From: Ashton7@aol.com
I was simply pointing out that is a completely valid possibility,
especially
what we SAW happening on Terminal, that Avon had been conditioned to kill Blake the moment he finally found him/saw him. And that is what happened, with apparently little rhyme or reason.
Not really, otherwise we'd have got: Tarrant: "Is it him?" Vila: "It's h-" BLAM! "Well, it *was* him."
The Blake-Avon exchange before Avon pulls the trigger doesn't suggest, at least not to me, that Avon's trying to fight a subliminal impulse he's been conditioned to feel. More like (and also more likely) he's trying to make sense of a totally unexpected situation, that Blake really has turned bounty hunter and is planning to turn them all in.
Perhaps others don't agree with me that Avon seems startled when he pulls the trigger?
I haven't seen that scene for years, but I do recall Avon's expression fairly well. He looked like he'd just swallowed a haddock, which I suppose could be considered pretty startling. But like a lot of expressions, especially from Paul Darrow, it could be read several ways. I see it as a silent scream of confusion, fury and pain, vocalised by the gun.
Neil