'To Be / Not To Be'

[ithildin]

Welcome to the nineteenth installment of Methos Episode Discussion. You can find the last one, for Indiscretions here. All prior episode discussion links can be found over on the sidebar.

To Be/Not to Be, Air Date: May 1998

The popular series lays down its sword after six seasons in this stirring finale, in which MacLeod makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives of Amanda and Joe Dawson... then reunites with old friend Hugh Fitzcairn, and gets a look at what the world-- and his friends' lives-- would be like without him.

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Fitz died three hundred years ago... Horton has taken over the Watchers... Joe Dawson has been reduced to a bitter, penniless vagrant... Amanda is a black widow... and Methos has rejoined the Horsemen to avenge his fiance's death. If you think that's bad, just wait till you find out what's happened to Richie and Tessa. ~ recap and quotes via tv.com

Quotes below the curtain





Duncan: I gotta get Amanda out. It's my fight, not hers. Where're you going?
Methos: Well, I'm, uh, kind of fond of the little vixen myself. Okay?
Duncan: Yeah.
________________________

Ghost Fitz: Try not to think of yourself as dead - more, uh, metabolically challenged.
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Fitzcairn: Great Scott, MacLeod! (pause) Ummm, no pun intended.
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Methos: "Don't go, MacLeod. It's a trap MacLeod. MacLeod, your pants are on fire." Doesn't matter what I say, does it? Well, I've only been alive for five thousand years; what would I know about it?
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Methos: Goodbye.
Duncan: I think you mean "good luck," don't you?
Methos: Of course, uh, that's what I meant.
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Joe: Now, wait a minute. You're telling me that this chronicle is wrong? That it was Marcus Aedilies who took the head of Titus Marconus and not Peter Gaicus.
Methos: Seventy-four BC. I had a tidy little sum wagered on Marconus too. Had my eyes on a little summer place outside Herculanium.
Joe: Yeah, but why would his Watcher lie?
Methos: Oh, come on, Joe. You know how it is. You don't want to admit to your Watcher buddies that your guy's been whacked by some sniveling little weasel like Aedilies so you make up a story that he's been, he's been aced by the greatest swordsman in Rome.
Joe: I don't know, man. I don't know.
Methos: Hey, you ask, I tell you. And incidentally, it wasn't outside the Forum either it was, um, it was in the vomitorium.
Joe: In the vomitorium?
Methos: The place you went to vomit.
Joe: You mean they actually did do that?
Methos: You eat a seventeen coarse meal where the main garnish is honey coated ants and peacock brains... We ate; we drank; we vomited.
Joe: But see, it doesn't say anything in this chronicle about him dying in a vomitorium.
Methos: Well, is that how you'd want to go down in history? (feels an Immortal's presence) We're having company
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Kronos: I think our friend is a quick learner.
Methos: Well, I always can spot potential.
Kronos: Time I think for a little test.
Methos: Dawson, you think?
Richie: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, who's Dawson?
Kronos: He's one of the bastards who killed our brothers Caspian and Silas.
Richie: Hey, whatever you want, I'm your man.
Methos: We want him dead.
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Ghost Fitz: Kronos wanted to put the Four Horsemen back together, and you weren't around to stop him.
Duncan: But Methos had changed.
Ghost Fitz: No--without you he hadn't changed enough. Pity for Methos, and pity for Richie too.
Duncan: What happened to Richie?
Ghost Fitz: Oooohh, well there's another sad story...
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(about Methos)
Duncan: What happened to him, Fitz?
Fitzcairn: He did what I do all the time, laddie...and what we all do eventually--he fell in love.
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Duncan: I suppose you don't believe in ghosts either.
(Methos taps the hitman on the shoulder, then knocks him out)
Duncan: You're good.
Methos: You should see me at Halloween.
Duncan: I think I have a costume for you.
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Ghost Fitz: I missed out on almost three centuries of living. Now that's an awful lot of unhappy women.
________________________

Ghost Fitz: The Horsemen rode again, and they made the Russian Mafia look like the Vienna Boys Choir.
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Methos: You know, this bad-guy-just-your-size routine never works, MacLeod.
Duncan: All O'Rourke has to do is buy it for thirty seconds.
________________________

Duncan: You know, I don't know who or what you are, Methos, and I know you don't want to hear this, but you did teach me something. You taught me that life's about change, about learning to accept who you are, good or bad, and I thank you for that.





So this is it for this round! Thank you everyone for making this so much fun! And thank you enchantersnight for being a new fan and wanting to talk about the show. Without you, none of this would have happened.

Now, on to the next round! Please take a moment, if you haven't already, to vote for which season one episodes you'd like to discuss during the next round. Vote early, vote often :)

Next up will be ? ? ?. Only your poll answers will tell.

Comments

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

I agree with robi_travels that there is something sub-par about this episode(s). I'm not sure if it's the writing or the acting or the sense that they tried to cram in too much.

I imagine that if I were watching this as it aired I might have been too caught up in the "Will Duncan really die?" question to care about anything else. But I'm not, and I do.

The part I liked best was the part about Tessa (and this is unusual for me, because I'm not a big Tessa fan). There was something more subtle about her sad life than about the others' fates, and also the script spent more time on her than it did on almost anyone else.

Also, how bittersweet that Duncan gets to sleep with her again, but knows it can't last, and isn't even real! I could have done without the soft-porn love scene, though (this was a feature of early HL episodes that always made me cringe). But overall the pathos of these scenes struck me as the best thing about these episodes.

[multimedea.livejournal.com]

I'm very much in agreement about your Tessa observations (as a so-so Tessa fan myself). Her life may have been shortened by having Duncan in it, but it was a richer, more nuanced experience. But not necessarily better. A nice coda for the series on how Immortality affects mortal life.

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

Yes. It also poses the question, "Is it better to live 12 good years or 17 dull ones?"

I also can't help wondering, as I watch, whether Alexandra Vandernoot's performance as a sad and bitter Tessa isn't perhaps informed by the actress's own bitterness at having given up this series. Of course I don't know if this is true, and am only speculating, but the thought did run through my head as I watched. Honestly I thought her performance here was better than anything she did in Season One.