HIGHLA-L Digest - 18 Mar 2004 to 19 Mar 2004 (#2004-53)
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Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:00:03 -0500
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Topics of the day:
1. Season Three dvds: Rite of Passage
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Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 18:50:04 -0500
From: kageorge <kageorge@erols.com>
Subject: Season Three dvds: Rite of Passage
COMMENTARY: Gillian Horvath remarks that "You never know what you have until
it's gone," is a metaphor for every Immortal. That we rarely think about
what it was like for Duncan or Amanda or every other Immortal to die for the
first time and leave their life behind without being able to say goodbye to
people, and, "...it's the other side of grief."
David A. said a woman soap opera writer was hired to write the episode about
a woman, and about the lessons to be learned about being an Immortal. It's
not difficult, he says, to do a personal projection about what it might be
like to be immortal, with some people thinking how great it would be - one
long party, being able to do whatever they want. Others will want to go to a
monastery and study the meaning of life. There were a couple of scenes where
the girl who died (Michelle) watched her parents grieve for her, and at that
moment you knew some of the pain of immortality, which isn't just watching
people you love grow old and die, but watching the people you love grieve
your death, and not being able to say anything to them, to be able to have
closure, and that is a window into seeing "the hole that Immortality leaves
in you."
Gillian notes that the scene of Michelle looking out a window to see Axel
(the k'immie) below was problematic because the actual window of the loft
doesn't look out onto anything. They had to put the window onto a scaffold
and take it out to the street to get that shot.
AP says the sword fight was fun to do because Robert Stewart (the actor who
played Axel) was fast and good. He also notes that the Quickening afterwards
was in the water, with fire behind him as well, and was tricky to do. He
also (jokingly) questions MacLeod's choice in giving Michelle to Amanda to
teach her about Immortality because, "God knows whatever else she's going to
teach her in the meantime," but she was probably the most suitable teacher
he could find.
DA says that, "What being Immortal does is intensify the experience of being
human in such an enormous way, that everything becomes grander, everything
becomes bigger, everything becomes longer, and the questions become harder
because you have more than a lifetime to answer them." DA says that when he
was younger, he was much smarter, but the older he gets, he realizes how
stupid he is, and that it must be like that for Immortals.
OUTTAKES: We see Axel do a turnaround to note that Michelle is at Duncan's
loft, looking up to say (to himself), "Good, you're home." But he blows the
line, does it again, blows it again with an expletive, and saying, "Shoot
the dumb actor!" Then he tries it again, and gets it right.
EPISODE: Duncan is visiting a friend, and his friend is bemoaning his
daughter's misbehavior. Evidently she was out all night and hadn't reported
in. Duncan notes that she is 18, that she'll outgrow it. We see the young
woman in question drive up in a fancy sports car. The mother rushes out to
demand where she had been, and the young woman is sneeringly unresponsive,
saying they're not really her parents and they won't tell her who her real
parents are. Duncan suggests he and Michelle go for a walk to attempt to
calm things and talk to her, but the fight between Michelle and her parents
accelerates until the mother runs off in tears and after bitter words
exchanged with her father, Michelle leaves once again, tearing off in her
car.
She drives too fast and ends up having a terrible accident. She ends up in
the hospital emergency room, where we once again encounter Dr. Anne Lindsay,
who works frantically to save her while the parents and Duncan wait in the
emergency room. Of course, Michelle dies. Duncan has known that Michelle was
pre-Immortal, and after getting the grieving parents headed back home,
Duncan retrieves Michelle from the morgue.
Michelle conveniently waits until Duncan takes the drape off her to revive
(funny how that works). She is rebellious and confused and uncooperative.
They (fortunately) skip over showing us the whole the immortality
explanation once he gets her back to the dojo, and when she asks if he knew
about her immortality all along, he says, "I knew this day would comes since
the first day I saw you with your parents."
[SIDEBAR: He obviously knew she might become immortal. However, his comment
begs the question of whether nascent, pre-Immortals are inevitably destined
to be an Immortal. TBTB addressed that question more directly in The Raven
when Amanda deliberately triggered Nick Wolfe's immortality by shooting him,
and that particular canon fact was reinforced in Endgame by Connor urging
(by implication) Duncan to trigger Faith's immortality rather than watch her
die of old age. That ex post facto canon clarification leaves Duncan's
comment open to other possible interpretations. For instance, it might mean
that he could somehow tell that her immortality was definitely going to be
triggered (some different feel to the Quickening, I dunno). Anyhow, it's
something to think about.]
Michelle instantly leaps to the assumption that it is now her and Duncan,
"together forever," and says she's always had a 'thing' for him. Duncan then
simultaneously has to deal with Michelle's parents issues (the hospital
"lost" the body), and Michelle's irresponsible reaction to her situation,
including her desire to try all the previously-forbidden joys of drugs and
alcohol.
While Duncan is out going through the motions of looking at Jane Doe bodies
at the morgue to see if any of them are Michelle, another Immortal shows up.
Michelle 'feels' him, looks out the window and sees a good looking,
well-dressed man in the street. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she
goes down to meet him. He's an oily seducer and offers to take care of her,
but she says she already has a teacher although, "He is, like, out of
control with this taking care of me bit." She manages some small resistance,
however, and returns to Duncan, who is already back at the loft, and
irritated that she disobeyed him by leaving. When she tells him about Axel,
he tells her about The Game.
"I don't think so," she answers snippily.
With an ominous swish, there is a sword at her throat, and Duncan grimly
tells her she either learns the Game, or dies. [Scary, cool moment.]
(Fast forward.) Michelle meets up again with Axel as she watches Duncan and
her parents stand by her grave site, with an empty coffin. Axel again offers
her a fantasy life, with him as her protector. Axel and Duncan see one
another, and we get a flashback to..
Boston, 1890's. Duncan is frequenting the bar of a fancy hotel. A young
woman Immortal appears (Sharon). To make a long story a little shorter, she
asks for his help in dealing with an Immortal following her, that she never
learned to fight. He goes to her room, only to discover she was the bait for
Axel, who bursts in and tries to surprise him. Duncan almost wins, but
Sharon deliberately gets in his way.
Later, we see Axel threatening Sharon with a sword, berating her for not
distracting MacLeod enough to he could take his head. Sharon is terrified
and in tears. We see Sharon later approach MacLeod, apologizing for what
happened before, telling him that Axel had found her, had protected her and
shown her the world, taught her how to 'be.'
"The only thing he taught you how to be," Duncan says, "is bait." Then he
offers to get her onto a boat to London, and away from Axel, that he will
arrange for someone to meet her and teach her to protect herself. Duncan
comes back for her later (it is late at night), and he hears a scream and a
quickening flashes through the hotel. He rushes up to her room and finds her
body.
In the present, Michelle is equally disinclined to learn self-protection,
preferring the notion of having someone to do the job for her. During their
conversation in the dojo, Craig, Michelle's adoptive father shows up. She
hides in the office, and ends up overhearing Craig's agonizing over Michelle
's death and that he hadn't stopped her from driving away. For the first
time, she truly realizes how much she was loved, but she can't tell her
father she was still alive, or even say goodbye.
As Duncan comforts her afterwards, holding her, she kisses him, and not in a
sisterly way. It is a deliciously awkward moment, and he disengages, but she
pursues. He pushes her away, and at that point he decides he is not the
right teacher for her. She threatens to go to Axel, who doesn't treat her
like a child. Duncan tries to tell her that Axel is a user, that he has used
women as bait before.
The next morning, they are driving to go see Amanda, and she slips away at a
gas station, driving off with some bikers. Somehow (we don't learn how), she
ends up with Axel on a small yacht. He dresses her up in pretty clothes and
treats her like a queen. Fortunately, our Michelle is not a complete moron,
and when Axel declines to teach her to use a sword, she begins to resist
Axel's charms. She calls Duncan to tell him she was sorry for running out on
him. Axel takes the phone from Michelle and invites Duncan to come see them.
He does and when he draws a sword upon his approach, Michelle assumes they
are fighting over her. "This isn't just about you, Michelle," Duncan says,
and tells her about the other women Axel had "protected" up until the time
he took their heads. He tells her not to listen to Axel, not even to listen
to him, but to listen to herself. Michelle decides to leave, but Axel says,
"I don't think so," and goes after her.
Duncan intervenes, and we have a good, fast-moving sword fight along a dock,
in restricted space. Both men end up in the water, and as both of them rise
up, Duncan is a little faster, and off goes Axel's head.
In the tag scene, Duncan and Michelle are back at Michelle's grave site, and
Michelle is bemoaning the way she treated her parents, but still wants to
have a future with Duncan. Fortunately, Amanda comes up, saying, "She does
remind me of someone." Then looks beguilingly at Duncan. "I just can't
remember who." Then she turns to Michelle. "I think we'll get along just
fine."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Duncan murmurs with an amused grimace.
They discuss what Michelle will be doing next, and as they prepare to leave,
Michelle asks, "So have you two ever...?"
"Uh, that's none of your business," Duncan insists.
"How was he?" Michelle asks Amanda.
"We'll talk," she answers with a knowing smile.
"No you won't," Duncan insists as both women walk by, Michelle trailing a
seductive finger down Duncan's neck as Amanda surreptitiously gropes his
ass, making Duncan jump. "Amanda!" he protests.
COMMENTARY: I thought this episode presented some excellent material that
gave us a bit of a different and richer perspective on immortality,
especially for women Immortals. In the long stretch of time, how many women
were fortunate enough to find a first teacher who gave them skills to
survive on their own? It made me think just how strong in character older
Immortal women would have to be to survive even past a normal life span,
much less for hundreds, or even thousands of years. Rebecca or Cierdwyn are
the finest examples of women who survived to become strong, intelligent,
perceptive, self-sufficient, while not allowing themselves either to be
used, or to use others.
Kristen, of course, ended up probably being used, and became, in return, a
user herself. She probably simply treated others as she had been treated, as
a possession, an object to own and control. She lived a little longer than
average for an Immortal woman (I assume) because she was smart and devious,
and prepared to kill to get what she wanted.
Amanda, we learn, will do anything to survive, and has included being a
courtesan in her arsenal of survival techniques. But she had an excellent
first teacher, and if her morals have always been a little shaky, well, she
started out that way and her saving grace was that she avoided taking from
those who couldn't afford to lose what they had, and she did her best not to
hurt anyone.
Cassandra clearly suffered enormously in her early centuries, probably
blaming virtually all her misfortune on the Horsemen, even after she left
them to stumble through the desert to who-knows-what fate. But she
ultimately developed her own set of survival skills - that of manipulation,
using her psychic talents to control those around her. We see her do it to
protect Young!Duncan, but was she doing it altruistically, or because her
Sight ability informed her that Duncan's survival was ultimately important
to her own? We don't really know.
As far as the episode itself, the strongest moments were those of great
emotional poignancy, as Michelle watched her father pour his heart out to
Duncan about how he perceived himself as a failure as Michelle's father.
Those scenes were well done, indeed.
MacGeorge
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 18 Mar 2004 to 19 Mar 2004 (#2004-53)
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