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Teliko
"Only when the sun fell, when the rest of the world was sleeping, would they come out."
Written by Howard Gordon
Directed by James Charleston
Directed by James Charleston
Minister Diabira: I grew up hearing the old stories, believing them as only a child can believe.
Mulder: What kinds of stories?
Minister Diabira: The Teliko... spirits... of the air.
Mulder: What kinds of stories?
Minister Diabira: The Teliko... spirits... of the air.
Mulder and Scully investigate after several African men are found dead, with their skins bleached white.
Tropes:
- Albinos Are Freaks: Samuel Aboah is a Burkinabè immigrant who lacks a pituitary gland and harvests them from other African or African-American men to restore his skin tone. He is compared unfavorably to a vampire-like creature from West African folklore (the eponymous Teliko) by a Burkinabè ambassador. He is depicted as a merciless killer with a seemingly inhuman ability to squeeze into small spaces.
- Darkness Equals Death: Minister Diabra's summation of when the Teliko come out to catch their prey."Only when the sun fell, when the rest of the world was sleeping, would they come out."
- Distress Ball: Mulder gets attacked, and is saved by Scully.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Mulder's joke.Mulder: There’s a Michael Jackson joke in here somewhere, but I can’t quite find it.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Averted. Aboah kills black people only for their melanin. He also kills white folk if they get in his way.
- Tranquilizer Dart: Aboah's way of incapacitating his victims.
"But what science may never be able to explain is our ineffable fear of the alien among us; a fear which often drives us not to search for understanding, but to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate."
