2x04 Monster
Millennium (1996)
2x04 Monster, written by Glen Morgan, James Wong and Michael R. Perry, directed by Perry Lang.
quote
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
-- Henry IV, pt. 2, Act 4, SC 2
The opening epigram is back and the citation is incorrect: should be Henry VI. I can't see the relevance to this episode.
Frank is sent to investigate child daycare abuse. The chief suspect is Miss Penny, the kindly dithering grandmotherly daycare owner, but the camera isolates on Danielle, a little blonde girl who is offered as the Bad Seed / devil child candidate.
A deputy's boy has a bite mark in the middle of his back: "If I tell you, she'll kill me".
During a panic those who do not go along become suspects. When Jordan has an injury, the doctors suggest Catherine suspect Frank. This has to be reported.
Day-care sex-abuse hysteria was big in the 1980s and early 90s, part of the Satanic panic. It was dying down by the time this episode was made.
This is the first appearance of Kristen Cloke as Lara Means who will return throughout the second season. She has a gift something like Frank's, but where he sees demons she sees an angel. She is not comforted by it.
I've always enjoyed Cloke's work, as in Space: Above and Beyond and Final Destination. She is married to Glen Morgan.
Lara is also a candidate for the Group and has met the Old Man, but she and Frank both find the Group's conduct troubling:
quote
Frank: I have no reason yet to doubt Millennium's beliefs.
Lara: But I'm suspicious about the way that they go about it. Are we being prepared or used? Why would they send us here on opposite sides without letting us know?
When they suspect the little girl:
quote
Lara: Here, my gut says, how can anyone know about, yet alone commit, murder at five years old.
Frank: It's happened, more and more.
Lara: Has our culture bred this possibility? Is it violence on TV. Is she Damien? Is this girl some evolutionary mutation? And are there more of these kids, these people, coming?
Frank: Here's my thing, Lara. Recently I've seen, I've experienced evil. It feels like a force, like gravity, like the wind.
These are murky waters. In the real world we don't accuse an abused child of having the devil in her. That's insane. But in the show's mythology it is plausible. The Omen (1976) has the same problem, where the father actually plans to kill Damien.
I thought the same thing when watching The Bad Seed (1956) and Village of the Damned (1960): when did it become acceptable to show children as evil? And why? What are we projecting?
Accused of a terrible crime, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Frank gives his most emotional monologue:
quote
When my daughter was born, it was the most important day of my life. I had a child late in life. She came out, she looked like... Her head was shaped like a football. Looked like she traveled a thousand light years. Her hands were as wrinkled as a 90 year old man's. And everybody in that room got zapped by God, they were all jaded, nurses and doctors, and we were all stoned from the joy of this experience. You remember? And I realized that I'd forgotten that I was born. Thought I'd manufactured myself. And the gift she gave me was that from that day on, I could look at every man and see the child in them.
We don't have a good resolution, but instead considerable tragedy. Frank narrowly escapes charges of child abuse. The deputy refused to go along and has to move out of town. We hear Miss Penny reading "The Three Little Pigs" at the end, so maybe she still has her daycare, but with what students? The prosecutor decides Danielle's parents must be the abusers and they are arrested.
Strangest of all, devil child Danielle is seen in a Millennium Group foster home. What is that about? Just keeping an eye on her? Or going to use her powers?
Notes:
First use of the Group's tagline: "This is who we are".
Lara's tagline: "Here's my thing".
Catherine to Peter: "I feel like I'm meeting with the other woman".
Frank starts listening to Bobby Darin.
Little Danielle giggles at the horrific climax of The Fly (1958).
Her mother's haunted eyes show she knows something's wrong with the girl.
The deputy is played by Chris Owens, who has a continuing role in The X-Files.
The prosecutor is played by Robert Wisden, also in The X-Files.
Finally, a comedy bit with Frank and Jordan:
quote
Jordan: Who does Princess Leia root for?
Frank: Seahawks.
Jordan: Dad, who does Darth Vader root for?
Frank: Raiders.
