Highlander season 3: Take Back the Night

[beccaelizabeth]

or 'revenge bad'

Cierdwen (is that how you spell it?) - oddly hard to like. Probably because she spent the whole episode either grief striken or trying to kill people.
Sympathetic character?
The test is, caring about someone else more than she cares about herself.
The revenge thing I don't think quite fits. I mean, she's real sad and she goes out to kill people because of it, but she isn't in any real danger from mortals, right? So she isn't risking much. And she's doing the bad thing, the killing a lot thing.
Its interesting how its presented though, because Mac is the one who gets to be right currently, but the flashbacks have her teaching him the very same lesson (with sex, which, ick, beardy). So that part is sort of balanced.
The 'cause worth dying for' bit is also a little dodgy. I mean, again, there's the factor about how real the danger is. And then there's the bit back before with the battle junkie, and spending all season showing complicated wars.

I hark on the 'real' bit because the episode does too, with Richie.

Would he press so hard if he was in real danger? Is he taking risks mortals couldn't afford?
Answer the second, yes. Answer the first?
well judging by first season Richie, also yes, because the boy was always a nutcase when he thought it mattered.
Of course we don't know if racing would be in that category, or just saving pretty girls (which he risked his life for a lot).

Screws up. Admits is straight away. Doesn't know for sure if he caused the accident but calls it a screw up anyway. Because the guy is dead, and Richie isn't.
I think from what we saw Richie did to the other guy what the other guy did to Richie last week, fairly precisely. So if that counts as trying to kill him, the other guy tried to kill Richie first.
Revenge. Kaboom. Badness.
And they both lose lives, though Richie gets to survive. In theory RR can't go back to Europe now. In fact, since he got his international papers and competed in the USA under the same name first, he should be dead *internationally*, and be out of both Europe and the USA.
But the necessities of production have them ignoring that whenever they want to. Rather annoying, really, because it makes Richie kind of dumb and the consequences kind of floppy.
But Mac goes back to places he's been recently enough he really should be aging by now. Paris, for a not small example. And he goes back to places where he is dead. Seacouver, for another freaking huge example.

Unless Anne somehow didn't report the death to anyone, which would be so radically stupid that... at this point I'd have to call it in character. Sorry. The writers wrecked her trying to avoid plot outcomes they didn't want.

So, the other half of the lesson - mortals aren't children, they can choose this life.

Interesting to see how specific that is - children can't choose, is implied.

So Duncan, having been told off by a former shag who is in the exact position he was in after Tessa, calls Anne. His stated reason for not telling her was he couldn't afford another Tessa. So it makes sense.

Anne's reaction makes sense but only in the dumb usual way.

See Tessa only chose danger for herself. When her friends got in trouble, even if an Immortal was involved, it was not because of Mac. In fact Mac usually got them out of trouble again, or at least avenged them.

With Anne its the very opposite - *always* because of Mac. He puts in danger not just Anne but her friends and patients. How could she in good conscience choose to risk that? Because Mac isn't the one doing the bad things? Sure, that makes a moral difference on Mac's part, but as he said about the dead biker, it probably doesn't matter to *them*. Anne's friend is dead, her patient is dead, and it was because of Mac.

I'm pushing the argument very one sided simply because the show seems to be pushing very the other side.

Danger should be a factor!

I don't think they showed us enough of Anne to show why Duncan loves her, unless its the doctor thing, and if it is that then that isn't a very good reason. There are a lot of doctors in the world. Is Duncan attracted to her as an opposite of him? Healing instead of killing? That isn't about Anne Lindsey her own self. And what do we know about her own self? Not so very much. They skipped the building and went straight for the breakup. And then sort of did a yo yo thing which avoided the real issues and went with 'secrets'. And now they resolve the 'secrets' issue. So will they go look at the real issue?

I dislike this relationship, because of many aspects of the writing. So I'm beginning to dislike it taking screen time.


Richie, though, gets good screen time and theme-y ness again. Trouble is Mac gets to be right again from a standing start. I mean, he liked the idea before! But, then he saw Richie, and what he was doing, and how he was doing it. So there was some basis for changing his mind.

Richie wanted a thing he was good at that had nothing to do with Immortality.
What he ends up learning is that *everything* has to do with him being an Immortal.

Its a bit like at the start, when C is all 'there will be other chances' and the other guy is all 'for you'. Immortality gives you a different perspective.

But as Maurice says, all young people think they'll live forever.

Is it just an arrested development thing? Stay young inside too?


I'm comparing Richie's life right now to Buffy's attempts to be normal. Always she tries to have a 'normal' life but the wierdness follows her. Same her with Richie. To some degree. First, with the baby, badness followed him. Second, with the race, he was the badness, pushing too hard because he doesn't have the right fear reflexes. Like jumping in front of the gun, he gets the rush without the consequences. And unlike the gun jumping, there is no good reason, no heroics here. He just wants to win.
Buffy prom?
But Buffy didn't get Cordy killed.


Richie also demonstrates how Duncan got so 'smart'. D said, trial and error. *Lots* of trial and error.
Richie screwed up. And in a lot of ways it was a typical young man's screw up. The road accident stats have that kind of badness in them all the time. Young men think they are Immortal, think they are faster, smarter, better than they turn out to be, and boom. Crash. Somebody dies. The fact this happened on a formal racetrack rather than the road just increased the pressure in that direction. So, Richie made the mistake a lot of guys his age make - but unlike most of them, he gets to stay in one piece while he learns from it.
But the other guy doesn't.
That happens a lot RL too.
And Richie has to live with it.