Richie falls for a con man's ploy when he attempts to find out more about his parents, whom he has never known. The con uses Richie for a place to crash and anything else he can get out of him by pretending to be his father. MacLeod also relives his past in the memories of first becoming immortal and being cast out of his clan by his father.

An Immortal friend of MacLeod's 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 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 and clear the innocent man 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.

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, Slade, from imprisonment. When Slade's demands are not met, he chooses a hostage to sacrifice. MacLeod makes sure that hostage is himself, and returns from the dead to hunt down the gunmen one by one, as the police watch helplessly from outside.