AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
"Behold, a pale horse: and his name, that sat on him, was Death" - Revelation 6:8
This page recounts the present day storyline of "Highlander", for Season 5. The title chosen for each season is taken from an episode from the Season and is of my choosing, reflecting my feeling about the entire season. Episode titles are shown in italics. For Season 5, with MacLeod facing the aftermath of his Dark Quickening and seeing a new side to old friends, I've chosen a title redolent with the season's themes of guilt and redemption - "Forgive Us Our Trespasses".
Season Five - 1996/97
"Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
Regular Cast
| Duncan MacLeod | Adrian Paul |
| Richie Ryan | Stan Kirsch |
| Joe Dawson | Jim Byrnes |
| Methos | Peter Wingfield |
| Amanda | Elizabeth Gracen |
After the events in "Judgement Day", the Watchers abandon all pretense of not interfering in the Game. Believing that MacLeod is responsible for the slaughter of the Watchers, Jack Shapiro, their head, orders his death and, at the beginning of "One Minute To Midnight", Duncan is trying to survive their manhunt. Believing the only way to avoid a war between the Watchers and the Immortals is to convince Shapiro of his innocence, MacLeod goes to their battle headquarters, only to find that the Immortal who is the real killer has beaten him to the punch. The bitter irony of the situation is revealed - Jacob Galati is hunting the Watchers after Horton killed his Immortal wife, Irena, during his rampage across Europe in 1992 that ended when he killed Darius in Paris, ("The Hunters"). Jacob refuses to believe that the Watchers are not evil, but agrees to meet Joe
, who has been nursed back to health by Methos. Joe won't meet Jacob though and helps the Watchers to capture him. Duncan is forced to stand by whilst the Watchers murder Jacob and is devastated to receive his friend's Quickening. Methos rejects Joe and the Watchers for what they have become, but MacLeod returns to confront Shapiro, to put an end to the killing. When Shapiro refuses, Joe belatedly realizes that his friend has become another Horton and helps Duncan to secure peace with the Watchers.
Wanting nothing to do with Paris, Duncan returns to Seacouver. There, he finds the Immortal Cassandra waiting for him. She is being hunted by Roland Kantos, one of her students, and she tells Duncan of a "Prophecy" that he will defeat great evil. Kantos relies on the hypnotic power of his voice to defeat his opponents, but Duncan, after nearly losing his head to Kantos' tricks, defeats the mesmerist by plugging his ears.
Joe comes to the dojo and gets the cold shoulder from Duncan, but before he leaves, he tells MacLeod that Richie is in town, ("The End Of Innocence"). Duncan tries to make his peace with Richie, but the young Immortal is still plagued by nightmares after Duncan almost killed him in "Something Wicked" and warns Duncan to stay away from him. When Richie challenges and kills Carter Wellan, his mentor Haresh Clay comes for Richie, breaking his sword. Richie is arrested trying to steal another one from a museum and is bailed out by Duncan, who warns him that Clay is as good as they come and gives him a sword. The two Immortals work out their differences and, now acting as equals, it is Duncan who asks Richie to stand aside as he avenges his humiliation at Clay's hands when they first met and takes his head.
Carl Robinson has moved from the minor leagues to the majors and is now a baseball superstar, until the day an Immortal challenges him at the baseball ground and Carl is identified as his killer. A "Manhunt" begins for the Immortal, led by Matthew McCormick, Carl's teacher, who has a score to settle with Carl from long ago. Carl was a slave and his owner was McCormick's father-in-law. When Carl killed his owner, Matthew swore revenge, but MacLeod is able to persuade him to let it be and they arrange for Carl's very public "death", so that he can slip quietly away and begin a new life again.
Normally, it is MacLeod's past that catches up with him in one way or another, but memories of "Glory Days" come back to haunt Joe Dawson when Betsy Fields, his high school sweetheart, walks into the bar. Despite MacLeod's prompting, Joe is strangely reluctant to rekindle old flames and, to finally badger him into taking Betsy to dinner, Duncan agrees to fix a leaking beer tap. But whilst collecting Joe's toolkit from his lockup, Duncan encounters Johnny K, an Immortal who never learnt the rules and who makes his living as an assassin. Johnny tries to kill Duncan, to keep his identity secret. With Joe's help, Duncan turns the tables on his would-be killer and reminds him in the most pointed way that Immortals do it with swords. Joe faces up to his fear of telling Betsy about being crippled and shares one night of romance with her before she returns to her husband and family, leaving Joe to remember how good those Glory Days were.
Amanda returns from a shopping trip with the steamy new bestseller by Carolyn Marsh, who has taken "Dramatic License" with events from Duncan's past - events about which she should know nothing. Her book retells his story, using his name. Intrigued and alarmed, Duncan investigates, only to find that Terence Coventry, another Immortal, is also hunting Carolyn, but because she has made him the villain of the book. Less than flattered, Coventry wants revenge, but it is left for Amanda to discover the truth - Carolyn is Coventry's wife and is tired of his stories of the past, wanting to live with him in the here and now.
For Immortal Cory Raines, life is one big game and "Money No Object". An inveterate thief, he steals Amanda during a raid on a backstreet loan shark, who wants his money back, not surprisingly, and kidnaps Amanda until his money is returned. Richie learns, as Duncan did before him, that Cory is a first class pain in the ass, which he continues to prove by nearly blowing up a marching band instead of a security truck, and blowing Duncan up when the Highlander moves the bomb to a safe distance. Cory has given the money away, but Duncan has the last laugh when, having rescued Amanda, he gets his revenge and blows Cory up.
Jennifer Hill comes to Seacouver, looking for Duncan to avenge her husband, Alec, as she is "Haunted" by her husband's ghost. As Duncan goes to San Francisco to honour his vow to Alec to take the head of the Immortal they think killed Alec, Richie looks after the grieving Jennifer and they feel a mutual attraction, to Joe Dawson's horror. Joe tells Richie it was he who killed Alec, as an unnamed Immortal he killed the summer before, who had attacked him without warning, was Alec Hill. Despite this, Richie is unable to prevent matters taking their course, but feels obliged to tell Duncan when he returns. To make matters worse, he tells Jennifer, who shoots him and is about to kill him with his own sword when Duncan persuades her to let go of Alec.
When he is attacked by three young Immortals, who disregard the rules, MacLeod is shocked, but his shock turns to anger when he discovers that their teacher is Gavriel Larca, who has set himself up as a "Little Tin God". With the help of the newest Immortal's friend and Preacher, Reverend Bell, Duncan lures Larca off holy ground and takes his head, but not before Larca has killed one of his own students and another has fled, terrified and unsure of what he is. Duncan sends the young Immortal to Carl Robinson, to be taught the rules properly and Joe recruits Reverend Bell to work with the Watchers.
When Richie interrupts a fight between MacLeod and William Culbraith, Duncan begins to doubt his own worth as a teacher, but when Richie tells him that he has learnt his new way of peace from Methos, Duncan is enraged. Methos turns up at the loft and is amused to find that the "other Methos" is in town. This mysterious Immortal and his gospel of peace have cost several of his converts their heads and Duncan doesn't want "The Messenger" putting Richie at risk. Methos finds his doppleganger and decides not to kill him, but Culbraith has no such compunctions and, after taking the imposter's head, tries for Richie's. When Duncan arrives in the nick of time to return his sword, an armed Richie is more than Culbraith can handle.
In "The Valkyrie", Ingrid Henning arrives in Seacouver with Interpol on her tail. Duncan is initially protective of his old friend, but finds that she has set herself up as judge, jury and executioner of totalitarian regimes, killing the leaders, regardless of whether they have committed atrocities or just might do. As Methos plays Devil's Advocate and Duncan wrestles with his conscience, Ingrid kills a policeman who tries to arrest her. Confronted by what she has become, Duncan kills her, but is left wondering where the justice in all of it is and whether either of them were in the right.
He has no doubts about what is right when he sees Melvin Koren, ("Comes A Horseman"), but nearly loses his head to Cassandra when he goes after him, as she is also hunting him. Cassandra tells him that Koren is Kronos, leader of the Four Horsemen, a group of Immortals who ran roughshod over anyone in their way in the Bronze Age, Immortals who killed her and slaughtered her people. Methos also encounter Kronos and, when he arrives at the dojo to warn Duncan, Cassandra attacks him
. As Methos retreats, Cassandra tells a stunned MacLeod that Methos was one of the Horsemen. While Duncan and Methos confront each other about the truth of what happened, Cassandra finds Kronos in an abandoned power station and fights him. When Duncan arrives, Methos incapacitiates Cassandra, then torches the power station. Duncan and Cassandra escape, vowing vengeance on the two Horsemen, whilst Methos manages to stop Kronos from killing him by promising him his dream - the Four Horsemen, reunited.
Uncertain of what to do next, Duncan and Cassandra enlist the help of Joe Dawson, at the beginning of "Revelation 6:8", to locate one of the two remaining Horsemen, Caspian, who is imprisoned in a Romanian psychiatric hospital. By the time they get there, they find Caspian gone, freed by Kronos. Casually dropped on his cell floor is a matchbook for a hotel in Bordeaux and the two Immortals go there, hoping it is a clue and not a trap. Methos arranges to met MacLeod without Cassandra and tells him that he has led Kronos to the fourth Horseman, Silas, and the four are now reunited to implement Kronos' plan to unleash a plague virus on the world if the world does not bow down before the Horsemen. He also tells MacLeod why Cassandra hates him so much - he enslaved her after she became Immortal. Whilst MacLeod defuses the first viral bomb, Kronos kidnaps Cassandra and send Silas and Caspian after Duncan. MacLeod takes Caspian's head and escapes from Silas by jumping off a bridge mid-Quickening. Knowing that Kronos must be using laboratory animals, Duncan tracks a shipment of monkeys to an abandoned submarine base and confronts the three remaining Horsemen
. As Kronos and MacLeod fight, Methos prevents Silas from killing Cassandra and takes the head of his "brother" as Duncan ends Kronos' life. The twin Quickenings intersect dramatically as they rip through the submarine pens. Freed, Cassandra rushes to take the head of the weakened Methos, but is prevented by MacLeod. Later, Duncan accuses Methos of setting the whole thing up, to resolve his problems with Kronos and the two part, uncertain in their friendship.
Duncan is surprised to find that Richie is back in France, using the pseudonym of Richard Redstone. He is even more surprised to find that he has to pay "The Ransom Of Richard Redstone" to free Richie from the clutches of Marina LeMartin, the glamorous granddaughter of an old friend of Duncan's. Marina is desperate to prevent her family chateau from falling into the hands of her grandfather's former associate, Carlo Capodimonte and has kidnapped Richie, believing him to be an American millionaire. Having failed, she prepares to marry Carlo, but Duncan realises that it was Carlo who robbed him at gunpoint in the seventies and he and Richie set the thief up for Duncan's "murder". As Carlo flees, Richie blackmails him into signing the Chateau over to Marina. Later, Duncan and the grandfather discover a fortune in vintage wine hidden in the cellar, assuring the family of the wealth they need to restore their ancestral home.
In between helping Marina to restore the Chateau, Richie accompanies Duncan to a nightclub whose Spanish owner was a superb Flamenco dancer before a car accident left her crippled. Now, her daughter dances with the same flair, but Duncan is appalled to learn that her mysterious and unseen lover is the Immortal, Otavio Consone. The passion of "Duende" rises as MacLeod challenges Consone to fight at his own style, to avenge the mother, crippled by Consone, and free the daughter from her marriage to the possessive and murderous Immortal. Consone is a master of the sword art called "The Mysterious Circle", but MacLeod shows that what works for mortals doesn't always work with Immortals and takes his revenge. The next episode in the series was a humourous story about golf, rocks and misunderstandings, "The Stone Of Scone", but as it is set wholly in the past and is covered on the Timeline page, we'll move on.
The season began accelerating to a climax with "Forgive Us Our Trespasses", in which Amanda finds a new friend in a charming Immortal called Stephen Keane, who owns a new nightclub in Paris. Her friend only has one drawback - he is looking to kill the Immortal who has killed two of his friends over the centuries, a man by the name of Duncan MacLeod. Amanda tries to kill Keane, but he is able to stop her and confronts Duncan in Darius' church. Duncan is not certain he is in the right, as one of the friends was Sean Burns, who he killed during the time of his Dark Quickening. Amanda, fearing that Duncan will lose his head because of this, enlists the help of Methos, who shoots MacLeod to stop his meeting with Keane and challenges the stranger himself, but is prevented from killing Keane by MacLeod. As Amanda and Methos try to stop the inevitable confrontation, with Amanda framing MacLeod for a theft she committed, they are unable to talk either man out of the fight, which ends with MacLeod winning, but not taking Keane's head, unwilling to compound one mistake with another.
Joe Dawson arrives in Paris with a young and gifted guitar player in tow in "The Modern Prometheus" and both Methos and Duncan are invited to attend his debut. Also in attendance is rock star Byron, who baffles everyone by referring to Methos as "Doc", his nickname from the heady nineteenth century days when he and Byron, then Lord Byron, travelled together. Byron, unable to sustain the creative fire within himself, destroys talented mortals for amusement and when he kills Joe's protége Mike with a seductive combination of drink and drugs, Duncan challenges and kills him, despite the pleadings of a torn Methos, who understands the emptiness in Byron's soul.
Returning to the barge one evening from the Opera, Duncan and Richie are accosted by an elderly man who says he has come to warn MacLeod, but before they can speak to him, Duncan sees a familiar figure watching them - James Horton. Horton vanishes and the Immortals find the old man dead on the Quai. The next day, they find Horton's grave opened, as Joe Dawson prepares to fly the coffin back to Chicago in secret. Despite seeing a body in the coffin, MacLeod is not convinced that Horton isn't dead. The man on the Quai was Jason Landry, a noted archaelogist, and Duncan goes to see his daughter. They discover Duncan is named in Landry's papers as the champion who will fight and vanquish the demon Ahriman, who walks the Earth every thousand years. Unwilling to be cast in the role of the Champion who must face the "Archangel", MacLeod is taunted by Ahriman, who appears as Kronos and Alison Landry, who the demon kills. Richie seeks the help of Joe and Methos, who have their doubts about the existence of a Zoroastrian demon in 20th century Paris. As Joe and Methos talk with Duncan, Richie sees Joe as a prisoner of Horton and follows the illusion to an abandoned racecourse. He telephones Duncan to let him know, but rings off before MacLeod can tell him he is being deceived. Followed by Joe and Methos, Duncan goes to the racecourse and confronts Ahriman, who takes the form of Horton, Kronos and Richie, each in turn darting from the shadows at the Highlander. As they come, he strikes at them with his sword and takes the head of one of them, only to find that he has beheaded the real Richie. Joe and Methos arrive to find MacLeod kneeling over his dead student and, when Methos refuses to kill Duncan, the Highlander takes Richie's glove and walks away, leaving behind his friends and his sword, and vanishes into the night.