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Highlander 4x05-4x07
More episode reactions for eps 4x05-4x07! Now with fresh icons, thanks to the awesome ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scrollgirl. :)
4x05 - Double Eagle
Oh my god I love caper stories, and that episode made me laugh so hard. The actors were obviously having so much fun with the comedy of errors stuff. Duncan's FACE, and the running joke with Richie turning up, and awww, Amanda, just a big softy deep down. (I guessed way in advance that the casino was going to burn down, because it was the only way I could think of that they could both end up that furious at each other with no one really being at fault ...!)
4x06 - Reunion
... oh wow. I wasn't expecting Amanda's history with Kenny at all!
I absolutely love this show's approach to immortality. Because the idea that someone would be completely static and unchanging for 500 years or 1000 years, as a lot of fiction treats its long-lived characters, is stupid. No one stays the same for one 80-year lifespan, so why should it be true of a 1000-year lifespan? My first reaction to finding out that Amanda and Kenny were friends was "....WHUT", but Kenny wasn't the Kenny we know when she met him. He became that person by having to survive in a vicious and dangerous world.
And I'm continually impressed by how willing the show is to go to the darkest places, not in a sensationalistic way but in a way that makes sense for the world they've set up -- in this case, Kenny's infatuation with Amanda was a logical step (he's 800, after all!) but I was really surprised that the show was willing to go ahead and make it textual.
Also? I really adore smirky!Duncan. :D
And Anne and Amanda making friends -- heeheeheeheeHEEEEE! Oh show! For a show with a nearly all-male cast, Highlander is actually more Bechdel-passing and better with the overall gender dynamic than a lot of shows with a lot more women in their main cast.
But I'm wondering what happened to Duncan's fixer-upper house during this whole part of the series, since he and Amanda seem to be living at the dojo. It feels like a continuity error, though perhaps the renovations are still going on somewhere off-camera.
4x07 - The Colonel
"Let's picture two gravestones. One says 'He lived by the rules.' The other says 'He was a good friend.' Which one do you want?"
About all I've got for this episode is OH MY SHOWWWWWWW. I love Duncan and Joe, and Duncan and Amanda, and Amanda and Joe ... I pretty much just love them all so much.
I'm not sure which makes me happier -- that the whole episode was pretty much about Amanda trying to get Joe and Duncan to reconcile, or that it WORKED. (Like Duncan said, it's hard to argue with Amanda!) And I love SO MUCH that they gave us a whole episode devoted to resolving the rift in their friendship, rather than just having it as a throwaway bit somewhere else (or, heaven forbid, not doing it at all).
scrollgirl. :)4x05 - Double Eagle
Oh my god I love caper stories, and that episode made me laugh so hard. The actors were obviously having so much fun with the comedy of errors stuff. Duncan's FACE, and the running joke with Richie turning up, and awww, Amanda, just a big softy deep down. (I guessed way in advance that the casino was going to burn down, because it was the only way I could think of that they could both end up that furious at each other with no one really being at fault ...!)
4x06 - Reunion
... oh wow. I wasn't expecting Amanda's history with Kenny at all!
I absolutely love this show's approach to immortality. Because the idea that someone would be completely static and unchanging for 500 years or 1000 years, as a lot of fiction treats its long-lived characters, is stupid. No one stays the same for one 80-year lifespan, so why should it be true of a 1000-year lifespan? My first reaction to finding out that Amanda and Kenny were friends was "....WHUT", but Kenny wasn't the Kenny we know when she met him. He became that person by having to survive in a vicious and dangerous world.
And I'm continually impressed by how willing the show is to go to the darkest places, not in a sensationalistic way but in a way that makes sense for the world they've set up -- in this case, Kenny's infatuation with Amanda was a logical step (he's 800, after all!) but I was really surprised that the show was willing to go ahead and make it textual.
Also? I really adore smirky!Duncan. :D
And Anne and Amanda making friends -- heeheeheeheeHEEEEE! Oh show! For a show with a nearly all-male cast, Highlander is actually more Bechdel-passing and better with the overall gender dynamic than a lot of shows with a lot more women in their main cast.
But I'm wondering what happened to Duncan's fixer-upper house during this whole part of the series, since he and Amanda seem to be living at the dojo. It feels like a continuity error, though perhaps the renovations are still going on somewhere off-camera.
4x07 - The Colonel
"Let's picture two gravestones. One says 'He lived by the rules.' The other says 'He was a good friend.' Which one do you want?"
About all I've got for this episode is OH MY SHOWWWWWWW. I love Duncan and Joe, and Duncan and Amanda, and Amanda and Joe ... I pretty much just love them all so much.
I'm not sure which makes me happier -- that the whole episode was pretty much about Amanda trying to get Joe and Duncan to reconcile, or that it WORKED. (Like Duncan said, it's hard to argue with Amanda!) And I love SO MUCH that they gave us a whole episode devoted to resolving the rift in their friendship, rather than just having it as a throwaway bit somewhere else (or, heaven forbid, not doing it at all).
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I adore "The Double Eagle" so. much. The pace never lets up and the gags just keep on coming. Heeeee! I love Amanda and Kenny's history and that Kenny took Amanda's advice to use his innocence to survive and twisted it into a way to kill unsuspecting Immortals.
Much like the whole mummified and buried thing, the being locked up in the dark, forgotten, forever and ever, is such a--an Immortal fear. Because there's the fate worse than death, except unlike humans who die eventually, the death never comes for Immortals. That just freaks me out.
For a show with a nearly all-male cast, Highlander is actually more Bechdel-passing and better with the overall gender dynamic than a lot of shows with a lot more women in their main cast.
I've noticed that! It didn't occur to me when I first watched the show, before I was clued in about those kinds of things, but HL really tries to give us strong female guest-stars and to tell their stories. And there are all the little ways they manage to pass the Bechdel test, like Amanda showing up in the last two minutes of "Rite of Passage" to become Michelle's teacher.
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Yeah, the locked-up thing ... *shudders* And their one weakness is specific and difficult enough that it would be very hard to commit suicide. You could do it -- there have been a couple of times so far in the series that we've seen someone do it -- but locked up in a cage, having very little to work with ... probably not.
The first few minutes of "Double Eagle" made me think it was going to be unbearably silly but fun, but what surprised me was how well-crafted it turned out to be, as both a comedy and an episode! And it didn't take a sudden 180 into tragedy at the end, which was a relief; this show had been so heavy lately that I really needed to just laugh and be delighted for 45 minutes. Also, like
If I rewatch eps when I get to the end (always a common thing when I'm really into a show) I think that one's going to be top of the list.
The way the show handles women ... yeah, I honestly don't think I would have noticed it, except perhaps in a subtextual way, more than a few years ago. But it's been really making me happy -- that even in a show that's nearly all guys, they still find ways to give us little scenes of women interacting with other women (I've been wondering what DID happen to Michelle, though presumably she pulled a Richie and reached the point where she needed to strike out on her own). I don't remember if I mentioned it at the time, but in the first season episode where they're protecting the rapist, I absolutely loved that they didn't have the girl be lying thus casting the characters' actions totally into the right (in terms of show logic, anyway). It was very nuanced and difficult, and then at the end the show let her be the one to take revenge rather than someone else taking revenge for her.
They seem to have a fair number of women among the writers and in the production staff, which might help with that. I spent a number of years scoffing at the idea that it made THAT much difference, but over the years I've finally been forced to admit that, yeah, it actually does.
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OTOH, there are also HL fans who love Amanda (Tessa too, but to a lesser extent) and spend a lot of time fleshing out her backstory or writing meta. For one-shot guest stars, Rebecca Horne and Ceirdwyn in particular have small but strong followings.
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I'm really excited for you and the rest of season 4.
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