Friday, July 4, 2014

Highlander: The Series 2x12 - Under Color of Authority


On this July 4th, we celebrate AMERICA... with a Richie episode. Richie bleeds red white and blue! This episode features him in a super-prominent role for a change, as he must battle another immortal. For AMERICA!


A young lady is fleeing from an immortal policeman, and runs right into Young Richie.

We get a flashback about said lawman. This is Mako, who has gone through the centuries upholding the law. No relation to Mako from Highlander: The Final Dimension, which came out about a year after this and couldn't be bothered to pick character names that the series hadn't just used.

OMG! IT'S MIKE FROM BREAKING BAD

He's got a very black-and-white worldview. Either you're on the side of law and order, or you're evil. ...he kinda sounds like Duncan.

In the past, he executed a friend of Duncan's who had committed a crime (or had been found guilty of one, anyway... Duncan thought he was innocent).

Duncan tries to negotiate with Mako, but Mako will have none of it. Whether he's guilty or not, he was found guilty, and now he's a fugitive.

I'd like it if Duncan's friend actually HAD committed the crime. Why does Duncan have to be 100% right about everything all the time?

In the present, Duncan magically knows that Mako is the one pursuing Richie's lady-friend. But why? Mako always has a justified reason.

Richie insists that she's totally innocent... because boobies.

She insists that she fled from an abusive husband and that's why she's on the run. None of it adds up. Now she's latched onto Richie for protection, and Duncan isn't happy about it at all.

Sure enough, Mako tracks her down at Richie's place and beats him up IN THE SHOWER. He lets Richie go because he only wants "the criminal", and she isn't here, so that's that.

Richie: "I'm not gonna let this psycho take her!"

Duncan: "He isn't a psycho."

Richie: "I can take care of myself!"

Duncan remembers when his old friend said the same thing to him...right before Mako killed the guy.

Mako actually gave the kid a chance to give up and face justice quietly. "There's no reason to die here today" says Mike Mako.

The kid draws, and BAM. Will Richie be similarly doomed?

Back in the present, Mako is looking for a girl.

Duncan: "Try working on your personality."

They draw on each other, and Duncan is faster. Just so we all know whose show this is! No one can ever look possibly stronger (or faster or smarter or right) than Duncan in any way!

Duncan insists that Mako leave Richie alone. Not this time, Mako. Not this time.

Mako says he can't do that, because his whole life is law and order. Duncan lets him walk away, having at least tried.

Meanwhile, Richie's new lady friend thanks him for putting his faith in her.

Then he more literally puts his faith in her. And by that I mean they have sex. Hooray for Richie getting some action! We know this because a giggling Joe Dawson was watching creepily from across the street.

"Oh Yeahhhh. Nicccce."

The tables are turned, Richie! How does it feel?

SPOILER ALERT: The next day, Joe reports that the woman wasn't really framed by her husband...she killed him.

Joe also reports that Richie mainly plowed her from behind, though she was on top for a minute.

Back at the dojo, Richie finds out the truth. Women: THEY'RE NO GOOD I TELLS YA.

Turns out her husband was indeed abusive, and she killed him only out of self-defense. So she isn't really a terrible person, but perhaps she could have been honest with them sooner.

She needs to go to trial like anyone else, something Mako understands and Richie doesn't. Because boobies!

They bolt, with Mako in pursuit. This looks like the poster for a Tom Cruise movie.

Mako loses them, but not for long, as he drives around sensing for Richie. In a way, Richie is almost a tracking beacon for him. Just realized this post is already going long for a Highlander post, and it isn't over yet. There's a lot to say about this episode.

Richie finally comes to his senses and tells her that she has to surrender herself, but she struggles with him and ends up falling into the street... right in front of Mako's oncoming truck, which squishes her like a bug.

Richie is PISSED. Mako apologizes, because he didn't mean for that to happen. She should have gone quietly instead of resisting.

Richie SPEARS Mako through a storefront window! This is like a WWE match!
This is it, Richie's first real battle with an opponent who doesn't suck.

It transpires in a strange, magical place. What is this place, some kind of renovated building?

Awesome music plays here that I can't remember hearing in any other episode. It sounds like something out of Secret of Evermore, metallic and dark.

Richie is outmatched, but he's in BERSERK MODE.

Duncan arrives, and tries to stop the fight. Mako is okay with that even though he's winning, because he feels bad and has no qualm with Richie. Unfortunately, Richie WANTS BLOOD.

Mako slashes Richie across the chest while Duncan turns away. Looks like it's over.

...except Mako has a spell of really bad luck and falls through the table he's standing on, allowing Richie to recover and go for his head.

"The only thing that separates us from beasts is the law!" he yells at the last second.

Despite being stuck in a table, Mako still manages to impale Richie for a second time just as Richie stumbles forward and beheads him. He kicked Richie's ass the way Grayson kicked Duncan's.

Duncan turns his back, because he's ashamed of Richie.

Richie creepily watching people is one thing, but he just fought unnecessarily and killed a guy who hadn't exactly done anything wrong except try to do his job.

Richie gets a sweet quickening out of the deal. He makes the most of finally getting his own quickening, showing some major emotion.

Guess who isn't happy at all when Richie gets back to the dojo.

Duncan won't even look at him, saying only that "it's done" when Richie asks him what he thinks about all of it.

Richie talks about how backwards his life is now compared to the normal life he expected to have, with a job and a girlfriend and all those things the regular people have. Things don't always turn out the way we want them to.

Well, this post had very little AMERICA~! in it after all. For some America, I direct you towards the most American post ever, BAD DUDES. They love America!

2 comments:

  1. Good episode made even better because it had Mike.

    I'm not sure if Richie really bleeds red white and blue, though.

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  2. Actually, Tim was guilty of, at the very least, armed robbery. By agreeing to hold the horses while the robbery took place, Tim makes it possible for armed robbers, including the one who shot the Wells Fargo guard to get away with murder. He is guilty of armed robbery and being an accomplice to murder. Those are very serious charges.

    Just doing these things once and being sorry is all well and good, but Mako is absolutely right in that Tim has to face these charges in court. He even points out that a judge might see things Tim's way, "that's the beauty of the law." Remember, Mako was taking Tim in for a trial. He was guaranteeing the youth his day in court. Duncan, with his resources could have hired the best lawyer in the territory and written a whole bunch of stories sympathetic to Tim, creating an atmosphere beneficial to Tim's future.

    Tim was the one who wanted to shoot it out with a federal law enforcement warrant that was being legally served. Say Tim had "killed" Mako. He was have been guilty of first-degree murder. The town willing to look the other way for a 10-year-old crime might not have been so easy on Tim this time.

    So instead of facing a 10-year-old charge that in all likelihood could have been beaten in court (witnesses forget after a decade, finding witnesses after a decade to an old crime), he would be facing charges of murder of a federal marshall. That's a horse of a different color.

    Tim controlled his fate the entire time, and he made bad decision after bad decision. That's why Duncan let Mako go. Mako did nothing wrong.

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