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Context Recap / TheXFilesS04E11ElMundoGira

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1[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\
2[[Recap/TheXFiles Index]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E01Herrenvolk 1]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E02Home 2]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E03Teliko 3]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E04Unruhe 4]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E05TheFieldWhereIDied 5]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E06Sanguinarium 6]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E07MusingsOfACigaretteSmokingMan 7]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E08Tunguska 8]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E09Terma 9]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E10PaperHearts 10]] | '''11''' | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E12LeonardBetts 12]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E13NeverAgain 13]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E14MementoMori 14]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E15Kaddish 15]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E16Unrequited 16]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E17TempusFugit 17]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E18Max 18]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E19Synchrony 19]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E20SmallPotatoes 20]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E21ZeroSum 21]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E22Elegy 22]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E23Demons 23]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS04E24Gethsemane 24]]]]-]]]
3'''Season 4, Episode 11:'''
4!El Mundo Gira
5[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfileselmundogira.png]]
6[[caption-width-right:350:''"Madre de Dios."'' [[labelnote:Translation]]"Mother of God" in Spanish.[[/labelnote]]]]
7->Written by John Shiban\
8Directed by Creator/TuckerGates
9
10->'''Mulder:''' El Chupacabra, the goatsucker. It’s a small gray creature with a big head and a small body and big black bulging eyes.\
11'''Flakita:''' Sí! Sí! Sí. [[labelnote:Translation]]"Yes! Yes! Yes" in Spanish.[[/labelnote]] Light. Then rain. Then La Chupacabra. He comes and eats away Maria’s eyes and face.
12
13Mulder and Scully investigate a strange death in a community of Mexican migrant workers.
14----
15!!Tropes:
16* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Pedantic yes, but Flakita is probably meant to be the nickname ''Flaquita'' ("Little thin one") and the Buente brothers, the Puente brothers (a real Spanish surname meaning "Bridge"). The words are homophone or nearly so, and the spellings used by the show can only be found in the script and subs, never appearing onscreen.
17** Mulder refers to the Monster of the week as El Chupacabra. Flakita, the actual Spanish speaker, refers to it as ''la'' Chupacabra (feminine article), but then uses masculine pronouns, as in "''He'' comes and eats away Maria’s eyes and face."
18* AssholeVictim: Lozano, at least as far as the migrant workers are concerned. Gabrielle actually sticks up for him to some extent, though.
19* CharacterNameAlias: Commonplace among the aliases used by illegal immigrants at the INS processing center. Examples given are Jose Feliciano, Juan Valdez, Cesar Chavez, Placido Domingo, and Erik Estrada.
20* {{Chupacabra}}: What the MonsterOfTheWeek is thought to be. It isn't, though Eladio may have turned into a hideous mutant that could probably pass for one.
21* FesteringFungus: This is in the spotlight of the episode. Eladio is spreading the fast-growing deadly fungus to everything he touches.
22* ForeignLanguageTitle: Means "the world turns" in Spanish.
23* GenderBlenderName: Eladio's brother Soledad, who has a female name.
24%%* TheGreys
25* GratuitousSpanish: When the Mexican characters don't speak Spanish, they speak English littered with Spanish words.
26* MirrorReveal: The MonsterOfTheWeek only realizes that he has become this by looking at himself in a mirror.
27* PoisonousPerson: Eladio's touch causes other peoples' bodies to be rapidly and fatally overgrown by whichever [[FesteringFungus fungal spores]] he happens to have on his skin.
28* ShoutOut:
29** To ''Theatre/WestSideStory''.
30--->'''Scully:''' Maria ... Maria ... I just met a girl named Maria.
31** A simultaneous ShoutOut and TakeThat:
32--->'''Mulder:''' 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.\
33'''Scully:''' Purple rain?\
34'''Mulder:''' Yeah. [[Music/{{Prince}} Great album.]] [[Film/PurpleRain Deeply flawed movie, though.]]
35** The episode's title is a rough Spanish translation of ''Series/AsTheWorldTurns''. Since Scully comments that the case resembles a Mexican soap opera, it doubles as a JustifiedTitle.
36* SiblingTriangle: The two brothers are rivals for the same woman's affections; she only loves the older brother.
37-->'''Scully:''' Your "Fortean event" turned out to be nothing more than the oldest story in the world. Two men. One woman. Trouble.
38* TakeThat: to Erik Estrada of ''{{Series/CHiPs}}'', which is the alias Eladio gives the INS. After hearing Eladio's [[LargeHam dramatic testimony]], Lozano says "This guy's ''better'' than Erik Estrada".
39* TyphoidMary: While he eventually shows symptoms (but never succumbs to them), Eladio Buente has no idea he carries a deadly virus with him with which he infects and kills everyone.
40* UnreliableNarrator: Story is narrated by Flakita who is shown to be a little bit of a CloudCuckoolander with her absurd conclusion to the story. Then it shifts to Gabriella who narrates an equally weird version of the same conclusion. Then it shifts to Mulder and Scully with an explanation that seems more realistic, but relies on intuition and guesswork. In the end, it's not clear just what happened to the two.
41* WalkingWasteland: Eladio. They can follow him just by seeing the massive fungal blooms.
42----

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