 "Arcadia" received mostly positive reviews from critics. Rob Bricken from Topless Robot named "Arcadia" the tenth funniest X-Files episode and noted the two levels of humor in the episode — the "blatantly hilarious" pairing of Mulder and Scully as husband and wife, and the "perfect parody" of the planned community way of life. Timothy Sexton from Yahoo! News named "The Arcadia Garbage Monster" as one of "The Best X-Files Monsters of the Week". Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode four stars out of five and noted that the inherent draw of the episode was "seeing Mulder and Scully go under-cover as a yuppie married couple." Despite the general praise for the episode, however, the two slightly criticized the ending, calling the final scene "rushed."
