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Midnight of the Century (again)

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And ALL it is is wonderful,

I am something of an ardent Lara-ist so to see some new consideration given to her characterization is wonderful, especially as it is something I have never considered but has 'all the bells ringing true'. It is without demurral that the 'Millennium Group' manipulated and prodded Frank throughout his separation from Catherine, his lack of a cornerstone leaving him susceptible to their finsespun tinkering. With this acknowledged it would make perfect sense to issue him with a partner cognizant with his inner demons, one who is as enticing as she is teasing, in the hopes that she is lodestone to which he gravitates.

Whilst my jury is still out on the notion of a Frank-Lara dynamic I certainly buy, in bulk, the scheme that their pairing could have an element of cynicism about it.

Many thanks for this!

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Guest Heath328

Lara Means is a dynamic and wonderful character. Compassionate, intelligent, brave -- but imbued with more of a "street fighter" personality than Frank.

While it was sad that she reached her breaking point at the end of Season 2, this just added to the realism of someone who had been walking an emotional and spiritual tightrope all her life.

It was an interesting choice to have Lara descend into madness. Very gutsy, I think. It actually hurt to see it happen to her because fans had time to develop an attachment to her. But this gave Frank an opportunity to see what might happen to him.

Even though Lara never reappeared in the series again, and was never mentioned again (I think, I'm not 100 percent positive), I'm SO GLAD she didn't die. On the slim chance that "Millennium" comes back, I'd love to see Lara have a role.

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Here's my thing ...

Do you think putting Frank and Lara together might have been some kind of Millennium Group tactic to further distance Frank from Catherine? One of the side benefits of their "finding the evil" together in "Monster," from the Group's perspective, is that an affair would tend to bring Frank closer to his new world.

Heath328...absolutely, without doubt. Catherine did not ever possess and only offered up a lukewarm effort to find out what Frank's true "gift" was. She became a "thorn in their side", trying to pull Frank back to the "yellow house" scenario where he could just be Frank and they could be "normal"..but as we know, the pull of the group was too great , and thus Catherine became the major hurdle that the Group had to clear in order to direct Frank's life in the direction they wanted him to go. The wild card thus became Jordan, as Catherine seemed to have physical custody of her during their seperation. I think the Group always expressed a very calculated interest in Jordan as well, and thus the idea of both eliminating Catherine so that Frank and Jordan would wind up together in order for the Group to maintain control over their "gifts", and also by inserting Laura at a time when Frank was vulnerable, their intentions become obvious. If the Group could just "center" all 3 of their powerful gifts, and maintain control over their sum, the Group would become incalculably stronger. Thus, by uniting Frank and Lara to sense the "evil" together in Monster, this allowed them to see just how extraordinary their seperate gifts were and when used one with the other, they would meld into one incredibly powerful force. The elimination of Catherine thus became paramount, EVEN at the expense of common sense, logic, and most of all, morality. The Group was masterful in maintaining Frank's interest, even as it seemed to wane due to the siren calls of Catherine. The earthquake, predicted by Peter with the obvious blessings of the group, and also as witnessed by both Frank and Lara being assigned to more and more cases, drawing them inexorably closer, the Group i believe became obsessed with driving that final wedge between Frank and Catherine. But she was stronger than they anticipated, fighting to retain the shards of what she still believed could be a happy family, with a yellow house, a beautiful daughter, and all the accoutrements that went with it. So as a final desperate measure, and sans any belief in an orderly conviction, i believe that she was deliberately infected with the Marburg Virus (i know this flies in the face of how viruses work, but remember in TV land, anything is possible, and if the group had also developed an antidote, then it could have been distributed without the knowledge of the general public via the city water system, in the foods they were eating, or even as an aiborne spray. Either of these scenarios COULD make sense in that only 88 people died as a result of the outbreak, and as Eth knows so well, any hemorragic contagion, released on an unsuspecting populace would wreak utter and complete devestation, the body's immune system would not naturally be able to develop antibodies at the rate it would need to in order to keep the death rate down, just look at Europe during the Plague, or any moment of our history when an unchecked outbreak occurred. So this would possibly lend itself to the fact that the Group did indeed have some sort of control over its effectiveness and quite possibly the other 87 victims were used by the Group as collateral damage in order to "cover up" their intent of eliminating Catherine. Remember that in "Skull and Bones", Peter tells Emma as the slaughterhouse is being demolised, that 43 "threats" have been eliminated. We never find out who they were with the exception of Cheryl Andrews, so could the other 87 victims in "The Fourth Horseman" be more, nameless, faceless threats to the Group? Also recall that the Groups direction is greater than the sum of the whole as stated to Frank in "The Fourth Horseman" as "How is it decided, who lives, and who dies, The MillenniuM Group is not concerned with any single individual life. If one life appears to interfere with the protection of billions of lives, it really becomes a no-brainer" This was Frank's warning that the Group was devising a means to eliminate Catherine permanetly, but sadly, i believe that it was misinterpreted by Frank as a theat to HIM, and thus, as Peter later said to Frank "The Group has ALWAYS been here for you"..it became an obvious reference to the "final solution", a substitution the Group had in mind of establishing themselves as Frank's surrogate "family" even at the startling spectacle of terminating Catherine...Now as for Lara, there were hints and glances of her attraction to Frank in the earlier stages of S2...primarily in "Goodbye Charlie" where at the very end as they get into the car to drive away from the assisted suicide location, and as Frank puts in the tape of Bobby Darin (who some of you remember was a romantic crooner anyway) i cannot read anything else on the look she gives Frank other than very affectionate, almost to the point where i believe if Frank had leaned over and tried to give her a peck, she certainly would not have resisted...I remember those looks myself (although being married 14 years, they tend to be less frequent, LOL). Dont know if anyone else thought the same, but if you have time go back and rewatch the last 5 minutes of so of Goodbye Charlie and see if you get the same feeling...Also, if you remember, at the end of S2 (not sure which of the two epiodes it was in), Frank calls Laura and begins his message with "Here's my thing"...so it would appear that Frank as well was beginning to feel warm and a bit fuzzy about Lara....anyway, just the ramblings of a madman....

submitted for your approval...

4th Horseman

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Such wonderful posts and such wonderful Lara'ness' to be had and all my thanks for it.

What has been written thus far is superb but let me turn my attention to the proposition that Catherine was deliberately infected with the Marbug prion. I see absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be the case, the narrative proffers so many plot holes during the resolution to the Marburg pandemic that almost any sensible coda must be given due consideration. I think it was NormanCroucher who recently wrote that in an attempt to form a cohesive narrative he had to use a little artistic license as the canonical narrative poses more questions that it actually seeks to answer on this issue. I concur that by the time of Catherine's demise that Frank's implicit trust in the Group was on terminal decline, he had begun to question their theological morality as well as their modus operandi and his relationship with Peter had begun to show the first signs of fraying so it would make perfect sense to utilise such drastic measures in order to emotionally kibosh Frank and leave him ever more susceptible to spiritual and emotional manipulation, no event could have done this so spectacularly than Catherine's death.

I still believe that the potential magnitude of a Marburg Pandemic would leave even the most despotic of terrorists breathless to find a less random and catastrophic solution. It is true, as the mighty 4th notes, that in a fictitious landscape there is no need to adhere to the dictates of hard science and his superb illustration of events in 'Skull and Bones' will prevent me from a temple-aching chew through the annals of biology. Wonderful stuff my friend.

The only thing that seems to stand in the way of such a possibility is in the narrative itself so allow me a little biology as long as I promise to stay within the pure reference material of the text. In Schroeder's autopsy report he notes that "..I would guess the incubation time to be minutes. Nearly all of the tissue cells were attacked – including the brain, causing his blood vessels to leak. His blood was unable to coagulate. He literally sweated blood. I've never seen such a thing..." which would imply, I believe, that if Catherine had been deliberately infected by the pathogen, a pathogen the group had found away to control, she would have had to have been exposed to a host carrier minutes before she died and as she is in seclusion with her family it is unlikely either of them deliberately infected her. That said I still conclude that there is so much room to swing one's cat that almost anything can be true.

As for Ms Means. I had totally forgotten what 4th has thankfully caused me to remember, that in his final attempt to contact Lara that Frank paraphrases her idiosyncratic way of speech in such fond tones that there is a tangible air of care and concern here. I truly accept that Lara was placed with Frank as a psychological lodestone to gravitate Frank ever deeper towards the inner sanctum of Millennium for in she Frank finds the means and the impetus to begin a spiritual and holistic discourse. As noted, with Catherine, his role was as a analogous-bigamist, to keep his psychic life and experiences away from the false Arcadia of his yellow house and yellow life. Within these dictates Frank was content merely 'note' his gift rather than attempt any form of philosophizing as to what it was or what it indicated. Lara was the antithesis of this, to her her gift was a simple and annoying interruption to the rigors of dating, hairstyling and listening to the Ramones and she was not prepared to either dismiss or ignore the profundity forced upon her. It is clear when she meets Frank that her lifetime has been of searching both herself and her soul in an effort to understand how to live in accordance with her wishes whilst accommodating such heavenly experiences. It is she that introduces the notion of lessons, encouraging Frank to consider their cases as opportunities for self understanding and psychic growth, she that introduces a narrative about their abilities and about their lives or lack thereof as a result of them. It is this freedom and encouragement to penetrate more ethereal topics and experiences that subtly encourages Frank to become more accepting, and more thirsty, for the theocratic and spiritual support and answers of the Millennium Group. I accept therefor that without even realising it Lara probably was the 'Means' (all groan) by which Frank was gently lead in the conspiracy of the Group.

Best wishes,

Eth

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Best wishes,

Eth

AHHHH, the good ol days....let me clarify the Marburg situation..if i remember, Peter was also beginning to come under suspicion as well from the Group. Therefore, as the trust would deteriorate between the two, the Group would most likely be far less inclined to share important, relevant, and most importantly correct information. Disinformation would be more like it. Yes, the incubation period was a matter of seconds as the doctor said, so that makes you wonder just why the disease took so long with Catherine...she was obviously infected at the time she arrived at the cabin, yet it was far deeper into the night when she discovered it herself. She then had time to walk away into the forest and die, so by this fact alone, it would seem to be a much less virulent strain, hours now instead of minutes, at least in Catherine's case, yet still fatal. Also, if you remember the family who sat down on Mothers' Day only to wind up dying on the floor as the chicken still sat on their plates, that particular strain was parallel to what the doctor had seen...yet later, Catherine seems to have a prolonged bout of boils, blisters, bleeding, and has time to linger over Jordan and then find her way thru the forest to die...was this only done for a dramatic essence? More on it later...

4th Horseman

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Oh the Bliss of it,

I conclude you are right in your inference, it seems Catherine's symptamology is not congruent with the prognosis afforded the disease and it must have been a vehicle to allow the writers to craft the ending they did. I have just watched the closing two-parter, literally the steam of viewing is rising from me, and I can only conclude that any soul who imbibes this must have a brick for a heart or a personality disorder to not find this almost torturous, too emotionally resonant, too terrible to endure. It has been something of a moon-phase since I last saw this and I cried, big-pathetic-man tears but I cried. Absolutely aching stuff.

On the notion of Catherine. I have a theory that may resolve the simple, perfunctory, niggles that prevent the illustrious 4th's theory from being accepted. Upon a renewed and considered viewing it is stated that the vaccination does not in fact render those infected immune but '...contains it in the host body..' or as 'Watts' succinctly puts it a vaccine that would "...keep the virus in check once it entered the body..." which I interpreted as artistic medical speak for rendering the recipient a carrier but not a sufferer. Given the science this episode serves it is fair to assume that Catherine is exposed to the virus via Frank, that her immune system deals with the viral load effectively until the prion is able to effect its' biological Armageddon. As Peter notes "...and if the virus were neutralized the fused prion would finish off the host..." which would explain the time delay between Catherine's exposure to the virus and her final defeat by the prion.

As for Lara Means.

After much criticism of the 'Horses' montage of which I was an ignorant member, my considered and recent view changed my mind a little. As 'Heath' has noted the subtle layer-upon-layer growth of Lara as an individual had some of us investing portions of ourselves in her narrative. I adore the simplistic and relish the Spartan and the casual growth of a character is a fine cup of coffee in my book. Why Lara appeals to me so is that she didn't require three contrived episodes or more of sit-and-watch backstory to engender my support, the simple scenes of her solitude, her thoughtful sack of festive comestibles when she visits Frank, her ebullient hairstyle worries when presented with an embalmed corpse shoved her rank and file into my heart. The troubled souls always win through with me.

For anyone with tragic empathy of mental illness, be it as a Clinician or a sufferer, Lara's final scenes are as traumatic and difficult as is the coda of the series. Ignore the imagery and MTV musicality and see the montage for what it is: a truthful attempt to represent spiritual, emotional and core self-dissolution and if more attention were paid to the artistic representation of pain than the cost of the images then these scenes would welcome more thumbs-up and salutations. It is hard to endure a mental breakdown so vividly and continually depicted and for those of us who gravitate towards the pain this causes others, to endure the disarrayed, frantic, disassociative scenes of Lara's epiphany are incredibly hard to watch.

Why I find her end so sad and yet so poignant is that we are introduced to a soul with a true zest and ego. She shuns the bleakness and adds quips as quick as bullet-fire and yet in her private moments she sits alone, divided by her curse and her doubts and her weaknesses. For those of us who have ever knelt at the altar of loneliness, depression or a desperate need to be understood then Lara's story reflects every feeling and ache we have ever felt when we paint our brave face on.

To see such a bright creature be beaten when all she ever strove to find was understanding is truly tragic.

I agree with Frank on this, if she found some hope and some comfort then she was right not to return.

Edited by ethsnafu
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Oh the Bliss of it,

On the notion of Catherine. I have a theory that may resolve the simple, perfunctory, niggles that prevent the illustrious 4th's theory from being accepted. Upon a renewed and considered viewing it is stated that the vaccination does not in fact render those infected immune but '...contains it in the host body..' or as 'Watts' succinctly puts it a vaccine that would "...keep the virus in check once it entered the body..." which I interpreted as artistic medical speak for rendering the recipient a carrier but not a sufferer. Given the science this episode serves it is fair to assume that Catherine is exposed to the virus via Frank, that her immune system deals with the viral load effectively until the prion is able to effect its' biological Armageddon. As Peter notes "...and if the virus were neutralized the fused prion would finish off the host..." which would explain the time delay between Catherine's exposure to the virus and her final defeat by the prion.

Eth...another outstanding post...now in regards to the Marburg virus...i recently thought of something that may or may not have any relevance whatsoever, but bear with me. Think back to the family that ate the infected chicken breasts that had just come off of the family bar-b-que...no sense that the meat was "off", no complaints about taste, only about a bit of ketcup (blood) on the ear of corn...now lets follow the chicken track, shall we?? LOL...first off, those birds had to have come from a poultry farm similar to the one at the beginning of "The Fourth Horseman". Next, they would have been sold off for slaughter, taken to a processing plant, then distributed to various supermarkets to finally wind up in your refrigerator, and last but not least, on your dinner plate. If thats the case, and i see no contradictions otherwise, then what happened to the rest of the flock? Given that the poor, unlucky farmer's entire roost was infected, we have to assume that the flock from where this family purchased their meat from was infected as well. But my question is, is there a continuity breakdown here? I mean, they show us an entire farm of chickens wiped out, then only show a few chicken breasts as being the culprit in the family's demise..would not the entire roost from where these deadly chicken breasts came from be infected as well?? We never find out. Am i making any sense?? probably not, guess it was not a major part of the story line....

But, it also stimulated my interest again in prions...knowing, as Eth most certainly does, that viruses abhor heat, and knowing that the family had cooked the chicken breasts on the grill prior to ingestion, i started to wonder if prions shared the same thermosensitivity, so i began to do some research, and what i found out, in a nutshell (although i will still provide a link if anyone is interested) is that prions are susceptible to heat, but also require futher activity in order to denature them....anyway, i have read and re-read this data and have begun to understand it, but i dont have time to bring it to the surface here...so here is the link...enjoy the reading (a bit on the technical side), but worth reading if you want to have a little bit more info on prions...

the article is called "Composition and method for destruction of infetious prion proteins"

https://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6613505-description.html

4th Horseman..

this one is a particularly long read, click on the "claims" tab and it becomes much more succient..

sorry guys, but this stuff is WILD....

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Why I find her end so sad and yet so poignant is that we are introduced to a soul with a true zest and ego. She shuns the bleakness and adds quips as quick as bullet-fire and yet in her private moments she sits alone, divided by her curse and her doubts and her weaknesses. For those of us who have ever knelt at the altar of loneliness, depression or a desperate need to be understood then Lara's story reflects every feeling and ache we have ever felt when we paint our brave face on.

This is why I related to her as well.

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Guest SouthernCelt
Eth...another outstanding post...now in regards to the Marburg virus...i recently thought of something that may or may not have any relevance whatsoever, but bear with me. Think back to the family that ate the infected chicken breasts that had just come off of the family bar-b-que...no sense that the meat was "off", no complaints about taste, only about a bit of ketcup (blood) on the ear of corn...now lets follow the chicken track, shall we?? LOL...first off, those birds had to have come from a poultry farm similar to the one at the beginning of "The Fourth Horseman". Next, they would have been sold off for slaughter, taken to a processing plant, then distributed to various supermarkets to finally wind up in your refrigerator, and last but not least, on your dinner plate. If thats the case, and i see no contradictions otherwise, then what happened to the rest of the flock? Given that the poor, unlucky farmer's entire roost was infected, we have to assume that the flock from where this family purchased their meat from was infected as well. But my question is, is there a continuity breakdown here? I mean, they show us an entire farm of chickens wiped out, then only show a few chicken breasts as being the culprit in the family's demise..would not the entire roost from where these deadly chicken breasts came from be infected as well?? We never find out. Am i making any sense?? probably not, guess it was not a major part of the story line....

I always assumed the chicken dinner wasn't the culprit in spreading the virus. If you remember when the father was still cooking, the dog brought a dead bird into their midst at the coaxing of the son. I assumed (dangerous I know) that the dead bird was the first victim of the virus (due to almost negligible body weight and high metabolic rate?) that had entered by whatever means, accidental or otherwise, into this household's living space. Obviously it was unlikely that this bird had been exposed to the chicken in it's preparation for cooking and likely had not been around the area where the grill was because of the human presence; therefore, the prion-enhanced virus would have likely taken another path into that area, air-borne perhaps? ... just my take on it for what it's worth.

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Gosh I'm loving all this but not the perpetual skull-ache it is causing me.

I agree with Celt that the ingestion of contaminated food is unlikely to have been the means of the distribution of Marburg. The problem I am having with this is the stance we are taking against the narrative, the fact that we are willing to conclude that Marburg was a controlled means of execution and yet when you sit down to create a paint-by-numbers reveal of how this occurred the science negates your every brush stroke.

If the Millennium Group had used Marbug as a biological gun-shot allowing it to be distributed to its recipients through the food chain is wanton insanity, they would have to ensure where each ticking-chicken-leg-bomb would arrive and you are right 4th, every component of that chicken's fateful journey from plate to mouth would be at risk from infection thereby ensuring the catastrophic pandemic that did not happen. The only way the Group could have used Marburg as a weapon is to have delivered the pathogen to the intended recipient personally and ensure that they were kept isolated from any means of cross-contamination up until the point of death.

The problem with the scenario we are creating is that a prion can be denatured by treatment but never truly destroyed and whilst the wonderful article linked-to does note that prions CAN be denatured by autoclaving such serious mistrust of this means that all instruments that come into contact with prion positive patients are destroyed. The scenario depicted in The Fourth Horseman is without repute in its assertion that a prion modified version of Marburg WOULD cause viral Armageddon. And on the circle of headaches continues...

The only way that the scenario depicted in Season Three can be comfortably resolved is to presume that the Group did not unleash Marburg at all but some other viral pathogen that would afford them the strict level of control needed to negate the facts asserted in Season Two. There are hints, tentative ones, that the infection is in fact a mycoplasmic infection in Collateral Damage though the hallmarks of this bear no relation to the haemorrhagic symptoms displayed by the 'Marbug' disease nor is it able to spread back and forth between man and animal as is Marburg Variant PrP.

I know I should be calmer in my analysis, more ready to allow for artistic manipulation, but on repeated viewing of the events of the end of Season Two at no point does the narrative play pantomime with accepted facts, rather it adheres to them and depicts them fully.

I can only conclude that I cannot conclude, the original intention behind the Marburg Virus was lost in the change of the Seasons and it is easy to see why a frantic and untenable solution was proffered, so convoluted is the framework they had to build upon.

Creative license aside and intelligence intact I can only concur that Marburg was a naturally occurring viral outbreak.

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