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Summary:
Four vile demons, servants of evil who pose as elderly men, gather for
their nightly meeting in a downtown donut shop and discuss over coffee
and crullers their own personal methods of leading humanity down the path
to hell. During the discussion they come to the realization that they've
all encountered a gifted man who may have seen them for the demons they
truly are: Frank Black.
Season Two on DVD
Full Transcript Available
Synopsis:
After delivering newspapers to
homes in the wee hours of the morning, a man named Abum makes his way to a donut shop. There, the grumpy old-timer angers
a clerk with his irascible attitude. The clerk responds by urinating in
Abum's cup of coffee. Abum makes his way to a table, where he joins three
other men: Blurk, Greb and Toby. As the foursome assume the shape of monstrous
devils, Abum announces that the clerk urinated in his coffee. The devils
share a private chuckle that bubbles over into demonic cackling.
Blurk laments how the current century
lacks characters and personalities. He illustrates his point by recounting
a story in which he met up with a young man, Perry, who had potential serial
killer written all over him. Posing as a hitchhiker in human form, Blurk
befriended Perry, and the pair struck up a conversation about serial killers.
Perry pointed out a little devil statuette on the dashboard of his van,
noting that Johnnie Mack Potter, the most prolific murderer in America,
made it in prison. Blurk revealed that he, too, collected murder memorabilia,
and told Perry that he possessed all the makings of a prototypical serial
killer. He encourages Perry's talent, telling him to play the hand he had
been dealt. Soon after, Perry began killing prostitutes, and eventually
announced his intention to beat Potter's record. Eventually, Perry came
one murder shy of making the record books. However, it was at that point
that Frank Black began closing in on the killer. During the investigation,
Black saw Blurk for the devil he is, something that perplexes Blurk to
the current day. Bored with the killings, Blurk gave authorities a clue
that led to Perry's arrest. Ironically, Perry ended up sharing a cell with
his idol, Johnnie Mack Potter, who proceeded to strangle Perry, and remains
the undisputed king of the serial killers.
Abum then proceeds to tell a
story of his own, insisting devil work is no longer necessary, as mankind
has found a way of doing it all for him. He recounts the monotonous existence
of an everyman named Brock, who repeated the same boring daily routine
day after day. Brock frequented a strip club, which caused Abum to conclude
that men sinned so often that whatever passion first compelled them to
commit such acts had long passed. Eventually, Abum took it upon himself
to tweak Brock's life with a minor irritant (in this case, by assuming
the form of a meter maid). During this particular incident, Frank spotted
Abum's true devil form while parking his car, prompting great interest
from the devils listening to the story. Eventually, Brock threw himself
out a window.
Greb proceeds to recount a story
of his own, one involving a television network censor named Waylon Figgleif.
Waylon believed the weight of maintaining a nation's morality rested on
his shoulders, and because of this, Greb believed that making Waylon's
mind snap was an especially easy task. Greb assumed the form of the Internet/Ally
McBeal baby and ran inside Waylon's office. Waylon concluded the baby was
evidence of his own psychological breakdown, and attempted to censor things
he encountered in his everyday life. The devil baby made yet another appearance
before Waylon, this time encouraging him to kill. Waylon responded by bursting
onto a Hollywood soundstage where two FBI agents were autopsying an alien
body. As a cameraman recorded the action, Waylon opened fire, killing several
of the actors portraying aliens. At this point, Greb snaps his fingers, realizing he, too, spotted Frank as he investigated the incident. Greg
concludes that by damning Waylon's soul, he damned millions of others as the footage captured by the cameraman was broadcast by another network
in a show entitled: When Humans Attack! The other devils react with alarm
when Toby declares that the mystery man (Frank) knows who they are. Toby
then recounts his story. It begins at a strip club, where a naive-looking
first-timer turned and looked at Toby in sheer horror. Toby realized the
boy didn't see his devil form; rather, he saw his own self, his potential
future. Reacting to a particularly vulnerable moment, Toby paid a stripper
named Sally to gyrate on his lap. The pair discovered they were like two
lost souls, and a relationship developed. One night, Sally saw Toby's true
essence, his devil self, as he laid in bed. Sally nonetheless forgave Toby
for his faults. Toby took Sally to the donut shop, where he began to ask
for her hand in marriage. But at the last second, he changed his mind and
ended the relationship. Toby then made his way to Sally's apartment, where
police discovered her body, the victim of a suicide. It was at the apartment
that Frank saw Toby in his devil form. But instead of reacting shocked,
Frank simply said, "You must be so lonely." It suddenly dawns on the other
devils sitting in the donut shop that the description is correct, as they
are all the loneliest creatures on earth. As the foursome leave the shop,
Abum praises the clerk's coffee.
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Photographs:
- A television scene with a familiar cast
- An Uzi armed man in an alien costume
- Greb, the showoff among
the demons
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Greb tells his tale of twisted television
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Toby prepares to relay his startling story
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Frank Black, the one man to truly see
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Toby is amused by the others' stories
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Greb eyes a copy of the Seattle Tribune
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Abum, who torments the everyman
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An actor in costume falls dead
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Greb and Blurk discuss boxing
- Censor Waylon Figgleif
hallucinates
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A promotion for When Humans Attack!
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Abyss Rating:
(4/5)
Media Reviews:
"Darin Morgan strikes
again — and once again, the little-known but reliably
quirky TV writer's aim is true, and truly hilarious...
Morgan shakes up the usually dour series by writing and
directing one of TV's most outrageous hours since the glory
days of Twin Peaks. Morgan, author of the
similarly sarcastic and iconoclastic X-Files and
Millennium crossover stories featuring Charles Nelson
Reilly as author Jose Chung, has concocted another of his
patented, demented wild rides — and this time by largely
ignoring and lampooning the show's star and mood. No
doubt, in the case of tonight's Millennium, the Devil
made him do it." —David Bianculli, New York Daily News
"In
tonight's episode of the Fox series Millennium, four demons sit in a
doughnut shop discussing ways to capture human souls. Dark yet funny, the hour
includes a serial killer, a dancing devil baby, a network censor running amok
— thus becoming fodder for When Humans Attack, a special on the
fictitious ANT network — and a more subtle theme regarding loneliness."
—Brian Lowry, Lost Angeles Times
"Darin Morgan once again re-writes the
rules, and delivers an exquisite episode that could be watched and enjoyed by
people who had never seen the show before. After 'Jose Chung's
Doomsday Defense,' it was clear that his off-kilter scripts for
Millennium would be even more outrageous than his work on The X-Files,
and this one certainly lives up to all expectations... Once you've reveled in
the surface layer of Morgan's story, a darkly cynical continuation of his 'Doomsday
Defense' message (that the only thing we can expect from the millennium is
a 'thousand years of the same old crap') you can only marvel at the episode's
clever construction, both in its narrative format, and in the thrifty re-use
of a small number of common locations (the strip club, the launderette, the
parking bay, and the Donut Hole itself)." —Anthony Tomlinson, Shivers
Trivia:
The
second and final Millennium episode to be written and directed
by Darin Morgan, "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" stands as the most
offbeat episode the series ever produced and it remains an all-time
favorite for many fans. Morgan notes that his goal was to weave a
bizarre and unforgettable story unlike anything typically seen on
television. "I went in to Glen and Jim and said, 'I want to do another
episode, but I want it to be one of the weirdest things you've ever
seen on network TV', and they said, 'Oh, great!'"
Many of the myriad jokes
crammed into this episode were written as humorous jabs at the Fox
network. The segment featuring
Waylon Figgleif, a censor for the
fictional Ant network, was written by Darin Morgan based on his
observations of the Millennium staff's regular confrontations
with the Fox network's own Broadcast Standards and Practices division.
Specifically, Morgan once overheard Millennium writers Erin
Maher and Kay Reindl arguing for hours on end with a network censor.
Much of the seemingly ridiculous dialogue from these scenes
—
including Figgleif's repeated proclamation "I am Broadcast
Standards
and Practices!" — is said to
have been
taken word for word from actual conversations.
The dancing, computer-generated
demon baby that
Waylon Figgleif sees as a hallucination
spoofs the dancing baby seen on Fox's Ally McBeal.
Darin Morgan felt the scenes of Ally McBeal were more
unsettling than much of what Millennium had to offer, stating,
"The fact that she sees that baby and reacts to it the way she does
makes her a more disturbing character than Frank Black. It's a
terrifying thing, that baby. She dances with it, and you go, 'There's
something really wrong with this person.'" The demon baby seen here
was created by Scott Wheeler and the creative team at Area 51, the
effects house responsible for all of Millennium's special
effect needs.
The scene in which Waylon Figgleif attacks
a television film crew features cameo appearances from two
Millennium staffers. Director of Photography
Robert McLachlan and
cameraman Michael Wrinch
can both be observed in the scene, as a director and clapper boy
respectively.
Death Toll:
42
Title:
"Somehow, Satan Got Behind
Me," Darin Morgan's anthology of comedic sketches, offers a glimpse at
the way in which the forces of evil might use everyday occurrences to
establish men as pawns of the devil.
Soundtrack:
"My
War" by Black Flag
Awards:
Bram Stoker Award - "Somehow,
Satan Got Behind Me" by Darin Morgan, Best Horror Screenplay (Nominee)
Starring:
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Guest Starring:
Dick Bakalyan as Abum
Wally Dalton as Toby
Alex Diakun as Greb
Bill Macy as Blurk
Stephen Holmes as Perry
Bill Mackenzie as Brock
Dan Zukovic as Waylon Figgleif
Gabrielle Rose as the Aging Stripper
Michael Sunczyk as Johnnie Mack Potter
Fawnia Mondey as the Stripper
Production
Credits:
Production #5C21
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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