'Archangel'

[ithildin]

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.

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? ~ recap and quotes via tv.com

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.

Comments

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

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.

[ekaterinn.livejournal.com]

As I said above, I was really put off by the manner of Richie's death. The whole arc didn't seem to really fit into the rest of the show - it was a lot darker and had a lot more emphasis on Duncan as a hero than I really liked. ^^

[robi-travels.livejournal.com]

"I was really put off by the manner of Richie's death"

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

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

hm. I thought the killing of Richie was the least problematic part of this arc. The demon thing was just scripted and directed to be rather silly.

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.

[kethali.livejournal.com]

If I had to sum up my own feelings about the episode they'd echo yours precisely. I didn't mind Richie's death because it most certainly wasn't pointless (and because frankly I couldn't care less if he were around any longer) but the plot of the story really didn't come across as well thought-out. Neither did the resolution of it in Season 6, for that matter. Then again, if I remember rightly they were planning on some sort of futuristic, post-apocalyptic Season 6 but it got canned for whatever reason. The one good thing that came of it all, though, is that Duncan got a damn good reason for some heavy angst in fanfiction. Coincidentally, much the same goes for Endgame.

[multimedea.livejournal.com]

This is basically my whole take on the story arc, too. Decent acting, silly plotting. Methos, delectable as always, but not backing MacLeod up during this ordeal...incomprehensible.

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?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

No good answers for the Sophie question. Maybe she was a demonic being powered by Ahriman which allowed her/it to manipulate the physical world?