Highlander season 3: Blackmail

[beccaelizabeth]

Huh. Interesting setup.
The bit with the camera at the start made me think Cultural Studies thoughts. Very film school.
and also full of naked, in the best Highlander tradition.

Duncan charging in to Joe's bar - not a nice attitude or a smart one. Assume Watcher? Why? Because he has this one answer he's now applying to all observation?
interesting, see comments on Vampire episode, fits with that as possible source of fact blindness.

Location reuse. Blackmailers house is the same place as the rich dude in Epitaph for Tommy. Different colors, different insides, different angles, same floor, doors, and fountain.
Since the guy in EfT got blowed up real good and the girl got arrested its plausible in series-world that this guy bought the house. But it would be very rich people indeed house the first time, and I don't know if he's that rich of people in this one.

I like the plot on this one. twisty. 'Strangers on a train' reference. interweaving of Mac's thing with thing not to do with Mac. Flashbacks. As plots go, all the good stuff. Even with some character driven bits where Mac's sense of honor gets him in trouble, repeatedly.

The bit in the maze was nice, fit well with the plot twistiness, and the later mazelike bit in the house.

Lovely sword fight, tons of things trashed, and the swimming pool, and then the Quickening. They blowed that up real good. And the doors go smash. I liked that. And then he fell in the pool :)

Basically this held together really well.

It was a little bit convenient in some ways - having set up the video tape thing they then give Duncan about a bazillion plot bits to give him an out - but it was also fun.

And they'll go back to the 'oh no, revealed!' before the end of the season, yesno?


It was also interesting the way Joe reacted to Mac nearly having to leave. Because he didn't want Mac to leave him? Or because he didn't want to up and leave to follow him?
The 'leave all his friends' bit would work better for the viewer if we'd ever seen him have a friend that wasn't in the know. Richie could just as well follow Mac as not. No worries either way. But we know he has a lot of contacts in town, a lot of people who know him. It doesn't seem unreasonable he'd count some of them as friends. We'd just have to be really paying attention and extrapolating to figure that out. I mean his girlfriend dumped him, so she isn't a factor. And he wanders off to Paris every year anyway! Though since its the same Duncan MacLeod that does that if he had to leave the identity he'd have to leave off doing that too. But anyways, is hard to see why Joe would be so concerned about Mac having to change lives.

The secret coming out, yes, but just Mac leaving, no. Except for the part where Duncan MacLeod is Joe's career and main area of study, as well as his friend.

Richie features much less than in the first season.


I think I'm going to go sleep now.
College do wear me out.

Comments

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

I actually did like this episode. I made the comment in my journal last year about the fact that Duncan actually admits to Joe that he has changed his name before which I thought was interesting. It has always been believed that Duncan MacLeod has stayed Duncan MacLeod for 400 years. THat's what's shown in the flashbacks, but here Duncan says he's had to change his name

as an aside, I thought the guy who taped duncan was perfect. Just whiney enough and slimy enough to make the part work for me

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*