Highlander

After Midori Koto sees her husband, rich industrialist Michael Kent, murder her lover, Akira Yoshida, she kills Kent and runs to MacLeod for protection. She reminds MacLeod of a vow of protection his "ancestor" (actually MacLeod himself) made to her family over 200 years before. Flashbacks tell the story of MacLeod coming to the aid of the samurai Hideo Koto after being shipwrecked in Japan. Hideo befriends MacLeod - even though the penalty for helping a "barbarian" in isolationist Japan is death. When Hideo's feudal overlord forces him to commit ritual hara-kiri for that crime, MacLeod serves as his second. He vows to Hideo that he will always protect the Koto family and is bequeathed the dragon-head katana sword he uses to this day. Back in the present, MacLeod discovers that Kent is an Immortal and he's still alive. In order not to further dishonor her family's name, Midori returns to Kent. Kent challenges MacLeod, who takes Kent's head, fulfilling MacLeod's vow to the Koto family and freeing Midori from her loveless marriage.

The people of a tiny Balkan nation are rising up in arms against an oppressive dictator. Paul Karros, a vibrant, charismatic leader, commands the freedom fighters. Karros is an Immortal who once served as a slave under Roman oppression and fought his way to freedom with Spartacus. Since that time, whenever the ordinary people have been fighting against oppression, Karros has been at their side. Karros and his assistant, Mara, have come to the U.S. to drum up support for their cause. MacLeod and Karros fought together in the Mexican Revolution, and Karros tries to convince MacLeod to fight with him in this just cause. MacLeod turns him down, but Charlie is tempted both by the cause and by Mara. When Father Stefan, a local liaison, is critically wounded in an assassination attempt, MacLeod realizes that Karros is determined to fight the war at any cost -- even at the cost of sabotaging peace negotiations by killing those who trust him. When Mara discovers the truth, she threatens to expose him. Karros responds by attempting to kill her. MacLeod is forced to challenge and defeat his old comrade. When Mara returns home to the Balkans, Charlie goes with her.

Dawson has a new girlfriend, art historian Lauren Gale, and a new attitude on life. Unfortunately, Dawson arrives at Lauren's house one evening to witness her murder. We discover that the murderer is Armand Thorne, the benefactor of the Thorne Museum of Antiquities, whom Lauren was investigating. MacLeod finds an ancient gold cross on display at Thorne's museum, one that had been stolen from under his protection nearly two hundred years earlier. Armand Thorne, MacLeod discovers, is actually John Durgan, the Immortal trapper who murdered a frontier priest and stole the cross. MacLeod persuades Amanda to come out of cat-burglar retirement and help him steal the cross from the museum to lure Thorne out of his heavily protected fortress. MacLeod confronts Thorne, takes his head, and finally fulfills his promise to return the Cross of St. Antoine.

Michelle Webster, the rebellious teenage daughter of a friend of MacLeod's, drives away from her parents' house in a rage and right over a cliff. Trauma surgeon Anne Lindsey tries her best to save Michelle, but it's too late. MacLeod rushes to the hospital to comfort his grieving friends -- and sneak their newly Immortal daughter out of the morgue. He tries to train her in the arts of Immortality, but Michelle just wants to have fun. She meets Immortal Axel Whittaker, who promises her all the fun and adventure she could imagine if she stays with him. In flashback, we see that Axel uses beautiful new Immortal women as bait to trap other Immortals and take their heads -- MacLeod barely escaped with his in 1896 Boston. Axel uses Michelle to lure MacLeod to his yacht, where they resume the battle they began a hundred years earlier. MacLeod defeats Axel. After witnessing the fearsome power of the Quickening, Michelle agrees to be trained as an Immortal under Amanda's protection.

Cullen, an old friend of MacLeod's, is burnt out from centuries of playing The Game and has turned to drugs and alcohol to get the courage to keep on playing. Cullen had a run-in with Richie, and now he's coming for Richie's head. While playing "chicken" with Richie on a mountain road, Cullen crashes head-on into a bus full of passengers, killing many. MacLeod tries to convince Cullen, whom he once knew as the greatest of the warriors, to stop using the drugs, but a paranoid Cullen believes MacLeod is just trying to render him helpless. Finally, MacLeod has no choice but to confront his former comrade and defeat him.

What happens to a kid who hits Immortality before he hits puberty? MacLeod and Richie take in 10-year-old Kenny, who asks for their protection after the fatherly Immortal who was protecting him is beheaded. Kenny, we discover, is not the sweet little lamb he appears to be. He has been Immortal for nearly 800 years, and has survived all that time by convincing other Immortals to take him in and protect him -- and then taking their heads. Kenny tries to get MacLeod, but he is continuously thwarted by the presence of Anne. Kenny attempts to get Anne out of his way, but MacLeod, realizing the truth about Kenny, manages to rescue her. He goes after Kenny to stop him from killing again, but Kenny manages to escape by blending in with a group of innocent children.

Immortal David Keogh, once an indentured servant, is a noted craftsman with his heart set on marrying his sweetheart, Jill. Unfortunately, Jill does not agree. Although she loved Keogh once, she was unable to handle it when he confided the secret of his Immortality. Now Keogh won't leave her alone and she's coming to MacLeod, whom Keogh respects and might listen to, for help. But Keogh won't listen, convinced that Jill needs him as much as he needs her. In flashback, we see a time in MacLeod's life when he, too, was obsessed with a woman he couldn't have. When Jill is killed in a tragic accident while trying to get way from Keogh, Keogh blames MacLeod and swears vengence.

MacLeod is tormented by visions of his own death, beheaded by a mysterious dark-hooded figure. Anne tries to convince him to seek medical help, but instead he turns to his old friend Garrick, who has spent centuries studying the mind. MacLeod saw Garrick in the 17th Century, when MacLeod barely escaped being burned as a witch. What MacLeod didn't know was that Garrick was not able to escape as well. Garrick convinces MacLeod that the dark-hooded figure is a racial memory that haunts all Immortals and that the way to defeat it is to not fight it, to accept it for what it is. When MacLeod, haggard and exhausted, faces the specter for the last time, puts down his sword and refuses to fight it, the figure goes for MacLeod's head -- until at the last moment MacLeod realizes the figure is Garrick, seeking his revenge after all these years. In the Tag, Anne, frustrated that MacLeod won't open up to her despite their intimate relationship, leaves him.

Lawyer Robert Waverly is leaving his mistress' apartment with his video camera when he sees MacLeod locked in combat with an evil Immortal. Waverly makes sure he gets it all on tape -- the fight, the death, the Quickening. He then tries to cut a deal with MacLeod: if MacLeod kills Waverly's wife, then Waverly won't go to the police. When Kurlow, partner of the Immortal MacLeod killed on the tape, comes after MacLeod, Waverly, unaware of what he's dealing with, proposes another deal. A la ""Strangers on a Train,"" Waverly will kill Kurlow and MacLeod will kill Bruno's wife, and no one will suspect a thing. Waverly challenges Kurlow, who kills Waverly easily and MacLeod is left to save Waverly's wife and get rid of Kurlow.

To save his own hide, petty hoodlum Benny Carbassa, the Nathan Detroit of Immortality, turns MacLeod over to an aging gangster determined to see MacLeod dead before he dies. In the midst of this, Anne returns, having convinced herself that MacLeod will open up in his own time and determined not to push him too hard. In flashback, we see MacLeod's first meeting with Benny, in 1938 at the Coconut Lounge, a club operated by two young brothers who are rivals for the same torch singer.

Recent Immortal Michael Christian has been on an incredible string of luck, taking a number of heads from unarmed and vulnerable opponents, including May-Ling Shen, who taught MacLeod the martial arts in 1780's Mongolia. Christian's Watcher, Rita Luce, has been doing more than just watching, supplying Christian with classified information on the other Immortals and their weaknesses. MacLeod, unaware of Christian, goes on a vision quest to his cabin on Holy Ground -- deliberately leaving his sword behind. The race is on for Joe Dawson to figure out Rita's secret before Christian sets his sights on MacLeod.

When a religious leader, John Kirin, dies on Anne's operating table and then returns from the dead, his believers know a miracle has occurred. MacLeod knows better. He watched as Kirin, then known as Kage, massacred POWs in the Spanish Civil War and left a band of Cambodian refugee children to die at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Kirin swears that experience changed him forever, turning him from a man of war to a man of peace. When a tabloid reporter trying to get the goods on Kirin winds up dead in MacLeod's dojo, MacLeod is certain Kirin is responsible. Kirin protests his innocence and realizes the real killer is Matthew, one of his faithful disciples trying to protect him. Kirin confronts a disillusioned Matthew, who manages to kill Kirin before dying himself in a rain of police bullets. In the Tag, Kirin and MacLeod have made peace as Kirin takes to the road, hoping to do good elsewhere.

In the 1600s, MacLeod sought refuge in a monastery founded by Paul, another Immortal. There, he encountered Kalas, an Immortal monk with a heavenly singing voice. When it was discovered that Kalas was routinely taking the heads of Immortals as they left the sanctuary, he was expelled from the monastery and the music that was his life. Paul and his choir have been lured out of their monastery for a concert tour, and MacLeod discovers that Kalas is after revenge. Meanwhile, mysterious deaths at the hospital seem linked to negligence on Anne's part. It becomes evident that Kalas is trying to destroy MacLeod's friends before coming for him.

When a street gang guns down Immortal Ceirdwyn and her mortal husband, she calls upon her skills as an ancient Celtic warrior to exact her revenge on the gang members, one by one. At the racetrack watching Richie's success at racing, MacLeod befriends a young pickpocket, the brother of one of the gang members, and learns of the killings. MacLeod, who has known Ceirdwyn since before they helped smuggle Bonnie Prince Charlie out of Scotland in 1746, feels he must stop Ceirdwyn and make her see that revenge is not the answer -- a lesson she helped MacLeod learn in the bloody aftermath of Culloden. In return, Ceirdwyn helps MacLeod see that, although loving a mortal can be dangerous for the mortal, it is the mortal who must choose whether to take the risk. MacLeod calls Anne. Meanwhile, Richie "dies" in a fiery crash during a race, a collision that also takes the life of the champion, Basil.

MacLeod decides to tell Anne the truth about his Immortality and she flies to Paris to be with him. En route, Anne helps save the life of a young woman, Tasha, who turns out to be smuggling drugs for the Russian Mafia. Tasha is the lover of Kristov, the head of the Russian gang and formerly the leader of the band of Cossacks MacLeod encountered on his way to the Orient in 1750. Concerned about Tasha, Anne tries to convince her to testify against Kristov, while Kristov is determined to make sure Tasha dies before she can testify. Richie is kidnapped by Kristov as a pawn in this game. MacLeod must choose between taking down Kristov or saving Richie and Richie finds he must grow as an Immortal -- or die.