Friday, May 16, 2014

Highlander: The Series 2x04 - The Darkness

Time for THE SADDEST HIGHLANDER THING EVER.



You know things are weird when this one gets a different title font from most of the other episodes.

A bad guy is kidnapping the lady-friends of male immortals and using them to lure the immortals into traps. The bad guy in question is the bastardly Pallin Wolf (no relation to Sarah Palin), who is... mortal? WTF? Yep, no immortal villain in this episode. No idea why this guy wants to kill immortals so bad. Maybe he's a renegade watcher.

Beloved children's author James Vincent is Wolf's victim this week. So he only goes after the nicest immortals he can find? I guess they'd be the ones who would walk into danger to save a loved one (or have a loved one).

He puts on NVGs and shuts off the lights, dooming Vincent.

And that's all she wrote for this guy. Wonder what happens to the women afterwards. Another bummer is that since Pallin Wolf is a regular guy, the essence of the immortals he kills don't go into him. They just go...nowhere. Into a void of nothingness.

Meanwhile, Duncan is cavorting about town with Tessa. ...yeah, you probably already figured out where this episode is going.

Traci Lords shows up as some kind of palm-reading gypsy while the Mortal Kombat movie theme plays.

She sees a bunch of creepy visions when she looks at Tessa's palm. Is that how palm-reading works?

Duncan is super-happy with Tessa and it's heavily implied that he's thinking about marrying her.

And on that note... JESUS CHRIST. Who is SHE?

Apparently this is a Mexican gypsy he was shagging back in the day.

She tries to stab him because he won't marry her, or something. I was looking at the boobs.

Apparently she can see the future, and foresaw that he'd never marry her. That or it was an educated guess.

As for him not marrying her... my only question is WHY. She's a fiery Latina, i.e. everything a guy could want.

"Also, the titties on that broad."

Her oddly white brother now wants to kill Duncan, but Duncan refuses to fight because it'd be stupid. Instead he runs away. Yes, he literally flees from this guy. The Fiery Latina shrieks at him that he'll never marry anybody.

TIME TO PROVE HER WRONG! HAW HAW!

He drops to one knee and does the worst best marriage proposal ever, singing "WILL YOU MARRY MEEE" while onlookers cheer happily. They must be in the South somewhere for this scene because here in the Northeast, everyone would just be sitting around uncomfortably not responding to the animated person in their midst.

Also worth noting is that this series often had random passerby actually BE random passerby rather than hiring extras. I wonder if this was one of those times. Most of the people walking by are like "yeah, she really should" when Duncan asks what they think.

Duncan enjoys thigh-pillow as our heroes lay around. Enjoy that fetching silk dress because this is the only scene it appears in.

This episode is full of these two being ridiculously sweet to one another. Yep, they really take time to stress how HAPPY everyone is, for once.

Where's he going? Get back up here! This is a PG show!

Cut to the next day, when everyone is super-happy from all the sex. Except for Richie, who never gets to have any.

And here's where EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT. Some guy kidnaps Tessa from the shop.

Duncan finds that useless Richie laying around. How has he not taught this kid how to fight yet?

Pallin Wolf, who bears a striking resemblance to Nuclear Man, wants Duncan to show up at his evil lair or he'll kill Tessa. Since he gives Duncan the address and everything, can't Duncan just go to the police?

...well, it'd be the first time he ever asked anybody for help, so no.

Duncan goes back to the gypsy for information, but she doesn't have any. She writes her name on a book of matches for some reason in case he needs to reach her again, but she doesn't really want any part of this.

Duncan is morose as hell now. "We're supposed to get married" he says while Richie sips beer a soft drink.

Tessa actually escapes at one point, but passing drivers ignore her pleas for them to stop and the bad guy catches her.

One time I drove my car into a ditch in the middle of winter, ended up with the car sideways, and had to push the driver's side door upwards to climb out. Then I stood on this sideways car in a ditch and waved to passerby, and no one stopped until like the fifth car to go by. They'd slow down and look, oh yeah, but forget stopping to help.

TESSA WOULD BE OKAY IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU FUCKS!

Duncan shows up at the lair of the bad guy. This scene mirrors the one at the beginning.

The mirroring continues as Wolf shuts off the lights for their "battle".

Our hero swings at the air and hits nothing while the guy cuts him every so often with quick, cowardly jabs from a safe distance. This Wolf guy sure is a piece of shit.

But wait! That matchbook from earlier! Is he going to light one?

Nope, he tosses it into the air and somehow hits it with his sword, causing a huge flash that totally blinds Wolf and his goggles.

The resulting fire lets Duncan see, and two seconds later he kills Wolf.

...so...if you hit a book of matches with a sword really hard, and just right, can you really light all of them? That'd be something.

Tessa is saved, and it's all in a day's work. Now to start planning that wedding.

It's amazing how many of these situations she's survived. She has like nine lives.

Macleod stays inside to snoop through the guy's stuff and tells them to go home. Tessa isn't too keen on the idea.

...Then this random mugger kid walks up and shoots them both dead.

 

Duncan hears the shots and runs out, but the mugger is long gone. Not that it matters. The rest of the episode is...

...Duncan standing around the place he's been sharing with Tessa for so long. He can't really stay here now. This is about as torn-up as you ever see him.

He senses an immortal and goes outside... and it's Richie.

That's right, Richie was an immortal the whole time and didn't know it. Both guys walk away without a word.

Holy shit, now THAT was an ending.




3 comments:

  1. Oh man, this episode. The deaths were so out of nowhere and it felt like a season finale. Surprised you didn't mention the amazing use of "Dust in the Wind" during that last scene.

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  2. I'm curious, is there ever an episode with Richie's watcher Mike Barrett?

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  3. Nope, not that I know of. Joe is pretty much the only non-renegade that we really see much of.

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