When a serial killer whom Frank helped send to jail vanishes from his hospital bed after surgery, Frank is drawn into a game played on a far bigger stage than he ever imagined - one that will reach too close to home. Find out more in our recap of "Lamentation".
- Chris Carter is aboard ship to write this week, so we already know something big is afoot!
- Directing for the third time is Winrich Kolbe.
- The doctor about to perform surgery is played by Andrew Airlie. He played Scully’s date Rob in “The Jersey Devil”.
- The creepy patient - Dr. Ephraim Fabricant - is played by Alex Diakun. He appeared in “Humbug”, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’”, & The X-Files: I Want To Believe.
- Fabricant has a vision of the nurses he killed while he becomes unconscious. It reminds me a lot of Luther Lee Boggs’ walk to the gas chamber in “Beyond the Sea”.
- The Marshall doing a pretty bad job here in this scene is played by Kurt Max Runte, he appeared as minor characters in “Patient X” and “Tempus Fugit”.
- I always expect The X-Files theme to start playing at the end of this episode's cold open thanks to Mark Snow's classic “scurrying” scoring. Instead we jump to this week’s quotation, an old English proverb.
- Frank is adding to the collection of ridiculous sunglasses he began last week in “Walkabout”.
- I’m supposed to believe that in 1997 Frank was able to get bleeper service on top of a mountain? I'd be lucky to get that today.
- Introducing Frank is Special Agent Tom Babich played by Michael David Simms. He played FBI agents in five different episodes of The X-Files: “Ascension”, “Anasazi”, “The Blessing Way”, “Avatar”, and “Herronvolk”.
- “Dr. Fabricant told me as a boy he used to slit the stomachs of neighborhood cats, turn them loose, just to see how long they'd live.”
Fabricant’s history with cats is probably based on serial killer H. H. Holmes whose “experiments” on cats are best forgotten.
- That isn’t David and Gillian walking down the stairs of the FBI building, those were their doubles. It’s a fantastically subtle nod that cements that the two shows exist together within a shared universe.
- “Peter, what are you doing here?”
“I knew that you'd get the call on this and I anticipated what it would do to you.”
Peter is unabashed in showing his concern for Frank, he’s still in a slightly shaky place after recent events.
- The scenes with Ephraim recovering in his bed remind me somewhat of John Barnett in “Young at Heart”.
- Lucy Butler is played by Sarah-Jane Redmond, she appeared in “Aubrey”, “Schizogeny” and The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
- “Did we catch you working?”
“No.”
“I saw the computer on.”
Peter assumes that the presence of a laptop means Lucy was working, it’s easy to forget how uncommon they still were.
- Classic 90's email graphics and sound effects. Millennium is a treasure trove of computer nostalgia.
- If you know your Bible well and remembered a key fact from a very early episode, this email alone is enough to set your heart pounding. Ezekiel 19.10: Frank’s home address.
- “Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Frank, I know the sound of your voice.”
Frank hangs up on Catherine with no explanation after scaring her half to death. If my husband did that I’d Homer-throttle him.
- The pathologist is played by David MacKay. He played the young husband in “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”.
- This FBI “war room” is much colder and more stark than the ones we see on The X-Files. What happened to all the nice wood panelling?
- “Lucy, there's a lot of things you didn't tell us about your personal history.”
“You never asked me.”
Lucy already seems suspicious, her evasion around these questions makes her doubly so.
- “Someone took out his other kidney!”
Well that’s not going to do him much good, but how could the doctor tell just by looking?
- This is the most invasive we’ve seen a case become for the Blacks. Mulder and Scully frequently dealt with their work following them home but outside of the polaroids this is new territory for Millennium.
- The flashing lightning outside somhow adds to the drama without coming across as cheesy.
- "There was a sick little joke. 'A. Nephric'. 'Anephric' is a term that means 'without kidneys.'"
The number on the patient ID bracelet is Frank’s home phone number. - The use of a kidney as a message is based on the “From Hell” letter sent to police by Jack the Ripper.
- “Looks like somebody turned the power off to your house, Frank. The rest of the neighborhood seems okay.”
The Yellow House no longer feels like the sanctuary it has represented all season.
- “He hung up.”
Frank is indignant at getting a taste of his own medicine.
- Bob why the hell aren’t you taking backup in there with you?
- The symbolism from this week’s quotation becomes a whole lot more literal.
- The camera angles and the choice of lighting throughout this scene are fantastic.
- RIP Bob Bletcher. The first recurring character to pass on the show. To quote the doctor earlier in the episode, “it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy”.
- There’s something symbolic about Frank sitting alone in the war room on the phone.
- “Who did this to you?”
“The base sum of all evil. The sleep of reason. The Devil's liege.”
“The Sleep of Reason” was an 18th century etching portraying a man “bedeviled by creatures that prowl in the dark”. A liege is a subject, a loyal follower.
- “Everything you hold sacred... Frank. Run. Run.”
- “I got to get out of here for a minute.”
Giebelhouse has always been able to lighten the mood. It’s hard to see him so serious with no sarcastic one-liners to share.
- “I’m not the person you think I am.”
That’s saying something!
- Frank walks away from Lucy, parting the crowd like Moses parted the Red Sea.
- “You're angry with me.”
“It's not anger. I don't know what it is.”
This is the first time we’ve ever seen conflict between Frank and Catherine. - “I love you too. But it's not about that. It's about things that happen to us that don't happen to other people.”
When Mulder and Scully went through tragedy at the hands of their work, they were in it together. Catherine isn't involved with the Millennium Group, she sees the darkness of Frank's life as an invading force within the Yellow House.
- “I wanted you to see the view. Look.”
“I like it.”
“It's the one thing in life that will never change.”
A gorgeous ending scene. This episode changed a lot of things and life for the Blacks can never return to how it was before. Franks needs assurance that some things have stayed the same.
Screencaps courtesy of Chris Nu.