“Never believe anything you see on Halloween.” That’s the Reverend M. Goodman quote that opens up Millennium‘s second Halloween-themed episode, “…Thirteen Years Later,” and instantly sets the mood for this unusual and spooky hour of television. If this were your first foray into the world of Millennium, you’d probably be wondering what a star like Lance Henriksen would be doing on a show like this. Let it be known that, while the Chris Carter-created series did partake in some high strangeness in its three short seasons, no episode is quite like this one. Blending Halloween and B-horror movies with the rock band KISS is a bit uncanny, no doubt, but this is a ride you’ll never forget. As the network’s own promotion boasted, “If you like slasher films… You’re gonna love this. Blood, guts and music’s wildest band. Don’t miss one hell of a show.”
‘Millennium’s Second Halloween Episode Is Like a Fever Dream
Thirteen years after FBI profiler Frank Black was last in the small town of Trinity, South Carolina, investigating a string of homicides he helped solve, he and his new partner Emma Hollis (Klea Scott) return to investigate a new set of murders. Unfortunately for Frank, the town is now the epicenter of a B-horror picture very loosely based on the very case that Frank solved over a decade earlier, now with the rock band KISS set to perform a concert in the third act. Yeah, they got the actual band to show up for this one, with the newly reunited original lineup — Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss — performing their hit 1998 single, “Psycho Circus,” together on stage.
Even funnier, the band themselves have parts in the episode, too. Stanley plays the murdered director Lew Carroll; Simmons shows up as the fake killer, Hector Leachman; and Frehley and Criss cameo as “Sick Cop” and “Nice Cop,” respectively. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their on-stage personas, Simmons and Stanley in particular give fine performances, with the latter’s work as the opening’s sleazy film director being the most authentic of the bunch. When talking about the band in an on-set interview, Lance Henriksen once aptly noted that, “[KISS is] a wonderful circus,” highlighting the acting talents of a few of them. Of course, KISS has their own unique history of film and television appearances, but this episode of Millennium takes it all to the next level.
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As Frank struggles to find a motive for his killer, he and Hollis finally make a breakthrough when they realize that the murderer doesn’t have a standard criminal profile (which nearly drives Frank insane, “for the third time in his life”). Instead, the killer takes direct inspiration from the horror movies airing locally each night leading up to Halloween. That means Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are all fair game as the agents try and deduce who the killer is before it’s too late. To make it all just a little stranger, Frank and Hollis deal primarily with showbiz people here, the self-absorbed and “fake” Hollywood types who refuse to take any of the danger seriously.
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“…Thirteen Years Later” Is a Strange Ode to B-Horror Flicks Everywhere
As much as “…Thirteen Years Later” feels like an excuse for Fox to air an hour-long advertisement for KISS’s 1998 reunion album, Psycho Circus (which is a great album by the way), the episode is equally a tongue-in-cheek critique on the film business as a whole, not unlike The X-Files‘ “Hollywood A.D.” or Supernatural‘s “Hollywood Babylon.” Of course, both of those episodes aired after Millennium did it first. But at it’s core, “…Thirteen Years Later” plays as a riff on B-horror movies just perfect for the Halloween season. Not only does the final act take place on October 31st, just after a Michael Meyers-inspired copycat kill, but the whole thing is framed as a meta take on how ridiculous most B-horror pictures are, with an ending that feels just as bizarre as any of the flicks the episode takes the time to name-drop.
“…Thirteen Years Later” couldn’t be more different from Millennium‘s previous Halloween episode, the melancholy and meditative “The Curse of Frank Black,” but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any merit to this one. It’s a fun, oddball experience that feels very unlike most episodes of Millennium (indeed, it was their first real comedic attempt in the show’s third and final season), but still shines because of Henriksen’s deadpan reaction to the insanity of it all. The episode’s final twist, which we won’t spoil here, is especially notable since it re-frames the entire episode and retroactively explains just why it feels so bizarre compared to your usual Millennium hour. Even over two decades later, “…Thirteen Years Later” is still a fun watch, and certainly worth breaking out the old DVDs for, especially around this time of year.
Millennium is available for purchase on Amazon and sadly has yet to stream.
A former FBI profiler with the ability to look inside the mind of a killer begins working for the mysterious Millennium Group which investigates serial killers, conspiracies, the occult, and those obsessed with the end of the millennium.
- Release Date
- October 25, 1996
- Cast
- Lance Henriksen , Megan Gallagher , Terry O’Quinn , Brittany Tiplady , Klea Scott , Stephen J. Lang , Stephen E. Miller , Bill Smitrovich
- Seasons
- 3
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