“Small Potatoes” is episode twenty of season four of The X-Files.
The episode opens in Tablers Community Hospital in West Virginia and a pregnant woman is being wheeled in. One of the staff is asking questions, including about the father. She’s told that he’s not from around here. Out of state? No, another planet. The woman gives birth and those attending see something shocking about what is otherwise described as a healthy baby girl. The baby has a tail. The doctor’s reaction is a bit odd; he says ‘Not another one.’
Mulder shows Scully a tabloid with a report about monkey babies invading a small town. Scully says that children are born with vestigial tails; usually, they shrink as the child develops. Occasionally not; it’s rare but been known to happen. Mulder thinks that five times in three months in a town of less than 15,000 people is more than a statistical anomaly. Scully agrees, and that it warrants investigation. But by the local health department, not them. Mulder says they are already investigating. Scully inquires what else interests Mulder. Could it be the visitors from outer space part of the story?
They interview the woman, Amanda Nelligan. The doctor says her baby is fine; in a few months the tail can be removed. No, she didn’t have unusual complications nor was she using fertility treatment. She wasn’t trying to get pregnant. Mulder asks what she meant when she said the baby’s father was from another planet. Amanda meant he wasn’t from this planet. No, she wasn’t abducted; he dropped by her apartment and one thing led to another. She didn’t say he was an alien; she said he was from another planet. He’s Luke Skywalker, what’s known as a Jedi Knight. No, he didn’t have his lightsabre with him. He did sing the Star Wars theme though. Mulder has lost interest by this point and is heading out the door. Scully asks Amanda how many times she’s seen Star Wars. 368. As Scully is leaving, Amanda asks if Luke could be the father of the other four babies.
Mulder is looking at Amanda’s baby when Scully approaches. He tells her to take her best shot, but he thinks there’s more going on here that Luke Skywalker and his lightsabre. Scully agrees. She has tests run on all five babies. Each has the same father. The supposed fathers are not going to be happy. Scully explains that defects like that run in families; the father probably had it surgically removed. All five share the same OBGYN, Dr Pugh – there’s only one in town – and the other four all had insemination therapy.
They head to see Dr Pugh and meet another angry couple heading in. More couples are inside having a go at Dr Pugh and they assume that Mulder and Scully are another. When they introduce themselves as FBI, they want Pugh arrested, because he didn’t use their sperm. Pugh says he did and inseminated because of a sperm motility issue. It’s normally got a 40% success rate and he was surprised when it seemed to work four times. The only thing he can think of is that it didn’t work at all. Suggesting the women had slept with someone else. Mulder is wandering and sees a man working on a sink. He has a scar at the bottom of his back. Mulder introduces himself and says he wants to ask a few questions. The man bolts and gets tackled.
The janitor, Eddie Van Blundht, is the father of all five. He suggests, hypothetically, that is some women wanted kids and their husbands weren’t capable, where’s the crime if no-one got hurt. Perhaps women find him irresistible? Outside, Scully says that, on behalf of all the women in the world, she seriously doubts it was consensual. She suggests rohypnol. He could have slipped it into a drink at a club or a bar. Mulder doesn’t think the women look the sort to do a lot of solo drinking. It’s enough to keep him in custody. Eddie is being entered into the computer and is staring at the deputy doing so. Then the deputy looks and sees Eddie has the deputy’s own face. Eddie hits him and leaves.
The sheriff could have sworn the deputy left, he said goodbye to him and everything. The deputy says Eddie was him. Mulder has a theory; does Scully want to hear it? Scully knows what his theory is; Eddie changed his appearance. She thinks it more likely that the deputy has misremembered because of the head injury. The sheriff saw two men approximately the same in the right uniform and saw what he expected to see. Mulder’s theory explains how four married women mistook Eddie for their husband, and Amanda mistook him for Luke Skywalker. They’ve seen something like this before. Not alien though.
They head to Eddie’s home and speak to his father, who used to be Eddie the Monkey Man. His son had the tail removed. During the conversation he calls Mulder, Mulder. Even though Mulder hadn’t introduced himself. Nor had Scully. Eddie’s father – who isn’t his father – bolts and disappears.
Eddie, who isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the drawer, is nevertheless able to keep going due to his ability to change his appearance, causing a lot of confusion in the process. One of the less serious episodes around.