The Rogue's Eye View
http://www.mmreviews.cjb.net
M I L L E N N I U M
101. GEHENNA
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by David Nutter
Original Air Date: November 1, 1996
Brief summary: As Frank investigates the homicide of a man, burned alive in a crematory oven, he discovers a brainwashed cult and an evil "beast" that is evil incarnate.
Rogue's Review: The first regular-season episode of the series moves to the dark underbelly of San Francisco, where a young man is drugged by a group of black-clothed youths, verbally harassed (while hallucinating that his friends' heads have been replaced by those of vicious dogs) and then abandoned in a deserted warehouse district, where he is set upon by something that tears him apart... something that appears to the horrified youth as an inhuman bat-like demon.
Frank and Peter investigate a series of murders bodies incinerated and dumped in a Frisco graveyard and Group member Mike Atkins (Frank's former mentor) pays a call to assuage Frank's concerns about the resurfacing of the Polaroid Stalker and encourage him to continue his investigations. As their work continues, Frank and Peter uncover a strange cult of young sociopaths, working for a mysterious leader who recruits them to operate a telemarketing scheme with disturbing connotations and a grim purpose.
The things we're slowly learning about Watts and his fellow Group members are thrilling Watts in particular. He readily throws out medical terms for body parts and reads Czechoslovakian handwriting without stumbling. Atkins is an expert on apocalypse lore and numerology. These glimpses solidify the reality of the Group, simultaneously cementing the grounded reality of the series.
"Gehenna" does a fairly good job of intertwining the main storyline the pursuit of the Gehenna Boys with Frank's home life. Frank sidesteps the latest round of nosy questions from Jack Meredith while installing a new security light outside his yellow house. Catherine, who has gone back to work as a social services counselor, has a lovely scene with Bob Bletcher, in which she compares Frank to "the Catcher in the Rye," standing at a cliff's edge, struggling to save everyone from going over. But we see that she's hiding as much from Frank as he is from her she hides her fears about their new surroundings in order to keep him from freezing up as he did once before, when his pursuit of the original Polaroid Stalker and the threats against his family caused him a nervous breakdown. She does as he asked in the pilot pretending for his sake that he can stop the inevitable breakdown of society.
Easily the most frustrating moment of "Gehenna" comes near the end Atkins's infamous rushing-in-where-angels-fear-to-tread scene. He goes into the suspect's warehouse den alone, without waiting for backup. Worse, he sees something of fascination to him inside a giant, industrial-sized walk-in microwave
and rushes in, despite knowing all the previous victims were incinerated! Atkins is nearly killed, but it's not relief we feel at his last-minute rescue, but exasperation someone so dense probably doesn't deserve Group status! (It also seems unlikely Atkins would be able to recover from the severe internal damage caused by being partially cooked!)
"I've always believed that evil is born of a cold heart and a weak mind," Atkins had told Frank earlier but despite his expertise in end-of-the-world beliefs, it's obvious even this Group veteran can't see the bigger picture: evil may reside in a cold heart and a weak mind, but it might come from somewhere else. [Rating: 7/10]
"They told me we were going to be rich! That we were the chosen ones! That discipline was the way to our own salvation!" -- Bob Smith
reviews by Rick Smith (1996 - present) and website by Matt Asendorf (2004)
all material property of Paper Street Productions ~ http://www.paperstreetprod.com