Highlander (TV Series) The Fighter (1994) User Reviews

Mac rejecting the quickening cheapened the immortal mythos. Mac plays judge,jury, and executioner. Wasted quickening destroys all that he was-shameful.

[reb-warrior · 5/10 · 10 March 2020]

Mac's old pal, Tommy Sullivan, an immortal, is a boxing coach and manager. Greedy corrupt people are out to take away his prized boxer. Sullivan also has a huge crush on Iris and he messes up every time he tries to talk with her.

I thought Sullivan was funny and Charlie's attempt to teach him to talk to Iris is hilarious. The flashbacks early in the 20th century of him having Mac fight for him were good. Another hilarious scene here is when Sullivan barges in Mac's room, and he cannot speak and trips over himself when he sees that Mac has a woman with him.

Unfortunately, Sullivan has a bad habit of killing people that betray him or try to do any kind of wrong to him. He ends up killing the two corrupt fellows that want to take away his boxer and that did a cruel set-up involving Iris. He also ends up killing his boxer who signed with someone else. He saw that as a betrayal.

I really like Sullivan and he didn't exactly seem evil to me. He was a really likable fella. Mac feels he needs to kill Sullivan since he killed those people especially his boxer who was not a bad person. I get where Mac is coming from, but this is one of those times where it rubs me the wrong way when Mac plays judge, jury, and executioner. Why does he always think he's the boss of immortal justice? I don't know what a better solution would have been, but I just didn't like this solution.

In the end, I believe we see some of the "power" immortals get from Mac and Sullivan's fight. Sullivan looks like a 60-year-old man. He's very slight looking, yet he's doing these big jumps and holds his own really well.

After Mac kills him he used the swords to reject the quickening. It just seemed to cheapen the whole immortal mythos. It also brings to mind what Fitzcairn said in season one's 'The Hunters,' when mortals were going to behead him:

"This, this is madness! There are no Immortals here! All I am will be wasted! What do you want? All I know will be lost. There will be no Quickening. What do you want?! You're mad!"

So Mac did that to his old friend? Someone he once cared about and had lots of laughs and adventures with? All that he was is wasted? All that he knew is lost? So disappointed in Mac and the writers here. I usually skip this one in re-watches. I gave the episode a 5/10.

Don't like the writing here

[xbatgirl-30029 · 4/10 · 11 May 2022]

This is a strangely paced episode where one minute there's slapstick comedy and the next there's murders of non-immortals. It was such a bad idea to create the character of Sully as a lovable doofus who can't talk to woman (and a great deal of the episode was devoted to this) then, oops, he kills people who annoy him. Plus he's a total sociopath about the killings. Absolutely no remorse, as if he just swatted some flies. Then Mac swoops in to say "you can't do that" and basically executes him. This is after we've seen Mac be his good friend for decades.

It's a very bizarre ending that doesn't paint Mac as a moral guy. If they cut out some the comedy antics and took time to paint Sully as an ongoing dangerous threat to the public, the ending may have worked better. It's also confusing why Mac was even such good buddies with a guy he seems to have known was murdering people? Why did they take the time to point out that Mac was a much stronger fighter than Sully and fought in a different weight class? It only emphasizes how the duel at the end only ever had one outcome - Mac standing over a much smaller, defeated man and killing him.

One thing that hasn't aged well was how the writers obviously found it a bit romantic when Sully finally confronts Iris with his feelings and wants her to go away with him. To Iris he's a much older guy who's just one of many customers who likely flirt with her. The next minute he's begging her to drop her entire life to go away with him. Like she somehow owes him that just because he's attracted to her. It's pretty creepy. I actually thought he was going to try to hurt her for rejecting him and *that* would give Mac a reason to fight and kill him. But no.

I did enjoy Bruce Weitz when he was spazzing out around women, especially the scene when he walks into Mac's bedroom. I wish I could have seen him do more comedy in his career. Plus General Maybourne from Stargate was basically being General Maybourne - enjoying the role of slimy villain. So things weren't all bad.

This felt like a very obvious filler episode that should have been either more fun or more dramatic. But instead it's one of the few episodes that have Mac looking like the bad guy.