MILLENNIUM-2-GEHENNA
MILLENNIUM-2-GEHENNA
CATHERINE: YES, BUT, FRANK WENT BACK TO WORK BECAUSE HE
HAD TO. IT'S WHO HE IS. SOMETIMES I THINK OF FRANK AS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE -
STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD - BUT HE CAN'T
CHANGE ANYTHING. ALL HE CAN DO IS CATCH THESE HORRIBLE MEN BEFORE THEY KILL
AGAIN. (PAUSE AS BLETCHER SMILES) AND THAT'S WHY I CAN NEVER LET HIM THINK THAT
JORDAN AND I AREN'T PERFECTLY SAFE IN THIS PERFECT HOUSE AND PERFECT WORLD THAT
HE'S TRIED TO GIVE US. (SHORT PAUSE) BECAUSE I KNOW, IF HE EVER THOUGHT DIFFERENTLY
- NEXT TIME HE'D NEVER BE ABLE TO LEAVE.
BLETCHER: YEAH, HE TALKED ABOUT THAT. ABOUT BEING ABLE
TO SEE INTO THE DARKNESS. THAT HE'D DEVELOPED A KIND OF, UH, FACILITY TO SEE
WHAT A KILLER SEES.
Much can be
found about this series and this episode, I’m sure, on line but few if any
books about it (maybe two or three plus it is one that was novelized!). As the
PILOT had to have catches to draw an audience in (if they ever did is another
debate and questionable): there were chases, strippers, and sewn body parts
(mouths?). Here, it’s more sedate but no less nerve wracking and the feeling of
dread surrounding the Yellow House’s exterior and the demon imagery are
perhaps, even more memorable.
The acting
is strong. I think I’ve reversed my feelings on a number of things since first
seeing this episode about this episode and the entire show. First, Peter Watts,
I used to think made a great villain with unsure loyalties but the truth is he
made a great partner for Frank and Terry O’Quinn (LOST, EARTH 2) is a great
actor. I don’t think it was a smart move to make him a villain and complicit in
Catherine’s later death by the Marburg Virus, which hangs over every watch of
every episode now. Morgan and Wong might have been good for MILENNIUM and the
stretching of it but then again they may have been the worst things to have
happened to this weird show (and every episode of every season is weird).
The other
thing I don’t really like is how they made, not only Peter Watts sort of evil,
but also the Millennium Group. Frank here and in this season and maybe a few
early second seasoners works for them and believes in them and their cause in
saving lives and not sitting back and hoping for a good outcome but trying to
bring about a good outcome. Then, they’re…well, evil and not. Or factions of
them are.
It sort of
makes Frank a pasty and even, well, stupid to have worked for a group that
turns out to be evil and trying to bring about the Apocalypse or Armageddon or
whatever they were trying to do.
BTW, and I
know this is not on everyone’s mind: what happens to Benny, the cute puppy from
the pilot and in this episode, later on? I say he went to live with Catherine’s
parents instead of what some fans say was his fate: death by the virus like
Jordan’s pet parakeet. In any case, Benny lives!
I love Bob
Bletch but I DO think it was a bold move to kill him off in the first season’s
end episodes though losing this amiable, likeable actor and character would
hurt the show and bring Frank into more darkness.
We also seem
to forget about Jack, the older neighbor who seems almost like Abner Kravitz
dropping in. I must admit I didn’t fully trust him as he seemed a bit…too
friendly. Was he the stalker? Apparently not as we will find out and the show,
by giving us Jack in the promo, and by seemingly innocently (nothing about this
show is innocent other than Jordan) presenting Jack in the day time and bright
and friendly, knew what it was doing but was coy about it: setting Jack up to
be a red herring. He’s not a killer or a stalker but a nice suburban neighbor
as we shall find out.
I hope Jack
and his wife survived the virus. We never find out. In fact, Morgan and Wong
didn’t really respect the show’s set up or previous characters, dog and
neighbors, but I find that even the entire first season after this might not
have Jack and/or Benny in it much, if at all.
Which is a
shame.
The truth is
that this show, as a whole or as individual episodes, NEVER really knew what it
wanted to be other than a trickery. Meaning that they tried to trick us by
presenting us with demon influences of outside sources of evil (which I used to
love years ago as a sort of monster / supernatural angle) vs Mike’s theory that
it is just humans who create the evil and that it is in themselves, maybe in
all of us and that there is nothing supernatural about it.
I believe in
real life there is no outside source of evil. There are just people acting on
their good nature or not. Acting on their spiritual goodness or not. And that’s
it.
The show
tries to off foot us and does a good job at that presenting the Polaroid Man
running arc as a threat to Frank, which Mike seems to think is just directed at
Frank. For a profiler (FBI?) Mike sure is naïve and even stupid to think that:
Catherine and Jordan feel in just as much danger as Frank, maybe more.
And Mike’s
foolish for going to the scene of a murder that he knows about and more that he
should know about ALONE and then he walks into the crematorium and the killer
shuts the door and locks him in.
It’s also a
bold move to NOT have Frank at that scene of the climactic near murder. Frank
keeps seeing the demon image as did at least two of the young men victims but
nothing more is made of this.
And this is
the world of MILLENNIUM (and the X FILES, too) : off putting us, giving no
sound base for believing one way over the other. Keeping us guessing and never
giving us full answers (though, for better or worse, we did get some answers in
the last seasons of the X FILES or rather seasons 8 and 9).
By not
taking a stand on any issue and presenting us with all the possibilities it
creates tension, fear, and wonder, even awe at times. It could be what we think
or what we want or what gives us the most chills. It also sets up a paranoid
world of THE X FILES but deeper and darker in MILLENNIUM. It’s a definitive
Chris Carter move and it’s brave and it’s also lazy, too, in a way.
By not
saying it was definitive demon or a human, he can write both sorts of
adventures or rather talkative lessons in evil and mankind and the Bible and
the end of the world, promising much but never actually getting there, though
Morgan and Wong scared the shit out of me with that family sitting down to a
holiday dinner (which I think I saw on Mother’s Day or maybe that was Mother’s
Day in the episode), all dying by bleeding out of all their orifices from the
Marburg Virus in season two. The scariest, most disturbing thing on TV. Even
more so today, for obvious reasons.
Back to this
episode: the idea of a telemarketing place being run by evil and us being
reduced to numbers (that second young man who is rescued but then dies of “fear”
in custody right in front of a useless Frank is well acted by a terrific young
man) is a good one but it’s not explored (as other fans have written).
Seen today,
the idea of it being a “monster” or a “thing” that Frank more than implies in
one of the series less subtle moments is trite instead of scary. It being a human being is scarier but even that is
less than the sum of its parts. WHY is he doing this? He doesn’t even speak…at
all. Is this the Legion being the series not so carefully builds up over three
seasons (Lucy?)? Who knows and what’s worse, when THEN I did, NOW I don’t…care.
I care more
about Catherine and Jordan (and Benny) being safe in Seattle, where the story
really is (sort of) and those scenes are both warm (tucking Jordan to bed;
Catherine’s chat with the warm Bob) and tense and scary (the security light
going on when a figure is outside which Catherine suggests to Frank on the
phone is just a cat; Bob’s figure as he approaches the house and we do not know
it is Bob yet…so the series is also gimmicking us here, too).
And most of
all, Catherine’s talk with Bob reveals she needs the Yellow House, her life
here to project to Frank that she is safe in her safe house in her safe world
he built for them here because previously he had a nervous break down (not sure
ANY main hero of a TV show…if Frank can be called a hero at all…ever started
from a nervous break down before) and might never leave the house.
In a sub
plot that does go somewhere by season’s end, Mike (a good actor but bland and
by the book character saying things matter of fact) shows Frank the polaroid
photos that Frank sent him after Frank received them in the mail some time ago
(the PILOT)…and we get to see them, too. Someone is newly stalking Catherine
and Jordan but Mike, as previously written, believes Frank is the one in danger
not the wife and daughter.
An uneven
episode that isn’t terrible, isn’t the show’s best episode but that facilitates
even more than the PILOT, the ideas of the show without giving us much to
really hold onto yet.
I’m not
sure, and I truly like this show, it EVER really does. Even the end of the
world at the very end of season two, ISN’T.
Transcript of Gehenna - Millennium Episode and Credits Guide (millennium-thisiswhoweare.net)
Millennium – Gehenna (Review) | the m0vie blog
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