Saturday, July 13, 2013

Highlander: The Series 1x05 - Free Fall

This show and Miami Vice have some episode title overlap, weirdly enough. Free Fall and Prodigal Son - both Miami Vice titles. Deliverance / Deliver Us From Evil - both episode titles from their respective "evil main character" arcs. Wonder if they shared writing staff. Wouldn't be a bit surprised, since this show started right after Vice's end and all those writers needed a place to go.

This episode... is not good.



This episode starts with Richie shaking his ass to a Joan Jett song, a harbinger of things to come.

Here's Joan Jett herself. Since they have her as a guest star in this episode, it's full of her (bad) music. Why didn't Roland Gift or Roger Daltrey have their music in THEIR guest episodes? They could have had Richie singing "She Drives Me Crazy". The possibilities are endless!

Either way, we're in full-on 80's Cop Show phase here, as Chyna stalks the streets.

Who is that guy with the beefy arms? He must work ou- oh. I apologize.

She goes to the Antique Store and talks to Richie.

They hit it off.

"Richie's type" = Anybody, it seems.

Next thing we know, she puts on a sexy outfit for no reason

Creepy Richie: "Oh Yeahhh. Twerk that, girl."

and JUMPS OFF A BUILDING to her death. Wow.

Meanwhile, Duncan bought a new katana, but it isn't as good as the one he has already. This one is primarily for show, because it's older than he is.

Stuff happens with the cops, and we find out This Guy is looking for Chyna Jett. She, of course, just killed herself.

Tessa is smoking. ...no, I mean she's actually smoking a cigarette. What the hell? She never smokes in any other episode, and it's totally out of character.

So Felicia (that's Jett's character name) shows up at the Antique Store and needs their help. Oh yeah, she's an immortal, obviously.

Meanwhile, the burly guy has a flashback to olden times, where his Sexy French Wife was killed by...

...Felicia, his spurned lover. I guess she isn't an innocent young immortal after all. So this guy has been trying to bring her to justice for centuries, and is finally about to find her... when she's on Duncan's doorstep. The guy is a problem magnet! Of course, if he wasn't, we wouldn't have a show.

Back in the present, Felicia works Richie's balls. Well, no. But they got to that soon enough anyway.

Don't do it, Richie! She's a monster! ...I mean personality-wise, not because she has beefy man-arms!

Richie confronts Roman Reigns about this. "You leave-a my woman alone" he says.

"F**** me? No, f***** You."

Richie then DRAWS ON THE GUY. I believe this is the first time I've seen him with a sword. The guy then easily beats him up and leaves. Well, that was unfortunate.

Duncan trains Felicia in how to use a katana (and gives her the one he just bought). Cool thing is, this is the same abandoned building where Duncan and Connor fought before. She plays the "dumb act" for a while, but Duncan seems like he can see through it.

Meanwhile the obviously-not villain of the episode is off being sad and alone, playing the violin. This guy seems like a real badass, and should have been a much bigger character than he was.

Felicia is here, now GOTHED OUT. What...the...fuck.

Roman Reigns is all "You killed my Hot French Wife. Prepare to Die."

He's way bigger than her and has a huge sword, but she still whoops his ass.

She's like half his size too. Anyway, she wins, and he's dead. That was unexpected.

An ultra-rare female quickening. Females having a quickening = hot.

...even her, sort of.

She practices with Duncan some more. They actually make a continuity error here, as Duncan says that his own katana was given to him by a clansman long ago (Connor). It was actually given to him by mortal swordsmith Hideo Koto. You can't put a whole lot of stock in stuff that happens in S1, since so much of it was revised soon afterwards. The origin of the katana might be the biggest discrepancy.

She's all "come away with me" to Richie.

Duncan is a total Casanova in most seasons of this show, sleeping with an abundance of women. Since he's with Tessa in this season, and since Tessa doesn't think threesomes are hot, there's no possibility of Duncan being with any other women outside of flashbacks. This is good news for Richie, who gets more action in this season than the rest of the series combined. All of the women who showed up needed romancing from somewhere, I guess.

Felicia TURNS HEEL and tries to kill Tessa (to weaken Duncan emotionally... this is her M.O.) but Tessa grabs a blowtorch and actually fends her off.

She then goes and meets Richie on the beach... and she's gothed out again. Richie is all "uhh... is that you?"

She has two personalities, you see. Both are pretty nasty, but one of them at least pretends to be nice.

Duncan shows up and saves his friend, and what follows is a bizarre battle scene with "Don't Lose Your Head" by Queen playing and weird, grainy blue footage. There's nothing like this for the rest of the series. It's just bizarre.

At the end of the fight, Duncan's katana breaks her katana. See? It IS superior.

Richie, in a Michael Jackson jacket, shows up and prevents Duncan from finishing her.

"JUST BEAT IT beat it beat it beat it" he says.

Annnnd they just leave her here, and that's it. She never comes back. He really should have just finished her off. While Kiem Sun had potential, this lady was just a basket case who was only going to hurt more people. Between this and Kiem Sun, it seems obvious that the series creators wanted to leave bad guys alive so they could return later. However, they never really took advantage of the opportunities they created early on, and real recurring bad guys / characters don't actually start happening until the second season.

Richie apologizes to Macleod for his poor choice in women, and Macleod walks away without saying anything.

Here's Roman Reigns. He really should have lasted longer. Guy looked more interesting than the vast majority of the immortals in the show, and they only gave him half an episode.

Here's Chyna. Interesting description.

Read more Highlander posts HERE.

That concludes another episode. Is anyone actually reading these Highlander synopsi? Leave a comment below.

1 comment:

  1. This is from the "Rock n' Wrestling Connection" era of the show.

    ReplyDelete