Millennium S1E6: "Kingdom Come"

Before I relate this narrative to you, let me make a confession: I really haven't given my own faith much thought. Sure, it bubbles up here and there, like when I feel like I'm about to be killed, but for the most part it sleeps inside of me. I have to keep it that way, or else the repeated violations to it--violence, rape, murder--would drive me insane. If God's all-knowing and all-merciful, why does He allow such terrible, mindless things to happen?

I remember a guy whose faith was so challenged following a tragedy that it drove him to kill. Here, I'll tell you all about it...

"And there will be such intense darkness/That one can feel it."

--Exodus 10:21

It was a bright, quiet Sunday morning, "a day of rest," as Catherine said. I was making breakfast for the three of us when I heard the sound of glass shattering. My instincts took over, and I went to see what it was. 

Poor little thing...A small bird crashed beak-first into one of our windows.



The next thing we knew, Jordan ran over to take a look. Her worried face almost gave way to tears as she asked us if it would be all right. I tried to console her, tell her that it was just a little dazed, but Cath and I knew that it would only fly across the Rainbow Bridge.

For once, I found myself at a loss for words! Fortunately, the phone's ringing saved me from digging myself any deeper. So much for "a day of rest," Cath...!

The call took me out to a small church in Tacoma. An old colleague of mine and now fellow Group member Ardis Cohen, and a detective named Kerney joined me at the crime scene. (You might have gotten it into your head that we're an "all-boys' club" at the Group. That's not remotely true: The Group's membership is based 100% on merit. I'm proud to say that we've joined the 20th and 21st Centuries.)



Actually, Ms. Cohen and I have a little bit of history, and this particular murder ties into it. See, back in 1992, she and I were part of an FBI investigation following the murders of several religious leaders.

The vic's name was Father Silas Brown. 61; graduated from Georgetown; taught at Brussels' International Institute of Catechetical and Pastoral Studies. In other words, a Jesuit. 

Now, here he is: burned at the stake.

A couple things jumped out at Ardis and me during our examination. First, the killer put a sanbenito on Fr. Brown. Yes, that's a technical term: It's a cloak that a heretic would wear before the church barbecued them. 

Second, the killer has quite the eye for detail. This morbid display before me is totally authentic: the stake is cut to ancient specs, and he used peat and wood to keep the fire going. In fact--and you could ask her--Ardis and I saw this exact pattern back in '92...we never caught that guy.

Third, and this is the weirdest one, he had a peseta--a Spanish coin--burned into his tongue. I surmised that it might be some new thing, some refinement of the usual M.O. Whatever it is, it has to have some symbolic meaning. I'd have to go home and have a good long think about it.

As soon as I stepped out of the morgue, I ran into a one Father Schultz, a close friend of the deceased. This guy might be a person of interest...Time to make myself known. I introduced myself, tried to offer some kind of comfort, but my words rang hollow as I spoke them. In fact, I felt like a sham in his presence. Couldn't imagine why; it was just kind of gnawing at the back of my head. His take on the whole thing was that people sometimes feel disconnected, and they expect faith to help them reconnect; and they end up shooting the messenger if the message doesn't stick. It sounded a little too trite to my ears, but then again, sometimes the simpler answer makes the most sense.
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Downstairs in my "Sanctum," I was looking through a book full of old illustrations from at least the Spanish Inquisition, if not earlier. Grisly and barbaric, yet somehow...creative, inventive even. A beep from my computer interrupted my grim reverie. It was an email from Ardis, a set of photos from that case back in '92. Just about everything between then and now is identical. 

The murder's been on the news for a while, and it's got Cath scared, but not for my safety. No, it's something much bigger, something I relate to every day--she's terrified of the world we're trying to raise our daughter in, a world in which everything's unraveling and nothing is sacred. 

And all I can do is assure her that I'll bring this guy to justice and try to explain why he does what he does.

After she left the room, I took a closer look at Father Brown's stake. There was something at the top--some writing. With a little fine-tuning, I could make out "SERMO GENERALIS," and I cross-referenced it with that book on the desk. Sure enough, there was an illustration captioned, "The grand ceremonial proceeding of heretics."

Later that night, after putting my little rascal to bed, I got another email from Ardis. Something went down at a golf course in Wyoming...a Rev. Marcus Crane, found bludgeoned and drowned in an "Ordeal by Water."

The next day, I found myself in Wyoming. Here's where it gets interesting: Our little madman just killed a Presbyterian. Ardis thought we'd have to widen our net, but I disagreed, arguing that he's getting more precise. He's going through all the motions--the stake, the cloak, burning, drowning--more for his own benefit than for ours. 

Something nagged at me, a feeling that Rev. Crane didn't drown--he choked on something in his throat. Ardis and I went to the place where the workers originally dragged his body out of the water, and I found a woman's engagement ring with a man's wedding band soldered onto it. It was initialed "J.M.M."
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The case took me from Wyoming to Rockford, IL. This time, a church secretary walked in on an intruder, who whacked her upside the face and then ran off. Fortunately, she was alive and well at Froedert Hospital. 



Once the secretary had recovered, she looked to see if any of her files were missing. She called Ardis and me, and said that he had taken a year's worth of christening records. I asked her who did the christenings, and she gave me two names: first, the late Rev. Lorans; and second, Rev. Harned, still very much alive...but for how much longer?

Panicked, I called Mr. Harned and warned him not to let anyone in, but it was too late: "I already have," he said. Ardis, Det. Romero of Rockford PD, and I got into a car and raced to his home. By the time we got there, he was already dead. Covered in wounds, but there was no blood. Looks like his killer cauterized the wounds.

Unthinkingly, I looked out the window, and I saw a woman's face wreathed in flames. She was trying to escape some terrible danger. Suddenly it began to make sense. I realized that he was already in the house when we called, but he still took his time to complete his ritual. This was like a homecoming to him.

Back at the police station, we gathered around a computer as Romero pulled up a file on a guy named Galen Calloway, whose wife and daughter died in a house fire back in November 1989. He survived, of course, but he got third-degree burns on his arms and hands. 

He taught religious studies at Edgewood Catholic High; his mother's name was Janice Marie Mosier...that must have been her initials on the wedding ring we found earlier. Charged with DUI manslaughter in '92; sentenced to five years but paroled in three...and here we are, chasing him. 

He's going to hit another church sometime soon, and I can narrow it down to two, both of them Protestant. It's either the one where he laid his wife to rest or the one where he witnessed his daughter's baptism.  

==============================================
It was a hostage situation. Calloway was inside, giving a sermon of his own. He'd already shot one of them in the leg. Outside, we waited, a SWAT team armed and ready. I tried to reason with him over the phone, but it was no good. I'd have to do this the old-fashioned way...in person.
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So there I was, on my knees. He swore he'd kill me if I told a lie. Telling the truth was pointless--he'd kill me one way or another. Still, there was no other way out.

He asked me if I was afraid to die. "Yes," I said. He twisted that around to mean that I don't believe in God. I admitted that my faith has lapsed. I've seen too much meaningless violence and too many innocent people slaughtered to maintain any kind of faith.

Calloway's line of reasoning came to me in a flash. "I am afraid," I said, "but not like you. You're afraid to die because you fear God's judgment. You try to kill your faith with the tools of your own belief because of your pain, because you think God's forsaken you. You think that you can get rid of your pain by slaughtering the faith that's inside you." Whether I lived or died that night, I didn't care. I just wanted to help this sad little man. I reassured him: "God doesn't want you to kill yourself or anyone else." But it was no good appealing to his beliefs. He moved behind me and cocked the hammer on his gun. There was a gunshot, and I fell forward. Didn't even see my life flash before my eyes. It wasn't my time to die after all...Someone's watching out for me, that's for sure.
I knew at that moment what I was going to say to Jordan: Bad things can happen, but we still have to keep our faith alive, or else we'll end up like the late Mr. Calloway: so consumed by grief that we lose first our faith and then our humanity.

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"Pilot" used its killer to introduce us to Frank Black's world.

"Gehenna" and "Dead Letters" used their madmen as plot devices around which a larger story was told.

"Kingdom Come" marks a turning point for Millennium: The episode humanized its killer by giving him a little bit of backstory and allowing a little bit of his humanity to show at the climax. He kills not to fulfill a prophecy or to make his mark on the world, but to resolve his own personal crisis of faith, a crisis which has ultimately robbed him of his more human qualities.


Among its other positives, "Kingdom Come" gives all of its characters a moment to shine, even the minor, incidental characters. Right at the beginning, we get to see Frank be a husband and a father, which I just had to include because it's just such a break from the usual film-noir stuff. On top of that, it gave his daughter, Jordan, her first little glimpse into the realm of death, and it's such a wonderful "little kid moment" that it's almost funny in comparison to everything else. I like that there's a little space for some kind of normalcy, separate from the gruesome world outside.

One thing I will say for Millennium: There's almost no wasted space from episode to episode. Every line of dialogue, every minor detail, is an illumination if not a plot point. For example, after the first murder, Frank deduces that Father Brown was a Jesuit priest; Kerney bitterly recalls his days at a Jesuit high school. "Left a lasting impression...if you know what I mean." It's calculated to sound like it marks a recurring plot point, but "Kingdom Come" mercifully drops the thread in favor of a twist revelation: the killer is suffering from a years-long crisis of faith following the deaths of his wife and daughter in a house fire.

...Let me take a quick detour and go back to "Pilot," just for a moment. On the commentary for that episode, series creator Chris Carter explained how a viewer complained that the show left her shocked and offended. He responded, "That's what Millennium is supposed to do."

That being said, however, explaining the killer's motivation as that particular kind of trauma may have been a little too strong for the time. Also, the eventual revelation we do get unintentionally reveals another rule within Millennium's internal logic: No matter what happens, the killers' actions are theirs and theirs alone. If his motivation had been childhood abuse at the hands of the Church, then the narrative would then have to set the Millennium Group against the institution.

THIS WOULD UNRAVEL THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE SERIES.

It's taken six episodes, but Millennium has finally caught up with what I've been getting at: The Millennium Group is a shadowy external agency which acts as a force for order, and thus as a force for good. The institutions we hold dear--the church, the law, etc.--represent order and stability. Serial killers, deviants, and other madmen represent chaos. Chaos attacks order; order eventually re-establishes itself. That is the core premise of Millennium.


Were the Millennium Group pitted against the Church in this episode, it would change the core premise from "order vs. chaos" to "order vs. order," and this would force the series to adopt a new identity. Six episodes is far too early for a series--especially one that's doing as well as Millennium is at this point--to adopt a new identity.

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I think now's a good time for me to take a small break from writing the Episode Guide. It occurs to me that I haven't had a chance to really introduce you to the characters we've encountered so far.


So, come back next time for Bonus Material, Chapters 1 and 2!

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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.)

Millennium S1E5: "522666"

Many years ago, Andy Warhol once said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes." 

When I worked as a profiler with the Millennium Group, I had a special connection to their resources..."Intranet," is what they called it. I'm still not quite sure about the exact terms, but even then, I had a feeling that it would catch on with the public at large and make Warhol proud. 

Back in '96, the Internet had yet to catch on as a household fixture. People had to get creative if they wanted their fifteen minutes. 

In fact, there was this one nutjob who liked to set up bombs in buildings and...I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Let me take this from the beginning.
========================================================= 

"I am responsible for everything...except my very responsibility."         --Jean-Paul Sartre

I was in bed that night, and I couldn't sleep a wink. In my desperation, I picked up the remote and started channel surfing. A "Doctor Who" rerun on PBS--crap. "Gilligan's Island" on Nick at Nite--crap. Some stupid movie on HBO--crap. Basketball...Sonics vs. Rockets--crap.

The nightly news...breaking from Washington, D.C. I stared at the screen, transfixed at the carnage before me: A pub in the DC area called The Queen's Arms, a favorite of British diplomats, went up in a fiery explosion. God damn...The whole front of the pub was completely gone. So many people, burned, bleeding, broken, and in complete agony...that is, if the explosion hadn't already killed them. 

The last thing I saw on the screen before I set out was a pretty ordinary-looking guy--little doughy around the cheeks, thin moustache, I'd say mid-late 40s--holding one of the waitresses and calling for a medic. Nothing too remarkable, but I filed it away for later.

I was on autopilot as I packed an overnight bag and made arrangements for a flight to DC.  The next morning, I arrived at the Joint Task Force's headquarters. There was Peter Watts, who greeted me in his usual way, by blinding me with the light that reflected off his gleaming bald head.

We reached the conference room. It was an alphabet soup of just about every agency I could think of, and even a few I didn't. Not only that, but it also looked like some kind of mad-scientist setup, with all sorts of recording equipment, VCRs, and a bunch of other gizmos I couldn't name.

Our first group conference began as Agent Jack Pierson filled us in. The Washington Post got a call from a pay phone somewhere close to the pub.

(Before you ask, I don't even know who "Agent Jack Pierson" really is, or what he's an agent of. For all I know, he could be a travel agent with delusions of grandeur. I've met so many different people on my journeys that I ended up going along with it.)

Where was I? Pierson, that's right. He played a recording of the call that the Post got. There were a few, come to think of it, and the first one had a man's voice ranting about "Agents of ZOG" and "Abolish the IRS" and "The Turner Diaries." Typical militia stuff. Someone chimed in that there'd been no recent militia activity, and I could smell the stink of a red herring on that first call.

The second one was a little more convincing. The voice explained that the Abu Nidal Organization, some Middle Eastern outfit I'm not aware of, would carry out the attack. Nice try, but the call went out well after the pub went blooey. Another red herring, but this one didn't smell so bad.

The third one went out ten minutes before the bombing. Pierson commented that it sounded like the bomb codes used by the Irish Republican Army. No ranting voice; no threats; just six tones that sounded like "5-2-2-6-6-6."

You'd think the "666" would have been a religious reference, but it was just a stupid pun. Write down those numbers and the letters you see above them on a touch-tone pad, and what do you get? 
"K-A-B-O-O-M."

We're dealing with the worst kind of nut: one with a sense of humor.

The next morning, at about 10:15 or so, I joined Watts and Pierson for a drink at the pub. We would've had a drink, but there was almost nothing left of the place. I wandered over to the back of the pub, the center of the explosion. Ugh...I could practically see the regulars caught in the middle of it, hear their screams.

A bomb-squad guy came in with a piece of detonator in an evidence bag. The thing had too many wires on it--backups in case one of them failed. Smart and funny...He'd be a real catch if it weren't for the whole "mad bomber" gig.

He pulled out another evidence bag, this one with a briefcase's three-digit combo lock (the briefcase was made in Egypt). The guy's a genius for engineering the bomb, but an idiot for where he put it--anyone could have found it. From the way he made the detonator, I suspect he just didn't care.

Outside, Pierson was talking to a woman from the ABC network. Seems "Nightline" wanted someone to explain the mad bomber's mind. Pierson looked at me, and I said, "I have a job." That's the last thing I need, to go on "Nightline" and make Ted Koppel look handsome.

A multi-level parking garage caught my interest. Intuition told me that he watched the explosion from on high, away from the flying debris. (Probably got more enjoyment out of that than he would from seeing my craggy features on "Nightline.")

There were six cigarette butts on the ground. Must have been a British brand...of course, he got them at a British pub. 

There were a few other things, but I'd rather leave it at that before I make myself sick. Take my word for it: He definitely got a thrill from all this, if you know what I mean.

Back at HQ, Pierson gathered us for the noon meeting. We'd all gathered a lot of evidence: fingerprints; serial numbers on the parts from the bomb; the works. I took all of it in, and told them that we're not dealing with a terrorist.

1. A terrorist would try to stay unseen, put the bomb somewhere sneaky. This one was actually inside the pub.

2. A terrorist would get out of Dodge as soon as possible. This one stuck around, watching from a parking garage.

3. A terrorist would make a simple bomb. Doesn't matter if it goes off or not, it'll still send a message if someone finds it. This one made his bomb specifically to go off. It was intricate, overly complicated.

I warned them: He's obsessed, and he'll be living this fantasy he's created as much as possible, for as long as possible. He'll be listening in on us with the latest gadgets, like RF detectors and cell-phone cloners.

After all that, Pierpont set a new commandment in stone: "Land-line communication only." That meant nobody except for me could use a cell-phone to talk about this case. I half-expected someone to accost me for special permission, but to my surprise the issue never came up. I guess they figured what I already knew: Pierpont had a trap set, and I was the bait.
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Later that day, Pierson and I were out on a prowl. He'd go into a phone booth, and I'd chat with him about the case on my cell phone. We'd go at it for a while, then find a different reception site. It was like fishing in a way, except we couldn't drink beer or play cards.

There was no need for either. My cell rang, and I heard those six tones: "5-2-2-6-6-6."
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We went back to HQ, where Agent Sullivan was demonstrating some equipment. I resolved to call him "Q" from now on at the sight of all this stuff.

The overall purpose of this setup was to triangulate his position from the cell phone's signal. Never mind, of course, that he'd use a bunch of cloned cell phones. Sullivan assured us that that would make him difficult, but not entirely impossible, to track. All we had to do was keep him talking. It's an old trick, just made new with fancier toys.

Suddenly I remembered that I'd been up and about for 37 hours straight. 

And then my cell rang. There it was, "5-2-2-6-6-6."
I answered.
He responded.
"Who is this?" I asked.
"A star," he said.
Click.

Good. Let him call me back.

Sure enough, he did. Bastard's full of himself...taunting me.
I demanded that he prove himself.
He did, rattling off the specifics of his bombing.
"I want to help you," I said, knowing that he didn't want my help. Whatever, I just want to keep him talking.
"I need a name," I said. "What do I call you?"
"I already gave you my name," he said.
"Your name's 'Kaboom?'" I asked. "Like the little green guy from 'The Flintstones'?"
Click.

Sounds pretty uneventful, I know, but Sullivan got a trace from all of that.
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Watts, Pierson, Sullivan, myself, and a few other agents convened in an alley. We'd split into two groups, each taking a black van.

Watts' group would go south to the Rock Creek area; I'd join Pierson and Sullivan's group and go north to Mill Creek Cemetery. Once established, we'd cast our lines and wait for a bite.

...And wait...and wait...and wait. Awful lot of swimmers, but none of them hungry. For the past three hours, we got those same six tones every fifteen minutes. He's burning us out on purpose. We've got no choice but to wait him out--we know his game.

At 5:17, my phone rang. Could this be the big break we were waiting for?

No, but it was Catherine. I smiled to myself a little as I answered. She was about to say something, but I told her I'd call her right back and hung up...and then called from a different phone.

She was about to read me the riot act, but I very gently interrupted her and told her that my cell is monitored. She continued on, explaining that Jordan had a nightmare about me. I was about to reply when my other phone--the monitored one--rang. I couldn't just hang up on her, so I left "her" phone on the line while I answered the other one.

"Getting any sleep, Frank?" the taunting voice asked.
"Shouldn't let it keep you from calling Catherine."

Big mistake, Sonny-Jim. That's the one thing you don't do--you don't bring Catherine into my work. All right, I'll play your game.

"You must be pretty tired yourself," I said. Rule number one of the game: I don't rise to his bait
"No rest for the wicked," he shot back.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," I said.
The van started to move. Sullivan must have gotten a signal, because I noticed him talking into a receiver, feeding coordinates to Watts' van.

The bomber prattled on, explaining how he was an artist, and how his work touched people in a deep, life-altering way. His words exactly. Of course it's a life-altering way--if I were caught up in one of his explosions, I'd say my life had been pretty well altered!

Still, I kept on buttering him up, agreeing with him about the high caliber of his art, about how the anticipation builds and leads to...the moment of impact, of fire. I was on a roll! Never heard myself talk so much in my life! He said something that left me more than a little rattled: He said that I'd be as famous as he is, once I'd caught him.

And then he told me his next move: 9:00 tomorrow morning.

Click.

At least we were in the right area, but it would still be a needle in a haystack, and we only had three hours to find it.

At 6:30 in the morning the next day, Pierson set two search parties out into the Mt. Vernon area. Each team took half the town to search and notify businesses and civilians alike.

And I...oh, damn, the exhaustion's catching up with me. Watts took one look at me and said, "You need sleep, Frank." I agreed with him, and confided that I wish I knew what he wanted. "It's more than a thrill," I said to him. "First he alerts the authorities there's a bomb. After a day he needs more...so he has to contact us? He taunts us to the point of near-capture?"

I couldn't stop thinking about his earlier comment, that I'd be a star after I captured him.
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I went into an office building to let the receptionist know about the bomb threat. Might as well do my part, just in case.

And then I saw a parking garage, just like the one across from the pub. On a hunch, I went up to one of the higher levels. Sure enough, I found the same kind of cigarette butts I found earlier.

As I ran out of there, I called Jack Pierson and told him to get a bomb squad to 2300 Oglethorpe, north of my location. I was nearly out of there when I felt the shockwave of a huge explosion. I was thrown to the ground, my phone flying out of my hand. It wasn't even 9:00 yet.

The phone rang. I crawled over to it and answered. "Just warming up," the voice said. "Third floor."

I ran like a maniac into that building. The stairwell was full of smoke, alarms, and agonized screams. Some would run away in terror, but it only gave me the strength to keep going. I urged those who could still move to get out before the other bomb went off.

Finally! The third floor! Next thing I knew, some idiot practically ran me over in his haste to get out. No time to holler at him: from my new vantage point, I saw the suitcase bomb. Another guy shoved me out of the way before I could move an inch. He said, "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here."

Fade to black.
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I was in the building. A bomb had just gone off, and the halls and stairwells were crowded with people. I saw two women about to be caught in the worst of it. I grabbed their shoulders to drag them to safety...and saw my wife and daughter's terrified faces, engulfed in a blinding, white light. There was a rapid, high-pitched beeping noise, which I assumed was another bomb...

...and then I woke up. I was in a hospital room, and Catherine was there. She explained that she entrusted Jordan with a close friend of hers, and came to be with me in person.

Cath always did worry too much about me, but I never thought she should stop.

And then she said something that worried me a little. A man came to see how I was doing...the guy who pulled me out of the explosion. I just looked at her with a blank expression, and she turned on the news to jog my memory.

The evening news was ablaze with the story. The Fox-affiliate's coverage showed a pretty young woman out in the field. She was interviewing a pretty ordinary-looking guy--little doughy around the cheeks, thin moustache, I'd say...mid...late...40s...

That's the same guy I saw in the news coverage of the Queen's Arms bombing.

With that, I completed the jigsaw puzzle. He was trying to make himself look like the hero and me the villain...and I walked right into it.

"How does it feel to be a star?" the reporter asked.
He said: "I just did what anybody in my place would have done."

Words fail me now as sure as they failed me then.
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Jack Pierson practically laughed me out of the room when I told him about my idea. In a way, he's right: there was no way for him to bring in a local hero--twice over, I might add--without an absolutely air- and watertight case against him. 

I elaborated: Ray Dees engineered the two bombs he used in that building so that he could easily survive it unscathed. Being a janitor at that building, he knew just where to be, in the right place and the right time. People have died because of his actions, but he doesn't directly want to kill...that's just a side effect of his sick obsession.

Pierson considered it, and then Watts showed him a sheaf of recently-faxed papers: Ray Dees' military records from eleven years ago. Turns out he was an explosives expert, and he'd been in Egypt, which explained the briefcase remains from earlier. 

I saw Pierson's eyes light up in horror as all the pieces fell into place. He ordered two SWAT teams to go to Dees' apartment and get whatever they could find, and we followed their lead.

One thing was for sure: he left in a hurry. Almost nothing was left of his little operation, save for a room full of electronic gear, still going. On a nearby display, I saw...my own cell number and present frequency. He's smart--he knew we'd be coming. 

My legs almost gave way under me, and I grabbed hold of a table to steady myself. Pierson told on of his men to take me back to the hospital...I'm probably still uneasy after the explosions, I reasoned. Still, I assured everyone that I could make my own way to the hospital, but I'd need a ride to my rental car.

Everything was just fine as I got into the car...and then my phone rang.

5-2-2-6-6-6.

"I've been waiting for you, Frank."
Dees. He just couldn't resist one last confrontation.
"You can't move and you're just waiting. You know it's going to end, but you don't know how."
No, and that scared me. I played my last card. At this point all I could do was buy time.
"Raymond, do you know precisely what happens at the moment of detonation? You lose your power. You lose your control. Raymond...you're a hero. A star. Are you going to throw all that away?"
I heard his voice grow agitated. He accused me of trying to take his fame away from him, and said that he'd get it back by taking me out.

Raymond, Raymond...You just don't get it.

"It's time, Frank."
I heard a gunshot.
I just sat there for what felt like hours. Finally, I got out. There he was, as dead as a fried oyster.

Watts told me later on that Dees' detonator was a fake, and that my car was not, in fact, rigged to explode. My face burned: I realized that we practically gave him what he wanted on a silver platter.

Later that night, Ray Dees got the fame he wanted on the ten o'clock news. My only victory out of all this? He's known as a mad bomber, not a hero.

All that work he did? All that planning? It all went...kaboom.
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On the surface, "522666" doesn't seem to have a lot going for it. In fact, its "race against time to catch the mad bomber" narrative could work as an episode of NYPD Blue or another series. That being said, its details make it unmistakably Millennium. Let's take the episode apart and "profile" it.


1. STORYTELLING: Millennium makes excellent use of television to tell this narrative. From Frank's insomniac channel-surfing, to the news coverage of the bombings, to his Nightline invitation, television serves as the most important recurring theme.

While we're still on that subject, let's take it one step further: News coverage serves as the episode's most important recurring theme. My first impression of its villain, Raymond Dees, is that he'd be a perfect reality-show contestant. One problem: "522666" came out a few years before shows such as Big Brother and Survivor found their footholds on American boob-tubes, so I can't make the case that "522666" is anticipating reality TV....or can I? Believe it or not, the most basic form of reality television is the local news, which Dees makes full use of by tending to injured people in the aftermath of his explosions.

At the beginning, in the pub, we see him clearly. At that point, nothing says "mad bomber" about him; he's a perfectly ordinary if somewhat off-kilter Joe Schmo whose only flaw is that he tends to get lost in his thoughts. Speaking of his thoughts, when he imagines the moment of detonation, his surroundings look like grainy film stock, as if he were watching a lurid exploitation movie from the 70s. Since it's revealed later on that he derives sexual release from watching his bombs go off, it's a perfect if really creepy visual metaphor.

One other thing I noticed: Compressed-time storytelling in cop and detective shows is so commonplace that people sometimes jokingly complain, "Why can't real cops solve the case in an hour?" (Because that hour represents the edited highlights of several days, that's why.)

"522666" exaggerates that device by having its story take place over one to two days. (It also foreshadows another, later Fox hit, 24, whose hour-long episodes took place in "real time.")

2. CHARACTERS: "522666" has three regulars--Frank, Peter, and Catherine (Jordan is mentioned, but not seen)--one villain, several one-shot "joint taskforce" agents, and a lot of miscellaneous civilians.

The lion's share of the characterization goes to Frank and Ray Dees. For the first time, there's a feeling that hero and villain are truly opposed to each other.

It begins with tiny details: Dees stands at the parking garage, obsessively watching the pub; meanwhile, Frank irritably flicks through a series of channels, and when he gets to the news report, he lingers for only a moment before setting about his packing. The biggest moment, though, is when the lady from Nightline asks Frank if he'd like to appear on that night's edition and explain the bomber's motivation. His reply: "I have a job." Dees wants nothing more than to live out a fantasy as a hero on televised news; Frank wants nothing more than to stay out of his enemy's fantasy.

Moving on to Ray Dees, he's unusually three-dimensional. The Frenchman was a straight-up nutter; "Gehenna's" villain was practically nonexistent; the Dead Letters Killer was a homicidal gadfly; and the Judge was just...the Judge.

This time around, he's got a clear motivation. He wants to be a star, just like any of us, but the way he goes about getting this makes him a Bad Guy. Being a hero and helping people in the aftermath of an explosion is one thing; doing the same in the aftermath of an explosion which he himself engineered is entirely different.

More than that, though, he considers himself an artist. As the Joker said in the 1989 Batman movie, "I make art until someone dies." While on the phone with Frank, he poetically describes the effects of a bomb exploding:

3. A SIGN OF THE TIMES? I'd really, really rather not think about it, but I can't help but draw parallels between this episode and the Oklahoma City bombing, which no-one references...and I'm okay with that, because it would have been too soon. Indeed, there's a very strong line drawn between fantasy and reality: Timothy McVeigh performed a vile act of political domestic terrorism; Raymond Dees made and planted bombs solely for his own puerile self-gratification.

In the end, it's perfectly all right that Millennium doesn't match note-for-note with current events. It only needs to convey the emotion of the time, because, again, its main goal is to dramatize the unraveling of society as we know it.
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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.)

Millennium S1E4: "The Judge"

As a profiler, I spend much of my time going after those who commit violent crimes. It's usually pretty easy to draw the line between lawgiver and lawbreaker, but there are times when that line gets blurred. What happens when a former lawgiver decides to take the law into his own hands and pass judgment without a fair trial? 

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.

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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.

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.
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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.)