A man lies dying, afflicted with a strange disease that appears to be eating up his body. Meanwhile, Hollis is made aware of the discovery of five still-growing severed hands and immediately suspects the Millennium Group.
It's always a bad start when you discover that at the end of the episode, you're still none the wiser as to what the title actually means. After Darwin's Eye threw in a load of mumbo-jumbo and didn't make sense, the best plan was not to do exactly the same again for the next episode. If events are meant to be building towards some kind of impressive season ender, this is not the best approach.
There are plenty of intrigung elements here, but unless I fell asleep and missed a huge chunk of exposition, there was no mention of what function the red bowls served, what ailment the dying man has, how anything was related to Watts and the Group or what the severed hands were to be used for.
On the other hand, this story does show the latest stage in the development of Klea Scott's Agent Hollis, who is now even more paranoid than Frank about the Millennium Group. This kind of attitude could get her booted out of the FBI. Also, Frank seems to be a man of great importance, yet we don't know how at this time. All of this bodes well for future developments, but let's see some!
Mark Snow also does some good music work here, hitting just the right note, with help from the chanting monks who deserve a mention for giving the episode a certain vibe. All the elements are there; they just amount to nothing, sadly.
**
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