Dead Letters (Millennium)

Jordan Black (Brittany Tiplady) is awakened by a nightmare, and is comforted by her father Frank Black (Lance Henriksen). However, Black is soon called to investigate the body of a woman at a dog pound in Portland, Oregon. Black works for the Millennium Group, an organisation which offers private investigation services and consults with law enforcement on certain types of cases. He is asked by Group member Jim Penseyres (Chris Ellis) to help a local detective on the murder case, as he is being considered as prospective member of the Millennium Group. Black believes the murder to be the work of a serial killer, and is convinced there will be a message from him on the bodies.

Black meets up with the detective, Jim Horn (James Morrison), and sees that he is a competent and experienced investigator, although his recent separation from his wife has left him distracted and on edge.

The killer murders another woman, disposing of the body in a post office's dead letter office. Investigating, Black finds a human hair with a message etched into it—"hair today, gone tomorrow"—which he takes as an indication that the murderer is lashing out at a world that he feels has treated him as insignificant. Horn's mental condition seems to deteriorate, and he begins to take the case personally, leading Black to doubt his ability.

A third victim turns up, with another message—"nothing ventured, nothing gained". A lens from the killer's glasses is also recovered. Black organises a press release in an attempt to draw out the killer, taunting his intelligence by including a falsified profile describing him as uneducated. Black and Horn feel this will tempt the killer to show up at the latest victim's memorial service. Horn attacks an innocent man at the service, believing him to be the killer; although a cross found at the memorial with "ventured" etched upon it proves the killer did attend. Surveillance footage of the service yields two leads—a local optician recognizes the suspect as a customer having a glasses lens replaced, and the killer's vehicle is identified.

Black and Horn realize that the killer will have chosen the optician as his next victim, and agree to set another trap with her as the bait. Horn, more and more unhinged throughout the case, begins imagining the killer and his van at every turn. As he and Black wait for the killer to make an attempt on the optician's life, Horn admits that he cannot trust himself to be there, and is told to go home. However, he parks his car on the route towards the trap, feigning a flat tyre. When the killer's van attempts to pass, Horn attacks him, but the police arrive in time to stop him beating the killer to death. The attack renders any evidence found in the van inadmissible in court, although Black tells him enough evidence was found at the killer's home to secure a conviction. Later, Horn asks Black how he can deal with cases like this on a regular basis. Black does not answer, but later comforts his daughter after another bad dream.

"Dead Letters" is the first episode of Millennium to be written by James Wong and Glen Morgan, who would go on to write another fourteen episodes across the first and second seasons.[1][2] The episode is also the first not to have been written by series creator Chris Carter, who had penned both of the preceding episodes, "Pilot" and "Gehenna".[1] "Dead Letters" also marked the first time Thomas J. Wright had directed an episode of the series. Wright would go on to direct twenty-six episodes across all three seasons,[1][2][3] as well as directing "Millennium", the series' crossover episode with its sister show The X-Files.[4] He had also previously worked with Morgan and Wong on their series Space: Above and Beyond.[5]

The episode marked the second of three appearances by Chris Ellis as Millennium Group member Jim Penseyres; Ellis had previously appeared in "Gehenna",[6] and would reappear in the next episode, "The Judge".[7] Guest star James Morrison, who portrayed the troubled Jim Horn, had also previously appeared as a main character in Morgan and Wong's Space: Above and Beyond, playing Tyrus Cassius McQueen;[5] his character's son in this episode is named TC as a reference to this.[8] Lisa Vultaggio, who played the optician used to bait the killer, had previously worked with Morgan and Wong in The X-Files, appearing in the first season episode "Beyond the Sea".[9]

Producer and writer Chip Johannessen felt that the scene in this episode in which a human hair is discovered with a message inscribed upon it was a "perfect" moment, in that it "told you everything about this guy [the killer] ... but you had no idea what he was or what he was going to do next ... you know what kind of crazy motherfucker would do that, but where he is or what he's going to do next, who knows".[10] The episode's opening nightmare sequence, in which Jordan Black (Brittany Tiplady) is terrified by a clown crawling along the ceiling, was inspired by the childhood nightmares of Morgan and Wong, and left Tiplady suffering from bad dreams herself for several nights after filming.[11] Producer John Peter Kousakis recalls having visited the episode's set late during production, having felt that make-up effects supervisor Toby Lindala had been doing "fabulous" work on the series' prosthetic body parts. Walking on set to find Lindala's recreation of a quartered corpse, Kousakis remarked "we're doing something special here, but we're also doing something really outrageous". Lance Henriksen also found this scene too graphic to film all at once, taking time between shots to compose himself.[10]

"Dead Letters" was first broadcast on the Fox Network on November 8, 1996;[12] and earned a Nielsen rating of 8, meaning that roughly 8 percent of all television-equipped households were tuned in to the episode.[13]

"Dead Letters" earned positive reviews from critics. Writing for The A.V. Club, Zack Handlen rated the episode a B+. Handlen felt that the episode is "not art, not yet, but it is deeply personal", and praised the opening dream sequence, describing it as "flat-out Lynchian nightmare territory". However, he noted that the episode's dialogue felt too "flat" and "expository", adding that it serves to draw "attention to themes that were already plastered across the screen in blinding red and black".[14] Bill Gibron, writing for DVD Talk, rated the episode 4 out of 5, describing it as being "one of the more horrifying episodes in Season 1". Gibron added that "seeing Jim Horn go through his mental breakdown gives us insight into where Frank Black is coming from", although he felt that the lack of real insight into the killer's personality let the episode down.[15] Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode four stars out of five, describing it as a "gripping and sincere portrait of human ugliness at its most banal". Shearman and Pearson praised guest star James Morrison's acting, noting that he was "the very humanity that the show is crying out for".[12]

• "Dead Letters" at IMDb