30 Days of TV Meme -- Day 7
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
This is a painfully easy one. It's not one episode but three--a three-part character arc. It was illogical; it violated the continuity of the series; it destroyed the personality and credibility of the protagonist in the eyes of many audience members; it introduced a villain that did not even remotely fit into this universe; it suffered from the idiot plot (in which the plot does not work if the characters are not idiots); and it had decidedly Unfortunate Implications.
I am talking, of course, about the Highlander Season Five finale, "Archangel", the Season Six opener, "Avatar" and the second episode of the sixth season, "Armageddon"--the abysmal horror known to fans as the Ahriman Arc.
And why is it called this? Oh, you'll see in a minute. Permit me to summarize the first episode in this arc--by far the worst.
"Archangel" starts in a tomb in Basra, Iraq. A bunch of people are in this tomb looking for something--as it turns out, the statue of a stone chicken. Seriously, that's what it looks like. Even one of the characters says so, and when a character points out a flaw in your story, you're in trouble.
Also, there is no way to transform a chicken into the avatar of evil. Some animals don't combine well with the forces of darkness. Highlander tried it; Terry Goodkind tried it in Soul of the Fire; and it just doesn't work. Demonic grizzly bear, fine. Diabolical shark, yes. Evil chicken...no. Just...no.
Okay. So the guys in the tomb find this statue of what looks like a Hindu warrior with a spear in one hand. One of the tomb explorers freaks out and insists that this is "him," whoever "he" is, the thousand years are up, the demon is coming, everyone should be afraid and the dead are going to rise. My reaction: "Uh, Immortals have been on Earth for about five thousand years, and they come back from every death except beheading, so haven't the dead been rising for a while?"
The second tomb guy, Foster, reacts very calmly--"You've got a vivid imagination"--and turns to go. A red mist forms around the statue's spear hand, the spear glows white, and then the spear turns into what looks like a lightsaber turned lance. Foster falls down with a stone spear in his chest. Imaginative Guy kneels down, shocked.
Cut to six months later, and we're in Paris. The protagonist of the tale, four-hundred-and-some-odd-years-old Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod and his twentysomething fellow Immortal, friend, former student-in-swordsmanship and surrogate son, Richie Ryan, walk off of Macleod's houseboat-barge having an argument about the relevance of opera. Imaginative Guy, whose name is Jason Landry, buttonholes them, demands to know if MacLeod is, well, MacLeod, and on getting confirmation of this, passes on a cryptic message: The time is at hand. The millennium is upon us! He is coming!
MacLeod, not unnaturally, thinks the guy is nuts. (Note: This is the most rational MacLeod will be for the entire episode. Enjoy.) Landry insists that ONLY MacLeod can save everyone. Mac would probably argue the point except some red mist appears--yes, it's a cheap-looking effect, and yes, you see it a LOT in "Archangel"--and Mac sees one of his old nemeses, James Horton. (Picture John Simm as the Master, put him in charge of observing Immortals, have him develop overpowering hatred and fear of them, and then have him not only declare war on an entire species that lives to fight but actually kill a fair number of them. That's Horton.)
Who, by this point, is very very dead. And MacLeod knows this, since he killed him. He also knows that he has seen hallucinations on three other occasions in the series, that he's recovering from a Dark Quickening (a kind of beheading-related supernatural overload of evil) and that he is not necessarily stable or seeing what he thinks he's seeing. But MacLeod ignores all this and rushes up to fake!Horton, despite Landry's wailing that Mac isn't ready.
MacLeod tells Horton that he can't be here. Horton just looks at him and then turns his back and walks away, and Richie wants to know who can't be here. MacLeod goes running all over the street chasing after Horton while Richie insists there's no one there and "Mac, you killed Horton three years ago. Besides, there's no one here." And Landry gets strangled by his own scarf, which lifts itself in the air and pulls itself tight.
It never really gets any better. Duncan is very miffed to discover that, at the request of Horton's daughter, Horton's brother-in-law, who is also Duncan's friend and Watcher Joe Dawson, has exhumed Horton's body for shipment home to America, where he'll be re-buried. An autopsy also shows that Landry died of natural causes--which would make sense if he died of a stroke caused by the belief that he was being strangled. MacLeod wants the body rechecked (uh, you're not family or an official of the law, so I don't think you have authority to ask for this), but Landry's daughter has already claimed the body and had him cremated. MacLeod is convinced that Horton is still alive, Landry's death is part of a massive cover-up, and that everyone is conspiring against him.
Time passes. Another enemy of MacLeod's shows up--Kronos, who was a warlord/conquerer/all-around bastard about five thousand years ago, and he'd almost brought about the end of the world through an infected water supply earlier in a two-parter. (About five thousand years before, he'd led a group of Immortals known as the Four Horsemen. Kronos was Pestilence. These guys were the models for the anthropomorphic personifications that show up in Revelation. Does that give you an idea?)
Naturally, Kronos has already been beheaded. Naturally, when MacLeod sees the guy whose head he cut off, he does not think, "I killed you, so I must be seeing things. Especially since every time one of my enemies shows up, there's this red mist." If anyone thought rationally for two seconds, this plot couldn't possibly work. So instead, MacLeod rushes up to Kronos and demands to know how the man can still be alive.
Methos, the oldest Immortal in the world (played by a young Peter Wingfield), MacLeod's friend and former Horseman (he was Death), drops by in time to see MacLeod talking to nothing and asks what Mac is doing. Mac says he's talking to Kronos. Methos is all, "Uh, he's DEAD, remember?" MacLeod gives him a terribly betrayed look and walks off to find Landry's daughter.
Now, when I saw this, my immediate thought was something along the lines of, "Oh, okay, MacLeod is suffering from paranoia and a nervous breakdown, and the issue is going to be him versus his friends, who see what's happening but don't understand how deep the disturbance is. And maybe one of the guys who agreed with Horton knows that MacLeod is unstable and is using costumes and special effects technology to help drive him further over the edge. And next season will be about his trying to come back from this, which won't be easy because other immortals have stepped into the places that MacLeod used to fill in Paris and Seacouver."
Boy, was I wrong.
No, this is not about a guy going crazy. This is an end of the world scenario. And it's being orchestrated by--are you ready for this?--A Zoroastrian demon.
Now, I don't mind demons in universes that are largely supernatural. I would not quibble at the existence of a Zoroastrian demon in Dresdenverse. I would not be surprised to see one in Poltergeist: The Legacy, or Primeval, or Buffy, or Being Human. Demons can make sense in fictional contexts. That's not the problem.
The problem is that Highlander: The Series takes place in our world. Yeah, Immortals are walking around and occasionally killing each other, but the rest of us don't know it. That's the premise. There are no vampires, werewolves or angels. Ghosts were generally presented as hallucinations. The most anyone was, was psychic. And even that was viewed with a "maybe-they-are-maybe-they-aren't" attitude.
And now our-world-with-hidden-Immortals has to deal with Ahriman, the Zoroastrian spirit of evil, trying to bring about the end of the world. TILT!
Here's where we start getting into Zoroastrian eschatology. Which the writer got very very wrong.
According to Highlander, there's this prophecy. Of course there is. And it's pretty much like every OTHER fictional prophecy. Yadda yadda protagonist, yadda yadda Chosen One, yadda yadda destined to fight ultimate evil...yeah, we've heard this before.
I'm going to quote Wikipedia here; it'll save time, and what Wikipedia is saying tallies with the research that I did after the episode aired.
Zoroastrian tradition envisions three future saviours, one for the end of each 1,000-year period that comprise the last 3,000 years of the world. All three will be born of maidens, conceived while their mothers bathed in a lake that miraculously preserved the seed of the prophet Zoroaster himself. The first will be named Hushedar, [N.B. who will make the sun stand still for ten days and nights when he's thirty, so that everyone will believe in Zoroastrianism], the second Hushedarmah,[N.B. in his time, people will stop eating--first meat, then milk, then water, and finally for ten years before the third savior shows up "they remain without food and do not die"] and the third will be Saoshyant, who will lead humanity in the final battle against falsehood.
The story of the Saoshyant's conception and early life are described in Denkard 7.10.15ff as follows: Thirty years before the decisive final battle, a maiden named Eredat-fedhri ("Victorious Helper") and whose nickname is "Body-maker" will enter a lake (in Yasht 19.92, this is "Lake Kansava"). Sitting in the water, the girl, who has "not associated with men" will receive "victorious knowledge." Her son, when born, will not know nourishment from his mother, his body will be sun-like, and the "royal glory" of Khwarenah will be with him. Then, for the next 57 years he will subsist on only vegetables (17 years), then only water (30 years) and then for the final 10 years only on "spiritual food."
The events of the final renovation are described in the Bundahishn (30.1ff): In the final battle with evil, the yazatas Airyaman and Atar will "melt the metal in the hills and mountains, and it will be upon the earth like a river" (Bundahishn 34.18), but the righteous (ashavan) will not be harmed.
Eventually, Ahura Mazda will triumph, and his agent Saoshyant will resurrect the dead, whose bodies will be restored to eternal perfection, and whose souls will be cleansed and reunited with God. Time will then end, and truth/righteousness (asha) and immortality will thereafter be everlasting.
There are also some distinctly unfortunate implications in the greatest savior of Zoroastrian Persians turning out to be a white Christian named Duncan MacLeod. Mighty Whitey, anyone?
Anyway. Mac finds Landry's daughter and convinces her that her grandfather was murdered and did NOT die of a stroke. We find out that Landry was an archeologist and believed that good and evil were fighting over the fate of the world. Mac says that he has no trouble believing that--even though Immortals fighting for ultimate power and good and evil fighting over the fate of the world aren't the same thing. Allison shows him her grandfather's journal and a tape of Foster getting stabbed with a stone spear. Apparently there was enough time to set up a video camera next to the accidentally discovered statue of the spear carrier. And just to avoid any kind of ambiguity, it says in the journal, "The next champion/MacLeod." (That looks more like Landry liked writing Real People Slash about MacLeod and Zoroastrian champions, but we'll let it go.)
MacLeod goes back to the barge and tells Richie about the prophesied destiny thing. And we get a flashback to an old Immortal hermit who, according to MacLeod, told him that he had a great destiny and then cut off his own head with MacLeod's sword. Mac claims this was his first Quickening. Sure, why not? Who needs continuity?
Then we get a horror scene with Allison. Red mist, blood coming from her television screen, her grandfather materializes in her apartments and bursts into flames, and she burns to death. It's a very odd scene--as if someone had spliced a clip of Nightmare on Elm Street into the episode.
Joe, Methos and Richie talk about the prophecy. Long story short, Richie believes it; Joe and Methos don't. Methos adds that millennial thinking crops up every thousand years or so and that he's never seen a demon. Joe says what I've been thinking all through this episode: MacLeod is losing his mind. And then they jump from that to "Hey, let's go talk to Landry's granddaughter." Why? Because how else will anyone find out that she burned to death in a supernatural fire?
Well, they go to her apartment--how do they know where she lives, anyway? Did Mac give Richie the address? And why am I worrying about this when the author didn't?--and find that she's very dead. Arson. The killer was seen leaving the building, though. A tall, dark man with a ponytail. So either MacLeod set the fire when he was in a delusional state or Freddy Krueger--I mean, Ahriman--has added the illusion of Mac's appearance to his repertoire.
Meanwhile, back on the barge, Ahriman-Allison shows up in Mac's bed wearing a black negligée. Mac's response is classic: "What are you doing here?" Do you really need her to explain that to you, Duncan?
As he walks forward, the phone rings and Allison is on the phone. This is supposed to be scary. Screenwriter David Tynan never envisioned a world where calling someone's landline from your cellphone while you were in the room would be possible.
Allison plays peekaboo with Duncan, causing him to be startled and smash a vase, then tells Duncan that she's dead, demanding to know why he came over to her apartment demanding her grandfather's books and notes, and why he set fire to the place when she said no. Duncan draws his sword, swearing that it didn't happen. Allison tells MacLeod in Horton's voice that maybe she's not real at all. Then she disappears. And the vase is un-smashed once more.
Could the story be saying "this is a hallucination" any louder?
MacLeod looks around and decides that he's losing it. Which is what makes what happens next all the more unforgivable.
Joe and Methos go to talk to MacLeod. They clearly agree that he's losing it; MacLeod, after that brief moment of clarity, has gone back to saying that Horton and Kronos were real. Meanwhile, Richie is walking toward the barge and he sees Horton in a black limo holding a gun to joe Dawson's head.
Now, this would be a perfect time to go to the barge and check and see if Joe is there. If he is, then there's a good chance that what Richie saw was an illusion, imagination or a lookalike. But Richie--the one who believes that all this is being done by demons, remember--goes racing after the limo.
Back on the barge, Mac states that the war, famine and chaos in the world show that the prophecy is true. In fact, let me quote it exactly:
"Look at the state of the world. War, famine, chaos. There has to be something to this prophecy."
Because there was never any war, famine or chaos in the world BEFORE this. I want to slap David Tynan for that line alone.
Richie runs to a phone booth, calls MacLeod and tells him that Horton has Joe. MacLeod tries to tell him that this is impossible. A simple "Here's Joe, talk to him" might have worked better. Richie says that they're headed to the old racetrack and hangs up. MacLeod--delusional, hallucinatory and armed--goes after him.
I can't joke about this part of it. This is the scene that earned "Archangel" the name "The Nonexistent Episode." This is what caused a large group of fans form Clan Denial. It's been well over a decade and what happens at the racetrack still hurts.
Richie goes into the racetrack and finds the limo. No one's in it. No sign of Horton or Joe. So he goes looking for them. MacLeod enters by a different door, and immediately the red mist appears. When MacLeod finds Richie, it's Ahriman-Richie-- who, naturally, attacks him. Fake Richie turns into several people, and gets MacLeod thoroughly enraged to the point where he's eager to attack Fake Richie. Fake Richie morphs into Horton and then Kronos, and tells MacLeod that's he is Set, Ahriman and everything known as a devil or demon. There's shooting and swordplay and surrounding Mac in a circle. Then the demons or hallucinations or whatever vanish, and MacLeod goes looking for them.
Then he spots the real Richie.
By now, MacLeod has forgotten that he came to the track looking for the real RIchie. He only sees an enemy. And he rushes at Richie and beheads him.
This was the exact moment that Duncan MacLeod stopped being a hero for me.
Because Richie's death was stupid. MacLeod KNEW that he was seeing and hearing things. He knew that he was subject to hallucinations. He knew that his own friends thought that he was not particularly stable. And even if he didn't want to admit that he was losing his mind, he knew that an armed Immortal who is seeing things is dangerous. Hell, he'd run into this several times before with other Immortals. So going out after someone who you're likely to hallucinate as an enemy? DUMB. DUMB. VERY VERY DUMB.
And because it was so dumb, so preventable, I couldn't see MacLeod as a hero anymore. It wasn't a case of a sacrifice in battle, with Richie willingly sacrificing his life so that Mac could defeat an enemy. I could have bought that. But...attacking and killing your surrogate son because you're seeing things and you believe that he's the enemy? That's not heroic. That's like a man on a bad acid trip seeing his two-year-old child as a homicidal extraterrestrial and shooting the baby in the head. It's tragic, yes. But it's not the act of a hero, MacLeod. You saw a situation that you knew could possibly endanger or kill someone else, and you willingly plunged into it. And that's not what a hero does. Heroes try to save people. They try to make people and the world better. Doing something that you know could get someone you love killed is anything but heroic.
As far as I was concerned, Ahriman had won. He had disqualified MacLeod as the heroic champion, and there wasn't anyone to take his place.
There was a bit more of the episode after that (Joe and Methos show up too late, MacLeod tries to give his sword to Methos, who just lets it fall, and who offers no word of forgiveness or pardon--thank you, Methos!--and Richie's funeral), but those scenes are blurry. And I scarcely remember "Avatar" or "Armageddon" at all. In fact, the only sixth season episode I remember clearly is "Indiscretions" which could have been called "The Joe and Methos Episode." MacLeod wasn't in it.
I loved Highlander. I loved it for years. This episode, therefore, felt like a kick in the teeth. I felt betrayed. I had believed that MacLeod would always put the welfare of another, especially the welfare of another whom he loved like family, above his own ego. And he didn't do it. He knew he was a potential threat and he ignored it. That's not heroic behavior.
The premise of the show was that MacLeod was a hero. That he was brave and was valiant, and that he had been trying in a variety of ways to make the world better, to save and to protect people because life had value and meaning.
And then he ignored his own medical history, decided he was a prophesied champion (because that was more pleasant to believe than "nervous breakdown"), and raced armed into battle against phantoms wearing the faces of those he knew--phantoms he had yet to defeat.
It was a tsunami of failure. It failed in terms of heroism, it failed at maintaining continuity in its own universe, it failed at character continuity, it failed at plot, it failed at telling an effective horror story and it created the world's most non-threatening apocalypse imaginable.
It was the worst episode of any show I've ever seen.
The show limped along for another season, but that was the moment it truly ended, not only for me but for a lot of fans.
I'm not sure the writer or director ever knew why.
***
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
This is a painfully easy one. It's not one episode but three--a three-part character arc. It was illogical; it violated the continuity of the series; it destroyed the personality and credibility of the protagonist in the eyes of many audience members; it introduced a villain that did not even remotely fit into this universe; it suffered from the idiot plot (in which the plot does not work if the characters are not idiots); and it had decidedly Unfortunate Implications.
I am talking, of course, about the Highlander Season Five finale, "Archangel", the Season Six opener, "Avatar" and the second episode of the sixth season, "Armageddon"--the abysmal horror known to fans as the Ahriman Arc.
And why is it called this? Oh, you'll see in a minute. Permit me to summarize the first episode in this arc--by far the worst.
"Archangel" starts in a tomb in Basra, Iraq. A bunch of people are in this tomb looking for something--as it turns out, the statue of a stone chicken. Seriously, that's what it looks like. Even one of the characters says so, and when a character points out a flaw in your story, you're in trouble.
Also, there is no way to transform a chicken into the avatar of evil. Some animals don't combine well with the forces of darkness. Highlander tried it; Terry Goodkind tried it in Soul of the Fire; and it just doesn't work. Demonic grizzly bear, fine. Diabolical shark, yes. Evil chicken...no. Just...no.
Okay. So the guys in the tomb find this statue of what looks like a Hindu warrior with a spear in one hand. One of the tomb explorers freaks out and insists that this is "him," whoever "he" is, the thousand years are up, the demon is coming, everyone should be afraid and the dead are going to rise. My reaction: "Uh, Immortals have been on Earth for about five thousand years, and they come back from every death except beheading, so haven't the dead been rising for a while?"
The second tomb guy, Foster, reacts very calmly--"You've got a vivid imagination"--and turns to go. A red mist forms around the statue's spear hand, the spear glows white, and then the spear turns into what looks like a lightsaber turned lance. Foster falls down with a stone spear in his chest. Imaginative Guy kneels down, shocked.
Cut to six months later, and we're in Paris. The protagonist of the tale, four-hundred-and-some-odd-years-old Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod and his twentysomething fellow Immortal, friend, former student-in-swordsmanship and surrogate son, Richie Ryan, walk off of Macleod's houseboat-barge having an argument about the relevance of opera. Imaginative Guy, whose name is Jason Landry, buttonholes them, demands to know if MacLeod is, well, MacLeod, and on getting confirmation of this, passes on a cryptic message: The time is at hand. The millennium is upon us! He is coming!
MacLeod, not unnaturally, thinks the guy is nuts. (Note: This is the most rational MacLeod will be for the entire episode. Enjoy.) Landry insists that ONLY MacLeod can save everyone. Mac would probably argue the point except some red mist appears--yes, it's a cheap-looking effect, and yes, you see it a LOT in "Archangel"--and Mac sees one of his old nemeses, James Horton. (Picture John Simm as the Master, put him in charge of observing Immortals, have him develop overpowering hatred and fear of them, and then have him not only declare war on an entire species that lives to fight but actually kill a fair number of them. That's Horton.)
Who, by this point, is very very dead. And MacLeod knows this, since he killed him. He also knows that he has seen hallucinations on three other occasions in the series, that he's recovering from a Dark Quickening (a kind of beheading-related supernatural overload of evil) and that he is not necessarily stable or seeing what he thinks he's seeing. But MacLeod ignores all this and rushes up to fake!Horton, despite Landry's wailing that Mac isn't ready.
MacLeod tells Horton that he can't be here. Horton just looks at him and then turns his back and walks away, and Richie wants to know who can't be here. MacLeod goes running all over the street chasing after Horton while Richie insists there's no one there and "Mac, you killed Horton three years ago. Besides, there's no one here." And Landry gets strangled by his own scarf, which lifts itself in the air and pulls itself tight.
It never really gets any better. Duncan is very miffed to discover that, at the request of Horton's daughter, Horton's brother-in-law, who is also Duncan's friend and Watcher Joe Dawson, has exhumed Horton's body for shipment home to America, where he'll be re-buried. An autopsy also shows that Landry died of natural causes--which would make sense if he died of a stroke caused by the belief that he was being strangled. MacLeod wants the body rechecked (uh, you're not family or an official of the law, so I don't think you have authority to ask for this), but Landry's daughter has already claimed the body and had him cremated. MacLeod is convinced that Horton is still alive, Landry's death is part of a massive cover-up, and that everyone is conspiring against him.
Time passes. Another enemy of MacLeod's shows up--Kronos, who was a warlord/conquerer/all-around bastard about five thousand years ago, and he'd almost brought about the end of the world through an infected water supply earlier in a two-parter. (About five thousand years before, he'd led a group of Immortals known as the Four Horsemen. Kronos was Pestilence. These guys were the models for the anthropomorphic personifications that show up in Revelation. Does that give you an idea?)
Naturally, Kronos has already been beheaded. Naturally, when MacLeod sees the guy whose head he cut off, he does not think, "I killed you, so I must be seeing things. Especially since every time one of my enemies shows up, there's this red mist." If anyone thought rationally for two seconds, this plot couldn't possibly work. So instead, MacLeod rushes up to Kronos and demands to know how the man can still be alive.
Methos, the oldest Immortal in the world (played by a young Peter Wingfield), MacLeod's friend and former Horseman (he was Death), drops by in time to see MacLeod talking to nothing and asks what Mac is doing. Mac says he's talking to Kronos. Methos is all, "Uh, he's DEAD, remember?" MacLeod gives him a terribly betrayed look and walks off to find Landry's daughter.
Now, when I saw this, my immediate thought was something along the lines of, "Oh, okay, MacLeod is suffering from paranoia and a nervous breakdown, and the issue is going to be him versus his friends, who see what's happening but don't understand how deep the disturbance is. And maybe one of the guys who agreed with Horton knows that MacLeod is unstable and is using costumes and special effects technology to help drive him further over the edge. And next season will be about his trying to come back from this, which won't be easy because other immortals have stepped into the places that MacLeod used to fill in Paris and Seacouver."
Boy, was I wrong.
No, this is not about a guy going crazy. This is an end of the world scenario. And it's being orchestrated by--are you ready for this?--A Zoroastrian demon.
Now, I don't mind demons in universes that are largely supernatural. I would not quibble at the existence of a Zoroastrian demon in Dresdenverse. I would not be surprised to see one in Poltergeist: The Legacy, or Primeval, or Buffy, or Being Human. Demons can make sense in fictional contexts. That's not the problem.
The problem is that Highlander: The Series takes place in our world. Yeah, Immortals are walking around and occasionally killing each other, but the rest of us don't know it. That's the premise. There are no vampires, werewolves or angels. Ghosts were generally presented as hallucinations. The most anyone was, was psychic. And even that was viewed with a "maybe-they-are-maybe-they-aren't" attitude.
And now our-world-with-hidden-Immortals has to deal with Ahriman, the Zoroastrian spirit of evil, trying to bring about the end of the world. TILT!
Here's where we start getting into Zoroastrian eschatology. Which the writer got very very wrong.
According to Highlander, there's this prophecy. Of course there is. And it's pretty much like every OTHER fictional prophecy. Yadda yadda protagonist, yadda yadda Chosen One, yadda yadda destined to fight ultimate evil...yeah, we've heard this before.
I'm going to quote Wikipedia here; it'll save time, and what Wikipedia is saying tallies with the research that I did after the episode aired.
Zoroastrian tradition envisions three future saviours, one for the end of each 1,000-year period that comprise the last 3,000 years of the world. All three will be born of maidens, conceived while their mothers bathed in a lake that miraculously preserved the seed of the prophet Zoroaster himself. The first will be named Hushedar, [N.B. who will make the sun stand still for ten days and nights when he's thirty, so that everyone will believe in Zoroastrianism], the second Hushedarmah,[N.B. in his time, people will stop eating--first meat, then milk, then water, and finally for ten years before the third savior shows up "they remain without food and do not die"] and the third will be Saoshyant, who will lead humanity in the final battle against falsehood.
The story of the Saoshyant's conception and early life are described in Denkard 7.10.15ff as follows: Thirty years before the decisive final battle, a maiden named Eredat-fedhri ("Victorious Helper") and whose nickname is "Body-maker" will enter a lake (in Yasht 19.92, this is "Lake Kansava"). Sitting in the water, the girl, who has "not associated with men" will receive "victorious knowledge." Her son, when born, will not know nourishment from his mother, his body will be sun-like, and the "royal glory" of Khwarenah will be with him. Then, for the next 57 years he will subsist on only vegetables (17 years), then only water (30 years) and then for the final 10 years only on "spiritual food."
The events of the final renovation are described in the Bundahishn (30.1ff): In the final battle with evil, the yazatas Airyaman and Atar will "melt the metal in the hills and mountains, and it will be upon the earth like a river" (Bundahishn 34.18), but the righteous (ashavan) will not be harmed.
Eventually, Ahura Mazda will triumph, and his agent Saoshyant will resurrect the dead, whose bodies will be restored to eternal perfection, and whose souls will be cleansed and reunited with God. Time will then end, and truth/righteousness (asha) and immortality will thereafter be everlasting.
There are also some distinctly unfortunate implications in the greatest savior of Zoroastrian Persians turning out to be a white Christian named Duncan MacLeod. Mighty Whitey, anyone?
Anyway. Mac finds Landry's daughter and convinces her that her grandfather was murdered and did NOT die of a stroke. We find out that Landry was an archeologist and believed that good and evil were fighting over the fate of the world. Mac says that he has no trouble believing that--even though Immortals fighting for ultimate power and good and evil fighting over the fate of the world aren't the same thing. Allison shows him her grandfather's journal and a tape of Foster getting stabbed with a stone spear. Apparently there was enough time to set up a video camera next to the accidentally discovered statue of the spear carrier. And just to avoid any kind of ambiguity, it says in the journal, "The next champion/MacLeod." (That looks more like Landry liked writing Real People Slash about MacLeod and Zoroastrian champions, but we'll let it go.)
MacLeod goes back to the barge and tells Richie about the prophesied destiny thing. And we get a flashback to an old Immortal hermit who, according to MacLeod, told him that he had a great destiny and then cut off his own head with MacLeod's sword. Mac claims this was his first Quickening. Sure, why not? Who needs continuity?
Then we get a horror scene with Allison. Red mist, blood coming from her television screen, her grandfather materializes in her apartments and bursts into flames, and she burns to death. It's a very odd scene--as if someone had spliced a clip of Nightmare on Elm Street into the episode.
Joe, Methos and Richie talk about the prophecy. Long story short, Richie believes it; Joe and Methos don't. Methos adds that millennial thinking crops up every thousand years or so and that he's never seen a demon. Joe says what I've been thinking all through this episode: MacLeod is losing his mind. And then they jump from that to "Hey, let's go talk to Landry's granddaughter." Why? Because how else will anyone find out that she burned to death in a supernatural fire?
Well, they go to her apartment--how do they know where she lives, anyway? Did Mac give Richie the address? And why am I worrying about this when the author didn't?--and find that she's very dead. Arson. The killer was seen leaving the building, though. A tall, dark man with a ponytail. So either MacLeod set the fire when he was in a delusional state or Freddy Krueger--I mean, Ahriman--has added the illusion of Mac's appearance to his repertoire.
Meanwhile, back on the barge, Ahriman-Allison shows up in Mac's bed wearing a black negligée. Mac's response is classic: "What are you doing here?" Do you really need her to explain that to you, Duncan?
As he walks forward, the phone rings and Allison is on the phone. This is supposed to be scary. Screenwriter David Tynan never envisioned a world where calling someone's landline from your cellphone while you were in the room would be possible.
Allison plays peekaboo with Duncan, causing him to be startled and smash a vase, then tells Duncan that she's dead, demanding to know why he came over to her apartment demanding her grandfather's books and notes, and why he set fire to the place when she said no. Duncan draws his sword, swearing that it didn't happen. Allison tells MacLeod in Horton's voice that maybe she's not real at all. Then she disappears. And the vase is un-smashed once more.
Could the story be saying "this is a hallucination" any louder?
MacLeod looks around and decides that he's losing it. Which is what makes what happens next all the more unforgivable.
Joe and Methos go to talk to MacLeod. They clearly agree that he's losing it; MacLeod, after that brief moment of clarity, has gone back to saying that Horton and Kronos were real. Meanwhile, Richie is walking toward the barge and he sees Horton in a black limo holding a gun to joe Dawson's head.
Now, this would be a perfect time to go to the barge and check and see if Joe is there. If he is, then there's a good chance that what Richie saw was an illusion, imagination or a lookalike. But Richie--the one who believes that all this is being done by demons, remember--goes racing after the limo.
Back on the barge, Mac states that the war, famine and chaos in the world show that the prophecy is true. In fact, let me quote it exactly:
"Look at the state of the world. War, famine, chaos. There has to be something to this prophecy."
Because there was never any war, famine or chaos in the world BEFORE this. I want to slap David Tynan for that line alone.
Richie runs to a phone booth, calls MacLeod and tells him that Horton has Joe. MacLeod tries to tell him that this is impossible. A simple "Here's Joe, talk to him" might have worked better. Richie says that they're headed to the old racetrack and hangs up. MacLeod--delusional, hallucinatory and armed--goes after him.
I can't joke about this part of it. This is the scene that earned "Archangel" the name "The Nonexistent Episode." This is what caused a large group of fans form Clan Denial. It's been well over a decade and what happens at the racetrack still hurts.
Richie goes into the racetrack and finds the limo. No one's in it. No sign of Horton or Joe. So he goes looking for them. MacLeod enters by a different door, and immediately the red mist appears. When MacLeod finds Richie, it's Ahriman-Richie-- who, naturally, attacks him. Fake Richie turns into several people, and gets MacLeod thoroughly enraged to the point where he's eager to attack Fake Richie. Fake Richie morphs into Horton and then Kronos, and tells MacLeod that's he is Set, Ahriman and everything known as a devil or demon. There's shooting and swordplay and surrounding Mac in a circle. Then the demons or hallucinations or whatever vanish, and MacLeod goes looking for them.
Then he spots the real Richie.
By now, MacLeod has forgotten that he came to the track looking for the real RIchie. He only sees an enemy. And he rushes at Richie and beheads him.
This was the exact moment that Duncan MacLeod stopped being a hero for me.
Because Richie's death was stupid. MacLeod KNEW that he was seeing and hearing things. He knew that he was subject to hallucinations. He knew that his own friends thought that he was not particularly stable. And even if he didn't want to admit that he was losing his mind, he knew that an armed Immortal who is seeing things is dangerous. Hell, he'd run into this several times before with other Immortals. So going out after someone who you're likely to hallucinate as an enemy? DUMB. DUMB. VERY VERY DUMB.
And because it was so dumb, so preventable, I couldn't see MacLeod as a hero anymore. It wasn't a case of a sacrifice in battle, with Richie willingly sacrificing his life so that Mac could defeat an enemy. I could have bought that. But...attacking and killing your surrogate son because you're seeing things and you believe that he's the enemy? That's not heroic. That's like a man on a bad acid trip seeing his two-year-old child as a homicidal extraterrestrial and shooting the baby in the head. It's tragic, yes. But it's not the act of a hero, MacLeod. You saw a situation that you knew could possibly endanger or kill someone else, and you willingly plunged into it. And that's not what a hero does. Heroes try to save people. They try to make people and the world better. Doing something that you know could get someone you love killed is anything but heroic.
As far as I was concerned, Ahriman had won. He had disqualified MacLeod as the heroic champion, and there wasn't anyone to take his place.
There was a bit more of the episode after that (Joe and Methos show up too late, MacLeod tries to give his sword to Methos, who just lets it fall, and who offers no word of forgiveness or pardon--thank you, Methos!--and Richie's funeral), but those scenes are blurry. And I scarcely remember "Avatar" or "Armageddon" at all. In fact, the only sixth season episode I remember clearly is "Indiscretions" which could have been called "The Joe and Methos Episode." MacLeod wasn't in it.
I loved Highlander. I loved it for years. This episode, therefore, felt like a kick in the teeth. I felt betrayed. I had believed that MacLeod would always put the welfare of another, especially the welfare of another whom he loved like family, above his own ego. And he didn't do it. He knew he was a potential threat and he ignored it. That's not heroic behavior.
The premise of the show was that MacLeod was a hero. That he was brave and was valiant, and that he had been trying in a variety of ways to make the world better, to save and to protect people because life had value and meaning.
And then he ignored his own medical history, decided he was a prophesied champion (because that was more pleasant to believe than "nervous breakdown"), and raced armed into battle against phantoms wearing the faces of those he knew--phantoms he had yet to defeat.
It was a tsunami of failure. It failed in terms of heroism, it failed at maintaining continuity in its own universe, it failed at character continuity, it failed at plot, it failed at telling an effective horror story and it created the world's most non-threatening apocalypse imaginable.
It was the worst episode of any show I've ever seen.
The show limped along for another season, but that was the moment it truly ended, not only for me but for a lot of fans.
I'm not sure the writer or director ever knew why.
***
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.