The run of awesome episodes is over, now we get a pretty bad one as an ancient demon awakens... it's an episode that should have been awesome. At least Richie is back. While I think that Fitzcairn is (was) Duncan's best friend, I think that Richie is the audience's best friend. He's pretty crucial to this show.
Aired May 19th, 1997. Which is worth noting because May 19th is considered a day of bad luck / evil in many cultures, the opposite pole from Halloween on the spirit calendar.
Basra, Iraq, 1997 - Doc Brown and his assistant are exploring an old excavation site, the resting place of an old Zoroastrian demon. Have you tried checking Zorro Ranch?
This creepy-as-hell statue springs awake and shoots Doc Brown's accomplice with a laser. Yeah, supernatural things are afoot.
Elsewhere, Richie is complaining about not understanding opera. He doesn't think your average opera has much at all to do with the modern world, or much to identify with. Duncan disagrees and says the world is the same as it ever was, at least as far as people and their behavior goes. He's got that right. Richie says he thinks things have gotten a lot worse over time. Well, he definitely missed the Dark Ages.
Richie says something about how crazy the news has been, and it's like the whole world is falling apart with all the wars and famine going on. Yeah, it's easy to forget the incredible amount of world instability there was in the 20th century. Constant wars (big, destructive ones), genocides, mass starvations, the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, Bill and Ted calling each other the f-word (the other one), and just general awfulness. It doesn't seem like it to young folk, but relatively speaking, we've had general peace and quiet around the world for a generation now compared to how it used to be. Aside from the Russia/Ukraine war and how insanely destructive it is. That feels like it belongs in another century, and is the end result of just a few people refusing to budge in their convictions.
Richie pointing out that the news is insane in 1997 is significant for this episode, because it's putting a frame on how the world was in such rough shape that numerous people felt like 1999 was going to bring about the end times for humanity, one way or another.
Doc Brown runs up to our heroes, wild-eyed and going on about how "HE is coming, only you can stop him!" and "the millennium is at hand!" and it's all very End of Days Starring Arnold Schwarznegger. Arnold was a guest on WWF Smackdown in 1999. Adrian Paul was a guest on WWF Smackdown in 2000. IT'S ALL CONNECTED.
A red smoke rolls in, that only Duncan can see. And with it? Horton. That's right, Horton. He's back...yet again.
Duncan chases this Horton phantom, only to have him disappear, while Richie wonders what Duncan is on about. Meanwhile, Doc Brown gets strangled by his own scarf, and dies. He didn't even have a chance to explain to Duncan what the actual hell is going on, mostly because Duncan ran off on him mid-sentence. Duncan really needs to stop walking away from people while they're talking to him. This guy is kind of maddening at this point.
Duncan visits the grave...and it's been exhumed. Is Horton...an immortal? And he couldn't be sensed somehow? Duncan has already killed the guy twice!
Not sure it's a coincidence that Horton was born in 1945. What happened in 1945? It was a pretty significant year. It's the year WW2 ended and Hitler died. I think the subtext here is that he could be Hitler reincarnated, given they shared very similar desires to get rid of people they deem unnatural/inferior.
Richie is on the scene with Duncan, and doesn't know what to think about all of this. Duncan insists he saw Horton and that something very weird is going on. You know what would have been cool? An episode before this of these two just hanging out, drinking cognac, watching an opera and Richie not getting it. Something nice. It isn't like this season was out of episodes.
Duncan tracks down the guy who had Horton exhumed: His brother-in-law, Joe Dawson! He's sending the body to the U.S. so Horton's family can be near him. Duncan proceeds to interrogate him about it like Joe's hiding something. Ya know what, Duncan? Maybe you should butt out more often.
He then starts forcing the coffin open and making a big scene.
"Horton" is watching all of this, amused at tormenting Duncan. So his whole thing is tormenting people, driving them insane, making them see things that no one else believes them on. That's legitimately scary, and if demons are real, it's probably exactly how they would spend their time.
Well, sure enough, there's a body in there. "That could be anyone!" says Duncan. Yeah, you never know when a powerful guy had his body switched out so he could escape from a Manhattan cell block, replaced by a body double with a much larger nose. Have they checked Zorro Ranch?
Joe gets the police to let Duncan go, saying he's a friend of Horton who was overcome with grief. Nice touch.
Joe can't believe what he's hearing. "Yeah, Horton is walking around over at the park with JFK and Elvis!" He forgot Bigfoot. Maybe we'll find Mulder's Sister there too!
Duncan says that Joe lied to him once before about Horton. Joe still doesn't believe any of this, but he isn't keeping anything from Duncan.
Richie believes Duncan to an extent. Or at least, he believes that Duncan saw something, and that something killed that old guy. So they go to the morgue to see Doc Brown's body, and...well it was already taken away to be cremated. So that's convenient.
More creepy weird stuff happens, like a dead body turning to look at Duncan.
Duncan goes home to the barge to try and rest a bit, and who appears across the room? Kronos. There he is, just lurking in the barge.
After Kronos vanishes into thin air, Duncan senses an immortal and goes outside. It's just Methos wandering by, and Duncan damn near goes after him. Good thing it wasn't foggier!
He visits the granddaughter of Doc Brown, who tells him about how Doc investigated ancient religions. He believed a Zoroastrian prophecy that a demon would attempt to take over the world every thousand years, and each time it would be defeated by a champion.
He realizes that the guy told him that only he could defeat "him". So one way or another, somebody decided that he's the champion who would face the demon at the end of this millennium.
Meanwhile, in the background, the news drones on about the latest foreign bloodbath over a piece of land, just to hammer home that the world is falling apart by the minute. Don't get me wrong, these terrible events still go on. It was just constant in the last century.
Duncan remembers the prophecy of Cassandra, that Duncan was fated to defeat a great evil. At the time we assumed it was the immortal of the week, the guy with hypnotic suggestion powers. Nope, that guy was a joke. This would explain why the prophecy didn't come up again during the Four Horsemen episodes like I thought it should have. I was wondering why the Four Horsemen weren't the great evil he had to defeat and why the prophecy never came up in those episodes. Well, it's because they were saving it for this. Something even bigger than the 4H Club.
Duncan flashes back to one of the first immortals he met, before he knew what they were. After he fought Kanwulf the Viking and couldn't kill him, and before he met Connor and found out A) That the man wasn't a myth and B) How immortals work.
Before all of that, he was wandering in the woods and got the buzz. It led him to the Hermit of Loch Bannoch, an old immortal in a cave who spoke incoherent nonsense. Namely that the Great Evil he once defeated would someday return, and that Duncan Macleod was the one fated to slay the Great Evil the next time around. He waited a while for Duncan to show up, knowing he'd be here.
He then rolls bones and says they foretell the same destiny. Every thousand years he comes!
He starts talking a lot like King Willie from Predator 2. "You cannae see the eyes of the demon...until him come calling."
He forces Duncan to fight him, even though he's decrepit and in no shape to fight.
He then somehow cuts his own throat with Duncan's sword.
Thish ish...the very first Quickening that Duncan ever had, well before he fought Kanwulf and couldn't figure out how to keep him down. Who was Duncan's first real immortal kill in a duel, anyway? This didn't really count since the guy offed himself, and Kanwulf obviously just got up again later. I can't recall right now.
Fun Fact: The scene from Highlander Endgame of Duncan meeting Connor for the first time was originally supposed to happen here. The idea ended up getting scrapped, though. A brief Connor appearance probably would have distracted a lot from the overall episode.
And that's our episode. Kind of strange that the immortal of the week only showed up at the end. He seemed like an okay guy. Basically a Dark Ages version of Duncan, a noble guy who protected others.
TLDR: This guy was basically a paladin who fought and defeated the great evil back in the year 1000, when he was about Duncan's age. Then some time after that he "went mad" and went around raving about how someone else needed to now defeat the great evil when it returned. Come on man, you had 900 years before that, you could have relaxed a bit. Does this mean that Duncan's fate is to similarly go raving mad in about a hundred years, seeking the next champion? Can't one champion just stick around for the next 1000 years and do it again? Is the year 2000 for all the marbles, and the great evil is done after that? Pretty sure that a major part of life's fabric is that good has to win every battle to keep evil at bay, while evil only has to win once to do its damage.
Having heard the story of the hermit, at this point Richie believes Duncan. He says that whatever Duncan does to go after this inexplicable enemy, he'll be right there with him. That might not be the best idea.
Elsewhere, the granddaughter is visited by...wrestling superstar Ric Flair! Er, her grandpa. That can't be, he's gone.
He proceeds to cackle insanely and torment her about her loss.
Then he sets the place ablaze and burns her up. Alright, this morphing undead jackass is getting on my last nerve.
Elsewhere, we get a shot of a different, Duncan-less show, as our other heroes discuss what's going on while en route to the granddaughter's place. Joe doesn't believe any of this, and even Methos is highly skeptical despite everything he's seen. Or maybe because of everything he's seen. 5500 years and he's never seen anything resembling a demon.
Richie probably wanted to go talk to the granddaughter...but it seems they're too late, as fire crews are on the scene and say the building burned with her in it. Witnesses saw a tall guy with a ponytail leaving. So now this demon is framing Duncan for arson, too.
Back at the barge, Duncan gets a very special visitor.
The granddaughter. She's tired of beating around the bush and wants him. Uhhhhh
The ruse is shattered quickly when she starts talking in Horton's voice. So this demon gets into the habit of impersonating the people it kills. If it were smart it would have stayed in woman form and seized the opportunity to have sex with Duncan. Is this demon an idiot?
It suggests that Duncan kill her and then "make love" to her corpse. ....yeah, it's an idiot. And a bit of a sicko, as well.
These guys continue to deliberate. Richie is tired of how little they believe Duncan. After everything they've seen, and how wild their very existence is, why is it so hard to think demons are real? Methos thinks that Duncan is hallucinating, that he needs mental help. Richie can't deal with this anymore and leaves to go for a walk.
They visit Duncan again, and he wonders aloud why they didn't bring men in white coats with them.
"We think you need help, Mac."
Well, from their point of view, right now Duncan looks really bad. He's seeing "demons" that appear as people they all know are dead, he was seen at that apartment before it went up in flames. He didn't do himself any favors by acting like such a dick earlier, attacking Horton's casket at the airport.
Richie is walking in the rain. It's crazy how at one time I thought he might take over as the main character of Highlander if something happened to Duncan. Like I thought they might do that. It could have been a hipper show for the kids, maybe TV execs would have gone for that.
Horton drives by, holding Joe at gunpoint! My eyes ain't what they were, and I can't tell if that's a German Luger (on brand for Horton), or a Walther PP with a silencer on.
Richie, of course, gives chase, now realizing that it's true, Horton is somehow back.
Duncan has been studying books about Zoroastrian demons, and the scribbles of Doc Brown, and now knows that the demon's name is Ahriman.
Richie calls, says Joe's been captured, and he's chasing them into some kind of abandoned shopping mall. He drops the phone before Duncan can tell him that Joe is standing next to him. Dammit! If only they had cell phones! Richie hasn't sprinted off this fast since he saw an unclaimed window to look through.
Duncan swings into action and rushes to the mall himself.
He runs into...Richie? Nope, unless Richie got even creepier from peering in windows, that's Ahriman-Richie.
We get the ultimate battle, Richie vs Duncan. And Richie is super formidable, getting a bunch of hits on Duncan.
This morphing bastard has really crossed a line now. The good news? We finally get to see Richie fight using his second sword. Did he EVER get to fight any real battles this season after getting it?
Richie slashes Duncan a few times due to Duncan's unwillingness to truly fight back against his friend, and this scene actually mirrors their fight in Season 4. Only this time Richie is the one scoring the easy strikes and taunting his opponent.
He then morphs into Kronos, complete with his death sword. I guess he decided it was time to use his Mega Evolution/
The battle continues, as Kronos teleports around the room, avoiding all of Duncan's attacks while he slashes wildly.
"I am Set! I am Ahriman! I am everything that your people call demons and devils!" says Ahriman-Kronos.
He's all of them. The big kahuna. Basically Satan.
All of the Ahriman forms are here now. This guy doesn't even have the decency to stay confined to one body?
Pretty soon there's a whole circle of Ahrimans, taunting Duncan.
"I bring chaos! Anarchy!"
"I existed when time began and I will be here at its end!"
Outside of Duncan's mind, he spins around, slashing at the air. Slashing at...nothing.
Remember two episodes ago when Steven Keane asked Duncan if he'd killed his friend during "temporary insanity" and how that was no excuse?
The real Richie is walking over, and...
...Duncan locks horns with Ahriman-Kronos #3!
He spins around to swing at Ahriman-Richie!
SHIIING. That was the real Richie, and he falls dead. He wandered right into the trap.
A huge quickening booms forth. This ish...not even worth talking about because it was such an idiotic idea.
Richie screams a lot during the Quickening. It's the most painful, wrenching one in the series.
....Richie? comes out to survey the damage. It's actually a relief for a split second because it seems like he might have just killed Ahriman, and here's the real Richie.
Then he starts acting all smarmy and evil. No, the real Richie is gone. Seeing him again like this just adds insult to injury.
As the Ahrimans all fade away, Horton peers at Duncan with the creepy inquisitiveness of the Teletubbies baby. Then he also fades away. Ahriman did its job, which was apparently to seek out the "champion" that can stop Ahriman and proceed to break him down as much as possible so that he can no longer fight. It had to beat him spiritually. Which is certainly what he is, beaten spiritually.
He hands Methos his sword, clearly asking Methos to kill him, and Methos walks away.
Cue Richie Montage, set to a great Jim Byrnes song:
I'll say this, the hell with this Ahriman arc and Season 6, I think it's time to go back and revisit Season 2 instead.
Side Note: I managed to freeze-frame this montage and discovered that in the training scene, Richie isn't holding a Dragon-Head Katana. All this time I thought they were both using the same sword, meaning Duncan had multiple copies of his sword laying around. Nope, Richie's training katana was a similar but different sword. Does this finally prove that Duncan only had the one Koto sword? Not necessarily. I vaguely remember there being another scene where he grabbed a second Dragon-Head Katana off of the wall to duel with someone who had his main sword.
Duncan takes Richie's gloves and starts chanting in Native American, clearly in shock, before walking out. Not sure why he took Richie's gloves; it seemed to represent something.
Joe is crushed, probably because Richie was so young. Guy was just starting life as an immortal and should have had all kinds of stories and adventures yet to go.
That's it, episode over. What a drag.
Our actual immortal of the week now has an updated roster status.
Wait, twice? One was in Something Wicked, but when else did Duncan try to kill young Richie?
That's a wrap for Season 5. Nothing else to say about this episode. I hate it. The next two episodes form a trilogy with this one, continuing the Ahriman Arc. They really feel like they should be on the end of Season 5 instead. I'd want to watch them right now if this one hadn't ended on such a down note.
Having a season cliffhanger (with no real sign it's going to continue) with this episode is brutal; they should have just continued the trilogy. Unsurprisingly the ratings bombed a bit when the show returned a few months later to continue this arc. The middle of Season 6 was when the show finally started getting lower ratings than its lead-in, WWF Raw, which for the first five seasons this show actually outdrew on USA Network.
Originally, Season 6 was supposed to be entirely post-apocalyptic, a world ravaged by Ahriman. Basically they were going to turn it into the misery-filled, post-apocalyptic Season 2 of War of the Worlds 1990. No wonder Adrian Paul was ready to stop playing at this point. They were going to replace him with a female immortal who would take over in S6, and then Highlander: The Raven would be the new series about that female immortal. Presumably still in the post-apocalypse, battling Ahriman's supernatural minions or something. Which explains that line in The Raven's intro about how The Raven was "prophesized to bring light back to the world"...which sounds nothing like Amanda, or what the show ended up being.
Luckily the apocalypse idea fell through because of budget. So only the first two episodes continued the Ahriman Arc, and then the season went back to normal stories for episode 3 onward. According to some of the folks involved, after the post-apocalypse fell through, Season 6 was up in the air. What's really messed-up is that there was a bit of time where they weren't even sure if there was going to be a Season 6. The star and the showrunners were all pretty much ready to move on. Would they really have ended the show on THIS note?
That would have been horrible. What's more likely, the plan was to do the next two episodes, "Avatar" and "Armageddon", inside of Season 5 and THEN end the show, and those two were delayed and pushed back once it was decided there'd be a Season 6. Add in "One Minute to Midnight" and "Double Jeopardy", both of which aired during S5 originally, and suddenly you have an even 22-episode season. So that would have made a lot of sense.
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