The X-Files episode "Home" is regarded as one of the more controversial episodes of the series. It first aired in 1996, and the episode featured a family of inbred mutants known as the Peacock family. It was quite a disturbing episode and the only one in the series to carry a TV-MA rating and a viewer discretion warning for graphic content. I mean, the episode opens with an inbred baby being born and then buried alive in the rain by members of the family!
Despite being a monster-of-the-week episode, "Home" proved to be a hit among fans and critics alike, with many calling it the best episode of the series. That episode was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong and Wong recalled in a past New York Times article the studio’s initial reaction to it:
"The people who responded first were the executives. I remember getting a call from a producer. He goes, 'You guys are sick!'"
However, what you might not know is that the story of the Peacock family almost got a sequel in another Chris Carter-created TV show, Millennium! That is until Fox executives shut it down. Millennium starred Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, a freelance forensic profiler and former FBI agent with a unique ability to see the world through the eyes of serial killers and murderers.
The episode of “Home" ends with the grotesque Mrs. Peacock disappearing from under the bed and in the final scene, in the evening on a gravel road somewhere in the countryside, a white Cadillac sits empty and idling. A voice can be heard coming from inside the trunk saying:
“There, there. Sherman and George were good boys. We should be proud. Now you got to know, Edmund, you can’t keep a Peacock down. There’ll be more. One day, there’ll be more. Now we have to move on, start a new family, one we’ll be proud of. Find a new place to call ours; a new home, a brand new home.”
Morgan and Wong came up with the idea of bringing the Peacock family back for an episode of Millennium. The episode would have seen Frank Black tracking down the surviving members of the family. This would have been incredibly cool and interesting to see! But, Fox was dead set against ever bringing the Peacock family back again. Morgan explained how this all went down:
"The next year Jim [Wong] and I ran the show Millennium, which Chris Carter also created, and the ratings were low on that show and we thought, 'Hey, what if Lance Henriksen finds the surviving members of the Peacock family?' Everybody thought that was a great idea. And we were all set to do a sequel to 'Home' and then we got a call from Fox that was: 'Those characters never appear on television again.' So we dumped it."
It's a shame that the sequel never materialized. "Home" is one of those episodes that sticks with you, and it’s one of the most memorable. It would have been interesting to see how the family would have fared in a different setting and how they would have interacted with Frank Black.
Despite the lack of a sequel, "Home" remains a testament to the show's ability to push boundaries and tell stories that are both shocking and thought-provoking. While the Peacock family may never appear on television again, their legacy lives on in the minds of X-Files fans.
Via: /Film
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