Catherine & Frank

[HighPlainsDrifter]

The last epsiode of Season One had Frank and Catherine at her parents house all lovey-dovey and getting jiggy with it. Season Two then had Catherine stand offish and estrange from Frank. My problem with this is that why would they write Catherines character this way in Season 2. For heavens sake Frank saved his wife and killed the polariod man. I would of done the same thing if this happen to my wife. Was this Moragn & Wongs doing? or Chris Carter. Dont get me wrong i loved The Beginning and the End but the way they turned Frank and Catherines relationship wasnt necessary

[Guest Frank L.]

I agree. I think it was M&W. I feel the same way; Frank killed the polaroid man, simply because he had to. What else could he do? I know Catherine was shocked, seeing her husband doing this... but she needed to forget it (ofcourse it takes time) and be greatful she (and Frank) were still alive! She acted like he had done something to her!

To go further on this, M&W probably made the decision to kill the Catherine character early on in the second season. If she needed to die, why not let her be close to Frank, be his only hope and light in his life together with Jordan. Her death would have been even more shocking than it was now (is that possible?).

Like you said, in Paper Dove they were so close and I loved to see them that way. But the weirdest thing is: it actually felt a bit weird to see them so close, because the writers never allowed them to be so close.

If you look at it that way, then Frank Black is one of the most tragic characters ever written. He has a gift, which is also his curse and because of this he sees the most terrible things. He had a nervous breakdown. The MillenniuM group and their secret agenda. A man stalks his wife, he saves her by killing him, and she leaves him because of this, later she dies and he is left all alone with his daughter. He has the right last name, that's for sure...

[Raven Wolf]

I certainly agree with you on all of that!

Part of me wonders if part of the reason for the seperation being written in at the beginning of season 2 was because of Megan. For all we know, she may have been called away from filming on a regular basis. I guess we would have heard if she was pregnant. If you remember, the whole Scully abduction was because she was pregnant. And, later, the whole Mulder abduction was because he had movies to shoot or something.

[Guest betweenthelines]

Season Two then had Catherine stand offish and estrange from Frank. My problem with this is that why would they write Catherines character this way in Season 2. For heavens sake Frank saved his wife and killed the polariod man. I would of done the same thing if this happen to my wife. Was this Moragn & Wongs doing? or Chris Carter. Dont get me wrong i loved The Beginning and the End but the way they turned Frank and Catherines relationship wasnt necessary

I didn't really like the way Catherine was written that season. I know she went through a lot in life, but leaving the man who saved your life is a lousy way of saying "Thank You". I guess watching Frank kill someone, even if he had a good reason, was her breaking point. She probably felt that any attempts to start a normal life were pointless.

Does this excuse all of her actions? No, but perhaps it's what the writers were thinking of when working on this episode.

[Raven Wolf]

Exactly. I remember thinking when she left him.... "Is this some kind of joke? Post traumatic stress? What the hell???" I don't condone violence of any kind, but any man that actually valued me enough to come to save me, fight for me...kill for me....! You think I wouldn't be greatful??? OMG! Hell yeah! I think that warrents a little more than a simple batch of cookies, ya know??

I can MAYBE see her having some sort of breakdown from the stress... and if they wanted to depict that on Millennium, to show what really happens with these people's personal lives, due to the stress they go through...fine. But, rather than totally cutting him off like that, they could have shown her go through some kind of emotional breakdown, like he did. So that she starts seeing what he deals with, and why he does the work he does. Maybe she would eventualy, (after he helped her out of her breakdown) begin to see his side of things, since it had been shown that she was not very understanding in the first season. There was a lot that could have been done differently.

Again, I don't know if they wrote the caracter out because that was the plan from the beginning, or if they were forced to do something, because of Megan. Maybe she wanted out or something. Who knows...?

[Guest A Stranger]

It's hard to tell what the orginal intent was with each season/writers but I"m sure that there were different ideas or intentions. But I don't find Frank and Catherin's estrangement is strange at all. They are in bed together in Paper Dove telling each other everything is fine but there isn't much in the first season up to that point to suggest that everything is fine. Frank's work is consuming their lives and he won't acknowldege or deal with it but continues to lie to Catherine. His attempt to keep things from her, although the best intentions, is actually making things worse.

Frank did not have to kill the Poloraid Stalker but he did. He stabbed him to death and I think for Catherine it was too much. The way it was filmed, it was like he was trying to stab away all the problems he's had recently, and was very disturbing.

Further evidence that Catherine questions Frank's sanity would be her afraid that he might have hit Jordan, in Monster. She feels he's been isolating himself, turning away from his family looking towards the MLM Group for support. There's evidence of this in season one as well. Like when he doesn't tell Catherine about the doctor he goes to see in Walkabout before he goes there.

[Raven Wolf]

Frank's work is consuming their lives and he won't acknowldege or deal with it but continues to lie to Catherine. His attempt to keep things from her, although the best intentions, is actually making things worse.

Sounds rather like my own life....at the moment.....

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

It's hard to tell what the orginal intent was with each season/writers but I"m sure that there were different ideas or intentions. But I don't find Frank and Catherin's estrangement is strange at all. They are in bed together in Paper Dove telling each other everything is fine but there isn't much in the first season up to that point to suggest that everything is fine. Frank's work is consuming their lives and he won't acknowldege or deal with it but continues to lie to Catherine. His attempt to keep things from her, although the best intentions, is actually making things worse.

Frank did not have to kill the Poloraid Stalker but he did. He stabbed him to death and I think for Catherine it was too much. The way it was filmed, it was like he was trying to stab away all the problems he's had recently, and was very disturbing.

Further evidence that Catherine questions Frank's sanity would be her afraid that he might have hit Jordan, in Monster. She feels he's been isolating himself, turning away from his family looking towards the MLM Group for support. There's evidence of this in season one as well. Like when he doesn't tell Catherine about the doctor he goes to see in Walkabout before he goes there.

I think this post hits the nail right on the head on all accounts. Very well said.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

I watched The Beginning and The End today while my son took a nap. At the end Catherine basically told Frank what he just did took the happiness and safety out of their house. THis is not a direect quote. I understand her point of view but the writers didnt have to make her this smug. Frank didnt have to leave the house. I know Morgan and Wong is trying to make him a very dark figure, but to put a split between Frank and Catherine is just bad writing. I think the success of Season one was because of the relationship with Frank and Catherine.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

I certainly agree with you on all of that!

Part of me wonders if part of the reason for the seperation being written in at the beginning of season 2 was because of Megan. For all we know, she may have been called away from filming on a regular basis. I guess we would have heard if she was pregnant. If you remember, the whole Scully abduction was because she was pregnant. And, later, the whole Mulder abduction was because he had movies to shoot or something.

I have no proof, but this is my hunch as well. As I have speculated before, there are a million possible reasons why her character was killed off, and we will probably never know these reasons. At one point I thought Roedecker was cruelly written off for no reason, but then I found out that he wanted to move on to doing work on stage, and the writers obliged him. Maybe she found that participating in a weekly show as a central character to be too demanding of her time. Maybe she wanted to move on to another project. In looking at her filmography, I see that she has had no projects before or sense Millennium that have been steady gigs on series as a main character. This might be the way she likes it. Whatever the reasons, I'm sure her charactor wasn't written the way she was and/or killed off to anger the fans.