Here we are, the penultimate installment of Millennium, the first spin-off from Chris Carter’s The X-Files, and as we close in on the end of the series, the solid episodes just keep coming. Seven and One, written by Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter, is scary, unnerving and fantastic.

First airing on 30 April, 1999, Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) begins to feel he’s losing his mind when he begins to recieve photos depicting him dying from drowning, a call back to a secret from his childhood, and while Hollis (Klea Scott) is ready to stand by him, even as he begins to reveal the true nature of his gift to her, the rest of the folks at the Bureau begin to feel he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

In fact, during the events of the episode, Frank seems to quit the FBI. Is that it, is he done with them for the rest of the series?

Whatever is out there, stalking Frank, is more than just a killer, it’s something more, something truly evil, and in the course of the events of the episode, even Hollis is going to come face to face with it.

There is a lot of tension and worry at work in this story, we see Hollis’ commitment to Frank and vice versa, we see the trauma Frank is still carrying not only from the death of his wife, but from an incident from his childhood, and we learn that there is true darkness out there. Well, we already knew it, but this time Hollis confronts it.

But Frank comes to realise that his gift, while troubling, is truly a gift, because it brings some light out of the darkness.

Nostalgia shows us that no, Frank did not leave the Bureau yet. Written by Michael R. Perry, this episode was first broadcast on 7 May, 1999.

Hollis and Frank draw a case that brings Hollis back to one of the places she grew up, as they investigate a series of disappearances and murders of several young female university students. As the pair investigate, places that have treasured memories for Hollis take on darker connotations as they discover evidence of a killer at work.

A killer who may be one of the local police, but an old friend of Hollis’ and the local sheriff, Tommy Briggs (David Barrera) refuses to believe it.

So while Frank workd their suspect, Jerry (Ted Marcoux), and gets him to open up, Hollis discovers how close knit the community is, and that even though she thinks of this town as home, there are secrets, omissions and lies here.

This is a solid episode, but honestly feels that it should have come before the previous episode, which just seemed like a brilliantly tense story, and was setting up the final episodes of the series that we will be exploring next week!