The X Files - Teliko

 There are some episodes from the fourth season I've never seen. This was an era of my life (when I was 18/19 years old) where I wasn't watching a great deal of television. X-Files during the first and second season, I was all in on the show, especially the first season. I have that first X-Files guide in my personal collection somewhere. I need to find that. But I digress, this was my first time seeing "Teliko", an episode I was a bit uneasy about considering it could really ride that problematic line around cultural and racial sensitivity. According to UN Africa consulate, Diabria (the great Zakes Mokae of "The Serpent and the Rainbow"), he recalls a figure from childhood called the "spirit of the air", Mulder securing his attention through his new "source", Marita (Lauren Holden). So if you ask an X-Files fan, they will refer you to "Squeeze" in regards to how closely the creature of that episode resembles the "pituitary gland" killer of "Teliko" (the creature Diabra refers to himself). Aboah (Willie Amakye) hitches a ride on a plane from his native Burkina Faso to Philadelphia, even taking the pituitary of a traveler on said plane before landing in the city. Eventually, that victim, whose pigmentation has left him white as a sheet, gains the attention of Mulder and Scully, because another victim was found in Philadelphia suffering the same fate. That is what Aboah does: take the pituitary from African-American men in Philadelphia by paralyzing them with a certain seed from a passionflower through the use of a tube cut from a native tree kept hidden down his throat. When he pulls that tube from his throat he has to make a gurgling sound: it is a bit yikes, as intended. A compassionate, friendly social worker, Marcus (Carl Lumbly; "Cagney and Lacey") could be a next target of Aboah, especially after his capture, found hidden behind the brick wall of an alley, somehow escaping into the wall through a very small rectangle hole, when he's in dire need of pituitary (the skin pigmentation is giving way). 

I do think the inclusion of Marcus was a good way of discussing what those desiring to immigrate to the US go through, and when Aboah takes advantage of his compassion, there is this horrifying moment where Marcus cannot move while Aboah puts a thin, metal object up his nose. Marcus seeing what is happening to him, unable to move, his eyes telling us of his fear is just hard to watch. There is another scene inside Aboah's apartment, where a worker waiting to ride a bus had been paralyzed and set on the sofa, equally as unsettling since police were looking for that missing young man, not realizing he was right on the other side of the door. I thought the episode really made the taking of pituitary essentially similar to a rape as the victims were immobilized, unable to defend themselves or move, incapable of stopping what was happening to them. I can see why the absence of pigmentation as a plot device (resulting in the deaths of these young black men) might elicit a really sensitive response. Ultimately, Scully and Mulder are working to stop more murders of black men through the removal of their pituitary...maybe their mission, by finding what caused the effects of that process can make up for the rather uncomfortable Michael Jackson joke that doesn't age well. 

Admittedly, the asbestos condemned building in Philadelphia where Scully and Mulder investigate, later finding victims of Aboah and Aboah, as well, in ventilation duct work, left me rather mortified as I'm sure that is a cancer farm our agents are moving about in. Mulder paralyzed with Scully having to rescue him was very appreciated. Too often, Mulder rescues her, so I like when she is the one who is the heroine. 3/5