Season Three Episode Reviews

3X1    The Innocents (part 1 of 2) 
Plot: Frank & Jordan move to DC, Frank joins the FBI and his new partner Agt Emma Hollis to investigate a mysterious plane crash involving identical blonde women and children.

I have serious fear about this coming season, but the premier was pretty good.  It dealt with the cliffhanger well, although totally distancing Frank from the Group seems impossible; all of a sudden they don't give a fig about the use of  his gift?  Didn't he agree to work for the Group at the end of "Fourth Horseman"?  Oh well.  The investigation was interesting but surprizingly slow.  This episode was written in everyway like an X-Files episode, and the opening plane wreakage scene was a mirror to the same scene in "Tempus Fugit" of the X-Files.  The investigation went very slowly, sparsed with the occasional explosion or car chase.  Agt Emma Hollis seems an interesting character, but Balwin was just plain annoying.  Unfortunately he's a new regular as well...  The cliffhanger was horrible!  It was so unsuspenseful!

3X2    Exegesis (part 2 of 2) 
Plot:  Frank & Hollis find the truth about the blonde women and come into conflict with the Millenium Group.

This was the most blatant rip off of the X-Files I have ever seen!  One:  the ole' plane crash from "Tempus Fugit".  Two:  the government runs a secret experient to make a human weapon "Eve", "Nisei", many others.  Three:  the two FBI agents track their target to an abandoned missile silo where they have a shootout with the evil men.  C'mon!  Not only this, but this episode invalidates the entire Group history.  Watts was almost killed by the Group for going against them; suddenly he's a regular member again?!  The Group is a Christian sect two thousand years old, based in religious belief.  All of a sudden they're the US conspiracy government!  Cmon!  And yet despite all this the episode was pretty good and interesting.  It was pretty action packed, with an interesting idea about these women who can see the future.  Then again, the whole thing about the butterflies was never explained.  The only thing I can think of is that the women would possess butterflies for their surveillances or somthing like that.  I have a bad feeling this will be my last 3+ rating for many many episodes...

3X3    TEOTWAWKI 
Plot:  A high school shooting spree leads Frank & Hollis to a cult preparing for the techno apocalypse.

Well, here we go.  This was very Season One-ish, but still not too bad.  Carter and Spotnitz, the X-Files mythology writing team wrote this, which shows just what Carter has in mind for this year.  With reports of horrible ratings, I really doubt that Millenium will reach Year Three.  Thanks a lot Carter!  Anyway, the ole' high school horror plot was stupid as usual.  Most of the episode was horrible, except for seeing Geibelhouse again and the concept of a cult preparing for a techno apocalypse because of the millenium bug.  It's an interesting idea, but the episode ends with some guys with four guns shooting at Frank & Hollis.  How is this supposed to compare with the vast Millenium Group and the vast Odessa group?!  It's also nice to see Hollis being more accostomed to working with Frank, but Baldwin is just getting more annoying.  The series has gotten too small, despite the impressive opening two parter.  After all the stunts and explosions last year, how is this supposed to meaure up?

3X4    Closure 
Plot:  Crazy armored spree killers are on the loose, and Agt Hollis is reminded of her sister's murder.

I must admit this was a pretty good 'killer' episode.  I loved those spree killers!  The teaser was really great where they kill a man just for snoring!  And their final shootout with the cops was great!  It was pretty exciting as they were armored so they kept on taking shots but kept on going.  Even the brooding Agt Hollis plot was pretty acceptable, though I have to say the scene where Frank is essentially stalking Hollis on the computer is a little strange.  Very good for a bad premise, I suppose spree killers are more interesting than serial killers!

3X5    Thirteen Years Later 
Plot:  Frank & Agt Hollis investigate mirror murders as a movie is being produced of one of Frank's old cases.

This was a nice parody episode, but still a little on the dark side.  The "Scream" parodies were cute, and I was a little surprised at all the nudity in this episode!  Still the whole movie angle was pretty funny, especially at the beginning when credits appeared for the person they were interviewing.  The pseudo-Frank was pretty funny, and the turn of him being the killer was great.  I also like the teaser where they're spraying fake blood all over the place, like last episode a great way to start off.  The ending sequence with KISS playing while psedo-Frank 'chases' the killer was incredibly shot, and while I don't know much about KISS their appearance did seem to be a big thing thanks to the stellar cinematography.  The ending with Hollis being the last victim was a nice twist, but she acted really stupid.  Why would she waste all her bullets on the chainsaw blade?!  Wait for his face to show up for christ sakes!  Aside from that little turn, the ending was spectacular.

3X6    Skulls and Bones 
Plot:  The discovery of a mass grave leads connections to the Millenium Group.  Frank meets a man who seems to know all about it and Hollis learns about the Group from Watts.

This was a nice episode but it had glaring plot holes and a non-ending that was just inexcusable.  First off, it totally ignores the events of "The Hand of St. Sebastion" where Group member Cheryl Andrews was revealed to be a traitor for some German anti-Group group (was that Odessa?!) and arrested.  Suddenly in this episode she's a back working as a Group doctor!  Cmon!  And plus, her big appearance is a few short flashbacks showing her arrested and killed.  What a disappointment!  I did like the teaser, showing the crazy guy Ed seeing things including a corpse's hand reaching from the ground at him.  The whole mass grave bit was pretty interesting like the plane crash, and it was nice to Watts interacting with Baldwin (who for once doesn't appear to be an asshole!) and Hollis, who isn't sure who to trust.  This episode really makes Frank out to be Fox Muldar, a man so desperate to prove his own theories that he'll take the word of a nutcase if it'll support his theories.  Hollis is now Scully, who needs proof of the evil conspriacy first.  However this episode was just too open-ended.  Hollis finds the slaughter house where the scientists were killed, and a radio starts to play music on a timer.  This was a great cinematic scene, I kept expecting her to get jumped by the killer.  But we never see any killer, just Watts!  As the two of them watch the house get bulldozed, Watts explains the motivations of the Group to Hollis in a very interesting scene.  These scientists were killed because they found out the wrong things, that the Group is the last bastion of defense for America from the rest of the current global chaos.  Unfortunately this once again invalidates Season Two!  The Group is a Christian world-wide organization, but once again Carter is defining it as an American conspiracy!  We never see or catch the killer, so this episode is just too open ended.  Plus, Frank gets into another fight with Generic Evil Group Assassin Man.  I did find the whole Ed plot very interesting, and I think Ed returns in a later episode so that almost alleviates the open-ending of this episode.  The killer was called Pettey; is this a psedo-name for Peter Watts?  I was left with that impression.  A nice episode with big problems.

3X7    Through a Glass, Darkly 
Plot:  A child killer is released from jail and returns to his hometown.  A child disapeers but Frank thinks he's innocent.

Ugh!  This episode had a few redeeming qualities but not much.  The mystery of trying to guess who was behind it was the only thing that kept me interested.  That scene of the girl trying to escape the cellar was a direct rip-off from the third season X-Files episode "Oubilette".  This just a plain ole' boring episode, but at least it wasn't too dark.  Even the ending was pretty crappy, they even wimped out on having the father kill the convict accidently.  Not much else to say.

3X8    Human Essence 
Plot: Hollis' heroin-addicted sister almost gets her fired for mailing her heroin.  Hollis investigates and stumbles onto a Vietnamese drug cartel who is selling damaged goods which gives people reptilian features.

Ugh!  Another looser episode, but this was almost watchable.  This episode has proven to me for once and for all that Hollis is a static uninteresting character; the writers give her diverse background but in the end it' s woman standing in front of the screen with no emotions at all.  Yawn.  Bring back Lara Means!  Oh well... this episode is almost worth watching just to see Hollis get a beating.  This whole reptile heroin thing seemed a little silly and plus it was never explained.  I found this whole plot uninteresting on a whole.  The only watchable bits were Hollis getting kicked out of the FBI and then Frank going to McClaren and Baldwin to investigate, showing their growing working relationship.  We also get hints of an inter-FBI conspiracy here when the DeptJustice mysteriously calls off Hollis' being fired.  Incidently, for all those who are waiting for an X-Files crossover, this episode conclusively proves that it is impossible!  Why?  At one point Hollis walks down a hallway and you can clearly hear Scully and Mulder of the "X-Files" on the TV!  Since we don't see cameras on the X-Files that proves that these two shows exist in different universes!

3X9    Omerta 
Plot:  A mob man gets killed in the forest and later ressuricted by two mysterious women; now kind-hearted he sees to protect them from the mob men who seek to kill him.  Frank and Jordan deal with Catherine's loss.

This episode was nice for a Season Three episode, but it was just a little too wierd.  It wasn't exactly funny, it wasn't exactly dark, it wasn't exactly light, it was this undefinable THING that just seemed to exist.  The Jordan plot was nice but the whole Catherine ressuriction thing seemed to border on bad tastes.  The mobman was pretty funny as his new self though.  Incidentally this is the first episode produced without the new producer, so we can already see The Group and Religion making a much desired return!

3X10    Borrowed Time 
Plot: A mysterious man is connected to a strange series of dry-land drownings, and Jordan is the next victim.

I was disappointed, but it was easily the best since the opening two-parter.  The much hyped return of Samiel the Angel had little to nothing to do with the plot; was that Angel Samiel?  Last time he killed a demon, here he's killing people whose time has run out.  It was a different actor too.  Like Lucy Butler's return in "A Room With No View" the character is doing something completely different.  Still, it was a great episode if not a little confusing/convoluted with its erratic non-linear nature.  The dry-land drownings make an interesting phenominon, and it happening to Jordan was really great.  I like the tie-ins to last season, where the Angel says Jordan was supposed to die in "The Time is Now" but Catherine gave herself to give Jordan more time but that time has now run out, plus Jordan telling Frank she saw Catherine who told her it was choice.  Frank's conversations with the Angel were interesting, and that whole train thing had me really confused until the end but I guess it was supposed to be that way.  Even when the Angel was drowning I was wondering why he didn't just teleport away.  Then I got the really touching ending... the Angel could no longer kill these people so he saved his next victims and sacrificed himself so Jordan could live.  Very touching... since Jordan got bout 6 months of life from Catherine how much will she get from an Angel life?  Immortality?!  Also we see another step in Frank coming to believe in the Angels; when Jordan is dying he's screaming out at the ceiling for God/the Angels to take him instead of Jordan.  All very touching, but the the beginning of the episode was just a tad off.

3X11    Collateral Damage 
Plot:  Peter Watts' eldest daughter Taylor is kidnapped by a Gulf War vet who wants Watts to confess that the Group was behind some Gulf War misdeeds but Watts fears for his life if he did so.

A episode that started off poorly but ended well.  The initial kidnapping scene was interesting enough (mainly because for once the victim can fight back!) but the subsequent scenes where Taylor is stripped and bathed were frankly inappropiate to the show.  Is Millenium now about brutal, perverted T&A?!  It really hurt the integrity of the show.  Frank refusing to work with Watts was pretty interesting, McClaren wasn't so bad this time around.  In this episode Watts has suddenly gone from cliched villian to cliched villian with a conscious (the new direction of the show!), which is a step in the right direction but is now out of place.  The bottom half of the episode was very good; Frank talking to Swan on the radio and sympathizing with him was very good.  It makes Swan actually a sympathetic character while at the same time making the 'bathing' scenes earlier totally out of place for a normal solider.  He's not a pervert anywhere else in the episode!  Tracking down his house/receiveer was nice and exciting.  The final showdown at the real house was good too, with Taylor slowly dying of the Marbarg Variant and Frank trying to talk down Swan and then Watts showing up with Generic Evil Millenium Group Assassins in tow.  I'm confused; how in the hell did Swan first of all get some Marbarg Variant, and second of all the vaccine which only the Millenium Group secretly had, and they only made enough for their members?!  Second of all, Watts actually does admit to the Group testing the Marbarg Variant on Gulf War troops, and the Group doesn't kill him!  We were told that's what would happen!  Once again the Group is made to be the X-Files Syndicate, testing their evil viruses on the unwitting population and having command over the military and were involved in the Gulf War.  Another problem; by Watts admitting to that, he can be arrested since the FBI guys heard him.  He's not Cancer Man, they know his name and where he lives!  Finally, I know Swan loosened the straps some but how in the hell did Taylor (who was dying!) manage to get free?!  And after injecting herself with the vaccine she is miraculously instantly cured, and able to snap Swan's neck in a second!  Please!  But, the final scene where Watts finds he can't even talk to his family anymore is very poignant.

3X12    The Sound of Snow 
Plot: A mysterious woman sends tapes of 'snow' to people, who hallucinate of lost loved ones and soon die.  Frank is next!

A nice episode that wasn't much but worked well with what it had.  The scenes of the tape victims were extremely suspenseful, almost Season Two-ish in their dark reality, especially the one in the teaser.  The following investigation was vaguely interesting but certainly not suspenseful.  The final scene where Frank goes to the Cabin and gets to spend some time with Catherine was very touching, but I am reminded that Catherine was never much of a character.  At least she was true to character; she says "we beat them" because Frank didn't join, unfortunately that is what Catherine was always bitching about in Season Two.  Of course the best thing about this episode are the flashbacks to Season Two!  No, really, that is pretty sad.  But the stuff with Geibelhouse remembering about the plague time was great because we finally see the loose ends from "The Time is Now" wrapped up.  His complaining about the media exaggerating almost  explains how the death toll goes from hundreds to dozens in between seasons.  The best new part of this episode is the flashback scene where Geib is on a med search truck driving through the forest when a dirty Jordan walks out of the forest, and Geib talking about the crazy state they found Frank in.  I wish we could have seen that...  But the last minute twist that the Millenium Group sent the tape to Frank is just ridiculous!  It doesn't even make sense and doesn't follow the previous story at all, for God's sake!

3X13    Antipas 
Plot: Lucy Buttler returns as a nanny for a Senator to torment their family and Frank while she tries to have the child she lost.

Ugh!  Cris Carter sure is full of himself to think this a suspenseful and excellent episode!  This was a surprizingly lame episode, the most disappointing Lucy Buttler episode yet.  But Lucy was about the only good thing about this episode.  The X-Files rehash trend continues: a snake swallows the child (something which has NOTHING to do with the rest of the episode by the way!) from Y2 "Die Hand Die Verzlet" and a popular villian returns with the male hero tormenting the villian so the villian strikes back by covertly framing the hero for attacking the villian in some sick way from Y1 "Tooms".  In an uncanny coincidense, both of these episodes were written by the Wongs, who did last year on Millenium and who Carter is now pissed at!  Furthermore the whole 'romantic' thing where Lucy screws up the relationship is a pretty blatant rehash for the Monica-Bill Clinton affair (especially where Lucy has her head down near his crotch and the wife sees) in addition to that old Drew Barrymore movie "Poison Ivy".  This episode was slow and not scary at all.  Even the stuff in the maze with the dogs was just a little too wierd to be scary.  The ending almost managed to be interesting, but Lucy framing Frank for rape went nowhere (it was a cool way to use her demonic powers though!) it isn't even mentioned later.  This episode once again makes Hollis as a static character who is just another detective on the scene...

3X14    Matryoshka 
Plot: The suicide of an elderly FBI agent from the '50s leads Frank onto the story of the origans of the Millenium Group, The Manhatten Project, J. Edgar Hoover, and a really cheesy villian.  All this and Pete Watts.

Ugh!  The X-Files rip-offs continues... this episode is almost identical to last year's "Travellers" in which our male hero comes across an elderly FBI agent and the story of his past in the '40s/'50s is revealed as he stumbles across the American Government Conspriacy doing evil tests with a corny monster villian who is sometimes a nice guy, he is invited to join this Conspriacy and refuses so he gets blacklisted.  And J. Edgar Hoover (the same damn actor!) was behind it all!  Good God y'all!  Plus, the Season Two Negation continues... despite the fact that the Group was created by a Christian secret cult around 5 A.D. and it's been a religious secret society for 2 millenia it was now created by J. Edgar Hoover, so it isn't religious at all it an National Government Conspriacy!  Wow, I must have complete misinterpreted those outright facts given in Season Two!  Adding insult to injury, this villian is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, a real rip-off of Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde.  That scene where the scientist puts the two uranium half-sphere together and mutates into a 'scary' monster had me laughing out loud.  How cheesy!  It's just ridiculous!  (Incidentally what he was doing was creating critical geometry in the uranium sphere, which will automatically begin the chain reaction, it actually doesn't need an explosion as in an atomic bomb)  AND, I believe this young FBI Agent played young FBI Agent Arthur Dales in "Travellers"!  Anyway on to the good stuff... Emma Hollis actually had a personality in this episode, and actually had something interesting going on... becoming a Candidate for the Millenium Group!  Also interesting, in a bit line by Watts he says he trying to redeem the Group for Frank, bringing a connection to the left field plot twist of "The Sound of Snow".  The ending bit where the daughter, now a Group scientist, learns the truth about her father with old music playing was an excellent scene using the Wong technique of music overlapping a good scene making it even better.  Also, the Frank-Watts relationship is getting a little more subdued now and Watts is almost becoming a real character again.  They still haven't explained why Watts is with the Group after "The Time is Now" though.  Also, looking at the Manhatten Project how it dehumanized its scientists was an interesting backdrop.

3X15    Forcing the End 
Plot: A pregnant Jewish woman is kidnapped by a Jewish cult hoping to use her child to bring about Armageddon.  The cult has some former ties to the Millenium Group.

A good non-arc episode that suffered from a tacked on !action! ending.  The kidnap in the teaser was done very well, and the Jewish background to the episode was very interesting.  Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar from Babylon 5) was a welcome sight but unfortunately he spoke Hebrew for most of the episode!  The inclusion of the Group was interesting, but Frank and Emma have taken over an inexplicable role reversal suddenly;  Frank isn't Muldering the Group and Emma suddenly is!  Where did this come from?  Perhaps Frank's actions are excusable because he began to reconcile with Watts last episode, but Emma should still be unsure.  Watts made a brief but nice appearance with Emma.  The episode was going pretty well until the ending.  Suddenly Katsulas is running around with a gun and the baby, taking to leap onto a copter on the roof!  If the copter was his, why didn't it already know that it couldn't land on the roof?  Now he's falling off the roof after holding onto Emma's hand?  Considering the serious and somber note of the episode up to this point this action ending felt really wierd, a sudden attempt to make the episode more exciting.

3X16    Saturn Dreaming of Mercury 
Plot: Jordan has disturbing visions when a new family moves in next door, a family with a dark secret tied in to Frank's past.

This was an excellent change of pace episode, that while a little wierd at times had an excellent twist at the end.  It was nice to see a Jordan starring episode, mainly because she is such an unused character.  On a superficial note let me say that this is the first episode where Jordan actually looked like a girl rather than an androgynous child.  Must be the long hair.  Also, Jordan gave an excellent preformance, didn't seem childish at all.  Little things like Jordan paging Frank when she got to school were cute.  I had worries about an episode starring a pre-schooler, but it was handled pretty well without being stupid.  Unfortunately this episode didn't deal as much with Frank and Jordan both having the gift as I thought it would.  Frank knows Jordan has the Gift, yet they never talk about it, and he never considers trusting her in it when Jordan begins acting strangely.  I was a bit disappointed that Frank and Jordan don't talk about this, as well as the fact that Jordan doesn't seem to have any friends and doesn't feel like she can talk freely with Frank.  Considering she only has one parent now, that kid is pretty screwed up as it without being haunted by a demon!  This episode was also a great mystery, whereas the killer is usually revealed in the teaser.  In fact, I'm still confused at the nature of the demon family even now.  The last minute twist, that Lucy Butler was behind the whole thing, was a great shocker, giving the episode much more credibility.  That little boy speaking in a demon voice to Frank sounded stupid, but the fact that it was actually Lucy makes it a little better.  I understand that Lucy was trying to get to Frank through Jordan here, but I'm confused about the demonic father and the mother who mysteriously disapeers throughout the majority of the episode.  If Lucy was the kid, who was the father?  One of her demon friends, like her Civil War-aged lawyer in "Antipas"?  And what about the mother?  Were they conjurings of Lucy?  And what about those eyes that can see?  Are they the still living eyes of Lucy's murder victims?  Are they her again?  Why is Lucy still killing people like this if she's after Frank?  I suppose we will see more Lucy as the series ends this season, which is a good thing.  As for the climax, I found it interesting if a little too wierd.  Obviously Frank and Jordan confronted Lucy on the Astral Plane, the spiritual realm where their Gift can elevate them to.  As a demon Lucy can reach this realm as well.  The morphed monster that attacked Frank looked pretty cool, but as I said before that little boy didn't give a very convincing preformance as a demon child.  Also, Emma Hollis while a secondary character got some good scenes here with Frank about Jordan and with Jordan, and got to show some personality for once as opposed to being a static character.

3X17    Darwin's Eye 
Plot: An escaped mental patient takes a cop hostage but a bond is formed between them.  She claims innocence but severed heads follow her path and she babbles about Darwin being right.  Emma's father visits her (he has Alzheimers) and seems to be connected to the girl somehow.

This episode was one confused mess, one that I hope will be addressed in the final five episodes, but I'm afraid not.  While on a second viewing I better saw the connection between Emma's crazy father and the crazy girl, I am still in the dark as to what it means.  The biggest puzzler is whether the girl was decapitating or not.  In her nuthouse escape she had sex with the guy but there is no way she had time to decapitate him, hide the head in the men's bathroom, and then clean up the men's bathroom before making her escape.  Yet the cop gets killed while she's in the hotel room with him.  If someone got in there, why didn't she shoot them?  If it was her, where did she get the knife to cut his head off?  But she talks to his decapitated head and then smooches with it, so obviously she is crazy.  I just don't know, and I don't know if that makes it a good or bad episode.  Emma's father is equally curious.  Why is he sending pictures of the dead sister in the form of the palm trees?  Is there a connection with that heroin crap in "Human Essence" and this episode?  Is the Millenium Group involved?  We see the girl's parents were killed Group-execution style, and the father was a CIA type guy.  Did he stumble onto a secret of the Group so they killed him?  Did upon seeing her dead parents did the girl go nuts and cut off then hide her father's head?  Did the Group aid in her escape from the nuthouse?  Plus, Emma's father seemed suspiciously sane when he talked to Frank... is he putting on an act for Emma?  He's desperately trying to tell her about the palm trees (a symbol for some kind of covert ops squad), this must be connected to the Group.  On to the episode... I loved the teaser which superimposed the music and her Darwinian monologue over her escape and Emma's father making palm trees.  An excellent involving sequence, unfortunately the rest of the episode never does it.  Baldwin was a sympathetic character here, he is pissed at being stuck in the shadow of Frank Black plus he gets to have a head drop on him!  As for the girl and the cop, while the relationship was interesting once again Millenium resorts to blatent T&A as in "Collateral Damage" and "Antipas" (are there others?), I never see X-Files doing this crap.  On a production level, those severed heads looked incredibly fake and rubber-y, most of all the cop's head at the end.  Please!  And what happened to the cop's body?  We never see it.  And what was in that box of lime they found?  Nothing?  Her father's head?  Was this a Group frame up?  I liked the scenes with Emma's father, I sense a plot thread here connected to the Group's interest in Emma... Was a parallel being drawn between the girl and Emma?  Plus, Emma suggests a conspiracy and Frank says no it's more likely something simple.  Excuse me?!  Frank has been Fox Mulder in Season Two and the top of Season Three!  Emma was Scully in the top of Season Three.  Has something happened to change this?  Possibly Frank's experiences in "The Sound of Snow" and "Matryoskha".  I also liked the final scene with Emma's father desperately making copies of palm trees, and Emma realizing it.  Oh and by the way, the whole girl/cop plot resembled X-Files "Duane Barry"/"Ascension" where a nut escapes from the nuthouse and takes a law enforcement officer hostage but he/she doesn't want to harm them.

3X18    Bardo Thol 
Plot: A former Group scientist is dying of a mysterious disease, and Frank tries to comfort his last moments as a Group assassin hunts for him.  Hollis uncovers the end result of his research; a set of cloned hands and umbilical cords which are somehow involved with the Millenium Group.

This episode was a confused mess with zero resolution.  While X-Files mythology episodes don't explain everything, they at least explain the context of the mystery so you know what but not why.  But this episode has no what either.  What was the scientist infected with?  Why was the stupid bowl so important to the Group assassin?  Why does the Group care about cloning?  (To repopulate the Earth after a viral armageddon?).  While I appreciate what the Frank plot was trying to do, be very spiritual and so forth, it was a rushed uninvolving mess that did nothing for me.  Everything about the presentation was wrong.  Frank says he's trying to change his pre-conceptions.  Why?  This was semi-mentioned in "Forcing the End" and MAY have its root in "Matryoska", but it's just crap.  I never felt a thing for the scientst because of these rushed and confused scenes.  The Hollis plot was much more interesting, but it was average at best.  Her investigation was interesting as she Mulders the Group and McClaren suspiciously tries to get her off the Group's back.  Her hostility towards Watts was good.  And what was up with the bowls dammit?  As for the 2yr old hands which match the scientist, obviously the scientist created a cloning technology where a clone of you is born and raised in a normal timespan.  Just poor execution all around, along with baffling character actions like Frank suddenly becoming Mr. Spiritual and saying if you don't give into the Dark Side of the Force, it can never defeat you.  Please.

3X19    Seven and One 
Plot: Frank is tormented by poloroids of himself drowning, reminding himself of a traumatic childhood experience.  Frank continues to be alienated from his companions at the FBI as something strikes at him and Emma.

This was a curious episode, in that nothing really happens in it after a sense.  It's like a Seinfeld episode where it's about Frank hanging around with the FBI most of the time, plus the zero story resolution counts too.  I am left wondering what is the point of this episode when there are now THREE episodes left in the series.  This episode resolved NOTHING; I went in expecting another Lucy Butler episode, but the idenity of the shape-shifting demon is never revealed.  Actually, at point it morphs into Mabius the Group Assassin, what the hell was up with that?!  Considering the last two episodes will be about Emma's father dying and Frank feeling betrayed by Watts, I'm afraid this series will have ZERO RESOLUTION to every major plot in it; Frank, the Group, Lucy Butler, etc.  Anywho, this episode is filled with inconsistancies.  Jordan, the girl without ANY friends a few episodes ago, suddenly has about thirty little friends for her birthday party.  Frank suddenly gets another brother.  Frank suddenly gets a big fear of drowning, which was never mentioned in the drowning-intensive episodes of "Borrowed Time" and "The Sound of Snow".  And Frank's semi-breakdown is just a little wierd, a little out of the blue even though it MAY have been hinted at in "Saturn Dreaming".  Where is this seven episode arc we've been hearing about?  Agt Boxer was obviously the demon from the evil looks he gave everyone, I am going to pretend it was Lucy Butler since it shapeshifted like she can.  Speaking of X-Files episode rip-offs... our Male Hero is trapped in a flooding bathroom by the evil demon force in Season Two's "Excelsius Dei" and of course the shape-shifiting Pilots introduced in Season Two's "Colony".  This episode does raise an interesting question though; what was McClaren smoking when he brought Frank back to the FBI a few months after he went crazy?  The final sequence was visually thrilling; Emma- buried alive in a coffin!  Frank- about to drown in his bathroom!  Boxer- morphing into Mabius and killing Frank's psychologist!  I wonder how Emma managaed to survive asphyxiation for so long though.  The scene where the demon looks like Emma, Emma meets her only to have faux-Emma blow her brains out before disapeering was also pretty cool.  However I must wonder the point of this episode, as the demon is never shown and he/she/it just kinda goes away at the end.  It's been suggested that when Frank flashed to Catherine and Jordan, he went through a baptism to live again as a strong force for good, thus driving away the demon.  I think that's pushing it though.  I also like the bit where Frank gets some mail and calls in the CDC!

3X20    Nostalgia 
Plot:  With three episode left to go... a serial killer story set in Emma's hometown where the local cops are under suspicion.

What the hell is this crap?  The last episode before the concluding two-parter of the series is a stand alone serial killer story?!  And a bad one at that, this episode is only good for the pretty river scenes and the sheer comedy of the episode.  The moment the EVIL cop appeared I knew he was the killer, it was pretty obvious from his stature.  But then again, this wasn't really about the catching the bad guy, so at least it wasn't that cliched.  In fact, I think it was a comedy!  From the semen stains on the beachhouse wall to the EVIL cop drowning himself in the bath looking at the picture of a woman, this episode was a real hoot!  Plus, hilarious X-Files rip-offs!  In the opening scene, Emma talks about her father being a military man so she and her sister (now dead) were dragged from one town to the next.  Emma is Dana Scully!  She even gets the wistful tour through the streets the way Scully did in "Piper Maru"!  Here's the really funny bit.  I was watching the scene were they dig up the corpse, and I noticed the camera angle of the unearthing was identical to the scene in the X-Files "Pilot" where the strap holding coffin breaks and the coffin tumbles down, busts open, revealing the alien corpse inside.  I thought to myself, wouldn't it be hilarious if they did that.  And they did!!  The cofifn broke, and out came the not-expected contents of the coffin!  I was laughing my ass off!  Anywho, the 'climax' where Frank and the EVIL cop go down to the river was okay, though I kept waiting for the cop to try and drown Frank and give it an action! ending, which I would have liked.  Oh well!  And hey!  Did you know this is Emma's hometown?  Aside from the title there are exactly TWO scenes where this is even mentioned!

3X21    Via Dolorosa (part 1 of 2) 
Plot: The original Poloroid Killer comes back from the dead... to watch people have sex.  Watts offers a cure for Emma's Father if Emma joins the Millenium Group to help get Frank out of the FBI and back in the Group.

What was this crap?!  Next to last episode is about a serial killer?!  Sure I know from the preview this killer came from the Millenium Group, but this was still ridiculous when the series should be about resolving the millenial apocalypse, the Group, and Frank's destiny as a superhuman visionary.  Instead, we get a serial killer, and (someone timed this!) SEVEN MINUTES of the show showing people having sex.  This was such a ridiculous waste of precious screen time, and it's frankly baffling why they felt it neccessary to show all this sex!  Maybe this is their last desperate and futile attempt to get good enough ratings for Season Four Renewal.  In any case, I am sick of serial killers and two episodes ago Frank said that this same guy (killed in the Teaser) was already killed!  Speaking of which, this week's X-Files RipOffs:  the teaser where a man is shown electrocuted in the chair, who then comes back to go after the guy who put him in the chair, who happened to be there to watch his execution.  This was the plot (and teaser sequence) to Season Three's "The List".  The Emma plot was the only watchable plot of this episode, where Mister Hollis watched a nuclear test on tape, showing the palm trees from "Darwin's Eye" and later spouts a DoD file which I'm sure will next episode reveal some hidden truth about the Group.  Unfortunately the vast majority of this episode was the lame killer plot, only getting decent when at the end a bomb goes off, possibly killing Baldwin!  However this is a pretty lame way to kill a character, like Agent Pendrell's death at the end of "Tempus Fugit" (X-Files Season Four).  I am intrigued about why Frank is afraid for Jordan's life in that flashforward at the episodes beginning.

3X22    Goodbye to All This  (part 2 of 2, Series Finale) 
Plot: Frank continues to chase after the serial killer and confronts Watts about it.  Emma is set to replace McClaren as Assistant Director for the Group and her father is miraculously cured.  Watts is killed for helping Frank, and Frank takes Jordan into hiding from the Group.

A shameful showing for the final episode, as most of it still resolved around this stupid serial killer, him living with a blind woman and boarding up the house.  How exciting...  The opening scene where Baldwin was killed was excellent, one of the few times the show gets really nasty.  That Group medic twisting that shrapnel into Baldwin's heart... ugh!  Fortunately this episode in some parts seemed almost like Season Two, which of course means it's totally inconsistance with Season Three.  Evil Watts suddenly becomes Frank's best friend again, and even dies trying to help Frank.  Well, this is the second ambiguous death for Watts now, counting the last season finale.  The scene were Frank breaks into Watts' house was surprisingly neutral and uninteresting, since Frank suddenly accepts Watts as his friend just because he says he doesn't know.  Oy.  The 'climax' with the killer threatening his blind chick with a screwdriver was just stupid, especially since this is the series finale.  What ever happened to Lucy Butler?  I did however like the last scene tremendously, because it was the same ending as "The Time is Now" in a sense with Frank fleeing into the forest with his family to escape Group-related crap.  I also like Jordan and Frank saying "We are all shepards" because it suggests they will play the role of leader of the people in a post-apocalyptic world because of their Gift.  Frank and Jordan driving off into the sunset was a nice ending.  As for Watts' revelation about the Group's plan, it's just ridiculous.  According to Watts, the Group just wants to evolve humanity up one step thanks to their surgical procedure making people learn at an accelerated rate.  It has nothing to do with bioengineering, yet "Bardo Thol" and "Matryoskha" was all about this!  Another annoyance; Watts give Frank all the Group files on Frank and Jordan... but we don't get to see what it says!  What the hell?!  On the plus, for I think the first time this season I can't find a blatant X-Files rip off!  I liked Emma becoming the Group puppet in the FBI for her father.  Of course the whole Emma's father thing was never explained.  Did the Group give him Super Alzheimers or something to turn Emma?  What about all his military connections and obsession with palms?  Well, I'm glad they canceled this show because it could only get worse.  I am now looking forward to it's replacement, Harsh Realm, featuring Peter Watts!