Frank Black (character)

Frank Black
File:Frank Black (Millennium).jpg Lance Henriksen as Frank Black
First appearance	"Pilot"
Last appearance	"Millennium"
Portrayed by	Lance Henriksen
In-universe information
Occupation	FBI Special Agent
Family	Henry Black (father, deceased) Linda Black (mother, deceased) Thomas Black (brother) Catherine Black (wife, deceased) Jordan Black (daughter)
Birth name	Frank Black
Date of birth	July 12, 1941 Seattle, Washington
Affiliated with	Millennium Group

Frank Black is a fictional character in the Fox television series Millennium and The X-Files. Frank Black is played by Lance Henriksen. Black was a renowned, highly skilled criminal investigator with the FBI who had the gift to put himself into the killer's mind and imagine himself as the killer. He had frequent dealings with the Millennium Group after he retired and moved to Seattle, Washington. In season three, Frank re-joins the FBI and is assigned a partner, Emma Hollis.

Frank Black made his first appearance in the first season 1996 episode "Pilot". He was the son of Henry and Linda Black, the brother of Thomas Black, the husband of Catherine Black, and the father of Jordan Black.

Character arc

Frank Black was born on July 12, 1941 in Seattle, Washington to Henry and Linda Black. A renowned profiler and criminal investigator for the FBI, he was able to solve cases attributable to an ability to go inside the mind of a killer. Having witnessed many atrocities during his long career in the FBI, Black was forced to retire after getting polaroids of his family in the mail. Frank started to work again after being contacted by the Millennium Group, a shadowy organization waiting for the new Millennium. Frank said yes to the offer to be a consultant for the group, after this event he and his family moved to Seattle to start a "new life".

After he moved to Seattle, he began receiving new pictures of his family in the mail. Frank worked hard to keep up the facade that his family was okay. The only people that knew about the pictures sent to him were select members of the Millennium Group. At the end of the first season, his wife Catherine Black is drugged and kidnapped in the Seattle Airport. Frank tracked down the kidnapper and killed him in a fit of rage. After this incident Catherine broke up with him, being shocked over Frank's actions.

Later on Frank realized that the Millennium Group knew that the kidnapping would happen, he also found out that the groups origin dated back to the birth of Christianity. Frank continued to consult for them, but his limits were tested when his wife Catherine died of a variation of the Marburg Virus which had infected and killed several others in Seattle. Convinced that the Millennium Group stood behind it and needed to be stopped, Frank moved back to Virginia and re-joined the FBI and became a special agent. He was teamed up with his new partner, Special Agent Emma Hollis. His career in the FBI ended after he was fired for breaking into Peter Watts' home (his dismissal from the FBI was set into motion by the Millennium group itself). In The X-Files crossover episode, "Millennium" Frank checked himself in an asylum until Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully asked for his help solving a case involving the Millennium Group. While he is reluctant at first to help Mulder and Scully, he later checks himself out of the asylum to help them. At the end of the episode he reunites with his daughter Jordan Black.

Conceptual history

Chris Carter recalls, "I had this idea for a character in mind that became Frank Black and it sort of took shape over time, but I was under the gun... A retired FBI agent, and the idea of the prophecies, Nostradamus, taking the poetry, the millennial, apocalyptic poetry: those things were sort of added on to this idea of this character, a person who wanted to retire from something but could not, and that was basically the long and short of that; it didn't require much research." Carter later comments, "I think, you know, like a good... like Shane, like any cowboy, any good movie, western movie, the hero is always very self-reliant, quiet, capable, dangerous. That's what I saw Frank Black as."

According to portraying actor Lance Henriksen, "My first question to Carter was, "How are you going to make this hero a hero? I mean, it is so dark, how are you going to handle this?" And he said that the fact that the guy is a stand-up guy through all of this is what makes him a hero. Not that I was looking for a hero role, but I knew you had to care about this guy." Regarding Carter, Henriksen later notes, "He was very, very convincing. All the questions I had, he answered. The way it all went down was pretty outrageous."

The Fox executives were not initially convinced that Lance Henriksen was right for the main role, and they suggested using William Hurt, until they discovered that he had no interest in acting for television. Chris Carter then sent the script for the "Pilot episode". Henriksen read the script and thought it was "great". When his manager told him that it was a television script, he backed out for a while until he talked to Carter himself. Regarding his casting of Henriksen for the lead, Carter stated that:

I had tried to cast Lance Henriksen on The X-Files several times, he had always been either unavailable or uninterested. Anyway I remained a fan of his, I was in bed working in Vancouver and I realized he was working there too. So I found out where he was staying, wrote a note and had a fan note slipped under his door and told him that I'd tried to get him on the show and hoped to work with him in the future. Little did he know when I was then writing Millennium I was writing with only him in mind, with no idea whether or not he'd actually do the project. So I wrote the project, approached him, he was very excited about it, we made a deal and the rest is now history.

Although Frank Black was usually played by Henriksen, A.J. Adamson also appeared as younger versions of the character in the season two episodes, "The Curse of Frank Black" and "Midnight of the Century", as well as the season three episode, "Seven and One". Additionally, Shaun Toplass played Frank Black aged 14 years old in "The Curse of Frank Black".