'Forgive Us Our Trespasses'

[ithildin]

Welcome to the fifteenth installment of Methos Episode Discussion. You can find the last one, for CaH & R6:8 here. All prior episode discussion links can be found over on the sidebar.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses, Air Date: May 1997

After the Scottish massacre at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Duncan MacLeod was a man possessed, obsessed, with killing the English bastards who had destroyed his people. Now Immortal Steven Keane has come to make MacLeod pay for his murderous crimes. Amanda urges MacLeod to take Keane's head and be done with it, but in his heart MacLeod knows that Keane is right -- he is a murderer -- and that Keane is judging him just like MacLeod has judged so many others. ~ recap and quotes via tv.com

Quotes below the curtain





Duncan: You should write fortune cookies.
Methos: Yeah? Maybe I should, just so long as I'm not writing your epitaph.
________________________

Methos: I just came by to watch the perfect Immortal die.
Duncan: I'm not!
Methos: Not what? Not the perfect Immortal or not gonna die?
________________________

Amanda: Duncan, you're the best man I know. You make people better, you know - people like me, people who didn't give a damn about anything in their whole lives until you came along with your big brown eyes and your boyscout rules.
________________________

Amanda: Methos. Open the door. I know you're there. Methos! Methos, it's Amanda!
Methos: Do you want to knock a bit louder? I don't think they heard you in Philadelphia!
________________________

Methos: (to Duncan) You wanted to kill; you killed them. You know, Keane is just like you; he wants to divide the world up into good and bad. Well, it's not that simple. We are all both, good and evil. We have rage and compassion. We have love and hate. Murder and forgiveness. Why don't you try forgiving yourself for once.
________________________

Duncan It's Tuesday. He doesn't take heads on Tuesdays.






Next up will be The Modern Prometheus. Look for it next week.

Comments

Re: Why?

[mischief5.livejournal.com]

Why is Methos in the middle of this? I can think of three reasons:

1. "You are too important to lose!!"
2. Amanda. I think Methos genuinely cares about her, even though he sometimes sees her as a pest, and he knows that she has Mac's best interests at heart. So he lets her talk him into "helping" Duncan.
3. Methos has a sly, subterranean mean streak. This is his chance to obliquely rub Mac's nose in Methos' role with the Horsemen. "I'm here to watch the Perfect Immortal die." That's Methos at his bitchy best.

And there could be other reasons, such as just an excuse or a need to reconnect with Mac in some way after Bordeaux. You just never know for sure with Methos. Trying to pin him down is like trying to herd cats. ;)

Re: Why?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I can go along with that, but it still seems that it is a huge step from talking to him, being wonderfully snarky (I love the snark in that bit!) and trying to get him to see sense to actually shooting him and taking Keane on himself. That's the leap that I wonder about. He doesn't know how good Keane is, there's no guarantee that he will win, yet he literally risks his own life anyway.

Re: Why?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Hah! This just occured to me... since Keane was pretty much a twin of Duncan, maybe Methos decided to fight him as a stand in for the real thing. Therapy [g] " I can't whack Mac, but I can the pain in the ass Keane".

Sorry, a little silliness invaded there :)

Re: Why?

[mischief5.livejournal.com]

This is something people always seem to forget: METHOS WAS DEATH. "Just because I don't like to kill, doesn't mean I can't."

This is not a man who is out of shape or out of training. He is smart, fast and mean. He will use any advantage to survive including dumping both himself and his opponent into the Seine. He has no code of honor, no sense of chivalry and no sentimentality to cloud his judgment. He is the original hardass.

Methos also hides in plain sight. He deliberately allows his opponents to underestimate him. He is a walking, talking lie. He knew that Keane would misjudge him. He counted on Keane misjudging him. And your comment below has a ring of truth to it. Keane was very like MacLeod and Methos was prepared to use that against him.

Methos is a walking arsenal. He had three weapons on him that day *that we saw*: his sword, a main gauche and a silenced semiautomatic pistol. He was fully prepared to take Keane and would have done if MacLeod hadn't stopped him. He had calculated the risks and found them to be minimal. If you watch the fight with Keane, you'll see that Methos' body language shows complete confidence. Watch the fight with Morgan Walker in "Indiscretions" and you'll see something a bit different. Walker was much larger than Methos and was just hammering away at him so Methos electrocuted them both. Smart move because then it was a matter of who revived first and got to his sword first that decided who won. Now that was the greater risk.

Stephen Keane was easy and Methos knew it.

Re: Why?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

This is something people always seem to forget: METHOS WAS DEATH. "Just because I don't like to kill, doesn't mean I can't."

Have to disagree with you there. I haven't forgotten. Honest :) *For me*, my personal take, the way I understand Methos, him choosing to fight Keane is more than just a whim. He fights if backed into a corner, yes, he's good, yes, very good in fact, but he doesn't seek out fights. He walks away whenever he can. He told Amanda he'd never heard of Keane, now assuming he was telling the truth, Keane was an unknown quantity when Methos decided to fight him. Methos taking that sort of chance -- something more is going on. IMHO of course.

Re: Why?

[mischief5.livejournal.com]

How much time do you think a 5K Immortal needs to evaluate a pup like Keane? Methos had him pegged in the time it took to warn him off. The fact that Keane didn't listen sealed it for Methos. *Noble, pig-headed idiot. Plays by the Rules just like the one I just shot.* The smirk on Methos' face told the whole story. Gotcha!

Fantastic acting by Peter Wingfield.

Re: Why?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one :)

Re: Why?

[mischief5.livejournal.com]

Maybe we need MacGeorge to interpret this one for us. VBEG She always seems to be the last word on Methos. Oh, MacG???

Re: Why?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Well it isn't the first time I'm totally marching to the beat of my own drum, nor will it be the last [g]

Re: Why?

[macgeorge1.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't have the last word on anything, particularly Methos. :) I do think it's a valid question. Yes, Methos thought Duncan was too important to lose, but he also knew that when Duncan was fighting well, there weren't too many fighters he couldn't beat, including Keane. So, why did he shot Duncan and take on the fight himself?

IMO, he must've thought that Duncan (as Amanda argued) just might be looking for an excuse to lose. It seems clear that for a long time Duncan believed strongly in retribution and penance for past bad deeds, which was what (in part) drove his inability to fathom how Methos could just walk away from what he had done without evident guilt or any obvious attempt to redeem himself, even in his own mind.

I think FUOT is a seminal episode in that it shows that both Methos and Amanda *misread* Duncan's feelings and motivations. They thought he might, either consciously or subconsciously, deliberately lose. But ultimately Duncan's feelings were more complicated than that. In part, those motivational subtleties were generated by his experience with Methos and the Horsemen and Methos demand that Duncan accept his past - not forgive it, because it wasn't Duncan's to forgive.

We see Duncan change over time, and this episode is a clear demonstration of that transition in progress. Yes, Duncan felt guilt and remorse, both for what had happened after Culloden, and even moreso for Sean's death. But he also knew he had a choice - he could live with it, learn from it, and use it to strengthen his own inner sense of self; or he could give up and let himself be overwhelmed by his own past. He chose to live as best he could, to fight as best he could, and to (when he could) let others live as well, and let that be the legacy of Culloden and of Sean Burns.

Methos, for his part, intervened because he wanted to give Duncan more time and opportunity to grow up, not realizing that Duncan had grown up far more than he had expected. Duncan was really, really (justifiably) pissed off at Methos for interference because Duncan truly didn't want Keane to die, and if Methos had killed him, Duncan would have felt totally responsible for another needless death, only adding to the problem.

Sheesh. Now I've said too much. Sorry for rambling and blathering on and on, but FUOT is one of my very favorite episodes because of all the fascinating character issues.

This is all JMO, of course. Other interpretations are equally valid.

Re: Why?

[mischief5.livejournal.com]

ThanKs, MacGeorge! You really got to the heart of it. More of the "Why?" and less of the "How?". I think I need to go back and reread your episode commentaries. Have you ever considered doing any character commentaries? Those would be very interesting to read.

Re: Why?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. Now I've said too much. Sorry for rambling and blathering on and on, but FUOT is one of my very favorite episodes because of all the fascinating character issues.

No, no! You can never go on and on too much around here :) And I feel I go on an on too, but FUOT is one my my favourites as well. It just gets me all wound up!

Thank you for your thoughts. It's given me a lot more to think about. Drat! [g]