In Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, there's nine circles of Hell. The first circle's reserved for nickle-and-dime offenders--jaywalkers and such--and the ninth circle is Old Scratch himself.
Too bad Dante couldn't live to see 1996, because I'm sure he'd add a special level for the guy who invented multilevel marketing and the owners of companies therein.
It's a pretty common sight: Young, clean-cut salesmen and -women, going from door to door in business wear, rain or shine, hot or cold, selling cable TV, a set of knives, overpriced financial plans, or whatever else they're selling.
Too bad Dante couldn't live to see 1996, because I'm sure he'd add a special level for the guy who invented multilevel marketing and the owners of companies therein.
It's a pretty common sight: Young, clean-cut salesmen and -women, going from door to door in business wear, rain or shine, hot or cold, selling cable TV, a set of knives, overpriced financial plans, or whatever else they're selling.
They smile as they deliver their spiel at your front door,and peddle their goods with all the zeal of a preacher, but their smiles are phony and their eyes are dead. I really do feel sad for 'em.
Hmm, that reminds me of a case in San Francisco. There was this company called Gehenna, and it sold hair-care products through a call-center. As my luck would have it, there was something a lot more sinister under the surface...
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The consequences soon become very real indeed. That stamp was spiked with what we later learn was LSD and some other substances, and our hapless pledge finds himself on a bad trip. The other guys throw him out of the car, circle around him (the idea is to scare him with the headlights), and drive off. Alone, scared, and hallucinating, he wanders around. Something descends upon him from above. We flash back-and-forth between a bat-like demon and a man with night-vision goggles, who viciously beats the youth to death.
Immediately after the titles, we're treated to an opening quote, which we'll see until the final episode.
Back at base, Peter translated for us. Among passages such as, "I am cutting the ties that prevent my ascendance to a higher stage," we found some choice tidbits about "burning in the fires of Gehenna," Gehenna being the Hebrew word for "hell." There was some other stuff about a miscalculation at the pyramid of Giza; I'll probably find a book about it in Things You Never Knew Existed! the next time it comes in the mail. They've got all sorts of crazy stuff about Nikola Tesla and other conspiracy theories, especially now that the millennium is right around the corner.
Something told me I'd be needed back at the chemical plant. Sure enough, I was right. A bunch of kids were joyriding around in German cars, and one of them caught my eye. He was visibly scared out of his wits, probably tripping on LSD. I got him before anyone else could and took him back to the station, where I interviewed him.
Trying to read him the riot act was pointless. I could see in his eyes that he was just a terrified little boy in spite of his 19 years. He started rambling about phone numbers and serial numbers, about discipline and prosperity. He sounded so...earnest, so compelling. Then he got himself so worked up that he collapsed and died.
======================================================
When I got back home to Seattle, that word--"Gehenna"--gnawed at me. I went down to my computer and ran it through the search engine. The first hit was the Hebrew word. The second hit was "Gehenna International." This could be interesting.
I called up another friend at the Group, Mike Atkins, who was still in San Francisco. Told him everything I saw on the screen: Gehenna deals in chemicals, industrial products, and a lot of other good stuff, but the one that jumped out at me was hair care products. Soon as I said "chemicals," he told me that he had just analyzed that boy's clothes, and they had traces of sarin in them.
The word rang a bell: I remembered seeing something on the news about people on a subway in Japan getting gassed with the stuff. Wonder why they didn't send me there...eh, they must have had someone else on it.
I went to talk to Mike again, but all I got was a dial tone. Alarm bells went off in my head, and I ran off to follow him.
===============================================
Uh, hi. I'm Mike Atkins, from the Millennium Group. Frank invited me to tell my side of the story here. I'm really the only one who can tell it--I may be old, but I can remember everything about that night, clear as anything.
Right after I said goodbye to Frank on the phone, I headed over to that old dry-cleaning plant.
It's funny: Everybody knew about the accident from a few years back, and the air should have been so thick with the chemicals as to make me choke. Not only could I breathe just fine, I couldn't smell much of anything. It occurred to me that a "condemned" notice probably doesn't mean much if you can bribe someone to draft one up for you.
I started out in a room piled high with papers and boxes--accounting, I figured--and moved on to what looked like a classroom. Where you'd expect to see a chalkboard there was instead a screen with slides flashing on it: "Facilitate envy," the first one said; it was followed by another that said "Work will set you free." I know my history...Knowing where those words come from immediately told me that these guys are nothing but bad news.
Up on the ceiling, there was a big black dome, like one of those security-camera things. I thought I saw a faint flash of green up inside it. It was probably nothing, just my overactive imagination, or so I thought at the time.
I pressed on and found myself in the biggest area, the "warehouse." This must be where they stock the products: the hair-care stuff, sets of knives, what have you. It looked kinda like the end of "Indiana Jones."
Couple things caught my eye: Boxes were marked with chemical symbols, warning signs, Chinese characters...My better instincts and my curiosity were at war, and curiosity won out. I found a crowbar and opened one up; inside, I found an assault rifle and a bunch of ammo.
Jesus! You'd think they were getting ready for a siege.
And then, I found it: An industrial-size microwave oven, piled high with a mountain of ash and human bones and skulls. I poked my head in a little, and felt a pair of hands roughly shove me inside. Behind me, through the glass, there were two glowing green dots, like a man wearing night-vision goggles. I kicked myself right then and there: there was something in that globe on the ceiling.
A bright light came on, and it started humming. There was a brief tingle followed by the worst pain you could ever imagine. I was boiling like a three-minute egg, except I was alive! I banged at the door and yelled as loud as I could, but the heat washed over me.
Next thing I remember, I'm in a hospital bed. In and out of consciousness, I hear a voice say that I'll pull through. I don't know if there's a heaven or not, but if there is, there'd better be a spot for Frank Black among the heroes, not just for getting me out of a tight spot, but also for all the hell he goes through every other day...
=============================================================
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Well...I can say for sure that this second episode opens with many, many questions. It starts out with a bunch of college-age guys out on a joyride at midnight. One of them's obviously ill at ease, and his peers are egging him on--the guy next to him proffers something that looks like a postage stamp.
There's very little dialogue; the images tell a story that's open to interpretation. It appears at first glance to be some kind of fraternity initiation. Some instinct at the back of my head wants me to say that it became popular during the mid-90s to play fraternity and sorority initiations for drama. Animal House and movies like it played the premise purely for laughs, but in the 90s, the trend went the other way, and movies and TV started to show the consequences.
The consequences soon become very real indeed. That stamp was spiked with what we later learn was LSD and some other substances, and our hapless pledge finds himself on a bad trip. The other guys throw him out of the car, circle around him (the idea is to scare him with the headlights), and drive off. Alone, scared, and hallucinating, he wanders around. Something descends upon him from above. We flash back-and-forth between a bat-like demon and a man with night-vision goggles, who viciously beats the youth to death.
Immediately after the titles, we're treated to an opening quote, which we'll see until the final episode.
"I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen."--W.H. Auden
I was putting up security lights all around our home when the phone rang. It was Peter Watts, my friend and colleague at the Group. Apparently San Francisco's finest found a gruesome discovery in a park, and Millennium saw fit to take a closer look. "Gruesome discovery." Their exact words.
I find myself wondering if they make any other kinds of discoveries. Maybe Peter'll call me on St. Patrick's Day and tell me that the NYPD found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...or maybe a stash of the Easter Bunny's eggs a month too early. You know, just for a change of pace.
My wife Catherine came home on cloud nine yesterday. She just got a job as a social case-worker. I suppose you could say we're two sides of the coin now: I catch bad guys; she helps both their direct victims and anyone left in their wake. It's for the sake of her job that I installed those lights--she comes home at night now, and I figured a little extra peace of mind would help.
===============================================
I joined the guys at the crime scene in San Francisco. Good thing it's not too bright out, or else Peter Watts' bald head would blind me.
The clues: a pile of ashes with a human ear sitting right on top...more like a Van Gogh than a John Doe. I saw something: a man's face behind a thick glass plate, with a bright light behind him. The poor bastard was alive when he fried.
Turns out he wasn't alone: There were several other piles of ashes buried around the park. We took samples back to SFPD, where a forensics specialist and Group member named Jim Penseyres analyzed everything. He's an all-right kind of guy, I suppose. Brilliant at what he does.
He came back to us with news: A few of the samples had traces of LSD and several other compounds, which we traced back to an abandoned dry-cleaning plant, abandoned because of a chemical spill a couple of years ago. The place looked like a pretty good location for a horror movie.
We didn't find too much there, except for a couple of teeth that we later learned belonged to a young man named Eedo Bolow. A quick look through police records revealed that he used to live in Petaluma with his folks.
Needless to say, dear old Mom and Dad didn't welcome Peter and me with open arms; they thought we were the cops. Eventually, they warmed up, and even gave us the last letter their boy wrote to them. So...he was a runaway, or at least that's what I thought.
===============================================
I joined the guys at the crime scene in San Francisco. Good thing it's not too bright out, or else Peter Watts' bald head would blind me.
The clues: a pile of ashes with a human ear sitting right on top...more like a Van Gogh than a John Doe. I saw something: a man's face behind a thick glass plate, with a bright light behind him. The poor bastard was alive when he fried.
Turns out he wasn't alone: There were several other piles of ashes buried around the park. We took samples back to SFPD, where a forensics specialist and Group member named Jim Penseyres analyzed everything. He's an all-right kind of guy, I suppose. Brilliant at what he does.
He came back to us with news: A few of the samples had traces of LSD and several other compounds, which we traced back to an abandoned dry-cleaning plant, abandoned because of a chemical spill a couple of years ago. The place looked like a pretty good location for a horror movie.
We didn't find too much there, except for a couple of teeth that we later learned belonged to a young man named Eedo Bolow. A quick look through police records revealed that he used to live in Petaluma with his folks.
Needless to say, dear old Mom and Dad didn't welcome Peter and me with open arms; they thought we were the cops. Eventually, they warmed up, and even gave us the last letter their boy wrote to them. So...he was a runaway, or at least that's what I thought.
Something told me I'd be needed back at the chemical plant. Sure enough, I was right. A bunch of kids were joyriding around in German cars, and one of them caught my eye. He was visibly scared out of his wits, probably tripping on LSD. I got him before anyone else could and took him back to the station, where I interviewed him.
Trying to read him the riot act was pointless. I could see in his eyes that he was just a terrified little boy in spite of his 19 years. He started rambling about phone numbers and serial numbers, about discipline and prosperity. He sounded so...earnest, so compelling. Then he got himself so worked up that he collapsed and died.
======================================================
When I got back home to Seattle, that word--"Gehenna"--gnawed at me. I went down to my computer and ran it through the search engine. The first hit was the Hebrew word. The second hit was "Gehenna International." This could be interesting.
I called up another friend at the Group, Mike Atkins, who was still in San Francisco. Told him everything I saw on the screen: Gehenna deals in chemicals, industrial products, and a lot of other good stuff, but the one that jumped out at me was hair care products. Soon as I said "chemicals," he told me that he had just analyzed that boy's clothes, and they had traces of sarin in them.
The word rang a bell: I remembered seeing something on the news about people on a subway in Japan getting gassed with the stuff. Wonder why they didn't send me there...eh, they must have had someone else on it.
I went to talk to Mike again, but all I got was a dial tone. Alarm bells went off in my head, and I ran off to follow him.
===============================================
Uh, hi. I'm Mike Atkins, from the Millennium Group. Frank invited me to tell my side of the story here. I'm really the only one who can tell it--I may be old, but I can remember everything about that night, clear as anything.
Right after I said goodbye to Frank on the phone, I headed over to that old dry-cleaning plant.
It's funny: Everybody knew about the accident from a few years back, and the air should have been so thick with the chemicals as to make me choke. Not only could I breathe just fine, I couldn't smell much of anything. It occurred to me that a "condemned" notice probably doesn't mean much if you can bribe someone to draft one up for you.
I started out in a room piled high with papers and boxes--accounting, I figured--and moved on to what looked like a classroom. Where you'd expect to see a chalkboard there was instead a screen with slides flashing on it: "Facilitate envy," the first one said; it was followed by another that said "Work will set you free." I know my history...Knowing where those words come from immediately told me that these guys are nothing but bad news.
Up on the ceiling, there was a big black dome, like one of those security-camera things. I thought I saw a faint flash of green up inside it. It was probably nothing, just my overactive imagination, or so I thought at the time.
I pressed on and found myself in the biggest area, the "warehouse." This must be where they stock the products: the hair-care stuff, sets of knives, what have you. It looked kinda like the end of "Indiana Jones."
Couple things caught my eye: Boxes were marked with chemical symbols, warning signs, Chinese characters...My better instincts and my curiosity were at war, and curiosity won out. I found a crowbar and opened one up; inside, I found an assault rifle and a bunch of ammo.
Jesus! You'd think they were getting ready for a siege.
And then, I found it: An industrial-size microwave oven, piled high with a mountain of ash and human bones and skulls. I poked my head in a little, and felt a pair of hands roughly shove me inside. Behind me, through the glass, there were two glowing green dots, like a man wearing night-vision goggles. I kicked myself right then and there: there was something in that globe on the ceiling.
A bright light came on, and it started humming. There was a brief tingle followed by the worst pain you could ever imagine. I was boiling like a three-minute egg, except I was alive! I banged at the door and yelled as loud as I could, but the heat washed over me.
Next thing I remember, I'm in a hospital bed. In and out of consciousness, I hear a voice say that I'll pull through. I don't know if there's a heaven or not, but if there is, there'd better be a spot for Frank Black among the heroes, not just for getting me out of a tight spot, but also for all the hell he goes through every other day...
=============================================================
...So, "Gehenna." Not only is this the first proper episode of the series, but it also changes the nature of the Museum's coverage. The first episode had a fairly easy-to-follow narrative, which allowed me to freely juggle, edit, and fuse together parts of the story as I saw fit. The ultimate goal was to weave readers in and out of the narrative, with my own commentary serving as a counterpoint to the main action.
Not so in "Gehenna." This time around, the episode is composed of about ten or fifteen interlocking pieces, all of which are needed if the story is to make any sense. As I tried to streamline it by putting one or two details together, the whole thing fell apart. For example, when the Group goes from the park to the abandoned factory, the idea was to put the clues from the factory grounds into the park, and collapse the two together. When I did that, it opened several plot holes: How will he know to go to the factory later on? To omit the one and mention it later simply would not do.
The solution was to report on almost everything, but condense. Dialogue exchanges were reduced to one or two sentences; Frank's conversation with Catherine about the nature of evil got cut because it was too good to simply gloss over, but proved too long to retain. To include every single detail was never the intent: this is why I have the disclaimer, "watch the episodes for yourself."
Enough about the rewriting process; what of the episode itself?
To begin with, this, not the pilot, is the true beginning of the series. The pilot was but a prologue, an introduction to the show's overall world. Now that we're all hooked, the second episode introduces all of the major themes: dark secrets hidden in plain sight; millennial paranoia; apocalyptic thought; esoteric knowledge; and, finally, the epic battle between good and evil and the people who find themselves caught up in that battle.
How do I go about this? Oh, never mind--I'll just take it blow-by-blow.
1. ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE--Millennium Group agent Mike Atkins makes a reference to a miscalculation at the Great Pyramids of Giza: "There is a deliberate error in the Great Pyramid in Giza, an architectural anomaly that some prophets have cited as an error in our calculation of the true calendar year. Some believe it sets the date of the apocalypse in 19981."
The truth is likely more prosaic: This very well-researched website comments that the miscalculation was a way to ensure that the innermost chamber was made up of right angles.
After all the Mayan Calendar stuff from 2012, Atkins' musings on prophecy sounded more than a little suspect. That's where the joke about Things You Never Knew Existed comes from--as far as I know, that catalog still sells conspiracy-theory books, and they certainly sold a lot of them around the year 2000.
2: AUM SHINRIKYO : Here's the best resource I could find, and it's fairly heavy-duty. Having perused the document, several things pop out. There are references to mind-altering drugs (Gehenna's LSD-laced stamps), a preoccupation with...eeeuuuurrrrgghhh...Nostradamus*, and most importantly, recruiting through "computer stores, book stores, and noodle shops."
(*Interesting side note: While I was attending Moraine Valley Community College--2005-2008--I became heavily interested in anime. One of my trips to the college library yielded a book called Little Boy: The Art of Japan's Exploding Subculture, which was published alongside an exhibition of Takashi Murakami's art. It's more or less a complete history of the otaku subculture, and there was a passage which stated that Nostradamus became fairly popular in 1970s/1980s Japan, following a wave of interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. This passage in turn tied into Aum Shinrikyo.)
AS and Gehenna are cults of personality, semi-religious institutions built around a single spiritual leader. This little detail will have much greater ramifications on the Millennium Group as we go through the series, but I'd rather not spoil too much too soon. ;)
3: MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING: Aum Shinrikyo recruited through venues such as computer stores. Okay. Millennium successfully translated that minor detail for an American audience: Gehenna International takes epic religious concepts and uses them for the venal purpose of selling hair-care products and gun-running.
Most real-life MLM companies aren't as over-the-top as Gehenna is, but their tactics as presented in the episode are more or less accurate to real-life testimonials. Indeed, many of those who have walked away from MLM companies have compared their time with a particular company to being in a cult. (Although...Were "Gehenna" to play it for 100% realism, surely Eedo would have tried to sell the hair-care products to his mother instead of leaving that goodbye note. Then again, I suspect that it's part of the point: Gehenna is masquerading as an MLM company.)
I don't know how Gehenna found the boys who work for them--help wanted ads, maybe--but I can tell you that, if the episode were to take place today, they'd use Monster and other job-search websites to find their recruits, and they'd use attractively-worded ads promising to offer whatever it takes to build "the good life." I very nearly fell into one of these when I was unemployed in 2012; fortunately, my better sense kicked in after I did my research. (As an aside, the episode's official coding is "MLM-101." An intro course on multi-level marketing?)
4: RELIGION, MORALITY, AND PHILOSOPHY: I was pleasantly surprised to find that "Gehenna" used its symbolism sparingly. The company in the storyline takes its name from a Hebrew word which basically means "hell," and that's just about it. Far stronger is the episode's moral and philosophical angle: "What is evil?" Evil, as Frank Black will learn as the series continues, takes on many forms.
"Gehenna's" evil takes the form of numbers: profits; phone numbers; addresses; Social Security numbers; that "miscalculation" within the Great Pyramid; Bible verses...Amid all of this, it's important to remember that numbers are a uniquely human invention. Mike Atkins says it best: "I've seen the face of evil, Frank. I've looked into its eyes, seen it staring back at me. The face has always been a man's face, a human face. I've always believed that evil is born in a cold heart and a weak mind."
Evil also manifests as a force which removes personal identity. All of the guys who work at the call-center identify themselves as "Bob Smith" or some variation thereof. Let me pause for a moment and clarify my comment about the name "Gehenna:" The episode points out that it's both another name for hell and also a location near Jerusalem where people sacrificed children.
Finally, evil is, at least within Millennium's purview, very mundane. The cult leader is not a flamboyant preacher, but a former chemical engineer named Ricardo Clemente.
Is he all that mundane, though? Right before he goes to see Mike in the hospital, Frank gets a good look at Ricardo, and he sees a demonic face.
5. VISUALS: In "Pilot," I said that much of Millennium's impact comes from how it uses its visuals. I want to discuss three main stages: Frank's home, the park in San Francisco, and the abandoned dry-cleaning plant.
First, the yellow house: It's shot and lit with warm, autumnal colors and a bright blue sky. It's the one environment in which the audience feels the most welcome. Even scenes at night retain this quality thanks to the lighting and painted walls. The house's welcoming qualities are tested in the first scene after the opening titles, in which Frank puts up the security lights. He has a perfectly rational reason, but one can't help but feel that the outside world is already creeping in on the bubble of the yellow house.
Second, the park in San Francisco: The green grass and flowers make the scene as welcoming as that of the yellow house, but the gray, overcast sky gives it an unpleasant weight. This element carries two meanings: First, it means that Frank is "on the case," and second, it signifies the Millennium Group. Scenes in various rooms at the police station are equally as unpleasant, with harsh fluorescent lights, dingy walls, and darkened rooms with lots of shadows. This is the world which the Millennium Group occupies.
Third, the Gehenna building: I alluded to how unsettling it is with Frank's comment that "you could shoot a horror movie" on the premises. Seriously, it's all dark gray aluminum siding, beige gravel, and dark iron scaffolding...and maroon puddles of rusty/bloodied water.
Inside, it's no better: The "Bob Smith" employees work in a mostly dark room with a row of windows letting in harsh outside light. It feels like a prison, or something out of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The projector, which displays messages such as "CREATE ENVY" and "WORK WILL SET YOU FREE" only strengthens the Orwell parallels, and the giant industrial microwave that nearly kills Mike Atkins suggests Nazi concentration camps. Uniquely, it's treated as just an extra little detail, and doesn't detract from the overall "dehumanization is evil" message. There are many forms of dehumanization; this is but one example of many.
The last and most important visual element in the episode is the demonic face that Frank sees when he looks at Ricardo. This face will appear several times as the first season progresses...I'll leave it at that, but I'll call back to it when it appears.
And there you have it: "Gehenna." Be sure to tune in next time, when we cover two more episodes: "Dead Letters," and "Kingdom Come."
====================================================
(Millennium copyright 1996, Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All screenshots are property of Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Millennium--This Is Who We Are for episode transcripts, which helped me adapt the episodes.)
Not so in "Gehenna." This time around, the episode is composed of about ten or fifteen interlocking pieces, all of which are needed if the story is to make any sense. As I tried to streamline it by putting one or two details together, the whole thing fell apart. For example, when the Group goes from the park to the abandoned factory, the idea was to put the clues from the factory grounds into the park, and collapse the two together. When I did that, it opened several plot holes: How will he know to go to the factory later on? To omit the one and mention it later simply would not do.
The solution was to report on almost everything, but condense. Dialogue exchanges were reduced to one or two sentences; Frank's conversation with Catherine about the nature of evil got cut because it was too good to simply gloss over, but proved too long to retain. To include every single detail was never the intent: this is why I have the disclaimer, "watch the episodes for yourself."
Enough about the rewriting process; what of the episode itself?
To begin with, this, not the pilot, is the true beginning of the series. The pilot was but a prologue, an introduction to the show's overall world. Now that we're all hooked, the second episode introduces all of the major themes: dark secrets hidden in plain sight; millennial paranoia; apocalyptic thought; esoteric knowledge; and, finally, the epic battle between good and evil and the people who find themselves caught up in that battle.
How do I go about this? Oh, never mind--I'll just take it blow-by-blow.
1. ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE--Millennium Group agent Mike Atkins makes a reference to a miscalculation at the Great Pyramids of Giza: "There is a deliberate error in the Great Pyramid in Giza, an architectural anomaly that some prophets have cited as an error in our calculation of the true calendar year. Some believe it sets the date of the apocalypse in 19981."
The truth is likely more prosaic: This very well-researched website comments that the miscalculation was a way to ensure that the innermost chamber was made up of right angles.
After all the Mayan Calendar stuff from 2012, Atkins' musings on prophecy sounded more than a little suspect. That's where the joke about Things You Never Knew Existed comes from--as far as I know, that catalog still sells conspiracy-theory books, and they certainly sold a lot of them around the year 2000.
2: AUM SHINRIKYO : Here's the best resource I could find, and it's fairly heavy-duty. Having perused the document, several things pop out. There are references to mind-altering drugs (Gehenna's LSD-laced stamps), a preoccupation with...eeeuuuurrrrgghhh...Nostradamus*, and most importantly, recruiting through "computer stores, book stores, and noodle shops."
(*Interesting side note: While I was attending Moraine Valley Community College--2005-2008--I became heavily interested in anime. One of my trips to the college library yielded a book called Little Boy: The Art of Japan's Exploding Subculture, which was published alongside an exhibition of Takashi Murakami's art. It's more or less a complete history of the otaku subculture, and there was a passage which stated that Nostradamus became fairly popular in 1970s/1980s Japan, following a wave of interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. This passage in turn tied into Aum Shinrikyo.)
AS and Gehenna are cults of personality, semi-religious institutions built around a single spiritual leader. This little detail will have much greater ramifications on the Millennium Group as we go through the series, but I'd rather not spoil too much too soon. ;)
3: MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING: Aum Shinrikyo recruited through venues such as computer stores. Okay. Millennium successfully translated that minor detail for an American audience: Gehenna International takes epic religious concepts and uses them for the venal purpose of selling hair-care products and gun-running.
Most real-life MLM companies aren't as over-the-top as Gehenna is, but their tactics as presented in the episode are more or less accurate to real-life testimonials. Indeed, many of those who have walked away from MLM companies have compared their time with a particular company to being in a cult. (Although...Were "Gehenna" to play it for 100% realism, surely Eedo would have tried to sell the hair-care products to his mother instead of leaving that goodbye note. Then again, I suspect that it's part of the point: Gehenna is masquerading as an MLM company.)
I don't know how Gehenna found the boys who work for them--help wanted ads, maybe--but I can tell you that, if the episode were to take place today, they'd use Monster and other job-search websites to find their recruits, and they'd use attractively-worded ads promising to offer whatever it takes to build "the good life." I very nearly fell into one of these when I was unemployed in 2012; fortunately, my better sense kicked in after I did my research. (As an aside, the episode's official coding is "MLM-101." An intro course on multi-level marketing?)
4: RELIGION, MORALITY, AND PHILOSOPHY: I was pleasantly surprised to find that "Gehenna" used its symbolism sparingly. The company in the storyline takes its name from a Hebrew word which basically means "hell," and that's just about it. Far stronger is the episode's moral and philosophical angle: "What is evil?" Evil, as Frank Black will learn as the series continues, takes on many forms.
"Gehenna's" evil takes the form of numbers: profits; phone numbers; addresses; Social Security numbers; that "miscalculation" within the Great Pyramid; Bible verses...Amid all of this, it's important to remember that numbers are a uniquely human invention. Mike Atkins says it best: "I've seen the face of evil, Frank. I've looked into its eyes, seen it staring back at me. The face has always been a man's face, a human face. I've always believed that evil is born in a cold heart and a weak mind."
Evil also manifests as a force which removes personal identity. All of the guys who work at the call-center identify themselves as "Bob Smith" or some variation thereof. Let me pause for a moment and clarify my comment about the name "Gehenna:" The episode points out that it's both another name for hell and also a location near Jerusalem where people sacrificed children.
Finally, evil is, at least within Millennium's purview, very mundane. The cult leader is not a flamboyant preacher, but a former chemical engineer named Ricardo Clemente.
Is he all that mundane, though? Right before he goes to see Mike in the hospital, Frank gets a good look at Ricardo, and he sees a demonic face.
5. VISUALS: In "Pilot," I said that much of Millennium's impact comes from how it uses its visuals. I want to discuss three main stages: Frank's home, the park in San Francisco, and the abandoned dry-cleaning plant.
First, the yellow house: It's shot and lit with warm, autumnal colors and a bright blue sky. It's the one environment in which the audience feels the most welcome. Even scenes at night retain this quality thanks to the lighting and painted walls. The house's welcoming qualities are tested in the first scene after the opening titles, in which Frank puts up the security lights. He has a perfectly rational reason, but one can't help but feel that the outside world is already creeping in on the bubble of the yellow house.
Second, the park in San Francisco: The green grass and flowers make the scene as welcoming as that of the yellow house, but the gray, overcast sky gives it an unpleasant weight. This element carries two meanings: First, it means that Frank is "on the case," and second, it signifies the Millennium Group. Scenes in various rooms at the police station are equally as unpleasant, with harsh fluorescent lights, dingy walls, and darkened rooms with lots of shadows. This is the world which the Millennium Group occupies.
Third, the Gehenna building: I alluded to how unsettling it is with Frank's comment that "you could shoot a horror movie" on the premises. Seriously, it's all dark gray aluminum siding, beige gravel, and dark iron scaffolding...and maroon puddles of rusty/bloodied water.
Inside, it's no better: The "Bob Smith" employees work in a mostly dark room with a row of windows letting in harsh outside light. It feels like a prison, or something out of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The projector, which displays messages such as "CREATE ENVY" and "WORK WILL SET YOU FREE" only strengthens the Orwell parallels, and the giant industrial microwave that nearly kills Mike Atkins suggests Nazi concentration camps. Uniquely, it's treated as just an extra little detail, and doesn't detract from the overall "dehumanization is evil" message. There are many forms of dehumanization; this is but one example of many.
The last and most important visual element in the episode is the demonic face that Frank sees when he looks at Ricardo. This face will appear several times as the first season progresses...I'll leave it at that, but I'll call back to it when it appears.
And there you have it: "Gehenna." Be sure to tune in next time, when we cover two more episodes: "Dead Letters," and "Kingdom Come."
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(Millennium copyright 1996, Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All screenshots are property of Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Millennium--This Is Who We Are for episode transcripts, which helped me adapt the episodes.)
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