French title: La Meute
translation: Pack of Animals
US Airdate: October 11, 1996
writers: Glen Morgan and Jim Wong
director: Kim Manners
STARRING:
David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully
Guest Cast:
Catcher .... Neil Denis
Batter .... Cory Fry
Right Fielder .... Lachlan Murdoch
Pitcher .... Douglas Smith
George Raymond Peacock ... Chris Nelson Norris
Sherman Nathaniel Peacock ... Adrian Hughes
Edmund Creighton Peacock ... John Trottier
Mrs. Peacock ..... Karin Konoval
Barbara Taylor ..... Judith Maxie
Sheriff Andy Taylor .... Tucker Smallwood
Deputy Barney Paster .... Sebastian Spence
Radio Singer ..... Kenny James
AN INVESTIGATION INTO INFANTICIDE IN AN IDYLLIC SMALL TOWN LEADS MULDER AND SCULLY TO
AN EVEN MORE APALLING DISCOVERY: A FAMILY DEFORMED BY INBREEDING INTO A FERAL, MURDEROUS
CLAN.
Home, Pennsylvania.
An idyllic small town is the last place anyone would expect to find a hideously
malformed newborn buried in a shallow grave. This gruesome discovery is enough for the
local sheriff, Andy Taylor, to call in the FBI. Although the child's deformations indicate
multiple genetic abnormalities, neither Mulder nor Scully believe this local tragedy is a
matter for the X-Files: until they learn more about Home's reclusive Peacock clan. For
over a century, this farm family has lived on the outskirts of town...and the outskirts of
civilization. Generations of inbreeding have deformed their bodies and their souls into
something less than human, and more than animal. Now that the family has dwindled down to
three brothers, Mulder and Scully suspect that the Peacocks have devised a grotesque plan
to propagate their species...by forcing a kidnapped woman into involuntary pregnancy.
While someone (or something) watches unseen, Mulder and Scully explore the Peacock farm
and find the bloody evidence of a recent birth. Before they can arrest the Peacocks, the
family strikes back. Later that night, the Peacock boys massacre the sheriff and his wife.
As Mulder says, "They went caveman."
Fearing for the life of the Peacocks' prisoner, Scully and Mulder courageously invade
the farmhouse with only the local deputy as back-up. When they discover the hiding place
of the clan matriarch, they finally comprehend the appalling truth. Mrs. Peacock, a
multiple amputee, is the mother of the murdered infant. And also the proud mother of three
sons who'll do anything for mom.
With guile, luck, and firepower, Mulder and Scully manage to kill two of the rampaging
Peacocks. In the confusion, the oldest boy and Mrs. Peacock escape in their long white
Cadillac. Mother and son drive off in search of a new place to call Home.
Notes
The title may be a reference to Jayne Anne Phillips' short
story "Home" from her debut collection Black Tickets (1979). Phillips is much
admired and imitated, apparently, by the people behind the scenes. Also a possible homage
to Sam Shepard's play "Buried Child" as David Duchovny is a big fan of Sam
Shepard.
At the beginning, after the credits and the home birth, when the kids are playing
baseball, the screen says "Home" and then pauses before saying
"Pennsylvania". This is the closest I've seen to an actual onscreen title.
Johnny Mathis' "Wonderful, Wonderful" possible homage to his "Chances
Are" from "Close Encounters" which was playing when the little boy was
taken. Of course, I'll never be able to hear it the same way again!
First time Scully and Mulder visit the house we see a pig's head and hear flies buzzing
around it (as we also hear a fly buzzing before we see Mom Peacock), is this a referral to
"Lord Of The Flies" by William Golding? Boys alone on an island (or house) with
no interaction with others, making their own rules and living outside of society.
Apparently on a personal appearance on Letterman, David Duchovny told a story about
playing pick-up baseball as a kid, in an old Dutch immigrant cemetery in his neighborhood
in New York and using the gravestones as bases. The scene where Mulder and Scully find the
dead baby under home plate and Mulder drifts off remembering childhood pick-up baseball
games is a possible reference to that.
Due to it being another fine Morgan-Wong episode, the first one since "Die Hand
Die Verletzt," shown January 1995, we must have a "Space:Above and Beyond"
reference, due to Glen Morgan and James Wong being co-creators. Tucker Smallwood (Andy
Taylor) played Commodore Ross in "SAAB". If you're interested, here's a terrific
site for this great actor:
The effect of Mrs. Taylor, under the bed, as her husband's blood seeps towards her,
inching her fingertips out of the way....eww! And the murder of poor Sheriff Taylor was
one of the most gruesome ones I've seen on this show. Overall one of the nastiest eps so
far. It's not that you actually *see* a lot, but so much is implied. Don't watch if you're
squeamish.
Word has it that this will NOT be repeated, if you don't have a video copy of it, you
may never get the chance to see what all the fuss is about. If this info changes, I will
make the correction here.
Quotes
____________________
Scully: "Meanwhile I've quit the FBI and become the national spokesperson for the
Ab-Roller."
(Mulder's not listening, he's lost in his childhood baseball memories)
Mulder: (putting ball under Scully's nose) "Smell that. (she does and
wrinkles her nose) That's perfume. Eau De Ball. You know, this brings back a lot of
memories of my sister... all day pickup games out in the Vineyard... ride your bikes down
to the beach... eat baloney sandwiches... The only place you had to be on time was home
for dinner. Never had to lock your door... no modems, no faxes, no cell phones --"
Scully: "Mulder, if you had to do without a cell-phone for two minutes you'd
lapse into catatonic schizophrenia."
Mulder: "You know, Scully, you don't know me as well as you think you do. My work
demands that I live in a big city, but if I had to settle down, build a home, it'd be a
place like this."
Scully: "It'd be like living in Mayberry." (truck pulls up and black
sherriff gets out)
Taylor: "Hi, I'm sheriff Andy Taylor."
Mulder: "For real?!?" (refers to "The Andy Griffith Show", as
Andy's character's name was Sheriff Andy Taylor)
Mulder: "Sheriff, who lives in that house there? (the sheriff hesitates) Did you
question them? 'Cause they've been watching us the entire time."
Taylor: "That farm belongs to the Peacock family. Three boys... well, they'd be
men...I guess you could call them human... Their folks were in a bad car wreck and we
suppose they died."
Scully: "You suppose?"
Taylor: "Well, we tried to administer medical attention, but the boys hauled the
bodies away -- took them home. They haven't been seen in ten years, so we *suppose* they
died."
Scully: "Have you questioned the men?"
Taylor: "The Peacocks built that farm during the Civil War. It still has no
electricity... no running water. No heat. They grow their own food, raise their own pigs,
breed their own cows. *Raise* and *breed* their own stock, if you get my meaning."
(Mulder grimaces)
Scully: "It is, however, the closest residence to the crime scene."
Taylor: "Those boys are feeble, Agent Scully. It's sad... they wouldn't have any
idea what you were talking about."
Scully: "Well, they could have witnessed --"
Taylor: "Look. This town is my home. I love it. It's quiet, peaceful. I don't even
wear a gun. Now I've heard some of the sick and horrible things that go on outside my
home. At the same time, I knew we couldn't stay hidden forever; that one day the modern
world would find us and my hometown would change forever. And when I saw... it... in the
ground, I knew that day had come. And I want to find whoever did this. But in doing so,
I'd like it if the way things are around here didn't have to change. Now I know this is
iffy Bureau jurisdiction, but I didn't know who else to turn to. So I called the Bureau in
Pittsburgh, and when I described the victim, they said I should see you."
Mulder: "Then maybe we should take a look at the victim."
Scully: "Imagine all a woman's hopes and dreams for her child, and then nature
turns so cruel. What must a mother go through?"
Mulder: "Apparently not much in this case, if she'd just throw it out with the
trash."
Scully: "I...I guess I was just projecting on myself."
Mulder: "Why? Is there a history of genetic abnormalities in your family?"
Scully: "No."
Mulder: "Well, just find yourself a man with a spotless genetic makeup and a
really high tolerance for being second guessed and start pumping out the little
Uberscullies." (he rubs her shoulder, and she grins)
Scully: "What about your family?"
Mulder: "Hmm? (Scully nods) Well, (he smiles) aside for the need for corrective
lenses and the tendency to be abducted by extraterrestrials involved in an international
governmental conspiracy, the Mulder family passes genetic muster. (he turns serious)
Scully, that child inside is a tragedy. Some scared parents, probably young kids, disposed
of an unwanted birth. In a very certain sense infanticide is involved, but this is not an
FBI matter."
Scully: "But from what I know about genetic defects, Mulder, it is unlikely that
child resulted from a single polygenic mating."
Mulder: "We should let local authorities investigate."
Scully: "Those defects, Mulder, are autosomal dominant disorders. And from the
degree, I'd say, mutations that go back many generations."
Mulder: "Scully, Sheriff Taylor implied that the boys in that family were not
really the type that could easily get dates."
Scully: "But he also implied that they practice inbreeding. Now we all have a
natural instinct to propagate..."
Mulder: "Do we?" (he's smiling at her)
Scully: "There are theories that propose that our bodies are simply vehicles for
genes needing to replicate."
Mulder: "There's no sister...The mother has been dead for ten years..."
Scully: "But if the instinct and the need is strong enough, they will answer it
any way that they can. Now a woman gave birth to that child, and my guess is, against her
will."
Mulder: "Kidnapping *is* a Bureau matter. (Scully gets up and heads to the car)
Scully.... (she stops and looks back at Mulder) I never saw you as a mother before."
Mulder: (trying to push the pigs) "Scully, would you think less of me as a
man if I told you I was kind of excited right now? (pigs won't move) There some secret
farmer trick to get these things moving?"
Scully: "I don't know. Baa-ram-ewe! BAA-RAAM-EEEWE!!!!"
Mulder: "Yeah, that'll work."
Scully: "I babysat my nephew this weekend. He watches "Babe" 15
times a day!"
Mulder: (to woman under the bed, thinking she's a hostage) "Take it easy, ma'am,
take it easy. It's all right, it's all over. We're from the F.B.I., we're here to help.
We're gonna make sure that you're safe. We're gonna make sure that you get home."
Scully: (shining her flashlight on a framed picture of two people sitting in front of
the house) "Mulder, she already *is* home. It's Mrs. Peacock. She's their
mother."
Mrs. Peacock: "Don't feel pain. Runs in the family. Hafta check the boys, see if
they hurt themselves."
Scully: "But what about you? Even after the accident -- "
Mrs. Peacock: "Right arm was torn off. Saw it sittin there, 'cross my dead
husband's lap. Boys took me home, sewed me up just like the family learnt in the war of
northern aggression. Whole time, felt the same as if I's makin breakfast. They're such
good boys..."
Scully: "Mrs. Peacock, they murdered Sheriff Taylor and his wife. And Deputy
Pastor."
Mrs. Peacock: "I can tell you don't have no children. Maybe one day you'll learn
the pride... the love... when you know your boy would do *anything* for his mother."
Through computer displays I have landed an airplane on the deck of a moving carrier, observed a nuclear particle hit a potential well, flown in a rocket at nearly the speed of light and watched a computer reveal its innermost workings. Ivan Sutherland, the "father" of computer graphics, quoted in "Computer Software for Graphics," Scientific American, 1984