'Comes a Horseman' & 'Revelation 6:8'

[ithildin]

Welcome to the thirteenth & fourteenth installment of Methos Episode Discussion. You can find the last one, for The Valkyrie here. All prior episode discussion links can be found over on the sidebar.

I have a hunch this one will generate a lot of comments, so I'm going to try and remember to use subject headers for comments to try and make it easier to sort.

Comes a Horseman & Revelation 6:8, Air Date: Feb. 1997

MacLeod knew him as Melvin Koren, a desperado who left a trail of death and fire across the Old West, but Cassandra remembers him as an evil far older. He is Kronos, leader of the Four Horsemen, mounted Bronze Age raiders who murdered, raped, and pillaged their way across two continents. Never was a band of Immortals more cruel or more feared. He destroyed Cassandra's people and she's been hunting him across the millenia. But Kronos has a different target now -- Methos.
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One by one, Kronos is putting the Four Horsemen back together. Once they struck fear in the hearts of men with sword and axe. Today, their weapons of destruction are different, but their goal is the same: to bring mankind what it fears most, the Apocalypse. Only Duncan MacLeod stands between them and the end of the world. ~ recap and quotes via tv.com

Quotes below the curtain:



Cassandra: My people, take me to them.
Methos: You want to see them? *points* There they are...Caspian keeps the heads, he'll think it'll make him smarter...so far it hasn't worked.
Cassandra: You killed them? All of them?
Methos: Including you.
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Caspian: I fought as well as you. I killed more people.
Silas: Women and children don't count.
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(a dagger is thrown at Methos's chest)
Kronos: Greetings, brother.
Methos: Kronos!
Kronos: I missed you too.
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Methos: I think they love me.
Duncan: They'd love a hammerhead shark if it had a nice smile.
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Joe: Are we talking the Horsemen from the Bible?
Duncan: No Joe, the Kentucky Derby.
Joe: Fine, we'll get my bookie on the phone, who we betting on? War? Famine?
Cassandra: Death
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Methos: Look, I might not know who Chubby Checker is...but I know when it's time to leave.
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Kronos: Well, you can either lose your head. Or you can join me.
Methos: Well, since you put it that way ... welcome back, brother!
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Methos: So I'm a little weak on pop culture. Well, who the hell is Chubby Checker in the grand scheme of things, anyway? I mean I know how tall Nero was, Caeser's favorite food, I know Helen of Troy didn't have that great a face and it only launched a hundred ships not a thousand, and...
Duncan: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
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Methos: I killed, but I didn't just kill fifty; I didn't kill a hundred; I killed a thousand; I killed ten thousand! And I was good at it. And it wasn't for vengeance; it wasn't for greed. It was because I liked it. Cassandra was nothing; her village was nothing. Do you know who I was? I was Death. (Methos laughs) Death, Death on a horse. When mothers warned their children that the monster would get them, that monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night. Is that what you want to hear?! The answer is yes. Oh, yes.
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Methos: It's been over a thousand years - he may not remember us.
Kronos: He'll remember - what we were you don't forget.
Methos: And if he doesn't want to come?
Kronos: He'll come...or he'll die.
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Duncan: Kronos was right - you set the whole thing up, didn't you?
Methos: What d'you mean?
Duncan: You knew he'd come after Cassandra, and you let him because you knew I'd come after her. You couldn't kill him, but you hoped I could.
Methos: Maybe.
Duncan: 'Maybe.' Methos, what about Cassandra?
Methos: One of a thousand regrets, MacLeod, one of a thousand regrets.
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Silas: MacLeod's here?
Methos: Yes. (Methos draws his sword)
Silas: You're challenging me? For the girl's head? Take it. She's yours, brother.
Methos: I am not your brother.
Silas: How can you do this? How can you go against what you are?
Methos: You don't know anything about me!
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Kronos: You didn't really think I wouldn't know you'd tell MacLeod, did you?
Methos: It's not like you think it is.
Kronos: Ah, it's exactly like I think. My dearest brother, that's what makes you my perfect right arm; we think alike. We always have.
Methos: I doubt that, Kronos. No one thinks quite like you.
Kronos: Spoken like a true scholar.
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Duncan: Why did you lie to me?
Methos: About what?
Duncan: About Cassandra, about who you were.
Methos: I have been many things, MacLeod.
Duncan: And who are you now?
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Silas: Methos, you look troubled.
Methos: Just thinking.
Silas: Ah, you were always good at that, eh? And after all these years, you still are.
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Caspian: You have a plan?
Kronos: I have a few thoughts. I have a few dollars, enough for a start. Now we have Methos; now we have a plan.
Methos: What did you have in mind?
Kronos: Once we rode out of the sun bringing death at the point of a sword. There was no man and no Immortal who could stand before us. We were death on horseback. They called us the end of the world. Well, gentlemen, I want to give them what they fear most, the apocalypse.
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Silas: Methos! Hey, Methos! What the hell is this place?
Methos: This is Kronos's idea of Camelot.
Silas: Where are the stables, hm? The horses? Well, how do we ride?
Caspian: Where have you been for the last two thousand years, idiot? Living in the woods, and now you think we can just mount up and gallop down Broadway?
Silas: We can do whatever we please.
Caspian: Right. Four guys on horseback. Wild masks. They'll think we're in a circus.
Silas: They won't think it for long, will they?
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Kronos: Two days on an airplane and another two on a horse. I hope you're not wasting my time.
Methos: I thought you enjoyed my company.
Kronos: Even for you, Methos, my patience has limits.
Methos: This is the place. I'm telling you, Kronos, he's here. Would I lie to you?
Kronos: Have you ever done anything else?
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Methos: I killed Silas! I liked Silas!
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Duncan: "The Three Horsemen of the Apocolypse" - doesn't have the same ring to it, does it, Kronos?
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Next up will be Forgive Us Our Trespasses. Look for it next week.

Comments

Re: Methos Changing

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I think he did. If only because that scene between him and Kronos, where he's trying to suck Methos back to the Dark Side. Methos seems like an addict. That's the closest I can come to describing it.

In the uncut version of the episodes on the DVDs, there's a scene where Methos poisons Kronos (and the wigs! lord!) in Greece and imprisons him at the bottom of a well. Then he set up a monastary so that food would be tossed down to him. Kronos was down there for centuries before he tricked a red shirt young monk, into letting him out.

Re: Methos Changing

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

a bit to add on... I do think Methos made a conscious decision to not be the man he was. Of course, we don't know what he started out like, before the Horseman, there may have been more to work with than there was with Kronos. So did he evolve, or did he revert back to the man he might have been before?

Re: Methos Changing

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

Right, of course, we really have no idea what he was before. Good point.

Re: Methos Changing

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

that scene between him and Kronos, where he's trying to suck Methos back to the Dark Side. Methos seems like an addict

Oooh, I like that, yes, he does seem almost addicted to the power and the pain. Interesting! He would have had to work hard to overcome that sort of addiction, I think. Maybe that's why he spent so much time in the East, working on his meditation techniques.

Re: Methos Changing

[ekaterinn.livejournal.com]

In the alternative cuts on the DVDs, I believe that Methos wanted to becomae a scholar and study, and Kronos didn't think much of that idea, so Methos imprisoned him and left the Horsemen.

So in one way, he just traded a power addiction for a books addiction! *g* But even though the intial decsion to leave the Horsemen might not have been based on morality, I think Methos came to realise how horrifying the things that the Horsemen did were, and made a conscious decision to live a very different sort of life. He did become a doctor at one point, after all.

Re: Methos Changing

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

Good point about him being a doctor. It's so hard to keep everything about Methos in my head at one time! We never learn the circumstance about him becoming a doctor, though, do we? That would be interesting to know. Did he really want to help people, or did he have some ulterior motive?

It's so hard to know, with Methos!

Re: Methos Changing

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

[nods] yeah, trying to keep it all straight is a full time job, isn't it? Not only has he been a doctor, but not just once. And he certainly seemed to have a nice err, bedside manner in 'Indiscretions' [weg]

All the stuff we never really know is why we have fic, I guess :)

Medical Methos

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

I'm going with ulterior motive - the better he knows his current medical science (and other human biology, the better he'll be at concealing his Immortality. In theory. Obviously there'll always be circumstances in which nothing can be hidden, but he would get a better idea of what to panic about or not, e.g. would an MRI be fried if an Immortal was scanned, would they come up human, or something else?

Scholarly curiosity probably played a part as well - a chance to see just how different Immortals are from normal humans. Testing out vaccinations wouldn't make much sense since he's probably had most diseases a dozen times (though that HIV comment above is *very* intriguing - I now have a nasty plotbunny involving leprosy), but a DNA test would be rather interesting.. Trying to figure out why Immortals are infertile? Ok so I can think of a very obvious cause there, but no-one knew much about sperm and ova a couple thousand years ago. And all the old techniques based on humours/chakras/elements - how would an Immortal who knows his body runs on flashy fire-like Quickening see those?

Re: Medical Methos

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

These are both good points.

I don't know much about what it meant to be a doctor in past times, but there's a scene in "The Modern Prometheus" in which Byron is chiding Methos for his propensity to cut up dead bodies. Methos replies that he can learn more about the body from a dead one. But then later when Mary faints from too much laudanum, Percy Shelly calls him over to help his wife. So it does seem as though he is both a doctor who treats patients, and a doctor who does research into human physiology.

I wonder when and why he gave up being a doctor.

Re: Medical Methos

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think he gave it up so much as he just rotates in and out of the profession every century or so. At least that's my own personal take on it :)

Re: Medical Methos

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

Likewise. That comment about having the paperwork for anything suggests that he keeps his hand in with any profession that could ever come in handy.. though I'm not sure where "Indian chief" fits :)

Re: Medical Methos

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

'Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief' is a somewhat common saying, well, a North American one at least :)

Re: Medical Methos

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

Fair nuff :)

In my usual research obsessed way I just looked it up - someone changed the words! That line makes more sense now though, bless the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker,_Tailor) *lol* that version fits the usage far better than the one I'd recognise.

Re: Medical Methos

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

It was also the title of a popular song in the 1940s, though I'm only famliar with the rhyme you posted the link to.