Posted by Jeanne Rose, who is going to be good and late for work now on Thursday, 25 June 1998, at 10:51 a.m.

I've lost track of how many old friends of Duncan's had to kill because they went bad or somehow crossed the line - Gabriel Piton, Tommy Sullivan, Paul Karros, Brian Cullen, Garrick.  This is the first time an old enemy has turned from evil and tried to redeem himself.

And it is a surprisingly hard lesson for Duncan. At this point in the series, he's used to bad guys being bad guys, black and white. And Cage was pretty darn black. Selling out a bunch of boys in a revolution, allowing them to be killed in cold blood rather than kept up as prisoners.  Letting a bunch of Cambodian children be butchered in order to get a load of drugs out. That's about as bad as they come.

On top of that, before Duncan even knows who he is, he knows that Cage is not keeping to the unwritten rules of immortality - when you die, you're supposed to disappear and let everyone think you're dead.  Instead, he's playing messiah to a bunch of his followers.  And a reporter who is a danger to Kirin ends up dead on Duncan's doorstep. With Cage it's always been about money, and now he's raking in a quarter of a million in donations. How could Duncan not believe it's all a scam?

In fact, the deck is stacked nicely against Duncan's believing in Cage's redemption.  It's interesting which of Duncan's friends end up pushing him either way.  Joe, who has a good and forgiving heart, also has all the chronicles in front of him, and what Duncan knows of Cage's misdeeds is probably just the tip of the iceberg.  He has the somewhat unique opportunity among the watchers of being on the sidelines when a lot of nasties are taken out by his guy, and he'd like to see this one go down too.

Richie, on the other hand, knows only what Duncan has told him, and hasn't carried the load of grief that Duncan has over Cage's actions.  He can look with clearer eyes at what John Kirin is actually doing.  He doesn't push, doesn't champion Kirin to Duncan (maybe the kid is learning!), but he does bring the fact that Kirin is giving away his donations to charity and spending his time running soup kitchens and food banks and helping people.  Anne also sees only the good man who has donated needed money to the hospital.  Then again, Richie has been fooled before (and it'll happen again), and Anne knows nothing about what Cage used to be, and has no reason to suspect that this all may be a scam.

In the end, it's on Duncan's head to make the call.  Once again he is thrust into the judge/jury/executioner role that often ends up his moral duty as an immortal - though, as he expresses it "I don't judge you, Cage.  The children you left to die and the men you betrayed and murdered do that." So perhaps in this case he is only the executioner.  But the fact is - no one else can stop Kirin, and if he is evil, he should be stopped.  However, if it is possible for judgment to be suspended, it is also on Duncan's head to recognize it.

And Cage accepts Duncan's judgment. From the beginning he understands and validates Duncan's position.  "You have a right to be angry." He tries his best to convince Duncan that his change is sincere, but he refuses to fight.  He is ready to die. "Perhaps this is the way it should be." Kirin welcomes redemption even if it means paying for his crimes with his own life.

If Cage had been a bad guy who refused to fight out of cowardice or obvious cunning, Duncan would have had no trouble cutting him down where he stood.  But not now. "Fight me, damn you! I'm giving you a chance," Duncan cries, trying to invoke the rules of  "trial by combat" that says if he wins, he was right.  "Do what you must," Cage replies.  "Then I will!"  But he can't. He runs, he swings, he ends up on his knees beside Cage, unable to take his head.  His grief for the Spanish revolutionaries and the Cambodian children is unassuaged; his unfulfilled need for justice hangs in the air - and something is born inside him.

Joe doesn't get it.  But Duncan has learned a new form of  forgiveness - "God judge between me and thee."  In the end, Cage's change of heart gives Duncan a reprieve from his role as executioner.  Killing Cage will not bring back the people he has killed.  In fact, "I'm not sure it'd be Cage I'm killing.  Maybe he's already dead."  Twenty years of doing good deeds may not begin to cover his tab, but if he's not doing any more harm, if he's doing his best to pay back society in any way he can, then Duncan can in good conscience say - I'm not going to be the one to decide. In this instance, leaving Kirin alive doesn't condone what he did.  Finally, here is one case he can leave to a higher power.

When Cage holds out his hand at the end, I want Duncan to take it.  And yet I can see why it is so hard for him to do so.  Heaven forbid it had been Kern there, saying he'd changed his ways. It would have cost Duncan much more to rise to the spiritual height of forgiveness for something that hurt him so much more deeply.  But perhaps it prepared him to forgive Mark Rosca, who never was evil but caused more damage than he can ever know.  Perhaps it laid the foundation for believing that Methos was no longer the terrible horseman who had raped and pillaged across three continents.

And perhaps it prepared him to forgive himself.  In season three, Duncan has not yet had a personal need for redemption.  He hasn't yet been overcome by a dark quickening and seduced a housewife and killed a friend.  He hasn't yet been harried and confused by a demon into taking his student's head.  And he hasn't yet been on the other side of the issue, the way he was when Steven Keane came hunting him.

If Duncan had run into Cage in season 6, there wouldn't have been much of a story, because Duncan would have been cautious but ready to embrace the idea that Cage had reformed.  He has grown a lot in the last four years, though the cost was almost unbearably high.

This is only the second time I've watched this episode, unlike some of season 4 and 5 which I have seen umpteen billion times and could practically quote every line of.  And frankly I found it quite profound, literally a milestone in Duncan's spiritual journey.

Peace,

JR