Highlander season 4: Methuselah's Gift
Jan. 27th, 2006 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethNow this just might be the perfect episode.
which is odd, because it doesn't fit the template at all.
but, Methos, Amanda, and so many brilliant lines I'd end up quoting it all if I quoted the good bits.
"You try being her"
"As much as I can for as long as I live"
*hugs Methos*
*hurts for him*
The Alexa storyline compresses the usual Immortal/mortal love story so they can do the whole thing in a few episodes.
And makes Methos desperate enough he'll do anything.
I'd forgotten how much the story and camera angles and so on means to keep us guessing about how much of it was Methos, about who the bad guy is.
I just don't remember it that way, because the scenes with Methos explaining are just so powerful.
I barely remember the prat from the Watchers. He's just the complication anyway.
The one and only thing I didn't like was that the crystal so visibly changed. That confirms the magic. And yet the man still dies when shot, and the crystal falls apart, so it doesn't do what everyone thinks it does. So why make it magic for real? I think its that tiny bit too far, and Highlander works better with only the one magic, the Immortality, and everything else being reactions to that. The entire story would have worked just as well if it was a random crystal that everyone believed in, for all their various reasons. If it was never magic at all, or if we never got confirmation it was magic, it would take nothing away from the story. So I don't like that bit.
I love that Methos just kneels there, 'cut clean'.
But I'm a bit dissappointed that he couldn't convince them of the 'oh no, first death!' scenario.
I mean I realise it was too late in the episode to really explore that one, but he could have tried.
However, this way, he gets found out and then doesn't lie to them any more. Which is interesting.
And he doesn't tell them his real name. Would they believe it? Who knows? But surely taking Methos out of the Game would have been a bigger deal than some Immortal knowing about the Watchers. There would have to be an investigation at least. Buying time.
So again theres the 'too late in the episode' bit, but, that isn't story or character reason.
Is there character reason?
Interesting to try and put one together.
I think maybe he was exhausted, just for starters. Emotionally, and maybe in a no sleep way. Trying desperately to chase up this last chance, pushing himself. So he gets shot, heals, that has to take it out of him some more. Wakes up and... knows the crystal got away. Mission accomplished. Too tired to keep fighting?
Methos is a fascinating character as much for what he doesn't say as for what he does.
I mean the other way to look at it, unfortunately, is to see him as being puppeted badly by the writers (though acted brilliantly, whatever they hand him). He does things because it suits the plot, doesn't say things because that would take the story the wrong place. And some days I think thats so. That Peter Wingfield makes me a fan of Methos, and not the writers at all. But other days its more fun to assume it All Makes Sense, and attempt to put it together.
Is now 11pm and I sleepy, so I stop there. Is much more I could squee about, or think on, or say. Maybe later. Shall probably have time to go back through my favourites before the convention, and this is so very on the list.
which is odd, because it doesn't fit the template at all.
but, Methos, Amanda, and so many brilliant lines I'd end up quoting it all if I quoted the good bits.
"You try being her"
"As much as I can for as long as I live"
*hugs Methos*
*hurts for him*
The Alexa storyline compresses the usual Immortal/mortal love story so they can do the whole thing in a few episodes.
And makes Methos desperate enough he'll do anything.
I'd forgotten how much the story and camera angles and so on means to keep us guessing about how much of it was Methos, about who the bad guy is.
I just don't remember it that way, because the scenes with Methos explaining are just so powerful.
I barely remember the prat from the Watchers. He's just the complication anyway.
The one and only thing I didn't like was that the crystal so visibly changed. That confirms the magic. And yet the man still dies when shot, and the crystal falls apart, so it doesn't do what everyone thinks it does. So why make it magic for real? I think its that tiny bit too far, and Highlander works better with only the one magic, the Immortality, and everything else being reactions to that. The entire story would have worked just as well if it was a random crystal that everyone believed in, for all their various reasons. If it was never magic at all, or if we never got confirmation it was magic, it would take nothing away from the story. So I don't like that bit.
I love that Methos just kneels there, 'cut clean'.
But I'm a bit dissappointed that he couldn't convince them of the 'oh no, first death!' scenario.
I mean I realise it was too late in the episode to really explore that one, but he could have tried.
However, this way, he gets found out and then doesn't lie to them any more. Which is interesting.
And he doesn't tell them his real name. Would they believe it? Who knows? But surely taking Methos out of the Game would have been a bigger deal than some Immortal knowing about the Watchers. There would have to be an investigation at least. Buying time.
So again theres the 'too late in the episode' bit, but, that isn't story or character reason.
Is there character reason?
Interesting to try and put one together.
I think maybe he was exhausted, just for starters. Emotionally, and maybe in a no sleep way. Trying desperately to chase up this last chance, pushing himself. So he gets shot, heals, that has to take it out of him some more. Wakes up and... knows the crystal got away. Mission accomplished. Too tired to keep fighting?
Methos is a fascinating character as much for what he doesn't say as for what he does.
I mean the other way to look at it, unfortunately, is to see him as being puppeted badly by the writers (though acted brilliantly, whatever they hand him). He does things because it suits the plot, doesn't say things because that would take the story the wrong place. And some days I think thats so. That Peter Wingfield makes me a fan of Methos, and not the writers at all. But other days its more fun to assume it All Makes Sense, and attempt to put it together.
Is now 11pm and I sleepy, so I stop there. Is much more I could squee about, or think on, or say. Maybe later. Shall probably have time to go back through my favourites before the convention, and this is so very on the list.
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Date: 2006-01-28 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-30 03:22 pm (UTC)