'Finale'

[ithildin]

Welcome to our second installment of Methos Episode discussion! You can find the first one, for 'Methos' here.

Finale Parts One & Two, Air Date: May 1995

Amanda accidentally helps Kalas escape from prison by trying to do MacLeod a favor and kill Kalas for him. After an attempt on Maurice's life thwarted by MacLeod, Kalas kidnaps Amanda to use as bait against MacLeod, but Amanda manages to escape.

Meanwhile, Christine Salzer, the widow of a Watcher killed by Kalas (in "Methos") decides to get her revenge on Immortals and Watchers alike by exposing their secret to the media. Dawson and Methos team up to try and talk Christine out of it, but she's determined to take a computer disk with the identities of all known Immortals and Watchers on it to a newspaper publisher. Dawson, desperate, tries to kill her outside the newspaper building, but is stopped by MacLeod and Methos. Christine enters the building and the Immortals and the Watchers know their lives are about to change forever.

As Christine tells her tale to the newspaper publisher, MacLeod and Amanda, knowing their world is about to end, finally admit they love each other. Kalas kills Christine and the publisher and steals the computer disk before they have a chance to spread the story. Kalas offers MacLeod a deal -- MacLeod offers up his head or the contents of the disk are made public. Dawson and the Watchers attempt to find Kalas, but this only results in more dead Watchers.

Methos tries to talk MacLeod out of it, but MacLeod agrees to fight Kalas on top of the Eiffel Tower. Kalas is defeated and the resulting Quickening, amplified by the Tower, sends a power surge that disrupts every computer in the vicinity -- including Kalas'. The information on the disk is destroyed and Immortals and Watchers maintain their anonymity. ~via tv.com

Next week, we'll move on to Season Four with Chivalry and Timeless (I love Chivalry!)

A few quotes below the curtain





Joe: What were you thinking about?
Methos: I wasn't thinking, I was improvising.
Joe: By cutting yourself open? It took you five thousand years to come up with that?
Methos: What were you expecting? Einstein? Freud? Buddha? I'm sorry, Joe, I'm just a guy.
Joe: I guess next you're gonna tell me there's no Santa Claus.
_________________

Methos: "The passion of youth."
Duncan: "Boys will be boys."
Methos: And "every cloud has a silver lining."
Duncan: What d'you mean?
Methos: If you die, Amanda will be free to date.
Duncan: That's a comfort.
___________________

Methos: I was in Rome once, ninety-three AD, Coliseum, I saw Christians facing the lions. Some of them looked almost happy to die for their faith.
Duncan: Your point or we just strolling down memory lane here?
Methos: But afterwards the only ones looking happy were the lions.
Duncan: This isn't about faith.
Methos: No, it's about sacrifice. It's a hell of a thing to be a martyr, MacLeod, and that's what Kalas wants; he's pushing all your buttons.
Duncan: Well, I'm open to suggestions; enlighten me.
Methos: Maybe Amanda's right; you fight your best fight.
Duncan: What, every man for himself and to hell with the rest?
Methos: So what if the world finds out. Life is about change, civilizations rise and fall.
Duncan: This isn't about civilizations, this is about people. Amanda, Dawson, Richie. Our world is not an ant farm.

Comments

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

Yes, Gregor is a good example, and so is Brian Cullen. And what you say about Byron is true, too. Something happened to all three that made them lose sight of the value of life.

There are lots of famous quotes about death giving meaning to life. I think it's true.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I'm really loving this discussion! So thank you :)

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

Something happened to all three that made them lose sight of the value of life.

For Claudia it was becoming Immortal, and we don't know if she lived long enough as an Immortal to develop the sense that she could be armed and still near death. For Gregor and Byron they were burnt out. However they weren't both hopelessly burnt out. Byron gave up, and Duncan took his head. Gregor recovered his sense of his own mortality when he provoked Duncan, and lived. Brian Cullen was hyper aware of his own mortality, getting his "courage" from drugs and alcohol. Each of those is a different case.

There are lots of famous quotes about death giving meaning to life.

The first Rule of the Game is "In the end there can be only one." An Immortal who lacks a sense of their own mortality is fucked up, and even being fucked up didn't keep Byron from being a famous poet.

[(Anonymous)]

"Each of those is a different case."

I have to disagree. The issue is not a case of "lacks a sense of their own mortality", but rather that they have some control over that mortality. In fact, if they can fight, hide, run or stay on Holy ground, they can live forever. Mortals cannot. Methos touches on this in the episode on Amanda's crystal. He comments that no matter how hard mortals prepare, how hard they fight, they have no chance against death. They CANNOT win, they will always lose. For Mortals - DEATH HAS DOMINION. For an Immortal, that is not necessarily true. I think it is that knowledge, that you cannot win, that makes Mortals great, but prevents Immortals from being so.

Roberta

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

In fact, if they can fight, hide, run or stay on Holy ground, they can live forever.

No, they can't live forever, and Methos' words about Alexa in the episode Methuselah's Gift are true for Immortals, or for every Immortal except the Prize winner. For every other Immortal someone will be better or luckier. Darius lost his head on Holy Ground, and while it wasn't to an Immortal he was just as dead. And the Kimmie that wanted Amanda's piece of the Methuselah's stone in Legacy wanted the stone because it would make him invulnerable. It's appeal for Immortals is the same as it is for humans, getting the ability to live forever. Brian Cullen was obsessed with the fact that sooner or later he would lose, and other Immortals know it whether or not they talk about it the way Methos talked about Alexa. Hell, Methos may have been obsessed with Alexa's mortality in Methuselah's Gift, but he's aware of his mortality.

I think it is that knowledge, that you cannot win, that makes Mortals great, but prevents Immortals from being so.

Immortals know that "Only One" can win, and unlike human beings who can dream of dying peacefully in their sleep they know their death will be a violent one. They only die when something severs their head from their body. If it's a "looming death" that makes greatness then Immortals have both a looming death, and a violent one. Death is a part of life, even for astronomical stars like the sun. Methos maybe 5,000 years old, but he's the oldest living Immortal. Richie didn't make average human life expectancy, and he wasn't the only Immortal like that on the show. I don't know what "average life expectancy" is for an Immortal, but they don't live forever. And, even if they did, death doesn't particularly make one great.

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess we can agree to disagree. I don't really buy into the whole "there can be only one" mythology, but that's just me.

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

I don't really buy into the whole "there can be only one" mythology, but that's just me.

"There can be only one," is canon, canon they had to violate to do any spin offs from the original movie. Connor was the Prize winner in the original movie. Whether they move even farther away from original canon than they already have with their various spin offs in The Source, "There can be only one," will still be the original canon. If you choose to ignore the First Rule because they've violated it, and may violate it further that's your choice. I chose to ignore the later spin offs. While in one of the short stories in Evening at Joe's an Immortal that tries to kill on Holly Ground promptly vanishes, in Endgame the Kimmie kills on Holy Ground without any ill effect. Everyone, even the Immortals apparently, are free to choose what they believe. ;)

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

I don't choose to ignore it because of canon, I choose to ignore it because it doesn't make any sense, and we don't know where it comes from. It sounds like something a bunch of Immortals made up a long time ago to justify killing each other.

I only believe the "rules" I see evidence of. I see that in order to kill an Immortal, you need to cut off his head. I see that when an Immortal dies, the Immortal who killed him gets his quickening.

Anything else, including the Gathering, "there can be only one," etc. that I don't see evidence of might very well be made-up mythology, as far as I'm concerned.

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

I choose to ignore it because it doesn't make any sense, and we don't know where it comes from.

In the "most people pretend it doesn't exist" version of Highlander 2 they answered where Immortals and the Game come from with Zeist. From what I saw at the Highlander convention in Leeds The Source is going to offer a different explanation of where Immortals and the Game comes from. Even without the explanation in the "bad" Highlander 2, or whatever they're up to in The Source there's a partial explanation of why "Only One" in the Prize itself. The Prize is the accumulation of every Immortals Quickening, all of that power. "There can be only one," is a tenant at least lip service has been paid to in every version of Highlander, except maybe the cartoon series, I forget how it worked, and it's there because it's a fundamental part of their existence however it gets explained.

I only believe the "rules" I see evidence of.

Connor was "The Only One" in the original Highlander movie. They may have made it an alternate timeline, with the series Connor and the Kurgan weren't the last two Immortals, but the Rules have already been played out to their conclusion.