Millennium 5C21: “Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me”
The Millennial Abyss | Episodes | Season Two
“Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me” (5C21)
Written by Darin Morgan
Directed by Darin Morgan
Edited by James Coblentz
Aired May 1, 1998
Summary
Four demons assemble in the predawn at a doughnut shop and reflect on the havoc they have wreaked in their efforts to lead humanity into damnation.
Synopsis
After delivering newspapers to homes in the wee hours of the morning, a man named Abum makes his way to a donut shop. There, the grumpy old-timer angers a clerk with his irascible attitude. The clerk responds by urinating in Abum's cup of coffee. Abum makes his way to a table, where he joins three other men: Blurk, Greb and Toby. As the foursome assume the shape of monstrous devils, Abum announces that the clerk urinated in his coffee. The devils share a private chuckle that bubbles over into demonic cackling.
Blurk laments how the current century lacks characters and personalities. He illustrates his point by recounting a story in which he met up with a young man, Perry, who had potential serial killer written all over him. Posing as a hitchhiker in human form, Blurk befriended Perry, and the pair struck up a conversation about serial killers. Perry pointed out a little devil statuette on the dashboard of his van, noting that Johnnie Mack Potter, the most prolific murderer in America, made it in prison. Blurk revealed that he, too, collected murder memorabilia, and told Perry that he possessed all the makings of a prototypical serial killer. He encourages Perry's talent, telling him to play the hand he had been dealt. Soon after, Perry began killing prostitutes, and eventually announced his intention to beat Potter's record. Eventually, Perry came one murder shy of making the record books. However, it was at that point that Frank Black began closing in on the killer. During the investigation, Black saw Blurk for the devil he is, something that perplexes Blurk to the current day. Bored with the killings, Blurk gave authorities a clue that led to Perry's arrest. Ironically, Perry ended up sharing a cell with his idol, Johnnie Mack Potter, who proceeded to strangle Perry, and remains the undisputed king of the serial killers.
Abum then proceeds to tell a story of his own, insisting devil work is no longer necessary, as mankind has found a way of doing it all for him. He recounts the monotonous existence of an everyman named Brock, who repeated the same boring daily routine day after day. Brock frequented a strip club, which caused Abum to conclude that men sinned so often that whatever passion first compelled them to commit such acts had long passed. Eventually, Abum took it upon himself to tweak Brock's life with a minor irritant (in this case, by assuming the form of a meter maid). During this particular incident, Frank spotted Abum's true devil form while parking his car, prompting great interest from the devils listening to the story. Eventually, Brock threw himself out a window.
Greb proceeds to recount a story of his own, one involving a television network censor named Waylon Figgleif. Waylon believed the weight of maintaining a nation's morality rested on his shoulders, and because of this, Greb believed that making Waylon's mind snap was an especially easy task. Greb assumed the form of the Internet/Ally McBeal baby and ran inside Waylon's office. Waylon concluded the baby was evidence of his own psychological breakdown, and attempted to censor things he encountered in his everyday life. The devil baby made yet another appearance before Waylon, this time encouraging him to kill. Waylon responded by bursting onto a Hollywood soundstage where two FBI agents were autopsying an alien body. As a cameraman recorded the action, Waylon opened fire, killing several of the actors portraying aliens. At this point, Greb snaps his fingers, realizing he, too, spotted Frank as he investigated the incident. Greg concludes that by damning Waylon's soul, he damned millions of others as the footage captured by the cameraman was broadcast by another network in a show entitled: When Humans Attack!
The other devils react with alarm when Toby declares that the mystery man (Frank) knows who they are. Toby then recounts his story. It begins at a strip club, where a naive-looking first-timer turned and looked at Toby in sheer horror. Toby realized the boy didn't see his devil form; rather, he saw his own self, his potential future. Reacting to a particularly vulnerable moment, Toby paid a stripper named Sally to gyrate on his lap. The pair discovered they were like two lost souls, and a relationship developed. One night, Sally saw Toby's true essence, his devil self, as he laid in bed. Sally nonetheless forgave Toby for his faults. Toby took Sally to the donut shop, where he began to ask for her hand in marriage. But at the last second, he changed his mind and ended the relationship. Toby then made his way to Sally's apartment, where police discovered her body, the victim of a suicide. It was at the apartment that Frank saw Toby in his devil form. But instead of reacting shocked, Frank simply said, "You must be so lonely." It suddenly dawns on the other devils sitting in the donut shop that the description is correct, as they are all the loneliest creatures on earth. As the foursome leave the shop, Abum praises the clerk's coffee.
Starring
Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
Guest Starring
Dick Bakalyan as Abum
Wally Dalton as Toby
Alex Diakun as Greb
Bill Macy as Blurk
Stephen Holmes as Perry
Bill Mackenzie as Brock
Dan Zukovic as Waylon Figgleif
Gabrielle Rose as the Aging Stripper
Michael Sunczyk as Johnnie Mack Potter
Fawnia Mondey as the Stripper
Production Credits
Production #5C21
Music by Mark Snow
Production Designer Mark Freeborn
Director of Photography Robert McLachlan
Associate Producer Jon-Michael Preece
Consulting Producer Chip Johannessen
Consulting Producers Darin Morgan
Co-Producer Robert Moresco
Co-Producer Paul Rabwin
Producer Thomas J. Wright
Co-Executive Producer Ken Horton
Co-Executive Producer John Peter Kousakis
Executive Producer Glen Morgan
Executive Producer James Wong
Executive Producer Chris Carter
Soundtrack
“My War” (1984) by Black Flag
AWARDS
Bram Stoker Award: “Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me” by Darin Morgan, Best Horror Screenplay (Nominee)
Location
Book Excerpt
“Darin Morgan’s script is brimming with ideas, philosophies, and tinder-dry wit—just what Ten Thirteen audiences had come to expect from him—and yet manages to render itself deliciously open to interpretation on the part of the viewer. At its heart, it offers a meditation upon the pettiness of lives lived in ignorant slavishness to numbing routine, its effect upon heart and soul, and how a propensity for evil can rise from the resulting and pervading sense of cynicism towards the world.”
—Adam Chamberlain
Back to Frank Black
REVIEWS
“Darin Morgan strikes again—and once again, the little-known but reliably quirky TV writer's aim is true, and truly hilarious... Morgan shakes up the usually dour series by writing and directing one of TV's most outrageous hours since the glory days of Twin Peaks. Morgan, author of the similarly sarcastic and iconoclastic X-Files and Millennium crossover stories featuring Charles Nelson Reilly as author Jose Chung, has concocted another of his patented, demented wild rides—and this time by largely ignoring and lampooning the show's star and mood. No doubt, in the case of tonight's Millennium, the Devil made him do it.”
—David Bianculli
The New York Daily News
“In tonight's episode of the Fox series Millennium, four demons sit in a doughnut shop discussing ways to capture human souls. Dark yet funny, the hour includes a serial killer, a dancing devil baby, a network censor running amok—thus becoming fodder for When Humans Attack, a special on the fictitious ANT network—and a more subtle theme regarding loneliness.”
—Brian Lowry
The Los Angeles Times
“Darin Morgan once again re-writes the rules, and delivers an exquisite episode that could be watched and enjoyed by people who had never seen the show before. After ‘Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense,’ it was clear that his off-kilter scripts for Millennium would be even more outrageous than his work on The X-Files, and this one certainly lives up to all expectations... Once you've reveled in the surface layer of Morgan's story, a darkly cynical continuation of his ‘Doomsday Defense’ message (that the only thing we can expect from the millennium is a ‘thousand years of the same old crap’) you can only marvel at the episode’s clever construction, both in its narrative format, and in the thrifty re-use of a small number of common locations (the strip club, the launderette, the parking bay, and the Donut Hole itself).”
—Anthony Tomlinson
Shivers
“Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me” print ad.