Highlander: Duende

Duncan: "I'm better now."Richie: "Yeah. But maybe he is, too."Lousy episode. Incredible duel.In fact, I think the duel may have been the best in the entire series. There was something striking about that stone with the skeleton and the footprints and the red lines. And there was a lot of power in that duel, especially as it dragged on through the rain and into the dark. Using both rapier

Highlander: The Ransom of Richard Redstone

Richie: "It was a fake. All of it. Even the tux was rented."This pseudo James Bond-ian adventure has always been my favorite Richie-centric episode. There was nothing particularly profound about it -- it was just a fun change of pace. Richie got kidnapped and tied up several times, we had a French damsel in distress facing a fate worse than death, there was a chateau, a Ferrari, a casino

Highlander: The Valkyrie

Interpol guy: "Old friends are the worst. They claim more of your soul."The last two were about religion. Time for one about politics, I guess.Immortal Ingrid Henning couldn't put her failure to assassinate Hitler behind her, so she became a political vigilante. What made her sympathetic was that she might have been right; it's a somewhat appealing idea. Except you just can't go running

Highlander: The Messenger

Richie: "I'm talking about a chance to change our lives forever, to live without being afraid."Duncan: "What, without a head?"This one was fun. And it was the second episode in a row with a quasi-religious theme. At least the immortal in question was a lot more like Jesus than Larca was. Except we never did learn what the fake Methos was up to. Was he sincere or deluded? The immortal

Highlander: Little Tin God

Larca: "They choose to worship me. And in return, they are cared for. Is that not a god's covenant with his chosen?"Duncan: "I think you've been in the jungle too long."An immortal with a serious Jesus complex. It's only surprising there aren't more of them out there.Larca was despicable, and actually deserved a century and a half of entombment along with being taken out by Duncan, but I also

Highlander: Haunted

Jennifer: "You killed my husband and you made love to me. You sick son of a bitch."It was a dark and stormy night, and beautiful widow Jennifer Hill was being haunted by her dead husband, Alec. It felt like the beginning of a bad gothic mystery movie. Actually, that pretty much describes the episode. It wasn't really all that bad, but it wasn't all that good, either.The interesting thing

Highlander: Money No Object

Duncan: "Are you nuts? How many times did you get shot?"Cory: "More than Bonnie, less than Clyde. What's the difference?"I started watching Highlander near the end of its run; this was the first episode I ever saw. It hooked me, too. There was something unusual and really, really fun about immortals full of joie de vivre on a spree, dying and getting dug up, over and over again. It just

Highlander: Dramatic License

Carolyn: "He'd been with princesses and queens. He was going to live forever. And me? I'm just going to get old and fat. And I'll always be from Newark."I've always loved this one. Duncan MacLeod, heroic immortal warrior, incredibly handsome -- he practically *is* the hero of an historical romance. And the story segued beautifully into actual romance, without getting the slightest bit

Highlander: Glory Days

Joe: "She's married. Got this nice family. Thirty years later, she's still in love with me."Duncan: "I guess it must be the beard."This one started out looking like the standard "Duncan has to take out an evil immortal" plot. But it ended up a lot better than I expected.The Duncan/Kelly battle of wits had a Keystone Kops flavor to it, even though it was life and death: the billboards, the

Highlander: Manhunt

Carl: "The man thinks he's a piece of garbage, but he's not. Nobody's garbage."So the moral of the story is, fame and immortality just don't mix.Carl was absolutely right to crave justice for what had been done to him. Who could blame him under those circumstances? But Matthew McCormick had a point that Carl should have started his new immortal life by quietly moving north, instead. I was

Highlander: The End of Innocence

Richie: "I am sick and tired of being called a kid."So Richie returned after an extremely lengthy absence, with a lot less hair and a problem with nightmares. And he reacted to his fear of Dark Quickening Duncan by picking fights with other immortals. Clearly, Duncan stayed in Paris a little too long.Although I have always been fond of Richie, by this point in the series I had long since

Highlander: Prophecy

Young Duncan: "You will win because you're good. And good always wins over evil."Leaving aside the fact that I don't like magic on Highlander, Tracy Scoggins' affected British accent has always made me cringe, and you just know throughout that the answer to defeating Kantos will be earplugs, this wasn't such a bad episode. But prophecy, shmophecy. It didn't make sense that it would take

Highlander: One Minute to Midnight

Methos: "Watchers, afraid they're going to be killed by immortals, holed up in a funeral home. Is it just me, or is there some cosmic irony in that?"Joe: "I think it's just you."I don't know. I thought it was ironic.I knew the bad Watchers had to be part of this, and they were: they were the reason Jacob went on his killing spree in the first place. Jacob certainly had reason for revenge,

Highlander: Judgment Day

Joe: "I'm going to blow my brains out tomorrow. Tradition. You gotta love it."Clip show.Some clip shows can be really good. Others are pointless exercises meant to fill up an hour of television. This one fell somewhere in the middle. It had a unifying theme: the history of Duncan's unorthodox friendship with Joe Dawson. And it ended with a dozen bodies on the ground, so that was

Highlander: Till Death

Robert: "Just give me a jab. Not too deep."Methos: "Where's your sense of drama?"As John Barrymore was rumored to have said when he was dying, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Highlander, best known for adventure and drama, managed to pull out some truly wonderful comic episodes in its last three seasons. This has always been one of my favorites.Let's start with the flashbacks. Fitz was one

Highlander: Double Jeopardy

Duncan: "There's a difference between hate and fear. I hated Xavier. You're just a cheap imitation."So of course, Xavier St. Cloud would have a homicidal immortal student out there. Maybe they just wanted to find another way to bring back a good villain. And Xavier was definitely a good villain. D'Estaing? Not so much. I think he was trying too hard to channel Malcolm McDowell in A

Highlander: Through a Glass Darkly

Duncan: "If he doesn't know who he is, then he's a danger to all of us."Methos: "So lure him outside and take his head. Problem solved."Duncan: "I never know when you're kidding."Methos: "Part of my charm."See, I can sort of see where they were going with this one. Unfortunately, they didn't quite get there.Culloden was an important event in Scottish history, and it was inevitable that they

Highlander: The Immortal Cimoli

Case: "I've come to take your head."Cimoli: "I'm still using it right now."What if you're a brand new immortal and you don't have a kindly, seasoned immortal waiting in the wings to tell you the score and show you the ropes? Maybe if you were also a frustrated, unemployed magician and immortality made you a headliner, it would seem miraculous, like an answer to a prayer.Unlike the terrible

Highlander: Methuselah's Gift

Duncan: "Don't lose your head over a fairy tale."Amanda: "It's my head."Amanda and Methos bonded. And over a stupid crystal.Magic on Highlander never worked for me. But two of my favorite immortals wrestling with a mutual problem definitely did. I'm not sure what I enjoyed more: Methos and Amanda dueling in the railroad yard (that ended so sweetly, with him sparing her life and then sobbing

Highlander: Promises

Duncan: "That's Paris. Never a dull moment."I love Highlander, but it was so hit and miss. This one was pretty much a miss.The president of whatever North African country it was? Overbearing, dangerous, homicidal jerk with delusions of grandeur and certainly no loss to anyone. But I found it hard to swallow that Duncan would attempt to assassinate anyone, even to keep his word to another