Teliko (The X-Files)

On an international flight from Burkina Faso to the USA, a black man goes to the toilet, where he is attacked by a person with the features of an albino . Another black man comes out of the booth and heads for his place. After a while, the stewardess discovers the corpse of a man with depigmented skin in the toilet.

Three months later, FBI Assistant Director Skinner, in the presence of Dr. Bruin, an employee at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), tells Dana Scully about the recent abductions of four African-American men in Philadelphia. One of the abductees, Owen Sanders, was discovered with signs of depigmentation, and a CDC officer suspects that the man died from some kind of illness. In the morgue, Scully discovers plant seeds of unknown origin on Sanders' body and sends the body to the FBI laboratory for analysis. Mulder flies to New York , where he meets with a UN employee, Marita Kovarrubias , who informs him about the incident on the plane three months earlier.

At night at a bus stop, an African immigrant named Samuel Aboa kidnaps a young African-American Alfred Kittel, immobilizing him with a poisoned arrow. At home, Aboa takes a sharp-pointed tube from her throat and inserts it into Kittel's nose. In the morning, Mulder finds the same seeds at the bus stop that were on Sanders' body. According to a tip from Covarrubias, the agents begin to check the lists of people who arrived on the plane where the man was killed with the lists of immigrants who applied for a residence permit in the United States. Marcus Duff, a social services officer who helps Aboa with paperwork, gives agents the address of his client. Agents try to talk with Aboa, but he runs away and mysteriously hides in a narrow ventilation pipe in the wall of the house. Agents find him and take him to the hospital, where it turns out that Aboa is not sick.

Mulder meets with Diabra, a diplomat from Burkina Faso, who ordered to hide information about the killed passenger plane. Diabra tells him the legend of his people Bambara about Teliko - the night "spirit of the air." Scully, having studied the X-rays of Aboa, discovers that he has no pituitary gland . Mulder concludes that Aboa removes the pituitary gland from his victims to make up for the lack of melanin in his body, leaving the skin discolored by the victims. Aboa escapes from the hospital, hiding in a food cart and meets Marcus Duff in the parking lot. Having tricked Duff, Aboa immobilizes him and takes him to a construction site, where he inserts a pipe into his nose. A policeman accidentally finds Duff's body with a pipe in his nose, frightening off Aboa, who is hiding in a drainpipe. In search of Aboa, whom Mulder considers mythical Teliko, agents come to the construction site at night, because an FBI lab employee, Agent Pendrell, found traces of asbestos on Sanders' body. Scully finds the bleached corpses of African-Americans in the ventilation of a building under construction, while Aboa paralyzes Mulder with a poisoned arrow. Scully finds Mulder and seriously injures Aboa with a pistol when he tries to attack her. In the report, Scully writes that the state of Aboa is a serious one, and science has yet to discover its physical features, but the fear of people that there is a “stranger” among them forces them to “deceive, retract and confuse” ^[3] .

The screenwriter and executive producer of the show, Howard Gordon, originally planned to create a negative character that would seem immortal. After a conversation with consultant producer Ken Horton, Gordon introduced the theme of xenophobia into the plot and came up with an "albino vampire sucking melanin." The creator of the series, Chris Carter, approved the plot, but the first version of the script was unsuccessful and required many improvements ^[4] . Carter asked Gordon to add a central idea, which was the phrase "deceive, retract, confuse" ^[4] . This phrase replaced the usual “Truth is out there” in the headband and the same phrase is spoken by Mulder and Scully at different points in the episode ^{[5] [6]} . Carter also invented the Aboa weapon, which he used to extract the pituitary gland from the victims ^[5] .

The name of the episode in Greek means “end”, although in African mythology “telly” is “air spirit”, which, according to popular beliefs, can be an albino ^[5] . The country where Aboa came from was proposed by scriptwriter John Shiban , who had previously worked in postage programming for a software company ^[5] .

The process of selecting actors was quite difficult, as the creators wanted to find the role of real immigrants from Africa. All the Africans they could find were invited to the show, including even members of the troupe of the African theater, which was passing through the city ^[5] . The role of Marcus Duff, in the end, went to Karl Lambly , known for his role in the series "Cagney & Lacey" ^[5] . The role of Aboa was won by Willie Amakai, a member of the Ghanaian Olympic running team, who shortly before returned from the Olympic Games in Atlanta ^[5] . To give Amakai the appearance of an albino, it took several layers of cream and white powder, into which pink powder was mixed to give the skin the desired shade. Amakai also wore red contact lenses ^[5] . The date of birth of Aboa (September 25), indicated on his resident card , was indicated in honor of the birthday of his daughter Gillian Anderson ^[5] .

For the scene on the plane, scenery was built, which was later used in the episodes “Time Flies” and “Max” . True, at that time the hydraulic installation was not completed, which allowed swinging the decoration, but according to the scenario it was not required ^[5] .

Composer Mark Snow used African drums, flutes and chants to create soundtracks. He also used fragments from the compositions of the Bulgarian Women's Choir, whose recordings were aired on radio in Southern California ^{[5] [7]} . Snow repeatedly used African drums to create music for The X-Files, but in Teliko their use was the most common ^[8] .

In “Teliko” the concept of “others” is studied, where “others” are understood to be representatives of another race ^{[8] [9]} . The United States and American culture are implied in the episode as the norm, while African culture is portrayed as a threat. African folk tales, not considered strange in their homeland, are presented in the episode as mysterious and ominous ^[9] . The writer Alan Moore in his book Analyzing Popular Music ( rus. Analyzing popular music ) claims that the musical accompaniment in the series enhances the impression, making the supernatural character even more “exotic” and even “extraterrestrial” ^[10] . Charles Martin, in his book The White African American Body ( Russ. White African American body ), commented that in the episode "blackness is clearly tied to race", equating cultural understanding of race exclusively with skin color ^[11] . Mulder’s dry joke in the morgue with the mention of Michael Jackson , Martin mentions as reinforcing this stereotype ^[12] .

Zoe Detsi-Diamanti in The Flesh Made Text Made Flesh (approx. Russian text from flesh in flesh ) commented on the racial issue raised in the episode ^[13] . The writer claims that “Teliko” makes a statement that a “normal” black man looks a certain way, as the episode says that black skin contains “a certain pigment” ^[13] . Any deviation from the norm is demonstrated in a negative light and the only scientific explanation is the paranormal nature of the phenomenon ^[13] . Dean Kowalski in the book The Philosophy of The X-Files ( Rus. The X-Files Philosophy ) agrees with this point of view, saying that the episode is built around an attempt to give a scientific explanation of folk tales and paranormal phenomena ^[14] .

Teliko aired on Fox on October 18, 1996 ^[15] , becoming the last episode to air on Friday ^[16] . On a Nielsen scale, the episode received a rating of 11.3 with a 20 percent share, meaning that out of all US-equipped households in the US, 11.3 percent were working at the time of the premiere and 20 percent were set to watch Teliko. Thus, about 18.01 million people watched the premiere show ^[17] .

The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly rated Teliko at C- (two with a minus on a four-point scale), finding many similarities to the episode Narrow of the first season ^[18] . Zach Handlen of The AV Club awarded B– to the episode, also noting the resemblance to Narrow and unpleasant racial hints. However, he regarded the culmination of the series as “wonderfully intense” and as one of the best in the history of the series ^[19] . The writer Sarah Stigall awarded the episode two out of five stars, also noting the resemblance to Narrow and criticizing the series for the lack of quality scenes where Mulder and Scully would be together ^[20] . In the book The Nitpicker's Guide to the X-Files, a bored writer, Phil Farrand noted the inconsistency of the scenario: since arriving in America, Aboa kills four people in three months, but during the episode kills two in just a couple of days ^[21] .

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