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Welcome to the seventeenth installment of Methos Episode Discussion. You can find the last one, for The Modern Prometheus here. All prior episode discussion links can be found over on the sidebar.
Next up will be Indiscretions aka The Methos & Joe Show.
A Bit Later:I'm going to try and put up a first season poll at some point today to take votes for the next raft of discussions. You can find the poll here. Then I'll include a link to the poll with the last two scheduled discussions: Indiscretions & To Be/Not To Be.
Archangel, Air Date: May 1997
The dead are walking the streets of Paris. The forces of evil are coming. Is MacLeod being readied for some higher calling -- or is he simply losing his mind? ~ recapand quotesvia tv.com
Next up will be Indiscretions aka The Methos & Joe Show.
A Bit Later:
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There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-19 04:07 pm (UTC)From:I'll just toss out there that the first time I saw it, I couldn't figure out why Duncan saw Kronos in his Bronze Age get up. Something from his quickening? Or just the PTBs wanting to deck him out that way again? [g]
Re: There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-19 09:46 pm (UTC)From:Re: There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-20 04:39 am (UTC)From:Re: There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-20 05:09 am (UTC)From:Re: There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-21 01:44 pm (UTC)From:What upset me so much about Richie's death wasn't that he died, but that his death was wasted. It was wasted in the sense that it didn't do Mac or the world any good. But it was also wasted in the sense that a brilliant plot point was never realized.
I have read two truly exceptional pieces of fanfiction in which Duncan tries to cope with killing Richie. One was Carene's, and the other had MacLeod abandoning his name and trying not to be a hero anymore. But the show itself never took that angsty bit in its mouth and ran with it.
Re: There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-21 03:49 pm (UTC)From:Oooh! I really like that idea.
Yeah, if he had to die, then make it worth something.
Re: There's lots of things...
Date: 2006-06-23 05:07 pm (UTC)From:Dido on that. I really did not like it. To me, Kronos was his most menacing in the modern age. The short hair, scar and piercing eyes. He conveyed more terror in his scenes with Duncan dressed int eh leather coat, jeans, with the fog and with Methos in hideaway, then in the past get up. Actually found the hair and make-up very amusing, not menacing.
Just re-watched this arch recently, and yes, found the absence of Methos annoying and the lack of quality Kronos also annoying. Although, have to give kudos to Horton actor (sorry forgot name) he really was a good scumbag. Not modern Kronos material, but up there with Kronos and Kalas as bad a*** go.
Roberta
Wish they had use
The End
Date: 2006-06-19 04:09 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 05:29 pm (UTC)From:Hmm, Methos moments I liked: his refusal when Duncan offers his head, his comfort of Joe. WTF moment: never heard of demons, but believes in holy springs? Oh, come on, Old Man. On the other hand, this does support my LSD theory of the holy spring.
And poor Richie. I'm a lot more sympathetic towards the character now, but at the time when I first watched it, I was mainly annoyed by the fact he was finally killed off in a way that demanded the maxium Duncan angst.
There's some good acting by everybody in this episode, but the plot is seriously silly. This is the arc that had me disgusted with HL, and in fact I hadn't seen the end of the season until this Feb.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 05:59 pm (UTC)From:I also think that it was a bit suspicious Methos believing in magic springs but not demons (hey the LSD theory works!)
I have not seen the rest of the arc (just downloaded Methos eps) could someone mail me what the whole thing was meant to be about!
Impressed with the acting in this and looked askance at the next foggy day I saw :)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 09:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 09:55 pm (UTC)From:I always thought there was a strong element of 'not me, guv," to his protests!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 04:40 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 06:41 pm (UTC)From:And holding Joe in his arms and duncan's pain - lovely scene.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 09:38 pm (UTC)From:In total agreement here - just a line or two with some semi-plausible explanation would have been nice.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 04:46 am (UTC)From:Over all an odd episode. I suppose it makes more sense with what they planned for the series than it ended up making with what did happen. Or something like that :)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 05:26 pm (UTC)From:Actually I thought it was in character. The next episode was a year later - first anniversary of Richie's death. By that time I think Methos would have moved on since no-one knew where Duncan was and things were looking rather bad.
And, while I am not sure of the LSD theory (would love to hear it sometime), yes it is funny he believes in holy springs, but not demons. Although, having been once viewed as a demon on horseback, I am sure he is a little more skeptical of "boogy monsters" in all incarnations then perhaps he is of "good" forces that exist in the world.
What I found most amusing about this arch was flashback to warren Cochrane and the request to Duncan to take his head. Seems to me Methos was all for that at the time, but not now.
And yes, acting was very good, JB especially in the temptation scene in last episode of arc.
Roberta
GIP
Date: 2006-06-19 07:40 pm (UTC)From:Re: GIP
Date: 2006-06-20 04:47 am (UTC)From:Re: GIP
Date: 2006-06-20 08:41 am (UTC)From:But that would mean Duncan went nuts and took his friends with him, so its a bit dark for the fate of a hero.
Which is the other reason I dont like (what I've read of) this arc.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 07:50 pm (UTC)From:(Joe only sees Horton when he is fully involved in helping Duncan later in the Arc.)
So, does Methos book after this episode because he is afraid of laying himself open to 'demonic' manipulation if he allows himself to believe?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 09:40 pm (UTC)From:That's an interesting thought. Could this also be part of an explantion for his disappearence after this episode? Maybe he's encountered a demon before...
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 04:50 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 05:23 am (UTC)From:Maybe he thinks the demon is just a leftover hallucination from the lSD he fed Duncan, and he's off to find an antidote or something.
Why not? In this arc, apparently, anything goes!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 05:24 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 08:56 pm (UTC)From:I hate this episode. I hate it hate it hate it hate it.
(Is that a hate meme?)
When I first started watching Season One, I really really disliked Richie. I was pleased to read in various places that he would eventually die. However, by the time I got to watch "Archangel" I had kind of started to not hate Richie so much, and didn't want him to die because of what it would do to Duncan.
That the writers actually had Duncan kill him strikes me as cruel. I realize that the show always had a dark side, but that the writers decided to head in such a deeply dark direction seems like a betrayal somehow. I realize that many people (including the writers themselves) wouild disagree with this, and say that the darkness deepened the show. Maybe someday I will come around to this viewpoint myself. But for now, I hate it.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 09:43 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 05:32 pm (UTC)From:It was weird that Richie did not have his sword up and in a defensive position. In earlier episodes when they lurked around looking for bad guys, Richie always had the sword up and deflected the first swing from Duncan. Just thought this death scene would be more involved. Almost wish they had actually had a "fight" and all the time Richie was trying to tell him, - hey its me stop - what are you doing!!!! This way, Duncan can bail on the blame since he was just chop happy with the swing.
Roberta
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 12:42 am (UTC)From:I agree the actors did great, but geez. The moral issues it tried to address were top notch, and I liked the idea of Duncan having to realize he needs to embrace his dark side, that he can't defeat it with force... but the first part played out like a bad "Exorcist" ripoff.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 12:41 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 05:37 am (UTC)From:Yet I, for one, was very impressed with Richie's death. I actually applauded it at the time. Not because I dislike the character, because I thought it was a seriously ballsy move on the show's part. I mean, main title characters hardly ever get killed off in American tv unless it's some lingering thing that an actor can wring Emmy votes out of. And they had the eponymous good guy do the deed! Whoa! And the deed had lasting ramifications to this day. That I believe is a gold star in the HL book.
Since this is a Methos ep-specific thread, I suppose Avatar and Armaggedon won't get their own posting so I'll bring this up here. Exactly what was the Sophie character? Was she a zombie? A golem? A nosferatu? A figment of everyone's imagination? Throughout all of the arc it seemed like Ahriman worked through illusion and deception, making others do his dirty work for him. So, did he really animate Sophie's dead body or was she an illusion? If she was an illusion, how was she capable of manipulating the physical world? If she was the animated dead, how come no one thought it was weird that she was again pulled out of the Seine dead several days later?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 08:20 pm (UTC)From: