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5-4: The Valkyrie, Comes a Horseman, Revelation 6:8

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  • 5-4: The Valkyrie, Comes a Horseman, Revelation 6:8

    Discuss these episodes from Season 5:

    The Valkyrie
    Comes a Horseman
    Revelation 6:8
    __________________________________________________

    "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
    --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

  • #2
    Solid run of episodes. Season five was on fire, at this point. And Kronos is the last decent/great villain the show, and indeed the franchise had created. So good, that was explored in a Big Finish-produced audio story (as were the rest of the Horsemen). Shame he was killed, he could've been brought back for the finale of the show.

    Comment


    • #3
      All three, terrific. I remember how stunned I was when I learned, years later, that for a long time, the writers had been undecided whether to give Methos a great story in the past - a shocking story! - or to establish that Adam Pierson wasn't really Methos, just a young Immortal who'd been pulling everyone's leg. Glad they went in the direction they did!

      Comment


      • Gardner
        Gardner commented
        Editing a comment
        The Other Methos was thus a step in that other direction : the real Methos comes to town and Adam Pierson plays everyone for a fool.
        Then later on, comes Kronos looking for his brother, and also Cassandra who instantly recognises 'dam Pierson' as Methos.

    • #4
      All episodes courtesy of Cinedigm.



      Episode 97: "The Valkyrie"

      Methos jokingly notes that this is yet another moral crisis story for Duncan, and that does indeed seem to be the formula for this season. And this one just happens to be one of the best. A female friend of MacLeod's is on the run from an Interpol agent after she takes up killing potential tyrants, a habit that she picked up after failing to kill Hitler in the infamous botched assassination attempt. Duncan, who was also involved in Operation Valkyrie, accuses her of being judge, jury, and executioner, a rather hypocritical statement coming from him. The episode ends tragically, and the final Quickening is one of the most haunting moments in the entire franchise. Evil seemingly triumphs, but as all of the characters note, a black-and-white view of the world does not hold up in the gray fog of ethics. Duncan closes the episode by realizing that he too will be judged one day, a line undoubtedly foreshadowing Forgive Us Our Trespasses.
      __________________________________________________

      "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
      --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

      Comment


      • #5


        Episode 98: "Comes a Horseman"

        The first half of the mid-season two-parter begins like a standard episode: Duncan sees an old enemy (cue flashback to the Old West) and plans to face him. Then, we're hit with a twist: Cassandra (who feels a bit out of place in this story) knows this enemy from the Bronze Age, when he was a member of a group of pillagers known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. She intends to seek revenge for what Kronos did to her people, but Kronos has other plans. The next revelation sends shock waves through the TV series' storyline: Methos was one of the Horsemen, and Cassandra was his sex slave! Methos owns up to his past in a truly unsettling confrontation with Duncan, and he meanwhile struggles with Kronos's insistence that they band together again. As the episode closes, this beloved recurring character suddenly becomes far more ambiguous than he ever had been before--an unforeseeable development in an episode that plays with audience expectations expertly.
        __________________________________________________

        "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
        --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

        Comment


        • #6


          Episode 99: "Revelation 6:8"

          The Four Horsemen reunite, and Kronos plans viral terrorism while Methos drops clues for Duncan to find. Methos plays both sides, helping Duncan foil a scheme so that his "brothers" can capture Cassandra. As MacLeod closes in on the group, Methos has to decide whether he will stand by the sidelines in his normal self-preserving mode or take action for what he believes to be right. The second episode of the two-parter is worthy of its predecessor, ending with a dual fight that displays the sort of creative editing that usually appeared only in the Highlander films. However, Cassandra should have been allowed to kill either Caspian or Silas, and Methos should have been the one fighting Kronos, not Duncan. The shared Quickening was wince-inducing. The mid-season story wasn't perfect, but it was still fantastic.
          __________________________________________________

          "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
          --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

          Comment


          • #7
            I don't agree that "Cassandra should have been allowed to kill either Caspian or Silas"...or that Methos should have killed Kronos. I think the climax of this episode was perfect, except for the distracting special effects during that "shared Quickening."

            Re Cassandra: Granted, all four Horsemen had been involved in the massacre of her long-ago nomad tribe. But her fury was directed only at Methos and Kronos, for personal reasons. I suspect that if she'd learned Caspian or Silas was still alive - with no reason to think the other two were - she would simply have shrugged it off.

            What really happened: Kronos showed his true villainy when he sent both Caspian and Silas to kill MacLeod. Obviously, "two against one" broke the rules observed by honorable Immortals. But beyond that, he knew MacLeod was a powerful Immortal. He almost certainly expected that one of his henchmen would be killed; but then, the other would be able to kill MacLeod while he was briefly weakened by having just received a Quickening. And that would have happened, if MacLeod hadn't been able to dive into one of those handy rivers. Then it was perfect that the "henchman" still alive was Silas - a man Methos actually liked.

            I know some fans believe that because Methos kills Silas a second(?) after MacLeod had killed Kronos, he might - if Kronos had been the victor in that fight - have "spared" Silas, and tried to get back into Kronos's good graces. ("I go with the wnner.") That's one possible interpretation. But...if he'd tried to stop fighting, there would have been a real danger that an uncomprehending Silas would just see that he'd let his guard down, and whack him!

            As I see it...

            Methos knew that if MacLeod killed Kronos, a still-living Silas would try to behead MacLeod while he was briefly weakened.

            If Kronos killed MacLeod, Methos would have to try to behead Kronos while he was briefly weakened. A still-living Silas would stand in his way.

            So Methos had to fight Silas (sadly, a man he liked). But he hadn't done much fighting in recent years. There was a real chance he might be killed - and even if he won, the fight might have gone on so long that he'd still be weak when the other fight ended.

            So he took the real risk of not challenging Silas until Silas had unlocked Cassandra's cell. He hoped that if Cassandra saw either Kronos or Silas briefly vulnerable, she'd grab a sword and do him in.

            Instead, of course, she was about to kill Methos himself...until MacLeod asked her to spare him. A wonderfully poignant ending!
            Last edited by Wilusa; 08-11-2017, 11:39 AM.

            Comment


            • #8
              Reasons why Methos shouldn't have been the one to fight Kronos? The "real" reason, of course, was that MacLeod was the series lead, and he was expected to fight all the major villains! But also, it wouldn't have been plausible that Methos, at this point in his life, would be able to defeat Kronos, when he hadn't been able to defeat Kalas. Thousands of years ago, Methos and Kronos would have been evenly matched. But Kronos had gone on killing people (presumably, Immortals as well as mortals), and Methos had let his sword skills become rusty.

              Comment


              • #9
                Then again, considering how the series crashed and burned soon after this arc, perhaps Methos should have died here.
                __________________________________________________

                "Really? We are trapped in a room with a machine that can cut off my head. Now that's a longshot."
                --Connor MacLeod in Peter Bellwood's original Highlander II script

                Comment


                • #10
                  Thoughts about "The Valkyrie": It's an excellent episode, but I've always felt that both MacLeod and that agent(?) who'd thought he'd killed the Immortal female assassin (I forget the character's name) were questioning what they'd done, having guilt feelings, for no reason. The writers had actually made it easy to justify her being killed: she wasn't just killing demagogues who might become future Hitlers, she was killing innocents who happened to be in the way. (If MacLeod had let her explode a bomb where that white racist was speaking, it might have killed not only him and his admirers, but people covering it for the news media, and people who'd gone there to protest.)


                  Comment


                  • #11
                    One of the best rants ever:

                    Duncan: Is what she said true?

                    Methos: I'm outta here.

                    Duncan: No, you're not. You're not outta here. Is what she said true?

                    Methos: [pause] The times were different, MacLeod. I was different. The whole bloody world was different, okay?

                    Duncan: [pause] Did you kill all those people?

                    Methos: Yes. Is that what you wanna hear? Killing was all I knew. Is that what you want to hear?

                    Duncan: That's enough.

                    [Methos throws Duncan against the 4x4.]

                    Methos: No, it's not enough! I killed. But I didn't just kill fifty, I didn't kill a hundred. I killed a thousand. I killed ten thousand. And I was good at it. And it wasn't for vengeance. It wasn't for greed. It was because — I liked it. [giggle] Cassandra was nothing. Her village was nothing. Do you know who I was? I was Death.

                    [Methos laughs. Duncan throws him against the 4x4.]

                    Methos: Death — Death on a horse. When mothers warned their children that the monster would get them, that monster was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night. Is that what you want to hear? The answer is yes, oh yes.

                    Duncan: We're through.

                    (From Methos.org- I wish I could embed the .wav file, but it downloads as a .zip)

                    Comment


                    • #12
                      Just finished going over the official domestic cut of these three episodes, kindly provided by the wonderful Gillian Horvath. I have converted them from their VHS tapes to mpg (m4v) format if anyone is interested in them. Also, the official 'Eurominutes' are now marked out on my transcript pages. [www.zzickle.com/tv/transcripts.html]

                      And now for the showdown: DVD/European cut vs Domestic cut - who wins?


                      5x
                      10: The Valkyrie
                      Several noteworthy scenes are removed from the domestic version of this episode. We lose the banter between Joe, Methos and Duncan during the boxing match, about Basilio vs Dick Tiger (I adore this scene). Later, Ingrid’s lines that she doesn’t want to do what she does and that she only kills “the ones who needed it” are cut. The entire scene by the side of the road in the Germany flashback is lost – where they discuss their strategy and Duncan volunteers to stay with the bomb, ‘sacrificing’ himself to ensure the plan succeeds. This scene also explains why their plan ultimately fails, due to circumstances beyond their control with the change of venue, rather than just bad luck/poor planning. And lastly, more Joe/Methos/Duncan conversation is lost, where Duncan and Methos drag Joe into their argument about Ingrid and Hitler, Joe makes a decent point, and Methos gives him a backhanded compliment, calling him a kid. The rest of the cuts are filler or just of less significance to the story, but the moments I’ve specifically listed here make this one a fairly easy decision for me...

                      Winner: DVD/European cut!


                      5x
                      11: Comes a Horseman
                      My favorite episode of the series. Yes, we have to deal with Duncan being Duncan, and IMO the Cassandra actress is way too old for the character given her newly revealed background, but Methos gains So Much Backstory Awesomeness here, and Kronos is my favorite K’Immie ever. He is just so cheerfully sociopathic. But enough fangirling – on with the showdown

                      The domestic cut loses some filler of Life in the Day of a Nomad; Joe taking the Four Horsemen as a joke at first, then later learning that the Immortal he knows as Melvin Koren is Kronos; Kronos listing all the reasons why he wants Methos to kill Duncan and making Methos swear a blood oath to do it; and the end of the “Jimmy Scene” where Methos and Duncan both take off their jackets (so much anger and frustration from both of them here, and a much better note to end on than Duncan’s “We’re through.”) Yeah, this one is easy.

                      Winner: DVD/European cut!


                      5x
                      12: Revelation 6:8
                      This is another episode with numerous small cuts. I can’t say I particularly love or hate any of them, although I could do without the inmate’s shrill “He's here! The dark man is here! It's you!” scene. I would proclaim it a tie, but I don’t want to end this showdown with half points, so I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and declare it...

                      Winner: DVD/European cut!


                      Unfortunately, this is the last of the episodes that I got from Gillian, so the showdown must end here.


                      Final tally:
                      Domestic = 32
                      DVD/European =
                      41

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