The worst episodes of Highlander
Ranked by viewer rating, lows first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
Richie Ryan tries to protect an old girlfriend, Nikki, from a band of drug dealers. This puts them both in jeopardy from an Immortal, Alexei Voshin, whom MacLeod knows from an adventure during the Second World War, when he was trying to smuggle Jewish refugees out of occupied Eastern Europe. Nikki complicates the story by withholding drug money she has stolen from the gang, thinking she can use it to make a better life for her small daughter, Melinda. Tessa, meanwhile, becomes enamored of the child, raising issues for her and MacLeod.
- 02
In 1918, in the Soviet Union, MacLeod promised the Immortal Drakov that he would not fight him in return for sparing lives. Today, Drakov, now called Arthur Drake, still operates behind the scenes of international politics, a cruel puppetmaster who is dragging Eastern Europe toward anarchy. Eli Jarmel, an older man whose family Drake destroyed, urges MacLeod to renounce his promise, while Beth Vaughn, a reporter, risks her life investigating both Drake and MacLeod.
- 03
Joe Dawson arrives in Paris to let MacLeod know that Horton may still be alive and coming after him. However, when MacLeod meets Lisa Milon, a dead-ringer for Tessa (Lisa Halle after plastic surgery), all thoughts of Horton and the Watchers go out of his head. Richie, unsure if Mac is thinking clearly, goes to Dawson for help and winds up taking a bullet for him when Horton tries a hit. Lisa is kidnapped, and MacLeod insists on going after her even though his friends warn him it may be a setup. He can't take a chance on burying her again. When Lisa finally tries to kill MacLeod, he turns the tables on her, and Horton at long last gets what's coming to him.
- 04
Amanda, the beautiful Immortal cat-burglar, returns to town, telling MacLeod she's retired from her life of crime. He doesn't believe her -- especially when two guys start shooting at them. Mac thinks the guys might be Watchers, but they are actually FBI Agents. Amanda is in possession of some plates for counterfeit money, stolen in Germany before the War. She's looking for an engraver to change the dates, figuring since she's sworn to give up stealing money, she'll have to print some up. Palance, one of the FBI Agents, sets MacLeod and Amanda up to take the fall for his partner's murder, and demands that they turn the plates over. Mac and Amanda are forced to "die" on videotape to catch Palance.
- 05
Jimmy Sang, a former student of Charlie's, is an up-and-coming martial arts movie star. His latest movie is filming some scenes in the dojo. When a stuntman is "accidentally" killed, MacLeod is the first to realize that Jimmy's life is in danger. It turns out that the movie is based on Jimmy's youthful experiences as an enforcer for a powerful gang, and now his former boss, Johnny Leong, wants to see him dead.
- 06
When MacLeod and Richie are witnesses to a terrorist attack on an Ambassador, Richie dives in like a Superhero, cocky with Immortality. In the resulting confusion, one of the terrorists is killed, and another, Annie Devlin, an Immortal, is captured. She swears revenge on Richie, and when she escapes from custody, MacLeod takes on the task of educating Richie so that he will have a chance in combat against her. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal an earlier friendship between MacLeod and Annie. Mac renews the friendship, and the two Immortals who have both recently lost their lovers find solace in one another. In the end, Richie defeats Annie but can't bring himself to kill her, and MacLeod convinces her to pursue the blood debt no further.
- 07
- 08
- 09
MacLeod comes up against Nicholas Ward, an Immortal who conceals his murders by disguising them as popular hysterias. In the 1840s, Ward created a vampire myth to conceal the true motive behind his killing the owners of a business he wanted. Mac managed to prevent Ward from marrying (and murdering) the heiress, but Ward escaped. In the present, Mac teams up with Joe Dawson to discover what Ward is up to and protect the young woman he's set his sights on this time.
- 10
Friends become enemies, and the past is revealed when Immortal Andrew Cord is gunned down and MacLeod discovers the sniper is Charlie DeSalvo, his good friend who used to run the dojo. Charlie, who left MacLeod to fight the good fight in the Balkans with his love, Maria Leonin, is after Cord, who murdered her. Dawson knows Cord as the man who saved his life in Vietnam after a mine explosion took his legs, and he begs MacLeod not to fight him. MacLeod agrees -- until Cord turns the tables and sets his sights on Charlie.
- 11
A deadly herbal drug takes the life of Richie's friend, and MacLeod suspects the source of the drug is another Immortal, Kiem Sun, who has long sought to perfect such a drug and remove its lethal side effects for the betterment of humanity. But Chu Lin, a disciple of Kiem Sun's, is using the drug for his own gain, and MacLeod and his old friend must track him down. When it becomes clear that Kiem Sun plans to continue his experiments, MacLeod destroys the remaining sample of the drug.
- 12
Thirty years ago, evil Immortal Quenten Barnes was executed in the electric chair and promised he'd be back. Escaping the tomb that he has been captive to for the last several decades, Barnes begins hunting down the people involved in his execution. Joe Dawson learns that he has returned and tries to get MacLeod involved in Barnes' apprehension. Mac declines to get involved unless Barnes gets in his way, but when his old friend Michael Moore comes to town, a flashback shows us that Barnes killed Michael's wife and has a long-standing grudge against Michael. Now Mac is involved. He convinces Dawson to share the Watchers' surveillance file on Barnes with him. However, the file isn't much help. As the prosecutor and priest who were at Barnes' execution are killed off one by one, it becomes clear that Barnes will come after Michael next. The story ends with an interesting twist as MacLeod must make a decision that will affect the "lives" of two different personalities.
- 13
MacLeod's old friend Tommy Sullivan is a scrappy little Irishman, a one-time boxer turned trainer, who can charm anyone into anything. He charms MacLeod into backing his current boxer and charms Charlie into playing Cyrano to help him woo a shy waitress. But when a rival manager who was trying to steal Sully's fighter turns up dead, MacLeod's opinion of his old friend begins to be altered forever.
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
Pete Wilder just saved Richie from an attack by some guys wearing Watcher tattoos. Or did he? Nothing is what it seems, and MacLeod becomes increasingly wary of Pete, despite Richie's protests that the guy is his friend. When MacLeod's mistrust leads to the possibly innocent Pete's death, Mac becomes increasingly unsure of himself. Unknown to MacLeod, his old enemy Horton is pulling all the strings. Horton is secretly training escaped killer Lisa Halle to go after MacLeod while he's troubled and vulnerable.
- 18
An Immortal friend of MacLeod's, Lucas Desiree, is beheaded in his isolated mountain retreat, where he had hoped, like MacLeod, to retire from the fight for a while. A brain-damaged, homeless veteran, Leo Atkins, is charged with the grisly crime, and an attempt is made to link him to the killing of Slan Quince (the villain of episode one, 'The Gathering'), an Evil Immortal whom MacLeod himself had slain in combat. MacLeod must try to clear the innocent Leo and unravel the mystery of who killed his friend. Here again, we get a glimpse of MacLeod's past in flashbacks set during the American Civil War.
- 19
A beautiful young woman, Felicia Martins, throws herself to her death, only to revive with the realization that she is an Immortal. She seeks out Duncan MacLeod as her mentor and becomes amorously involved with Richie Ryan. But there is much more to this "ingénue" than meets the eye. She is, in fact, a long-time Immortal, engaged in a wily scheme to trap MacLeod and acquire his Quickening. MacLeod must see through her subterfuge in time to protect not only himself, but also Richie.
- 20
While visiting the courthouse to clear up Tessa's traffic tickets, MacLeod, Tessa, and Richie are among a group that is taken hostage by a band of men bent on freeing their leader, Bryan Slade, from imprisonment. When Slade's demands are not met, he chooses a hostage to sacrifice. MacLeod makes sure that the hostage is himself and returns from the dead to hunt down the gunmen one by one, as the police watch helplessly from outside.
- 21
When Tessa is taken by a band of Survivalists who live off the land in the vastness of the Pacific Northwest, MacLeod must call on all of his own skills, honed a hundred and fifty years earlier, when he roamed this same mountain wilderness. The leader of these modern-day mountain men, Caleb (who is an Immortal), falls in love with Tessa, and in the end, he and MacLeod battle to the death, axe against sword, against the primitive backdrop of the timeless wilderness.
- 22
MacLeod is struck and "killed" by a speeding automobile. After seeing Duncan's miraculous recovery in a hospital from what should have been a fatal accident, an unethical ER doctor kidnaps the Highlander to study his recuperative powers and determine his secrets for research on a miracle cure for trauma. When MacLeod escapes from the doctor, the doctor murders a potential witness and frames MacLeod for it.
- 23
Xavier St. Cloud returns, killing Immortals with the help of mortal mercenaries who shoot his prey, making his kill easy. His next target is MacLeod, but, warned by Dawson, Mac and Charlie just manage to escape death -- though the dojo is all but destroyed in the gunfight. Renee Delaney, a CID agent investigating the mercenary angle, gets on the case. MacLeod goes after Xavier himself, and Charlie insists on coming along. During his battle with St. Cloud, MacLeod spots James Horton, the Hunter who killed Darius. Distracted, Mac is "killed" and falls down an elevator shaft out of beheading range, and Charlie is badly wounded and lies near death. Blaming Dawson for helping Horton escape alive, MacLeod warns him not to cross his path again.
- 24
Duncan McLeod is roused from his peaceful existence with the love of this life, Tessa Noel, when he is challenged to Immortal combat by Slan Quince, an Evil Immortal. An old friend and Clansman, Connor MacLeod, comes to try and convince Duncan to once more join the fray in the battle of Good versus Evil. This episode also introduces Richie Ryan, a kid from the streets whom Duncan befriends after catching him breaking into his antique store.
- 25
Seeking revenge for the apparent death of her lover, Walter Reinhardt, Rebecca Lord toys with MacLeod before she attempts to kill him with Reinhardt's sword. Rebecca knows nothing of Immortals or their combat, and she believes MacLeod murdered Reinhardt. Unbeknownst to her, Reinhardt is still alive and using Rebecca in a cat-and-mouse game to draw out MacLeod for their final confrontation.
Shows like Highlander
The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
- 01Drama·Action·FantasyThe worst episodes of The Witcher2019–present
Based on the best-selling fantasy series, The Witcher is an epic tale of fate and family. - 02Drama·Action·FantasyThe worst episodes of House of the Dragon2022–present
Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon tells the history of House Targaryen as they fight through a civil war. - 03Drama·Action·FantasyThe worst episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms2026–presentA century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros: a young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg.
- 04Drama·Action·FantasyThe worst episodes of Believe2014–2014·NBC
Levitation, telekinesis, the ability to control nature and even predict the future... - 05Drama·Action·FantasyThe worst episodes of American Gods2017–2021·STARZAmerican Gods follows Shadow Moon, a man serving three years in prison who is given an early release.
- 06Drama·Action·Fantasy·AnimeThe worst episodes of Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu2016–present·AT-X
Suddenly, high school student Subaru Natsuki has been summoned to another world on the way back from the convenience store.
