|
Summary: Frank Black and Emma Hollis are
forced to consider how many of their cases are truly ruled by conspiracy when a
young girl, put in an asylum after being accused of murdering her parents,
escapes from captivity with the help of a willing Sheriff's Deputy. Are the
girl's rants regarding evolution and constant drawing of crossed palm trees a
sign that there may be a more complex cover-up at work? Or has she, like Emma's
ailing father, simply lost her mind?
Season Three on DVD
Synopsis:
As alarms blare, twenty-two year old Cassie Doyle escapes
from a mental institution and makes her way to a nearby
road. She stops a passing police car and tells Deputy Joe
McNulty that someone is trying to kill her. The deputy
begins to suspect otherwise, but before he can react, Cassie
grabs the gun from his holster and points it at his head.
Meanwhile, an African-American man places several items —
including a headless chess piece and several paper palms —
inside a wooden box and mails it to Emma.
Agent Baldwin is assigned to investigate
the brutal murder of a nursing orderly who worked in the mental hospital
where Cassie was interned. It is believed that the missing Cassie is responsible
for the orderly’s death, as she was convicted of murdering her parents
in 1992. The orderly was decapitated after he was killed, as was Cassie’s
father. In both cases, the heads could not be located. Baldwin and Frank
observe Cassie’s room at the hospital. The walls and ceiling are covered
with writing. A short time later, Baldwin discovers the head stuffed above
white ceiling tile in the men’s bathroom.
Though McClaren had instructed her
to take some time off, Emma returns to the Bureau. She joins Frank in the
conference room, where they review police video of Mr. and Mrs. Doyle’s
murder.
Meanwhile, Cassie forces Joe to drive
away from the hospital. She convinces the deputy that she had nothing to
do with her parents’ murder. She also convinces him that the FBI is out
to kill her. Joe stops his police cruiser when he encounters an FBI roadblock.
To prove her innocence, Cassie hands him his gun. Joe exits his car, then
approaches the FBI agents. When he returns, he instructs Cass to keep her
head down. He passes through the road block and drives off.
Baldwin reviews the facts in the case
for a handful of FBI agents. Using a slide projector, he shows the group
a montage of the ceiling and walls of Cass’s room, which reveals some crossed
palms. He then advances to a slide of the nursing orderly, Roger Cheveley,
who once served in the Army. Emma notices the same crossed palms on Chevely’s
uniform (which is part of a military insignia).
When word of Joe’s disappearance spreads,
Frank tells Emma that the deputy is now siding with Cass. When Emma returns
home, she examines one of the five wooden boxes kept in a drawer. Inside
the box are the paper flowers and headless king. She notices a notch in
one of the flowers, and as she unfolds them, discovers images of different
parts of a human face. When the pieces are assembled, it forms a photograph
of Emma’s sister, Melissa. Emma drives to her father’s apartment. She finds
James Edward Hollis on the living room floor, surrounded by wooden boxes,
chess pieces and bits of paper.
James is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
disease. Emma tells the physician that her sister Melissa was murdered
in the family home when she was ten-years-old. Her father then folded a
photograph of Melissa’s face into flowers. The physician doesn’t quite
know how to respond to this piece of information. But he does tell Emma
to allow her father to rest.
The relationship between Joe and Cass
grows, and Joe rents a hotel room. Dressed only in a shirt, Cass slides
atop Joe. She tells him to close his eyes. As they begin having sex, she
tells him to open his eyes.
The headlights from a passing car throw
the shadow of crossed palms on the ceiling. Meanwhile, Frank finds Emma
inside Cass’s room at the mental hospital. Emma turns on an old desk lamp
and sweeps the beam across the writings on the wall. It becomes apparent
that the words all combine into a drawing of Cass’s face. Frank asks Emma
to perform more research on the dead orderly, Roger Cheveley. Struck by
an idea, Frank then pays a visit to the morgue. He asks a doctor to determine
if the orderly had sex just before he died. The doctor opens the autopsy
report and confirms Frank’s suspicions.
Emma telephones Frank with news
about the dead orderly. Military police had investigated a report regarding Cheveley’s involvement in an alleged rape in Saudi Arabia. But Cheveley
left the Army shortly after the incident transpired and charges were never
filed. Frank concludes that Cheveley had raped Cass. He also believes that
Cass was raped by her father. By cutting off the heads of both attackers,
Cass blinded them. The only remaining clue to the location of Cass’s father’s
head are the crossed palms. Emma discovers a Palm Court Motel only a few
miles from the Doyle’s old house.
Frank locates the motel room where
Cass and Joe are staying. Cass grabs Joe’s gun and, fearful of the FBI,
refuses to surrender. Frank asks Cass if she allowed Joe to see her. She
confirms that she did. But she also insists she would never hurt him. Cass
then makes her way to the bathroom, where she caresses Joe’s severed head.
A SWAT team storms the room, and Cass is taken into custody. As before,
she claims she is innocent. Shortly thereafter, Baldwin recovers the head
of Cass’s father.
Later, Emma receives a phone call from
the owner of a corner grocery store. She finds her father at a photocopy
machine, making copies of photographs featuring wild palms being destroyed
by a nuclear blast. |
Photographs:
- Joe McNulty discovers Cassie Doyle
- A glimpse at Cassie's mad scrawlings
- Emma examines an origami palm tree
- Barry offers his thoughts on the case
- Joe and Cass bond with one another
- Emma discovers a mosaic of her sister
- James Hollis, Emma's ailing father
- The origin of the palms is revealed
- Cassie holds the severed head of her lover
Print Advertisement
Abyss Rating:
(5/5)
Trivia:
"Darwin's
Eye" introduced viewers to
James Edward Hollis, Emma Hollis' ailing father, as portrayed by actor
John Beasley. Emma's father would prove to become an integral
character in Millennium's increasingly complex mythology during
the close of its final season despite appearing in only three
episodes.
Death Toll:
2
Title:
Charles Darwin wrote in
The Origin of Species, "To
suppose that the eye... could have been formed by natural selection,
seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was
first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the
common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old
saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows,
cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous
gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect
can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor...
that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection,
though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as
subversive of the theory." Darwin, although unable to fathom how the
eye came to be through natural selection, admitted the steps in its
evolution surely existed. He believed the absurdity of the eye was
illusionary. It seems appropriate that
Cass Doyle should seize upon the quote considering her own
proclamations, symbols and concepts, conceits which seem absurd to Frank and Emma
until the steps involved in their
construction are revealed.
Soundtrack:
"Trimm Trabb" by Blur
Starring:
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Klea Scott as Emma Hollis
Peter Outerbridge as Barry Baldwin
Guest Starring:
Tracy Middendorf as Cass Doyle
Peter Simmons as Joe Doherty
Alfred E. Humphreys as Sheriff Randall
John Beasley as James Edward Hollis
Lesley Ewen as Dr. Hilary Heath
Kevin McNulty as Dr. Arnett
Alex Zahara as Dane
Kurt Evans as the Clerk
Production
Credits:
Production #6C18
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 Chris Carter
|
