2x19 Anamnesis
Millennium (1996)
2x19 Anamnesis, written by Erin Maher, Kay Reindl and Michael R. Perry, directed by John Peter Kousakis.
This is the only episode without Frank Black. Catherine and Lara Means are on the case, another mythically packed story.
Catherine has been called in by an old school friend, now vice-principle at a parochial school. Five girls have been seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Lara is sent by the Group who have been monitoring certain people for many lifetimes.
Lara says the visions are of Mary Magdalene and we get a compressed Da Vinci Code plot years before those books were published, although the ideas had been written about before: Gnostic texts, the Grail legend, and the Merovingians protecting the female bloodline of Jesus and Magdalene down to the present.
Many think the girls are spoofing, but then everyone sees the glowing apparition. We have reflections on jealousy: why should the unworthy be given such gifts?
quote
Catherine: You've seen this before – working with The Millennium Group?
Lara: No. I've seen. That's why the Group wants me. That's why they want Frank. I've had the experience my entire life. But not like this, not like Clare. She seems to understand what's happening to her, who she is. I envy her strength, as I fear my growing weakness.
Catherine: Will Frank grow weaker?
Lara: What Frank sees is also different. He uses his ability and manipulates it to see evil, to feel it. I never know where evil lies, only that it exists. Don't leave him alone, Catherine. These visions are so isolating. Lately, they seem to prey on my loneliness, driving me to an inevitability.
And if it's true for me, then it will be true for Frank - unless you're there.
We end with Lara sitting alone, ignoring the Group pager.
Notes:
"Anamnesis" = "a recalling to memory" which I thought was another literary sounding title without specific application to the story, but according to the wikipedia: "In Plato's theory of epistemology, anamnesis refers to the recollection of innate knowledge acquired before birth. The concept posits the claim that learning involves the act of rediscovering knowledge from within oneself." So maybe it fits.
The featured music is Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot", which I've heard in other programs since. We open with the girls dancing around a woodland shrine to the Black Virgin.
When we first meet young Clare she turns and looks right into the camera, breaking the fourth wall.
Clare knows about Jordan and Catherine's kidnapping. She recites some of the same verses as the kidnapper.
She knows about Lara's angel, and how he has been absent. Lara sees the Magdalene in her rear-view mirror.
The "Family" watching over Clare are the old Merovingians who split from the Group centuries ago. There is tension between the groups but I am not sure they are actually at odds.
A Family member is a teacher at the school: "Fisher", as in Fisher King.
Lara is always playing with a cigarette. Sometimes she smokes one.
Again she hears the apocalyptic sounds and great beast roaring.
Writers Erin Maher and Kay Reindl wanted to call this the "Easter episode" but admitted that would be pushing it too far.
Gwynyth Walsh, who plays the school's vice-principle and Catherine's old friend was "B'Etor", one of the Duras sisters in Star Trek: Generations (1994) and other Trek titles.
