This episode actually replaced an episode that we had in development which was called "Dilemma", and "Dilemma" was an episode in which the character of Methos returned to the show and got killed. And when we were filming the "Methos" episode and started seeing dailies and saw the chemistry between Peter Wingfield and Adrian Paul and how well the character was working out, we decided we didn't really want to kill him, which was a shame from a story point of view because the "Dilemma" story was really kind of an interesting story in which Kalas kills Methos and then starts exhibiting some of Methos' personality traits, and Duncan's torn between killing his worst enemy and saving his newest friend. But in the long-term of the show, it worked out in our favor to not kill Methos because he turned out to be a great part of the next few seasons.

And so "Finale" was developed. We still brought the character back, but he managed to survive the two episodes and go on to the future seasons.

"Finale, Part One" and "Finale, Part Two" -- the titles make them sound like a two-parter, but we always said that they were the last two episodes of a five-parter, which started in "Song of the Executioner" and continued in "Star-Crossed" and "Methos". And sometimes we would say that in fact they were the last two episodes of a twenty-two parter, which was the entire season.

The Kalas arc was three episodes in the middle of the season, and then we got rid of him for a while and put him in prison, because there really is only so long you can have a recurring bad guy without your heroes starting to look stupid for not catching him every week. So we put Kalas on ice, finished up the season with some regular stories, and then brought him out for the big 'Finales'.

This was sort of a further development in the relationship between Amanda and MacLeod. She'd always been a pretty selfish character. She was a hedonist, she liked pleasure for its own sake, liked MacLeod for, you know, a number of reasons--

But there was always a sense that Amanda was in things for herself. In this case she actually tried, for about the first time, I think, in the series, to do something totally selfless. To tackle this enemy of MacLeod's and to finish him off.

Of course, Amanda being Amanda, she didn't take everything into account, Kalas gets out of prison in the -- I think in the teaser of the episode -- and she really starts a series of events that's going to put MacLeod, all Immortals, and all the Watchers in danger.

In "Finale", Amanda breaks Kalas out of prison with the idea of immediately whacking him as a gift for MacLeod, but, of course, it didn't work out that way, 'cause we had two episodes to fill. She didn't count on the fact that Kalas had made a little friend named Nino in the prison, and he used Nino as a weapon against Amanda and was able to get away, leaving Amanda in the spot of then having to tell MacLeod, which is one of my favorite scenes, I think, of the entire series.

[laughs] Nino. Wow, we got really lucky there, because when you write a character who's off kilter like that, if the casting isn't good, it just comes off farcical. But that -- they played off each other so wonderfully that he just -- every time he's on screen, it adds a little extra zip to it.

One of the -- one of the things I think that makes the "Finale" episodes some of our favorites are that so much of our recurring cast is present in them. The fact that Amanda is the one who lets Kalas out of prison and then becomes a part of the story and a part of this major climax to the season's biggest arc is really a nice touch. It's not something we were able to do that frequently, to have so many of our cast in an episode together, and I think it adds a lot to the story both emotionally and in terms of the humor, to have those characters together who work so well together.

"Finale", I think, was one of the first episodes that brought all of our family together, or at least all the family except for Richie, you know. We had Joe. This is the return of Methos, who we never thought we'd see again, or there was a possibility -- he was only written for one episode, for the "Methos" episode, but we had all liked the dailies of that so much, we liked Peter Wingfield's performance and what he was doing with the character, that the decision was made to bring him back for the last two. And there was a distinct possibility he was going to die at the end of those two, but again, the character was so winning that he got a reprieve and we told a slightly different story than we might have told. But we also have Amanda. It was the beginning of... I guess what I call the 'Methos and Joe show'. There was some kind of chemistry between Jim and Peter that came across on the screen, and I think that developed both of their characters for the rest of the show.

In "Finale, Part One", just as Joe Dawson is going to step out of character in a sense, for Joe, and kill Christine, the wife of a Watcher -- Christine is about to go into the Tribune offices or Herald offices, I think, of a newspaper and reveal all about the Immortals and the Watchers to the world. And Joe, knowing that this can't be allowed to happen, is going to step in front of her and shoot her and commit murder to prevent her from revealing this fact to the world. MacLeod dives in front of Joe's bullet, takes the bullet, and Christine makes it into the offices of the newspaper. So at the end of "Finale, Part One", we have the feeling that the whole cover for Immortals and for Watchers is going to be blown, and that in fact, the series as we know it could change utterly. This was done for two reasons. One is to give us a great cliffhanger, I think, and secondly, because that's the sort of thing MacLeod would do. He couldn't allow a murder to take place, even if it would save his life in some way or keep his cover from being blown.

Well, the reason MacLeod takes a bullet at the end of the show, of "Finale, Part One", is to save his friend the guilt of having killed somebody, of having taken somebody else's life and being, you know, the judge, jury, and executioner. The -- it was possibly a slight cliffhanger device because he could have done it earlier and we would have not seen what would happen next week, so there was that device in it, to actually make it a cliffhanger. But I think there was a real sense for MacLeod that he didn't want Joe to have that guilt in him, something he would have to live with for the rest of his life -- that he'd killed a woman and one that was the wife of a friend of his, because she was doing something that she believed was right.

I think it's very in keeping with Duncan that he's willing to risk, I guess, the hypothetical 'all the Immortals might be outed' to, in effect, save Joe's soul.

The choice of actually letting Joe divulge the secret of Immortals or save his own skin was an obstacle that MacLeod had to overcome, but, you know, what's the greatest thing a hero can do is save his friend and give his own life up, and in a way he's doing that, because he's giving up his own identity, or the other Immortals AND his identity to the general public, which puts them up for many different scrutinies that he doesn't necessarily want or need in his life, because he's lived for four hundred years with the secret of being Immortal and having to sort of hide that fact from everybody. And now, having it exposed to the world, he would then be subject to people wanting to kill him, to dissect him, to find out who they are, to interfere in something which is none of their business.

Joe was perfectly willing to kill Christine and whoever else he needed to, to keep everything a secret, but Duncan could not allow that to happen to Joe. And I think it's interesting, from Joe's point of view, that he really didn't understand that. He just thought that Duncan was saving Christine. But it's Joe who was so important to him that he couldn't let him, you know, dirty his soul with murder.