You know that feeling when you're driving through a small, incredibly tidy town and everyone is smiling just a little too much? That's the vibe of The X-Files Our Town, a second-season gem that premiered back in May 1995. It’s weird. It’s gross. Honestly, it’s one of those episodes that sticks in your brain because it isn't about aliens or government conspiracies. It’s about people. Specifically, people eating other people to stay young.
Most fans talk about Home when they want to discuss the show’s "disturbing" peak, but Our Town is arguably more unsettling because it feels so plausible. You've got Chandon, Arkansas—a place that literally lives and dies by its poultry processing plant. It’s the kind of town where the economy is built on one thing, and when that thing gets threatened, people do insane stuff. Mulder and Scully roll in because a federal poultry inspector named George Kearns vanished. Kearns was about to shut down the plant. Bad move, George.
The Secret Ingredient in Chandon
When we talk about The X-Files Our Town, we have to talk about the "fountain of youth" trope. Usually, that’s some magical spring or a high-tech lab. Here? It’s Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and ritualistic cannibalism. Frank Spotnitz wrote this one, and you can tell he wanted to lean into that folk-horror aesthetic that would later define shows like Yellowjackets.
Walter Chandon, the patriarch of the town and owner of Chandon Chicken, is 93 years old. But he looks... fine. Not "93-year-old billionaire" fine, but "I have the skin of a middle-aged man" fine. The secret isn't a good moisturizer. It’s the fact that the town has been consuming the remains of their own—starting with a group of people who survived a plane crash in the 1940s and discovered that a certain "dietary choice" kept them from aging.
It’s a classic X-Files setup. Mulder is instantly suspicious of the local "good vibes," while Scully is trying to find a medical explanation for why people are losing their minds. The science here is actually somewhat grounded in reality, which makes it scarier. They reference Kuru, a real neurodegenerative disorder found in populations in Papua New Guinea that practiced funerary cannibalism. Seeing Scully perform an autopsy on a piece of "chicken" that turns out to be human remains is a Top 10 gross-out moment for the series.
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Why the Chicken Plant Setting Works
There is something inherently industrial and cold about a slaughterhouse. Director Rob Bowman uses the visuals of the Chandon Chicken plant to make the viewer feel like just another piece of meat on the line. The sterile whites, the stainless steel, the rhythmic clucking—it’s dehumanizing.
The horror of The X-Files Our Town is that the townspeople aren't monsters in the traditional sense. They are neighbors. They are the sheriff. They are the girl next door. They just happen to believe that the survival of their community depends on a literal blood sacrifice. When Paula Gray, a young woman working at the plant, has a psychotic break and starts seeing her grandfather as a monster, the town doesn't call a doctor. They call a "cleanup crew."
It’s a commentary on corporate greed and small-town insularity. Chandon Chicken is the town. If the plant closes, the town dies. So, to keep the plant running, they keep the owner alive. To keep the owner alive, they feed him. It's a closed loop. A very, very hungry loop.
The Climax and the Mask
The imagery of the masked figure in the woods is pure nightmare fuel. During the climax, Scully is nearly sacrificed at a bonfire ritual. The townspeople wear these tribal, bird-like masks. It’s such a sharp contrast to their daytime personas as simple Arkansas poultry farmers.
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Mulder arrives just in time—as he usually does—but the resolution is bleak. Walter Chandon is trampled by his own followers in the chaos. The town doesn't get "saved" in a traditional way; it just loses its source of immortality.
What’s wild is that the episode ends with a shot of the "waste" from the plant being processed into feed for the chickens. It suggests that even though the human-eating cult was busted, the cycle of consumption hasn't really stopped. You're left wondering if you'll ever want to eat a chicken nugget again.
Breaking Down the Folklore
Our Town draws heavily from the "Shirley Jackson" school of horror. If you've ever read The Lottery, you see the DNA here.
- The Outsider: Kearns was an outsider who threatened the status quo.
- The Sacrifice: Someone has to die so the rest can prosper.
- The Silence: Everyone knows, but nobody talks.
The episode also highlights the chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson during a period where the show was really finding its legs. Mulder’s dry wit ("I think I'll skip the chicken") balances the genuine dread of the situation.
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Lessons From Chandon
If you're rewatching The X-Files Our Town today, it hits different. We live in an era of "wellness" culture and "biohacking" where people spend millions to stay young. Walter Chandon was just an early adopter.
The episode reminds us that the scariest monsters aren't the ones under the bed; they're the ones who sign your paycheck and invite you to the Sunday barbecue. It tackles the fear of being "consumed" by your job and your community quite literally.
To get the most out of this episode and others like it, focus on these takeaways for your next marathon:
- Watch the background: The townsfolk in the plant often look at Mulder and Scully with a hunger that isn't just curiosity.
- The Soundtrack: Mark Snow’s score for this episode uses more organic, percussive sounds than the usual synth-heavy tracks, leaning into the "tribal" theme.
- Check the science: Look up the history of the Fore people and Kuru. It’s a tragic real-world parallel to the "mad cow" symptoms seen in the episode.
- The "Home" Connection: Watch this back-to-back with the Season 4 episode Home to see how the show evolved its "isolated community" horror tropes.
When you finish the episode, you realize the title is the most chilling part. It isn't Their Town or The Town. It’s Our Town. It’s an invitation to a dinner party where you might just be the main course.
The best way to experience the legacy of this episode is to dive into the "Monster of the Week" archives. Don't just stick to the alien mythology. The standalone stories like this one are where the show’s writers really got to experiment with psychological horror and social commentary. If you're looking for more, seek out Season 3’s Quagmire or Season 1’s Darkness Falls—episodes that treat nature and human nature as the ultimate predators.