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Oh God! I'm so alone......

Millennium, and it's Seasons, rely, so much, on what you bring to them. I haven't written here to battle it out for S2 or denigrate S1/S3 because I have a profound love of all Millennium I simply want to try to explain why I care for S2 so much. The simplest answer is that S2 touches all the parts of my philosophical interests. I have noted, elsewhere, that I believe that Season Two owes much of its beauty to Alchemcy and The Alchemical Marriage. This marriage, or rebis, as described in the writings of the medieval alchemists whose solutions, crystalisations, smeltings and burnings fill their notebooks, describe the separation and coagulation (solve et coagula) of chemical substances in the search for precious metals such as gold and silver; but as Jung and others have been able to show, they also refer symbolically to the transformation of the soul, suggesting that the real goal of the alchemical process was the discovery of spiritual harmony. Whilst Season Two may lack an overt commentary upon evil I believe it unfair to label it sugary. It is my belief that Morgan and Wong mused upon the same enigmas as the Cabalists and Alchemists: that every idea is a contradiction and God, who is the sum of all ideas, contains all contradictions.

The tales of Season Two are far less defined that Season One, I agree with this, but only, to use analogy, as God is a light(emanation) reflected from mirror to mirror until His pure glow falls tarnished upon our world. The way to understanding is not always in a literal interpretation but sometimes from understanding what we are not told instead of what we are - here is the wisdom of the Cabalists and of, IMO, Season Two. Morgan and Wong stripped away the archetypes, contrasts and boundaries and shepherded the group from it's 'Witch Finder General' days to having a Crowley-like preoccupation with utilising evil as a dynamic for transcendence: depicted, wonderfully, in Lara's interjection during the questioning of the murderous Stephen Kiley, "Teach me so that I can know......." Whilst Frank is allowed to crusade against evil as a neophyte his first Gnosis is "...there will always be another dog..." his second was the charge not to destroy evil but to find it, "Just go there, Frank. Find the evil. This is who we are." I am not asserting here that the group of Season Two is 'evil', far from it, Season Two understands that 'evil' is an umbrella term of self-designation used to define something quite often contradictory. Season Two seems to accept the Gnostic notion of the concept as derived from the Tantric vama-marga. It's usage represents a deliberate attempt by philosophers to transcend the outmoded and value-laden dichotomy of 'black' versus 'white' because it is held to reflect the "...moronic oversimplicity of the Judeo-Xtian distinction between good and evil"

Season Two depicts the vain attempt of the Group to reconcile it's contradictions in the form of an Alchemical Marriage: the closing episodes of this journey represent Alchemical volatility used in allegory in the post-delusion volatilty of the Group's initiates. Volatility is represented in Alchemy as the double ouroborous, the ouroborous divided, and the Macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm in the form of Lara Mean's angel (an angel in alchemical treatises symbolises sublimation or the ascension of the volatile principle.) Volatility is the stage at which all can fall foul, the moment when putrification can corrupt the melding of our higher and lower natures in a process that must be continued in the next three operations of alchemy for this "Child of the Philosophers" to become the Living Stone of the fully integrated Self. Lara's abandonment by her angel may have been a necessary element of the Group's plans for her: Crowley made reference to this when describing the point at which the Adept chooses to cross the Qabalistic Abyss. He must give up all that he is, including (for the moment) the guidance of his Guardian angel and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated Karma is sufficient to carry him through and he has been utterly thorough in his self-destruction, he becomes a 'babe of the abyss', arising as a Star. Unfortunately Lara was indoctrinated hastily and without due sanction or preperation. She was not to arise transcendent or arise at all.

Now I know I am a lone voice but I believe that Owls and Rooters was the zenith of Season Two, enriching the Millennium Group with duality and contradiction with the introduction of it's factions. This understanding of duality is beautifully illustrated in Claire McKenna who tantalises Lara with her recitation of 'The Thunder, Perfect Mind'...

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am the mother and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one and many are her sons.

The Cabalists, Gnostics and Alchemists paid great devotion to the enigma of dualism. They believed that existence was rendered possible by the interplay of active and passive, positive and negative, science and spirit, owls and roosters - that everything rests upon the stimulation of the inert yet all potential by the dynamic principle. The Millennium Group of Season Two was no more a study of good and of evil but an attempt at the reconciliation and marriage of the two concepts. The Group appears to impart upon the Frank the ultimate wisdom, that evil cannot be expunged because all contains it and this may be the reason for the harvesting of the young-old-soul Dani Barbakow. She is a formed, demonic psyche trapped within a formative, innocent psyche. She is the ultimate enigma and may represent the climate of Group thinking, no more to seek to destroy these enigmas but to study them. The contradictions that are housed within Danielle Barbakow suggest that she is one of the most profound discoveries of a group that is becoming spiritually experimental, she is "qlippah" or "klippah" meaning "shell" or "husk" which in its simplified, metaphysical terms is the outer covering of which the sephira (holy spheres if you will) are made to contain the light of deity. The duality between the container and the contained is one of the most important in Kabbalistic explanations of the act of creation. The word "qlippah" is an extension of this metaphor, the word is commonly used to refer to a covering which houses light yet contains no light: that is, an empty shell, a dead husk. The Group's search for these pre-hurricanes may indicate a move in it's enlightenment from the literal devotion to scripture to the pursuit of transcendental philosophies and the reality of the visible world which mingles life and death, love and hate, beauty and filth. This shift in thinking seems to permeate all Season Two characters even Lucy Butler has now d/evolved from an agent of mindless, malign chaos to a mode of spiritual (de)velopment. In 'A Room with no View' she seeks to destroy forms and purge the spirit of original filth and petty, surface motives and interests which bind man to the physical plane.

or

"It is bitter indeed to discover behind one's lofty ideals narrow, fanatical convictions, all the more cherished for that, and behind one's heroic pretensions, nothing but crude egotism, infantine greed and complacency." JUNG

What she seeks to do is strip man of pretense and egotism and reveal the alchemical 'first matter' - the ordinary, unadorned principal which remains unchanged behind all diversity.

As we see, the corruption of the Millennium group by a (possible) Third Faction and by the Marbug Virus is the critical incident that destroys balance. A third faction seems to me to be a necessary commentary on the dualism of Season Two, for example, the dualism of soul and body or of mind and matter might lead to the denial of the existence of an absolutely evil mind (the devil) and even of an evil principle. Matter is not in itself evil for the dualistic philosophers; and a pure mind can hardly be evil for those who think that the cause of error, and consequently of evil, is the mixture

of mind with matter or the inversion of their legitimate hierarchic order. Since the two doctrines are distinct, we must consider them separately. However, it may seem that they are united in some systems, for instance in Manicheism, in which God's adversary is often personified but is also identified with matter. But in Manicheism there is something else, in addition to these two forms of dualism. It is this 'something else' the reconciliation of the fundamental flaws of dualism that I believe was depicted in the third component of Owls and Roosters: the precursor to the Group's descent and malign reemergence. This third faction, the fundamental history of which is examined in Matroyska, represents Daath. Daath is something that is nothing, the hole through which one falls into the abyss: the hole being essential but not actual. If the act of creation can be imagined as a song, the notes of the scale being the emanations required to manifest existence then Daath is the interval, the space between notes, an essential part of the melody that doesn't actually exist. Daath is the most profound contradiction as is illustrated by inertia. That moment where everything is still and motionless, but still moving through time, is the stillness of Catherine's death, of Frank's profound shock, of Lara's unconsciousness, three inert characters forcing the story forward. It is white noise, the final scene of the Season, the audible nothing that vibrates with everything. It is the final moment of calm before the storm as they seize the inertia to plunge the Group into the darkness of Season 3. Now, another moot point. My favourite addition to the Millennium mythos is Odessa, the scape-goats of the Owls and Roosters civil war - their easy downfall the final proof that the 'evil' was within all along. Whilst Frank, and others, are diverted by the horrors of Nazism, a descendant faction permeates the group, virus like, setting in motion the journey into the Qlippoth. Owls and Roosters cannot, like much of S2, be judged by it's epidermis but by it's heart.

I know that many of you conclude that Lara was intended to usurp Catherine but I do not believe that this was the intention. In actuality she appears in less than half of the season and shares meaningful screen time with Frank in only four episodes. Far from being his constant companion Lara is the anti-Frank, the ultimate duality, the doubt to his belief. Whilst Franks's gift becomes resplendent, her's devours her and whilst he grows ever more distrustful of the Group, she is to ultimately surrender to it. Whilst he grows to denigrate their apocalyptic pre-occupations, she is ultimately to become a conduit for it. Lara is placed in the center of the ouroborous only to balance the omnipotence of Frank Black - to depict a fallible, ailing, virulent gift beside his all-seeing-all-knowing flashes and whilst he was to rage at the emergence of some of the Group's more shadowy tenancies she was to surrender herself to a plot that brought about the dark days of Season 3. Lara, to me, is the alchemical nigredo - the state of helpless dejection and spiritual rot in which the original self, or 'First matter' dies. She contrasts Catherine who is the Season's Satan(adversary) who stands at Frank's right hand to resist him and present the case against him. Whilst Lara suffers the final descent into chaos, Catherine undergoes a transformation becoming the lofty and proud one who exhalts herself above the throne of Frank and the Group.

If Owls and Roosters did contain subliminal hints at a third faction as architects of the Group's descent into evil, born from it's inability to destroy it in S1 and integrate it in S2, the dark night of the soul of S3 may have heralded an emergent group possessing a new ethic transcendent of the simplistic concepts of good and bad. S4 could have seen the group scale the Tower of Babel and take it's agenda into the highest of Realms. The mysteries, and secrets, of God.

Actually I think that that is more than enough lol, got slightly carried away. In closing can I say that it really dosen't matter what you choose as your pickle, be it S1 or S2 or S3, what we must all surely agree on is that Millennium is worthy of our celebration and that is why I have purposefully not argued the case for S2, comparatively against S1 or S3, but written about the things that I perceive within it - what matters most about an episode/Season is whether you enjoyed it and it dosen't, ever, get any more profound than that.

eth.snafu

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Guest lonegungrrly1121

what a thought provoking thread!

I watched Owls and Roosters last night and through the h-e-a-v-y dialoge sequences managed to salvage a parallel between what was happening in frank's life and what was happening in the group...

the group is split into two because of lack of communication and not voulenteering information. the same is happening in frank's marriage. It seems that the split in both respects is permanent because of a profound difference in beliefs.

i have found a love for this two parter now that i have actually watched it and fully understood it. one question though- did the destruction of Odessa and the death of the Old Man bring the group back together again?

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Ethsnafu,

It was intriguing to note quite a few dynamical systems terms in your post; I think your depiction of SII is quite alligned with my dynamical presentation earlier.

You mention at least once such concepts as "chaos," "emergent," "dualism," and "volatile" (which appears to be a remark on instability of systems).

Let us further examine:

As we see, the corruption of the Millennium group by a (possible) Third Faction and by the Marbug Virus is the critical incident that destroys balance.

Here you refer to "destruction of balance" which in, dynamical terms would simply be the perturbation to an 'attractor state.'

Volatility is the stage at which all can fall foul, the moment when putrification can corrupt the melding of our higher and lower natures in a process that must be continued in the next three operations of alchemy for this "Child of the Philosophers" to become the Living Stone of the fully integrated Self. Lara's abandonment by her angel may have been a necessary element of the Group's plans for her: Crowley made reference to this when describing the point at which the Adept chooses to cross the Qabalistic Abyss. He must give up all that he is, including (for the moment) the guidance of his Guardian angel and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated Karma is sufficient to carry him through and he has been utterly thorough in his self-destruction, he becomes a 'babe of the abyss', arising as a Star. Unfortunately Lara was indoctrinated hastily and without due sanction or preperation. She was not to arise transcendent or arise at all.

Here we see you building to the concepts of both emergent function and non-linearity. In speaking of non-linearity in dynamical conceptualizations, what is tacitly acknowledged is that the sum of the parts does not necessarily equal the whole. That is, the whole--the emergent--is usually greater than the sum of its parts. It is non-linear. Further, in order for emergence (transcendence), there must be a triggering perturbation to allow for chaos and resultant self-organization. The 'babe of the abyss' hints at vainglorious arisings and an esteemed position in terms of omnipotence. This would suggest an emergent 'babe' as greater in functionality than what originally 'dove into the abyss.'

The Cabalists, Gnostics and Alchemists paid great devotion to the enigma of dualism. They believed that existence was rendered possible by the interplay of active and passive, positive and negative, science and spirit, owls and roosters - that everything rests upon the stimulation of the inert yet all potential by the dynamic principle.

Here we see you directly tie in your contributions to a dynamic framework.

It is this 'something else' the reconciliation of the fundamental flaws of dualism that I believe was depicted in the third component of Owls and Roosters: the precursor to the Group's descent and malign reemergence

Here we again see a direct link with the notion of 'emergent function' in your notion of malign reemergence.

The Group's search for these pre-hurricanes may indicate a move in it's enlightenment from the literal devotion to scripture to the pursuit of transcendental philosophies and the reality of the visible world which mingles life and death, love and hate, beauty and filth.

Compare this with the following offering from the director or 21 grams which I have referenced earlier...

The new film is, he says, "a meditation that explores some of the things in our complex lives: loss, addiction, love, guilt, coincidence, vengeance, obligation, faith, hope, and redemption. I like multi-dimensional and contradictory characters, as I am and as, I guess, are all human beings that I know. No one is simply good or bad. We are just floating in an immense universe of circumstances. I like to show their weaknesses and their strengths without judging them, because only then can they reveal things about our human condition."

Finally, in consideration of Frank and Catherine's stressed relationship, and Frank's need for 'isolation' in order to optimize his 'gift' I offer the following quote from Rilke, which, no matter its inherent biases and selfishness, resonates with fundamental truths which need to be examined more clearly in our conceptualizations of Frank and Catherine's relationship, and also Lara's injection, albeit briefly, into SII.

"I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.  For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity of solitude.  And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation..."

Vain

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Guest The Mikado

I love Millennium and I love the character of Frank Black..it killed me when the show was cancelled but after watching the season 2 DVD set I think I can see why the show lost some of its luster with the viewership..

I have just finished wartching all 3 seasons on DVD and I have to say that season 2 is by far the weakest. With the exception of the episodes ' The Mikado' and 'The Pest House' I have no desire to watch any again.

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