It's Monday night at 7 PM on the USA Network, you know what that means.
Aired April 21, 1997. There was a two-month space of time between Duende and this, which normally would have contained four new episodes, but with Season 5 being abbreviated there just weren't any new ones to air. I'm guessing they ran reruns during that timeframe; wonder what episodes they did. Presumably reruns aired throughout the year when new episodes weren't available (which would have generally been the middle six months of the year, or so).
It's just as well that I took a break after Duende, because this year was nonstop difficult life stuff between watching that episode and this one. Getting back to this as things begin to approach something resembling normal / nice again.
Adrian Paul was already halfway out the door and the studio was trying to hold things together and keep it going. I still wish, to this day, that they would have just seized the opportunity to focus on some other characters. S5's missing four episodes could have focused on Methos, given Richie or Amanda a solo adventure, etc. Bring back a loose end like S1's Kiem Sum or Joan Jett.
And of course, S6 should have been used to transition to a new lead midway through. My vote is that S6's back half, and S7, had Methos as the main character. Bring back Duncan for the finale and so forth, of course, but let Methos carry the show for a season and a half. Peter Wingfield was definitely up for it.
I just wish this show had a full seven seasons rather than the sputtering conclusion it has. Either way, we're still in the midst of the best seven-episode run the show ever had, so let's go!
This episode has the rare distinction of taking place entirely in flashback. It's too bad they didn't do more episodes like this that were set completely in the past, and it makes me wish the show had a bigger budget. I can't imagine what they could have done with $10 million an episode like certain failed modern shows get.
Somewhere under Westminster Abbey, back in the 1700s... Duncan is on a mission to steal the Stone of Scone, a stolen artifact, and return it to the people of Scotland.
Fitz shows up, and HE TOO.is on a mission: To burn down the Abbey and crush the guy who runs it. If one of them succeeds, security will be through the roof and the other won't be able to do their thing.
...so they could just do both? Steal the Stone, and set off explosives on the way out?
Instead they fight about it! This was before they were friends, and they were mostly just annoyed that they keep running into each other. I've seen even crazier odds than that play out in real life, myself.
Duncan is in full "this is a comedy episode lol" mode.
Fitz then clumsily sets off the bombs he brought, prematurely, setting off a big fire here in the tunnels and forcing both guys to run off. Well, that accomplished nothing.
The next morning they meet at a golf course to figure out which of them gets to carry out their plan. The other one will help. ORRR they could just do both....ah nevermind
Fitz is confident in his golf game, because he has the finest club money can buy: English Briar.
Also for some reason there's a bull on the golf course. Just...a bull, hanging out. This episode is great, but it's also pretty weird.
Yep, there it is, mooing and passin' gas during the golf game. Apparently it moo'd during a lot of the actual dialogue while filming, so they had to reshoot this scene over and over again until the bull stopped piping up. I don't know, I would have just kept those takes and used them, it would have been even more comical.
Fitz swings, and we jump forward a good 200 years or so to...
...the same? Golf course, 1950!
This time, the two are joined by Amanda, who Fitz stupidly made a bet with. A sizable bet, of several thousand Pounds, that he could beat her at golf.
Maybe we should start to calling him "Ditz"
Amanda brought a friend, this odd gnomy guy. Fitz is just happy to be the second-gnomiest guy present for a change.
Amanda hits an insanely good shot while Duncan giggles uncontrollably, Fitz drops his golf clubs, and the gnomy guy looks around for a pot of gold to steal.
Fitz attempts to cheat. At golf! Cheating on women is one thing, but golf??
Amanda immediately figures out what he did. She invented cheating, after all.
Fitz says he hasn't done that in 200 years. Duncan puts two and two together and realizes thsir big golf game was 200 years ago.
Back in 1720, Fitz "wins" the golf game. They proceed with Fitz's dumb plan to destroy the Abbey, forgetting about the Stone of Scone.
Fitz has another way to rally the Scots: Steal the Crown Jewels.
This involves enlisting the help of a Tower of London employee who happens to also be immortal.
The guy in question is this belching ogre, who gives Fitz the floor plan of the Tower in exchange for a substantial amount of money.
He basically extorts our heroes for more money, robbing Fitz blind. He's like a car insurance company!
Now armed with the floor plans, our heroes sneak into the Tower of London! Unfortunately, they both forgot to bring any tools. Duncan is 130 going on 20 and Fitz is somehow just as immature.
Fitz manages to get captured by the Tower guards. This place will always make me think of the awesome intro level of Nioh, probably the most I was ever into that series.
With the whole plot ruined, our heroes have to fight their way out of the Tower of London empty-handed.
And thus, nothing United the Scots, and Scotland was never free. All because DITZ here had to blow up Westminster Abbey!
Back in the episode-present of 1950, the gnomy guy says that the Stone of Scone is beyond any price. Far more valuable than the Crown Jewels ever were.
Amanda...gets an idea.
We get a black and white old timey video about the magic of Christmas!
Amanda pays a visit to Crimmins, the ogre guy from the flashbacks. He's now a mobster of ill repute.
Amanda tells him about the Stone. He'll help, if they split it 60/40.
Duncan isn't thrilled at all that she's working with a scoundrel like that guy. Surely he has noticed she's wearing a silk nightgown though? That trounces a lot of mistakes.
Duncan still wants the Stone, but it's so well-guarded that you'd have to be crazy to try. Well, she's going to try, and he can either help or he can git!
Speaking of crazy people, she has another accomplice:
Fitz, who stumbles in drunkenly and falls all over Duncan, climbing on him like a badly-trained large dog. Forget Ditz, maybe we should call him Clutz.
Amanda sits there all entertained by Fitz climbing all over Duncan. It must be rough every time Duncan or Amanda gets into a serious relationship and they can't fool around for a decade or so. They should just stop the pretenses and get married at this point. You never know when one or the other of you might be gone, even if you're immortals.
Not sure if Fitz is trying to kiss him or just climb all over him. It's like when a dog is jumping all over you trying to occupy the same physical space as you, without really knowing what his own end goal is.
After all that excitement, Amanda needs a cigarette. As gross as smoking is, a woman puffing on a cigarette continues to be one of the classier images in our cultural lexicon.
Christmas descends over the UK as our heroes prepare to sneak into Westminster Abbey, 1950's version (not pictured here)
It won't be easy, it's heavily guarded. Wait, why did Amanda need the help of vile mobster Jabba Crimmins if she has Duncan and Fitz helping now? Did he just finance them? They don't need money.
It turns out "heavily guarded" just means this one guy, who Amanda tricks into having a drink with her, after which he passes out. All these centuries Duncan was afraid to try again at getting the Stone, and he was afraid for nothing!
Our heroes stumble upon the Stone...and it's a pretty ordinary-looking rock, sitting under the throne of Scotland. Whoever sits on the stone is thus the King of Scotland. Amanda doesn't know any of this, and assumes the throne must be displaying the Stone, which is likely a priceless diamond or something.
Amanda then locks Duncan and Fitz in a room so she can steal the Stone.
Lol
Amanda, thinking the Stone is sitting on the throne and must be a priceless gem, looks around for it.
After shredding the throne's pillows, she huffs and puffs.
Alright, she gives up. Where the hell is the Stone?
Duncan explains that the ordinary-looking rock under the throne IS, in fact, the Stone. The reason it's priceless is because it represents the true leader of Scotland. So Amanda can't exactly sell it. Also Crimmins wants his damn money. Apparently Amanda did this deal with Crimmins because she thought she was going to have to fence a giant diamond, and he'd know how to do that.
Our heroes wheel this massive stone out and away. Yep, they did it. The Stone of Scone is recovered. The British are going to be pissed.
This was a real event that happened circa 1950. The Stone of Scone is a real object that went missing. So much like future episode "The Modern Prometheus", this is based on real people and events.
In real life, four Scottish students were the culprits behind stealing the Stone, with the objective of stirring up long-dormant nationalistic pride in the Scottish people, and perhaps get them to push back against the UK's hegemony over their culture. Probably not unlike Brexiteers in the past decade ironically pushing British national identity to the forefront against the more global hegemony of the European Union and their open borders policies / gradual erosion of cultural identity. If anyone knows about eroding cultural identities, it's them.
Ultimately the Stone of Scone was reacquired and the plot of the students was foiled, but the sentiments of a Free Scotland that it stirred up lingered on for decades.
Amanda laments that her sketch in the newspaper makes her look less attractive.
Amanda decides to go to another continent to escape from the vile gangster Crimmins. Why don't they just have Duncan fight the guy and sort this out like any other episode? ...maybe he isn't as good at this 1950 point and Crimmins is particularly feared. It's a far cry from Duncan '97 dealing with the issue.
Amanda gets arrested, and the police offer her a deal if she'll tell them the identities of the two men who tricked her into going along with their terrible plot. She refuses, of course.
...until Crimmins shows up. Since he's out a bunch of money, he's decided to just kill Amanda and be done with it.
Amanda changes her tune and is willing to negotiate with the police. Don't do it! Fitz is too pretty for jail!
Speaking of Fitz, he's going down on a waitress he met earlier.
Stop going down on that woman, Fitz! The police are here!
Fitz: "What are the three words a woman never wants to hear in bed?"
Her: "I give up?"
Fitz: "Yes"
And that's how 16 time world champion Fitz got arrested.
Real old news reports talk about the ongoing case of the Stone of Scone and efforts to recover it.
Little do they know, the stone has already made its way to Scotland. We know this because of the immediate bagpipe music wafting by from somewhere.
Duncan has been working on a fake Stone, and made it look just like the real one. Pretty much identical. If it was this easy, why didn't the Scots just make another one 200 years ago?
Duncan then clumsily knocks the whole thing over, cracking the fake stone in half.
Maybe we should be calling HIM Ditz.
Fitz and Amanda are now neighbors, so I guess Amanda's deal didn't go that well.
News footage says that the Stoone of Scoone has been recovered! Prime Minister Churchill has no comment on the situation.
Churchill himself is seen only as a hand, like Doctor Claw. He's talking to...
...hero of World War 2 Duncan Macleod, who is ironically a distinguished and respected member of British Special Services at this point in time. Considering he spent a century fighting against them, it's good that he eventually let bygones be bygones. He still had a wrong to right for Scotland, though.
Long story short, he tells Churchill that he recovered the stone, though it's broken, and to put out a press release blaming the whole thing on a bunch of students pulling a prank.
And there it is, the actual Stone, broken in half but recovered nonetheless. The students must have been clumsy with it, or Duncan Macleod if the episode is to be believed.
The Stone is placed back at its "rightful place" in Westminster Abbey.
They then split the reward money for recovering the Stone. That or Duncan took all of it, not sure. He IS the one who "recovered" it after all. That should have been the whole plan, steal it and then "recover" it. And DON'T BREAK IT.
...so wait, where's the real Stone?
Why, it's back at their golf course in Scotland.
This random woman sits on it and becomes the rightful ruler of Scotland.
Fitz agrees not to do any more cheating at golf, and...
...that's it for this very good, entirely-in-flashback, Amanda and Fitz centered episode. Just a fun, misty, rainy episode here, and a rare trip to London and Scotland. More shows need to be shot here and be rainy and misty like this show is.
So, thoughts on this episode? It's a good one, and has the distinction of taking place entirely in flashback. The story is set in 1950 and the flashbacks (to the flashback) are 1700s, so it wasn't that much of a departure from a normal episode. That said, if the budget allowed for it, I would have loved to see more episodes like this, set entirely in the past. That we got so few of them over the course of the series is a crime, considering the wealth of historical eras this series had the ability to explore. And don't get me started on how much they could have done with flashbacks in a Methos series. Methos in ancient Rome? Methos in ancient Egypt! Methos helping Homer write The Iliad, because no way he did that on his own!
Another fun fact about this episode: A movie was actually made about this whole incident, called The Stone of Destiny. I haven't seen it but it might be worth tracking down.
Three episodes left in Season 5, and two left in the series' best run of episodes. Both of them are pretty damn good. After those it might be time for another ranking list, we'll see. I'll probably do these on Mondays in September, but no promises.
No comments:
Post a Comment