Millennium – Frank Black’s gifts (and more) deepen while his daughter reveals her genes

“The Judge”

“… the visible world seems formed in love,
the invisible spheres were formed in fright.” — Herman Melville

This is one of my favorite episode of the young freshman season. Frank is on his game and confident as all get out. There is spiffy interaction with both Bletcher (Bill Smitrovich) and Gieibelhouse (Stephen J. Lang) and even Catherine (Megan Gallagher) contributes to Frank’s investigation.

There was some pretty gruesome stuff peppered throughout the episode — severed tongues and fingers and limbs — and they all made for a well-rounded story that wrapped up nicely and, possibly, a bit unexpectedly.

My favorite part of the episode, however, was The Judge (Marshall Bell) bald-faced and basically taunting Frank with his knowledge. He was being one of the best kinds of asshats there are: Ones who are summarily brilliant, but end up getting caught quickly and without warning … and by an unlikely source — Bardale.

Notes:

• Frank picked up the box the tongue came in with his bare hands. The other detectives had gloves on.
• How did The Judge know so much about Frank?
• I’m not quite certain of the note The Judge left for Frank. Or … was it Bardale who was the originator of it?
• Speaking of Bardale, I loved John Hawkes playing the character: He was equally menacing, convincing, mousey and foreboding, the perfect embodiment of a tortured soul who knew his fate.
• The quote used at the beginning of the episode from Melville’s Moby Dick perfectly encapsulated one of the themes of Millennium and of this episode: The conflict between good and evil.
• Nice to see a different side of CCH Pounder on the show, one of a few episodes she co-starred in on Millennium.

Quotes:

“There is a connection but the easy thing to do here is overlook the complexity. There’s an act of hubris at work here … a perverse calculus.” — Frank to Bletch

“Mine is not a court of law, Mr. Bardale. It is a court of justice. WE cannot address every case. Our scope is not broad like the common law courts. It is narrower, deeper, more pure.” — The Judge to Bardale

“522666”

“I am responsible for everything … except my very responsibility.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

This was another nifty episode for me with the methodical and calculated efforts of both the good guys as well as the bad guys playing their game of chess right to its conclusion.

At least he got his wish to be “a star” fulfilled before he paid the piper.

Raymond Dees is a man with a god complex, but we never find out what his true intentions are, why he detonated the bombs in the first place. Strip away all the details about him and your left with the fact that he simply wanted attention, just a kid crying out to be noticed. At least he got his wish to be “a star” before he paid the piper.

The power to touch all aspects of what he was doing — from killing people to destroying property, to being in the limelight during the news reports right on down to saving Frank’s life — was nothing more than selfish manipulation regardless of the outcome. When you look at it in such basic terms, you wonder how the episode could be that good. But it was. Methodically so.

Notes:

• One of the most interesting things about this episode was the revelation that Jordan has the same gifts Frank does. Of course, they’re on a much shallower level at this point, but they’re there as indication of Catherine telling Frank that she had a nightmare about him. This will play a part later in the series.
• Catherine is well aware of what’s going on with Frank (she even discussed it with Bletcher in the 2nd episode), but this chapter had her chillingly experience Frank’s work first hand as she heard him parry and thrust with Raymond Dees over the phone.
• Strange the team didn’t find any evidence of a bomb on or in Frank’s rental car or Dees’ vehicle. So … what was the point of the detonator he was holding and fingering during his final conversation with Frank?
• Creepy that Dees needed that “release” at the same time the Queen’s Arms when kablooey. *eewwwwwwwwwwww*

“Kingdom Come”

“And there will be such intense darkness that one can feel it.” — Exodus 10:21

Frank is paired with Ardis Cohen (Lindsay Crouse) who has previously worked with him on a case involving the murders of three clerics years earlier. In the present, two priests have been murdered, leading Frank to believe the killer has suffered some traumatic event that has let him back to its origin where he hopes to conclude it — and his pain.

Galen Calloway (Michael Zelniker), who lost his wife and daughter in a fire years earlier, is methodically targeting people who have touched his life in those tragedies because he has lost his faith in God. And since he has lost faith, he is dealing with it in a delude manner he feels befitting … by erasing the lives of those who were involved, however remotely.

“Kingdom Come” wasn’t near as interesting or exciting as the two episodes above, but it did touch on the theme of faith — both in the killer and in Frank Black himself — to which both men “came around” in the end. Calloway couldn’t bring himself to kill again (himself or others) because there was a glimmer of hope in faith and Frank realized there is still faith in the world regardless of the evil which sometimes surrounds him. The side story with the bird who flew into The Black’s house (and subsequently died as a result) was a push for Frank as well in the episode.

Though not the best of the bunch, Millennium would come around to several more stories where biblical teachings and touchstones laid foundation for stories and the mythology of the series.

Quotes:  

“Yup. That hurts.” — Calloway after bludgeoning his second victim with a golf club

“What was the cause of death?” — Frank
“Blunt trauma to the head to incapacitate the victim. The instrument was wedge-shaped, probably a golf club. But … he died of drowning.” — Ardis Cohen
“The torture of heretics.” — Frank
“Golf? Or drowning?” — Ardis

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Jun 27, 2012 @ 17:18 EST5EDT