Methos

Methos is an Immortal in the TV series, Highlander, an ally, friend, and sometime mentor to the hero Duncan Macleod. He is a cynical, practical air in the idealistic atmosphere of the very honorable, and occasionally naive, younger of the two Highlanders. At over five thousand years old, he is likely the oldest living Immortal, and has seen much of known Human history unfold. He was said to recall nothing of his life before taking his first head. Many Watchers consider him strictly a legend, though Joe Dawson knows who he is. As far as most Watchers are concerned, he is in fact one of their own, a low-level researcher employed to find evidence of Methos himself, which they consider to be a wild-goose chase and no path to higher office. This suits Methos just fine, as it not only allows him to keep his own confirmed existence a secret, but also keeps him aware of the locations and activities of other Immortals, this to keep clear of their path. Methos tired of the Game long ago, and in times past, befriended the Watcher meant to observe him, eventually joining to serve his purpose of a quiet life. Without this, he rightly fears that, like master gunslingers in the American Old West, he would face a never-ending string of challengers, one of whom was bound to get lucky.

His presence in the series began when an Immortal names Kalas, an old and bitter foe of Duncan's, began a campaign to destroy those he cared about as a way of punishing him for destroying his once-beautiful singing voice, though in fair combat, and because Kalas was killing mortal rivals and former lovers with abandon, and had once abused Holy Ground itself to gain power. At some point, Kalas decided to pursue the legend of the oldest Immortal, capturing and torturing his own Watcher when he slipped up and got noticed. Through this, Kalas found out about a Watcher researcher named Adam Pierson (Adam being a personal pun of Methos, and often used somehow in his assumed names) who would have any real information of Methos' possible whereabouts. Since Immortals could sense one another, Methos knew it was only a matter of time before Kalas found him and figured out his ruse. To this, he revealed himself deliberately to Duncan Macleod and sought his protection. But when the Highlander proved more gullible and rules-bound than the Oldest was comfortable with, he showed his practical side. Since Kalas had committed several real crimes during his pursuit of the two Immortals, Methos simply called the police and him arrested, which placed the cautious Kalas in a bind, and in prison for several months while he figured out a way to free himself without drawing more attention than he needed. Methos for his part vanished entirely, something he was very good at.

But when Kalas escaped, he also lucked into a project Methos had been working on with a fellow Watcher, a data disc containing vast amounts of data on Immortals and their Watchers, something forbidden by Watcher law, since it was harder to protect than dusty volumes and scrolls. With Immortals and all they knew set to be exposed, and the accompanying chaos that would follow, Methos reemerged, perhaps again needing the protection of Macleod, who overcame Kalas, whose huge, EMP-like Quickening destroyed the disc as well. Over the months that followed, Duncan would be followed by Methos, who admired Macleod but found him too honorable and therefore vulnerable to the manipulations of others. Once, he even shed his hesitant masquerade and finished off a ruthless former lover of Macleod's, when his chivalrous code prevented him from killing a woman. The two joined forces to save Joe Dawson from judgment by the Watchers Council for revealing their existence to and aiding Macleod, dismissing what Kalas and James Horton did to bring this about.

But it was when Methos was teaching at a Seacouver-area college that Macleod finally learned that his friend was more than just an over-worldly, jaded cynic. He had in fact once been one of the greatest killers in all of Human history, a barbaric man who delighted in every last depravity one could imagine. When the Immortal Duncan knew as Old West outlaw Melvin Koren showed up while battling Duncan's friend Cassandra, Macleod learned from her of a group that called themselves The Four Horsemen, possibly the inspiration for the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse in the Christian Book Of Revelation. Led by Koren, who called himself Kronos, they rode for perhaps millennia over Ancient Eurasia, killing and destroying as they pleased. Kronos was Pestilence, the brutish Silas War, and the insane, perhaps cannibalistic Caspian was Famine. Cassandra's village had been slaughtered by the Horsemen, and she herself kept as a personal slave by the one called Death, who fooled her into believing that he had made her Immortal and could also take that away. A devotion developed as Cassandra saw a better man inside the monster, but this was broken when she was handed off to Kronos, essentially so Death could prove that she meant nothing to him. This was largely disproven when she fought off Kronos (whom she did not consider her 'true' master) and escaped the Horsemen entirely, with Methos seeing her but allowing her to leave, sickened at last by how far he had broken her once-lively spirit. Realizing at some point Death's deception regarding her Immortality, Cassandra swore revenge.

In the present day, when Duncan sought Methos' advice concerning all this, Cassandra confirmed (the viewing audience knew from the flashback) that in fact Methos had been Death of The Horsemen. At first blatantly lying about ever having known Cassandra, Methos fled and was found by Kronos, who demanded his head for leaving the group sometime between the death of Julius Caesar and the birth of Christ (and in deleted scenes, entrapping Kronos in a tomb). But Methos proved why he had lived all that time when he made Kronos a counter-offer : let him guide them to the current locations of Silas and Caspian, so they could reunite their 'brothers' and begin their reign of terror once again. Told to kill Duncan by Kronos in exchange for killing Cassandra, Methos instead had a confrontation with the Highlander, who demanded to know the truth of his past. Angered, Methos almost bragged of his past prowess at killing, and the thrill it gave him. Macleod walked away and declared their friendship done with. Methos, his allegiances unknown, went with Kronos to reunite The Four Horsemen.

(TBC...)