Second Sight: "The Wild and the Innocent"

“The Wild and the Innocent” (10 January 1997)

Writer: Jorge Zamacona
Director: Thomas J. Wright
Editor: Stephen Mark

Quote: “An inordinate amount of violence and suffering has occurred in this house. [Maddie Haskel] might know something that could help us.” --Frank Black


Overview: In a previous installment of Second Sight, our bi-weekly examination of Frank Black’s visionary talents, we considered that location might be key to understanding the nature of those visions witnessed in “Kingdom Come.” By the mid-point of the show’s first season, the dedicated Millennium fan knows the familiar triggers for the profiler’s gore-laden reveries. We brace ourselves for an onslaught of nightmarish imagery when we see Frank button up his coat as he steps onto a crime scene.

As the man who channeled the character’s sensitivities, Lance Henriksen is certainly aware of the link between site and sense. The actor has quite vocally challenged any oversimplification of this complex relationship, however, defying those who would misconstrue the visual devices of Millennium. When the camera offers us a close-up of a piece of shattered glass, triggering one of the hero’s blood-drenched hallucinations, it should not suggest to us that there is some negative psychic energy imbued within the glass itself. The shattered glass is just a piece of the puzzle, and Frank Black is gifted enough to see the larger picture at a glance. “I always felt Frank Black had morphed into a person who put abstract loose ends together in his head in a way that other people couldn’t,” Henriksen once explained in a Back to Frank Black interview. “He could take threads of an idea and they would suddenly appear to him, almost as a linear story. In other words, walking into a room he would see pieces of a puzzle, like a great chess player, and he would string them together.”

Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that location and physical objects play an integral role in the coalescing and unraveling of such threads. In “The Wild and the Innocent,” Frank Black lingers in the house of Killean and Maddie Haskel long after the local police have moved on to their crime lab, spending his time poring over the personal items that fill their home. It is the possessions he finds there--mirrors and jewelry boxes, blankets and toy dolls, photo albums and high school yearbooks--that introduce him to the troubled young woman at the center of this heartbreaking story. These objects speak to him, telling the linear story of the young girl’s traumatic life and prompting a series of those powerful and evocative visions we’ve all come to expect. The formula for detective stories should draw our attention to the evidence that we all leave behind as we live our lives, in public or in private. It is a theme brought vividly to the surface each and every time one of our hero’s visions is triggered by an artifact or a crucial piece of evidence. There is significance and meaning imbued in the items we touch, the residue of our lives, even if they are merely individual pieces of a much larger mosaic. In those lonely scenes in which Frank tours the Haskel homestead by flashlight, as Bobby and Maddie take to the open road in a desperate bid to track down Angel, “The Wild and the Innocent” somberly reminds us of the traces of ourselves that we leave behind as we live out our everyday lives.

Connections: The visions of “The Wild and the Innocent” are used to reveal a character’s backstory, an effect similar to that used to illustrate Galen Calloway’s past in “Kingdom Come” and the history of sexual abuse in “The Well-Worn Lock.”

Trances in Total: 3 (0:12)

Gore Score: 7/10

Make or Break: Chris Carter, Frank SpotniTz, and Lance Henriksen talk about Millennium's future!

This is the big interview! This is Lance Henriksen, Chris Carter, and Frank Spotnitz talking about the future of Millennium. Is there a future? Listen to the podcast and find out how this conversation has shaped the future of this campaign! Don't miss this!

How to listen to this FREE podcast:

Flash Player: Listen directly!

To download click this link!

Available on iTunes. Search for "Back to Frank Black" or "BacktoFrankBlack" and click "subscribe"!

Also available on iPhone and Android as part of the Back to Frank Black app! App version includes an Xmas message from Lance and a PDF greetings card from the team! (Extra features are included in most app versions of the podcasts. Nominal app fee goes towards supporting the campaign. No profits come from this app service.)

Lance Henriksen Autobiography has a publisher!

Back to Frank Black is honored to be the first Lance Henriksen related site to bring you the news that he has signed a deal with a publisher to release his autobiography! And as if that's not enough, the first limited release will contain original artwork by artists such as Bernie Wrightson, Erick Powell, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mignola and many others!

Lance has been working on his autobiography for over a year with the very talented Joe Maddrey and is excited to have the fans read it. Stay tuned to Back to Frank Black for more details and competitions in the very near future, and to read the official story, please follow this link.

Jim and Troy on the Lance Feltman Radio Show this Saturday!

This coming Saturday myself, Jim "Sprightly" McLean, and Troy "Luscious" Foreman will be appearing for their second time live on the Lance Feltman Radio Show at around 9am EST on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM.

This is in light of the recent developments in regards to the campaign to bring back Frank Black. If you want some of the inside gossip, listen in!

Ezekiel Editorial: Make or Break? Make!

Time for an official update. If you follow us on Facebook -- or if you follow Lance on Facebook -- you'll have heard that we had a meeting midweek with Lance Henriksen, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz on the future of Millennium.

The meeting was amazingly positive. All involved were on the same page, which was very exciting indeed. We will be releasing that podcast on the 4th February, as announced.

However, there was a sacrifice. As with the Christmas podcast featuring Lance, Megan and Brittany, it evolved into something more than we planned. There was, brutally, no need for questions. Chris, Lance and Frank talked about the show's future.

We had many questions asked of us, however, so many that we had to run through three drafts of potential questions just to reduce the questions to a manageable amount. Even then I doubted we'd get through that final set... We didn't even use one.

As such, we're looking at scheduling a special questions session in the future that uses those fan-submitted questions -- so we can get a chance to put your queries directly to the Millennium big names. Again, apologies they couldn't be used in this podcast, but when you've got the three main voices of Millennium naturally communicating without prompting, you want to let that run its own course!

On top of this, we have more good news from other quarters coming soon to this blog! Keep your eyes peels, m'friends!

Second Sight: "Wide Open"

“Wide Open” (3 January 1997)

Writer: Charles D. Holland
Director: James Charleston
Editor: Chris Willingham, A.C.E.

Quote: “Hi, Bob... Came down to see what I didn’t see.” --Frank Black


Overview: Millennium defies traditional genre labels but, over the years, it has most often been described as horror. Indeed, a tagline printed on promotional posters prepared by Fox Broadcasting for the show’s second season declared, “We don’t want to scare you. We want to terrify you.” The series employs many tactics in order to strike fear into the hearts of its viewers but among the most complex and captivating of these is to be found in the show’s preoccupation with spectatorship, the act of looking. Though it is a subject matter we don’t often stop to reflect on in our daily lives, there is an inherent power in the gaze, there is an undeniable threat in a stare, and these ideas are embodied in the serial killers seen so frequently on the series. It has been evident since that first blood-drenched private strip show the Frenchman paid to see in the visually arresting “Pilot.” On Millennium, spectatorship inevitably gives way to the threat or menace of voyeurism, which inevitably gives way to sudden and brutal death.

No episode thus far has explored this theme more clearly, perhaps, than “Wide Open.” Here we have an installment concerned with the relationship between fear, security, and spectatorship, a story about a voyeuristic killer and a traumatized young witness whose experiences prove pivotal to the ensuing investigation. A trademark Ten-Thirteen sight gag reinforces the themes of the episode when we are shown a sign promoting the selling points for Emerald Shore Realty: “Killer Views, Killer Price$.” Such visual cues abound, from Detective Giebelhouse’s futile efforts to peek in apartment peep holes to a realtor’s viewing of a harrowing videocassette. Nothing sells the dominating menace inherent in the act of looking more strongly, however, than the penetrating, unblinking stare of guest star Pablo Coffey in his chilling portrayal of the aptly named Cutter. His is the watchful eye behind the peep hole, the controlling hand behind the camcorder. There is threat in the man’s very look, a prevailing menace that cannot be blocked or avoided or deterred. As Hannibal Lector explained to Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, “We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don’t you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don’t your eyes seek out the things you want?” The key to this case, our investigators soon realize, is in the gaze.

The only hope for security, in fact, is offered not by police patrols or burglar alarms but by the gaze of Frank Black. Cutter is not the only character possessed of a watchful eye. Opposing voyeurism with vigilance, “Wide Open” shows us the power provided by our eyes and thereby reinforces the unique power of the protagonist. Frank Black is a hero whose might lies not in his lightning reflexes or his unrivaled strength but in his eyes and in his mind’s eye, in his often astonishing facility for observation. It is what Frank Black sees that sets him apart. The strobe-like imagery of his trademark visions--some of which, in this episode, focus directly on the eyes of young Patricia Highsmith, who is emotionally scarred by what she has seen--are there to remind us of this. These visions are a mixed blessing--both a gift and a curse, as the profiler has told us--and “Wide Open” remains a frightening example of horror television. There is hope in the profiler’s visions but they are, as ever, jarring and deeply upsetting to see. As viewers participating in our own sort of voyeuristic engagement with the violence and gore that flashes before us on the glowing TV screen, it is impossible not to be unnerved by the implications.

Trances in Total: 4 (0:10)

Gore Score: 4/10

Make or Break: Podcast update!

Just an update on the Frank Spotnitz, Lance Henriksen and Chris Carter interview we had scheduled to record today - the interview has been delayed due to some unforeseen difficulties and Chris was unavailable. We're hoping to reschedule this week. All parties are still eager to take part, so no worrying!

On a very positive note, Lance and Frank took this opportunity to have a chat together about the show, their work and the show's future. It was a very encouraging and exciting moment. Both love the show and the concept. Both are aware of the hurdles and challenges. Both would love to see the concept taken further.

We will let you guys know when the reschedule is - we aim to meet the same release date if possible, but given you've all jumped on this event with such interest it seemed inappropriate not to keep you all up to date with what's going on.

The response to this interview from readers of this page has been enormous. We've had to whittle down the possible questions we could use through three drafts for it to be even near manageable and we know even that set probably won't get used in its entierity. You've all been an invaluable resource for preparing this event and we thank you for that. We will keep you posted!