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Summary:
A serial bomber terrorizes
Washington D.C. in the hopes of becoming a glorified hero, bombing
buildings before then rushing in to save the victims. Frank Black
joins a specialized FBI team to help catch the madman, whose
attention-starved personality may be the key to his undoing.
Season One on DVD
Full Transcript Available
Quote:
"I am responsible for everything... except my very
responsibility." —Jean-Paul Sartre
Synopsis:
Sitting inside an upscale Washington D.C. pub, Raymond
Dees is immersed in fantasies of death and destruction. He leaves the pub
and finds a nearby pay phone. Dees dials 911, but says nothing. He merely
punches in the numbers 522666.
Avidly watching the pub from the parking garage across the
street, Dees masturbates, timing his release to the moment he knows will come.
Inside the bar, the bomb he planted explodes. The concussion is enough to knock
him backwards.
At home, Frank sees the resultant chaos live on TV, and begins
to pack his bag. He knows the group call him. Back on TV, police and civilian
volunteers dig in the rubble for victims. One of the rescuers is Raymond Dees.
Frank and Peter Watts
fly to DC, joining a multi-agency task force led by career FBI agent Jack
Pierson. At first assuming the bombing is political, Pierson plays
tapes of the terrorist groups that claimed responsibility. Frank discounts
all of them until he hears the coded message left by Dees. When Frank hears
the numbers, he matches them with the corresponding letters on phone buttons. KABOOM.
Visiting the crime scene, Frank sees the moment of detonation
just as Dees had imagined it. He realizes that although the bomb was
professional, its placement was not. Pierson follows as something draws Frank to
the nearby parking garage. They find the evidence Dees left behind as he watched
- a semen soaked tissue in a trash can.
Realizing Frank seems to have a unique understanding of the
bomber, Pierson relies on him to run the investigation. Frank informs a meeting
of the task force that the bomber will obsessively follow their investigation,
and has the technical know-how to listen to every radio and cell phone
transmission they make. So Frank and Pierson set a trap. The only one allowed to
use a cell phone will be Frank.
As Frank has predicted, Dees is able to eavesdrop on them
electronically. He monitors Frank's cell phone, figuring Frank must be a member
of the task force. He calls Frank and leaves the message: 522666. Contact. Frank
knows Dees is hooked and will call again.
As the team attempts to trace the call, Dees phones Frank and
boasts of his next bombing, daring the police to catch him. Frank notes that
Dees calls himself "a star," and adds that if Frank catches him he too will be a
star. Dees hangs up before the task force can pinpoint his exact whereabouts,
but they are able to get the frequency and sector grid of his location.
That night, Dees calls Frank and punches in "522666" every 15
minutes. Frank thinks he's trying to keep them off base and knows he's planning
something. When the next call comes in, it's not Dees: it's Catherine, worried
because she hasn't heard from him. Frank gets her off the phone, and returns her
call on a land line. Dees phones in again, after having monitored Frank's brief
conversation with Catherine. Frank takes the call, forgetting to hang up with
Catherine. Still on the land line, Catherine listens, a frightened voyeur, as
Frank gets inside Dees' mind and enters his chaotic and violent world. Dees
tells Frank to expect another explosion at 9 am the following morning.
With three and one half hours to find the bomb, the
investigators use cell phone data to identify the two block area of shops and
business that might fit the bomber's pattern of attack. But Frank is worried. He
knows the bomber's thrills are wearing off quickly. How far will he now go to
increase his excitement? Frank knows this somehow ties in with Dees' desire to
be a "star."
With fifteen minutes to go, the searchers have found nothing.
Spotting a parking garage across from an office building, Frank recognizes Dees'
pattern. He alerts the cops in time to evacuate the building.
But Dees has misled them. He's planted two bombs, not one. The
first bomb goes off at 8:45. Dees calls Frank's cell phone, informing him that
the next bomb is set to explode. Frank rushes into building to warn those who
remain inside. In the midst of the chaos, Frank reaches the second bomb just as
it's about to blow up. At the moment of detonation, he's rescued from death by a
man who works in the building. Frank doesn't know or see his savior, but it is
Dees himself.
Frank awakens in
the hospital with Catherine at his side. She tells him the man who pulled
him out from building is on TV. Seeing him, Frank realizes they found Kaboom.
But Dees outwits them again. Still monitoring them on his electronic equipment,
Dees is long gone by the time the cops get to his place.
Dees' next and penultimate
move is something even Frank doesn't expect. Just as Frank gets in his
car, Dees calls Frank's cell phone. He implies he's booby-trapped Frank's
car, and tells Frank that he's about to get what he wants, fame. He wants
people to know his name. In Dees' apartment, the cops are listening to
whole conversation on Dees' monitoring equipment. Dees sits in his car
across the street from Frank's. In position, a sharpshooter kills Dees
just as he's about to press the detonation transmitter.
Upon investigation, no explosives are found in either car.
Frank realizes Dees controlled the whole thing from beginning to end, including
the method of his execution. And the media has already begun to spread the name
of the mad bomber gunned down by police — even in death, he's become a star.
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Photographs:
- Catherine visits Frank in the hospital
- Frank Black attends an FBI briefing
- Frank and Peter learn of case details
- Frank searches Raymond Dees' home
- The face of Frank Black
- Catherine sits by Frank's hospital bed
- The Millennium Group's Peter Watts
- Raymond Dees faces an explosion
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Abyss Rating:
(5/5)
Media Review:
"The psychological link between killer and cop is fertile ground for
thrillers, and in '522666,' Millennium does it better than
most. There is a believable sense of the entire FBI machine swinging
into action to solve the case, and the techno-phile bomber's daydreams
of what will happen when his bombs go off are grotesquely beautiful...
It's pretty much a two-handed show, but one of the better stand
alones." —Andy Lane, Dreamwatch
"Entering its fifth episode, Millennium
has begun experimenting with format and protocol, hoping to avoid the
serial-killer-of-the-week label the media saddled it with. Too bad
that all the thrilling components relating to bomb squad activities
are completely thwarted by an overly technical discussion of decidedly
dull issues, like cell phone tracing techniques. Frank’s cat and mouse
with the perpetrator is interesting but grows derivative after a
while. Thankfully, Millennium would barely venture back into
CSI territory, going instead to a good vs. evil, dark vs. light
concentration for the series." —Bill Gibron, DVD Talk
Trivia:
Glen Morgan and James Wong include
in their script another brief nod to their own Space: Above and
Beyond. While Frank is channel surfing early in the episode
we can hear a television announcer comment, "Critics
call it the best new show of the season, Sundays after football." The line is a
reference to the tragic timeslot Fox had assigned to the sci-fi drama series
during the latter half of its single season run.
It has been observed that Glen Morgan and
James Wong's story was likely inspired by the media frenzy that
surrounded Richard Jewell, the security guard falsely accused of
perpetrating the July 27, 1996 Olympic Centennial Park bombing in
Atlanta, Georgia.
Death Toll:
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Title:
The
numerical title, "522666," is serial bomber Raymond Dees' personal
signature, dialed in from a touch-tone phone throughout the episode. Frank Black deduces that on a telephone the digits correspond to those
letters spelling the name "KABOOM."
Soundtrack:
"I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" by X
Starring:
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Megan Gallagher as Catherine Black
Terry O'Quinn as Peter Watts
Brittany Tiplady as Jordan Black
Guest Starring:
Joe Chrest as Raymond Dees
Sam Anderson as Agent Jack Pierson
Robert Lewis as Agent Sullivan
Hiro Kanagawa as Agent Takahashi
William MacDonald as Agent Nolan
Roger Barnes as Agent Smith
Deryl Hayes as Officer Mark Stanton
Mike Killeen as Reporter #2
Ed Striedinger as Agent Mills
Claudine Grant as Agent Wallace
Peter Bryant as Officer Riley
Production
Credits:
Production #4C05
Music by Mark Snow
Production Designer Sheila Haley
Director of Photography Robert McLachlan
Associate Producer Jon-Michael Preece
Consulting Producer Ted Mann
Consulting Producer James Wong
Consulting Producer Glen Morgan
Co-Producer Ken Dennis
Co-Producer Chip Johannessen
Co-Producer Frank Spotnitz
Co-Executive Producer Jorge Zamacona
Co-Executive Producer Ken Horton
Co-Executive Producer John Peter Kousakis
Executive Producer Chris Carter
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