"The Rain King" is the eighth episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files.

"The Rain King" earned a Nielsen household rating of 12.5, being watched by 21.2 million people in its initial broadcast.

The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.

In the episode, Mulder and Scully are asked to investigate the strange weather phenomena occurring in a small town.

Grapevine, Piru, and Culver City, California stood in for the fictional town of Kroner, Kansas during filming.

The episode required several elaborate special effect sequences to create heart-shaped hail as well as to simulate a flying cow.

Fontaine had put their engagement news in the paper, but Mootz had wanted to keep it a secret for as long as the drought makes business poor.

Mulder and Scully obtain a client list and head to the local television station to talk to the weatherman, Holman Hardt.

Unfortunately, Mulder begins to unintentionally attract Sheila, resulting in a massive thunderstorm that materializes due to the meteorologist's emotions.

[2][3] The writing staff was impressed with the stories and agreed to buy one—which eventually became "The Rain King"—as a freelance script.

[3] The three pitched the story idea to series creator Chris Carter in August, and Bell was later hired as a permanent show writer.

"[3] The scene in which Daryl Mootz crashes his car into a pole after being pummeled by heart-shaped hail was filmed on a "lonely road" near Grapevine, California.

[4] Ilt Jones, the series' location manager, decided to use Piru, California as a stand-in for Kroner, Kansas—a fictitious city named after Bell's college roommate.

Corey Kaplan and her art team were tasked with turning the derelict gym into a believable reunion set.

Duke Tomasick, The X-Files construction coordinator, later said that the "fun part" was "calling local roofers and explaining just what kind of damage they'd be repairing for us".

[4] Special effects producer Bill Millar was tasked with creating a shot of the cow being sucked up into a storm.

This footage was then combined with a shot of a "cow puppet" being dropped on a re-creation of Mulder's motel room at Fox Studios.

Tom Kessenich, in his book Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files wrote positively of the episode, saying, "'The Rain King' was cute.

Despite criticizing the show for "filming in the land of sunshine and lemon drops" and "border[ing] on that overly twee independent movie vibe", Handlen noted that "the episode’s essential sweetness has enough snarky asides from our heroes […] that it never goes completely off the rails.