honey and sting

I completely agree that this is Blood Ties' Comes a Horseman episode. And that arc is exactly when I got sucked in, hard, to Highlander fandom. This episode pushed all the same buttons for me. I don't care if the show isn't as wonderful as Highlander was, I care deeply about these characters so this episode hurt me for them, bad.

I understand your defending Henry's anti-black magic position, particularly if the boards (I don't often read them) are full of "Henry should get over it and forgive her" squeals, but I see Vicki's side like this--Clearly what she did was black magic, but how clear has it been made to her that Henry's position is so absolute? She's seen him participate in magical situations before. He let Maurice hide the chalice with magic (black? I don't know, so likely neither would Vicki). I think his "I can't forgive what you did" speech probably surprised her more because he was upset about the black magic than that he was upset about her stabbing him in the gut (which I would expect Vicki to agree is a little hard to forgive). I respect Henry's position, but I don't think Vicki has seen enough evidence in his behavior to really appreciate it. In the first episode he performs magic himself --albeit with all sorts of caveats-- in order to locate what park Astaroth's servant will show up in. I really think Vicki didn't know he felt this strongly.

And I don't think it matters, anyway. I think she would have betrayed his principles even if she did understand them. (And maybe she did. After all, he *told* her from the floor where he lay that he'd rather die than have her do this.) What's wonderful about this tragedy is the characters are at complete odds with each other because of their own natures. Vicki is incapable of not trying *anything* to save Henry. It's that simple. Regardless of what he wants. If it's true that Henry is incapable of forgiving her for that, well then, it's a hopeless case.

This episode left me feeling exactly like I did after Comes A Horseman. I hope the writers find a way to resolve it better than they did with the second half of The Devil You Know.