It’s starting to look like when The X-Files returns to TV screens with a limited event series on Fox early next year, it’s going to pay homage to the show’s history. Obviously, Mulder, Scully, and more of your favorite characters will be back, but they also plan to revisit at least one of their best, most beloved episodes, “Home.”
According to TV Line, when The X-Files hits Fox for its truncated tenth season, one of the episodes will be a kind of pseudo-sequel, long after the fact, of the classic season 4 episode, “Home.” The outlet has learned that the second of the six new episodes bears the title “Home Again.” While that on its own would lead to speculation (never let it be said that TV viewers aren’t conspiracy minded), there is more evidence to support this claim.
Glen Morgan will serve as both the writer and director of the episode, and why is that interesting, you might ask? Because he is the man who wrote the script for the original, with James Wong, which just so happened to be the second episode in its respective season. “Home Again” is also scheduled to air almost 20 years after the original, which first hit on October 11, 1996, airing on January 25, 2016 (admittedly, this justification is a little more specious).
In “Home,” Mulder and Scully venture to a remote Pennsylvania town called Home, where the corpse of a deformed baby is found. During the course of their investigation, they encounter a violent inbred clan, the Peacocks, who date all the way back to the Civil War and who still live without running water and electricity.
While not exactly the same kind of villain, “Home Again” reportedly features an antagonistic character named Band-Aid Nose Man, who sounds like a similar style of bad guy. He’s described as “intimidating, odd, weary, creepy and immeasurably strong,” and also called “a powerful, violent, and frightening ‘thought’ come to life.” We don’t exactly know what that means, but it sounds like vintage X-Files from where we sit.
More like a violent, exploitation style horror story than your typical X-Files, “Home” was a huge ratings success. The episode has only grown in estimation over time, with people praising it’s disturbing nature and it’s themes of a rapidly vanishing America.
It will be interesting to see what connection, if any, “Home” has to “Home Again.” Perhaps Mulder and Scully go back to the rural Pennsylvania town to investigate more weirdness. But it’s also plausible that there is more of an implied thematic or tonal correlation rather than something explicit in the plot. Whatever the case may be, we’ll find out for ourselves on January 25, 2016.
