Ouroboros, St. Sebastian, and the FBI

- St Sebastian Healed by an Angel - Giovanni Baglione

This week's DVD rental is a disc of Millennium, a late 1990s tv series created by Chris Carter (of The X-Files fame) and starring one of my favorite character actors, Lance Henriksen (Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Encounters of the Third Kind, The Terminator, Aliens, etc), and Terry O'Quinn.

It tells the tale of ex-FBI serial killer profiler (based on real life FBI agent John E. Douglas), Frank Black, who moves with his wife and little girl from DC to Seattle to start a new life freelancing. Because of his expertise in violent crime and a near-psychic ability to see things as they truly are, he is much in demand .... one of the most mysterious cases he works on is the on-going investigation of the mysterious and conspiracy-laden apocalyptically-religious Millennium Group. There is a lot of complexity to the Millennium Group, so if you're interested, check out the Wiki link, but here is just the basic history ...

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The Millennium Group was formed around 10 AD by a group of Christians avoiding persecution. They formed the Group to defend to world against the forces of Satan and other evils as the years draw closer to the Millennium...and beyond. However, Group members began to turn on each other when the Hand of Saint Sebastian was discovered in the year 998 AD. It was believed that whoever had possession of the Hand would have the power to destroy the Devil and win the battle of good vs. evil at the end of the Millennium .....

In the 1940s, with the world on the verge of nuclear Armageddon, the two top officers of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and Clyde Tolson, decided that there needed to be an independent group that could go above the law. A group that could do what the government and law enforcement couldn't.

Hoover, who was already a member of the original Millennium Group, Tolson, and their assistant Lily Unser decided to create their Group. Hoover adopted the ouroboros insignia of the Millennium Group, claiming that he discovered the symbol from a scientist named Kekule. However, he was really creating his own version of the Millennium Group.


- ouroboros

Hoover and Tolson began to recruit members for their Group straight from the FBI. Eventually, however, Hoover's Millennium Group merged with the descendants of the Original Millennium Group to form a larger, more diverse Group mixed with ex-law enforcement personnel and scientists.

Now, in modern times, the Millennium Group appears at first glance to be a group of ex-law enforcement agents (mostly ex-FBI) who consult police departments and other law enforcement agencies. However, this is only a fraction of what the Group does. In reality, the Group comprises many different experts in the law enforcement, legal, technology, medical, and scientific fields.

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It would be difficult to explain all that happens in the series, but it ends with a segment of the millennium Group releasing a modified Marburg virus to which they had an antidote that was given only to select members - Frank was given a dose by his Millennium Group contact, played by Terry O'Quinn, and he managed to get another for his daughter, but his wife died.

Some time after the series ended, on the cusp of 1999/2000, there was an episode of The X-Files, dealing with necromancy and zombification, in which Agents Mulder and Scully look Frank up, finding him in an mental asylum, to help them with a case involving the Millennium Group ...... four FBI agents have killed themselves and are being brought back to life, to be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by the recitation of these words of Jesus .... I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

What's not to love? Seriously, though, while the stories of the series were extremely grim and violent, the character of Frank Black was very well done, especially his relationship with his little daughter, and if you like conspiracies, the occult, religious mysticism, and the exercise of courage and integrity under fire, you will probably like Millennium.


- Lance as Frank Black