies.
* OurMonstersAreDifferent: Tulpas are typically described as a thought-form manifestation. This tulpa is more of a sewage {{golem}}.
* PottyEmergency: After spending hours watching his un-perfected mail box through the peep hole and drinking orange juice, Mulder briefly considers using the empty container, but opts for the actual bathroom instead, giving someone exactly enough time to fix the damage he'd done [[OffscreenTeleportation without being seen]].
* SelfDisposingVillain: The tulpa dissipates into a harmless mound of earth after killing its summoner.
* ShipTease: Is it ''entirely'' necessary for Mulder to have his arm around Scully quite this much in every neighbour's house they visit?
* StepfordSuburbia: The community looks a little too perfect and something ugly hides there.
* ThereIsOnlyOneBed: Mulder has some fun teasing Scully by suggesting that she get in bed with him, but it's still not treated like a big deal. He goes off to sleep elsewhere, presumably on the couch.
* TownWithADarkSecret: Played for humor and horror.
* {{Tulpa}}: The MonsterOfTheWeek, when the president of the homeowners' association created one to enforce the neighborhood rules.
* TyrannicalHomeownersAssociation: The homeowner's association would raise a golem to enforce all manner of esoteric "rules". Even small breaches of protocol or using decorations that the association considered bad taste could result in the golem taking often deadly retribution on the association's behalf.
* UncannyVillage: A seemingly peaceful American-dream community controlled by the Home Owner Association, represented mainly by President Gene Gogolak. They have strict rules and regulations about everything and observing them is enforced by death threat.
* UndercoverAsLovers: Mulder and Scully are assigned on a case and they work undercover as husband and wife. However this is played for humor rather than the usual ShipTease or UST.
* UnexplainedRecovery: How Big Mike survives the Tulpa's attack, despite significant blood loss from the attack, implying a critical injury or death, manages to escape the Tulpa in a closed in environment without being pursued, then manages to appear in the house at just the right time to warn Scully.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Big Mike fights off the Tulpa a second time, but it's not clear if he survived.
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->''[[DramaticIrony "Meanwhile, the Falls at]] [[TitleDrop Arcadia]] [[DramaticIrony has been named one of the top planned communities in California for the sixth year running."]]''