'Under Color of Authority'

[ithildin]

Highlander Season Two

Under Color of Authority, Air Date: February 1994

Richie wants to protect Laura Daniels, a young woman who's on the run from an Immortal bounty hunter, Mako. MacLeod has met Mako befoe and doesn't like his methods, but he knows the other man is lawful. He questions whether Laura is necessarily innocent. Richie doesn't care, he wants to help her anyway, no matter what it takes. MacLeod is torn between doing what's right and helping his friend. Richie defeats Mako and receives his first Quickening, and he and MacLeod realize it's time for him to move on. ~ recap via tv.com

Next week will be 'Unholy Alliance'

Comments

[macgeorge1.livejournal.com]

My entire episode description and summary of commentary by TPTB is at:
http://hlfiction.net/viewstory.php?sid=403&textsize=0&chapter=12

My comments were: Great emotional potency in this episode. Mako lives in a world of black and white, of rules that he believes defines and maintains society. He is not evil, just blind to any value but the law. Mac believes in the law, but is more focused on the people, on the reasons and circumstances surrounding their lives and their actions. It was interesting that I recently watched a little of FUOT on TNN, where Mac desperately tries (unsuccessfully) to explain Sean Burn's death to Steven Keane, who is equally uninterested in reasons. ("I don't judge your reasons, MacLeod, only your acts.")

Richie is caught up in his own world of wanting to be a hero, of having a pretty girl who needed him, but at the very end, just before Laura is hit by Mako's car, he finally tries to convince her to give herself up, that running isn't going to achieve anything. Was Richie wrong to go after Mako? Well, in the flashback, MacLeod had been faced with the same choice - of challenging Mako for killing his friend, even though Mako was merely following the Law, and all his friend had to do was give himself up. Mac chose not to challenge. He did not see evil in Mako, nor did he believe vengeance was justified.

But Richie was young, still had many lessons to learn, and it was time he learned them on his own, as Mac had learned them. That last scene is a heartbreaker, for both of them. Richie is confused and hurt and feeling rejected and insecure, needing reassurances that Mac can't give him. Mac could have railed at him, which wouldn't have achieved anything other than disaffection. He could have "forgiven him", but the act wasn't up to Mac to forgive. He could have accepted it, but he didn't believe it was acceptable, and ultimately, he had to acknowledge that Richie had now taken his first Quickening, had killed his first Immortal, and done so in anger and vengeance.

It is the last thing Richie asks that is at the core of his despair. "Are we going to have to face each other?" It is the defining tragedy of their lives.