On this week's Millennium Monday we take a look at "Wide Open" in which Frank ponders home security, and whether or not the world is as dangerous a place as we believe it is. Read behind the jump to read our recap.
- “Wide Open” was written by Charles Holland. Charles only wrote this one episode of Millennium but he was story editor for 10 episodes during season one.
- Jim Charleston, who previously directed “Blood Relatives”, is directing for his second and final time. He directed four episodes of The X-Files: “Avatar”, “Teliko”, “Synchrony” and “Elegy”.
- The husband and father who appears in the cold open is played by David Neale. He appeared in "Piper Maru" as the guard at the Navy base.
- "Wide Open" deals with similar themes to "Squeeze" and "Tooms" by focusing on our false beliefs around safety. Can we really lock our door and keep the darkness of the world outside?
- This quotation from Job is possibly one of the most upsetting the show has used so far, or maybe that’s just because I have a things about kids in peril?
- Very quickly into the episode it becomes obviously that the case is bothering Frank more than normal. There are obvious parallels between the little girl in the case and Jordan but there's more to it than that.
- It’s more than a little concerning that the police didn’t find a child hiding inside an air vent at a crime scene earlier.
- “Think we’ll put an APB on Elvis just in case” - Elvis makes an appearance on Millennium in a fantastic Mulder-style line.
- Nothing like a good, close-up scene of a moving eye ball to really up the ick factor. Thanks for that production team!
- Patricia is played by Nevada Ash; this is her one and only acting credit. Patricia is named for Patricia Highsmith the author of Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley, and lots more.
- This guy clearly needs his own episode of Hoarders.
- We see our killer snapping a bit of plastic off a VHS tape. I wonder if younger fans seeing this episode will understand what he just did to the tape by doing that?*
- The video tape received by the realtor is one of the more disturbing, as opposed to gruesome, moments from the show. I imagine she needed some fairly extensive therapy after viewing it.
- “You want my permission?” Frank has two distinct relationships with Catherine: work and family. He doesn’t cross those streams.
- Once we find out the significance of the red X’s, Patricia’s drawings suddenly make awful sense. This is another example of the way we assume we are keeping our families safe but can never be sure that’s true. The school crossing guard whom we assume is there to protect our children becomes the danger.
- “We've allowed ourselves to become almost besieged by our own fear.”
“If you're not afraid, you're living in denial. The world's changed.”
Has it really changed, or is it just our perceptions of it that have? Is it significant that Frank and Catherine are having this conversation on the porch of the Yellow House? Can it remain an island of safety in Frank's world or is he deluding himself the same way this week's victims are?
- “Where are we headed from here?”
Frank is living in a world before 9/11, Columbine, and countless other threats to the safety of ourselves and our families. How has the world changed since he spoke to Catherine about this in 1997? Is the world really as dangerous as the people who sell us safety would have us believe?
- The glass table is perfectly positioned for this fall. This is the Acme cartoon school of interior design!
- It’s also interesting to note how cold Bletch is toward this killer. He’s often the comedy relief in his scenes, this is a big change for him.
- “Ladies?” Shifting back to his more usual persona, Bletch is adorable with the girls.
- We end by looking at Patricia’s drawings and remembering Frank & Bob’s words:
“Makes you wonder.”
“Killer’s aren’t born, Bletch.”
Do we all have the potential at birth to become the kind of people Frank hunts? Is it only fate and circumstance that has kept us from that?
Screencaps courtesy of Chris Nu.
*Snapping the plastic tab off a tape protected it so that it couldn’t be recorded over with something else. If you later wanted to re-use the tape for something else you could stick a bit of sellotape over the gap!