Heres a fun Halloween trick  Mention the Peacock family to an unsuspecting  X-Files fan and enjoy the reaction.





Its likely to be some combination of a shudder, a squeal and a groan a mix of delight and revulsion.  A reporters wife Please God not at the dinner table. The Peacocks are at the center of  Home  an  X Files episode that originally aired in October 1996. Viewers complained that the tale about the murderous inbred clan was too disturbing and network executives apparently agreed.


 While  Home appeared later on the cable channel FX it was never again broadcast on Fox save for a special Halloween airing in 1999 network ads at the time billed it as  an episode so controversial its been banned from television for three years. The episode has since become a fixture on various  scariest shows ever lists and endures as one of the most beloved in the seriess history. Its available on Netflix and Hulu and if you have not seen it be warned that spoilers start now.


Netflix describes  Home as  the agents encounter a family of inbred animal like brothers living on a farm which is accurate but also leaves out plenty. The episode begins fittingly on a dark and stormy night as the hideously disfigured Peacock brothers bury a deformed baby in a field. After a group of children discover the tiny corpse Mulder and Scully arrive to investigate and the brothers kill multiple townspeople in an attempt to preserve their way of life.


 Eventually the agents discover Ma Peacock a ghastly limbless torso played by Karin Konoval who lives on a rolling cart under a bed in the family home. She is the mother lover and puppet master of the brothers  one of whom is also the father of the other two.  A boy will do anything for his mother she growls to Scully not long before she and one surviving son escape with plans to start a new family.