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Summary:
Eight months following the fade of the Marburg virus that killed
Catherine, Frank and Jordan find themselves in Washington, D.C. Frank
struggles with Jordan's avoidance of her grief, Catherine's bitter
father, and his new supervisor at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When the case of a plane crash full of identical blonde women
seems to hold connections to the Millennium Group and other Marburg
mysteries, Frank decides to join Special Agents Emma Hollis and Barry
Baldwin in investigating.
Season Three on DVD
Synopsis:
Inside a dark house, an elderly woman, her eyes an almost
supernatural color of blue, lies on a daybed, her body
connected to a filtration machine. The old woman whispers
the words, "it has begun," causing an Attendant to clasp the
woman's hand in her own. Meanwhile, aboard a jet airplane, a
Fair-Haired Woman, who has facial features similar to those
of the Attendant's, and who possesses eyes much like those
of the elderly woman, makes her way to a lavatory. She
retrieves a handgun hidden inside a towel dispenser. A
lavatory smoke alarm sounds in the forward galley, alerting
a stewardess (who bears a resemblance to the Fair-Haired
Woman) to possible trouble. But when the stewardess
confronts the Fair-Haired Woman, she suddenly grabs the
revolver and fires shots into the ceiling. The force of the
vacuum sucks the Fair-Haired Woman out of the plane.
Frank Black and his daughter,
Jordan, have relocated to Falls Church, Virginia. Frank undergoes an
FBI psychiatric evaluation. As Dr. Luanne Chase listens, Frank insists
that Catherine and everyone else who died as a result of the outbreak
were murdered. He also states that he is anxious to return to work.
Meanwhile, FBI, FAA and NTSB
investigators comb through the wreckage of the down airliner. The
investigation is headed by FBI Agent Barry Baldwin, an ambitious man
who has never been in charge of such a large-scale case. Amongst the
other members of the team is FBI Agent Emma Hollis, an attractive
woman in her late 20s. She discovers the body of the stewardess.
Shortly thereafter, the revolver is discovered embedded in the soil.
Frank begins experiencing
visions of the plane crash. He telephones Assistant Director Andy
McClaren at the FBI Academy. He states that he is unable to rid his
mind of the disaster, partially due to the number of children on board
(twenty-three in all). Frank makes his way to the crash site, where he
meets Baldwin and Emma Hollis. Emma reveals that the stewardess's
fingerprints were found on the handgun. According to Emma, Baldwin
believes that the stewardess was a disgruntled employee who smuggled
the gun on board and sabotaged the jet. Shortly thereafter, Frank digs
through a section of the lavatory, unearthing a cigarette butt from
inside a sink trap. He notes pink lipstick on the filter. Frank
suspects that someone else was inside the lavatory. He takes special
interest in a DMV photo of a blond woman named Deena Bartus. He
compares Bartus' photo to that of the stewardess, and notices a
distinct resemblance. Emma points out that both women lived in Salt
Lake City, Utah.
Meanwhile, a woman who bears an
exact resemblance to the stewardess drives up to a house listed as
Deena Bartus' address. The woman lifts a two-year-old girl from the
backseat of the car and makes her way inside the house. Suddenly, the
structure is ripped apart by a violent blast. Frank travels to Utah
when he is informed of the explosion. The little girl died in the
blast, but the female victim managed to survive. Frank and Emma
discover a trap door that leads to an underground shelter. Inside is
an array of survival supplies, along with two hermetically sealed
transport caskets, one for an adult and one for a child.
Frank returns to the FBI
Academy. He tells McClaren that victims of the viral outbreak (the
same outbreak that killed Catherine) are inside the caskets. McClaren
fails to see how the outbreak, the plane crash and the house explosion
are connected. Nonetheless, bio-suited FBI agents unseal the caskets.
To Frank's disappointment, they are empty. McClaren instructs Frank to
return home. Frank receives a surprise visit from Emma. She believes
that the female victim of the house explosion has the answers they've
been looking for. The pair travel to the hospital. There, Frank
questions the woman, Mary, about the explosion and the incident aboard
the plane. She explains that her sisters, and their children, were the
real targets of the outbreak. Mary gives Frank and Emma the name of
the location where the last living child can be found.
Emma and Frank travel to a rural
farmhouse. But moments before they arrive, a woman who resembles the
stewardess drives off with a two-year-old girl strapped into the car
seat. Emma and Frank spot the pair and give chase. As the woman drives
onto a bridge, another vehicle begins to pass her. A truck driver in
the opposite lane slams on his brakes, and the rig begins to
jackknife. The woman panics and loses control of the car. It comes to
rest on the edge of the bridge, where it dangles precariously. Frank
attempts to save the woman and the little girl. But the woman insists
that the girl not be touched. She raises her hands off the steering
wheel, and the car plunges over the side of the bridge. Frank then
notices three men near the end of the bridge, observing from afar.
Frank runs towards the men, but they enter their car and drive off.
TO BE CONTINUED
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Photographs:
- Frank and Emma inspect the wreckage
- Frank and Emma question Mary
- Emma Hollis surveys the crash site
- Frank and Assistant Director McClaren
- Frank observes crash related evidence
- Frank and Emma consider the details
- Frank and Emma discuss the case
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Abyss Rating:
(3/5)
Media Review:
"If Brimstone could use more complex plots to bolster its
stylishness, the current version of Millennium needs exactly
the opposite... The season premiere was a dull workhorse that labored
to unsort everything that had gone on during last season's enjoyable
but often-incoherent flurry of mysticoapocalyptic boogie-woogie. But subsequent episodes have been better
— the most consistently good run of Millenniums, in fact, ever."
—Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly
Trivia:
Once again, Millennium's
creative team and its approach to storytelling shifted with the start
of a new season. Writer/producers Glen Morgan and James Wong departed
at the close of the show's second season. In the third season of the
series, longtime Millennium writer/producer
Chip Johannessen advanced to the level of
executive producer along with Michael Duggan, who had previously
worked on shows such as Law & Order, Earth 2, and
C-16: FBI. Series creator Chris Carter,
who had remained uninvolved with Millennium throughout the
second year as he focused on The X-Files, vowed to take on a
more hands-on approach to the show's continuing development.
The dramatic, apocalyptic conclusion of
the second season finale proved a challenge for the show's staff once
the series was renewed by the Fox network for a third season. Among
those decisions to be made were choices concerning Lance Henriksen's
co-star on the series, the location of the show's stories, and the
format of each new episode. Chris Carter explained the chosen approach
by stating, "The
show has grown and in the second season there were some new directions taken, but with the death of Catherine we were forced to
find a new and credible way to tell our stories. So, we brought in Klea
Scott, changed the location to Washington D.C. and sent Frank Black back
to the FBI. This gave the show the 'franchise' I'd avoided originally,
so in approach it's true to its roots but it must also be true to the
realities of the characters' lives."
Carter notes that actress Klea Scott, who
assumes the starring role of Special Agent Emma Hollis in this
episode, was chosen because of her ability to bring desirable
qualities to the role, specifically "her
poise, her acting ability, her believability in the role of FBI agent...
[Klea] could portray a woman who would work well as a student of Frank
Black's without making it seem like an obvious opportunity to create
any sexual tension. We wanted to avoid the criticism that we were
stealing from The X-Files."
New executive producer Chip Johannessen, commenting on
the show's shifting direction, revealed that he understood it was
important for the series to grow but noted that he didn't entirely
agree with all that was done to change the show during its second year. "I think it was good to open the show up a little in terms of
its tone," Johannessen said. "To my taste, some of the stuff became
much more adolescent, and it changed the center of gravity a little
bit, but it did open up the show."
Former executive producers Glen Morgan and
James Wong admit to not paying much attention to Millennium
after leaving the show's staff. On the creative direction of the third
season Morgan commented, "I would have stuck with the 'we're hurling
towards the year 2000' idea. It was the only show on TV dealing with
that, and I don't understand why they got away from it. You know, when
I did that second year there was so much material about that, we
didn't even scratch the surface." Asked what he thought of the show's
third season, Wong commented, "I didn't watch any episodes, basically.
So, maybe in a way that's telling you what I think of it."
The third season premiere brought with
it an updated and altered variant of the show's opening credits
sequence. The show's tagline was changed from "this is who we are, the time is near"
to "wait, worry, the time is near," a number of new images were
added to the sequence, and Klea Scott's name and face took the place
Megan Gallagher's. Millennium's opening titles changed with every new
season.
Lance Henriksen and Klea Scott recorded an
audio commentary to accompany this episode for Fox Home
Entertainment's DVD release of Millennium: The Complete Third
Season.
Death Toll:
26+
Title:
The episode's title
references those that the gifted clones of this two-part episode are
striving to protect from the sinister intent of the Millennium Group:
their children. The episode shares its title with the 1961 film The
Innocents, a horror movie remembered as one of the great haunted
house house stories, based on Henry James' classic novel The Turn of the Screw.
Starring:
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Brittany Tiplady as Jordan Black
Klea Scott as Emma Hollis
Peter Outerbridge as Barry Baldwin
Stephen E. Miller as Andy McClaren
Guest Starring:
Maxine Miller as Justine Miller
Ken Pogue as Tom Miller
Katy Boyer as the Attendant Woman
Doris Chillcott as the Elderly Woman
Garvin Cross as the Truck Driver
Frances Flanagan as the Nurse
Barry W. Levy as Passenger
Garry Nairn as NTSB Investigator
Francoise Yip as Stewardess #2
Production
Credits:
Production #6C01
Music by Mark Snow
Production Designer Mark Freeborn
Director of Photography Robert McLachlan
Associate Producer Jon-Michael Preece
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 Chip Johannessen
Executive Producer Michael Duggan
Executive Producer Chris Carter
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