Millenium Group Assassin

[Guest Homer B. Petty]

Exactly who is the Group execution squad leader (Innocents & Exegesis), shape-shifting, Frank Black baiting (Seven And One) Multilingual (Bardo Thodol)????? He appears without any real explanation. Is he Homer B. Petty groups D.I.Y. man? How can they (Namely Carter) reconcile him with the character of Peter Watts. Owl or Rooster or just all round dirty job guy? If Carter had wanted to pull back from Morgan & Wong's near genius curve ball that was season 2 then this character seems wholly out of place. Surely the group would have had a lot of use for him in the episodes Owls & Roosters. Furthermore as sombody who has no qualms about killinghe never seems to finish the job on Frank despite having ample opportunity (Skull And Bones & Bordo Thodol).

Any takers?

[Guest Moriarty]

Exactly who is the Group execution squad leader (Innocents & Exegesis), shape-shifting, Frank Black baiting (Seven And One) Multilingual (Bardo Thodol)????? He appears without any real explanation. Is he Homer B. Petty groups D.I.Y. man? How can they (Namely Carter) reconcile him with the character of Peter Watts. Owl or Rooster or just all round dirty job guy? If Carter had wanted to pull back from Morgan & Wong's near genius curve ball that was season 2 then this character seems wholly out of place. Surely the group would have had a lot of use for him in the episodes Owls & Roosters. Furthermore as sombody who has no qualms about killinghe never seems to finish the job on Frank despite having ample opportunity (Skull And Bones & Bordo Thodol).

Any takers?

Mabius (the hitman) = Legion. You see, Legion was always after Frank but never got to him. I think that the group got infected with Legion somewhere bewteen season 2 and 3. Maybe just before the events of "The 4th hourseman". Legion = many. Lucy, All Pepper, The Judge, they are all manifestations of Legion. And they all offered Frank a deal to join him (them) but as he never gave in ultimate evil found its way into the group itself. The shape-shifting Mabius in 7+1 was just a metaphoric way to let the audience know that the group has been infected by Legion. No better way to get to Frank than to join his greatest enemy: the group. Why he did not kill him in S&B and BT is obvious for me: it feeds on his passion to destroy evil in the world. No evil without good. What is also important is that the actor who played Ricardo Clement in Gehenna (2nd episode of season 1), plays the role of Mabius in season 3. And Ricardo Clement was the first manifestation of Legion that we saw in the series. Hope I helped you a bit Homer.

Take care.

[4th Horseman]

Moriarty - I would have disagreed with your viewpoint of Mabius, (as we see him in the first several episodes as a group hitman) until Seven and One, when Boxer morphs into Mabius...if you recall, just before killing the doctor he states that he is there to show her that Frank's fear is real, and that all her understanding and science are helpless or useless against it...(something like that)....ALSO, i believe that this was the first episode where Emma becomes truely initiated into Frank's struggle with evil when she thinks she is seeing the mirror image of herself. If you also noticed, as she is squatting down holding her mirror image's head, Frank walks up behind her and calls her name. He obviously does not see what she sees, because his reaction is one of curiousness..."What is this woman squatting down for?"..But he distracts her enough that when she turns around the body isnt there anymore...is it possible to believe that Frank's struggle with evil is so great that from time to time it "bleeds" over into those whom he forms the closest relationships with? Remember, Catherine was privy to it in Lamentations, and Bletch unfortunately was as well in the same episode. I also think the line the Father speaks in the church is one of the better lines..."Let your strength equal his fear, when it comes for you"....When it comes for you...what an ominous prediction. Not if, but when....and it certainly gave Emma a first hand look at the world Frank sees daily....

Now, whether or not Peter knew that the Mabius was using the group remains to be seen. What i noticed was in the beginning of S3, Bob Wilde, the actor who protrayed Mabius and Ricardo Clement was used only as an assassin or hitman, there was never a reference to his work for the group as a representative of Legion...I dont think that in Bardol Thodol that Mabius had any intent of killing Frank. He was still being used solely as a hitman with no inclusion with Legion, yet...Peter was still in the picture and i dont think he would have allowed Wilde's character to kill Frank..His putting the gun up to Frank's head was just a simple warning, most likely at Peter's insistence..Peter also took an extremely hard line towards Frank and his reluctance to join the group...but towards the end, i think his friendship began to take precedence over group intent...when he tells Frank "I have been protecting you from them" in GTAT, you dont know if its been from day one or just recently. The dossiere on the groups plans for Frank and Jordan, he knew it existed, yet why give it to Frank? And why give it to him with the understanding that it meant the protection he had been providing had broken down? You dont warn someone of another's nefarious intent without a true concern for that individual...

anyway, thats my take...

4th Horseman....

[Guest ___ L@the_of_Heaven___]

If Carter had wanted to pull back from Morgan & Wong's near genius curve ball that was season 2...

Hey Homer, WELCOME!!!

By the wonderful quote above it is quite obvious that we have yet ANOTHER intelligent, insightful, imaginative, latteral thinking, intuitive, deep, & highly brilliant new member...

Hey Homer, get ready to kick some SERIOUS WUSSY @SS!!!

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

Hey Homer, WELCOME!!!

By the wonderful quote above it is quite obvious that we have yet ANOTHER intelligent, insightful, imaginative, latteral thinking, intuitive, deep, & highly brilliant new member...

Hey Homer, get ready to kick some SERIOUS WUSSY @SS!!!

I second that!! Homer B. will fit in very nicely here. Opening things up by making note of the genius of Morgan & Wong gives us some some insight into the genius of Homer B.

[Guest RodimusBen]

I had another bit of input on this issue to offer after re-watching the Season 3 DVDs recently.

Carter puts a very thin veil over his dissatisfaction with what Morgan & Wong did in Season 2 with the Millennium Group mythology. Whether he's right/the merit of the various seasons is not something I wish to debate here. My point is that in the S3 documentary, he talks about trying to figure out what to do with "the show he was given."

Without putting words in their mouths, I would speculate the Carter's and Lance's biggest problem with Season 2 was the way that the Millennium Group was re-cast as a cult. I think both of them went into the series thinking of the group as a fictional parallel of the Academy Group, and the abrupt change in the MM Group in S2 flew in the face of that.

So, to me, Mabius was a way to "explain" why the MM Group became what it did. Over the course of S3 we are meant to learn two major things about the Group: that it has been infected by Legion from the inside and that Watts is a prisoner in this scenario. And really, both are brilliant plotting moves: it explains a lot about what happens to Watts in The Time Is Now, and it allows Carter to continue the Group mythology that Morgan & Wong established while still giving deference to S1 fans (by establishing that the group wasn't ALWAYS evil; it just became that way as it grew close to the Millennium).

I see Matryoshka as another example of this attempt at reconciliation. It's a connector between S1 ad S2 visions of the MM Group. In S2, the Group has been around for over a thousand years. Matryoshka proffers the idea that the centuries-old group was co-opted in the 50s in the US and re-directed as a law enforcement group by Hoover, thuse making possible the S1 style group.

Maybe that was a little confusing. I hope it made sense.

[Guest Jim McLean]

Beautifully put RB. Really love that post.

I must confess I always feel a bit sorry for M&W. In light of the circumstance, and the need for the show to really consolidate its audience for a second season, moving into X-Files territory is totally the logical choice. If there is a wide spread fanbase for the "other" show which is stylistically similar, you can see why MM moved down that line to woo an audience that hadn't really embraced it.

Of course, I think the mistake was that the X-Files core support were as much about the powerful chemistry of the leads than of the style within the show. That's not meant to demean the X-Files fangroup - or imply Lance didn't have what it took compared to David and Gillian, simply MM wasn't quite filled with the components to pull the X group as I imagine M&W intended. I think the suspicion and protectiveness from some of the hardcore fanbase of X, probably also bore a reluctance to adopt M, and again, that may have presented an issue. Retrospectively, the key to MM success might have been to separate it from X, and move as season three did, and keep the show firmly in reality with a pinch of horror. Easy to say with hindsight.

I agree, 3 did a great deal to reconcile the differences between 1 and 2.

[Guest Laurent.]

Very well said RodimusBen.

I also thought it was clear, in Seven and One anyway, that Mabius was the manifestation that Legion had infected the MM group.

I would simply had, about his reluctance to kill Frank, that it was never Legion's intention to harm Frank. It wanted to seduce him so that he would eventually join the "dark side". Furthermore, I believe that Mabius would have pulled the trigger in Bardo Thodol if Frank had insisted on having answers. I think that because Frank understood that what really matters was that the dying man could leave this world in peace; his life was spared. As long as Frank isn't a direct threat to Legion, they won't harm him in the hope that he'll join them/it before the "end time" comes. Whatever and whenever the end time may be.

"Understand and you are liberated"

What do you guys think?

[Guest RodimusBen]

If Legion wanted Frank dead, he would have been dead before the series even began. They clearly wanted to possess Frank. True evil doesn't want to destroy, it wants to infect, conquer and enslave.

[Earthnut]

"If Legion wanted Frank dead, he would have been dead before the series even began. They clearly wanted to possess Frank. True evil doesn't want to destroy, it wants to infect, conquer and enslave. "

I totally believe this. That is why we are told to resist the devil and he will flee. True evil wants you to destroy yourself when it no longer has any use for you.

Earthnut