Second Sight: "Sacrament"

“Sacrament” (21 February 1997)

Writer: Frank Spotnitz
Director: Michael Watkins
Editor: Chris Willingham, A.C.E.

Quote: “Been sitting here trying to prepare myself for whatever happens... That’s the Black family: try to anticipate the future so you don’t have to dwell on the past.” --Thomas Black


Overview: Since viewers were first introduced to Frank Black in Millennium’s pilot episode, his disturbing visions have become progressively more complex with each passing installment, each harrowing murder investigation. With cryptic connections mounting as the series neared the climax of its first season, it seemed that the mythology building up around the profiler’s visionary talents would soon take us well beyond mere investigative insights. In “Sacrament,” Frank Spotnitz begins to pull at loose threads left dangling from “Pilot” and “Dead Letters,” not to unravel the unfinished tapestry of Millennium but so that he may tie these threads neatly together in preparation for the epic dramas to come.

“Sacrament” stands as a milestone in that it is the first episode to openly suggest that there is an extraordinary inheritance possessed by Jordan Black. This is revealed subtly yet irrefutably in a pair of scenes that would put any concerned parent on alert. With tears in her eyes and anguish in her voice, Jordan expresses concern over the abuse being inflicted on her aunt, in spite of the fact that the child is undoubtedly being shielded from the horrors traumatizing her family. At the moment Helen Black is kidnapped, Jordan bears witness to the brutal abduction, seeing the events remotely from the sanctity of the vacant church. (The only alternative reading to this scene is the even more dramatic suggestion that Jordan is observing traumas to come, prophetically anticipating the terrible fate that awaits her Aunt Helen.) The unavoidable implication is that Jordan is witnessing great violence with her mind’s eye--in precisely the same fashion as her father.

With its emphasis on family, “Sacrament” is able to quietly reinforce the great bond between this loving father and his beloved child, a connection that has resonated with viewers since Lance Henriksen and Brittany Tiplady first shared the screen. Indeed, our sense of their relationship is only strengthened by the presence of Thomas Black, a shaken and confused man who simply cannot relate to his stoic older brother. The episode’s memorable final shot--in which Frank takes Jordan aside, separate from the rest of the family, and the two walk away hand-in-hand--is so symbolic, so evocative that it would be echoed throughout the rest of the series. This lasting image leaves us with an affecting impression of the bond that connects Frank Black to his exceptional daughter, the sort of bond that can exist only between two kindred souls who share the same gift, the same curse. Theirs is the relationship that will prove to be the very core of Millennium’s unfolding mythology.

Connections: Following her ordeal at the church, Jordan Black is afflicted by a mysterious fever, the very same symptom for which she was hospitalized in “Pilot.” Jordan’s gift for prophetic visions was first hinted at, somewhat obliquely, in a nightmare seen in “Dead Letters.”

Trances in Total: 6 (0:14)

Gore Score: 10/10

Second Sight: "The Thin White Line"

“The Thin White Line” (14 February 1997)

Writers: Glen Morgan & James Wong
Director: Thomas J. Wright
Editor: Stephen Mark

Quote: “Can you see what I see, FBI? Can you see your fear? Can you see what you really are?” --Richard Alan Hance


Overview: At Millennium’s very center is an intrinsic concern with the nature of dreams and visions. This is, in part, because Millennium is a television series that continually embraced modes of alternate perception, both stylistically and thematically. Through the eyes of its visionary heroes and its delusional villains, the series explored the ways in which our memories, emotions, and instincts reveal themselves in the way that we see the world around us.

Perhaps no installment of Millennium’s first season embraces this more fully than “The Thin White Line.” The manhunt for copycat serial killer Jacob Tyler, who murders innocent men and women based on wishful fantasies, forces Frank Black to confront his own past. Thanks to an inventive script, the story that unfolds allows him to do this somewhat literally in some scenes. Our hero’s remarkable inner eye is expanded yet again as his trademark visions are supplemented with recurring nightmares, dreams in which the profiler is forced to relive one of the most terrifying confrontations of his life. One of these dream sequences in particular, in which the present day Frank joins forces with his wide-eyed younger self in an effort to rewrite history, beautifully enacts the psychological struggle of the story. “The Thin White Line” stands as one of the first season’s strongest episodes and this remains one of the first season’s most memorable moments.

In both nightmares and flashback sequences, “The Thin White Line” also offers us a number of minor tidbits that contribute to the mystery and mythology surrounding our hero’s remarkable talents. Dialogue suggests to us that Frank’s “feelings” had earned him something of a reputation among his colleagues as early as 1977, when he was a member of the FBI team that captured Richard Alan Hance. Marked on his palm as one of this fearsome killer’s victims, staring into the face of his own death as he endures Hance’s vicious taunts, Frank experiences the sudden flare of one of his visions. This is the first occurrence of one of Frank’s visions, chronologically speaking, shown to us in the series thus far. Whether they represent the hero’s intuitive imaginings or some prophetic insight, we now know that Frank Black was seeing what the killer sees as early as the late seventies.

This scene also marks out “The Thin White Line” as one of the few Millennium episodes in which the hero’s visions are in some way internalized, offering a self-conscious glimpse of his own fears, his own potential fate. Glen Morgan and James Wong remain true to form with this script, forever aiming to more deeply explore Frank Black’s unique way of seeing the world, to ensure that his visions contributed to the themes of the story rather than providing highly-stylized distraction or plot loopholes. This is the same writing duo that first hinted at Jordan Black’s inheritance with the bad dreams of “Dead Letters,” the same team that first turned Frank Black’s visions inward in a feverish nightmare seen in “522666.” Yes, dreams are undeniably key to understanding this series and the struggles of its characters. Under the direction of Morgan and Wong, dreams and visions would become an increasingly intrinsic element of Millennium’s deepening mythology.

Connections: Jacob Tyler’s delusional fantasies, in which he imagines his victims to be volunteering themselves, are based on the hallucinations of real life serial killer Herbert Mullin, who murdered thirteen victims in California in 1972 and 1973. Frank Black’s visions were first utilized for introspective purposes in a nightmare he experienced in “522666,” also scripted by Glen Morgan and James Wong. Serial killer Richard Alan Hance has been previously profiled in Adam Chamberlain’s What the Killer Sees.

Trances in Total: 5 (0:16)

Gore Score: 4/10

Second Sight: "Force Majeure"

“Force Majeure” (7 February 1997)

Writer: Chip Johannessen
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Editor: G. Richard Potter

Quote: “You’re the one who knew where she’d be… [You’re] one of them.” --Lillian Mather singles out Frank Black


Overview: Revisiting “Force Majeure” so soon after the Tōhoku megathrust earthquake that recently devastated Japan lends this strange episode’s apocalyptic paranoia extra edge, even if we have to chuckle at any reference to the supposed worldwide cataclysm of May 5, 2000. Indeed, this is a somewhat jarring installment of Millennium, and not simply because the human tendency to seek out connections prompts each viewer to think of the myriad natural disasters in recent memory that might be reconsidered as “Earth Changes.” Amid the grim murder investigations of the show’s first season, Chip Johannessen’s bizarre tale of cloning and astronomical obsession sticks out as awkwardly as guest star Brad Dourif’s Dennis Hoffman might at a New Year’s Eve party. Yes, “Force Majeure” signals that change is in the wind. In subsequent episodes Millennium would begin to transform, rapidly expanding its thematic scope and sometimes reinventing its approach to televisual storytelling.

As the series begins to change, so too does our understanding of Frank Black’s visionary talents. A simple glance above at our usual graphic collage, made-up of screen grabs from this episode’s visions, suggests that our hero’s inner eye has been opened wider, so to speak. In “Force Majeure,” Frank’s flashes of insight feature the sort of imaginings we might expect from an astronomer or astrophysicist, not a forensic profiler. Serial killers and their vivisected victims have been swapped out for burning, fast-moving images of celestial bodies juxtaposed with microscopic examinations of a woman’s ova. Outer space and inner space collide before our eyes. The show’s perceptual canvas could not have possibly been expanded more dramatically. As these visions are paired with the rantings of Dennis Hoffman, we’re prompted once more to question whether or not there is prophecy in what Frank Black sees. It seems well-timed that Peter Watts, in the midst of pursuing a very grounded investigation into these almost Fortean events, should joke that he doesn’t believe in telepathy. Frank is now seeing patterns on an unimaginably grand scale and this surprising imagery suggests either an escalating shift in his understanding of the world or that there is some hint of omniscience in his astonishing gift.

Connections: In addition to the books of Genesis and Exodus, Dennis Hoffman cites the writings of Nostradamus, the sixteenth-century apothecary now famous for his apocalyptic prophecies. References to Nostradamus can also be found in “Pilot,” in which the Frenchman first suggested that Frank Black’s visions showed him glimpses of some future cataclysm.

Trances in Total: 2 (0:03)

Gore Score: 1/10

Second Sight: "Loin Like a Hunting Flame"

“Loin Like a Hunting Flame” (31 January 1997)

Writer: Ted Mann
Director: David Nutter
Editor: Chris Willingham, A.C.E.

Quote: “[The victims represent] a window into sexuality, the way he wants it to be. Perfect, uninhibited, guiltless. His actions will follow the development of his fantasies.” --Frank Black


Overview: I’ll admit, the approach of Second Sight is sometimes rather restrictive. My intention has always been to treat this ongoing examination of Millennium’s visions with a scientific rationale bordering on the forensic. After all, the nature of Frank Black’s visions remains one of the show’s most enduring mysteries and, as any good Millennium Group analyst would suggest, such intractable enigmas can only be properly challenged with a methodical modus operandi. It’s episodes like this, however, that leave me second guessing that rigid rationale. By design, Second Sight restricts its focus to those visions we can attribute to Frank Black himself. Our tally of trances below, for instance, counts only the flashes of insight experienced by our hero during a given episode, excluding any other drug-induced delusions, premonitory nightmares, or psychotic hallucinations that might be witnessed by other characters. (An exception to the rule is made only in the case of Jordan Black, as in episodes such as “Dead Letters.”) Undeniably, however, dreams and visions are an inherent, integral part of the storytelling seen on Millennium. In “Loin Like a Hunting Flame,” it is the rich visual fantasies of serial killer Art Nesbitt--played with chilling detachment by guest star Hrothgar Mathews--that allow us fascinating insight into the state of his psychology. There is far more to Millennium’s ambitious attempt to convey multiple modes of perception than first meets the eye and, truly, it is far more than can be comprehensively covered in a blog column such as this.

While we’re on the subject of this column’s format, let us take a moment to retrospectively consider some mounting statistics. It should be noted that the visions of “Loin Like a Hunting Flame” serve to challenge a lasting misconception concerning Millennium’s visual style. I’ve granted the episode a “gore score” of one out of ten. As a pharmacist with homicidal intent, Art Nesbitt kills cleanly and this episode eschews the anticipated blood and guts in favor of depicting his sexual fantasies with vivid images of beauty and sensuality--though, admittedly, the cinematic technique for these visions remains the same and the sequences are no less disturbing than usual. Remarkably, out of the first twelve episodes of the series, at least three other episodes have earned the same score: “Dead Letters,” “522666,” and “The Well-Worn Lock.” (A fourth, “Kingdom Come,” remained bloodless but earned an additional point on our scale for the sheer brutality of its slayings.) In other words, one third of the episodes in the first half of the first season of Millennium convey their cinematic horror without slinging a single drop of blood at the screen. Among both uninitiated and longtime viewers, I think, Millennium is often remembered as a television series that relied on gore to tell its terrifying stories. This is, after all, a series that earned a near-permanent parental advisory warning from its network. We remember Frank Black as a criminal profiler who was cursed by his gift because his thoughts were forever saturated with blood. These statistics serve as a measurable reminder that the horrors of this series were far more nuanced. As Chris Carter has said, the filmic frights in a series like Millennium show little of the gory details we anticipate but they leave a lasting--and sometimes rather messy--impression on our fertile imaginations.

Trances in Total: 3 (0:16)

Gore Score: 1/10

Second Sight: "Weeds"

“Weeds” (24 January 1997)

Writer: Frank Spotnitz
Director: Michael Pattinson
Editor: George Richard Potter

Quote: “He sees his victim as ugly, decayed. The mutilation suggests that he wants us to see the boy the same way. He’s trying to tell us something... That he won’t stop killing until he makes us understand whatever it is he’s trying to communicate.” --Frank Black


Overview: In the presentation of its startling visions, “Weeds” faithfully follows the televisual template laid out in Millennium’s unforgettable pilot. Indeed, “Weeds” and “Pilot” are connected in many ways. This often gruesome whodunit allows us to experience both the nightmarish hallucinations of an obsessive killer as well as the investigative insights of our heroic criminal profiler. The episode’s killer, Edward Petey, has much in common with the Frenchman, not least the fact that he doesn’t see the world like everybody else. (How does he see it? “Differently.”) As a result, both “Weeds” and “Pilot” stand out as episodes of Millennium that, rather uncharacteristically, rely heavily on special effects make-up in the realization of their visions--special effects make-up encompassing more than the usual blood spatters and gore, make-up that alters the very physiology of the victims on display. As the episode’s title implies, Petey’s unique perception of Vista Verde Estates shows us a world dominated by decay, its residents wan and aged. Men and women of all ages, parents and children alike, are transformed into withered husks before our very eyes. The artists at Lindala Make-Up Effects had their work cut out for them with this installment.

Interestingly, the effect of such transformations, as in the pilot, almost subliminally suggests that there is something preternatural about the visions flashing before us on the television screen. That whisper of a paranormal sensibility originally suggested to the audience by the prior work of Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz seems, somewhat unfairly, to be enhanced by the use of obvious visual effects. When we see children transformed into the elderly in a flash of white light we know we are witnessing something wholly unnatural. It is difficult to shake the insinuation that what we are seeing is not simply some over-imaginative flourish born of a diseased mind but something far outside the realm of the natural. Our impression of Frank Black’s talents is affected by association. Once again, we are inspired to pose questions about the nature of his gift. Indeed, that seemingly miraculous facet of the profiler’s abilities hinted at in the early days of Millennium would soon be explored in dramatic fashion in another installment scripted by Frank Spotnitz.

Connections: The visions of “Weeds,” featuring extensive prosthetic work and old-age make-up, evoke the imagery of “Pilot,” featuring make-up depicting mutilated faces. For the Millennium viewer, it is difficult not to see Edward Petey’s distorted perception of the Comstock residence--that of a red house under roiling black clouds--as a stark negative of the imagery typically associated with the Black residence.

Trances in Total: 3 (0:11)

Gore Score: 7/10

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

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

Second Sight: "The Well-Worn Lock"

“The Well-Worn Lock” (20 December 1996)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: Ralph Hemecker
Editor: Steve Mark

Quote: “You’re doing the right thing. I have a strong feeling about it.” --Frank Black


Overview: And so, we come to “The Well-Worn Lock.” This episode is well-known for being unique in the series, presenting a glimpse down the road not taken by Millennium. Here is a powerful and sobering installment concerned not with apocalyptic conspiracies or sadistic serial killers but with child abuse and the structures of power and lies that protect abusers. The story prompted author Andy Lane to suggest that “Millennium is so realistic it tears away the last vestiges of the lies we try to tell ourselves about the way the world works.” The hero of this hour is not the dauntless forensic profiler but his wife the social worker, Catherine Black. With “The Well-Worn Lock,” Chris Carter explores the untapped potential of Millennium’s characters, format, and central premise.

Given the set-up, it is perhaps surprising that the episode features any of Frank Black’s trademark visions at all. In this installment there is no “mind of the killer” for the profiler to inhabit. We do, however, witness a single visualization lasting all of four seconds, a brief experience that reveals the true purpose behind the titular well-worn lock. The rest of the episode is peppered with similar sporadic sequences conveying disturbing memories of a painful history of sexual abuse. While previous episodes such as “Pilot” or “522666” have relied on Millennium’s fleeting, stochastic displays of aggression and gore to convey the fantasies of killers, “The Well-Worn Lock” utilizes the same affecting cinematic techniques to represent the traumatic experiences of victims. The functional purpose of these sequences remains the same in spite of the shift in storyline: horrifying, painful imagery is conveyed rapidly, forcefully, in a fashion that does not allow the viewer to dwell on any one image but does nothing to lessen the overall emotional impact of the experience. In the end, the visions of “The Well-Worn Lock” force us to assimilate the sort of memories that are usually repressed, compel us to feel the uncommon compassion possessed by the likes of Frank and Catherine Black, and, once again, reinforce Chris Carter’s overarching philosophy that the profiler’s gift is, above all else, empathic.

Connections: Though the visions of Millennium are predominantly used to represent the mindset of murderers, visions from the point of view of a victim were previously seen in “Gehenna,” also scripted by Chris Carter.

Trances in Total: 1 (0:04)

Gore Score: 1/10

Second Sight: “Blood Relatives”

“Blood Relatives” (6 December 1996)

Writer: Chip Johannessen
Director: James Charleston
Editor: George R. Potter

Quote: “I know. I know you had to go in there. Because of who you are. Because you had no choice.” --Catherine Black


Overview: There is a standout moment in “Blood Relatives” when Frank Black, standing on the shore of a glistening lake, his thoughts dominated by the details of a hideous crime, takes a moment to slip off his iconic coat and then tosses it to the waiting Peter Watts. The dedicated viewer knows just what will happen next. Before Bob Bletcher can even cry out a protest, as he did during a similar scene in the pilot, the profiler steps forth and trudges determinedly into the water in search of the case’s next clue. He finds it nearly a dozen feet from the shore, fishing with his arm beneath the surface of the water, fingers combing submerged sand and rocks in search of a reflection. He emerges from the lake soaking wet but grasping the evidence that will lead them onward in their search for a sadistic killer.

Water is often used symbolically in film and fiction. This is especially true in Millennium, a series that used water as a central symbol or metaphor in several episodes, most notably “Seven and One.” Here--as in “Pilot” and “Kingdom Come”--it serves to clearly illustrate a trait that is intrinsic to Frank Black as a character and essential to our ongoing effort to understand the nature of his unique gift. If the meaning of the lakeside scene in “Blood Relatives” is lost on the viewer, it is reiterated just moments later as the investigators storm the halfway house that hides James Dickerson. As Bletcher, Giebelhouse, and Watts follow signs and directions and head for Dickerson’s bedroom on the second floor of the building, Frank Black dashes in an entirely different direction, moving underground, to the house’s darkened basement, where he discovers that the suspect has escaped them via a cellar window. While the Seattle police search obvious or expected terrain, above the surface, Frank Black alone dares venture below.

The very tenacity that Frank demonstrates when he is faced with the barrier of a river, lake, or other body of water is what allows him to dip beneath the murky, seemingly impenetrable surface of the human psyche. In these instances as in others, Lieutenant Bletcher is Inspector Lestrade, representative of a police force possessed of pedestrian thinking and limited imagination; Frank Black is a man of wholly unconventional thinking with the courage to match it. As an investigator, Frank possesses both the ability and willingness to venture beyond the boundaries of the safe or the anticipated, that selfless willingness to immerse himself in darkest depths in search of an answer. When Frank gives himself over to one of his gruesome visions--regardless of whether we believe those visions to be somewhat supernatural or purely intuitive--he is allowing himself to be plunged below the surface of what is known into uncertain territory as uninviting as an icy river, as dark and foreboding as any abandoned basement. From a psychological perspective, his forays into the mind of the killer are no less bold. If Frank Black’s closest friends and colleagues cannot even fathom the nature of his extraordinary gift, it is because they lack that unusual and selfless mindset that shows the hero of Millennium to be so incomparable.

Connections: Cinematically, this episode’s visions are similar to those of “Kingdom Come,” the previous installment, as this is the second episode in a row to feature a death by drowning. Connor, the episode’s jealous serial killer, has been previously profiled in Adam Chamberlain’s What the Killer Sees.

Trances in Total: 3 (0:08)

Gore Score: 6/10

Second Sight: "Kingdom Come"

“Kingdom Come” (29 November 1996)

Writer: Jorge Zamacona
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Editor: George R. Potter

Quote: “I haven’t thought about [God] in a very long time… Because I’ve seen the innocent die. I’ve seen children murdered in their beds. The weak and helpless slaughtered without purpose, without sense.” --Frank Black


Overview: During the show’s original run, enthusiastic online fans concocted the earliest iteration of the Millennium drinking game, in which on-screen character cues prompt a knowing audience to imbibe. Frank hides his case files when Catherine comes down to the basement? Down a shot. Frank or Peter instantly recognize an obscure biblical passage? Two shots. Frank laughs? Chug from the bottle. And the very first item on this list leading the way to paranoid inebriation? “Frank sees what the killer sees.”

Any television series able to support its own drinking game is by definition formulaic, and Millennium is no different, especially in the throes of its first season. Every fan of the series has heard, and at one time wielded, the familiar “serial-killer-of-the-week” critique. The formulaic elements that are entwined with Frank Black’s grisly visions, however, episode-by-episode, serve to progressively reinforce the very meaning always insisted upon by creator Chris Carter. When Co-Executive Producer John Peter Kousakis insists “Frank Black was not a psychic,” he is echoing a refrain commonly heard from the show’s producers but one that was more difficult to accept in the early days of the series. “It’s misconception on the audience’s part and a lot of the critics,” Kousakis explains, “because when Frank would investigate a crime... there would be flashes, and we used a device, a technical device, on film to try and manifest that and try to somehow interpret for the audience what he was going through.”

Though Millennium sometimes seems hopelessly confused on the issue, in episodes such as “Kingdom Come” Kousakis’s argument is aided by the fact that this now-familiar technical device is more often than not site specific, bound to settings already associated with the investigative process. This realization reveals how key the scene is to our understanding of what the hero’s unending hallucinations truly represent. The answer, in instances such as this, just may be location, location, location. Though the content of the visions sometimes reaches beyond the confines of the crimes themselves--notably, in this case, Frank visualizes the formative tragedy that initiated Galen Calloway’s deadly crisis of faith--these visions are prompted by casework. The locations themselves, be they chaotic or bureaucratic, come alive with the details of the crime, calling out to the profiler with the screams of its victims. When Frank Black buttons up his coat and steps into a crime scene, morgue, or police lab, we know it’s time to reach for that drink.

Trances in Total: 6 (0:12)

Gore Score: 2/10

Second Sight: "522666"

“522666” (22 November 1996)

Writers: Glen Morgan & James Wong
Director: David Nutter
Editor: Chris Willingham, A.C.E.

Quote: “When I got the call I got so scared. I heard you that night, Frank, on the phone. Dr. Bowman says you have a mild concussion. But it’s not your body healing that worries me. It’s your spirit.” --Catherine Black


Overview: It’s well known that Glen Morgan and James Wong were less than enthused about the way in which Frank Black’s visions were occasionally utilized--as a sort of miracle plot device--during Millennium’s first season. Perhaps because of this, “522666,” the duo’s second episode for the series, eschews that sometimes gimmicky reliance on the hero’s visionary powers. Take a glance at our usual tally below and you’ll note that this episode features the fewest visions yet from our dauntless forensic profiler. That’s not to say that this story about a self-obsessed serial bomber is absent of the highly-stylized, dream-like sequences we’ve come to expect. For every mental show reel missed by Frank we are granted a further glance from the perspective of Raymond Dees. Not since “Pilot,” also directed by David Nutter, has an episode so extensively relied upon hallucinations presented from the point of view of the killer. Dees is forever anticipating or reliving the explosions he perceives as glorious art. The visuals in these sequences are undeniably upsetting, especially with references to incidents such as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing being bandied about. They serve to remind us of the great sacrifice that Frank Black accepts by willingly subjecting himself to the experience of such horror in the pursuit of villains like Raymond Dees.

One of the few visions that Frank Black does witness during the episode stands out as entirely unique. Lying in a hospital bed after being caught by the blast wave of an explosion, he experiences a sort of nightmare presented in the same cinematic fashion as his investigative insights. This sequence is different from what we are accustomed to, however, for mixed in with images of the victims of the recent bombings are the screaming faces of both Catherine and Jordan. Because of his impenetrable demeanor and tireless perseverance, it is sometimes easy to mistake Frank Black for a man who lives without fear. The startling nightmare he experiences while hospitalized in “522666,” coupled with the commentary that follows from his caring wife, serves as one of those subtle yet poignant moments in Millennium that remind us all that Frank fights on in spite of his fear, a consuming fear that is forever gnawing away at his psyche. By internalizing Frank’s visions for the first time, by using his mysterious gift for introspective purposes, Morgan and Wong once again manage to offer us a fresh perspective on our hero and his abilities. Here and in future installments, they continue to seek innovative uses for the dreams and visions of Millennium.

Connections: Frank’s introspective vision is reminiscent of the family-focused, fear-fueled nightmare experienced by Jordan in “Dead Letters,” also written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. Bomber Raymond Dees was recently profiled in Adam Chamberlain’s What the Killer Sees.

Trances in Total: 3 (0:11)

Gore Score: 1/10

Second Sight: "The Judge"

“The Judge” (15 November 1996)

Writer: Ted Mann
Director: Randy Zisk
Editor: Stephen Mark

Quote: “Five hundred years ago, you would have been burned as a witch.” --Bob Bletcher to Frank Black


Overview: In “The Judge,” Bob Bletcher teasingly calls attention to the seemingly miraculous nature of Frank Black’s gift by associating his talents with witchcraft. Frank, of course, rejects the comparison. “Nothing I do is magic,” the profiler insists with a straight face and, for perhaps the first time since the series was launched, the casework that follows fully supports his position. This episode dutifully presents the usual stylized flashes of insight as imaginative extrapolations of the evidence at hand. Each and every one of the visions is clearly prompted by clue or cue seen, heard, or felt by Frank Black--and, by extension, the audience. Blood and tissue samples found under the fingernails of a corpse prompt our hero to reconsider the events of an early killing; the expert analysis voiced by a pathologist induces a visualization of precisely how a new victim was subdued.

Slowed down, taken frame-by-frame, the lurid visions seen here reveal details of the crimes never otherwise shown or discussed on screen and thus act as a compelling representation of the complexities of Frank Black’s investigative thought process. This is one of many Millennium installments in which the visionary sequences contain far more detail than could ever be properly absorbed by the audience during a traditional viewing--a veritable visual overload, especially for a collective total of eleven seconds of screen time. They reveal just how much artistic effort was put into crafting these fleeting displays on film.

While it may not be directly tied to the subject matter of Frank Black’s visions, mention must also be made of the portentous tête-à-tête that takes place between our hero and his unique opponent. When Frank asks for the eponymous Judge to provide his name, the livestock auctioneer turned vigilante insists that his true name is Legion. He explains that the chosen moniker is adopted from the story related in Mark 5:1-19--appropriately enough, a tale involving Jesus, a demon, and a herd of hogs. The grim meaning invested in that name was at once seized upon by Millennium’s fan base as an apt identification for the ominous force that was first seen in “Gehenna” and would come to make its presence felt more and more strongly as the series progressed. Mark my words: that evocative name, first cited in our review of the visions seen in the show’s second installment, will certainly mark future columns.

Connections: The Judge relates the parable of Mark 5:1-19, the story of Legion, and thereby provides both Frank Black and the audience with a moniker for the demonic presence previously glimpsed in “Gehenna.”

Trances in Total: 4 (0:11)

Gore Score: 10/10

Second Sight: "Dead Letters"

“Dead Letters” (8 November 1996)

Writers: Glen Morgan & James Wong
Director: Thomas J. Wright
Editor: Chris Willingham, A.C.E.

Quote: “Do you know all about bad dreams?” --Jordan Black looks to her father for comfort


Overview: “Dead Letters” is a powerful and affecting story largely because of Jim Horn, the prospective profiler played with such tragic desperation by guest star James Morrison. Horn serves as a brilliantly effective foil for Frank Black; he is a flawed and wounded character who, by contrast, shows us what is so special about Millennium’s singular hero. Horn is utterly incapable of the sort of incredible insights that have been harnessed by Frank Black. In attempting to avoid problematic descriptors such as “paranormal” or “supernatural” in discussions regarding Frank Black’s gift, Chris Carter has often described the profiler’s abilities as “empathic” in nature. It is that uncommon empathy for his fellow man, that selfless willingness to become one with the thoughts and feelings of both victims and killers, which shows Frank to be such an exceptional hero. “Dead Letters” reveals just how essential empathy is to the equation by progressively eroding Horn’s own facility for emotional and intellectual identification. Without the empathetic connection, Horn is blinded and soon becomes a reckless and vengeful man who is only able to see the serial killer they seek as a dimensionless bogeyman. “These killers can’t be simply cases or psychological anomalies anymore,” Horn bemoans. “They’re just... monsters. Just monsters.”

This episode is also noteworthy for its preoccupation with young Jordan Black. With “Dead Letters,” Glen Morgan and James Wong slyly add a significant layer to the mythology quickly building up around Frank Black’s unusual flashes of insight. It is an idea acknowledged by Frank Spotnitz when he conceded, “I can see why people thought there was a psychic component to it.” Spotnitz attributes this impression of Frank’s gift in part to the inheritance implied in this episode’s unnerving teaser: “It was certainly hinted that his daughter, Jordan, had the same gift, if you will… that Jordan had the same ability.” Jordan’s nightmare--a darkly playful sequence dominated by the figure of a fearsome clown--is not easily forgotten. At its heart this is an episode about “bad dreams,” a story concerned with the imaginative visions that torment slumbering children and the grim knowledge that can torture waking adults. (Given the role such visions will play in our understanding of Frank’s own abilities, Jordan’s nightmare has been included in our usual tally of trances below.) Though Jordan’s dreams are of a sort that have troubled every boy and girl at one time or another, as the sleepover with T.C. Horn implies, their prominence in the episode poses a persistent question, a question that would come to serve as a key component of Millennium’s continually evolving mythology: Could Jordan Black have inherited some abnormal ability from her visionary father? The first hints of the prophetic bond between father and daughter are to be found in the chilling cackle of that black-and-white clown.

Connections: The nameless figure that inhabits Jordan Black’s nightmares instantly evokes Pennywise, the monstrous, clown-faced antagonist of Stephen King’s It (1986).

Trances in Total: 6 (1:00)

Gore Score: 1/10

Second Sight: "Gehenna"

“Gehenna” (1 November 1996)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: David Nutter
Editor: Stephen Mark

Quote: “You've seen it, haven't you? Seen the hideous face... Seen the red rain falling in the face of the beast. I’ve seen it too. I know why you’re afraid.” --Frank Black


Overview: While the visions of “Pilot” focused exclusively on victims, offering us strobe-lit portraits of immolated men and blood-soaked women, the rapid-fire visuals of “Gehenna” are clearly more concerned with examining the episode’s demonic killer. Given the storyline, nothing could be more appropriate. An admittedly confused Frank Black spends much of this episode grappling with uncertainty regarding the true nature of evil and the profiler’s dilemma is represented in his trademark flashes of insight. When Frank imagines the face of cult leader Ricardo Clement, clenched teeth and unblinking night-vision goggles are at once swapped for the gaping maw and doglike snout of a winged demon. For the first time in the series, Millennium offers the viewer a tantalizing glimpse at the snarling, bestial face of the demonic presence that would come to be known as Legion. This single, perfectly realized blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visual is so distinctive, so disturbing, so unshakably memorable that it would come to be used throughout the series to identify the presence of true evil.

While these hellish visuals could be tied to Frank’s mounting uncertainty, they also serve to heighten our own uncertainty regarding the true nature of his unique abilities. Does Frank see the face of Clement as that of a demon because his personal understanding of evil is changing, or is the cult leader truly acting as the embodiment of otherworldly forces? The riddle is furthered somewhat in “Gehenna” by Frank’s professional colleagues, the trio of Millennium Group operatives who aid him throughout his investigation into the activities of Gehenna International. Silently, in sidelong glances or quizzical stares heavy with meaning, Peter Watts and Mike Atkins tell us a great deal about Frank’s exceptional talents. Without the issue ever being raised aloud, we are left with the distinct impression that the intuitive faculty that Frank Black possesses--whatever its origin or purpose might be--is entirely unique, far beyond the talents and training of even his esteemed mentor. The Millennium Group, it is subtly implied, may understand or appreciate Frank Black’s keen perceptive talents better than he does.

Connections: Bob Bletcher recalls the detailed description Frank gave for his gift in “Pilot.” Frank discovers an apt identification for the winged, bestial figure that dominates his visions by consulting a biblical passage, Matthew 25:41: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’”

Trances in Total: 7 (0:20)

Gore Score: 8/10

Second Sight: "Pilot"

Last week, Adam Chamberlain performed an act of televisual profiling by offering us a glimpse inside the mind of a serial killer with What the Killer Sees. This week, I am proud to introduce a companion to his bi-weekly column: Second Sight. Millennium lingers in the minds of its faithful viewers in part because it left us with many enduring enigmas, mysteries that are discussed and debated still today. Chief among these is the true nature of Frank Black’s extraordinary gift. Was our peerless forensic profiler employing a brilliant but purely intellectual deductive skill? Or was there something miraculous, something inconceivable, about his astonishing insights? Identifying connections as well as discrepancies, statistics as well as disputes, Back to Frank Black’s newest regular column is concerned with confronting these lingering questions. On alternating Fridays, episode-by-episode, Second Sight will endeavor to offer viewers a fresh perspective on Frank Black’s mysterious talents by investigating the inner eye of Millennium’s visionary hero...


“Pilot” (25 October 1996)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: David Nutter
Editor: Stephen Mark

Quote: “I see what the killer sees... I put myself in his head. I become the thing we fear the most... I become capability. I become the horror, what we know we can become only in our heart of darkness. It’s my gift. It’s my curse. It’s why I retired.” --Frank Black


Overview: One of many stunning stylistic elements that separate Millennium from earlier crime dramas--indeed, one of the show’s trademark hooks--is to be found in the attempt to offer a distinctive visual representation of the hero’s deductive methods. “Pilot” takes full advantage of this device by offering us a string of gruesome, sometimes symbolic montages representing the unique vision of both the Frenchman and Frank Black. Whilst they often serve to illustrate the particulars of the crimes that have been committed, these visceral sequences are also undeniably surreal, immediately evoking the supernatural sensibilities already associated in the minds of the audience with creator Chris Carter.

As a result, the script for the episode goes out of its way to defend Frank’s so-called facility as purely intuitive or intellectual. In what is undoubtedly the show’s best-remembered monologue, our favorite criminal profiler emphatically insists that there is nothing psychic about his deductive feats. Carter has repeated this mandate on countless occasions. In his audio commentary for the episode, the show’s creator describes Frank Black as a man “who doesn’t necessarily have an in-born gift but something he has developed through his hard work with catching criminals, seeing how they operated, knowing them, and ultimately being able to see like them.” For the Millennium devotee, “psychic” is a dirty word.

From the very start, however, there exists an undercurrent of the miraculous that troubles our understanding of Frank Black’s extraordinary gift. At least two specific aspects of “Pilot” leave us wondering about the true extent of Frank’s mental talents. Firstly, there is his refusal to use his eyes as he repeatedly turns down opportunities to personally view the bodies of murder victims hidden by tarps or body bags. (It is this quirk that prompts a coroner to glibly dub our hero “the man with the x-ray eyes.”) Then there is the Frenchman, who, in the midst of his ravings, instinctively insists that he shares a sort of apocalyptic power with the retired lawman who has hunted him down: “You can see it, just like I do. You know the end is coming.” Should we simply shrug this off as a tirade from a murderous madman? Or is there something unusual, something unavoidable, about the implied prophetic connection between the two? Is there more to the hero’s gift than meets the eye? Millennium’s exceptional pilot episode, like so many of those installments that would follow, raises just as many questions regarding Frank Black’s gift as it seemingly answers.

Connections: The blood-and-fire visuals associated with the Frenchman’s point-of-view are inspired by evocative imagery to be found in “The Second Coming” (1920) by William Butler Yeats and the biblical Book of Revelation. Frank’s attempt to describe the precise nature of his abilities recalls “Heart of Darkness” (1902) by Joseph Conrad, a novella that explores the capacity for darkness inherent to the human heart. Whoever Fights Monsters (1992) by Robert K. Ressler and Mindhunter (1995) by John E. Douglas--both men who served as models for the character of Frank Black--offer insight regarding a factual approach to the psychological profiling of serial killers.

Trances in Total: 5 (0:20)

Gore Score: 9/10