MILLENNIUM-CLOSURE, THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, and SKULL AND BONES

 

MILLENNIUM-CLOSURE, THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, and SKULL AND BONES

 

 

"Closure"    Daniel Sackheim     Larry Andries     October 23, 1998      3ABC04        5.07[19]

The pursuit of a remorseless killer gets to Emma Hollis, whose fierce resolve to nail the slayer is tied to a violent incident that scarred her emotionally as a child.

 

MILLENNIUM-CLOSURE

 

I don’t get how people do not like this tense filled episode. Robert Shearman in his book gives it a one but honestly it’s really a 10/10 about the WHY not existing in some killings and some evil that men and women (yes, the woman is just as amoral and evil here, too) do. The set pieces and performances and script all jive for once to give us an episode where anything might happen thanks to killers who just do not care. Frank vs Emma’s conflict is just as good, too, and Shearman thinks that this is just an attempt to give Emma depth but frankly, she’s had depth from the start and Emma’s probably MILLENNIUM’S most realistic and warm character ever.

 

There’s some sexuality that must have been pushing the limits even by the end of the 1990s and it works. Emma’s car ride with Richard, the worst of the trio of killer’s is most unnerving but ends in a satisfying manner as Emma, with her seat belt on, notices he has his seatbelt off so she crashes the car into a stone pillar or one of those safety crash cement blocks, sending him half out of the windshield.

 

Randy or rather the actor from MONK who plays Randy appears as a mountain biker who engages the trio and gets, for his efforts to bond, a game of William Tell with guns, ending with him dead.

 

The female criminal that engages with Emma after she’s caught is also a piece of work, playing Emma when she asks Emma if there was anyone that she’s ever loved so much she’d do anything for (Emma says yes and we think, rightly, that it is her sister, who supposedly died at the hands of a white man who then later killed himself). Emma says yes and the girl says not her. She also tells Emma, “You’re in the wrong kind of work.”

 

Frank, satisfactorily, tells Emma, “Officer Hollis, you are NOT in the wrong line of work.”

 

There’s been conflict between Frank and Emma throughout these four episodes, usually Frank trying to protect Emma or Emma trying to help Frank or solve a case but these moments of their connecting make it worth watching. Which is why the unresolved feud between them later on is so frustrating. For now, MILLENNIUM is so much better than it ever was.

 

 

 

50   5      "...Thirteen Years Later"        Thomas J. Wright        Michael R. Perry      October 30, 1998    3ABC05        5.37[20]

Murders begin to occur on the set of a film loosely based on a grisly case from Frank's past. Rock band KISS—Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley—appear as themselves and in small roles.

 

Marta is named that but I can’t help but think she looks a lot like Marta Kristen from LOST IN SPACE. I thought that even before I heard her name. We know Chris Carter is an Irwin Allen fan and that he not only had Stefan Arngrim from LAND OF THE GIANTS on MILLENNIUM before but he’s in a major role in this episode but also that a clip from LAND OF THE GIANTS-THE MECHANICAL MAN graced WEEDS in season one. AND…in THE X FILES, a main character played by THE INVADERS’ Roy Thinnis is named Jeremiah Smith ( LOST IN SPACE-THE CURSE OF COUSIN SMITH).

 

In any case, I don’t know why people complain about this episode and memory does cheat: I seem to recall more with the KISS member in the fat costume or fat looking deputy more and KISS featuring more prominently than they actually do. Unless the DVDs are edited to have KISS play a lesser role than they did on first airing, memory does cheat.

 

Some reviewers called the KISS concert at the climax an orgy. It’s hardly that at all and only a brief part of the episode.

 

More over than anything else, MILLENNIUM here, at much as it can be, is fun again or fun for the first time. There is, especially at the start to the mid point of the episode, a great deal of funny lines and laugh out loud humor. I love that Frank profiles JASON, FREDDIE, and MICHEAL MEYERS and there are also mentions of THE OMEN, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, MOTEL HELL, PSYCHO, and THE HITCHER (gross with the finger in the sandwich).

 

I love this episode and would give it a 9/10, losing points for maybe two things: ONE: I don’t get what the connection is to the man that tried to drive Frank crazy three times in his life including mostly the FRENCHMAN? What? How is this killer related to the Frenchman killer or is Frank just plain wrong? The ending is also a bit weird, too. The other thing wrong is that the killer faked being a victim or something. Did he cut his thumbs off and had to get 171 stitches? If so, he’s pretty casual about it and recovering pretty quickly and Frank and Emma don’t notice that?

 

All in all, a fun episode that has faults and could have been better but certainly not the worst the show’s ever done. And KISS does not overtake the episode (maybe they wanted to) as on the DVD. Maybe it’s been altered? Doesn’t seem to be.

 

 

 

51   6      "Skull and Bones"   Paul Shapiro      Chip Johannessen & Ken Horton        November 6, 1998        3ABC06        5.07[21]

The discovery of secretly buried bodies at a construction site in Atoka, Oklahoma reveals an odious connection to the Millennium Group.

 

Gosh. I know this episode is creepy and even scary in its premise. I know Peter comes off as a real creep and that MILL assassin is back, too. The scene where Emma searches the MILL kill farm house is very scary and when the music stops, it’s even more effective and unnerving. Then the radio starts blaring and that’s unsettling. Peter appears at the doorway. Very creepy. A totally riveting episode that changes everything. Probably a 10/10.

 

BUT…this changes the entire show and we can look at season one and even season two differently. The GROUP is now covering up threats by…killing their own members who might reveal thins the GROUP doesn’t want them to?

 

This might jive cohesively with the recent school shooting episode where it means that some must do whatever it takes to keep order and sanity in a world about to go or has already gone mad and insane and to keep society mired in stability. It is, if the last episode was not, as real as TV can get. Sadly, I wonder if the gov’t or gov’ts of the world play this game, though it’s probably not as overt at it is here. The idea of this is scary more than the actual events of the episode.

 

I love that Andy lets Frank take the witness out of holding. Andy reveals himself to be a true friend.

 

If you were Emma would you not shoot Peter dead as soon as he handed the gun back to her? Did he take the bullets out?

 

Unsettling an episode that changes everything. But should it have? Is there coming back from this?

 

I learned from the MILL web site, THIS IS WHO WE ARE, that the assassin is named Mabius and he may not be human as he changes forms in another episode much as Lucy Butler seemed to. Is he her?

 

I used to know this stuff when the season first went on and there used to be a newsgroup about the show. These things were discussed in depth.

 Millennium – Closure (Review) | the m0vie blog

[Millennium Tribute] KISS - Thirteen years later (youtube.com)