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Starring:
Adrian Paul (Duncan MacLeod) Guests:
Kristin Minter (Rachael MacLeod)
Written by David Tynan |
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It's night. We see a raven is perched on a branch, as the camera pans to two men digging. Kevin is complaining that he doesn't "even know why we're digging here, Brian. This isn't even a real grave." Brian tells him to shut up, that's it's a battle site.
Kevin: "How does he know that?"
Brian: "That's his business."
He tells Kevin to put his back into it, that he can "smell the silver." Kevin starts as dogs start howling, saying that something is spooking them. A hooded figure (Kanwulf) approaches as a raven alights on a nearby branch. The light falls on the man's face as he glides up to the diggers. They start as they see him, and he asks, "What have you found?" Brian shows him a small dagger, saying that it's "not what you're looking for." Kanwulf suggests he might hire someone who would be "more successful," and Brian retorts that maybe they'll just find someone else to buy.
Kanwulf: "That would be a grave mistake."
Brian: "Don't threaten us. Or maybe folks will find out just who's behind this grave robbing."
Kanwulf: "Not from you." He draws a sword from beneath his cloak and stabs Brian, then holds the sword on Kevin. Kevin begs for him not to kill him, but Kanwulf says he has, "something else in mind for you."
James: "I know. I bought it three days ago."
He counters with 30, and Duncan lets him have it. "You know, what, James, you're right, it wasn't really my style." He's still smirking as Lalonde removes the painting, then freezes as he sees a silver bracelet lying in a case just behind it. He steps to the case, demanding, "Where did you get that?"
Lalonde: "A fine example of jeweled silver work from the late Celtic period in Scotland." He hands the bracelet to Duncan, who stares at it for a moment. "I'll take it."
Lalonde: "10,000 francs."
James: "Now, that seems hardly fair. 12."
Duncan: "15!"
James: "20. Just returning the favor." Duncan offers 50, and James ups it to 55: "How much do you really want it?"
Duncan: "100." James merely raises a brow, and moves off.
Lalonde: "May I package it for you?"
When Lalonde comes back after showing James out, Duncan confronts him, demanding to know where the piece came from. Lalonde waffles, but eventually admits that it came in "a box shipment from England," and that "all I know is that it is from somewhere in Scotland, in the Highlands."
Duncan: "Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel."
Lalonde: "You know it."
Duncan: "I was born there."
Aerial shot of Glenfinnan, showing Duncan walking down a road, then the scene moves on to the lake, and a ruined fortress. We see Duncan walking over the fields and paths, and eventually he comes to a small graveyard. He kneels down in front of a stone carved with spiralwork, and the word "MacLeod." "Mother. Father," he says, "it's been a long time. It's good to be home." As he kneels, he hears a voice behind him saying, "Excuse me." Rachael MacLeod walks up. She tells him that "the campground's further down the road. It's better sightseeing, not to mention more lively."
Duncan: "Well, I hadn't planned on camping."
Rachael, folding her arms: "Good. Because it so happens you're on a family plot. I'm Rachael MacLeod, and those are my ancestors you're standing on."
Duncan, pleased to find a relative: "Well, mine, too. I'm Duncan MacLeod."
He holds out a hand, but she ignores it. "Another one," she says coldly. "Let me guess, you're here to find your highland roots."
Duncan, still pleasant: "I didn't know I'd lost them." She raises a brow, and he counters that "you don't sound like a local yourself."
Rachael says she has "ten years of American schools to thank for that." She asks what he's doing there, and he says "that's private." She tells him "we're burying one of our own today, and we don't need any outsiders." She goes away, leaving Duncan smiling in disbelief. "Hi, welcome home," he says to himself.
Rachael goes to the graveside, where "Father Laird (sp?)" (recognizable from the teaser as none other than Kanwulf himself!) tells her that they've been waiting for her. She explains that there was someone on the family plot. "I don't like strangers skulking around."
Kanwulf: "The Good Book tells us there's good in every heart."
Rachael: "If that were true, we wouldn't be here today." Kanwulf looks after her as she moves to the grave, then looks back to where she came from.
Duncan walks up to a little inn, giving a friendly greeting to the men sitting outside. He walks in, and as he does the talk and chatter inside dies. Rachael is wiping tables, and looks up as the others notice Duncan. "Och, if it isn't the clansman," she says. "What can I get you? Haggis? Maybe a kilt?" The patrons chortle and Duncan comes to the bar, saying "an ale will do just fine." He asks if the people of Glenfinnan are always this friendly, and Rachael says "we're friendly enough, just careful with strangers."
Duncan: "Really? And since when is a MacLeod a stranger in Glenfinnan?" He takes the drink, then says grudgingly that he was told down the road that she might have a room. She gives him the book to fill out, and hands him a key, telling him he's in number 4, "next to the other one."
Duncan: "What other one?"
He turns as Joe Dawson says, "MacLeod!" He comes forward, asking him what took him so long.
Duncan: "What the hell are you doing here?"
Joe: "I'm having a wee dram, lad..." But Duncan presses, and he says, "I'm your Watcher, I'm supposed to know, especially when you come home after 250 years."
Duncan: "It doesn't concern you."
Joe: "Everything you do concerns me." He goes on, but Duncan isn't listening. He's spied a sword hanging in the middle of the room, and walks up to it, staring, Joe's voice fading as he remembers...
Debra: "You spoke to my father. What did he say?"
Duncan takes her hands: "Aye, we spoke."
Debra understands from the tone of his voice that it didn't go well.
Debra: "Ah, Duncan no. We love each other."
But Duncan says that she's to marry his cousin Robert, "and that's the end of it." She says he's "the chieftain's son. There has to be something you can do." Duncan says he's tried, but it's a joining of the clans, the Campbells and the MacLeods.
Debra: "But our clans will be joined when I marry you,"
Duncan: "You're pledged to him. We cannot be." He releases her, then takes a bracelet (the bracelet, I should say) from his belt and puts it on her. "When you look at this, think of me."
Debra: "What are you saying?"
Duncan: "I'm leaving." Debra begs him to take her with him, but he won't.
Debra: "I will marry him if I must, Duncan, but please do not leave me. I have to see you, even if it's only across the village."
Duncan: "You're the love of my life, Debra Campbell. It is too hard a thing to see that which I cannot have." He leaves her.
Cut to the village, Robert MacLeod dragging Debra out to the center of the village, saying, "You'll give it back!" swearing that he won't marry her "with another man's gift."
Debra: "I tried to love you. I can only feel what I feel."
Robert: "It's me that you'll marry."
Debra: "Because I must. Is that what you want?"
Robert: "You'll share me bed, and bear my children, and I'm damned if I'll set you free."
He shoves her to the ground, and as she gets up she tells him to dwell on this, that "when I lie with you it's him I'll be thinking of." Robert raises his hand to strike her, but Duncan is there, holding him back, saying she's not his yet. Robert accuses him of turning her heart against him, but Duncan says "she cannae help her heart. Any more than I can help mine. You'll have what you want, but so help me God, you'll not lay a hand on her."
Robert: "You'll not make me a cuckold. Draw your blade."
But Duncan refuses, saying that they're clansman, that they've been friends all their lives. He tries to pass again, but Robert hits him, saying, "Coward." He draws his sword.
Duncan: "If you were not kin you'd be dead where you stand."
He starts to walk off.
Ian, who's been watching the whole time, shouts: "you'll no walk away from this! Not while I live. The challenge is made. No MacLeod could turn his back on such words."
Duncan: "But, Father, he's kin!"
Ian: "And you're a chieftain's son."
Mary MacLeod runs forward, saying that he's her son, begging Ian not to make him do it. But Ian orders Duncan to pick up the sword, saying if he doesn't "it will be on your name and all who wear it."
Mary: "Do you nae know the difference between honor and pride?!"
Ian orders her to be quiet, and Duncan finally draws. He and Robert fight, and Robert soon draws first blood.
Duncan: "You have your satisfaction." He turns away, but Robert tackles him and they fight on until Duncan lands an unintentional fatal blow. He holds Robert in his arms, begging him not to die, while Ian comes forward with the clan sword.
Ian: "It is finished. Honor is satisfied." He looks down at Duncan. "'Tis a hard thing to face. But I raised you to lead this clan, and to bear this sword after me, no matter the cost." Duncan reaches out to touch the sword...
Joe: "And?"
Duncan: "It never happened."
He goes to the guestbook, holding the bracelet in his hand. He sets it down to write, and Rachael sees it.
Rachael: "Where'd you get your hands on that?"
Duncan asks if she knows something about it, and she says "I know it belongs here, like all the rest that's been stolen from this country." Duncan protests that he bought it, but Rachael counters, "Do you think you can buy your roots? You're no better than the grave robbers." Duncan asks her where there've been graves robbed, saying he needs to know.
Rachael: "So you can get your hands on more souvenirs?"
Duncan doesn't answer, just goes upstairs.
In the forest. Kevin is tied between two trees, saying he's done nothing. Kanwulf is sitting by a fire. "We've all done something, Kevin. Now your miserable soul will have a use. Your blood will feed him. It's a great honor." Turns to him. "Do you believe in God, Kevin?"
Kevin: "Yes! Oh, yes!"
Kanwulf gets up: "So do I. My God. His name is Odin." He raises his arms, calling to Odin to take Kevin's blood, "and return to me what is mine!"
Angus: "A Viking raider who cut a trail of death through this land for 800 years."
Rachael: "One of our more colorful legends. Loch Ness gets the monster, we get Kanwulf."
Angus says it isn't a legend, but the other villagers scoff. One says that in that case, "all we need is for a MacLeod to come back from the dead and finish him off!" They laugh, and Joe looks thoughtful.
Angus: "Well Kevin McSwaine's not laughing, is he?" That shuts everyone up, and Rachael goes to tend the fire, looking worried and sad.
Joe: "Quiet little village you have here."
Cut to the church, Kanwulf saying, "I can sense that something is troubling you." Rachael nods. She says that there's someone in the village "who is not who he says he is."
Kanwulf: "Really?" He puts his arm around her, walking her into the vestry.
Rachael: "And I think he's the one looting the graves."
She tells him about the bracelet. Kanwulf asks if she's spoken to anyone else, and she says no. She says that the one she suspects "calls himself Duncan MacLeod." Kanwulf shows a spark of interest, but suggests that he might be "another dedicated tourist."
Rachael: "Then why is he snooping around the cemeteries and other gravesites? I think we should call the police."
Kanwulf urges her not to, saying that they don't want to be premature. "After all, he is a MacLeod." He walks Rachael out to the nave, and sees her off. When she's gone, he glances back at the crucifix above the altar, at Christ's face. "What are you lookin' at?" he snarls, and leaves.
Duncan is riding horseback up a trail. He pulls up to where Joe stands waiting, and says, "They say solitude's a precious thing, Dawson."
Joe: "Hey, I didn't drag my heiney up this goat path for the view."
Duncan: "Sheep path, Joe. And I hope those aren't your best shoes."
Joe looks down ruefully: "Not any more." He asks how long they're staying, and Duncan says that he's staying until he finds what he came for.
Joe: "And that is?"
Duncan finally tells him: "A grave."
Duncan: "We grew up like brothers, learned to fight together. There was no evil in his heart."
Debra says she knows, but "he brought this on himself." Duncan says it was his blade that killed him, but Debra argues that he had no choice.
Duncan: "I took his life."
Debra: "Then we'll give it back. We'll name our firstborn after him."
Duncan: "Not with Robert's blood on my hands."
Debra says she thought he loved her, and he says she's his life. "But I've slain a kinsman, a friend. I can't wed you now, do you understand that?" Debra, sobbing, takes the bracelet and throws it on the path, saying that she understands that "I can't live without you." She turns and runs up the path. Duncan picks up the bracelet and follows her, calling for her. She runs to the edge of a cliff and stands there. Duncan stops just behind her.
Debra: "I came here as a child. It was my secret place."
Duncan: "I know. Come back."
She says she used to dream of having him even then. "I never dreamed this." Duncan tells her she still has a life to live, but she turns to face him, saying she has nothing. She takes a step towards the edge, and Duncan jerks forward. "No." She looks at him.
Duncan: "I swear I'll marry you. I'll love you to the end of my days."
Debra: "Do you mean it? With Robert's death on your head?"
Duncan: "I can live with his ghost. But I cannae live with yours."
He holds out his hand, and she reaches for it, but the edge of the cliff can no longer bear her weight. It crumbles, and she falls, Duncan reaching out to her. The bracelet falls to the ground, and Duncan, dragging himself back from the edge, picks it up.
Joe: "So you don't know where the grave is."
Duncan says everything's different after 400 years, even the landmarks are gone. They reach the edge of the lake, and Duncan mounts again, Joe saying he hopes he finds her. Duncan gives a hopeful little smile and rides off. We see him riding over the countryside, looking, until at last he comes to a plain stone with the name "Debra Campbell" scratched crudely on the surface. As he quickly dismounts, we see Rachael riding near him. She turns her horse, watching as Duncan goes to the grave and kneels. We see replays of earlier shots of Debra, her by the stream, Duncan hugging her, and Duncan smiling at her, all superimposed. Then the camera shifts back to Duncan, as he's smoothing the dirt over a small hole, and covering it with a bunch of wildflowers. He rises and goes back to his horse, while Rachael turns and rides off, muttering, "And he calls himself a MacLeod."
At the inn that night. Duncan opens the door of his room to find the police, armed with a search warrant. They order Duncan to stand by the wall, and he backs off, saying, "Highland hospitality seems to have gone downhill." Rachael follows the constable into the room, saying, "Maybe it's the guests." Joe tries to explain that it's not his room, but they make him stand with Duncan anyway.
Joe: "Remind me. Next time, separate vacations."
Duncan asks for an explanation, and Rachael tells him, "it's about graverobbing." Just then, the police find Duncan's sword, and Rachael looks at him. "I was wrong. It's about murder."
Kanwulf, sarcastic: "The man has the heart of a poet."
Rachael: "And a sense of clan loyalty." She tells the digger to put the bracelet back. She walks off with Kanwulf, wondering that Duncan came all that way to find her grave. Kanwulf asks about Debra, saying she isn't in the parish records.
Rachael: "It wouldn't be. 400 years ago, Debra Campbell committed suicide for the love of a MacLeod. At least, that's the legend." Kanwulf asks about the rest of the legend.
Rachael: "Duncan MacLeod came back from the dead, to avenge his father and kill Kanwulf the Viking."
Kanwulf says he'd like to meet "this Duncan MacLeod."
At the inn, Joe and Duncan are playing darts. Joe asks when Duncan will get his sword back, and Duncan says in a couple of days, that it was sent to Edinburgh for testing. "You worried?" Joe says he was just thinking about that old Norse legend.
Duncan: "What legend?"
Joe: "Kanwulf, the Viking."
Duncan: "What about him?"
Joe: "The bodies. The Blood Eagle. It's Kanwulf's trademark."
Duncan: "It can't be K--" Stops.
Duncan voiceover: "Of course. It was after I died the first time, after they cast me out." Scene shifts to night, in Glenfinnan. Duncan rides up and dismounts. "I hadn't met Connor, or taken my first head. Still had no idea what had happened to me, or what I was. I'd been gone two years. I thought nothing could bring me home. Then I learned that my village had been attacked, that my father was gravely wounded." Duncan walks up to the man guarding his father's door (Donal),
demanding to know who did this. Donal backs away, saying it can't be him, that he's dead. Duncan keeps asking who did it.
Donal: "Kanwulf, the Destroyer."
Duncan: "Kanwulf's a legend. He's not real."
Donal: "Neither are you!"
He runs off, and Duncan goes into the house. His father is lying on the bed, Mary sitting beside him. Duncan kneels beside her.
Mary: "Duncan, is it really you?"
Duncan: "I'm here."
Mary says they tried to tell her he was evil, "but I knew it wasn't true." Duncan says it doesn't matter now.
Mary: "His sword. Claim it."
Duncan looks at, lying on his father's arm.
Duncan: "I canno'. He banished me. I have no right, I have no clan. I'm not even your son."
Mary: "No. It matters not who bore you, you are my son. And it is yours. Take it. Take it, I say." She lifts the sword and gives it to him. "Let no man tell you different: You are Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."
Duncan, voiceover as he rides away again. "So I left to avenge my father, in search of Kanwulf." He rides up to a sacrifice, blood smeared over the ribs of the victim. "I knew he was inhuman. I just didn't know he was Immortal." Duncan goes into a small camp in the forest, sword drawn. "Then I felt it, for the first time. Another Immortal." Zoom in on Kanwulf, then back to Duncan, looking around for the source of the feeling (Ooh, credit fodder here! :)) "It seemed in me and around me at the same time. But I had no idea what it was."
Duncan finally locates Kanwulf, who tells him "I killed the one who held that. He fought well. For an old man."
Duncan: "I'll do better. I'm his son."
Kanwulf: "His son?" He sheds his cloak, swinging an axe up to meet the challenge. "You don't even know what you are, do you? Or what I am?"
Duncan: "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, and you're dead. That's all I need to know."
They fight, and for a good while it seems like Kanwulf is getting the better of the fight. But finally a desperate move by Duncan wounds him, and he tells him to strike. "Send me to Valhalla."
Duncan: "I'll send you to hell." He stabs him through with the sword and takes his axe, stumbling away. He kneels, and says, "For you, Father."
Duncan: "I left him for dead, and buried his axe. If there was a Valhalla, I wanted him weaponless. But I didn't take his head."
Joe: "If he was immortal you'd have known it."
Duncan: "Would I? Would I have recognized that feeling? Joe, I had no idea why I was still alive. I didn't know about other immortals or that the only way you could kill one was by taking his head."
Joe: "And you left the sword."
Duncan: "In my mother's heart I was a MacLeod. But to the clan, I was banished."
Rachael comes in, and tells Duncan that Father Laird wants him to stop by the church. As Duncan walks by her, she says she's sorry.
Duncan: "That's all right."
Rachael: "No, it's not. Traveling all that way, to honor one of ours. I had no right to suspect you."
Duncan: "You were protecting your own."
Rachael: "I made a fool out of myself doing it."
Duncan, smiling: "Not to me."
Duncan goes to the church, and senses another immortal as he walks inside. "Father Laird?"
Kanwulf steps out of the shadows: "For now."
Duncan: "Kanwulf. The hair's different, the clothes, but you're still inside there, aren't you?"
Kanwulf: "I see you're a little better dressed yourself."
Duncan asks him "since when does a Viking take the cloth", and Kanwulf explains that he waylaid the last priest on his way to Glenfinnan, before anyone saw him. "I'd hoped the burial records would give me a clue."
Duncan: "For what?"
Kanwulf: "You ought to know MacLeod, it was you who took it from me."
Duncan (finally getting it): "All this for an axe?!"
Kanwulf: "An axe made by the gods MacLeod, used by Loki and Thor themselves."
Duncan: "You can't still believe in that."
Kanwulf: "As much as they believe in their pale Christ! That axe was given to me the day I became a warrior."
Duncan says he's insane, but Kanwulf asks him why he buried the bracelet. "We all have our rituals."
Duncan: "And the Blood Eagle?"
Kanwulf: "An offering to the gods of thunder and war." He says it's no coincidence that the one man who knows where it is came to him, and says he'll have it, or the offerings will continue."
Duncan grabs him: "I'll kill you first."
Kanwulf: "We're on holy ground. You can't kill me here." Turns as the door opens and couple of little old ladies walk in. "And my parishioners have arrived."
Says he'll be waiting for Duncan and walks off with the ladies.
Duncan: "He believes it. And there is an axe."
Joe: "You know where it is?"
Duncan: "I've always known. It's in my father's grave where I buried it."
Joe: "So you think you give him the axe and he disappears?"
Duncan: "That's all he wants."
Joe: "So if you believe that, you don't have to fight him." Duncan just looks at him.
Joe: "How about this time, he lives, you live, and we just walk away."
Duncan: "There are some things you can't walk away from."
Joe: "C'mon, Mac..."
Duncan: "He killed my father!"
Duncan goes downstairs, and takes the sword from the wall. As he does so, Rachael comes out, wrapped in a shawl.
Rachael: "He came back from the dead, to claim his father's sword. He killed the Viking, and stopped the slaughter."
Duncan: "That's a legend, Rachael." They're standing face to face now.
Rachael: "The bracelet? Now this? If I asked you to explain, would it make any sense?" Duncan turns to leave.
Rachael: "Duncan MacLeod. Maybe some legends are true."
Duncan: "Maybe."
Kanwulf, wearing his cloak again, comes out of the woods and walks to a clearing where a fire is lit. He looks up as Duncan appears above him, holding a torch. Duncan raises the axe in the other hand, and throws it to Kanwulf, who fields it neatly. Duncan picks up the clan sword and walks down to Kanwulf.
Kanwulf, to the sword: "For centuries you were lost. Now an enemy brings you to me." To Duncan. "You kept your word. Run away while you can."
Duncan: "It's one thing having the axe. It's another to keep it."
He drops the torch, almost casually, and a huge circle of flame leaps up around them. They fight, and this time it's more evenly matched. Kanwulf is fighting with both the axe and his sword. Eventually, they manage to wound each other, and as they retreat, recovering, Kanwulf says, "I'm ready."
Duncan: "So am I."
They charge at each other, and Duncan cuts the axe's handle in two to take Kanwulf's head. As he does so, the flames suck back in on themselves, and the fire circle dies. As Duncan takes the Quickening, the moon, huge and full, moves slowly behind him. When it's over, the raven that's been following Kanwulf around the whole episode takes off and flies toward the moon. Duncan falls down on his knees, driving the sword into the ground. "Now it's finished, Father. Now it's finished."
Rachael: "I knew you'd be back. The legend. It seems to belong in your hand."
Duncan: "No. It belongs in Glenfinnan. This is its home."
He turns to leave, but Rachael puts her hand on his neck to kiss his cheek. "Yours too, Duncan MacLeod." He leaves, and she watches him as he walks down the road.
Joe and Duncan are standing looking at a memorial.
Joe: "The Highlander. Think they had you in mind when they put it up?"
Duncan: "Probably not."
Joe asks him why he doesn't stay.
Duncan: "Too many questions left unanswered. Better just to disappear."
As he speaks, the scene shifts back to the ruined fort, another aerial shot, and we see Duncan doing katas on the grass outside as Joe says, "Yeah, I guess that what's legends are supposed to do." Few more strains of "Bonny Portmore" as the scene pulls away...
Notes: Coupla things that are worth mentioning here. First of all, if you haven't seen this episode, and you own Loreena McKennitt's CD "The Visit," I'd recommend putting it on and playing "Bonny Portmore" a few times while you read through this. They use that song (different recording) all through this episode, and it's very much a part of the whole mood. Second, there are so many beautiful shots of the countryside that I can't even begin to describe them here. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the best episodes, visually, they've ever made. I don't usually notice directing, and I swear I didn't catch on that Adrian Paul directed until after I'd admired how lovely it was.
Another thing that I didn't mention was every time a raven shows up. Almost every time we go into the woods at night, especially when Kanwulf's around, there's a raven sitting nearby, and we often hear them croaking (or whatever it is that ravens do). Actually, I'm only assuming it's a raven. It's a black bird, anyway...
Coming soon, "Brothers in Arms"...
These pages are written by Jinjifore and are translated into HTML and maintained by Ian.
Disclaimer: All the dialogue, characters, situations, and darn near everything else belong to a bunch of fine and talented folks at Rysher Entertainment and Panzer/Davis, and in particular the dialogue belongs to the credited writer of this episode. Me, I just wrote the rest down in my own words, which belong to me, but the episode itself was made by the aforementioned people and is owned by them. This humble synopsis isn't meant to infringe on their rights, and I'm sure as heck not making any money from doing these.
Everything not belonging to Rysher, et al, ©Copyright 1997 by Jinjifore
Feel free to copy and distribute as long as this copyright notice and disclaimer are included, except where local bandwidth laws apply.
Also, check out Ian's home page.
Celtic clip art courtesy of the Celtic Art Web Page.
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