"For as long as your kind has been around we've been Watching!"
Highlander - The Watchers (1994)
We continue where we left off in Season one. MacCloud is drowning his sorrows over the death of Darius, with Ritchie as company in some Metal bar, que flashback, then a scrap with some neo-Nazi Skinheads (more clichés, who does that remind us of?) in defence of some "non-Aryan" waiter. Seriously, does this sound familiar or what?! It takes Ritchie to drag MacCloud off the ring-leader & stop him killing the poor fascist! MacCloud still has the ancient Bible-like, Watcher chronicle. There's a postcode left by Darius. MacCloud does the sleuth thing & travels to The States in search of Darius' killers. Tessa & Richie insist on coming along.
I probably know more about you than you know about yourself!
MacCloud's patience pays off when he turns up at an innocent enough looking bookstore, run by Joe Dawson. OMG! GEE WHIZZ, Joe is one of them! But keeps his cool until revealed, he also has an interest for "old things." We may have a Bond-style villain, here, complete with cane minus Cat (?) After MacCloud has to do kung-Fu with two 'strangers.' complete with smoke-type bomb, Joe turns up, cane in hand, like some Bond villain, afterwards. I'll take this opportune moment to explain that I spent the best part of a season thinking that ALL Watchers were killers! Blame two separate channels!
Joe happily (strangely enough) explains The Watchers raison d'etre to our hero. The converse between the two is interesting at best. "For as long as your kind has been around we've been Watching." Joe mentions if Immortals had been exposed in more superstitious times, imagine the Witch-hunts?! MacCloud doesn't need to. Either this is a reference to the previous episode or Seasons 3 episode 'Shadows'. Joe gets to demonstrate his knowledge of Immortals. An Immortal outlaw that got drunk when he shouldn't have, an American Indian Immortal who was beheaded by a Cavalry Officer during the massacre of his tribe. Are you sure that wasn't a fellow Watcher, Joe? For a treat, we get to see the computer/chronicle of Kurgan, which Joe practically thanks MacCloud for Conner MacCloud whacking! "Your Kinsman did us all a favour!" And we get a flashback Immortal fight between our hero & Axe Kanin, Marc Singer of V fame.
Okay, to my blog view of this one. It's obvious there's a renegade faction of Watchers out there, indiscriminating exterminating Immortals under the belief that they're saving the Human race, oh, & guess who was the Kurgans Watcher though not mentioned in this one, which might explain volumes (?) Horton is confronted by a very pissed off MacCloud at a convention in which he meets Horton's daughter, in which turns out to be Watcher Yuppie only, MacCloud! Yes, dear. "Daddykins" is running a death-squad, committing genocide!
As mentioned before, we've got new baddies in the playground, baddies who might as well have been invisible & disturbingly they seem normal enough! Though, one young Watcher (the fiancé of Hortons daughter) questions if what they're doing is right after MacCloud spares his life & Horton kills him for questioning his authority!! MacCloud exposes Horton (& his death-squad!) not only to the rest of The Watchers, but to his daughter & what we appear to see is Hortons death, really?!. The Watchers are a very secretive society. I love how renegade Watchers always justify their genocide with cool metaphors (see unedited Highlander-Endgame, just pieces on a chessboard?!) Horton, "I felt like a Doctor Watching a cancer grow"
Yes, Tessa, they'll be back, so will Horton!
Horton is a unique villain in Highlander history, the ultimate irony! He's always there! Just when you think he's dead, he turns up! & he's a Mortal with a disturbing crusade of genocidal extermination! Season 2 is hunting season, mainly Watcher whacking Immortal episodes, complete with creepy tattoo on their wrists! Not every episode features Horton but he seems to be the main villain of this Season. As mentioned on "The Hunters" The Watchers have entered a new dimension to the Highlander Universe & they're not going away beyond Season 2! The sequel is not as popular to Highlander fans as the Season 1 finale. But it does introduce us not only to The Watchers (beyond creepy mystery!) but a beautiful friend & ally in the form of Joe Dawson THAT means a lot to this "Watcher." & he breaks Watcher rules to help MacCloud not just against evil Immortals but Watchers alike which'll come back to haunt him in Season 4!
Joe: "Darius? The great general who became a monk? I hope the Immortal that killed him rots in Hell!"
MacCloud: "He was killed by a Mortal!"
Watch your head, MacCloud!
Borgduck aka Stewart
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