Highlander: The Valkyrie

Interpol guy: "Old friends are the worst. They claim more of your soul."

The last two were about religion. Time for one about politics, I guess.

Immortal Ingrid Henning couldn't put her failure to assassinate Hitler behind her, so she became a political vigilante. What made her sympathetic was that she might have been right; it's a somewhat appealing idea. Except you just can't go running around taking out nasty politicians out of fear they'll turn out to be Hitler, because what if they don't? And what about free speech? If she hadn't moved on to innocent bystanding cops, Duncan probably would have continued to justify doing nothing. Immortals tend to go bad. It's what they do.

I liked the idea of Duncan and Ingrid in the flashbacks taking action to eliminate Hitler. If there was ever a politician that good people could justify killing, it was him. Immortals could pull off an assassination like that without too much risk to their immortal lives. Except I seem to remember Duncan talking a lot about staying out of the history books. I suppose Hitler justified an exception.

This one was (again) enlivened by Methos and Joe kibbitzing and discussing Duncan's problem. Methos even showed up in the jail as Duncan's lawyer, and talked Duncan down in the end after he had to kill Ingrid. Methos often acts like everything is a joke, but he was there in the clinch, wasn't he?

Flashbacks:

-- 1935 Berlin. Duncan and Ingrid were both actively working against Hitler, and Duncan was already working for British Intelligence.

-- 1944 East Prussia. Duncan, Ingrid and their friend with the eyepatch were trying to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the assassination of Hitler. There actually was an attempt on Hitler called Operation Valkyrie, carried out by an officer with an eyepatch.

Bits and pieces:

-- The boxing match was the "Charlie deSalvo Memorial."

-- The guy from Interpol was memorable. We haven't had a new cop for awhile.

-- Musetta Vander, who played Ingrid, had a continuing role on Stargate SG-1. She was also in an early (and really bad) episode of Buffy.

Quotes:

Methos: "Look at this. It's an exhibition of Greek antiquities."
Duncan: "Oh, yeah. Can't wait. A two-thousand year old garage sale."
Methos: "Listen, some of this stuff could be mine."

Joe: "Just what is so entertaining?"
Methos: "MacLeod tussling with another of his moral dilemmas."
Duncan: "There are times I really don't like you."
Methos: "That's okay. Sometimes I don't like myself."

Hitler: "The hand of God himself protects the Fuhrer!" Good performance there.

Duncan: "Since when are you my attorney?"
Methos: "Whatever you need. Lawyer, doctor, Indian chief, I got paperwork to cover it all."

Methos: "Stefanovich killed, and Ingrid judged him. Wilkinson killed, and Ingrid judged him. Ingrid killed, and you judged her."
Duncan: "So who judges me?"
Methos: (long pause) "You hungry?"

Somewhere between two and three stars,

Billie

All of my Highlander reviews are archived here.