Recap / Kolchak The Night Stalker E 8 Bad Medicine

Bad Medicine

Written By: L. Forde Neal and John Huff
Directed By: Alex Grasshoff

"F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "The rich are different than you and me." They sure are. They got more money. But there wasn't enough money in the world to save some of the members of Chicago's upper crust from a fiendish force so dark, it can only be called diabolic."

In the same night, two members of Chicago’s elite mysteriously commit suicide, and diamonds they own vanish from their homes. The next day, Kolchak accompanies the police in busting a robbery at a gem exchange, only to find the guards are dead, the police dog sent after the culprit (Richard Kiel) has been mauled to death by a coyote, and the culprit jumps off the roof of the building when pursued and vanishes before hitting the ground. Kolchak suspects that these events are connected, and investigates, finding that the culprit is a shape shifting evil spirit known as the Diablero, who can warp reality with his eyes.

Tropes:

• Bloodless Carnage: Played straight with most of the Diablero’s victims, but averted by the police dog he mauls to death.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Subverted. The Diablero doesn’t hypnotize his victims to get them to kill themselves, he uses his eyes to change reality to control them.
• Reduced to Dust: The Diablero/Diableros (the spirit of an evil Native American sorcerer) can only be defeated by tricking it into looking at its own reflection. When it does so, it is reduced to skeletal form, then turns to dust.

"Nothing was found on that floor, not even ashes. Baker and the police have ruled the case closed, all in the public interest, of course. But there is the matter of those stolen gems. Those prized stones, worth millions… billions… over three hundred years of treasure claimed by the Diablero... the Crown Jewels of Queen Elizabeth, the Star Sapphire of Nicholas the First, the Firestone Diamond of Bonaparte and Josephine, to name but a few . None of them have turned up in any market in this world. Only one thing remains. The detectives won’t admit it, of course. But somewhere, locked deep in the evidence files of the Chicago Police Department, is a handful of black feathers."