'Legacy'

[ithildin]

Highlander Season Two

Legacy, Air Date: May 1994

When her mentor Rebecca is killed, Amanda is determined to avenge the death, even though it means going up against the formidable Immortal Luther, and very possibly losing her head. She comes to Mac for a final fling before her likely death, and when he discovers that she's after Luther, he tries to take the battle on himself, feeling he has a better chance of survival. Together they discover that Luther is hunting the pieces of an ancient crystal that Rebecca divided among her students, believing that the whole crystal will make him invulnerable and ensure that he is the Last Immortal. In the final confrontation, both Amanda and MacLeod take their turns battling the ascetic Luther. ~ recap via tv.com

Just two more after this -- Prodigal Son and Counterfeit -- before we reach season three. Which means POLL! You can find the season three episode poll here. Vote early, vote often.

Comments

[macgeorge1.livejournal.com]

My previously posted episode description and commentary is posted at:
http://www.wordsmiths.net/MacGeorge/episodes/Season2/Legacy.htm

Summary: While I like many things about this episode, there is one thing that bothered me. When John, Rebecca’s mortal husband, stood by, allowing himself to be used as a tool against his wife, John seem like an arrogant nitwit (“I’m going to stay here and protect my millennia-old, sword-wielding, immortal wife even though she told me to leave.”), and that isn’t someone it seems to me Rebecca would have been in love with.

We have also seen Duncan match wits with a devious Amanda at least twice just in this episode, once only minutes after they first met. My sense is that Duncan loves the challenge Amanda represents, and gets a kick out of outsmarting her, knowing there’s always a serious possibility she could turn the tables on him at any moment, as she did in Germany when she left him ‘holding the bag’ for a theft of jewels from some Baron she had seduced.

Why did Duncan at first just sit and watch while she fought Luther, you might ask? I think he was hoping that Amanda just might be able to take Luther and wanted to give her that chance before he stepped in.

In Summary: This is a very good episode, in which we really get to see and know Amanda a lot better, get introduced to the great character of Rebecca, and watch Duncan and Amanda interact, revealing the funny, loving-but-edgy relationship they have had for so long.

Rebecca was luminously beautiful and had a powerful personality. Her great age and wisdom was palpable, and I think that only someone so innately intuitive and quietly domineering could have handled Amanda and turned her from a completely amoral opportunist to someone who obviously enjoyed thievery, but at least attempted not to do direct harm when she took her pretty baubles. Her attraction to Duncan was immediate, and (IMO) purely physical, but he charmed her with his perception and intelligence (which seemed apparent even upon their first meeting), despite his lack of sophistication. Over the years, he became her lodestone, someone she could always rely on and trust, enough like Rebecca as far as his values went, to feel safe and comfortable with, but also someone she felt she at least had a fighting chance at manipulation to her own ends. And he was also a great lay, I figure, and another pretty bauble to display, as well as someone who would willingly chase away any bad guys she felt she couldn’t easily handle.

Duncan, IMO, knew Amanda for what she was from the beginning, and found her gorgeous, sexy, amusing and charming, if annoyingly amoral when it came to possession of property. She made him laugh, and that is something he values. She and Rebecca must have been a revelation for him, showing him that women didn’t always need or want his protection. It was a lesson he now knows intellectually, and tries to act accordingly, but to this day has never learned it in his heart.

[jotribe.livejournal.com]

oh god. That still kills me that Rebecca's husband John was such an ass. I hate that Rebecca was killed that way. It seemed so... <wrong. Yes, she was powerful. And old. Maybe he got her at a bad time? She obviously loved John and knew he was getting older and perhaps she just didn't want to handle another lover's death. Immortals that old have gone through this over and over. And must have these bouts of horrible depression. Perhaps Luther caught her during a down time. As ethereal and otherworldly as Rebecca was, she was living with a mortal husband and all that that entails. It's the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise she should have been able to get out of that situation. And I wish she did survive, because she's a wonderful character that I would have loved to have seen much more of.

This is a good assessment of Duncan and Amanda's relationship. They absolutely trust each other. (In Lady and the Tiger, when Tessa said Amanda was after Duncan's head, he didn't think that for a moment.) And I think they've come to really love each other and appreciate each other over the years.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really didn't like that either. There were so many ways they could have done it that could have made it seem less 'off''.

[macgeorge1.livejournal.com]

As a side question: Did Rebecca know Methos? It seems possible, to me, given their ages, and it was pointed out to me on another list that there is this intriguing entry in Rebecca’s chronicles on the Watcher dvd:

It was mid morning and Lady Rebecca still abed, entertaining the handsome and mysterious gentleman who had arrived on the heels of Amanda's departure from St. Anne's, when Amanda burst through the abbey gates, calling for her teacher. Milady slipped on a robe and, covering her head against the rain, went to her, much to the consternation of the gentleman, whose name I never had occasion to learn but who I once chanced to hear cry out, in the heat of man's passion I have no doubt, "Xanthia," which I know to be one of Lady Rebecca's names in the ancient Chronicles. Lady Rebecca seemed most eager to keep Amanda from the house, meeting her in the rain in her night things to urge her to go off and fight her pursuer. When Amanda returned, glowing in her first victory, only then did Lady Rebecca welcome her in with open arms, her mysterious lover gone away as quickly as he had come. [signed] Melucine.

Now we have to ask, did Amanda know Methos? She certainly seems to, based on the fact that she easily calls him Methos and in “Methuselah Stone” refers to his actions as: “Scheming, devious – it’s just like him.”

How would she know that if she hadn’t been acquainted with him for more than just the period since MacLeod might have introduced them? The evidence is not conclusive, but certainly the possibility exists.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed so, and that's without having even seen the Watcher DVD.

Wasn't there a scene that never made it in that dealt with that? I've forgotten so much HL trivia over the years, I can't recall for sure. And that Amanda calling Methos, Methos was a continuity mistake that slipped past? And that the scene that was proposed explained her calling him that.

Or something along those lines [g]