Thursday, September 17, 2020

Highlander: The Series 3x20 - Reasonable Doubt

They're using the first two guns from Bioshock! This looks promising already.



We start with noted French woman, Simone, who is Le Gorge. She's the accomplice of...

...Matt Riddle?? and they're holding up an ambulance. Who holds up an ambulance?

This is Lucas Kagan, Irish robber and general villain.

"Brooooo" he says while she keeps the drivers at bay. Mein Gott! They're...they're beautiful!

After he gets whatever it is that he's stealing from the ambulance, he caps both drivers, much to the chagrin of the supple miss.

"Nobody was supposed to die!" she says, to which he replies: "Brooooo."

The next day, Duncan is hanging out with a friend of his who deals in ultra-expensive art. We get hints here and there that artwork is the main reason Duncan has limitless funds, and Season 3 finally gets into it a bit. He's got all kinds of priceless paintings in storage. They're better than stocks.

Unfortunately, his friend just lost THREE MILLION DOLLARS because his most prized painting got stolen in transit...from an ambulance he hid it in. Who robs an ambulance?

The robbers want to meet him tomorrow and sell it back to him. Duncan volunteers to meet them instead.

The dealer doesn't know Duncan very well. "What can you do that I can't??" he bellows.

"Ever heard of the Tongue Tornado?"

"......."

So far, this episode is all just Duncan going around talking to people. Most of his friends and co-stars skipped town on him at this point, so it's a super-rare Duncan-only episode as far as the protagonists go. In any case, Maurice, who now has an actual job, wants Duncan to meet his niece.

Duncan is tired of Maurice trying to set him up with young women. MAN, DUNCAN HAS SUCH A DIFFICULT LIFE YOU GUYS.

 The niece is the robber lady from the beginning, Simone. Since she "works all the time" Maurice is hoping she'll "make friends" with Duncan.

Duncan is like "uh wow" and smiles for the first time in two seasons!

She immediately says she has to go, though. Maybe she just doesn't like being ambushed by a blind date, or maybe Duncan is intimidating.

After she leaves, Maurice explains that Duncan has a "way with women" and could show her a good time. "But not TOO good!" he specifies.

Maurice: "You hear me? No Tongue Tornadoes for Simone!"

"...Don't laugh. I will cut you! Scottish bitch."

 The next day, back at HQ...

Duncan is getting ready to make the delivery on behalf of his dealer friend. The robbers only asked for $100,000... for a $3M painting? He should just pay it and move on. Which I guess is the idea here.

Duncan puts on the world's worst disguise (so he looks like the guy) and goes to make the drop.

A mugger shows up to hold him up for the money, and he yawns. I wouldn't be so overconfident, neck wounds are bad. They tend to not heal.

Duncan recognizes her voice as Simone, seen here being radiant and effulgent in the Autumn breeze.

Duncan wonders what this is all about and why Maurice's mysterious niece is a robber. Gotta say, leather jackets being the most popular look for European women is something that'll never go out of style.

Duncan easily disarms her and DEMANDS ANSWERS. She wonders if he's some kind of cop or something.

Duncan wrings her arm and hauls her off to talk to the guy who put her up to this nonsense.

It might all be in my imagination but I feel like these two have RL Chemistry in droves.

In any case, Duncan is shocked to see that her boss is...

"BROOOOOO?"

Duncan takes off his sunglasses in astonishment, then looks up at the sky and mouths "THANK YOU"

1930 Paris! 3 PM.

Duncan is checking on one of his bank accounts, where he finds that the 30,000 Francs left by his "great great great grandfather" have collected enough interest to be worth over a million now. That's another way he maintains wealth, high-interest long-term savings accounts. In any case, he senses a disturbance in the force.

Lucas is here with his mentor, Tarsis. They're a duo of immortals, which you don't see very often. They spend most of their time sneaking around and stealing things.

They COMMENCE ROBBING. In 2020 we may have large amounts of people who have decided that robbing is totes coo now, but in old-fashioned 1930 with their old-fashioned values it was still somewhat frowned-upon.

Duncan is unimpressed with this display, but he tells Tarsis and Lucas that they aren't his problem only as long as nobody gets hurt. Tarsis says they have a deal, and Duncan says he isn't making deals, he's issuing a warning. POW.

Lucas stops to flirt with a woman and they end up making out. Well, he IS very good-looking. The guy could have had a fantastic life if his circumstances were different and if he'd just...behave himself.

After that he and Tarsis just sorta leave the bank, though on the way out Tarsis fires a bunch of shots and kills an onlooker completely unnecessarily.

Later that day: A sexy lamp?

Lucas is stumbling around an opium den, high out of his mind and enthused by the presence of ladies of the night. Don't spend all your robbery money in one place! ...too late.

Duncan arrives to spoil all of the fun. After knocking Lucas out in one punch, he calls out Tarsis for shooting a bystander, and they take their feud outside.

The battle begins! ...and ends quickly, because Tarsis is super weak.

One thing he does do is dual-wield with a small knife that gives him a sneaky advantage, and is likely the only reason he's been around for any length of time. Other than that, Richie could dispatch this guy with ease, I think. Duncan, being a master of Duende, is wise to his knife maneuver and easily repels it.

Lucas stumbles out and sees Tarsis dead in the street. Duncan (recovering from a minor quickening) tells him to let it go and walk away, and that they don't need to be enemies. Apparently Lucas takes him up on it, and that's that.

Back in the present, Lucas draws a gun and OPENS FIRE on Duncan, even though he's like 3 feet from Simone. She, of course, takes the opportunity to run away from Duncan and drive off with Lucas.

Duncan swings by Maurice's restaurant to ask where he can find Simone, since at this point he just wants to get her out of danger. Maurice doesn't know any of this, and figures she and Duncan are friends already.

I wish Simone would be in more episodes after this one, but alas she isn't. Here she is in Final Fantasy 1 battle stance. Simone casts Fire 1!

Anyway, it turns out she works at a brothel, which is how she met Lucas. She thinks he loves her, and they're going to go off into the sunset after they do enough robbing. The Brothel Madam advises her to not trust in smooth-talkers.

Duncan arrives at her workplace (which isn't what he expected) and is greeted by a welcoming party. Simone is here, and she's got Lucas upstairs apparently.

Kruge: "GET OUTTA THERRRRRE!"

What follows is a humorous scene where Duncan fends off the advances of these succulent women, while insisting that he's only interested in Lucas. This, of course, completely sounds like he means something else.

And here's Lucas, none too happy to see Duncan here.

Duncan ushers him outside and challenges him to a fight since Lucas murdered those two ambulance drivers. Lucas denies it and refuses to fight, knowing he has zero chance of winning.

Duncan doesn't want him seeing Simone anymore. Then Lucas tries to explain his perspective...

1913 Land of Potatoes! 4:30 PM!

Young Lucas is being chased by another kid who is relentlessly bullying him, though he turns the tables on the kid and beats him up.

Tarsis is nearby watching this...creepily. Yeah, he's way too into seeing this go on.

We cut to ten years later, where Tarsis has raised Lucas and taught him to be an awful person. He says that it's time for Lucas to find out who he really is, and...

...shoots him.

Lucas of course revives, and Tarsis explains that he's immortal now. From that point on Lucas continued to be Tarsis' errand boy and general slave right up until the fateful day when they ran into Duncan.

Back in the present, Duncan lets Lucas go, and pleads with Simone to rethink her relationship. At least he gets the painting back.

The painting is returned, and we see that it's a Da Vinci.

The art dealer isn't sure how Duncan did it, and knows better than to ask.

Duncan goes outside and we discover that he's got Lucas in tow. He's fixed Lucas' mess, now he wants Lucas to sod off.

We get more of the previous flashback, showing that Tarsis is...

...uh, a bit Pedo. He informs Lucas that from that day forward, Lucas belongs to him, and drags him away.

Lucas was an orphan, as is Immortal tradition, so there was nobody looking out for him.

Duncan feels bad about all of this, and wishes someone like him had found Lucas instead, but it's done. He has one request: That Lucas leave Simone alone. Lucas obliges.

Duncan gets a visit from Simone. In addition to being a complete goddess, she has finally decided to be nice to Duncan since he basically covered for them. She's also newly-single, so...

She wants to know what his deal is, and why he cared about helping them. Duncan brushes her off and says it was only because Maurice is his friend.

Speaking of Maurice...elsewhere, Lucas ambushes him outside Simone's apartment and beats him up. Lucas accuses him of sleeping with Simone, which is interesting because it shows how little faith Lucas has in "adults" who look after younger people. Maurice can't just be a relative who cares about Simone, he must be "after something" or outright molesting her.

Duncan asks Simone about Maurice, and she explains what the deal is: Maurice's wife and her mother were sisters, and they both died in the same car crash when she was ten. After that Maurice fell apart. So did her dad, and he expected her to replace her mom. As she got older, he asked for more and more, which resulted in him sleeping with her. She might have tried to go to Maurice for help but he was too absorbed in his own depression to be of any help to anybody.

So basically she, like Lucas, is a victim of a pedo father figure, which is probably why they understand each other.

Maurice shows up and she quickly takes off. It seems like she really doesn't like the guy, probably due to the years of him being so absentee and wallowing in self-pity.

Simone storms off, and Duncan follows because he's got one last question: What really happened to those two ambulance drivers?

"How should I know?" is the retort, and she's outta there.

Back at her place, Lucas has been waiting for her for hours. Unbeknownst to her, he thinks she was with Maurice all that time, so he's been stewing. She wasn't expecting him here at all.

Boning happens! Good to see somebody having fun in this episode, which has turned out to be a pretty dark one to say the least.

Back at the ranch, Duncan talks to Maurice about Simone. Maurice is worried and thinks Simone is doing sex work, but Duncan thinks she just needs to live her own life. He's also under the impression that Lucas is going to leave her alone now.

Maurice reveals a bombshell: Someone, "one of Simone's clients", attacked him outside Simone's place. He describes the guy, and Duncan is horrified. Lucas has officially crossed a line now.

Lucas and Simone have a magical moment of post-coital bliss. Of course, people being happy can't last long, and...

...he accuses her of sleeping with Maurice and flies into a rage. Probably sleeping with Duncan too!

She denies all of this, but he doesn't listen.

Duncan and Maurice get there in time to find Simone stabbed to death.

And that's it for Simone. What a glorious character, total shame that she got killed inside of one episode. Would have liked to see her return, for sure.

Maurice talks to the police while Duncan hovers around like the Grim Reaper.

They're both depressed. Duncan now needs to track down Lucas and remove him from the Earth, as is tradition.

Duncan questions the brothel staff about where he can find Lucas. They don't think Lucas will ever be brought to justice, and Duncan assures them that he will. He's stone-faced enough that they realize he's serious.

Elsewhere, Lucas is getting ready to leave town when...

...Duncan gets the drop on him and knocks him around.

Lucas insists that he had nothing to do with Simone's death or Maurice, and that it was some other guy. Duncan has had enough.

Lucas nearly escapes, only to be cornered by Duncan in some sort of decrepit Midgar-like dirt-land. The battle is joined!

...and over just as quick as the fight with Tarsis, as Duncan easily defeats Lucas with his own stealth-knife.

Lucas: "It's not my fault. He made me what I am."

"I know."

One sad swing later, and Lucas is no more. We don't even see a quickening because it just cuts away.

Earlier, Lucas said "If I'm not a prince, it's because I wasn't raised by a king." That line stuck with me too.

Duncan meets with Maurice, and lets him know that Simone's murderer is dead. Maurice, at this point, doesn't ask questions either.


That's it for this episode, as we have no fewer than TWO immortal fatalities to report. Here's the bastardly pedo bank robber himself.

And here's Lucas. I think the whole point of this guy is that he had a ton of potential (as everyone does, really) until it was fully and completely squandered. Sort of like Brian Cullen, except this guy didn't even get out of the gate.

On that sad note... Next episode is the long-awaited return of Kalas for the final showdown.


4 comments:

  1. Oh yeah, the painting episode. I remember Duncan's bank in particular.

    This Matt Riddle thing is blowing my mind. Broing?

    Lot of badness all around in this episode.

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  2. That scene at the end where Kagan thinks he's convinced Duncan that he's innocent, only to have Duncan suddenly kick him in the balls is fantastic.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Hello, just wanted to reply to the comment even though you removed it. Not sure if you'll see this, but here goes: I'm not sure why I combined those two lines, and it's something I should probably fix. Chances are I was remembering multiple things he said when I wrote this and conflated them into one statement at the end there. It is curious, indeed.

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