MOTHERHOOD
Season 5, Episode 22
October 28, 2000
Reviewed by SLK
RATING: 8 chakrams
SCRIBES AND SCROLLS: Story by Robert Tapert. Teleplay by R.J.
Stewart.
Directed by Rick Jacobson.
PASSING PARADE: Kevin Smith (Ares); Alexandra Tydings (Aphrodite); Ted Raimi (Joxer); Paris Jefferson (Athena); Reneé O'Connor (Hope); Adrienne Wilkinson (Eve); Greg Lee (Virgil); Meighan Desmond (Discord); Stephan Lovatt (Hades); Julius Garner (Hephaestus); Joel Tobeck (Deimos); Josephine Davison (Artemis); Asa Lindh (Alecto); Diana Rowan (Shepherd); Jon Brazier (John the Baptist); Annmarie Dennis (Tisiphone); Siaosi Fonua (Cullar); Rick Jacobson (Poseidon); Charles Mesure (Archangel Michael).
STORY SO FAR: Xena is given the power to kill the gods -- and does so -- bringing about the prophesised Twilight of the Gods. Gabrielle, affected by The Furies, tries to kill Eve. Xena intervenes -- with near-deadly force.
DISCLAIMER: All the gods were harmed during the production of this motion picture.
REWIND FOR: John the Baptist seeming just a little bit familiar. You may remember him from such moments as the turncoat Walsim in The Dirty Half Dozen and the thieving murderous Tarses in Vanishing Act. How the low-life have risen.
Xena stalking Ares outside Joxer's and Meg's inn. The buildings around her casting a neat crisp shadow in what was supposed to be broad, -- er, night time. Must have been one helluva full moon that night.
The moment that coined the term 'Yes! There is a god!' I speak of course of Deimos' crushing death. Couldn't have happened to a hammier actor. And don’t get me started on his deplorable fashion sense. Were they short pants or long shorts he was supposed to be wearing?
Any scene with The Furies as they defy the known laws of physics by staying *inside* those less than handkerchief-sized costumes. Not to mention Aphrodite, whose concession to being in mourning did not take away from her Cher-inspired, er, ribbons holding up parts of her frock...
QUOTABLE:
"I'm the one who figured out Livia was Eve." Yeah, and only courtesy of Xena, Ares. Had not a fortuitous sunburst melted the ice, and freed her, you'd still be fumbling around in the dark. But hey, minor details...
"If we wish to kill Eve, we have to get through Xena. And as a mother she'll be more dangerous than ever." Shouldn't that already have been obvious to Athena? The very maternal Xena in Siege of Amphipolis or Looking Death in the Eye, wasn't exactly a pushover, now was she?
"Can we leave the bard out of this?" Sweet Aphrodite, way out of her depth with her malevolent relatives, thinking they might actually spare Xena's second-in-command.
"So, you can kill gods." Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Athena -- it did. Your worst nightmare, Xena, with more power.
"How did you think it would end? Hmm?" Hades menaces over Eve. Sadly it ended in tears -- his.
Best Comebacks:
Ares: "You're not going to kill me, are you."
Xena: "Why ever not?"
Ares: "Because I love you. Yeah, I love you."
Gabrielle: "Looks like you got your daughter back."
Xena: "No, we got our daughter back."
SLK’S REVIEW
I’m not going out on much of a limb here to say this was a pretty important episode. I can not think of any other show that, in one fell swoop, kills off it’s entire supporting cast, bar two (Ares and Aphrodite). And all in one episode. And there’s absolutely no possibility of their return. And there’s still another season to go. I’d call that a pretty brave move.
This leaves the Xenabods with many varied options on where to go from here. They can paint a new Xena landscape any way they want now -- a clean slate, if you will. Many choices, many possibilities. Maybe this new freedom was what was needed after season five’s lacklustre, inconsistent writing and resultant poor ratings. But so long as they don’t change the thing that made Xena a hit in the first place, the cheeky plots and the unique interplay -- be it funny, dramatic, friendly, or intense -- between Xena and Gabrielle, they will still have a show to write home about.
On to Motherhood. I may be alone in this, but I did like this episode. After three watchings, I find it stands the test of the rewind button, that is, it remains exciting each time, once you can get past its increasingly turgid beginning. (More on this in a moment.)
Of course it’s easy to make any episode exciting if you are despatching forever the show’s well-known, often loved, semi-regular characters. It’s as easy as gee, I dunno, killing Xena or Gabrielle, on the guaranteed high watchability stakes. (Not that the Xenabods would ever try this obvious cliche. Well, all right, they wouldn’t do it more than once. Well, okay, they... um... never mind.)
I found it fascinating -- even knowing they were using the deaths, one by one, of the Greek gods, to hook us in and keep us with our mouths hanging open, wondering, aghast, who would die next, and how... and have us questioning ourselves, saying "surely Athena won’t die"... and "surely they won’t kill Hades"... and so on. When the dust settles, I guess a puppet knowing its strings are being pulled still doesn’t change the sensation and response to that string-pulling.
But I am getting ahead of myself. The turgid beginning. Not as bad as the opener to Lyre Lyre, Hearts on Fire but it’s in that league.
Now for some reason, Eve has decided to wander around the desert a bit. Without her shoes, or her 30+ sunscreen and a nice sensible hat. As you do. In fact she has taken off far more clothes; and Xena and Gabrielle have added more -- sheathing themselves in funeral shrouds. Also, as you do.
The thinking behind this is obvious: when you are depressed and confused at realising that being a bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac who wanted to rule the world is a bad thing, you must automatically take off your footwear and take a walk through the nearest desert. Don’t ask me where they found the nearest desert in Rome... my geography is a little out of whack. For some reason, I figured they didn’t have any.
Next logical step is: If you are the mother of said reformed bloodthirsty mass killer, do not, repeat not, insist she wear her shoes or try a hat. This would be hampering her ... um... freedom. Even if she does die of dehydration...
Gabrielle, meanwhile, is sounding most unlike her goodly self with the line: "I don’t know if I want to help her ... she killed Joxer."
Up till now, if the bard sees a genuinely repentant soul, she forgives all -- that’s the bardly deal. Seems a little irksome (for Xena) for her soft streak to harden just when the person needing help is Xena’s daughter.
Of course the mitigating factor on the bard’s side is that Eve killed Joxer. Grounds for being pouty, to be sure.
Look, to be serious, I’m not saying any normal person wouldn’t feel rage towards someone who has killed their friend. Any normal person would not want to help them. But Gabrielle has for five full seasons been no normal person. She has been the rise-above, see-good-in-all gal. She forgives almost anything -- yes, including being dragged by Xena, tossed off a cliff and seeing Xena kill her double in Illusia. She even forgave Callisto.
This is what makes Gabrielle, as Xena puts it, "the most pure thing in my life". She is remarkable in her absolute goodness. THIS is Gabrielle’s character.
So when Gabrielle says she finds she doesn’t want to help Eve, that is a very startling thing and it is for her a tad out of character. It reminded me of the bard’s earlier out-of-character speech to Xena that Eve/Livia was beyond redemption and to give up on her. (And that was way before Joxer died.) Put together, it makes it seem Gabrielle has done an about-face on the forgiveness and see-good-in-others front.
However, I’d like to offer an alternative argument as to why Gabrielle doesn’t want to forgive the obviously repentant Eve, when the bard can forgive everyone else practically anything. Remember: Joxer died trying to save Gabrielle. That must make her feel pretty guilty. Even though Gabrielle hardly encouraged the hubcap lab to go foolishly tearing towards her, making him an obvious target, she must still know that had it not been for her presence, Joxer wouldn’t have been trying to save her, and thus dying in the attempt.
Based on this, I’m not at all surprised Gabrielle is having a major case of the boo-hisses towards Eve. It’s just Gabrielle didn’t explain herself. Had she alluded to her annoyance and guilt at herself (very believable in a good soul like Gabrielle) then this, coupled with her being shocked by Eve’s cruel actions, would indeed have made all the difference, explained Gabrielle’s harder mood, and kept her true to character.
What a difference a single line might have made...
Next up, Eve. The gods report she has a major "inferiority complex".
This is new. She has gone from cocky to guilty, that I get. Why does she now blather like an imbecile and act like she’d fall over under a stiff breeze?
Xena has been there, where she is. She did not dissolve into a wide-eyed, cowering ingenue when Hercules set her straight that killing was bad; peace good.
I don’t know what I expected of Eve after last episode, but this was not it. If I was being charitable I would say this Eve is being portrayed as a woman who has gone into shell shock, some sort of post traumatic stress syndrome, which, coupled with the major guilts, has left little more than an empty, troubled shell, wandering the earth.
I am guessing they want us to feel sorry for her now, and that was the point of this transition. Would you want to kill the cowering, trembling dog in the corner of the room, even if it has mauled countless people? Well, actually.....
These feelings of horror at Eve’s actions do not pass quickly and I, for one, can not forgive her as readily as Xena. Her cowering, small-animal-in-pain antics are starting to irritate me, because it reminds me of one of those convicted killers who bleat to the media "poor me, you have no idea how hard my life is now..."
And Eve is bleating her heart out like the best of them, making like the wronged, doey-eyed deer -- and she’s only been doing her pennance for a week at most!
This is why it’s hard to like Eve at this point; and why forgiveness for us non-Gabrielle mere mortals will take some time. Maybe we will grow to like her in the end, but she has an uphill battle ahead... and making like a wimpering, simpering half-brain is not helping her case.
She would be admired more if she took the Xena approach of squarely looking in the eye those she has wronged and getting on with the business of repairing the damage she has done to others. I know this is a tough ask for one who has only just now realised the enormity of what she has wrought, and so perhaps I have spoken too soon. Perhaps this is exactly how her character will evolve.
Time will tell, but less cowering behind Xena’s skirts (literally) and more backbone should happen -- and soon.
Eve, incidentally, gets her very own horsedrag scene on the show. Well you haven’t really been initiated into the cast until your character’s been dragged by a horse. Welcome to the party, Adrienne. *g*
Virgil is back and for no reason I can immediately fathom. He had his little rage against the Eve in the temple last episode and clearly has bolted back for home. He tells Meg and his siblings that their father is dead. Meg - mad with rage, Virgil says, for some reason declares she’s off to Rome with the family. Why? No idea.
What does Virgil, the sword-swinger protector of the family do? Stay behind to write in his scrolls. He does not go with his "mad’ mother to help her in her time of grief or protect her from the ever present badguys in bushes who clearly line all roads in the Xenaverse. No, he stays to write.... Then, one minute after he sees Eve again, he gets a major fit of pique and packs his bags to head for Rome. Why now and not then??
One thing I would have liked to have seen was Meg’s response to the news Joxer was dead. It was only fair this character got this scene after all the negatives she’d been lumped with before this. She was portrayed as mean to Joxer, she shouted and nagged at him, was irritated at him for dropping a bard burger on the floor. It was only fair we got to see for ourselves that this woman, despite all this, really did love the big Joxmeister, and really was mad with grief.
I finally decided why Virgil was in this episode -- in part to tie up the above loose end of how Meg took the news. But mainly so Eve could see what "comes with the territory" of being a reformed killer, as Xena so callously puts it.
Dear Eve, she really is a charmer: "I have wiped out whole villages
because they wouldn’t play me tribute. I have drunk the blood of men that I have
tortured to death; I killed her best friend..."
Even at her worst Xena wasn’t into drinking the blood of men, nor did she generally
torture them to death, unless she wanted information (ala the killer crab tactics
mentioned in Locked Up, Tied Down).
So this reveals just a whole new wacky slant on warlording that shoots Eve into the realm of seriously sick in the head. I know I keep banging this drum -- but why is she this bad? Ares can’t have insisted on blood-drinking; the Romans hardly endorse it; it aint genetic; and so... well, this really is a very very ill puppy. Yet one montage could bring her back from this degree of evil madness? Hmmm....
I also thought in this scene that Xena might have looked a little perturbed/taken aback at the news of just how bad her daughter was at her worst. It’s not like Eve’s admitting to heisting chariots on Saturday nights with the lads. She’s outlined some really sick stuff there, and Gabrielle and Xena are just la la la la la, and pass the anchovies.
Not that I’d want them to say anything, that’s not it -- I just expected, a flicker of real emotion in the eyes from either of them, showing that this isn’t exactly a delight to hear.
We move onto the Christianity parallels -- or rather the parallels are converging into Christianity -- in this episode. Now we have a baptist. (Incidentally where does one find an ocean in the middle of the desert -- when you’re not in the Middle East?)
Spot of good luck that... (Note how the tide has gone out between takes and the poor old baptist goes from having water sloshing about his knees to a whole lot of sand and barely able to get enough water to dribble on Eve’s forehead.)
Also on the Christianity themes, Xena reveals she was "chosen as the mother of the messenger".
Now I’m thinking here -- Xena’s had an immaculate conception and she’s called the mother of the messenger. Sooo -- does that make her Mary?! Which means... okay can Eve evolve into Jesus? And here I thought Eli already had the job..
Seriously though, if Eve is the messenger, what is her message? I trust they will tell us down the track before we are left to think the message learned from Eve is -- kill hard, pout young.
Maybe the messenge was that she was going to bring the downfall of the gods, in which case -- destroyer might be a better word... and more apt.
Everything up to here, I could have done without. It was exposition, yes, but of the poor variety. Eve’s merely wimpering and feeling sorry for herself; Xena is looking very guilty that history repeated itself and so isn’t terribly interested in anyone or anything getting in the way of her getting Eve back to rights. Gabrielle, whatever she’s thinking -- and we don’t know because her lines were so negligible -- is more like a tagalong.
Before I move on to the gods, there is a very problematic plot point that left me speechless: Gabrielle’s head hugging a chakram.
I have a few problems with this -- the first being that Eve has clearly lost her hearing and peripheral vision not to notice the bard standing right beside her, dagger raised for an eternity, while she’s being egged on by The Furies.
Secondly, in the episode The Furies, it took quite a while for Xena to completely unhinge. At first she went through a silly stage involving spinning her chakram on her finger and acting the goat with some badguys ala The Three Stooges. Then she went through her nude and quite lost stage; then her hallucination stage; then her on-the-edge-but-barely stage. The latter was shown by her being twitchy, disjointed and markedly affected.
Gabrielle cut straight to the "on the edge" stage. But she wasn’t markedly affected. She drew no attention to herself until she was actually standing there with a dagger in hand. I’m no expert on madness (although some may argue differently) but methinks to have your mind filled with foreign voices screaming at you, urging you on, would make you want to scream back at them to SHUT UP, tear at your hair, shake your head, physically respond to the voices within. Anything but stand there calmly and serenely while you make up your mind which voice you’re listening to now.
I just didn’t really buy how unmad, the mad Gabrielle was -- nor how quickly she became so. But here’s what really irked me. Xena’s first response -- her FIRST response -- when seeing Gabrielle with a dagger above her daughter was not to:
1) Call out "GABRIELLE, NO"... and try to distract her with her voice and then talk her down. (Xena instead says nothing.)
2) Somersault over there and kick/grab the weapon off her.
3) Use her chakram to zing the dagger out of her hand.
4) Use her chakram to zing a piece of furniture, like Eve’s chairleg, thereby causing it to crash to the floor, sending everyone flying in different directions and hopefully out of harm’s way.
5) Aim for any other less crucial body bit on her dearest friend than her head.
6) Set her chakram to stun the way she has on countless thugs, leaving them dazed but definitely not lobotomised.
No, Xena’s first reaction was to aim for the head and use deadly force. Now that just plain sucks.
I have heard two arguments in favor of what she did:
Firstly, she had to use deadly force to get The Furies out of Gabrielle. That may well be, but watch that scene again and you’ll see the exact moment Xena works out what has afflicted Gabrielle, and it’s long after the bard is sporting a large, bloody, chakram-sized head wound.
Secondly, Eve was Xena’s daughter and she just reacted instinctively.
Well, now, what’s Gabrielle? Chopped liver? Time and again Xena has gone to hell and back to save her bard’s life. She sacrifices herself without thinking to save Gabrielle. You’d think if her instincts were indeed to take over, her first thoughts would be "Save Eve AND don’t hurt Gabrielle".
I had another look at the scene and was amazed to note Xena actually throws her chakram after the bard has finished her downward stabbing stroke on Eve. In other words, Gabrielle is just standing there, the damage done, showing no signs of inflicting any further wounds, and at THAT point Xena throws her chakram. Almost looked like revenge the way it was edited. It’d have been far better if the cameras had shown Gabrielle beginning the downward stroke at the same moment Xena releases the chakram.
As for Xena’s motives in delivering what essentially turns out to be a death blow, I’ll be charitable and argue that, in the heat of a very awful moment, Xena didn’t know her own strength.
On to the gods.
More magic. Curses. I said last review, and repeat it here, using divine intervention as a key plot point is a mistake -- it implies Xena now has the heavenly hordes at her beck and call. It gives her, by proxy, super powers. And Xena’s charm has always been she is a human with extraordinary powers -- not superpowers.
I am wondering about Eli’s one god of love -- now he advocates killing his rivals? How selective is that? God of occasional love sounds like a better title. Only enough room for one god on the block, huh? Well holy wars start for a whole lot less than that insular argument, and it hardly fosters feelings of inclusiveness.
The message from the heavens (or as the credits dictate, Archangel Michael) is clear:
There is only room for one god in this world; we’ll give you the power to kill off all the others ones; and other than that, love is the way.
That’s something of a major mixed message. And Xena and Gabs just go along with that? I note Xena doesn’t really question it. Since when has she become the lapdog of any god, including ones she thinks are okay? She just accepts without protest that she must go forth and kill on command? Why?
And what if she’s wrong? Think about how Gabrielle was duped in The Deliverer. Forget about the Christian parallels and ask: What if Xena was being duped here -- being duped to kill off the Greek gods, in favor of a new lot of gods and angels who could be just as mean -- and have already shown they have no compunction about using her to destroy their opposition. In fact, everyone who studies human history knows it’s time to be very afraid when any group attempting to take over power starts out by quelling and killing the opposition which challenge them.
Think about it. What if their intentions were malevolent? And she’s been their patsy? Well she sure played into their hands. Sure, she’s broken bread with Eli and shared flight schedules with Michael, but it could be a scam. Many viewers only assume they’re cool cats because of the Christian parallels. If there was no such thing as Christianity, would Xena’s choices still seem immediately ‘right’ to viewers? Think about that...
Or would she seem very trusting all of a sudden? And acting like a puppet ...
Meanwhile, will Xena continue hunting down opponents to the followers of Eli (which is really what she is doing here, even if she does have a personal motive also).
She does appear to now be the founding member of a holy war...
On another note, Xena lovers who follow a religion which is not Christianity (and I know quite a few watch from Asian countries), may also have some rather large issues about being expected to swallow all this hook, line and sinker when they had some funny idea they were supposed to be watching an action/drama show -- not Christian propaganda hour.
It must seem to some people like Xena is deciding which religion is best and taking sides. Xena isn’t supposed to take sides -- she’s supposed to represent people of all religious flavors.
Personally, I don’t want to keep watching Xena if she winds up girding her sword on a religious crusade -- regardless of which religious team she’s batting for. It’s not that I am against religion, it’s the context. This isn’t what the show was about.
I get a creepy feeling they’re making a big mistake by pursuing this angle. Not only isn’t it terribly exciting (well not since the Heaven v Hell wars of Fallen Angel) but it’s seems pretty unoriginal, forced, and alienating to some viewers.
But I digress. The Greek gods... gotta love that disclaimer.
Right, so there they all are standing on the beach, going down one by one and not doing an awful lot to stop the lone woman doing it. Some fans have commented how pathetic these gods are both in this scene, and in the inn where Xena later hammers the lot of them. I actually disagree a little with that.
Picture it -- you are immortal and have lived many thousands of years. No piddling mortal has ever physically harmed you and you are invincible.
Suddenly, for the first time you know fear, you know loss, you know death. And it is your own family who are going down around you.
To say you’re shocked is putting it mildly. You would be beside yourself with terror and not at all used to acting effectively while these unfamiliar emotions are surging within you.
Think about it: Xena has had a lifetime facing death and living with fear, and emerging triumphant. These gods are facing a veteran in their first real battle. They are afraid, they are making mistakes, they are really very much outgunned.
All they have to rely on is numbers and a better arsenal. Xena actually has all the advantages and skills to whup them 10 times over. And they know it.
So Xena was right when she put the four-to-one odds as being in her favour.
I loved Aphrodite in this. We learn she is not really the shallow bubblehead she often comes across as but can make mourning frocks look fashionable and has real feelings for her friend, Gabrielle.
I chuckled over Xena’s implied threat to Aphrodite when she left the bard with her. Her glared point of "don’t cross me" was well received...
But I got absolute shivers when Aphrodite looks up mid-Florence Nightingale moment and realises she is only a foot or two away from Eve -- the young woman all her brothers and sisters are dying over. I thought Alex was brilliant there. You could see her conflict dancing across her face. To kill or not to kill... hmmm.
On an unrelated note -- all the way through this episode, I had the words "Kill Lachrymose" going through my head to the tune of South Park’s song Blame Canada... The one god you want dead, and he’s probably too depressed to show up...
Dang.
Speaking of depressed, I am requiring extensive therapy now they have killed off Athena (sob). Paris Jefferson absolutely rocked in her brief reign on our screens as the goddess of wisdom, war, and, er, weaving. (I’ll take Xena’s word on her weaving abilities.)
I adored her look of increasing desperation throughout the final fight in the inn, until she finally flees to Olympus to lick her wounds. In a rare display of pride, it is on Olympus we see her finally reveal what she really thinks of mortals. She does truly think they are beneath her -- a class apart -- so much so she would rather die than admit defeat to one. Or as she says: "be dictated to".
Well they do say pride cometh before the fall...
In case you’re wondering why, historically, they had two gods of war, I read that the first one, Ares, was too undisciplined and would go off half cocked, stirring up trouble wherever he went. He caused more problems than he fixed. And so another less hot-headed god was needed, who could temper the knowledge of war with the wisdom of knowing what to do with this knowledge. Hence Athena.
Which is another reason I like Athena -- sure, you can see she knows how to fight the killer fight with the rest of her gods, but she chooses not to unless absolutely necessary. And her authority is unchallenged... after all, if your sibling was a god of wisdom, what would the point be of arguing anyway?!
Incidentally, if Aphrodite remains alive, and presumably any other gods we haven’t seen killed, like Lachrymose, then surely the twilight of the gods is not complete? Where was it written that the death of Athena means the prophesy is now fulfilled?
I was a little puzzled at to why they bothered finally introducing us to Artemis (the blonde-haired archer in the yellow outfit) when they didn’t even name her at any time, leaving many to presume her just one of Athena’s archer brigade. I argue only that gods are normally allowed on Olympus so what we were seeing was undoubtedly Athena in action. The credits seem to agree.
On to Ares. Or actually, back up a bit. Poor Renee... look at what she had to put up with in this: being conked in the head; dragged outside into a puddle of mud, in the rain, and then left suffocating on the floor of Mt Olympus in a pool of dry ice. Can you spell suffocation, boys and girls? I did hope they let her up for a breather once in a while. The whole time Xena and Ares were posturing, I’m watching that sad unconscious little lump on the misty ground, hoping like hell Renee can hold her breath.
Back to Ares. Ares shouldn’t be so smug about Xena not killing him. He can’t kill her either. They truly have a dysfunctional way of showing their like for each other: "Hey you can’t kill me!" "Yeah? Well you can’t kill me either... nya nya..."
Children. *rolls eyes*
Okay, what’s the deal with Hephaestus’s chains? Why would they suddenly be inoperative when Ares loses his god powers? They work on mortals and gods alike, remember. Ares loses power -- now he’s mortal, they should still hold him in place and he shouldn’t be able to just shrug them off. Athena and Aphrodite are both still alive at that point, so it’s not like all the gods were dead or had lost their powers, and so their toys lost their powers with it.
Still on Ares, it seems he did learn from his mistakes since that speech in the ice caves at the end of Looking Death in the Eye. He said he could not give Xena what she wanted: "unconditional, unselfish love". Well by his actions here he did just that. He was the most unselfish he has ever been, and probably ever will be. And that’s why he earned one thing he never has had from Xena before: her respect. The way she thanks him, wow, that was an amazing moment. So little was spoken and yet they were having a full conversation there just in the looks they exchanged. Excellent acting all round. (The music complimented it nicely.)
Lastly -- argggghh... why did they have to end on spiders. Noooo.
Didn’t like that scene, not just because of the spiders, but because I am so sick of hearing apologies which go:
"Um about me killing so and so..."
"Look, just forget it..."
No dammit, I will not forget it, I wanted to hear Eve say she was sorry and properly to Gabrielle. And Gabrielle, dammit, deserved and maybe even needed to hear it.
I know the above conversation works well for the guys all the time -- witness Joxer and Arman, for instance in Animal Attraction. But there are times, when the thing done is too big to be just dismissed ala "ahhhh forget about it".
And even if Gabrielle is big enough not to have to hear it, we the fans are regular folk, and we WOULD like to hear it. She owes us an apology, too.
I do note Xena has finally acknowledged Gabrielle has some joint "child" raising rights with Xena. Er, well done, WP, but it might’ve been nicer, and more practical, say, 25 years back...
In summary, this one scores perhaps artificially highly with me because of one thing: watchability. It rollicks along, is exciting to watch and rewatch and contains a veritable who’s who of Xena celebs off to meet their maker -- no two dying in the same way, I note.
It lets itself down with a few lost character development bits and pieces (eg why isn’t Gabs so eager to forgive this time; why is Livia so helpless now -- please explain).
There are the increasingly tedious, overdone religious references that seem to serve no actual purpose (ie why mirror an existing modern religion -- why not get original and come up with their own one -- it is ancient Greece after all, and it’s fiction, so improvise, be inventive!).
And it did contain a baffling and shocking Xena/Gabs moment that will leave a killer of an ache -- and not all just on the outside of the bard’s head, either.
But as a season cliffhanger it really works. Who doesn’t want to tune in next time? And at last, a cliffhanger where Xena and Gabrielle are actually alive at the end. Woohoo.
That’s cause for celebration. Thank the gods, er, god, er... whoever, and bring on Season 6!
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