The Millennium Group takes interest, that's what happens...
"The invisible world seems formed in love, the visible spheres were formed in fright."
-- Herman Melville, 1819-1891
I had lost touch with my good friend Bob Bletcher at Seattle PD. The Group's had me going places, and there just wasn't time to check in. He harbored no resentment, as I learned when he invited me onto the case and into the home of a woman named Annie Tisman. She called the police after a delivery guy gave her a package with a human tongue inside, wrapped in plastic.
I picked up the box and saw in my mind's eye: the victim; a man wearing an executioner's hood; and a third person cutting the vic's tongue out. Good thing I skipped breakfast.
Bletch took me to one side and told me that he's no stranger to this kind of thing, but his expertise is usually limited to fingers and hands at most. "We need your expertise on this," he said.
Let it be known that I'll never turn down a cry for help.
=================================================================
Later that night, the post office delivered a package to my front door. After reading Jordan a story and putting her to bed, I went down to take a look. It was a severed p...no, I'm just yanking your chain.
Bletch had sent me a box of photos from the coroner's. He had mentioned severed fingers earlier--this must have been from the past four years.
I scanned them and sent them to the Group while I got Jim Penseyres on the horn. He agreed with the examiner's conclusion, namely that the victims were alive when they had their various parts removed. He and I both wondered why the villain who did this hasn't been caught, and he surmised that said villain is very careful with how he disposes of the rest of his victim.
I scanned them and sent them to the Group while I got Jim Penseyres on the horn. He agreed with the examiner's conclusion, namely that the victims were alive when they had their various parts removed. He and I both wondered why the villain who did this hasn't been caught, and he surmised that said villain is very careful with how he disposes of the rest of his victim.
He told me that he had called in Cheryl Andrews, the Group's medical examiner, to take a look. Just then, Catherine called to tell me that dinner was ready. The secret to my marriage is this: When the queen calls, I answer. Sometimes with a "no," but we make it work.
=====================================================
Later on, Jim, Bletch, and I met Cheryl at the morgue. She concluded that the victim's tongue had been cut out after he'd died, and this particular killing wasn't as refined as all the others were. Bletch thought the killer had some rage issues, but Cheryl believed he was just getting sloppy. Whatever it means, I didn't think he was going to stop any time soon.
When I got home that night, Cath had something for me--a little information from the water-cooler. Apparently, one of her coworkers is counseling Annie Tisman--yes, the woman who got the tongue from the bogus UPS guy.
Cath's account of how Annie became a widow in the first place sparked my interest: Her husband went to jail for robbery about twelve years ago. He appealed, claiming perjured testimony against him. Somebody did him in before anyone else could look into it. The plot thickens. (I've always wanted to say that...)
Right after she told me about her day, Bletch called me again, asking me to meet him at the morgue.
Before me were two stiffs: One was a guy in his fifties or so; white; killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. Det. Giebelhouse had already ID'd him as Jonathan Mellen, a retired Seattle cop.
I, of course, went to look at the other one. Bletch assured me that I was looking at the body of a vagrant, probably trying to jump a train when his bag threw off his momentum. Still...Something about him kept my attention. Something under his fingernails. I was pretty sure we'd find some kind of clue to connect our two John Doe's, and later on I found out that my idea was right. The hobo was an ex-con who'd been in and out of jail, but went straight when he was released five years ago. Bletch found Mr. Mellen's DNA under the hobo's fingernails, and everything looked pretty cut-and-dried...but it wasn't good enough, not for me. There was a connection, but that wasn't it.
====================================================
The next day, sometime in the afternoon, I got another call from Bletch. Down in the morgue (if I took a drink for every time I ended up meeting Bletch there, I'd be pretty well drunk by now), we looked at a package that went through the X-ray scanner at the Federal Building, addressed to someone called Philman. Inside was an amputated foot, with part of the shin attached. A pathologist commented that the victim was alive when it happened.
On a tray, I noticed a sock, taken from that foot. There was a little bit of dirt inside it. That interested me, so I took some of it with me in an evidence envelope. Seattle's finest were already overworked and underpaid, I figured, and they deserved a little bit of extra help.
Later that night, I was on the phone with Cheryl Andrews and Jim Penseyres from the 'Group. Turned out they learned something about the late Jonathan Mellen: He was the cop at Annie Tisman's husband's trial. Seems he'd perjured himself, and that's why she was sent his tongue.
Cheryl interrupted the call to tell us that she didn't find any traces of metals or chemicals in that dirt I sent her, but she did find some cranberry seeds.
Our killer's base could only be a disused cranberry farm. I relayed the information to Giebelhouse and Bletch, and they got a search party underway.
I went with them to the first of three farms on our list. There, we found a man with a missing foot inside an old oil tank. He was already dead, but he tried to keep himself alive by using his belt as a makeshift tourniquet. (I later learned that this particular man was once a landlord. He skimped on some security lights, and one of his tenants fell down a stairwell and died because of his greed. Can't remember his name for the life of me, but it's just as well...I'd rather forget anything about him.)
It was so precise...I was pretty sure that his killer was no lone butcher, but someone acting under orders. If he was taking orders, chances are he'd have to go somewhere to get those orders in the first place.
Bletch and I took an educated guess and headed to a sleazy road-house called the Tittle Tattle Room. Ruby Tip...Tittle Tattle Room...where do they come up with these names?
Bletch went to get a drink and the lowdown on the rum sorts who frequent the place, but the bartenders didn't feel like talking. He wanted to get out and check the parole records, but intuition told me we'd find our man after all. I found a mirror...I saw him, and he saw me. I motioned Bletch to go back to the car. It was strange, but that guy didn't panic when he saw me.
There was nothing left but to wait until the place closed. One by one, the guys shuffled into their cars and onto their motorbikes. One last car remained; the target got in and drove off. Bait.
==============================================================
We tailed him to a modest but immaculate house. Bletch took point while I waited in the shadows, behind the gate. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I noticed the owner...and he saw me. He...smiled. Honestly, it was one of the most unnerving things I've ever seen.
We took him into custody. Bletch got done talking with an Assistant D.A., who advised us that there just wasn't enough to charge the guy, even with all his scrapbooks and the ever-mounting evidence against him.
Meanwhile, Giebelhouse was interviewing him. We learned that he was a livestock auctioneer; he gave us a demonstration that would have been awe-inspiring in any other context, but here, it was just plain terrifying.
Giebelhouse emerged from the room, a little shaken. He said that the guy wanted to talk to me, and I obliged. I felt like a fly about to go into a spider's web.
He answered to the name "Judge," but would also answer to "Legion." You know, like in the Bible--Jesus banished demons from a herd of possessed hogs, and that's what the demons called themselves.
Here's where it took a surreal turn: He actually offered me a job working with him. That's what sent a chill up my spine: He honestly believed that he was justice incarnate. Justice, so pure and so absolute, that it seemed divorced from humanity itself. I don't roll like that, and I let him know in so many words.
Even so, it was tempting in a way. That's what scared me the most.
==========================================================
Come to find out, the Judge had sued the city left, right, and center not long after we took him in. Can you imagine the nerve of this guy? He thinks he's above the law, but when he's cornered, he uses the law to his own advantage. It's possible that he's fully aware of the rank hypocrisy. This is...this is all a game to him.
Bletch and I returned to the Judge's home, thinking we'd find his accomplice there. He stayed behind: If this turned out to be a bust, we'd be in serious hot water.
I went in. My instincts proved right, because the guy I'd been looking for, the Judge's right-hand man--name of Bardale, I learned--was there. Calm, rational, and bitter; and he was covered in cuts and blood. He was an ex-con, and that's how the Judge found his henchmen: parolees, all of them, fresh off the bus out of jail.
He told me that the Judge betrayed him, and he led me out to the pigpen. There, amid the pigs and the dirt, I saw the Judge's lifeless body.
Ashes to ashes, and swine to swine.
=====================================================
For the first time ever, the Millennium Museum encounters the most terrifying beast of all: Schedule Slip. My plan was two episodes every two weeks, but I've had a couple of really action-packed weeks at work.
Dear me, where to begin? "The Judge" isn't quite as heady as the last three episodes were. In fact, I could say that this is where Millennium settles into a standard "killer-of-the-week" formula, and there's something oddly inconsequential about it: the titular Judge believes himself above the law and carries out a perversely pure form of justice, but he's a lightweight who uses the law to his own ends when it suits him and uses ex-cons to do his dirty work; he either has them killed or sent back to jail when he's done with them. (I tell you what, he'd make an excellent CEO.) Other than all that, he has virtually no other background beyond his occupation as a livestock auctioneer.
His demise is anticlimactic: There's no final confrontation between good and evil, no blood and thunder. His henchman disposes of him offscreen and chucks him into the pigpen. I've noticed that almost all of the killers in Millennium are disposed of quickly and without ceremony. Once or twice would be bad writing, but four times in a row indicates that it's by design. We're denied the catharsis, the release we'd feel at the end, when we see justice served for ourselves. When I sit back and review these episodes, the impression I get is that of a series of small, disconnected, and otherwise unimportant victories. Perhaps these madmen, these demons of society, are symptoms of a bigger problem: the unraveling of society to come, right before the turn of the millennium.
As with Jim Horn in "Dead Letters," I'd like to think that the Judge is another warning for Frank, a warning of what might happen if his pursuit of justice gets out of hand. There is something to be said for how he uses ex-cons to do his bidding: Mightn't he, in some strange way, represent the Millennium Group? It's too early to tell, but it's food for thought, and certainly something to keep in mind for later on.
Other than that, it's good to see C.C.H. Pounder grace the screen in yet another program (I'm a fan of Warehouse 13, and I maintain that she made the otherwise dire Robocop 3 somewhat tolerable). The cast is on fine form, but the tone of the episode is off.
Will the series pick up? Join me next time for the next two episodes: "522666" 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.)
=====================================================
Later on, Jim, Bletch, and I met Cheryl at the morgue. She concluded that the victim's tongue had been cut out after he'd died, and this particular killing wasn't as refined as all the others were. Bletch thought the killer had some rage issues, but Cheryl believed he was just getting sloppy. Whatever it means, I didn't think he was going to stop any time soon.
When I got home that night, Cath had something for me--a little information from the water-cooler. Apparently, one of her coworkers is counseling Annie Tisman--yes, the woman who got the tongue from the bogus UPS guy.
Cath's account of how Annie became a widow in the first place sparked my interest: Her husband went to jail for robbery about twelve years ago. He appealed, claiming perjured testimony against him. Somebody did him in before anyone else could look into it. The plot thickens. (I've always wanted to say that...)
Right after she told me about her day, Bletch called me again, asking me to meet him at the morgue.
Before me were two stiffs: One was a guy in his fifties or so; white; killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. Det. Giebelhouse had already ID'd him as Jonathan Mellen, a retired Seattle cop.
I, of course, went to look at the other one. Bletch assured me that I was looking at the body of a vagrant, probably trying to jump a train when his bag threw off his momentum. Still...Something about him kept my attention. Something under his fingernails. I was pretty sure we'd find some kind of clue to connect our two John Doe's, and later on I found out that my idea was right. The hobo was an ex-con who'd been in and out of jail, but went straight when he was released five years ago. Bletch found Mr. Mellen's DNA under the hobo's fingernails, and everything looked pretty cut-and-dried...but it wasn't good enough, not for me. There was a connection, but that wasn't it.
====================================================
The next day, sometime in the afternoon, I got another call from Bletch. Down in the morgue (if I took a drink for every time I ended up meeting Bletch there, I'd be pretty well drunk by now), we looked at a package that went through the X-ray scanner at the Federal Building, addressed to someone called Philman. Inside was an amputated foot, with part of the shin attached. A pathologist commented that the victim was alive when it happened.
On a tray, I noticed a sock, taken from that foot. There was a little bit of dirt inside it. That interested me, so I took some of it with me in an evidence envelope. Seattle's finest were already overworked and underpaid, I figured, and they deserved a little bit of extra help.
Later that night, I was on the phone with Cheryl Andrews and Jim Penseyres from the 'Group. Turned out they learned something about the late Jonathan Mellen: He was the cop at Annie Tisman's husband's trial. Seems he'd perjured himself, and that's why she was sent his tongue.
Cheryl interrupted the call to tell us that she didn't find any traces of metals or chemicals in that dirt I sent her, but she did find some cranberry seeds.
Our killer's base could only be a disused cranberry farm. I relayed the information to Giebelhouse and Bletch, and they got a search party underway.
I went with them to the first of three farms on our list. There, we found a man with a missing foot inside an old oil tank. He was already dead, but he tried to keep himself alive by using his belt as a makeshift tourniquet. (I later learned that this particular man was once a landlord. He skimped on some security lights, and one of his tenants fell down a stairwell and died because of his greed. Can't remember his name for the life of me, but it's just as well...I'd rather forget anything about him.)
It was so precise...I was pretty sure that his killer was no lone butcher, but someone acting under orders. If he was taking orders, chances are he'd have to go somewhere to get those orders in the first place.
Bletch and I took an educated guess and headed to a sleazy road-house called the Tittle Tattle Room. Ruby Tip...Tittle Tattle Room...where do they come up with these names?
Bletch went to get a drink and the lowdown on the rum sorts who frequent the place, but the bartenders didn't feel like talking. He wanted to get out and check the parole records, but intuition told me we'd find our man after all. I found a mirror...I saw him, and he saw me. I motioned Bletch to go back to the car. It was strange, but that guy didn't panic when he saw me.
There was nothing left but to wait until the place closed. One by one, the guys shuffled into their cars and onto their motorbikes. One last car remained; the target got in and drove off. Bait.
==============================================================
We tailed him to a modest but immaculate house. Bletch took point while I waited in the shadows, behind the gate. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I noticed the owner...and he saw me. He...smiled. Honestly, it was one of the most unnerving things I've ever seen.
We took him into custody. Bletch got done talking with an Assistant D.A., who advised us that there just wasn't enough to charge the guy, even with all his scrapbooks and the ever-mounting evidence against him.
Meanwhile, Giebelhouse was interviewing him. We learned that he was a livestock auctioneer; he gave us a demonstration that would have been awe-inspiring in any other context, but here, it was just plain terrifying.
Giebelhouse emerged from the room, a little shaken. He said that the guy wanted to talk to me, and I obliged. I felt like a fly about to go into a spider's web.
He answered to the name "Judge," but would also answer to "Legion." You know, like in the Bible--Jesus banished demons from a herd of possessed hogs, and that's what the demons called themselves.
Here's where it took a surreal turn: He actually offered me a job working with him. That's what sent a chill up my spine: He honestly believed that he was justice incarnate. Justice, so pure and so absolute, that it seemed divorced from humanity itself. I don't roll like that, and I let him know in so many words.
Even so, it was tempting in a way. That's what scared me the most.
==========================================================
Come to find out, the Judge had sued the city left, right, and center not long after we took him in. Can you imagine the nerve of this guy? He thinks he's above the law, but when he's cornered, he uses the law to his own advantage. It's possible that he's fully aware of the rank hypocrisy. This is...this is all a game to him.
Bletch and I returned to the Judge's home, thinking we'd find his accomplice there. He stayed behind: If this turned out to be a bust, we'd be in serious hot water.
I went in. My instincts proved right, because the guy I'd been looking for, the Judge's right-hand man--name of Bardale, I learned--was there. Calm, rational, and bitter; and he was covered in cuts and blood. He was an ex-con, and that's how the Judge found his henchmen: parolees, all of them, fresh off the bus out of jail.
He told me that the Judge betrayed him, and he led me out to the pigpen. There, amid the pigs and the dirt, I saw the Judge's lifeless body.
Ashes to ashes, and swine to swine.
=====================================================
For the first time ever, the Millennium Museum encounters the most terrifying beast of all: Schedule Slip. My plan was two episodes every two weeks, but I've had a couple of really action-packed weeks at work.
Dear me, where to begin? "The Judge" isn't quite as heady as the last three episodes were. In fact, I could say that this is where Millennium settles into a standard "killer-of-the-week" formula, and there's something oddly inconsequential about it: the titular Judge believes himself above the law and carries out a perversely pure form of justice, but he's a lightweight who uses the law to his own ends when it suits him and uses ex-cons to do his dirty work; he either has them killed or sent back to jail when he's done with them. (I tell you what, he'd make an excellent CEO.) Other than all that, he has virtually no other background beyond his occupation as a livestock auctioneer.
His demise is anticlimactic: There's no final confrontation between good and evil, no blood and thunder. His henchman disposes of him offscreen and chucks him into the pigpen. I've noticed that almost all of the killers in Millennium are disposed of quickly and without ceremony. Once or twice would be bad writing, but four times in a row indicates that it's by design. We're denied the catharsis, the release we'd feel at the end, when we see justice served for ourselves. When I sit back and review these episodes, the impression I get is that of a series of small, disconnected, and otherwise unimportant victories. Perhaps these madmen, these demons of society, are symptoms of a bigger problem: the unraveling of society to come, right before the turn of the millennium.
As with Jim Horn in "Dead Letters," I'd like to think that the Judge is another warning for Frank, a warning of what might happen if his pursuit of justice gets out of hand. There is something to be said for how he uses ex-cons to do his bidding: Mightn't he, in some strange way, represent the Millennium Group? It's too early to tell, but it's food for thought, and certainly something to keep in mind for later on.
Other than that, it's good to see C.C.H. Pounder grace the screen in yet another program (I'm a fan of Warehouse 13, and I maintain that she made the otherwise dire Robocop 3 somewhat tolerable). The cast is on fine form, but the tone of the episode is off.
Will the series pick up? Join me next time for the next two episodes: "522666" 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.)
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