The X-files
El Mundo Gira
Episode: 4X11
First aired:1/27/97
Written by:John Shiban
Directed by:Tucker Gates
A very good episode about El Chupacabra.
In a migrant workers'
shantytown in California's San Joaquin Valley, Eladio Buente flirts
with pretty
Maria Dorantes while his brother Soledad watches
jealously. Flakita, a nosy
neighbor, bemoans the age-old story: "Two brothers. One woman. Trouble." Suddenly,
three ear-splitting booms come from the sky, followed by a
painfully bright flash, and a
brief but torrential downpour of hot
yellow rain. In its aftermath, Flakita discovers the
mutilated corpses of Maria and one of her goats, their faces partially eaten away. Eladio
is
missing.
Mulder and
Scully investigate the deaths. According to Mulder, the strange occurrences
preceding Maria's death are called
Fortean events, "An unusual or highly infrequent
meteorological
phenomenon...Fortean events have been linked to
alien encounters,
and
cattle mutilations..." Scully greets Mulder's information with her usual
skepticism.
She can't tell much from the goat's corpse, and Maria's body is at the morgue.
According to Flakita, Maria was killed by
El Chupacabra--the
Goatsucker)--a gray
hairless creature out of
Puerto Rican folk tales with a small body, large head and
bulging black eyes. Scully notes the amazing similarity between the descriptions of El
Chupacabra and a
gray alien. Soledad angrily refutes Flakita's story. He accuses his
brother, Eladio, of killing Maria out of jealousy. This lover's
triangle convinces Scully
that Eladio is the killer, until she examines Maria's remains. The state of Maria's corpse
shocks even Scully. It's hardly visible beneath mounds of greenish
fungal growth.
Meanwhile, Mulder locates Eladio with the help of
Conrad Lozano, a cynical
Immigration agent. Eladio is in
INS custody, segregated from fearful prisoners who think
he's El Chupacabra. Eladio denies killing Maria, claiming something or someone
unknown mutilated Maria during the yellow rain. Mulder believes Eladio did not kill
Maria, and Scully must agree.
Scully's
autopsy of the body revealed that Maria
succumbed to a massive
fungal infection--no one, she says, could deliberately do such a
thing. <>Eladio escapes from INS custody, and the agents discover the driver of the INS
deportation bus dead from a
different fungal infection. Mulder thinks there may be a
connection between the fungi and the missing
immigrant. Lozano and Mulder track
Eladio to a construction site where he has found work, but the vengeful Soledad is also
on Eladio's trail. Both brothers escape before Lozano and Mulder can take them into
custody. The site's
foreman is dead, his body ravaged by a myriad of
fungi. Scully calls
Mulder and warns him against touching or inhaling the lethal lichen. A mycology
professor has isolated an enzyme that acts as a
catalyst, accelerating fungal growth. If it
escapes into the environment, there could be a
biological hazard of frightening
proportions.
Scully believes that Eladio is inadvertently responsible for deaths by spreading the
enzyme which he somehow is carrying. Mulder now thinks the Fortean events could
have been caused by something
falling from space...which would mean the enzyme is
alien. Scully,on the verge of losing
patience with Mulder's theories, just wants to find
the man who seems to be spreading it.
Now quite ill, Eladio begs his cousin
Gabrielle for help. She reluctantly agrees to lend
him money. Flakita, the village gossip, warns the agents that Soledad is planning to kill
Eladio. Eladio eludes them again, but Lozano arrests Soledad.
When Eladio sees his own face for the first time, he can't believe the horror of it. He no
longer looks
human--Eladio has indeed transformed into El Chupacabra. Gabrielle tells
Scully and Mulder that Eladio has run away to
Mexico. But Mulder realizes it's a lie.
Speeding on their way, he alerts a
hazmat team to meet them at the
shantytown...where it all began. Where the two brothers will finally settle their dispute
over Maria.
According to Flakita, Lozano brings Soledad to the
camp, and orders Eladio to face his brother like a man. But Eladio is no longer a
man...he is El Chupacabra. Flakita hides as
gray aliens--whom she calls
Chupacabras--descend on the village. They kill Lozano, and take Soledad up in the sky
with them.
Gabrielle weaves another tale. Lozano orders Eladio to face Soledad. In the horror of
realizing his brother is El Chupacabra, Soledad can't shoot. He and Lozano
struggle
over the gun, and Lozano takes a
bullet. The two brothers, now both Chupacabras, run
away to Mexico.
The story Mulder and Scully report to
Skinner isn't much clearer. All they know is that by
the time they got to the camp, both the brothers were gone. Lozano was dead...brought
down by two
bullets and the fungus. And Los Chupacabras? The Buente brothers, their
faces luridly disfigured, may have
hitchhiked off into the Mexican night.
Important Quotes:
Scully -- "Mulder, this happened how long ago?"
Mulder -- "Tres dias.
Muy incredible, no?"
Mulder -- "Yeah.
Witnesses described a bright flash about 30 degrees off the horizon, then a hot yellow rain fell from a
cloudless sky.
Fortean researchers call these "liquid falls." Black and red rains are the most common, but there have also been
reported cases of blue, purple and green rains."
Scully -- "
Purple rain?"
Mulder -- "Yeah. Great album. Deeply flawed movie, though."
Scully -- "Did he tell you what happened?"
Mulder -- "Flash of light ...
yellow rain .. Maria! (yells) Maria!!!"
ulder -- "The truth is,
nobody cares."
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