The X-Files Season 4, Episode 2: Home

Holy shit this episode is disgusting. Which I already knew.

'Home' is rather horrifying, but reasonably well done, all things considered.

In case it's not obvious, I am writing this from memory of the episode, because I have absolutely no intention of ever watching it again. I will watch 'The Host' and 'F. Emasculata' again before I watch 'Home' for a second time.

So I actually knew about this episode long before I ever started watching The X-Files. It's kind of infamous, not least because it was apparently the only episode of the series that aired with a warning about graphic violent content. I know the show has a tendency to be exceptionally gross at times (the murdered man in the hammock in 'Wetwired' was the most recent example) but normally figured it may be a scene or two in an otherwise normal episode.

This was not the case in 'Home'. This entire episode was very hard to watch.

It was filmed like a horror movie, which worked very well given the content, and the tension was greater than I've ever seen it on this show before, even when Mulder 'died' in New Mexico. The inbred family reminded me a lot of the zombies in The Cabin in the Woods and I now wonder if this was the inspiration for that. (I jokingly said I would watch The Cabin in the Woods as a palate cleanser after seeing 'Home'.)

I think my biggest problem with this episode was the sheer graphicness of it. The violence was more extreme and more visible than we'd really seen before in the show, and I don't think the story really warranted it. They could have depicted just as much violence occurring without showing us the extremely bloody shots directly, as they have in so many episodes before. This just seemed to be done for shock value, and it was kind of a distraction, at the very least.

The X-Fileness of this is also somewhat shaky, because as much as inbreeding and genetic anomalies can be problems, with the exception of the very brief discussion about the possibility of something more than dual parentage, there's nothing particularly paranormal about incest. It's just gross.

And the deformities of the villains, along with the absolute squalor they lived in, just added to the incredibly vomit-worthy visuals of this episode.

There were a couple of notable things I did like, once I got past how horrific it was. I found Mulder's playing with the baseball endlessly amusing, because he wasn't even paying attention to Scully, to the point where she tried to see if he was even paying attention by claiming to be leaving the FBI and becoming a spokesperson for Ab-Roller. OK, that was funny.

The other thing, which I know is a somewhat common trope, especially in horror, is the contrast of the sweet, romantic song, 'Wonderful, Wonderful' with the violent, bloody murders of Sheriff Taylor and his wife. If we're on the subject of sweet songs being contrasted with violence, I think I have to draw the comparison to the use of 'Singin' in the Rain' in A Clockwork Orange, which, now that I think about it, this scene may have been intentionally referencing.

Subtract the unnecessary gore and this might have been an episode I remembered very differently, but instead, all that sticks in my mind is tons and tons of blood and hideous violence and gross people.

And pigs. Can't forget the pigs.