Frank Black faces his past this week in our recap of "The Thin White Line". Read more after the jump.
- This episode is the third written by Glen Morgan and James Wong and is also the third episode directed by Thomas J. Wright.
- The title could be a play on “The Thin Blue Line”; a slang term for the Police.
- The episode opens with some Bee Gees - not music I would necessarily associate with a show like Millennium!
- The killer is played by Scott Heindl. He appeared in "Unruhe" and has two more appearances to come on Millennium.
- Frank looks at his hand and we sense some backstory headed our way...
- The week’s quote is taken from Middlemarch by George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) which takes a broad look at life in rural England.
- Agent Riley is played by the excellently named Ken Tremblett. He appeared in "Darkness Falls" and "Elegy".
- That’s some pretty fancy software for 1997!
- “If any “like anythings” turn up you’ll be the first person I’ll call.”
Bletch gets Frank & knows how his mind works, even he’s vague.
- The store clerk is played by Tom Heaton, he appeared in "Shadows" & "War of the Coprophages".
- “You found it!”
It’s more than a little concerning that an entire forensics team missed that. It’s wasn’t exactly well hidden.
- We can tell how much this case is affecting Frank. He can’t even touch the card, the visions are too overwhelming now.
- Richard Hance is played by Jeremy Roberts. He went on to play George Vincent in "Agua Mala".
- It’s strange to see Frank in uniform and calling another agent “Sir”. We’re so used to his casual approach by now.
- Smeat is a fake brand based on Spam that first appeared in the movie Waterworld. Millennium is its first recorded appearance on TV.
- Since then Smeat has appeared in Beverly Hills 90210, Dawn of the Dead, Supernatural, The Walking Dead, Being Human, & others. There's even a website dedicated to tracking appearances of the product.
- Agent Johnson is played by Allan Harvey. This was his one and only acting credit.
- Agent Clark is played by Mark Holden, he appeared in "Unrequited" and "Kitsunegari" & will return to Millennium next season.
- These hallucinations/visions are played much more subtly that Jim’s were back in “Dead Letters”.
- The overly stylized prison cell Hance is kept in reminds me of others such as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of The Lambs. Apparently we like to keep our most dangerous criminals behind glass rather than bars.
- The warden is played by Larry Musser. He appeared in "Die Hand Die Verletzt", "Jose Chung’s 'From Outer Space'", "Unrequited", & "Chinga".
- I wonder how much Frank has told Catherine about his plans here. How would she feel about this?
- "First though, you wanna make a movie about my life, I want Gary Busey to play me. I think he'd be perfect for the part. Is he still popular?"
Gary Busey was indeed still popular in 1997 and is still working today with six separate projects listed for 2015. - Ally Sheedy - whom Hance wanted to play a girl from his past in his life movie - was the “Basket Case” in The Breakfast Club & a popular actress through the mid-late 80s.
- This whole sequence has a strong feeling of Clarice talking to Hannibal, and the same sensation of lingering danger.
- “Like Ophelia offering herself to Dracula.” In the novel Dracula, Lucy compares herself to Ophelia when suffering from “anaemia”.
- “I ate his fear up like it was a Thanksgiving meal.” The Lecter allusion continues, I half expected him to say “with a nice Chianti”.
- “Give me a reason.” Twenty years later Frank is still waiting for that reason.
- The one scene between Frank & Hance lasts over eight minutes; around a fifth of the entire episode.
- Frank’s nightmare takes on a more surreal twist & in doing so allows us to see the extent to which this case is now getting to him.
- It’s easy to forget this far in that Frank retired from the FBI due to a breakdown. He makes the job seem easy when it’s far from.
- “Twenty years ago I could have killed a cancer, instead I allowed it to spread.”
- Bletch just unwittingly asked Frank to make the very decision he’s been wrestling with.
- The episode draws to its conclusion the way it inevitably would, with Frank forced to relive the nightmare.
- “You are not who you are.”
Anyone else immediately think of "Ice"?
- “How do we get to this place where the only thing we’re good for is notifying the loved ones?”
Frank is in a bad place right now.
- The lights go out and Hance realises what’s happened outside. His reaction suggest that maybe it really was love?
Screencaps courtesy of Chris Nu.