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Summary:
Is it the beginning of the journey
or the end when Frank allows his vengeance for the Polaroid stalker to
push him over the edge during a relentless search
for the kidnapped Catherine? The Millennium Group inducts Frank into its
more secretive ranks in an effort to bring closure to the abduction case,
knowing that his work for them is not yet done.
Season Two on DVD
Full Transcript Available
Synopsis:
The episode opens with
images from outer space, the life of a comet. The same comet
appears in the night sky Frank Black is staring into,
causing him to contemplate his own destiny and the relevance
of the celestial body. In his monologue Frank is considering
the "life" of a comet and it's analogous relationship to our
own existence. Referring to his immediate state, Frank asks,
"is this the beginning or the end?"
As seen in the
previous season's cliffhanger... At the Seattle airport,
Frank carries a sleeping Jordan out to the car as Catherine
waits near the baggage carousel to retrieve their luggage.
Posing as a solicitor, the Polaroid Man approaches
Catherine. Using a hypodermic needle, drugs her and
escorts/drags her to the airport parking lot and then
secures her inside a hidden compartment beneath his
automobile. As a frantic Frank alerts security about his
wife's disappearance, the Polaroid Man gets away. He makes
his way to a high bluff, where he gazes upon the same
two-tailed comet seen in the Teaser. A sheriff on routine
patrol questions the stranger about his activities. The
Polaroid man explains that the comet is an omen pertaining
to the Millennial outcome.
Meanwhile, key Millennium Group
members arrive at the airport having never been contacted by Frank.
After an unsuccessful visit to a roadblock in search of Catherine's
kidnapper, Frank returns home to Jordan. As he sits by her bedside
Jordan assures her father that Angels are in her room. In an intimate
conversation Frank tells Watts and powerlessness. He wonders out loud
what he must sacrifice to have Catherine back safely. Watts relates a
story about a time when he and his wife were attempting to have
another child (Watts had always wanted a boy). One day, Watts was
assigned a case involving a murdered baby boy whose dismembered body
was found inside a cooler. Watts came to believe that if he could find
the child's killer, he would be rewarded with a son. Wanting to uphold
his end of his pact with God, he would not allow his wife to get
pregnant. Today, he has three daughters but still no son. He tells
Frank that he doubts it is possible to sacrifice one thing to get
another. Meanwhile, the Polaroid Man ties Catherine to a support beam
inside his dark cellar.
Watts instructs two Millennium
Group members, Brian Roedecker and Dicky Bird Perkins, to install a
special security system on Frank's computer. Watts explains that Frank
is now ready to receive more sensitive information. This comes as a
surprise to Frank, who thought that he had been privy to all of the
group's files. Watts then tells Frank that the Polaroid Man's interest
in him is due to the Millennium Group's interest in him — but he stops
short of a full explanation.
After exhausting all of his
usual resources and hypotheses in tracking down Catherine's abductor,
Frank realizes that answers to the profile lie within himself. As he
turns from the information about the Polaroid Man to his own personal
history he begins to find clues to Catherine's whereabouts. A series
of numbers flash within Frank's mind. They are the address of a house
his and Catherine's former home. On his insistence police raid the
house but find it abandoned. Frank remains there and eventually
discovers a clue, another Polaroid of another house. Using his
computer, Frank pinpoints the house's location. Unable to organize a
second police raid, Frank sets out to rescue his wife alone, and
armed.
As Frank descends into the dark
basement he finds Catherine hanging from the low ceiling. Before he
can do anything to help her he is blinded by the flash from a Polaroid
camera. He opens fire. The Polaroid Man lunges from the darkness and
stabs Frank in the shoulder. A struggle ensues, the camera is
activated and flashes over and over, documenting the fight. Frank
seizes the knife and drives it into the Polaroid Man again and again,
killing him. Catherine must turn away, as if she does not recognize
her own husband. Later, as she packs her husband's belongings into a
suitcase she tells Frank it seemed as if he had sacrificed something
for the safety of Jordan and herself. She asks for time and distance
to see if it can ever be returned. Frank leaves the house, bags in
hand, and drives off into the night. |
Photographs:
- The Polaroid Man abducts Catherine
- Frank attempts to console Jordan
- Frank in a moment of private grief
- Frank holds Jordan closely
- The Polaroid Man takes a snapshot
- Frank contemplates his violent actions
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Abyss Rating:
(4/5)
Media Reviews:
"[Millennium] is still
pretty hair-raising stuff, but you can now glimpse a grin beneath the
grim end-of-century paranoia.
Thumbs up." —USA Today
"Intense, oblique, cerebral and
disturbing by turns, Millennium is one of the most striking
dramas ever crafted for network television." —The Vancouver Sun
"Picking
up where season one ends, Frank Black's stalker, the Polaroid man, has
kidnapped his wife, Catherine. While searching for his wife, Frank
begins to learn that the Group has not exactly been open with him and
their secrets run a lot deeper than he ever imagined. Building on this
tragedy, season two follows Frank's downward spiral: his strained
relationship with his wife, the loss of his sanctuary the yellow
house, his disenchantment and eventual confrontation with the
Millennium Group, and his struggle to maintain a normal relationship
with his daughter, Jordan, in the face of Armageddon. Season one was
definitely dark and fantastic, but somehow maintained a strong sense
of realism. With Morgan and Wong at the helm, season two further
explores the dark and fantastical, but becomes a lot more surreal, but
no less fascinating." —Rob
Bracco, Amazon.com
"Everything about the first season of
Millennium is present again in big, broad strokes: the hinted-at
mythology, the obtuse mysticism, the insane psychotics and the
reliance on strong characters to carry the story. There are several
potent scenes in this exceptional outing, especially between Lance
Henriksen as Frank and Terry O’ Quinn’s as Peter Watts. They discuss
family life and the concept of understanding sacrifice in a way that
makes you wish they’d continue talking like this for hours. Because
the acting is so special, the characterizations so clearly drawn, the
simple art of conversation carries more weight and wonder than some of
the more extreme serial killing situations... 'The Beginning and The
End' has a nice sense of internal adventure to it, giving us a chance
to learn more about our main players while setting the groundwork for
some certified surreality to come." —Bill Gibron, DVD Talk
Trivia:
It is with this episode that
writer/producers Glen Morgan and James Wong took over regular executive
producing duties from creator Chris Carter. Subsequently,
Millennium was taken in a number of new and previously unexplored
directions. Glen Morgan commented,
"There was too much gore in the first season, and it was for shock's
sake. There was no humor. Everybody wanted to know more about the
Millennium Group. What was Frank's role with them? We needed to
develop Frank. We had a good actress, Megan Gallagher, playing his
wife, and what could we do with their relationship? Where can this
go?"
The duo's first decision concerning the
series mythology, to eliminate the longstanding threat of the Polaroid
stalker, is enacted here.
The second season premiere brought with
it an updated and altered variant of the show's opening credits
sequence. Morgan and Wong changed the show's tagline from "wait,
worry, who cares?" to "this is who we are, the time is near"
and added a number of apocalyptic new images to the sequence. Millennium's opening titles would change with every new
season.
Doug Hutchison, the guest star who at
last puts a face on the menacing Polaroid stalker, is one of the
alumnus frequently tied to writer/producers Glen Morgan and James
Wong. In addition to appearing on The X-Files and
Space: Above & Beyond, Hutchison has gone on to win acclaim in
such feature films as The Green Mile and I Am Sam.
The Polaroid stalker notes that the
scientific name of the Millennium Comet is
P1997 Vansen-West, a designation taken
directly from an episode of Morgan and Wong's Space: Above and
Beyond. The comet was named for that show's protagonists, Lieutenant Nathan West and
Captain Shane Vansen.
The computer password assigned to Frank
by Roedecker and Dicky Bird, "Soylent Green is people," is a line
taken from Soylent Green, a 1973 science fiction thriller
starring Charlton Heston. Likewise, when Roedecker growls, "Get
your stinkin' paws off me, you damned dirty ape," he's reciting
Heston's memorable protest from the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes.
Death Toll:
1
Title:
The Polaroid stalker cites
Revelation 1:8 in tormenting Catherine, "I
am the Alpha and I am the Omega, I am the Beginning and I am the End."
In doing so, he seems to understand the significant juncture his
involvement in Frank Black's life has forced. For Frank, this
story represents significant beginnings as well as endings.
While it is clear that his involvement in the Millennium Group and the
battle against evil is only beginning at this stage, his relationship
with Catherine is brought to a possible end.
Soundtrack:
"Life During Wartime" by the Talking Heads
Starring:
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Megan Gallagher as Catherine Black
Brittany Tiplady as Jordan Black
Terry O'Quinn as Peter Watts
Guest Starring:
Doug Hutchison as the Polaroid Man
Allan Zinyk as Brian Roedecker
Judith Maxie as Finley
Drew Reichelt as Dicky Bird Perkins
Mitch Kosterman as Sheriff
Alan Robertson as the Elderly Man
Norman Armour as the Suited Man
Production
Credits:
Production #5C01
Music by Mark Snow
Production Designer Mark Freeborn
Director of Photography Robert McLachlan
Associate Producer Jon-Michael Preece
Consulting Producer Chip Johannessen
Consulting Producers Darin Morgan
Co-Producer Robert Moresco
Co-Producer Paul Rabwin
Producer Thomas J. Wright
Co-Executive Producer Ken Horton
Co-Executive Producer John Peter Kousakis
Executive Producer Glen Morgan
Executive Producer James Wong
Executive Producer Chris Carter
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