ithildin | 'They Also Serve'

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Highlander Season Three

They Also Serve, Air Date: February 1995

Recent Immortal Michael Christian has been on an incredible string of luck, taking a number of heads from unarmed and vulnerable opponents, including May-Ling Shen, who taught MacLeod the martial arts in 1780's Mongolia. Christian's Watcher, Rita Luce, has been doing more than just watching, supplying Christian with classified information on the other Immortals and their weaknesses. MacLeod, unaware of Christian, goes on a vision quest to his cabin on Holy Ground -- deliberately leaving his sword behind. The race is on for Joe Dawson to figure out Rita's secret before Christian sets his sights on MacLeod. ~ recap via tv.com

Next week: Song of the Executioner

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Rita never convinced me of much of anything

he [Michael/Berry Pepper] just came across as a sullen jerk to me, with zero charisma.

I felt that way too. Clip shows can be interesting when done well. This one got close but didn't quite get the cigar when it came to this portion of the story. I thought that particularly sad given how well Jim and Adrian played off one another, how wonderful May-Ling came through in spite of having so little time, and how intrigued I was by Ian and the other Watchers with their chatter at the card game.

Rita just seemed an uptight shrill bitch with no plausible reason to have broken her oath. The toss off about her son dying was supposed to explain away her defensive behavior (and possibly her crossing the line with her Immortal assignment) but just didn't work since the Michael character was played as such a snot. I mean did the guy have a facial expression that didn't look like he had a pole up his backside? Had Rita seemed more emotionally unstable -- as if she were grieving or as if she really had some kind of maternal love for Michael -- I might have been a bit more sympathetic and it could have increased the dramatic tone during the scene where she and Joe have to wait and find out who won. If Michael had been played as a little vulnerable -- as if he actually cared for Rita in some tender fashion -- I could have bought Rita crossing the line and had some understanding for her utter betrayal of her oath, her killing Ian so she wouldn't be separated from her Immortal, and her helping Michael take out largely peaceful and good Immortals in such a, well, dastardly fashion. This part of the "plot" could have really made this a tense and moving episode and, instead, only made it somewhat poignant and interesting, IMHO.

As for "bigger and better things," Barry has done quite a lot of work in movies since. Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, Battlefield Earth (cough), We Were Soldiers, and Flags Of Our Fathers are some of the larger budget movies he's done. I can't say he's ever struck me as that great in any of them, but he does play a pretty good soldier and can step up to the plate in an ensemble cast.

I really can't add anything new since you and everyone else articulated the strenths and weaknesses of this episode beautifully already. I guess the thing about Rita was that I had always assumed that once her son died, she turned to Michael as the sole focus of her life. She didn't seem to have anything else. No friends, no family. So she started to focus and became an obsession. I think she made herself believe she loved him and it became imperitive that she keep that focus alive because it was all she had. I don't even think Michael, himself, was that important. It could have been any immortal she had been watching. Just as someone loves the only person the have and becomes a workoholic - working 16 hour shifts, focusing on getting ahead and not having a private life Well, watching and her Immortal was her work. That's where she turned to feel the emptiness left behind when she lost her son.

Boy what a lousy typist I am. This is what I was trying to say:

just as someone loses the only person they have and becomes a workoholic....

Also, when you are that focused on someone, you don't really see the big picture. It is like telling a parent that their child is a rotten, spoiled brat. They just see the apple of their eye, not the sullen, rotten bastard everyone else sees.