From the TV series Highlander, one of the most talked about scenes between Duncan MacLeod and Methos. The 'jimmy' scene from the episode 'Comes A Horseman'.
Even all these years later, this scene is so awesome. They were both so hurt here. I remember the first time I saw it, I felt bad for Methos. You could tell he never wanted MacLeod to know about this part of his life. And Mac's hero-worshiping heart was crushed. I was glad they were able to get over everything, though. I love their friendship to this day. This show had some great friendships!
Yes, indeed. Especially between Connor with Ramirez in the original film, Duncan with Connor and Duncan with Methos. Who cares about the prize? Love and friendship are all that matters.
I think one of the reasons I love Methos so much (he was criminally underused in my opinion) is that he is a monster of the old world. Unlike most villains, he lived long enough to change and improve without the desire to make up for what he has done in the past. But there are moments, brief instances, when the old beast within him stirs and rises once again.
This remains one of my favourite scenes in all of television. Peter Wingfield was such a great choice for the role. From running to denial, to outright addmitance. He goes from laid back to frightning in the course of a conversation.
I think what makes it so brilliant that he was showing Duncan who he used to be but Duncan couldnt see it. He couldn't see that man he was and man used to be where not the same.
Thankfully they did not follow through with their original plan of having Methos being killed in his first episode, wish they would had done the same with Greyson, that was a perfect character the finale.
The absolute best character in the whole series, Methos is the key element that gets together the past and the future. The evolution of his character and the essence of his mystery keeps one tied to the series. I wished we had more background on Methos past, his story is incredibly unique. The Horseman of Death... Damn dude, you can't get it better than this.
the coolest line from him for me is when Kalas was trying to figure out if he was Methos, saw his Egyptian-written diary and told him how interesting it read. And Methos responds, "You should've been there" the way Kalas' eyes widen said it all
I sort of hear Methos basically saying "No, you're not going to hate me for doing one bad thing in 5,000 years. You're going to hate me for EVERYTHING I did."
We know. Highlander should've been basically just one movie, but its popularity spawned sequels which didn't live up to the first film. A commissioned TV series wanted to explore its mythology even deeper i guess, but yes when they finally got around to these episodes about Methos being one of the 4 horsemen. This scene alone said why the series was at least decent and justified finally.
Years ago at a convention in Manchester, I got to see a recording of all the different takes that were filmed for this scene. Every single one of them was a different interpretation and all of them were incredible. As the editor admitted, she wept when she watched them all as she had to choose just one of them for the final cut, an almost impossible task.
@@Pasan34 You're are asking me to remember something I saw once over twenty five years ago. That is a bit of a tall order, but here goes: Whilst each take followed the same theme, they were all different interpretations. Both actors would place different emphasis on different parts of the dialogue. There were also changes in pacing and emphasis. They also changed their emotional intensity. in different places. Another point I remember is that they took so many takes that the lighting changed noticeably between earlier and later takes as it became twilight; something that complicated the editor's job. The closest example I can think of is in the Extras for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. There, it has the scene showing Bilbo's first meeting with Gandalf and all the different takes that were done. Each of them follows the same theme but all are subtly different. It's the same thing with The Jimmy Scene here. All of the various takes were subtly different and nuanced. That's the best explanation I can come up with. Put it another way: I saw it only once and I can't remember all the details but the experience of watching it has stayed in my memory twenty five years later.
@@Adrian-qk2fn From this show, which I've watched all of, this was one of the scenes that I can recall after a good 2 decades with relatively good accuracy. Interestingly, a few scenes I remember from the show had Methos in them.
@@Darth-Desire Well, after the ideals of chivalry became a thing and you realize that you have wronged innocents while on your way to the top of the food chain, of course you'd feel remorse, if you have gained a sense of chivalry that is.
@@Bardim18 I'm not sure it works this way. What if you are an Immortal and someday it'll become social standard to be vegan. So what? Will you be ashamed that you ate meat in the past? "Did you eat all those chicken?" "I ate. But I didn't just ate fifty. I didn't ate hundred. I ate a thousand. I ate TEN THOUSAND. And I was good at it....I was the nightmare that came to the fridge at night."
@@okiedokie9430 Being carnivore or omnivore isn't the same thing as being a killer. Methos is ashamed because he used to kill for pleasure, not just survival.
I'm not sure ashamed is the word for it. After all, as an Immortal, he still kills. And he so quickly got back into character with Kronos that the feelings were still there. But some time in the past he learned about "civilization" and stopped being a barbarian, and accepted that the Horsemen's time was just done. I wish they had gotten a little more into what the other three did over the eons. How did they stay so much the same without ever learning the lessons Methos did?
@@kimmccarthy7747 I think that out of the Four Horsemen, Methos is the only one who stopped killing for pleasure. The rest just still liked being barbarians.
I think one of the best things about this scene and Methos's relationship to Duncan McCloud is that Methos is a much much older person, from a much much older era of mankind. Duncan, even as old as he was, came up in an era were good and evil was distinguishable, Methos, as he says is from an earlier world. The world had changed, even by Duncan's original time.
Even the idea of making a series with that immortal that was a federal agent going around the country investigating other immortals' deaths was a way better idea than the Raven, too bad they did not make that series instead.
I think half of what makes the relationship between those two so interesting is that Methos refuses to follow and won't step up to lead. Mac is such an alpha male/highland chief sort of guy. He sorts the entire world into enemies, people to protect/add to his 'clan', and people to venerate/follow as teachers. Methos is too old and legendary to treat as a subordinate, just won't fall into line, and yet refuses to step up, lead, and let Mac put him on a pedestal (as Mac probably would have.) Ha!
Such an amazing scene. And the ironic thing is that Duncan has his own moment to have his wrongs thrown in his face a couple of seasons later. And uses pretty much the same arguments Methos did. And Methos still goes to bat for him lol.
Just as ironic and already pertinent at the time of this scene is that Duncan's friend, Darius (the monk killed by the hunters) had a similar history. Methos could easily have brought up Darius at that time and it might have made Mac use his brain, but Methos still felt guilt for what happened with Cassandra those millennia ago.
@@HariSeldon913 true but Darius had a very redeeming card: he stopped himself at a critical point. and Methos hiding stuff just didn't sit well I guess. also sucks the actor playing Darius died from brain cancer irl, they were planning to have him longer i think
@@jacobpeters5458 According to legend, Darius didn't stop himself. He was said to have killed a very saintly immortal and had a "white quickening" which turned him good (the opposite of the one Duncan had when he killed the native American and became evil for a couple of episodes). From what we're shown, I think it's suggested that while keeping her as his servant, Methos fell in love with Cassandra, which is why he allowed her to escape rather than be shared with the other three horsemen and that led to him becoming a better person.
Yes. S5E16 Forgive Us our Trespasses. When Duncan's hunted for what he did following Culloden. They hinted at it a few episodes earlier. Duncan asks Methos "Who judges me?" and Methos shrugs. Clearly meaning you can't know until it happens.
The thing I always come back to with this scene is another reference. When Methos tells Duncan he has no guilt. The whole reason he acts this way here is to drive home the point. That it was a different time and back then there were no other options. He enjoyed it because that was how things were then But more importantly he does, or should I say did, regret what happened. Only he’s grown past it. After all what use is guilt? Does it bring back the dead? Does it make what he did suddenly disappear? Guilt is as pointless as needless slaughter. Methos is so old he’s grown past both
Guilt is an emotional penalty created by society to force people who do what society deems wrong to mentally suffer for what they did. Society feels that if the wrongdoer doesn't feel guilt they are outside the bounds of society, untamed, uncontrollable, so they try to force their belief onto the wrongdoer to make him conform.
"Kurgan & Methos: The Early Years." That might be the only prequel I'd pay to see, if they honestly kept it up to par and didn't sugarcoat the history.
@@houseofzuma1033 - Duncan has his reasons to kill, Methos had his. Duncan seeks out trouble and at times enjoys acting like judge, jury and executioner of people who do things against his personal code. I'm not saying Duncan is objectively as bad as Methos was thousands of years ago, during the bronze age (that is inherently subjective). I'm saying that it's a failure of Duncan that he uses his fairly young and trendy code to judge things people did when times were much different. I do think Duncan reacted so strongly because Methos shook Duncan's mental framework. I would liked to have seen him grow more as a result of this and as a result of that dark quickening he obtained.
This is such a great scene. Somewhere out there, there was/is a video of a Highlander convention, where someone asks Adrian aka Duncan, and Peter aka Methos about that scene. The asked the boys what they thought the scene was about. Then someone to do with the convention, played the scene on the screen behind them, so they could see the scene from our prospective. After the scene finished, both the boys said it was a break up, of their relationship/friendship, the trust Duncan had for Methos, however you wanted to interpret it, it was a break up. That Methos wanted Duncan to hate him for what he had done, which is why he kept saying, "Is that what you wanted to hear?" Methos was goading him, making it sound as worse as it probably was, knowing Duncan's reaction would be to walk away from him. And Methos being Methos also knew that the only way to keep Kronos and the other Horsemen away from MacLeod was to keep Duncan as far away from him as possible, hence the Methos making the fight much worse than it should have been. Methos was also right about it being a different time and place, when he was Death. He was living as he wanted to, because for a time it was fun, they were at the top of the food chain, and wanted for nothing that they couldn't take, whether it be food, property or people, and there was no one to tell him no. So taking Cassandra for him, was just another day, but I think she changed the way he'd started to think. He'd started to become tired of Kronos, and the others, but still didn't have the courage to leave them. With what happened with Cassandra, after Kronos took her, not only made Methos decide he'd had enough of them, and ultimately the courage to leave them, but despite saying he hadn't felt guilt since the 11th century, he did feel guilty about what happened to Cassandra. And I think if it had been anyone other than Cassandra, whom Duncan had know since he was 14, I think he might have been more rational, and given Methos a chance to explain. But with his shock of what had happened to Cassandra, and her saying it was Methos, a guy that he's put his trust into, and then the shock of Methos, not only confirming Cassandra's story, then making it worse, deliberately pushing Duncan into walking away, I'm not surprised that Duncan was upset and not thinking straight. On a lighter note, someone pointed out years ago, that with Methos being 5000 yrs old, and him killing 10,000 people, as he claims in this clip, it only works out at two people a year!
Years and years ago, back in the Usenet days, we were having this discussion and someone who didn't care much for Methos kept going on about his admission that he'd killed ten thousand. And I did the math and said, "You realize that even if that's just for his time as a Horseman, it's only ten people per year. Which might be somewhat realistic if that was just the immortals (considering the smaller population and the way people were scattered back then), but is definitely an understatement of how many mortals he must have actually killed to gain the reputation that he did." It's entirely possible Methos' personal count as a Horseman was closer to a million and almost certainly north of a hundred thousand. All he'd need to have done was kill a thousand people per year, every year, for the millennium he spent with the other three to reach a million. Which wouldn't actually be that hard to do, considering their lifestyle at the time. If you think of it that way, *all* of the Horsemen psychologically make a lot more sense and are that much more terrifying.
I agree 100%. His total death count had to be around millions. They killed and raped on almost a daily basis during the dark ages. It was their way of life then and that probably was just his count as a member of the Four Horsemen. I don't think that counts as the group as a whole the numbers would have been apocalyptic. After all they made it in the Bible. Methos number of 10k probably was an understatement to what the severity actually was. He said he was the nightmare that kept them awake at nights. Killing 10 a year doesn't cut it and it surly wouldn't give anyone nightmares let alone a place in the Bible . He was 5k years old the very first immortal and a myth among them. If you take that into account his death total could have been more through the ages before he hung up fighting. We don't know what he did beyond his days as a Horsemen. Cassandra was probably around 30 at the time and she became immortal when Methos killed her . She thought it was somekind of mericle. Thought he bought her back to life. His words "I will kill you as much as it takes to tame you" she started to show feelings for him and thought he would protect her but Kronos forced him to share her. 2k years later her grudge is as cold as that day her village was destroyed. Methos was a changed man and tried to tell Duncan the times were different. He was different. Duncan also had his demons in the past he's not the one to judge but then again it was on an apocalyptic scale. It was far far worse than anything Duncan had done or seen. Methos was highly intelligent and had a plan. He knew what he was doing the whole time. Kronos even mentioned he was the brains of the operation. I love this character so much.
I always figured the "ten thousand" line was more "I killed that many in the space of a few years" or "I killed them in the years I rode with the Horsemen" and not "this is how many men I've killed total."
In every life, even an immortal one, you do what you do by the best lights you have at the time. Everyone has regrets, things that if they could take back they would- Duncan would know that as well as anyone. And I think it helped to explain why Methos was the way he was-that in His own words, he had “a thousand regrets”, and he just didn’t want to add to them. In that time, he probably thought he and his fellow immortals WERE gods, that they could do as they wished, and when he found that he wasn’t one, when he allowed himself to feel some empathy, the sheer magnitude of what he’d been and done was only bearable if he became “Methos”, someone who in the outside didn’t care about anyone or anything. And he probably thought of this- “Duncan, I’ve lived for thousands of years, long before you were born to the world let alone as an immortal. Who in the hell are you to judge ME?”
My favorite part of these two episodes was when Methos breaks up Duncan and Kronos' fight with the molotov cocktails. It's the one time I can think of where no one is watching him and no one has a chance of seeing him, and his face? There's no nervousness, no tension, no concern; I honestly thought he looked a little bored. I think that was the one time in the series we saw Methos not putting on a show for anyone.
I think we never really knew Methos. I always felt Methos would be even scarier in a fight then Duncan. One most brilliant aspects of that character is he never really shows his true hands. I always felt that everything he did was about playing the long game. Where immortals like Duncan only though about the moment. It's one reasons he such a great character.
I always thought the horsemen story idea was so good it should have been the basis for highlander endgame. I just love the biblical implication of their existence and power. and I like how they wanted to cause the apocalypse through modern means.
I love this scene- Peter Wingfield's eyes and face and voice are so expressive, you can so easily imagine him as Death. I honestly cannot stop watching it over and over.
Duncan always did come off as a bit of a hypocrite. By Immortal standards he was just a kid only a few centuries old whereas Methos has seen it all; the advent of writing, the rise and fall of many countless empires, rubbed shoulders with many of history's heroes and villains.
and that would likely STILL be a condensed version even if he kept it one page a year... Immortality sucks in my opinion, sure good health and long life is fine but when you live long enough to see EVERYTHING you know, love and cared for disappear you've lived too long. To me immortality would be a punishment because once you lose your sense of wonder and curiosity there is nothing left.
widgren87 maybe the idea of seeing where mankind is going and seeing all the new things that get invented and developed is enough to keep him intrigued. Methos probably has little stress because he knows a lot of things we mortals worry about are nothing in the grand scheme of things. He also has lived through enough history to have a good idea what is going to happen next, history has a tendency to repeat itself. His knowledge must quite vast. Though it might bother me to know that certain things in the history books are wrong because i was there, if I lived as long as Methos.
Such great acting...love it! Neat thing is...Winfield was "death" in the show, at one time...in real life though, he is now a medical doctor...a fighter of death! Respect!!!
"Is that what you want to hear?" MacLeod is really dense tbh. I barely knew much of the series outside of reading articles on the characters before this, and I could still tell that Methos wasn't being 100% truthful in a sense. Even if he hyped it up with his language, honestly man is too self-righteous. It's kinda cute but at the same time I can see why Methos gets repeatedly irritated with MacLeod
Actually the guy was still pretty damn gorgeous even in the mid 2000s. He had a face that would age well, all bone structure and planes…..not a face that would alter too much with time. Most faces age because they sag, but those with strong boned faces, without a lot of flesh on them, tend to age visually, very slowly. And yes, collarbones can definitely be erogenous zones, and oh my, those collar bones and that long, oh so elegant throat?…..definitely tingle worthy 🤭
See how quickly their fight devolved - "I'm going to angrily throw my coat into the car!" "No, I'M going to angrily throw MY coat into the car!!" "Oh yeah??" "Yeah!!"
"The times were different Macleod" I'm sorry... I have to be on the side of Methos, totally different world. Method predates so many philosophers, religions , moralizers... I really wouldn't even feel bad about admitting it. I mean, I was an uneducated Apeman in a world run by warlords, wth was I supposed to know about right or wrong?
Honestly I never understood why Duncan made a big deal out of this. Yes, methos killed tens of thousands... thousands of years ago. Duncan himself killed dozens, maybe hundreds, BEFORE he was even an immortal, during clan scuffles. If anything he was just being a hypocrite here.
Duncan was the worst kind of hypocrite. Just like we're different people from when we're 20s to 30s and maybe 40s, imagine immortals of thousands of years of age.. one would imagine they'd change a lot over the years.
I hate to reply to a year old comment, but saying Duncan is a hypocrite because of this is wrong, imo. It's a question of context and motivation. If Methos had said he had killed 10k immortals in fights it would be one thing, clan scuffles are loyalty and revenge and whatnot motivated. But by his own admission, Methos killed because he liked it. He slaughtered and enslaved innocents. You can't possibly say there is no difference there. Of course, it was different times though and that DOES change things, so Duncan's reaction is not really warranted (though the shock alone at learning something like that excuses it, at least for it being his first reaction). BUT Methos provokes it on purpose, so again, the fault isn't really on Duncan for it imo.
Well, but here's the thing.. we with our limited lifespan and concept of the world analyze things from a different perspective. 15 years ago I partied like a rock star, drank a lot and had some crazy nights. Now at 35, I barely touch any alcohol and am almost married. Now imagine having a lifespan of thousands of years.. the changes one would go through Some change for the worst others for the best. Remember that immortal Roman general? He killed to expand the empire but then he became a historian... Duncan also changed a lot but he takes the moral high ground and judges everybody
Methos was (oh I hate saying this) "a breath of fresh air". Duncan MacLeod was the (stereo)typically heroic and noble but unrealistic figure we all want to be, but Methos was much more like us and thus much, much more easier to relate to and because of this, much more fascinating to watch. As a perfect example, take the case of the episode "Chivalry" where Duncan is unable to kill an immortal, who is killing mortals, simply because she was once his lover, but Methos has no such qualms and when he challenges Kristin (the murderer) to a duel to the death: Adam Pierson (Methos) : Pick it up. Kristin : Who the hell are you? Adam Pierson : A man who was born long before the age of chivalry.
Duncan McCleod always stroke me as such a self-righteous arse. He couldn't understand what the world was like at that time. "The bloody world was different, I was different" makes perfect sense! Even the watcher understood.
I loved that he was righteous. He wasn’t just about him being right ; he was about right being right and staying right. He just needed to adapt more to the idea of redemption ..
We love Adrian Paul.he deserves some kind of an award for his great acting and physical actions.hes my favorite actor.he saved the show.i love this show until today.good luck McCloud...we miss you.ur the best.take care..a fan forever
I'm binge watching this series & recently saw this S5 E13 which was shown 27 yr ago on 2/10/97. Interestingly enough, I watched it on 2/10/24 unintentionally. 😲 Methos, the good guy, was a killing machine of old & Duncan found it difficult to swallow. So far this was the best episode of the series. Bravo Adrian for directing it. 👏🏼 Adrian & Peter were my fav on the show. 🤩
It is one of my favorite shows❤methos.. 5,000 years old and she is awesome.. my favorite part is where methos meets methos. Or Ron perlman plays a guy that methos meets later pretending to be him to help people❤❤. They are awesom. Have you ever seen Roswell New Mexico 2019. It's a good show you would like it. I mean there is a book series and there's a show that ended in the early 2000s. But I like the second version of the show because based on the books.
Very cool and intense. I remember the first time I saw this, man I was shocked. Methos needed to be showcased more as a badass. He rocks. OK. I give. Could somebody please tell me why this is known as the "jimmy" scene?
It is a good reminder that you cannot judge people from different times on the present day perceptions- because the day will come when YOU will be judged, and there’s a good chance it won’t be favorable. Will that be fair? No- and it’s something to keep in mind in the present when one has the impulse to judge someone from the past. Or, as the Bible puts it, simply “Judge not, lest YE be judged”
"Did you kill all those people?" Those people who you never knew? Those innocent people from thousands of years ago that knew the risks of living in that particular age? Methos said "I was different', that should have been enough. I like Duncan but sometimes his moral code can become laughably sanctimonius.
You ever notice how mcloud sees himself as the "Righteous One" of humanity. Like "he's never done wrong"?, guilt factor? Little Scottish boy, trying to fulfill himself up to his ignorant farmer head of sum clan father?Great story stuff Man!
That was exactly what Joe Dawson brought up to Macleod when he told him about Methos. "How many men have you killed out of anger?" he asked him. Duncan's answer was simple. He did kill out of anger, or duty or whatever. the difference was Methos and the Horsemen killed out Enjoyment and Lust. They enjoyed making people suffer and die. That was the difference.
I would love to see a series which showed what happened to the immortals we met as Highlander progressed. Who, for instance, took Methos's head? Who took Amanda's (the raven) head? There could be only one but we dont know how we got to just one!
I never understood how Duncan was so hurt to find out about Methos being one of the Horsemen, it was established earlier that Methos was from the time before Chivalry... he didn't suffer from that weakness... his being Death was the natural conclusion of that narrative
I agree. It's a shock thing and also even aggression. It's more like baring teeth than a smile. Some really nice acting synergy going on between them in that scene.
Methos is 5000 years old.Mac can't even begin to understand what the world was like back then.I'm 51 and people in their 20's can't even begin to understand how I see things.But they will if they live that long.
One of the best scenes in the entire series. The Horsemen storyline really lent an epic dimension to the whole Highlander saga. What came after that was classic. The show was never better than those episodes, and what came after them... we could have done without. I think the Horsemen story was where Highlander jumped the shark.
There were some good IOTWs after that in season five, and I'd have happily watched a series based on "Indiscretions." Plus, the series finale wasn't bad. But I agree about the rest. The show was never quite as good after the Horseman arc.
Well no one likes to think of their friends raping and imprisoning their other friends...whatever the time... Methos was a man who hated people..therefore killing ,raping was a benefit.But being 5000 yrs old hopefully we all would change.
I didn't actually see this when the series was on. There's something here that makes it feel like Methos is trying to chase Duncan away, to protect him from something. His 'delight' in his admission is just too fake.
Duncan was a little holier than thou for me. I liked him as a character overall, but a little self-righteous. When you’re the age of Methos you’re going to have done some things you’re going to regret. Your life is going to be all of the spectrum of nobility and royal screwup. What Duncan seems to not be able to grasp is that Methos was able to become something more than what he wants was. He was able to become a much better man. And let’s not forget, Duncan had an immortal, and she might never have been immortal if he I didn’t kill her. Like I said, when it comes to the sins of others he’s a bit self righteous.
METHOS was like he said, a changed man, MACLEOD put him on a pedestal to worship, so when he heard his idol lovrd killing 10,000 people and was DEATH ON A HORSE? It knocks the wind out of your sails, but he did ask, and he did tell.
Not that different.but Methos has never been forth coming with information.But i still believe whats right and just now, would have been right 5000 yrs ago .Its all a matter of what Methos could get away with. He did rape and murder innocent people,not in battle but as he put it" because i liked it" Cassandra was just another day.Her whole village were slaughtered for nothing except to spread a message to the next village to be afraid. Methos... we don't know why he chose to do all those things back then..maybe he hated humans, had experienced horrors at their hands,but he took pleasure in the atrocities.Duncan is alot younger than him but still he loved him hence the pain of reconciling the behaviour.
The TV series; 'Dominion' did something similar with the Archangel character of "Michael" a few years ago. The series based on the film Legion explored the Michael character who is a guardian of humanity when God has abandoned the world and the Angels rebelled and fought humanity, lead by his brother Angel; Gabriel. Michael along with some Angels made a small army of his own which helped humanity survived and protects the chosen one who is now grown up (in the Legion film was just a baby?) and will be trained by him to help save humanity in the near future. Episode 8 of the first season showed that so long ago however in mankind's past, Michael actually despised humanity and was God's messenger of death who gladly killed humans with a relish, while it was Gabriel who protected humans and bending the rules of God by doing so when not ordered to? Lol, it was like the roles were reversed eons ago between them both. This is what the Methos scene here in the Highlander TV series reminds me of so much. Time changes everything and everybody eventually especially when you're immortal, damn!
