Duncan: You wanna tell me?
Carl: I don't owe you any explanations, MacLeod.
Duncan: You're right you don't.
Carl: Look, don't you judge me, man!
Duncan: It sounds to me like you've done that already.
Carl: What's that supposed to mean?
Duncan: It means I don't wanna play games, Carl. If you wanna be a thief and live like this, then that's up to you.
Carl: I live the way they LET me live, alright?
Duncan: Right...
Carl: Hey look, you ain't me, you ain't black--
Duncan: This has nothing to do with being black!
0:58 Welcome to Highlander Rewatched! The podcast where each and every week we revisit our favorite franchise from the Eighties and Nineties, Highlander! I'm one of your re-Watchers, Keith!
This is Kyle.
This is Eamon!
1:10 Keith: And welcome to this week's episode! Before we get started, we thought we'd tackle a little reader-mail, or listener-mail. We always call it reader-mail, but I guess it's really listener-mail. **Hmm** Hm!
Kyle: Well, now, as fate would have it, there are some transcripts available on our Facebook page of our podcast!
Keith: Yeah! That's very true!
Kyle: So technically you could be a reader!
Keith: Yes, you could!
Eamon: That's right.
Kyle: Very technically, though! **Yeah.**
1:32 Keith: If you know of anybody that doesn't have access to this podcast, perhaps, I don't know, English as a second language, those sort of things, send them to our Facebook page, and they can check out the transcripts. We'll be posting them as they become available. So for ou--
Kyle: Big thanks to our listener Jill for setting that up for us. It's a lot of work and we really appreciate it!
1:49 Keith: Absolutely! So, this week's question that we're going to read was from a couple of weeks ago. It was from The Return of Amanda episode! And the question of the week was "Where do the bullets go when Immortals are shot?" And I think we all had some fairly straightforward thoughts on this.
2:04 Kyle: I thought, I felt pretty definitive about it. **Keith: Right.** The Return of the Curse of the Bullets of Amanda.
Keith: Ah, so Magdalena wrote us and she said, "I always just thought they melted, to be honest. -smiley face-"
Kyle: Jill writes "Depends on the writer. Since most of the series is attempting to keep the Immortals as human as possible, I like to go with they might poop 'em out." *laughter*
Eamon: WHAT?!
Keith: I kind of like that.
Kyle: Rock-solid! Though, how do they... if they're trying to... I'm not going to think about it too hard.
Eamon: Well it's like if you eat corn.
Keith: Oh boy. Oh, boy. It's like if you eat corn...
2:42 Eamon: Vince writes: "Maybe they just dissolve in their bodies, then a good Quickening acts like Metamucil and gets it out of them."
Kyle: You gotta break apart the bullets and cough 'em out.
Eamon: That's right. Then listener Christophe says "They get out by natural ways."
2:56 Keith: dot dot dot natural ways.
Eamon: Natural ways.
Keith: Those old natural ways!
Eamon: That's right!
Kyle: I feel like in the 1700s that would be a euphemism for something that we're not getting. **Eamon: Hmm.**
3:10 Keith: So, we also have a very special reader response. **Eamon: Ooooh!** Kind of. By proxy.
Kyle: Kind of sort of, a little bit.
3:13 Keith: So, this is from Adrian Paul's fan magazine, The Peace Magazine, and this is from issue 8, from February 1996. **Eamon: Wow!**
Kyle: So it's a blast from the past.
Keith: Yeah, blast from the past. And so someone asked Adrian this very question in the magazine. The question they asked was: "What happens to all the bullets in your body when you're shot? By now you must be clanking as you walk around, and be in danger of setting off the metal detectors in Vancouver." Uh, don't you mean "Seacouver"? Uh, sorry. "Shouldn't Duncan go in for a hundred-year body service or something to have all those foreign bodies removed?"
3:43 Keith: So, Adrian Paul responded: "Why? I like foreign bodies!" *COUGH*
Kyle: Hoh-HOH! Hubba hubba hubba!
Keith: "Actually, MacLeod just had his fifty-year checkup. He'd been out of trouble for a while, and didn't need one until recently. You can imagine what it was like when Mac had to go to war. He was being serviced EVERY month." Ke&Kyle: Serviced by foreign bodies! **Kyle: Ur ur ur!**
4:03 Keith: "The bullets, if they don't pass through or just graze, are taken out later, I think, otherwise he'd have to tell airport security that he's had metal plates stuck inside him." **Eamon: Hmmm.**
Keith: There we go. Adrian Paul.
Kyle: So, that's sort of an answer. A little bit. Kind of. Maybe. If you squint!
Eamon: I mean, I guess if you're Immortal, you should be antiquated with amateur surgery?
Kyle: Wow, that's gotta be so painful, just sticking your dirty finger into your own body to rip out or pull out a bullet. Oh God! I got these rusty tweezers!
Keith: Yeah, but I don't know. Before that, they wouldn't have to do too much surgery on themselves because they would just heal.
Eamon: That's true. Heal up. Yeah.
Keith: It's only those bullets. The bullet factor! **Eamon: Hmm.** We also have another bit of re--
4:45 Kyle: Before that it was like arrows and there are plenty of ways to get foreign bodies stuck in your... actual body. That's right.
Keith: Hah-hah! Now we're talking! **Eamon: Oooh.**
Kyle: Yeah yeah! Arrowheads, am I right?
Keith: So, Dominik S also writes us about this, and he is one of our listeners from Germany, so we're going to read a little bit more of his response in a minute. But regarding this question, he says: "I think the body breaks down the material like the remains of food, and it goes right to where the Ninja Turtles live! Magic disappearance or coming out the bullet hole, or even staying in the body, doesn't make sense to me." That's true. Alright, so--
5:17 Kyle: I like to imagine that the bullets then, he means, go to Dimension X! That's actually where it goes. I know they don't live there, nerds, but..!
Eamon: Yeah, before you send all these e-mails in!
Kyle: (Krang-imitation) Well actually, it's the Krang who comes from Dimension X, **ea?: Krang!** Whoa! I don't know we--it's really us that's forging this Ninja Turtles connection, as I think about it, because it keeps coming up, and it's our fault.
Keith: I think it's just that we like Ninja Turtles so much. **Yeah.** **Eamon: Turtle Power.** Pizza-time!
Keith: So, Dominik is one of our listeners from Germany. He had some kind of special insight into The Return of Amanda, which is set of course in pre-World War Two Germany. **Kyle: Right!** Let's read what he had to say.
5:57 Ke reads Dominik: Okay. I don't want to be too harsh on the flashback, since they did a really nice job turning Vancouver into pre-war Germany. The language doesn't make too much sense, though. I figured they tried to speak with an accent and Elizabeth Gracen even tried to do a Marlene Dietrich impression while singing "English German." But while I'm kind of okay with the German speaking English with a German accent in Berlin, it's annoying that they keep going with "meine liebchen" and "meine herr". Seriously. Even back then, nobody here would have used that so many times. Especially not a lady (meaning Amanda), on a man (Henrik), since meine liebchen can only be said to women." **Ke as self: Interesting!** **Eamon: Mmm!** "The folklore musicians in the park make NO sense at all! It's not unusual for American productions to put some of those liederhosen zombies in a scene--" *laughter* "--to make it a German setting, but these traditional costumes are very specifically Bavarian, right. Bavaria is one of sixteen different states in Germany, and you'll never find musicians like that anywhere else. Especially not in Berlin. Berlin is north-east in Germany, and Bavaria is in the south. This is a funny observation. Uh, what else?" **Ke as self: I like this stream of consciousness!** "So what else? Oh! The nightclub cabaret, right? A nice set dressing, a detail in the wine cards, the wine list on the table. But did you realize that Werner and Duncan already had TWO completely full glasses when the waiter brings them two new ones? Is this party-night? So what's next, Immortal hangover?" *Eamon laughs*
7:16 Kyle: Mac likes Double fist Champagne.
Eamon: I thought he was drinking a martini or something. **Keith: Hmm!** But yeah. Two full-to-the-brim martinis the night you have to undergo an espionage operation.
Kyle: ...Makes you be loose. You gotta keep it light.
7:31 Keith: And Dominik actually provides some trivia here, too. He says "A little behind-the-scenes trivia is that the song Amanda sings, 'Nobody's Sister', was written by Eva LaPierre, the wife of Producer Ken Gord." **Eamon: Yeah!** **Kyle: Oh, that's cool!** **Eamon: Yeah." And then finally Dominic writes "You also asked about the swastika, and you were absolutely right. It's not only the money-people from Germany that didn't like swastikas in Highlander, specifically. That is more a general issue. It gets basically censored. If it's in a movie and you can't change it, cut it. It sometimes stays in there, but if there's any way to avoid having it, they still do. Even Tarantino's Inglorious Bastard got the swastikas replaced on the poster. It stayed in the movie, though. They take this stuff very seriously here."
Ea & Kyle: Interesting.
8:08 Keith: Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your e-mail, Dominik! We really appreciate it, and we thank everybody who writes in, and you can always reach us at highlanderrewatched@gmail.com or you can write to us right on our Facebook page. We always post our questions of the week there.
Kyle: Yeah. And we especially love these kind of international insights, because this is fundamentally an international show. We talk about that a lot, so these details about what the show is like in other places, are especially fascinating.
Keith: Absolutely. Also, one thing before we jump into this week's episode... Kyle! You were actually at a wedding for our last episode, so Eamon and I did that solo! So, anyway, did you have any thoughts on Revenge of the Sword that you wanted to share with anybody?
8:46 Kyle: Good gravy this episode! *laughter* So, did you guys talk of... is that actually Liu Kang?
Eamon: No.
Keith: No, but somebody--
Kyle: One of our commenters called him Liu Kang and I went, "Wait, wait. What what what?!" **Eamon: Yeah.**
Keith: But something we neglected to talk about somehow was that he is from Episode *Kyle:* Three--
Eamon: Yeah, *with Keith: The Road Not Taken.* Yeah.
Kyle: I thought you did talk about that.
Eamon: Nope.
Keith: Nope.
Kyle: Did we just talk about that afterwards?
Keith: I think we talked about it independently, [but] we forgot to bring it up on the podcast. He was a main character. Actually THE main villain, essentially, in a Season One episode.
Kyle: "Tea! I hate tea!"
Eamon: Right. He's the one that offered Fat Dave Foley tea. *laughter*
9:22 Keith: So yeah, he's back again. And it's so puzzling when the show does that; when they use a main character... I get using a background person, or somebody that you would probably forget, but he was the main bad guy in that episode!
Kyle: So I had a few thoughts on this. I don't want to get too far into it, because this is an episode that's really not worth that much of our time, fundamentally, about the Tong. I'm pretty sure it was a communal society, effectively, for Asian Americans especially in a lot of areas where they were pretty heavily discriminated against, and then... kind of beneath the surface... some organized crime elements developed. Sidenote: The Tong is mentioned over and over again in the Street Fighter movie.
10:01 Keith: Are they really?! **Eamon: Oh!**
Kyle: Oh, yeah! Beca--
Eamon: Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme?
Keith: And Raul Julia--
Kyle: Yeah, as Bison and Guile--
Keith: His swan-song. **Eamon: Yeah.**
Kyle: Oh God, yeah. "Acclaimed actor Raul Julia's last movie."
Eamon: He actually has some good lines in that movie. He's like the highlight of that otherwise ultimately forgettable movie called Street Fighter that has almost zero fighting in it.
Kyle: And zero streets.
Eamon: Zero streets!
Kyle: There's fighting! Not on streets. *laughter* But their interpretation of that: Sagat, the one-eyed punch man, is in fact the leader of the Tong, in the context of that movie, and that just made me giggle the whole time, **Keith: That's good.** while thinking of what organization he's a part of. He's actually just a street player.
10:49 Keith: Amazing. So, guys! Let us hop into this week's episode! This week we are talking about Highlander the Series Season Two: Episode Nine! Run For Your Life! This episode originally aired Monday, November 22nd, 1993. This was directed by Dennis Berry! He's back! We've seen him a number of times. He's done Eye for an Eye, The Return of Amanda, we'll see him again. And it was written by Naomi Janzen! She wrote one episode of "War of the Worlds", which starred Adrian Paul as Kincaid--**Eamon: Hmm!** --but she was also--I think we talked about her previously, because she wrote Studies in Light. But she's the person that wrote for "Are You Afraid of the Dark". "The Tale of the Frozen Ghost" and "The Tale of the Lonely Ghost"--*laughter*
Eamon: "The Ghost--" what did we call it? *together* "Duology"? Yeah. *laughter*
Kyle: The Curse of the Return of the Frozen Ghost.
Eamon: That's right.
Keith: And she's got one more to come in Season Three, which is a very good one.
Eamon: I want to also mention she wrote "Gentle Ben Two".
Keith: What is that?
Eamon: Gentle Ben is a movie about a friendly bear.
Keith: Oh boy.
Kyle: A bear named Ben?
Eamon: Yeah. A bear named Ben, and he's a gentle bear. There's also a very funny Simpsons joke where Gentle Ben has a talk show, and he goes nuts and mauls the audience.
Kyle: He's not that gentle!
Keith: Is this a cartoon movie, or is this a live--?
Eamon: I think it's a live-action movie.
Keith: Interesting.
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: Does he talk, or anything? Like it's-- (a Homeward Bound situation?)
Eamon: I don't think Gentle Ben talks. Yeah.
Kyle: He's just gentle.
Keith: He's just a gentle bear?
Eamon: He's just a gentle bear. But she wrote Gentle Ben Two. I thought that was funny.
Kyle: Not the first one.
Eamon: Not the first one.
Keith: Just the second.
Eamon: *laughs* Not Gentle Ben.
Keith: Gentler! Gentler!
Kyle: Gentler Ben!
Eamon: Gentler Ben. **Keith: Gentless Ben--** Gentle Ben Two: Get Gentler.
*laughter* Kyle: The Gentling!
12:26 Eamon: Yeah. She also wrote for Forever Knight, which keeps coming up. **Keith: Yeah, a lot.** We might have to do a bonus episode...
Keith: Oh, we should! That would be fun!
Eamon: Yeah.
12:34 Keith: This episode has a couple of guest stars! It guest-starts Bruce A. Young as Carl Robinson! He's been in a ton of stuff. He was in The Sentinel TV show, Jurassic Park III--
Eamon: Becker!
Keith: Becker! Heheehee!
Kyle: I had to look him up on IMDb, because I could not name a single thing he's in, but was just overwhelmed by the sense that I'd seen him everywhere!
Keith: Exactly! **Kyle: He's great.** He's in tons and tons of stuff. But also I was wondering because, not to get into the episode already, but his name is Carl Robinson. Is that a combination of Jackie Robinson and Carl Lewis?
Eamon: Probably.
Kyle: That was what I was thinking. I [thought] "Huh! Interesting sports name!"
Keith: Yeah, and he wants to be a baseball player.
In turn: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah. Yeah, see! Yeah! Yeah.
13:14 Keith: This episode also guest stars Adrian Holmes as Johnnie! He's gotten pretty big now. He's Lt. Frank Pike on Arrow! **Eamon: MMmm!** Yeah. And he was Basqat on Smallville? He was a member of Zod's army, when they did that Zod subplot.
Kyle: Well, wait, what's his name?
Keith: The actor?
Kyle: No. The character's name.
Keith: Isn't it Basqat or--
Kyle: BasqUAT? *hahahahah*
Keith: Basquit?
Eamon: Bas-ki-ot.
Keith: Is that it?
Eamon: B-A-S-Q-U-A-I-T. **Keith: Yeah.** It's Basquiot.
Keith: Basquiot.
Eamon: Like the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Why would a Kryptonian have the name Basquiat? *laughter* Is it like Bas dash ki dash ot? **Keith: I don't think so.** That's the Kryptonian three-name structure.
Keith: Oh, that's right!
Eamon: I don't know.
Kyle: Fart. *laughter*
Keith: So, the episode description from good old trusty IMDb is--
Kyle: Yes yes yes yes! I'm so excited for this one, I had to stay away from it!
14:05 Keith: We've got one coming up in a later episode that's really good, guys. Alright, so, this episode description is: Duncan saved Immortal Carl Robinson from lynching in 1926 Louisiana. Carl became a famous colored league baseball star with aspirations of becoming a politician, but he has since become disillusioned after seeing years of racism and corruption. He now lives on the streets and steals to get by. When he steals Charlie's car to get away from drug dealers after stealing their money, Duncan tries to help him overcome his longstanding hatred of and distrust for whites, and he helps him deal with a racist cop who is after him.
*laughter*
14:43 Kyle: The tag--that last line's the best.
Eamon: Okay. Way to bury the lead.
14:48 Keith: He helps him deal with it!
Eamon: I want to talk about the cop for a second. Géza Kovács? **Keith: Yes.** He's the actor. He was on this show called "The Littlest Hobo", **Keith: OH THAT'S RIGHT!** which is a Canadian TV show about a dog who travels from place to place solving mysteries?
Kyle: And he's a hobo? **Eamon: Yeah!** Does he take--does he solve these mysteries on trains?
Eamon: I don't know! I don't know how this dog is a hobo! I guess 'cause he's traveling? The idea that they're calling a dog a hobo is very funny to me.
Kyle: Is it just 'cause he carries around one of those sticks with a handkerchief tied to the end of it?
Eamon: A bindle?
Kyle: A bindle! **Eamon: Yeah.** Maybe that's it!
Eamon: But then also he's a German Shepherd which they aren't that small, those dogs, so--**Keith: No.** other wandering dogs have the potential to be littler than this Littlest Hobo.
Kyle: If we're accepting that dogs can be hobos, there's no way that's the littlest hobo.
Keith: That's right. *laughter*
Eamon: Anyway, sorry for that hobo aside!
15:44 Kyle: So, no, we actually open on some dogs 'cause this episode opens, it says Louisiana 1926, and my note was, in real time, "Oh, those are two beautiful Bloodhounds! Oh, nope. This is a lynching!" *laughter*
Keith: I was surprised at the title card. I was so happy! This is, I think this is the very first time we've ever gotten--**Kyle: like a proper title card?**--a proper title card! I don't know why they decided to do it! They tell us when and where we are, which is great!
Eamon: I--
Kyle: From now on they should just have a title card that comes up and just says "Figure it the fuck out!" *laughter*
Eamon: Or if it opens in Seacouver: "Seacouver: Now."
Keith: Use context clues! *laughter* So, there is a lynching going down, and Carl Robinson is one of the three people that are about to be lynched by some hillbilly fucks.
Kyle: Yeah. These guys are quite racist, but Mac happens to be nearby in a Model-T!
Keith: Yes. So he sees what's going on and he just makes a charge at the lynching posts, or I don't what we'd call them. They've got these... it's like makeshift--
Eamon: They're like weird teepee-shaped, almost--
Keith: They honestly don't look very strong--**Eamon: Noo.** Like if you got hung from it, I think they'd break.
Eamon: Yeah. They're like sticks stacked in a weird, triangular formation.
Keith: Yeah. So Duncan busts up all these things with his car and the three black people that are about to be lynched go running, and all these racist guys and their dogs go after them.
Eamon: And one of them shoots Mac.
Keith: That's right, yeah. Mac gets shot for helping out. And Duncan also introduces himself to Carl at this point, and it's so dramatic, it's awesome.
17:16 Kyle: This is crazy! Like they--Mac is so close to him before the buzz happens, like they are practically kissing. They are right ON each other before he ever gets the buzz! And as soon as Mac shows up, these racists kind of forget what they're there to do. Which, I guess when you're talking about a racist is a good thing. But they're just like "What do we do now?"
Keith: But yeah. Duncan introduces himself. *gruffly (not Ke?)* "I'm Duncan MacLeod... of the Clan MacLeod." That's really good. I wanted to get up and clap when it happened. I [said] "YES!" This felt like the most James-Bondy it's ever been delivered. There was a big pause, I was thinking yeah, stretch it, make a big thing out of it.
Kyle: That's not all that's stretching! Ho! Cut that.
17:54 Keith: So, after this we are back in the present and we get to listen to some real funky music, and we see Carl walking in this big duster, with his sidekick? His teenage sidekick.
Kyle: And if it wasn't clear before, this dude is ENORMOUS. He is huge. He looks pretty badass.
Eamon: Yeah he does. He does. I had a thought. Are there any Wire listeners out there? Wire... listeners? Wire watchers? This guy's like Omar, from The Wire. He's like Omar Prime.
Keith: Yes! I have that same note, actually, on here. "This guy's like Omar!" So, He spots some drug dealers. These thugs that are just dealing drugs--
Kyle: These are the two worse drug dealers that have ever--who have ever slung powder.
Keith: And these guys look like they're right out of Beverly Hills Cop II, I guess.
Kyle: Beverly Hills Cop II! Go on.
Keith: Isn't that the drug dealer ep--*snort*--the episode of Beverly Hills Cop, uh--
Eamon: Yeah, with the--
Keith: The German dudes or whatever? **Yeah.****Yeah.** They're all very Aryan--
Kyle: There's drug-dealing in all of them.
Keith: Anyway, Carl says: "Looks like somebody's about to have a drug problem." **Eamon: Yeah!** And he goes--
Eamon: He [says] "Ricky, we're gonna need some wheels."<--*Keith too*
19:05 Kyle: This is just so insane! 'cuz first off it's broad daylight, it's this massive drug deal that they're doing in plain view, and that is... this is not just like a hand-to-hand transaction, that is a KILO of cocaine!
Keith: It's a lot.
Kyle: That is tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs, and they're just "Would you like some drugs?" "Yes, I'd like some drugs!" "Hey, this man's watching us sell drugs. Is this a problem?" "Nah, he'll move on."
Eamon: Yeah. Also, he's--**Kyle: It'll come!**--brandishing a sawed-off shotgun at one of the guys in broad daylight.
Kyle: Also, highly illegal. **Keith: Yeah!** That is mandatory time!
Keith: So, Carl is interfering with this drug deal, and while this is happening we find out that Charlie and Duncan are just right around the corner. And we've gotta play this clip because it's awesome.
Kyle: I had such a vivid memory of this clip. I didn't know it was in this episode, but as a kid growing up, I remember Duncan MacLeod teaching me lessons about Chinese food!
19:58 Charlie: Now, was that great Chinese, or what, man? I feel like I'm going to explode.
DM - I'm not surprised, the way you eat. (indistinct background woman's scolding voice)
Charlie - Hey, well, what I want to know is, how come in an hour I'm going to be hungry?
DM - Because you don't eat enough fat and protein. You eat rice and vegetables...
Charlie - Uh-huh?
DM - ...and rice digests faster than any other carbohydrate.
Charlie - Oh, wow. You know, you are a walking, talking encyclopedia, MacLeod!
(background indignant voice during Charlie's sentence) I'm telling you the truth!--right!
20:22 Keith: So, Seacouver is SO rundown in this scene as well! **Yeah.** There is graffiti on the ra--on the wall that says *with others* "KELLY KING RAT!" *laughter* There also--there seem to be prostitutes everywhere!
Eamon: Yup. Doesn't Charlie run a gym? Shouldn't he know about healthy eating?
Keith: --healthy eating!
Kyle: Mac's just liKeith: Screw your rice and vegetables, man! *whispers* Is Mac on the Atkins Diet?
Keith: Yeah, they've got different regimens. Charlie's all about being lean and quick, and Mac's about bulking up!
Kyle: Yeah! Do you even lift, bro? *laughter*
20:57 Eamon: The Mac-kins Diet. *Ky & Keith: OOOOOOH! No!*
Kyle: See, and he doesn't have to worry about having a heart attack, like the guy who invented the Atkins Diet!
Eamon: Poor guy. I think that was related... wasn't that related to ice skating or something? *laughter*
Kyle: Go on!
Eamon: I feel like the Atkins guy died falling over ice skating or something. *Keith: Oh.* I might've made that up. Look it up. Google! Doctor Atkins.
Keith: Somebody tell us.
Kyle: We didn't, clearly, so...
21:22 Keith: We see that Carl and his sidekick--what's his name? Ricky? **Eamon: Ricky.** Ricky! They are making off with this money--**Eamon: Right.**
Kyle: Well, we should talk about the actual lifting of the drugs. **Keith: Okay.** 'Cuz this is--**Eamon: Yeah.** There's a lot going on here. So these other guys--this guy brandishing the sawed-off shotgun gets housed by Carl. **Eamon: Mmhm.** And he quickly takes it, he sticks them up, and he [says] "I don't want your blow. Just the money." And then he SHOOTS the blow with the sawed-off shotgun! As if to advertise to everyone around "Oh by the way, if this drug deal wasn't obvious enough, I just exploded drugs all over this alleyway."
Eamon: Yeah! And also, just shooting off a double-barrel shotgun in the middle of the day--
Kyle: The whole thing is just... then, the best is, he makes them kiss the ground! He even says "Kiss the ground."
Keith: He says "Kiss the ground..."
Kyle: So he makes them lay down, and then he makes them *with Keith:* get up and leave! *laughter* No, you're the one who gets up and leaves! They're on the ground, so you have time to get away! Wha--wezp, lph uh?! It's very puzzling. Carl, I get... we're supposed to think he's done this before--**Keith: Oh, yeah.**--BUT--**Keith: Doesn't seem like it.**--I feel like he'd be better at it.
Keith: Right!
Eamon: I think he just thinks the ground looked lonely. And he wanted it to get some attention.
Keith: That's his fetish. So kiss it. Yeah, baby! Kiss the ground!
Kyle: Yeah, the ground wants it! Oh! Dirty!
Eamon: But meanwhile, Ricky's been lifting a car, but not using the Lift App, just stealing it.
Keith: Right! Ah, so--
Kyle: *laughs* The old-fashioned Lift App. **Eamon: That's right.** **Keith: It turns out--** A coat hanger!
Keith: --they are stealing, or he is stealing Charlie's car--**Eamon: Right.**--we find out. So eventually Charlie, Mac, and Carl and Ricky kind of--these two scenes converge. Carl gets in the car to speed away, and Charlie & Mac are like "That's my car!" and a chase ensues.
Kyle: Immediately wrecks it! Immediately wrecks the car! Drills it instantly!
Eamon: Then Carl has to run away, and Mac and Charlie give chase. One thing about this episode. Carl Robinson... Bruce Young, he had to run SO much in this episode. **Kyle: Yes!** This must have been an exhausting... I mean, it looks like he's in great shape, but geez louise! *laughter*
23:34 Keith: Yeah, I wonder how many takes they had to do of these running scenes. **Eamon: Yeah.** I hope few. 'Cuz--**Kyle: Yeah, 'cuz huffin' and puffin'.**
Eamon: 'Cuz there's a whole scene of the lynch mob people chasing him, and then there's a whole scene of Mac and Charlie chasing him, and they're kind of long scenes! **Keith: Yeah, they are!**
Kyle: Oh, yeah, like the lynching one. There's multiple scenes of him being chased, we're about to go back to that flashback, and it involves more of him running.
Eamon: Yeah. Good job keeping in shape, Bruce!
24:00 Keith: So, Carl's able to escape because he hops off a bridge onto a--**Kyle: Roof.**--rooftop and makes an escape that way, and I guess Charlie wants to follow him, but it's obviously dangerous, so Mac stops him.
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: So then we get our next flashback, which is back to the scene we started the episode with, so Carl is still on the run from the lynching mob. This is a great scene! I think it looks great. This whole flashback looks fantastic. I think this chase would be pretty boring if it weren't for the music--
Kyle: Yeah, because this is our first Jim Byrnes, right?
Keith: Yeah! Jim Byrnes is providing the music for this!
Eamon: Oh! That's pretty cool!
Keith: Yeah! So it's a cool tune, and yeah, it adds a lot of ambiance to the scene.
24:38 Kyle: It's so hard, in these episodes, when they're bouncing back and forth between real music and weird midi stuff. 'Cuz, we haven't played it yet, but the drum track that they've decided is Carl's modern-day theme, is giggle inducing, and then it cuts to an actual high production value song, and it's like "Whoa!" It's like you're watching two different shows. Oh, also, Truman was going nuts barking at these racist Bloodhounds--
Keith: *amused* Who's Truman, Kyle?
Kyle: Oh, excuse me. Truman is my pug. My little monster dog. And he's going ballistic, and I [said] "Yeah! Screw these racist dogs, Truman! Give 'em what for!"
Eamon: Carl is running, running, running, they split up, and then he comes across Mac who has revived, and is driving his lynch-smasher away.
Kyle: Hahah "Lynch-smasher!" That's a great name for a Monster Truck!
Keith: So, Carl gets in the car--or actually hops on the side of the car, whatever, and they speed away. So they make an escape--
Eamon: We should also say that when Carl jumps on the roof, Mac gets a good look at him and they recognize one another.
25:39 Keith: Yeah, in the previous scene, when Carl makes his escape, they have a moment and they're like "It's you!" "It's YOU!" *sings a note* So, a little bit later in this flashback, I guess Duncan and Carl are kind of cleaning up. They've parked near a barn.
Kyle: They've gotten away. It's time for some exposition.
25:55 Keith: Absolutely. The way this scene is set up, it's Mac's washing his shirt, he's shirtless, looking buff, and I [thought] "This is the opening scene to a fanfiction right here." *laughter* **Kyle: Hubba hubba!** So we get some background on Carl. We find out that he was, I guess, first killed when he was still a slave in the 1850s--**Kyle: 1859.**--1859. And he was killed, I guess, unjustly by his slave master.
Kyle: Right, 'cuz his daughter was pregnant and, for whatever reason he gets blamed for it, and he gets killed. As he says it: "Gets in a family way."
Keith: Right!
Kyle: Are we talking about a natural way? **Eamon: Yeah.** Ways and Means Commission!
Keith: Any which way but loose. **Kyle: Committee.**
Eamon: Oooooh, Clint Eastwood.
Keith: Clint Eastwood, and a monkey! *laughter*
Eamon: That's right.
26:36 Keith: So we find out that Carl's got some aspirations. His plan is to move north, and he wants to, I guess, play baseball. Ah, so we get some shots of him throwing rocks at a bottle. He's clearly very good at being a pitcher.
Kyle: There's a crazy triple cut of him smashing this bottle. **Keith: Right!** It's like WHOA, all right. I guess we're really seeing this bottle break. This is the part that's super-weird about this whole thing. Mac wants to go kill these racists. Or something. I don't know what he wants to do, but Mac is hot for some vengeance.
Eamon: Well, he wants Carl to go to the police. **Keith: Right.** Carl [says] "No, I won't get any justice."
Keith: That's not going to happen. They won't get any just--yeah.
Kyle: But Mac still pushes! Like he--well that's like--he--my--he wants to go get them. Like some revenge from revengeance! **Keith: *amused* Revengeance.** *laughter* It seemed out of char--out of... a little bit out of place. But at the same time I was [thinking] "Okay, I guess I get it. Like, they did shoot you with a shotgun, Mac."
Keith: But I guess now we know where all those pellets that were embedded in his chest went! *laugh* He POOPED 'em out!
Eamon: This just made me think of Studies in Light, where Gregor gets shot, and Mac just lets the shooter run away. I guess Mac just took it personally. I mean, these are also racists who are lynching people, so... but I'm like, who's to say this nutcase who shot Gregor won't harm other people?
Keith: This is true. Yeah. Sometimes he seeks justice, and sometimes he doesn't.
Kyle: Yeah, we're going to have a lot to say about that in future episodes, **Keith: Yes we will!** maybe! **Eamon: Yeah.** We'll tease that for now. But that's really heavily addressed in some of the other episodes that are coming up.
28:04 Keith: Absolutely. So, after this we get a great smash-cut back to the present, and Duncan is driving around doing his typical detective work or whatever...
Eamon: This is another Road Not Taken sequence, where he's just driving around, **Keith: Looking!** for something. I thought this was an interesting montage. I thought they captured some interesting-looking people. There are some cool shots of looking up through buildings from what I thought was an interesting angle. The song is ridiculous. *laughter*
Keith: I thought the song was kind of awesome, and ridiculous at the same time. I was kind of digging it.
Kyle: Explain the awesome part.
Keith: I'll play it. Let's play a little bit of this song.
28:44 ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
Eamon: Is this a real band?
Keith: Yes. So, this guy's name is Keith Scott, **Eamon: Oh yeah.** And he is the guitar player for, ah, what's his name? The Brian Adams band. **Oh! Forgot about that.** Yeah. Rockin' out, man. Hooo!
Kyle: So this sequence started fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds into the episode. It does not end until over three minutes later. At eighteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds. **Eamon: Yup.** And it's just more--it's just Mac....**Keith: Come on guys.** It's just Mac driving around staring at poor people. That IS this montage
♩ ♪ Sometimes you're walking through the shadows at night
Your eyes are open but you can't see the light♩ ♪
29:27 Keith: It's not just poor people--
Eamon: There's a weird super-hero man that they feature, twice.
Keith: Everybody is crippled! Half--fifty percent of the people in this montage have some sort of disability. Everyone is on crutches, wheelchairs. It's really weird, I thought!
Eamon: It's gritty, man.
Kyle: Yeah. On the mean streets of Seacouver.
Eamon: That's right!
Kyle: It's nuts. Also, three minutes is, roughly speaking, seven percent of this episode. *laughter* Seven percent of this episode is Mac driving around. It was driving me absolutely insane. Also, I'm surprised to hear so many nice things about this montage. To me, this montage felt like an eternity. If they'd said it was a three-hour montage, I would have been like "Okay!"
Keith: I was just onboard that song.
Eamon: Yeah! I thought the song was funny. If we compare the two montages, I think this montage blows The Road Not Taken's montage out of the water.
30:19 Kyle: So when you're having a filler-battle, oh which filler is filling more? I guess maybe I agree with that assessment. But this is still crippling filler. **Keith: Yes.** **Eamon: Yup.**
30:29 Keith: So, a little bit later... so Duncan is looking for, I guess, Carl-slash-Ricky. He ends up seeing Ricky trying to break into a car, and my first thought is how does he even recognize him? I went back and looked at the footage, and they barely see Ricky get out of the car. But I guess he sees him, or draws the connection that "Oh, he's breaking into a car, that's what that other person did!"
Kyle: All carjackers are one! There's only one carjacker in Seacouver!
Eamon: There can be only one carjacker in Seacouver.
Keith: That's Ricky! So, I guess Duncan follows Ricky back to Carl's... hideout on the pier? I guess then Mac and Carl have a little chat.
31:02 Eamon: Carl, on the wall, has his Master's degree framed, and it's in Political Science--**Keith: Yeah.**--and also pictures of his baseball career. So he did follow his dreams to some point.
Keith: He got a degree from Howard and yeah, he's a baseball player.
Kyle: Yeah. It seems like he did all right. This episode is very kind of cavalier about what actually goes wrong with this guy.
Eamon: Yeah, I think they don't tell you at all.
Kyle: Yeah, like they now have this weird conversation... was this actually our opening?
Keith: Yes. This is the clip that we played in the opening.
Kyle: This is our opening, about his life being derailed by racism. And that is a perfectly reasonable thing to have happened, but they never explain what that racist thing that happened to him was, **Eamon: Right.** 'cuz on paper it looks like he accomplished everything he set out to do. And it's like, what IS wrong?
Keith: Yeah, I'm not sure--
Kyle: Do the writers think the only thing you can do with a Political Science degree is run for office? Because, yeah then maybe you're disappointed, but he's obviously a very sophisticated, intelligent, competent person, so... wha' happen?
Keith: Yeah. It would have been nice if we had a flashback that showed things go wrong, or a montage of things not working out for him because of racism. Not that I don't think that could have happened. I mean, this is all legitimate. But we don't get to see it.
32:14 Kyle: Oh yeah. Why don't--why not at least be specific? I don't know. It's just crazy! He's got a degree from a really world-class university. He's got a degree from a place nicknamed the Black Harvard, so... seems like he should at least NOT be at rock bottom?
Keith: Yeah. It would have been maybe even better if they just didn't show us that he made it. Like if all his dreams didn't happen, and you know, that's the turning point of this episode. "You know what, now I'm gonna change," or whatever. But, yeah, we showed that it does happen, so it just kind of is a little huh?
Kyle: It is a little bit of a head-scratcher. Do we want to talk about this actual conversation they have, though?
Keith: Yes! *laughter*
32:51 Kyle: This is the vaguest conversation. This taps's him, this is the vaguest conversation about racism. This is like a drunk conversation had by white people at a Thanksgiving. *laughter* Is what it feels like to me.
33:08 Keith: Yeah, so Carl just basically says that he's never made it because of racism, and Mac is just like "It's not about being black! It's about stealing cars!"
Eamon: There's not really much to say about this conversation.
Kyle: That's the thing, it just--d'y--That's the thing that drove me so nuts about it. It sounded like... I wonder if this conversation had more substance, and they removed some of it, or they just heard about a conversation of race once. "Hey, I heard sometimes people talk about race." "Yeah. Let's imagine what that's like!"
Keith: It's all pretty surface level. This episode is about racism, that's what this scene tells us.
Kyle: Yeah, it's liKeith: Hey, in case you're wondering what this episode's actually about, it's sort of about racism. **Keith: Right.**
33:44 Keith: So, we cut to the police station, and Charlie is there going through, I guess--
Eamon: Mug shots. Yeah.
Keith: --Mug shots. Right. And one of the cops there is... at this point, vaguely racist. **Eamon: Yeah.** Because he implies that Charlie can't count very high.
Ea?: Yeah, he's like "Hey, man! How many more of these do I gotta look through?"
Ke? "More than you can count!" And he's like "I can count pretty high!"
Eamon: "No offense!" **yup!** That was a re-enactment by Keith and Eamon. **Yup!**
Kyle: Really? We didn't--that wasn't the clip? *laughter* I got a little lost in that. You guys just transported me to another place where a mustachioed cop was being a dick! **Eamon: Yeah!** So he's going through the head shots and he spies the kid. **Keith: Yes.****Eamon: Right.** And then, eventually... it's a little weird that he sees the kid, and they have a moment about the kid. But then oh but wait, here's actually the guy. This is actually just him.
Eamon: And the cop says that he's wanted *sonorous* for MURDERRRRRRRR.
Keith: Murder, in Arizona.
Eamon: And car thievery. More car thievery.
Kyle: Yeah. So this guy then invents--we come to find out later that this murder charge is invented. Charlie now is being told by this guy that he's got a murder rap in Phoenix or something.
34:51 Keith: So, Carl is back at, I guess Mac's place. He comes to visit and talk more. And I love that when Carl arrives he goes right to the fridge and opens it up like it's--I thought that was a really neat little bit of their character and their relationship.
Kyle: Yeah! Parts of this relationship were really good. Like I loved that moment, and some of the flashback stuff where they see them again is pretty good.
Keith: Yeah, they have good chemistry together, I think.
Kyle: I kind of wish these scenes had been a bit reversed. Because this really helped buy into the relationship, a bit. So maybe establish the closeness before ramping into this vague emotionally-charged racism discussion. **Keith: Right.** They kind of started at ten and then dropped back down.
Keith: So we get some... a little bit more discussion of race, here, because Carl's like "Oh I bet you own this place, don't you?" And he [says] "Oh you're just another rich guy, like a rich white man that wants to--"
Eamon: "A guilt-ridden ruwi--" ppht. *laughter* "A guilt-ridden witch!" No, **Keith: That's it!** "Guilt-ridden rich white folk," what he describes Mac as.
Keith: Yeah, that wants to help out a poor Negro, he says. So I gu--
Kyle: Mac's got that White Guilt.
Keith: Yep. I am glad actually the show does bring this up, although it doesn't really follow through with this theme, at all. It actually kind of digs in deeper to this White Savior trope. **Eamon: Oh yeah, definitely.** As we'll get into later in the episode. But I am glad that it does bring it up as an issue.
Eamon: It seems like their relationship is soured, and we don't get that in any of the flashbacks. In all the flashbacks, they're friends. **Keith: Right.** They're hanging out, you know. It seems... well, when they meet again he did just steal Charlie's car... *laughter*
Keith: I think that's the point maybe where it sours, where he steals his friend's car.
Eamon: I feel like there's bad blood between them, aside from this. This seems like the kind of thing Mac could sweep under the rug. To me there seemed to be something under the surface that's never explained, or something.
Kyle: I think it's that they ramped it up so high. [From] them yelling at each other on the docks, it's hard to come down from that and just have a perfectly natural conversation in the next scene.
Eamon: Yeah, right.
36:46 Keith: So, Mac and Carl go downstairs, and Charlie's down in the Dojo, and so the three of these characters get to meet and shall we play this clip?
Eamon: Yeah, yeah!
Charlie: What the hell are you doing here? MacLeod, what is this?
Carl: Hey, easy, man. I just wanted to make a little restitution.
Charlie: Yeah, well, when they put your butt behind bars, man, then I'll have my restitution.
Carl: Hey, chill out, brother. I've got your money.
DM: Yeah, I know him. Carl Robinson, this is Charlie DeSalvo.
Eamon: Was he paying with that drug money?
Kyle: Probably.
Carl: Hey, what's up with you, man?
Charlie: MacLeod, who are you hanging with? This man's wanted for murder.
Carl: Murder? What the hell are you talking about?
Charlie: The man you killed in Arizona.
Carl: I've never even been to Arizona.
Charlie: Well, the cops say you have.
Carl: Well, the cops are damn liars.
Charlie: And you expect me to take your word for it?
Carl: Hey, you can take what you expect and shove it!
DM: *frustrated* All right, that's enough.
Carl to Duncan, low and serious: Look... if I killed somebody, believe me, I'd know it, and I wouldn't lie about it.
DM: I believe him, Charlie.
Charlie: Ho! And I'm supposed to believe him, too?
Carl: I don't care what you're supposed to do. You want this money or not?
Charlie: *icy* Just so you know, man, I identified you to the cops this morning.
Carl: *sneer* Well, that's real black of you, brother.
Charlie: *hard* Well, I'll drop the charges, BROTHER.
37:55 Keith: Oh, boy. Also, Duncan's reaction to this... I don't know if anyone noticed, when they get into this "That's real black of you, brother," Duncan starts rolling his eyes, and I was a little uncomfortable, I [thought] is this just Duncan being like, "Oh, black people!" it's like oh boy.
Kyle: Actually I'm not sure what that reaction is.
Eamon: Maybe he was just grumpy at Charlie not relaxing a little about this. To be fair, this guy did STEAL and wreck his car. **Keith: Yes, definitely.**
38:19 Kyle: So, I'm got a few thoughts on this. **Keith: Alright.** So, just to start it off: Charlie, man, you think this guy's wanted for murder and you TELL him about it? Whoa! You think this guy--You know this guy stole your car, and you think he killed somebody. Aaah, that's a huge tactical error. 'Cuz if that's correct, it's like oh, this guy, who you know to be--who stole your car, like you believe to be a criminal? He's gonna wreck you! 'Cuz what's he going to do? Wait around for you to call the cops? Probably not. But somehow he manages to convince him not to do that. I was a little flummoxed by that.
Keith: Yeah, this would have been a better aside to Mac. Like if Carl walked away and he was like "Look. He's wanted for murder. This guy's not who--your friend isn't who you think he is, either."
Kyle: Yeah, which would have been an interesting conflict. But Mac immediately is onboard that this is... that he did not do this murder. **Eamon: Right.** Which is fine, I mean I, I--
Keith: Yeah, they have a history. He knows what Carl's character is like, I suppose.
Kyle: Yeah. But it just renders the fact that he's being accused of this murder kind of uninteresting. Because it... the conflict is resolved so quickly. **Keith: Right.** **Eamon: Right.** Charlie's even immediately onboard. **Keith: Yeah.** Oh, really? He denies it, as people accused of crimes often do? *laughter* Then, next thought: Not a hundred percent sure you can just drop these charges, Charlie. You might be able to, maybe, but it kind of depends because there's this notion that always comes up in things, about oh "Drop the charges." As though you really have control over that. There comes a point very early where you kind of lose control over this thing. You make a complaint, and it's the state going after someone. 'Cuz whether you care or not, stealing somebody's car is still illegal. **Keith: Right.** That is a crime against the Commonwealth of Seacouver; whatever state that's in.
Eamon: Especially when it's a report against a car-thief who also has a murder rap. It's like "Oh well, he didn't--you're dropping the car-stealing charges? Okay. We'll stop looking for him."
Kyle: Though we do come to find out that the murder rap is bogus. **Keith: Mmhm.** **Eamon: Right.** But, that being said, they're not going to stop looking for this guy because you're like "Oh, uh.. I don't wanna press charges." **Eamon: Right.** Maybe if he goes and reneges [and says] "Oh, I don't know... I'm not sure who I saw. I don't think it's actually this guy." **Keith: Yeah.** But then he's just lying. **Ke&Eamon: Yeah.** That... that's really different. It's "Oh I can just go and lie to the cops about this," is a lot different than "Let's drop the charges." Anyway--
Keith: So he's really dug Carl in deep, here.
40:50 🎶 Princes of the Universe! 🎶
Keith: Hey guys! This week's episode has a very, very special sponsor! Our now friend of the show, Adrian Paul! This episode is brought to you by The Sword Experience. And if you guys haven't heard about it out there in Highlander-Land: The Sword Experience is a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with, train, and learn lessons with the man himself, Adrian Paul!
Kyle: Each experience is completely customized, you get to see some incredible locations, and do... each time unique sword-work, so even if you've been to Sword Experience in the past, it'll be a brand new Sword Experience in the future!
Keith: Absolutely!
Eamon: And coming up June 18th and 19th, we will have an experience at Cressing Temple, it's an ancient monument--
Kyle: In Essex! So if you're in the U.K. area, or don't mind travelling, that sounds like it'll be an amazing experience, in a historical location!
Keith: Yeah, totally! And we know we have a lot of international listeners, so, for everyone out there definitely check this out! And later in the month, June 24th, Adrian Paul will also be at the Music Hall in Stuttgart! So make sure to go to theswordexperience.com. Again, that's theswordexperience.com for all the information on these two amazing events!
Kyle: I'd say there can be only one, but each one of these is different!
Eamon: That's right!
42:10 🎶 Princes of the Universe! 🎶
Keith: So, then we see these two police officers, whose names are Carter and... Kenny? **Eamon: Yup.** So, Carter is the old racist, or older racist cop, and Kenny is his new rookie partner. And they're walking the beat on the streets of Seacouver. Carter is NOT cool on the populace of Seacouver. He's "Look at this trash, this garbage, this--these people live like animals! They're all drug-dealers and--"
Eamon: They're all drug-dealers, criminals and teenage unwed mothers. Sometimes all three.
Kyle: Which just gave me an amazing image, because I just pictured those drug dealers from earlier--**Eamon: Yeah?** --and they're just unwed mothers breast-feeding while selling coke. *laughter* That's how it works, right? **Eamon: Yeah!** I mean, practically in Seacouver, if that's their metric for a drug dealer, why not? **Keith: Right!** Eamon: Can we talk about the Seacouver Police uniform? **Keith: Sure!** *laughter* Which has baseball caps?! *mad laughter*
Kyle: Yes yes yes! That was actually--
Eamon: Way to not look intimidating at all, or official.
Keith: It's a tactical headgear. **Eamon: Yes.**
Kyle: They're actually just on their way--they're on the Seacouver Police Force Softball Team. *laughter* They're going to take on the Firefighters, or maybe the Watcher team! **Eamon: Yeah!** Seattle--the Seacouver Watcher Team is probably pretty bad, but Joe's their manager. **Keith: So--** Also just a sidenote, but the rookie cop's "Geez, you sound like a member of the Klan!" And I looked just... didn't do a very scientific survey of who's onscreen at the time in the middle of this rant. I'm not sure there are any black people onscreen while he's saying this! *laughter* I was like, who is he talking about? It's maybe... it's not clear. That was... again, I didn't do a comprehensive search. **Keith: When I--** It's more just vague racism directed at no one in particular.
Keith: Right. Yeah. When I first heard this scene, I thought he said "You sound like you're a member of the Clang." And I [wondered] The Clang?
Kyle: Actually a member of the Krang. **Keith: The Krang?** Yeah! **Eamon: Krang.** He just IS the robot suit.
Keith: Ah. Back to Turtles!
Kyle: It all comes full circle.
44:11 Keith: So, Carter sees Ricky, and he's "That's the kid!"
Eamon: Yeah, they give chase, yeah.
Keith: So they chase him down, and I guess Carter and his rookie partner Kenny split up. **Eamon: Yeah. Head 'im off at the pass!** Right. So, Carter ends up getting Ricky and he REALLY beats him up.
Eamon: Yeah.
Kyle: Oh, yeah. This is messed up.
Eamon: Well, he tackles him, he beats him up, and then he [says] "You're gonna have to look at this picture!" The picture he shows to Ricky is crumpled up beyond recognition! And I'm "Nobody would ever be able to identify anything with this picture!" It's like he put it in a ball and stuck it in his pocket!
Kyle: That's a--It's like... no no no, in real life, his eyes are not overlapping.
Eamon: Yeah. Right! It's not a Mad fold-in! It's an I.D. picture!
Keith: So he beats him up and this guy doesn't wanna talk, but he threatens to plant drugs on him. **Eamon: Yeah.** And once again, it's an outrageous quantity of drugs! Outrageous!
Eamon: It's not like a dime-bag or something. **Kyle: No.** It's--
Kyle: Also, you do NOT need to have that much drugs on you, to even get busted for P.W.I.D,, Possession With Intent to Deliver. It's really not that much, and this is, oh yeah, you're actually just like a wholesaler. *laughter* Hey, kid, you wanna be a drug wholesaler? My note at this point was "This episode was written by someone who's only ever heard about racism, or crime, or drugs." *laughter* "Hey, I heard there's a thing called drugs! Maybe we can put that in an episode!"
Keith: Carter is about to--**Eamon: whale on this kid--**--whale on him with his billy club, but luckily--**Eamon: Kenny.**--Kenny shows up and he says "What are you doing, man?"
Eamon: Kenny's real by-the-book.
Kyle: He's also a coward!
Eamon: Yeah. *laughter*
Ke?: He [says] "If you're gonna arrest him, you put on the cuffs, and take him in!"
Kyle: I like to think he was just legitimately confused: "Oh, is that--that's how arrests work?" **Keith: Is that how you do it?** "I thought you beat people up and planted drugs on them to arrest them. Now I know!"
Eamon: "No, Carter, silly-billy!" *laughter*
Kyle: *scolding tone* "What did we say?"
Eamon: "Sorry."
46:11 Keith: So they take Ricky in. I guess then we cut back to the Dojo, and Mac and Carl are sparring. And this is really great. We'll definitely put a clip of this up on our Facebook page. But the... at this point the sword-fighting in the show is getting better and better, I think. I don't know. In the first season I know--clearly some of the guest stars were like, eh, it's "This isn't the greatest." You can tell it's... they're not experienced or whatever, but I think everybody involved; Adrian Paul, probably the choreographer, the game is up!
Eamon: Yeah, yeah!
Keith: Stepping up the game!
Kyle: Also, his sword he's using, looks awesome and brutal! **Eamon: Yeah, yeah.** I have no idea what kind of weapon it is.
Eamon: That one reminded me of Kastagir's sword, a little bit. **Keith: Yeah!** The disarming move Mac does at the end of this fight is really cool. He steps on Carl's sword.
Kyle: Yeah, slams it to the ground, kicks it out. S--
Keith: Yeah it's a really rhythmic fight. It feels like it's got a beat to it. It's cool. So after their sparring, Charlie comes back in and he's, of course, not too pleased to see Carl still there. And I don't know if we want to play this clip or not? This is a--I guess they start questioning each other's blackness, which is--I think it's an interesting conversation they have, but--
Kyle: Do it up!
47:14 Charlie: You still here?
Carl: *mocking* DeSalvo... Now, what kind of name is that for a black man?
Charlie: It's a name for somebody who's half black and half Italian, man.
Carl: Oh, I got that. So which HALF are you?
Charlie: Well, I'm both.
Keith: Duncan's not happy about this! Hahah.
Carl: Guess it depends on who you're talkin' to, huh?
Charlie: Hey, you want to talk about it, man? Hey, I've been talking about it all my life.
Carl: Must be hard being a WHITE man in a BLACK man's body.
Charlie: *snarling* Nobody talks to me like that!
Carl: Hey, I just did.
DM: What is it with you two, hm?
Carl: It's a black thing.
Charlie: *hisses* You get his thieving ass out of here.
Keith: Darkness 17. It's a Black Thing. *low laughter*
Carl: I was just leaving.
47:55 Eamon: Mac looks VERY uncomfortable through this whole interaction.
Keith: Yes, he does. I'M very uncomfortable during most of these interactions.
Kyle: It's just like a repeated run to the general, right? Because, again, Charlie's already told this kind of complicated story about his upbringing and how hard it was, you know, being kind of pulled between two worlds, and not really fitting in every--anywhere. And that's a potentially interesting conversation and maybe a moment these two characters could have, but instead they just run to: "Hey, what's going on here?" And rather than giving any explanation, he's just "It's a black thing." It's like, "Oh here. Let's just run to this vague generality again, rather than having real character development or conflict."
Keith: Yeah, there's some really interesting territory they could cover here. And also, we should--I mean, we're three white dudes talking about all of this, so *laugh* let's keep all of this in perspective, but uh--
Kyle: Nowhere to Run! White people bravely talk about race!
Keith: Yes. *laughter* Um, uh, but this conversation they have IS a real conversation about, I mean, this idea of what IS blackness. The Black Experience in America. And I was thinking, this is actually really interesting territory because, unlike Charlie, Carl has had perhaps the truest African-American experience you could have. He has run the gamut of... the only thing maybe is if he was older. He could have legitimately be brought over here from Africa, like he has that entire wealth of experience adding up to his "Blackness". Which I think is really interesting.
Kyle: That IS really interesting. The fact that somebody's alive who doesn't just remember slavery, but WAS a slave.
Keith: Right. So I mean, Charlie's obviously had a very different experience as an African-American, and also being bi-racial as well. But yeah, I think that they could really get deep into this and it would be, I think, pretty interesting. It's a tough topic.
Kyle: It is a tough topic. It's also a tough topic for Saturday afternoon. **Keith: Yeah.** **Eamon: Yeah.** That being said-- *laughter*--It's... I'm not saying they need to go to the deepest, it just feels vague, and I wo--it almost worries me if this is what white people in the nineties thought conversations about race were like.
Keith: Well, it's certainly what conversations about race were like on TV.
Eamon: Sure.
Kyle: Yeah, which is... it's a little upsetting in 2016, but...
Keith: I mean, I give this show some credit for talking about some of this stuff.
Kyle: Yeah, it's just a shame that this episode, the episode that's kind of about it, is the least successful at talking about it? *laughter* Like, the moments where just Charlie's breaking it down by himself in other episodes seem to have more heart and more meaning than this entire episode that's ostensibly about it.
Keith: Right.
Kyle: Really has. I just felt like they didn't really have an escape... they just kept pulling escape-hatches. **Keith: Well, I--** It's like "Here's how we get out of this conversation. We're done."
50:34 Keith: And Mac, Mac tends to be that escape. Because, like we see in a lot of Season One episodes, Mac just has to be right. And so, what this conversation about blackness is, or the hand life has dealt you, and Carl being able to deal with that in one way or the other. These are interesting conversations that don't necessarily have an answer, or a clear answer. You know, it's murky water all around. But because of the format of the show, and we've got this kind of--in this case very literally--white knight hero, there has to be an answer to this, and Mac gets to [say] "No, it's wrong!" It's like, well, it's sometimes not as simple as that. The show needs a right or ri--a right or wrong answer, rather than just having the discussion.
51:14 Kyle: Yeah. And also, the thing that's really crappy about it is he just comes down--his position is just "Race doesn't matter." That's the lesson he's definitively "proving" in the episode. And it's like "Whoa! You're really invalidating this guy's experience!" **Keith: Right!** That's not to say there's not a nuanced lesson in there about, you know, Carl recapturing control of his own destiny, and being more active and engaged in trying to accomplish his goals, that's fine. But Mac very clearly seems to say "It's not a race-thing!" *laughter*
Keith: So, yeah, with all of the historical perspective we have, obviously, some of these conversations don't ring as true as they should, I suppose? But maybe the episode's accomplishing exactly what it needs to do. I mean, here we are, we've been talking for the past ten minutes about this scene! **Yeah!**
Eamon: Which is a good thing!
Kyle: I suppose so.
Keith: But then the end of the scene kind of turns into a little PSA 'cause Carl espouses some believe that everybody hates, you know, everybody's a racist. And Mac [says] "Not everybody hates, man." Especially ME, Duncan, the white knight! Of course not me! He's like, "You stopped believing in yourself a long time ago." This is just like a little feel-good commercial.
Kyle: So Carl's now out on the streets, and the mustachioed cop manages to spot him, and just decides to go wheel-hunting. **Keith: Yeah.** Just runs him down with his car.
52:35 Eamon: And he goes to his trunk after he kicks him to see if he is awake, and pulls out an axe.
Kyle: Like a fireman's axe!
Keith: Right, again, Horton had this! It's probably Horton's old axe! The Horton Axe Collection!
Eamon: So this guy's a Watcher--
Keith: The Axe Collection! *with Kyle:* BY HORTON! *laughter*
Eamon: This guy's a Watcher.
Kyle: Yeah. We come to find out.
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: So once again we see another bad Watcher. Every Watcher in this show is bad except Joe and Josh. **chorus in imitation of Duncan finding Darius: JOSH!**
Kyle: Mac just needs... if I were Mac, I would be going ham against these people. **Eamon: Yeah.** Like, why trust any of them?
Eamon: Well this is like another rogue Watcher-slash-Immortal serial killer.
Kyle: And this guy's also, just independent of those things, just a terrible scumbag. **Eamon: Yeah.** If that wasn't obvious from the drug-planting, racism, and all that.
Eamon: Why does he have to be a Watcher?
Keith: So this is another one of these things where the episode undercuts its own theme, which is racism is bad. As Mac says "This isn't about being black!" and it's like, I guess he's right! It isn't! This guy is after Carl NOT because he's black--I mean, it doesn't help the situation because the guy is also racist--but he's also a Watcher, or a Hunter. And it's like... so, it, you know--
Kyle: This guy wears a lot of hats.
53:48 Keith: Yeah.
Eamon: He does.
Keith: It's one of those things--
Kyle: One of them's a Klan-hat.
Keith: --They have to keep laying. [To] Make the bad guy worse and worse. **Yeah.** I wish he was either just a Watcher, or just a racist.
Kyle: Then he's much less of a threat if he's not a Hunter, though. And I think that's the thing that it keeps coming back to.
Keith: That he can kill him?
Kyle: Yeah. Because just a racist cop is never gonna sever his head with a fireman's axe. That's not gonna be a thing.
Keith: Yeah, but he can put him away for a very long time, which doesn't sound good either.
Eamon: Yeah, he could put him away, or they could have made Ricky the one in danger, so they still have to stitch this guy up because he's corrupt and, you know--
Keith: That's not a bad idea. Kyle! I think you might be right about maybe THAT'S why they made him a Watcher; to make it a palpable threat to Carl.
54:31 Kyle: Yeah. And to make the Immortal parts of it hit harder. But I feel like, this episode, the flashbacks are strong enough that it doesn't need more Immortal stuff to be a complete episode.
Keith: Right, yeah. I like the fact that it's not really--this is--Carl is not the Immortal villain of the week. But this has every bit, if not more, conflict that some of those other episodes do.
Kyle: Right. Where sometimes you just have a faceless villain that he fights.
Keith: Yeah. So this is really nice that the show is kind of exploring this territory of the conflict does not have to be just good versus bad guy.
Kyle: Yeah. I'd like the idea if either he was after the kid, or he wasn't--Charlie tries to drop the charges, but this guy wants to get him, not because of any just reason, but just for racism! **Mmhm. Right.** Otherwise, he's got a hundred files on his desk, he could go do something else. But no, it's get...
Keith: Or the... the plot, like if Carl wasn't a car thief. This guy as a cop has a legitimate reason to arrest Carl. **Kyle: Yes!** Which is that he IS a car thief.
Kyle: He fired a sawed-off shotgun in public--**Eamon: Right.** He's broken a lot of laws.
Keith: But, I mean if this idea about like, well, Carl's first death was because he was wrongfully accused. Maybe this Watcher, as a cop, uses this wrongfully accused angle to get Carl in custody so he can kill him. So again, we're mirroring this wrongfully accused angle.
Kyle: Yeah. Which that would be interesting. So, my thought at this point in the episode, and this comes up pretty quickly, which was just "Does no one ever check NCIC? The database that every law enforcement agency in the country uses to see if he's actually wanted for murder in Arizona?" And of course, all it takes is Duncan just walking into a police station and asking to determine "No."
Keith: Well, he does eventually do that!
Kyle: Yeah! And no one... It's just that simple to disprove this thing. He's just not wanted.
56:18 Keith: Yes. So, Carl gets beat up by this cop, almost gets his head cut off, and I guess some street kids, or something, they kind of end up putting an end to this because they see the cop. **Eamon: Yeah.**
Kyle: They just happen by as he is about to decapitate a man with a fireman's axe! You'd think they would inform someone of this, but--
Eamon: One of them says "I don't see any Christmas trees around here."
Kyle: I thought that was good!
Keith: Carl returns to Mac's loft and tells him that he was just run down by this cop. Of course, he doesn't know that this cop was trying to cut his head off or anything, and he's like "He ran me down just because I was black!" So then we get a flashback, to Alabama, 1954! Eamon, tell us what's happening here!
56:53 Eamon: So Mac and Carl go into a diner, and Mac has his best Fonzi-look on. His hair's all slicked up and he has a varsity jacket on, or something. He looks like a--
Keith: He's looking pretty slick. I'm digging it.
Eamon: --high school student! And Carl's in his full baseball regalia. That's what they call that, right? Baseball regalia?
Kyle: Yup! Is this where he reveals that he was pitching against Satchel Paige? Or he did that in the past, or what was the--
Eamon: Yeah, but they sit at the counter and there is a White's Only sign.
Kyle: And the sheriff comes up, takes off his badge, and decides it's time to throw down.
Keith: Yup. **Eamon: Yeah** And he's like "You get out!" and this is a weird bit of dialogue, I thought. This is, this--I don't mean to defend the sheriff in any way, shape or form, because I'm not. But Duncan has this quip with him. He [says] "You know, I thought you were supposed to uphold the law." And the sheriff then takes off his badge, and [says] "Well I'm not the sheriff anymore." But he WAS, it's a segregated diner! I wish the dialogue was a little different!
Kyle: Yeah, 'cause it's, the whole problem is that segregation IS the law. That's the conflict!
Keith: Exactly. That is the problem. It just is--I wish Duncan... the quip was like "I thought you were supposed to stand up for people," or "protect people." And that's why Duncan doesn't respect the sheriff. Because that's true. He's not standing up for what should be the rights--or what ARE the rights, but are not being given to Carl.
Kyle: Yeah. Which are about to be... because they go outside and discover that Brown Versus Board of Education has just been decided.
Keith: Should we play this clip?
Kyle: Sure!
Keith: Also, Duncan--
Eamon: --Shoves the sheriff's face in a plate of food.
Keith: Yeah. It's kind of cartoony, but Duncan resorts to cartoon-violence.
Kyle: Immediately.
Keith: Immediately. Which I think is--huh--interesting.
Kyle: And once again it's like Duncan's just spoiling for a fight with these racists, and this is the second time Carl [says] "Eh, let's... let's just deal with it."
58:42 Carl: Sorry about that, Mac. I should've checked for the sign.
Mac: Carl, whatever you do, don't apologize!
Carl: Look let's just get out of here before bubba puts his badge back on.
Mac: Yeah, well let that fatass try and arrest me!
Carl: It's not YOU I'm worrying about, alright. Sometimes you gotta just accept things the way they are.
Mac: Oh come on, this isn't the 20s, Carl!
Carl: You gotta go along to get along, you know what I mean? And I'm going to the Majors, man!
Mac: [stubbornly] I remember a guy that was gonna make new laws.
Carl: Yeah, well he didn't get around to it.
Mac: You still have lots of time.
Carl: Nobody wants to believe that more than me, MacLeod, but the truth is, they are NOT gonna let it happen.
Mac: [slyly] Oh yeah?
*laughter* Keith: Duncan spots the newspaper.
Carl: "Segregation is declared unconstitutional"? Hoho! YEAAAH! Hahahah Oh man, Mac! I never thought I'd see this happen!
Mac: Things are changing, Carl. [voice of hope] All you have to do is live long enough.
Carl: I don't know, man. Somehow all of this doesn't seem so important anymore. [Mac chuckles] Maybe I should be a part of it, huh?
Mac: [softly] Do it.
Carl: Alright.
Mac: Alright.
Keith: And then they have... they've got their own secret handshake, which is great. **Eamon: Yeah.** Yeah! Yeah.
Carl: [deep laughter] YEAH!
*laughter* 59:55 Dad, you wanna have a catch?
Eamon: So, what did the newspapers get delivered right in the short amount of time they were in the diner?
Kyle: Well no. They just didn't pass--
Keith: They just didn't know the news.
Kyle: They didn't see the newspaper yet.
Eamon: Right.
Keith: And this of course, this news is not that ALL segregation is illegal, even though--because of the... what year is this? 1959? **Eamon: 6, I think.** 1956, so even earlier. So this is just Brown Versus Board of Ed. **Yeah.** which means that segregation is illegal in public places. So, technically that diner is still segregated up until 1964. **bouncing MMmm, Yeah between them** I'm just saying. But I do like this theme of you just have to be alive long enough see the change? I think that's an interesting theme.
Kyle: I took a public opinion class in college. The professor's main thesis was: People's opinions don't change, they just die.
Keith: Oh!
Kyle: And new people replace them, and that's how demographic shifts in opinion happen. Like, people who are racist don't go "Ah-hah! I was wrong!" They just fucking die, and their children are less racist than them. **Keith: Right!** Hopefully. You know, he's kind of living proof of that. "Oh. If I'm just around long enough, these people will die off, and I will still be here." **Mm.**
1:01:04 Keith: So, back in Mac's loft, Carl is, I guess, still disillusioned. He [says]: This was all an illusion. Everybody's dead. King's dead. Who else is dead? Bobby's dead. **Eamon: Malcolm X.** Malcolm X. Everybody's dead. Bobby's selling barbecue sauce--
Kyle: Explain that reference to me.
Keith: Oh, sorry. Bobby. It's Bobby Seale. He was the co-founder oooof *with Kyle* The Black Panthers. With Huey Newton. But more recently he has got a barbecue website, and he sells barbecue sauce, and he's got stories about barbecue cooking, and it's good. I don't know. He taught at Temple University for a little bit, recently. He taught Black Studies.
Kyle: Our Alma Mater. **Keith: Absolutely.** **Eamon: Not me.** Go Owls, man! *laughter*
Keith: I guess they're trying to figure out how they can catch this cop.
Eamon: Charlie sends somebody up, and that somebody is Ricky. And Ricky has obviously been beaten up, and then he reveals that it was the cop, and that he also saw a tattoo on his wrist.
Kyle: This is how we find out that he's a Watcher! **Right.*
Eamon: Right. Does he describe the tattoo?
Keith: I don't think so. I think he just [says] he's got a wrist tattoo, and then Mac's just AHAH!
Kyle: It's just a butterfly!
Eamon: I wish they didn't show it. It's like yeah!
Keith: So, Mac goes to the police station to investigate these murder charges. So he asks the cop, and he's like, what's the deal with this?
Kyle: Doesn't he also ask what he looks like? There's a funny interaction here.
Keith: Oh, ask what the COP looks like?
Kyle: And he's like "I don't know, man, he could be YOU!" And my thinking was: I know they're referencing a racist trope of "You all look the same" **Keith: Right.** but BOY do they look different. *laughter* Especially with the mustache. This guy was right in your face--**Yeah.** He doesn't even say "He had a mustache." It's like "You saw his tattoo, but can describe, literally none of his physical features?"
Eamon: One is a grizzled, old, mustachioed white cop, and one is a long-haired, burly Adonis--**Yeah!** *laughter*
Keith: So Mac finds out these murder charges do not exist at all, and he is not wanted for ANY crimes, currently. **Kyle: Which--** Including the--**Kyle: the car thing!**--the car thing, again, as you brought up, Kyle, that's probably not true.
Kyle: Also, he has been going around committing multiple felonies in the context of this episode, so, **Keith: Right.** Yup! You know, there's that.
1:03:06 Keith: So, in the background the racist cop, Carter, is listening in on this, and he's on the phone with... SOMEBODY, because he's like "We got 'im!"
Eamon: This NEVER comes up!
Keith: I guess he's talking to another Hunter, and I guess this is the clue that Carl's with Mac, like I guess they don't know that beforehand.
Eamon: Right. So is he talking about Mac, or is he talking about Carl?
Kyle: I think he's talking about Carl, because he might not even know Mac's Immortal.
Eamon: Right.
Keith: But, why wouldn't he? I don't know. **Kyle: Who knows?** Also, at this point... Joe is not in the episode. **Ky&Eamon: AGAIN!** This is another one of those things where there is a Watcher-problem, and, Duncan's trying to find out who the cop--Who's the cop? Let me just ask what he looks like or whatever, and it's like, how about you just go to Joe and say "Are there any Watchers on the police force?" **Eamon: Yeah!** Because there's probably at least one, and it's probably this guy! Uh... We should remember that these Hunters are also Watchers. They're like secret Hunters, right? So this guy I think would know that Carl is with Mac. He could even ask, "I lost track of Carl," and Joe could tell him, "Oh, he's hanging out with Mac." "Oh, thanks a lot." **Keith: Yeah!** I don't know!
Kyle: "Oh, thanks! See ya at the potluck!"
Keith: The Watcher Potluck. So, outside the police station, Mac and Carl are outside, talking.. but it's like Mac, when he went into the police station, did not know these murder charges were fake, **Right.** they also--I don't know if he knew that there were no other charges against him, it's like--this is the worst place for Carl to be right now! **Kyle: Yeah!** Especially because they know a cop is after him! **Eamon: Mmhm.** So it's like, probably shouldn't be hanging out out front, right guys?
No!
1:04:38 Kyle: So what I was thinking this whole time: so, is this cop suppressing the car stealing thing, so that other people aren't looking for him when he cuts off his head? If police are actively looking for somebody and discover his decapitated body, that could be difficult for him to explain. **Hm.** But then, why make up a story to Charlie about him being wanted for murder? They seem inconsistent. **Yup.** Because it seems like you'd do that to increase police scrutiny, and make it more likely that Charlie's going to call the cops if he hears anything.
Keith: And we find out at some point that, oh, all you have to do is make an edit on the computer and every cop's gonna be looking for you! So, this cop Carter made up these murder charges, but then didn't put it in the computer, so only him and Charlie are aware of these trumped-up murder charges.
Kyle: Well, if it's a murder in Arizona, someone from the Arizona police force would have to enter a warrant into the system, and go through there. **Okay.** I mean, there is a process involved.
Keith: Gotcha. Yeah I dunno. Why the lie? **Kyle: Yeah, I don't know.** 'Cause it's not like that convinced Charlie to press charges in any other way, or who knows what.
Kyle: Because he immediately is like, "Oh yeah, I know this is fake."
Eamon: Is this where the drive-by shooting happens?
Kyle: Yeah, there's a shotgun drive-by. *laughter*
Keith: In front of the police station! By a cop! **Kyle: Eeeew!** In a cop car!
Eamon: But he misses.
Keith: Right!
Kyle: No harm no foul! **Yeah!**
Keith: Nobody really sees who the cop is, but we do get a glimpse of the car number?
Eamon: Do we even see that?
Keith: They do call it out, like it's in slow-mo.
Kyle: 5-9-2! **Eamon: Okay.**
Keith: Yup, 5-9-2 when the car goes by.
Kyle: Duncan's like, wait! 5-9-2! I'm like "What?"
Eamon: I didn't know what he was talking about.
Kyle: They then roll up on the racist cop's partner, and Duncan basically just teases him into helping them out.
Keith: Well, first, there's like... there's some weird padding to this scene. They see the two cops together, and then rather than go talk, he's like "We'll just wait." And it's... I guess they want to talk to him alone. I guess that's the idea, so then I guess Mac and Carl just stand there for eight hours.
Kyle: Do they wait through this whole patrol?
Keith: --to come back! *laughing*
Eamon: "Well I got nothing better to do."
Keith: Wheeen... **Eamon: Kenny.** Kenny comes back, I guess Mac goes to talk to him, and lays a guilt trip on him.
Eamon: Yeah. Mmhmm. "I thought you were a cop."
Keith: Yeah, Kenny doesn't seem to--Kyle, you called him a coward, earlier.
Kyle: Oh yeah. Well, he just watches this guy obviously about to beat a defenseless suspect, and it's just "Hey, man!" I know there's a code of silence among the police force, but boy this guy... cat's got this guy's tongue.
1:07:00 Keith: So I guess there's a plan that we don't see on camera, to frame... it's not even frame. Just to catch--**Kyle: It's entrapment.**--Carter. Ah, so...
Eamon: Catherine Zeta Jones.
Keith: Sean Connery. **Mmhmm!** So, we're on the pier, where, I guess, Carl's normal hideout is? And Carter, the racist cop, shows up to arrest him, and it's like--
Eamon: And he's dressed to the nines!
Keith: Yeah!
Eamon: And also, Carl is in his duster, on a wooden walkway. He's just hammering--
Keith: Yeah, like this is HIS pier!
Kyle: What is he doing? **Keith: Like this is--he's gotta make repairs!**
Eamon: And it's like "Oh, I have some hammering to do. Time to put on my fucking duster-jacket. *laughter*
1:07:41 Keith: So, Carter approaches with a gun and an axe--##Eamon: Yup!**--and he's going to, I guess, take Carl down. But then Kenny appears! And he [says] "No, you can't do this!"
Eamon: And Kenny is also in a suit, not in his policeman's uniform. For some reason.
Keith: Yes! I guess they're all detectives, now, and not duty cops? They got promoted?
Eamon: Are they off-duty now? ***together*They got promoted!** *laughter*
Keith: And meanwhile Duncan is sneaking around like a cat--**Yeah.**
Eamon: But they're lucky in this whole entrapment thing that the Watcher doesn't say anything about Carl's Immortality that Kenny can overhear.
Keith: Well he starts hinting at it! He's like, "You don't know what this is about, you don't know what he is!"
Eamon: But I mean before he knows Kenny's there! They're just lucky that he doesn't mention anything before that!
Kyle: Right!
Keith: Duncan climbs under the pier, he's below Carter... **Yeah.** And he pulls on his leg. He just gives him a little tug! It just makes Carter go off-balance.
Eamon: And then Kenny shoots him! *laughter*
Kyle: He just plugs him!
Keith: So Carter falls into the river dead, presumably. **Eamon: Yup.** And that's kind of it.
Kyle: It's a pretty messy resolution to this whole thing. If their plan was just to kill him, I guess you're in some serious trouble for killing a cop--
Eamon: Mmhmm. It's a lot of paperwork.
Keith: Well, now that the racist is dead, racism is dead! *coughing laughter*
Kyle: Yeah, so Carl goes back to playing baseball. Also, did anyone catch what team he was playing for?
Keith: Oh the most--the irony of this!
Eamon: The Kansas City Chiefs. Is that the team?
Keith: I got the impression it was like a *with Ky* minor league.
Eamon: Oh, okay.
Keith: But it's got a-- Tomahawk.
Kyle: Prominently features a Tomahawk.
Eamon: Yeah!
Keith: Yes.
Kyle: I just would like the idea if it had... that it's an arguably racist team that he's on, in this episode about race. *breathes in* Chiefs is a lot better than--it's not like *w Ke* the Redskins! Yeah. That's rough.
Keith: Better, but--
Kyle: Yeah, Chiefs... at least Chiefs sounds like something respectful. *laughter* It might not be, but at least it seems like being a chief is a good thing. Not a slur.
Keith: So, Duncan shows up to the locker room, **Eamon: Yup.** they hug and do their handshake, and Carl talks about how he's going to turn his life around, when he clears up, I guess, his record? I guess he's going to try to run for office, when he sorts out a new background for himself? Things are looking on the up-and-up. Carl's changing his ways!
Kyle: Thanks to getting choke-slammed by Mac that one time.
Keith: Yup, thanks to the white savior, Duncan MacLeod!
Eamon: Did we talk about that? We didn't talk about that.
1:09:59 Keith: Let's talk about a lot of stuff in this episode, now that it's over.
Kyle: Yeah! So Carl wants to skip town, and Mac just convinces him racism doesn't exist, basically, **Eamon: Yeah.** with a choke-slam. He slams him down on the hood of the car, and he's like "Listen to me! You wanna be a thief, that's fine! Talk to me!"
Eamon: Well, he's saying "You're Immortal, you have a chance to rise above all this stuff, and inspire people." And, throughout this whole episode, "You're immortal, you have all this time." Unless your head gets chopped off... Sometimes they just pretend like the Game doesn't exist. I don't really get that. It's like--
Kyle: Especially when someone's trying to kill you, even outside the Game.
Eamon: Yeah. Right. You have all this time if, you know, you don't get your head chopped off in a sword-duel! Sometimes that's factored in, sometimes it isn't. **Mmhm.** The tone with that is so inconsistent sometimes in this show, and it kind of bugged me specifically in this episode.
Keith: Uh, yeah. This episode does have this trope, which is almost unavoidable if Mac is going to be the hero of the episode, that it's this white savior thing? Which we see in a lot of TV, movies.... There's some disenfranchised person or people, usually, and it's... the white person is there to save the day, and--
Keith: You can't save your--
1:11:10 Kyle: Dance with their wolves?
Keith: Yeah, exactly! Dances With Wolves, Avatar, what are some other good examples of this?
Eamon: Last Samurai? **Keith: Last Samurai! Right, um--** Last of the Mohicans? **Keith: Mmhm.** Etc?
Keith: Etc. Yeah, there's this is a very prevalent trope in--
Eamon: Half of every teacher-movie, where a white teacher changes lives--**Keith: Yeah.**--at an inner-city school.
Keith: Exactly. Uh, so, yeah these disenfranchised people or whatever, they need help I guess rising up and it's gotta be the white person that helps them. So this episode kind of falls into that, a little bit. Again, if this ma--I don't know, maybe it would be better if it was... Charlie? that had different views on what it meant to deal with racism and, like...
Kyle: Because Mac also just seems so exasperated by the whole thing. **Keith: Right.** Every time things become overtly racial, he's rolling his eyes, or [saying] yeeuch.
Keith: Right.
Eamon: Yeah. It's weird.
Kyle: Yeah.
Keith: These are hard topics to deal with, honestly--
Kyle: Yeah, and we need to hang a huge lantern on three white straight dudes with college degrees opining about-- *chuckles*
Keith: *deliberate whiny voice* Look, man, I took a Black Studies class! I get it!
Kyle: Come on! *chuckle*
Eamon: Did you?
Keith: I took a couple. **Eamon: Okay.** But that doesn't mean anything.
Eamon: No, it doesn't.
Keith: So it's even difficult for us, here, to talk about it. But, I mean I guess it's good that we--
Kyle: I guess I kind of appreciate that they tried to do something...
Keith: Yeah!
Kyle: But--
Eamon: Well, it kind of doubles down on it, because they don't get specific on what issues Carl is really dealing with, I mean aside from the segregation, and attempted lynching we see in the episode...
Kyle: It's like ev... That second flashback that we see is so hopeful, like...
Ke&Eamon: Yeah.
Kyle: The Brown Versus B.O.E. is going on, it seems like he's got a real shot at making it into the Majors, which he seems to announce! **Eamon: Right.** It would have been... not easy, but they could have written a story about what went wrong, and actually made it make sense, but--
Keith: Or just had that second flashback not be so hopeful. Then it's liKeith: This is a guy that has always dealt with, you know, being put down, being segre--like, you know, he's never been able to get over these hurdles, and that's why he feels this way! Yeah! I don't know. It's tricky. One thing I would LOVE to have in this episode is... if I had to re-write this a little bit... uh, well, I think JOE should be in this episode, one!
Kyle: Yeah! Well, anytime there's a Hunter in it, it's like there's always just a gaping question of: why no Joe?
Keith: Exactly! But one thing I think, especially because we don't know too much about the Watchers at this point, and they also seem bad, at this point, other than Joe... who just tells us, every once in a while, he's good. It's like okay!
Kyle: JOSH!
Keith: I really think the end of this episode would have been a great gateway if Kenny interfered and Carter was like, "You don't know what this guy IS," and started to kind of spill the beans about it! **Eamon: Mmhm.** And Kenny then finds out about Immortals, through witnessing what happens, and maybe Joe emerges at the end, because he's Mac's Watcher, he's there, seeing what's going on, and maybe he goes from rookie cop to rookie Watcher! And we get this, kind of like... In Season One I think it works out really well. Richie and Tess are your gateway into the Immortal world. They're the everyman that stories sometimes need. We get to explain exposition through them, like what is the Game? Someone needs to ask that question. It's Richie. Or Tess. And it's like what are the Watchers? What's this whole organization about? And to have a rookie Watcher kind of partner up with Joe, I think might be kind of fun...? Although it might just inadvertently reintroduce the cop element, which we usually don't want. But if they kind of keep that on the back-burner, I think that might be a fun new character, and a cool way to get that character introduced. Because we don't know anything about the Watchers!
Eamon: Also, a rookie cop that's a Watcher that knows about Immortals on the Force could help explain away some of those weird questions we always have.
Keith: Right! With, just even, a throwaway line! Like if someone ever calls that out, Joe could just [say], "Oh, Kenny always takes care of the paperwork on that. Makes sure the paperwork gets lost."
Eamon: Right.
Keith: And it's like okay, I don't have to think about that anymore.
Eamon: Yup.
Keith: Shall we read some of the Watcher Chronicles? We haven't talked about them in a long time! Eamon: Yes!
Keith: Alright, the Watcher Chronicles on Carl Robinson! 1:15:03 He was born in 1824 in Louisiana, and his first death was in 1859, and we know from this episode he was killed by his slave owner. Here is the Chronicle entry on him:
"The poor and the disenfranchised have a powerful champion going to bat for them: Carl Robinson, big league ball player and former criminal, has turned political activist. Pleading the case for justice and civil-rights in the halls of Congress. With his hefty Major League salary, Robinson has founded the League of Justice, to speak for th--"
Kyle: Whaaaat?
"To speak for those members of American society traditionally denied a voice. In addition to its political lobbying efforts, the League works to match grassroots organizations and outreach programs such as food co-ops, education and job-training programs, and housing partnerships. With grants and funding provided by Fortune 500 companies, with the support of both the liberal grassroots movement, and the more conservative corporate sector, Carl Robinson could become a strong candidate for public office himself, once the baseball career comes to an end. Maybe even the first Big Leaguer to fill the Oval Office. Pretty impressive for a former slave!"
*laughter*
1:16:07 Eamon: Oh my God!
Kyle: So this takes place in the future of this episode.
Eamon: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Kyle: Which is weird, but...
Keith: Well, spoiler-alert. This character DOES come back, which is really great.
Kyle: Right. Yes, finally.
Keith: Finally.
Kyle: People coming back.
Keith: They don't mention his partnership with Aquaman. *laughter* That's pretty critical!
Eamon: Yeah, the League of Justice also helps with invasions from Braniac.
Kyle: Yeah! You gotta--those Braniac invasions are really tough if you don't have Carl Robinson OR Superman on your side.
Eamon: That's right!
Keith: I'll take the Supe. *laughter*
Keith: *while laughing* So, one also interesting thing, in this... in the Watcher Chronicles for this episode, was the Watcher Carter has a little bio on him, which is great! Uh, and in it, it does not mention that he's a Hunter. Or dies. Or anything like that. It mentions that in the year 1993, he won the award for Seacouver Policeman of the Year. **Eamon: Wow.** And I was just thinking, I was like "No wonder Seacouver is in the state it's in. And no wonder the Zone exists. Because THIS is the Policeman of the--**Kyle: This is the best cop--** this is the best they have, to offer! It's like ah, no wonder it's a crime-ridden wasteland.
Kyle: Yeah. That's insane! *laughter*
Keith: Ah, well thank you, everybody, for listening to this week's episode "Run For Your Life". Make sure to tune in next week when the episode will be Episode Number 10! Epitaph For Tommy! We've been your Rewatchers! I'm Keith! **This is Kyle!** **Eamon!** Bye!**
Keith: So, back at the poli--there a-wewo blipblipbloobloobloo.