Vengeance is Mine
"I had no idea it was going to end in such tragedy." This opening quote sets the stage for an intense outing which is a tour-de-force episode for Richard Chaves. It begins with Ironhorse doing a voice over about an event that has happened. He says that it began like any other operation and that he gathered information that the enemy was stealing optical lenses for reasons unknown. Ironhorse was already short of men and had his soldiers get some innocents out of the area. He gets a report of three suspects coming his way- two males and one female. He would have to take them on alone. He sees them exit the campus and the two males fire at Ironhorse, and Ironhorse fires and kills all three of them. Then he steps closer and realizes that only two were his suspects. The other woman was their hostage. He turns and sees the other woman escaping but Ironhorse is frozen and can't do anything. He allowed the enemy to escape and he has accidently killed an innocent woman. The victim is Sarah Cole- a college student. We now see Ironhorse inside a psychiatrist's office. He has been having nightmares following this incident. The psychiatrist tells Ironhorse that nightmares are common following such an ordeal. Ironhorse explains that he is a soldier and he has been a soldier his whole entire life. He says, "In war we kill people, sometimes innocent people. That's war. It comes with the territory." The psychiatrist wants to know what "war" exactly is Ironhorse fighting but he refuses to answer. Ironhorse says that what's different about this killing was that he went to her funeral. He didn't know why he went. He didn't want to be there yet couldn't leave. He admits that he doesn't feel good about this but he won't dwell on it because he has a war to fight. The psychiatrist tries to find out about the war but Ironhorse will still not tell him. After leaving the psychiatrist's office, we see Ironhorse is being watched by Martin Cole- Sarah's husband. He whispers, "It's all under control folks. I'm here. I'm going to put the chaos in order." At the aliens cavern, a human captive is about to be tested upon. He pleads for them to be merciful and one of the aliens promises him that after the test is done, they will let him go. The captive notices the weapon and the alien tells the human captive he lied. An alien woman tells the Advocacy they are ready to try out the weapon. "Proceed", Advocate Xana orders. The alien woman uses the laser weapon and it proceeds to bore straight through the captive's head. "Congratulations. We are well on our way," Advocate Oshar tells the alien woman. "We will have to make this weapon portable, so each of our troops can have one," Xana says. "If we each have one we can rule this planet by the hot season," Advocate Horek predicts. The alien woman tells the Advocacy they will need the red mineral called ruby- one for each weapon. The Advocates consider stealing them at first but realize it would be inefficient since humans hold rubies in the highest regard. And the rubies would be under heavy security. The Advocates decide that casualties should be prohibitive. Xana says, "We will have to buy them. We will need great quanities of human money." Oshar chimes in, "Then we will get great quanities of human money." At the Cottage, Norton talks about a theft of high-tech optical lenses in Sacramento and previously in Seattle. Harrison wants to pursue things before the trail in Sacramento grows cold but Ironhorse quietly tells the team he doesn't want to go into battle half-cocked and lose any more personnel. Meanwhile, the aliens meet with a dealer who sells rubies. The aliens want the five karat Burmese gemstone and they want one thousand of them. The dealer is perplexed and tells them that would cost over five million dollars. The aliens claim they'll get the money in a week. Suzanne tries to comfort Ironhorse but he is slowly sinking into himself and refuses help. But he does thank Suzanne for trying to help him. Later on that night, Ironhorse dreams about the event. He imagines the aliens leaving with Sarah in tow- and she's clad in a white dress carrying a rose. Ironhorse still shoots her and she is covered in blood- and the rose drops to the snow. Ironhorse wakes up from that dream with a start- perspiring heavily. Martin Cole is upset that the police isn't doing anything about his wife's death. He vows that things are not over yet. The aliens steal money from an armored truck in order to pay for the rubies. Upon hearing news about the aliens latest activity, Ironhorse wants to go to Sacramento and pursue the aliens. Harrison mentions to Ironhorse about the whole incident with Sarah Cole and how it is affecting him. But Ironhorse continues to slide further into his own abyss. Martin Cole proceeds to quote biblical text and make the explosives for a miniature helcopter. He says that, "This will be a memorial- a farewell gift to Sarah." Later on, Harrison walks in during Ironhorse's work out. Harrison asks Ironhorse to take some time off at Dr. Forrester's cabin in the mountains (Dr. Forrester gave this to Harrison). He also tells the Colonel that he's talked to General Wilson about the situation and the General has asked Ironhorse to take some time off. Ironhorse works out harder- slowly falling apart at the seams. The alien woman shows the Advocacy the weapon. Xana tells her that her work is exemplary. "I am nothing without your counsel," the alien woman replies. Horek says that they have just got word that the thefts have helped them acquire two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. The Advocacy decide that they need to speed up this process. Ironhorse returns to the psychiatrist and tells him he expects Sarah Cole to still be alive. For her to just walk through the door- and he realizes that none of this makes any sense. One of the aliens brings the dealer a quarter of a million dollars which is a down payment for the rubies. He also tells her they will need two thousand rubies instead of one thousand. Norton tells Harrison and Suzanne that four armored truck robberies sync up with the alien trasmissions. Suzanne wonders what the aliens could want with money. Martin Cole follows Ironhorse and tries to kill him with the explosives in the miniature copter. Instead, Ironhorse swerves off the road and crashes. Harrison decides even without Ironhorse they should go to Sacramento and he gives Stavrakos the okay to be in charge of the mission there. Cole has captured Ironhorse and has his hands and feet bound by rope. He welcomes Ironhorse to the real world. "My real world," he elaborates. He tells him who he is and says that they are going to get to know each other very well. He tells Ironhorse that he saw him at the campus when Sarah was shot and it didn't register until he saw him at her funeral. He wrote down Ironhorse's license plate and said he was frustrated when no one did anything because the Colonel is a part of "some secret anti-terrorist agency". He explains that Sarah was the "nicest, sweetest, most loving person I've ever known." Martin goes and gets a shotgun. Ironhorse asks him what is he going to do with that and Martin tells him, "What the Bible says." Two aliens infiltrate the armored transport company as employees. They plan on getting a truck moved to the security gate so they can load the gold. They are going to contact the Advocates of their imminent victory. Martin tells Ironhorse he's going to blow his brains out against the wall. He continues to circle Ironhorse- while Ironhorse he won't get away with it because he doesn't have what it takes to get away with it. He's up against professionals. All the while he's doing this, Ironhorse is getting his hands free. As Martin plans to kill him where no one will find him- he is disarmed by Ironhorse. Then, Ironhorse remarks, "Now, we're going to see who does what to whom." Ironhorse tells Martin that he isn't the only who's suffered about this and who has been forced to look into the mirror. He admits to Martin that Sarah was a casaulty of battle. And he tells him that if the opportunity presented itself again, as sorry as he is about it, he would do the same thing again. Ironhorse contacts Norton and Norton tells him they're in Sacramento with Omega Squad. Ironhorse asks Martin to come with him and get revenge on the people who are responsible for his wife's murder. The aliens tell the Advocacy the gold is in their possession. With a pleased tone in her voice, Xana says, "In a matter of hours, we'll have all the rubies we'll ever need." Horek says that they will alert the human who is selling them the rubies that they will have the money. Oshar also adds, "I will also inform the weapons-makers the rubies are moments away." The aliens see that they have been discovered by Harrison, Suzanne, and the Omega Squad. They escape and steal the armored truck. The only one who can stop them is Ironhorse now is following them after spotting them on the road. Ironhorse frees Martin and allows him to get the explosives ready for another miniature chopper. The aliens send a distress call to the Advocacy. "We must stop the humans!" Xana stresses. "We are nothing without your counsel", the alien says. "Our counsel is...survive," Xana states. After a lenghty chase, Martin rams the chopper right into the back of the armored truck which destroys the aliens. Martin and Ironhorse look at the remains of the truck and Harrison calls Ironhorse up and asks him if he's okay. Ironhorse looks at Martin Cole and says, "Everything's fine." The two stare at the truck and say nothing else. COMMENTS: This episode was Richard Chaves best performance ever on the show in my opinion. Just as a snake will shed its skin, Richard shed his skin before the camera. He allowed the audience to see every facet of Paul Ironhorse in this outing. The Colonel's military armor fell to the ground and we saw exactly the true human being that lay underneath the uniform. Never before have we seen Ironhorse so raw and vulnerable. I enjoyed how the first season allowed us to first look at Ironhorse's Indian heritage ("Dust to Dust") and in this episode, his military roots. These two parts of his background make him who he is and it certainly must war with each other. Ironhorse seemed near self-destruction in this episode and honestly, seemed almost near a breakdown which could have led in tragedy (his own suicide, etc.). It was an honest and stunning performance by Richard. His scenes with Denis Forest were amazing. Denis Forest wins best WOTW guest star hands down for his portrayl of Martin Cole. The following season, Denis would return as the alien Malzor during the second season of the show (Julian Richings- who played the alien Ardix of season two was also in a first season episode- "He Feedeth Among the Lilies"). It's a shame that Denis allowed his incredible talents to be wasted on the wreck that was WOTW Year 2. I remember seeing a lot of Denis' turns on Friday the 13th: The Series and he is wonderful at playing mentally unbalanced characters that the audience can feel sympathy for. And I felt plenty of sympathy for Martin Cole. He lost someone dear to him and he was losing his grasp on sanity- just as Ironhorse was. The original version of this script had Martin incapable of violence and spoonfeeding the Colonel. He seemed more interested in knowing why Ironhorse did it. And also in the draft script, Harrison and Suzanne were captured by the aliens and held for later delivery to the Advocacy. Martin and Ironhorse teamed up to save them- and Martin forgave Ironhorse out of sympathy because he witnessed how the Colonel has to make split-second decisions during battle. Personally, either version would have been great with me. I like the televised one however- it adds intensity to the episode and Chaves and Forest were amazing on-screen. The sub-plot about the aliens and the rubies was good but the episode was owned by Richard and his performance. Brilliant episode penned by Arnold Margolin and brilliant acting by Richard Chaves and Denis Forest.
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Ironhorse is frozen after accidently shooting Sarah Cole
The aliens test out a new weapon
Martin Cole plans his revenge on Ironhorse
