Terms of Endearment

"The language of tenderness" (English "Terms of Endearment") is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the TV series "The X-Files". The episode belongs to the "monster of the week" type and is not related to the main "mythology" of the series.

The demon steals an unborn baby from the womb of the mother, after the future parents discover that their child has birth defects. Agent Spender rejects the assignment as not suitable for the X-Files division. But Mulder and Scully steal the case and start investigating.

Several demonic creatures are shown in the series.

The first of them is a man who is actually a horned demon (devil) originally from the Czech Republic. He usually looks like a normal middle-aged man. The only thing that gives him away are growths on his back, as well as only occasionally visible "demonic" eyes. In his true form, he looks like a horned demon with glowing red eyes, surrounded by flashes of hellfire.

The demon is married to several women at once and is trying to have children with them. Infants have hereditary abnormalities: small horns and growths on the back. When the demon learns about these features, he intoxicates women with mandrake infusion, which causes them to miscarry. In their hallucinations, women see the true appearance of their husband.

Among other things, the demon has the ability to "suck" the soul out of people through the mouth and absorb it. A person usually dies at the same time, but this does not always happen. If the victim is alive, then her soul can be returned by killing the demon – this can be done, for example, by shooting him with a conventional pistol.

The second being unexpectedly for the demon himself turns out to be one of his pregnant wives. She looks like an ordinary attractive woman, and only once in the episode are her demonic eyes shown. She is not only not afraid of deviations in the development of the child, but also welcomes them, and does not allow her husband to take him away, as he did with the rest of the babies. She is not affected by the decoction of mandrake, and she has enough strength to resist her husband.

The series also shows babies with characteristic demonic features: horns, glowing eyes, sharp claws on their hands.