Metal Hurlant Chronicles (Season 1 – Episodes 3 & 4)

BEWARE: I spoil.

Once again, Metal Hurlant Chronicles has cooked us up a big pot of WTF in these two episodes. To reiterate myself from last week, MHC is an anthological series that originally aired on French television, and we’re just now getting it on SyFy in America.

At the beginning of the third episode, “Master of Destiny,” viewers are thrown smack-dab in the middle of a space fight between a giant tongue-looking creature and two fighters, Hondo (Joe Flanigan) and Khull (Charlie Dupont). They beat the monster, but at the expense of Khull’s life. As he dies, Khull tells Hondo of a computer planet, inhabited by turtle sapiens (c’mon guys, really?), where a ledger is kept that notes when and where each and every human being is going to die. Well, he was right about one thing: the turtle sapiens do know the time and place of death for human beings courageous or stubborn enough to venture to the last sun of the galaxy and land on their planet. Hondo is that person.

After collecting his payment and kicking some butt at a sleazy club/hooker lounge, Hondo gives his money and Khull’s portion to Khull’s widow, who graciously thanks him. He then sets off to find this planet of destiny. He travels 95 hours (4 freaking days!) without sleep until he finally lands on the planet (looking a lot better than I would if I hadn’t slept for 4 days).

The turtle sapiens tell him that he has six years left to live with the woman of his dreams, and they will die together. This woman is a thief named Skarr (Kelly Brook), who seems to be more bust than lines. She at least gets a really cool fight sequence. Together, she and Hondo defeat the intergalactic police that have chased her to the planet.

The turtle people were right. Skarr and Hondo do spend six years passionately loving one another and robbing treasures until marriage life gets to be a bit too stifling. While they think the other is asleep, each intends to take some of their fortune and sneak off into the night forever. Epic fail. Husband and wife discover each other, hypocritically labeling the other as a traitor and then ends up fatally shooting their partner of six years. Marriage is scary. Tongue-monster scary.

The next story, “Whiskey in the Jar,” goes in a completely different direction. I’ve come to just expect off-the-charts weirdness from this show, and this episode completely delivers. We’re transported to the Wild Wild West, a setting in the town of Totem, where we follow the killer hands of the doctor (James Marsters, SPIKE from Buffy— not that Doctor, calm down).

He sucks. He can’t help anyone. So, in a drunken stupor, he meanders out, cursing his hands. The Metal Hurlant flies across the night sky, setting the doctor’s hands on fire. After that, the doctor can heal whatever he touches. This turns out to be a blessing and a curse. Awesome, you can heal people. Not awesome, the same stupid people keep repeating the mistakes that got them under the doc’s hands in the first place. The Murphy Gang, each member sporting a diamond tattoo, hears of the doctor’s skills and comes to wreak havoc on Totem.

The sheriff (Michael Biehn) is tasked with getting the gang out of Totem so his town can go back to the way it was (with people actually dying). The only option he sees fit is to run the doctor out of town. Things don’t go according to plan as a member of the Murphy Gang shoots the sheriff, who ends up under the healing scalpel of the doctor. Now he knows he’ll never get the doctor to leave.

Welp, only one option: kill him. The Murphy Gang leaves, and Totem slowly becomes a less violent town. Years later, the sheriff, who was narrating the story to a potential new town doctor, makes it clear that the town doesn’t need a new doc. This is good, because the newbie is actually a member of the Murphy Gang. He makes a move to kill the sheriff, but only nicks him in the arm as the sheriff blows him into the afterlife with a rifle beneath the table.

No worries, the sheriff’s kept a jar of pee-colored whiskey that contained the doctor’s magical hands at the bottom. With a nice, healthy gulp of the concoction, the sheriff’s boo-boo fades away.

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