SYNOPSIS:
Synopsis by Liz Sheppard
Herc meets up with his old friend Jaris
and his son Bartoc, named after his brother. Then a blond with a
candle floats by. She's Celesta, the god that leads the dead
to the other side. She's come for Jaris.
Herc makes a deal with Celesta to
give Jaris one more day of life. Herc is reminded that the living
hurt more than the dead, when he is reminded of
Bartoc, Jaris' brother.
Herc flashbacks to when he was 15
and he was going to the Kyrons Academy. Herc and Iolaus were
training to fight. While Herc and Iolaus are walking
home, teenage thugs make a kid named Bartoc kill Hercules to get
in the
gang. Big long teenage fight scene that's in every Herc ep breaks
out.
Bartoc tries to kill Herc, but ends up running into a poll and
dies. The
thugs run away and Herc sees Celesta for the first time.
Herc decides to take Bartoc's body
back to his family. A punk tries to
follow, but Iolaus finds him. You think Iolaus wins, but he gets
knocked
out from behind. Herc's walking along when Celesta shows up. She
tells him
that most of the gods in Olympus are very proud of him, but Zeus
is too
busy to come to see him. He gets angry at his father and walks
away; and
she tells him that that she hopes he finds peace for himself and
Bartoc's
family.
When Herc reaches Bartoc's home, he
meets Jaris, a boy of about 10. When
his father shows up and sees the body on the horse, he thanks him
for
bringing him there, and said he was a good friend.
Back in the present day, Herc and
Jaris talk about little Bartoc and who
would take care of him if Jaris wasn't around. He tells him about
Celesta.
Jaris goes away to think when he hears he has only one day left.
Flashback. Jaris is mad at Herc and
runs away. Herc goes to talk to him.
Jaris hid in a treehouse that Bartoc built. They talk about their
fathers
and how both Bartoc's and Herc's don't pay much attention to
them. Jaris
asks Herc to talk about Bartoc, but since Herc never really knew
him, he
lies and says that he went to Kyron the centar's Academy.
Iolaus is taken to his old
childhood-bad-boy hang out. The bad guys decide
to kill Herc and Bartoc's father. Iolaus runs away and finds Herc
hammering
in the gravestone. They want Herc to say a few words. After the
funeral,
Iolaus tells Herc about the plan to kill him and the father. The
father
asks Herc and Iolaus to stay a while and they accept. Iolaus
realized that
Herc lied on saying he was Bartoc's friend, but Herc orders
Iolaus to keep
his mouth shut.
Present time. Jaris finds a bad guy
beating up a good guy. Herc comes by
just in time to see Jaris kill the man. Jaris decides to go on a
bad guy
killing spree before he dies.
Celesta appears and tells Herc that
this death didn't have to happen, and
that he should stop Jaris before he kills anybody else before he
destroys
all the good he's done. If that happens, Hades won't let him in
the Elysian
Fields.
Flashback. Herc, Iolaus, Jaris, and
his father are preparing for the gang. They seem to be having
fun. Father calls Herc "son" and Herc seems
concerned. The gang show up . Jaris finds out about Bartoc being
in a gang,
but Herc orders him to go in the barn.
After the gang leaves, Jaris thinks
he can fight and Herc tells him what
really happened with his brother's death .
Present. Jaris finds more bad
people and tries to kill them, but Herc the
Hero shows up. Jaris tries to kill a thug but Herc stops him.
Jaris is upset that Herc didn't kill him. Herc tells him to spend
his last moments
with his son.
Flashback. Herc tells the father
about Bartoc being in a gang, and he's not
too thrilled to hear it. While he's getting mad, the gang shows
up and
burns everything. Fight scene. Thugs try to kill Jaris, but Herc
the
Teenage Hero saves him. Herc and the leader fight. Guess who
wins.
Herc builds another tree house for
Jaris. Father tells Herc thank you.
Present. Herc and friends say good-
bye to Jaris. He's buried next to Bartoc under the tree house.
Young Herc and Old Herc have a little talk about
losing the ones you love.
SYNOPSIS 2:
Synopsis by Michael Martinez
This is a curious story. Hercules goes
to visit an old friend, Jaris, who is constable in a town being
intimidated by a gang of murderers. Jaris keeps arresting the
ringleader but the witnesses all fail to testify against the guy
because he threatens them and their families.
After Hercules helps to break up a
fight between Jaris and the bad guys, he
meets Jaris' sister-in-law, who is helping to care for baby
Bartok, Jaris' young son. Jaris' wife had died soon after the
child was born. And Bartok was the name of Jaris' older brother,
whom Jaris had idolized as a kid.
After Jaris enters his house, Hercules
sees Celesta moving toward the
entrance. He greets her and they talk. Then she goes on and he
realizes
where she is headed. Hercules stops her again and learns that
Jaris is to
die. We don't know what the cause of death is, but it may be he
received a
mortal wound in the fight (perhaps a poisoned cut), or he may
just be about
to drop dead.
Hercules persuades Celesta to break the
rules and give Jaris a day to set
his affairs in order. When Herc tells Jaris how long he has to
live, Jaris
takes off and Hercules begins to reminisce.
When Hercules was just a teenager he
was learning to be a warrior at
Chiron's academy (I think Chiron is played by the same actor who
played him
in "Centaur Mentor Journey"). Iolaus is there practicing with
Herc and
other young men (all appear to be teenagers). Chiron chastizes
Hercules for
not paying attention during his drills, and Herc complains that
he is bored.
Chiron lectures Hercules and then
releases the boys for 14 days to visit
their families. Outside the academy a gang of toughs lies in
wait for
Hercules. Their leader tells a young boy, Bartok, that he must
kill
Hercules in order to join them. He gives Bartok a knife. When
Hercules and
Iolaus come down the path the gan attacks them. They beat up the
toughs
until the leader sends Bartok out. Bartok tries to kill
Hercules, who
humiliates him by kicking him in the rear while holding him in a
headlock.
Hercules eventually gets tired of the play and throws Bartok up
against a
pillar. Bartok falls down.
The gang all run away and Hercules
looks at Bartok, but sees a woman holding
a candle appear over a bridge between Bartok. The woman
disappears and then
Iolaus kneels next to Bartok, rolls him over, and in perfect Dr.
McCoy tones
says, "He's dead...Hercules." (But it could have been "Jim".)
Hercules takes the body back to Chiron,
who tells him he must take Bartok to
his family. Iolaus has heard of Bartok's family and tells
Hercules where to
find them. Hercules heads off to atone for the accidental death,
leaving
Iolaus behind. Iolaus sees one of the toughs hiding in the
bushes and
sneaks up on him. But after Iolaus disarms the guy another gang
member
takes him out from behind. Iolaus is then taken to the gang
leader who
ridicules Iolaus for leaving them to enter Chiron's academy (this
follows on
Iolaus' admission in "Hero's Heart" that he had once been a
criminal).
The gang leader tells Iolaus he is
uniting rival gangs to take out Hercules
and Bartok's father. Iolaus keeps smarting off to the gang
leader and one
of the toughs keeps beating on him. After he finds out what's
afoot, Iolaus
takes out the guy who has been beating on him (a super-whammy to
the
manhood, er, boyhood) and the entire gang jumps Iolaus. But he
escapes
easily, leaving them to beat one of their own senseless until the
leader
sends them all away.
While on the road, Hercules is greeted
by the woman with the candle, who
reveals she is Celesta. She tells him that most of the Olympian
gods are
proud of him, including his father. Hercules expresses cynicism
about Zeus'
love for him despite Celesta's insistence that he has "many
responsibilities". It is not clear if this is Hercules' first
meeting with
one of the gods, but he obviously has had the ability to see them
when
mortals cannot all his life.
Hercules arrives at the farm of
Nehemiah, Bartok's father. He meets young
Jaris, a boy about ten years old, who quickly assumes Hercules is
Bartok's
friend. Jaris brings Nehemiah who realizes something is wrong
and sends
Jaris away. Hercules reveals that Bartok is dead but cannot
bring himself
to admit that he killed Bartok. He helps bury Bartok and as
Nehemiah asks
Hercules to say a few words for his "friend", Iolaus arrives.
After the funeral Iolaus confronts
Hercules, warning him that all the rival
youth gangs are joining together to kill him and Nehemiah.
Iolaus insists
that Hercules tell Nehemiah the truth but Hercules cannot yet
bring himself
to do this. Nehemiah asks them to stay on awhile and they accept
the offer.
In the following days Hercules bonds
with Jaris and Nehemiah. He still
cannot tell them the truth about Bartok's death and Iolaus
worries that
Hercules is creating a big problem for himself. By now Jaris and
Nehemiah
think that Bartok had been a student at Chiron's academy, and we
have
learned that Nehemiah drove off the gang of toughs that Bartok
had been
hanging around with. So obviously the gangleader is coming to
settle old
scores.
When Iolaus finally sees the gang
coming he runs to warn Hercules, who has
already seen them and counted about thirty. Hercules goes to
Nehemiah and
tells him the truth, which is very hard beause by now Nehemiah is
calling
him "son". There is no time for them to resolve their
differences as the
gangs attack the farm and start to burn everything.
What follows is a pretty well-staged
fight with Hercules and Iolaus doing
most of the fighting, but Nehemiah comes charging out with a
staff that the
older Jaris had used at the beginning of the show. Nehemiah
beats up on
some of the toughs and Hercules or Iolaus saves Jaris from being
stabbed.
Finally Hercules faces off with the gangleader, humiliating him
in the same
way he had humiliated Bartok. But this time Hercules controls
his strength
and he doesn't kill the gangleader. Once he's beaten their
leader, Hercules
tells the gangs to leave and they run away.
Nehemiah eventually forgives Hercules,
who helps Jaris rebuild a treehouse
that Bartok had originally built (it was burned by the gangs).
Nehemiah
thanks both Hercules and Iolaus.
In between reminiscences, Hercules
discovers that Jaris is going around town
killing the murderers who have been troubling his people. Celesa
warns
Hercules that if Jaris doesn't stop his sins will soon outweigh
his good
deeds and he'll be sent to Tartarus instead of the Elysian
Fields. Hercules
chases after Jaris and saves one of the murderers, promising to
deal with
him later. Jaris finally admits he is afraid of death and feels
like he has
accomplished nothing worthwhile, but Hercules persuades him that
he should
spend his last hours with the people who love him. Jaris asks
Hercules to
promise to tell Bartok about his father.
After Jaris dies, Hercules takes his
body back to the farm and buries him
beside his brother. Jaris' sister-in-law and her husband take
the baby
inside the farmhouse but Hercules stays to talk to himself by the
graves
(the young Hercules appears in the background). Realizing he's
been talking
to someone, Hercules turns around and sees nothing but the
treehouse. He
has come to the realization that he will never forget the pain he
has
caused, though it will fade and become less noticeable. This
time he is the
one who learns the lesson -- that he cannot live with guilt all
his life,
but must forgive himself and go on.
COMMENTARY 1:
Commentary by Michael Martinez
As a pilot for YOUNG HERCULES this
seems like a good start, although it seems that the roles of
Hercules and Iolaus are reversed in their youth. Iolaus is the
street-hardened tough with the clear head and understanding of
what the right thing to do is. Hercules is the one who is cocky
and headstrong and has a lot of lessons to learn. It seems
obvious he's heading for a fall, such as something that will lead
him to undertake the Twelve Labors as penance.
The actors are pretty good, and Ian
Bohen seems to have studied Kevin Sorbo's portrayal of Hercules.
I don't see much physical resemblance between the two actors, but
the young Hercules has no repuation to speak of (Nehemiah and
Jaris have never heard of him when he brings Bartok's body to
their farm). The actor who plays Iolaus does look something like
Michael Hurst, but his portrayal of Iolaus is very different from
what we've come to expect of Michael. Part of that, undoubtedly,
is due to the fact that Michael is an excellent actor of great
talent -- and part of it may be that Iolaus has some bitterness
yet to come, the great jealousy that eventually rises as he
watches Hercules' reputation grow.
COMMENTARY 2:
Commentary by Kent Simmons
Things to Look Out For
The castle at the opening of this episode was also seen in "Men in Pink"
Dean O'Gorman will also play a blind boy named Roon in a later HTLJ
season four episode.
Highlights
-The interaction between Herc and Iolaus.
Yng Herc and Herc converse at the ending.
Nehamiah slaps Young Herc for fibbing to him.
The teaser was was one of best for season four.
