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Have you recovered from the finale yet? Hangover gone? Horrible, heart-wrenching bitterness fading? Little puddles of plastic vomit cleaned up yet? Oh, wait. That was my post-finale extravaganza. I'm thinking about checking my action figures into Action Figure Rehab, because when they came to after passing out in the middle of the finale and realized that they missed the very end, they started drinking again. And when I eventually showed them the final, schmoopy, answer-less coda? They started chugging it right out of the bottle. I think they've made up, though. I overheard the Mulder say something about "luuuurving" the Scully and I think I heard her tell him that she wants to lick his sideburns right off, even if they do leave a plastic aftertaste in her mouth. Right now, the Scully is wandering around the bookshelf with an empty single-serving package of creamer balanced on her head, sing-songing something about being free at last. They've locked the Britney Spears into a makeshift jail (formerly known as Mulder's Shoe Box Office), but they let her out every ten minutes to regale them with song. And how am I spending my summer, you ask? I have to go into the office and write about [boring subject matter removed to keep me from getting fired in case my boss is reading this and suspects that the Word documents I'm working on at the office are not actually about said boring subject, due to the large number of "Doggett"s and "Scully"s and "holy shit"s in them].

Rain pours down onto a ramshackle old farmhouse. It's the middle of the night, of course, because I can't think of a single episode of this show that didn't start in the middle of the night. (Don't email me a comprehensive list, I'm sort of exaggerating.) Inside the house, people yell. We pan on in, although it's almost too dark for me to see anything. I forgot how dimly lit this show used to be. Seriously, I can't see anything. Except the creature on the dining-room table, which appears to be giving birth to...um, something. A deformed hand reaches into a dirty bowl of primitive tools, taking out a filthy fork. Two...um, individuals lean over the person on the table. She's screaming in agony. Then, a weak cry fills the air. The umbilical cord is cut. The mother stops yelling and starts whimpering.

The infantile yelping continues as three men walk out on the porch in the rain. A young Mark Snow enthusiastically presses the "Ominous Inbred Baby Killer" button on his Casio. "This show is better than Starsky and Hutch!" he chirps to himself in the studio. Ah, we were so young once, Mark and I. So young. So nave. The men walk through the yard and into a field, where one of them digs a rather shallow grave. One of them awkwardly pats the bundle, from which a deformed hand pokes. The last man sort of keens up at the sky. The lightning snaps, vaguely illuminating the three of them. And, man, are they ugly. I think they move beyond "ugly" to "oogly." They might even be "foogly." Anyway, the ugly dudes bury the baby alive. Yeah, remember when this show was creepy and hardcore and didn't hesitate to bury babies alive? Now, they just farm them out to innocent couples who have no idea that they're going to be made part of a slave race to the alien masters in 2012, if they aren't killed when weird guys with bumpy necks come to steal their magic kid around 2005.

Aw, old credits. You are a balm to my itchy, irritated soul. By the way, this episode's credentials include: Morgan, Wong, and Kim Manners. Is that like the all-star team, or what?

Daytime. And when I say "daytime," I mean "idyllic, pristine, glorious, lovers-skipping- through-the-fields, single-girls-buying- strappy-sandals, springtime-type daytime." Blue sky, kids playing baseball, the anticipation of Season Four Mulder: life is glorious. Our old friend, the Non-Hip, Non-Squiggly Font of Location Introduction reads, "Home." Then a long beat..."Pennsylvania." Dude, even the N-H, N-S FoLI used to be clever. The kids banter a bit, before the pitch and a swing. The batter connects, and the ball sails through the bright blue sky and lands with a dull thud in the yard of the baby killer's house. The left fielder races to the rusted chain-link fence and stops short. "Hey, come on!" the pitcher yells. Left Field looks back hesitantly. "It went on the Peacocks' property," he calls. The entire field of kids falls silent and solemn. They decide to find another ball.

The batter steps up to the plate, reaching into the mud and rubbing it over his hands. He taps home plate with his bat, and digs his feet into the dirt. Keeps shuffling. He shuffles until fresh, red blood begins to seep out of the mud. Along with a very small, extremely deformed-looking hand. The kids back the hell up. And when I say "back the hell up," I mean they "back the hell up."

Cut to a shot of a baseball, buried in tall grass. Beautiful, young, not-on-the-lam Mulder kneels and picks it up. He smells it, and then practices his wind-up. to him, beautiful, young, non-weepy, not-yet-running- from-the-aliens- coming-to-take- over-the-earth Scully is measuring the now-empty grave. Mulder examines the baseball closely, then glances over at the Peacock place. Those three charming and attractive men stand on the porch. Scully picks herself up out of the grass and writes something in a small notebook. Look how cute and science-y she is! Not at all weepy. Scully starts reeling off a string of mathematical equations, as Mulder bounces the baseball from his flexed pec back into his hand. It's a nifty trick, one that causes Scully to pause in her numerical blathering to shoot him an eyebrow. Mulder goes back to practicing his wind-up, as Scully concludes that a "left-handed individual" probably dug the grave. And I'd like to stick up for my left-handed brethren here and point out that not all of us are deformed, homicidal, incestuous freaks of nature, thank you very much. In fact, most of us are very, very smart and creative. And good-looking. Ahem. Anyway. Mulder nods and goes through his wind-up again. Scully continues, saying that although they've got a lot of footprints out there in the field, she thinks it would be a good idea to take some castings of the shoe impressions near the grave. Mulder doesn't respond. "Meanwhile, I've quit the FBI and become a spokesperson for the Ab Roller," Scully snarks.

Mulder sticks the baseball under her nose. "Smell that," he says. Scully delicately sniffs. "Perfume. Eau de Ball. God, this brings back a lot of memories of my sister." Dude, Mulder. Dry-cleaning bags and take-out curry bring back memories of your sister. "All day pick-up games out on the Vineyard," Mulder says, rolling the ball between his fingers. "Ride your bikes down to the beach, eat bologna sandwiches...only place you had to be on time was home for dinner. Never had to lock your doors. No modems, no faxes, no cell phones. Course, sometimes, you'd get abducted by aliens and used in hideous tests and then turned into starlight, but whatever." Scully smiles wryly. She's so young, so unhampered by thoughts of any MaybeMiraclePossiblyAlienBabies, so untroubled by the idea of being made into a slave for aliens, so innocent of the very idea of whale songs. "Mulder, if you had to do without a cell phone for two minutes you'd lapse into catatonic schizophrenia," she tells him. Oh, don't worry. He'll do that with or without a cell phone in just a few seasons. You know, more or less. Hey, he drilled holes in his skull. What would you call it? Behind them, a late-model truck bounces into the shot. Mulder tells Scully that she doesn't know him as well as she thinks she does. "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," he muses. "Or maybe in a series of cheap motels, with no one to talk to but you, while we kill time waiting for the aliens to transform us into a race of mindless, soulless drones." Scully looks around the field. "It would be like living in Mayberry," she says

Home's sheriff slides out of his truck and comes up to them, greeting them warmly. His name: Sheriff Andy Taylor. "For real?" Mulder asks. Sheriff Taylor thanks them for coming out, explaining that they've never had anything like this happen in Home before. Mulder sort of wanders off as Scully asks Sheriff Taylor if he has any suspects. The sheriff shrugs that the population of Home is only a few thousand. Everyone knows everyone else. Mulder looks thoughtfully at the Peacock house and gnaws on a sunflower seed. Scully wonders if Sheriff Taylor knows of any local women who were pregnant and now, suddenly, aren't. He shakes his head.

Mulder turns around and asks who lives in the run-down place. Sheriff Taylor says nothing. "Did you question them?" Mulder asks. Nothing. "Because they've been watching us this entire time," he says. Sheriff Taylor pulls the side of his mouth way down. "That farm belongs to the Peacock family," he says, walking over to Mulder. "Three boys now. Well, men. Guess you could call them human." Scully makes a confused face. "Their folks were in a bad car wreck and we suppose they died," Sheriff Taylor finishes. "You suppose?" she asks. Sheriff Taylor shrugs that the boys took the bodies home without letting EMS attend to them, and no one's seen Ma and Pa Peacock for ten years, so.... Scully wonders -- again -- if Sheriff Taylor has questioned the Peacock boys. Sheriff Taylor replies, "The Peacocks built that farm during the Civil War. Still has no electricity. No running water. No heat. They grow their own food, they raise their own pigs, they breed their own cows." Sheriff Taylor looks at them very pointedly. "Raise and breed their own stock, if you get my meaning," he says. Ewwwww. Mulder and Scully put on their best poker faces, and Scully points out that the Peacock farm is the closest residence to the crime scene. "They might have seen something," she says. Sheriff Taylor looks very serious. "Those boys are feeble, Agent Scully," he says. "It's sad. They wouldn't have any idea what you're talking about." Scully starts to say something about something, but Sheriff Taylor interrupts her. "Look," he says. "This town is my home. I love it. It's quiet. Peaceful. I don't even wear a gun. I've seen and 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. 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." Mulder and Scully look at their feet. "I know this is iffy Bureau jurisdiction," Sheriff Taylor says, "but I didn't know where else to turn." Mulder suggests they take a look at the victim.