1x19 Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions
Millennium (1996)
1x19 Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions, written by Ted Mann and Harold Rosenthal, directed by Thomas J. Wright.
quote
Paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just a form of love.
-- Charles Manson
We open with Frank witnessing a murder. A scruffy young man, reciting the names of angels, kills a well-dressed man in a parking lot. Was it a gunshot or a bolt of lightning from his palm? Frank sees it both ways but the gun remains.
Then the flashback where we learn who these people are.
A satanic murder is so over-supplied with implements that Frank thinks it is a trap for the Group, and specifically for him. Some force is manipulating everyone involved. Peter sees an apparition.
This is a continuation of the previous episode; the cases are tied. Bletcher's death is still raw and Frank does not want to return to work, but Catherine pushes him to do it. She is wise enough to know he must do it. And yet when the suspicious lawyer goes to their house she gives Frank significant looks: we can't have this.
Frank dreams of Bletcher, trying to speak with his throat cut. We get a glimpse of Lucy Butler. The devil is a shape-shifter.
Richard Cox is excellent as the defense lawyer, changed since a near-death experience six months earlier. He is obviously an agent of Evil, but can taunt with a smile because we can't prove it, or aren't allowed to believe it.
He jokes that his name "Alistair" has unfortunate connotations, meaning Aleister Crowley. He offers Frank a sweet deal and safety for his family. They always get at him through his family.
The scruffy young man is "Sammael", another angel name. I wonder about this: are forces of supernatural evil easier to put into fiction that those of good? He is not glorious, just ordinary, although he alludes to mysteries:
quote
Sammael: You have a unique perspective.
- Frank: All along my question has never been 'How?' or 'Who?'
- but 'Why?' Why did you act? Why stop Pepper?
Sammael: His own actions made it possible.
Frank: The murders? The baby-sitter? Mike Atkins?
Sammael: No. His future actions. He would not have stopped with Atkins.
Frank: My family?
Sammael: You must understand -- you were not saved. He was not prevented from doing harm to anyone. He suffered the consequence of his own error. Any benefit to you, to your family, was incidental.
Frank: What you did, had nothing to do with me.
Sammael: No. There's not that kind of action... I know you grieve deeply at the loss of your friends.
Frank: Yes.
Sammael: We weep for ourselves... Don't worry about me. What happens here can only pain me, not harm me. Good-bye, Frank.
Frank: I would like to talk to you again sometime. Another time.
Sammael: I'm sorry. You have no idea how painful it is for me to be here.
Then Peter, reporting Mike's last worlds: "He said you should love your family as much as you can and be prepared for the possibility that it may not be enough". Frank: "It has to be enough".
We hope so, Frank.
Final appearance of Robin Gammell as Mike Atkins, a Group member and old friend of Frank. Which is dangerous.
