No doubt about it, Duncan raised Richie right.
This episode was somewhat similar to the ghastly "The Beast Below" back in the appalling season one, but much, much better. Pruitt Taylor Vince has probably made a decent living playing characters like Mikey, and he did his usual good job. The writers could have taken the easy way out and given Mikey a permanent, safe home on holy ground, but they didn't. (So good on them.) When it turned out that Mikey was accidentally killing people (channeling Lenny from Of Mice and Men), Duncan and Richie had an almost insoluble immortal problem. What could they do? Paging Dr. Kevorkian, huh?
Although Mikey's final moments were strong and the basic plot worked, I find stories like this one frustrating and not much fun to watch. At least we also had a young Callum Keith Rennie with a sword as this week's evil immortal, Tyler King. Unfortunately, all he got to do was look dashing and mean, and then Duncan took him down. And his motivation for hunting Mikey made no sense. Why did King want Mikey's head so much that he was willing to go through Duncan to do it? I assume Mikey had no immortal kills to his credit, so wouldn't his quickening give King practically zilch on the immortal power meter?
Flashbacks:
— 1868 McKewansville, Dakota Territory. Duncan, in his cool-looking western duds, saved an Indian slave from abuse, and made the mistake of taking him into McKewansville, which was chock full of Indian-hating folk. (You know, morons.) The poor guy ended up dead, like Mikey. Which was, of course, the point.
Bits and pieces:
— Good performance by Stan Kirsch.
— Loved Duncan going after King swinging from a rope. Swashbuckle away.
— I liked the Hallelujah Chorus playing as Mikey finally got to see a real switching yard.
— Duncan parked his car right on the railroad tracks. Made me nervous. Who does that?
— Duncan is buying a house, a massive fixer-upper. Why?
— Tyler King was the twenty-fourth evil immortal with a K/C name.
Two out of four stars,
Billie
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Billie Doux knows that there can be only one. And that's Methos.
I don't see why they couldn't have taken Mikey to a monastery / holy ground like Duncan has done in the past. Mikey had a good heart and would have fit in with a monastery. I was surprised that Duncan choose death here as Duncan ALWAYS chooses life in any other case when the person is "innocent". I find it ironic this episode was named "The Innocent" and he was sentenced to death by the one man who values life more than anyone else in the show.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree this was a complete swing and a miss from the writers and a poor way to treat autistic characters. I know this is the 90’s but jfc
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