Back in the Bottle

I liked some parts of this episode. It had some cool moments. But Lord, it also had problems. Let's see...

The effects of people getting blown up were mostly pretty well done; certainly seeing Joxer get blown to bits and Gabrielle incinerated was pretty powerful. But there's one shot in the final battle of two obvious props that get the blast treatment. "NO! Not the MANNEQUINS!"

Another death vision of the future? Didn't we do that, like, the entire last season?

Intelligence-deprivation award of the day goes to Joxer for "That guy just blew up! What is it, sandworms?" There's so much black powder flying around that now Joxer thinks the local fauna are armed? In general, this was a horrible Joxer episode. His petulance when Gabrielle was talking with Lin Qi smacked of stalker-ville.

I'm not going to quibble with why Xena didn't use her chakram to clear a path through the mines in the first place; some things must be overlooked in the name of dramatic tension. But I draw the line when the opposing baddies charge and an entire battle is fought on the minefield without a single explosion. Th' hell?

Have I mentioned before that Lao Ma's power makes NO sense? Now it's not a loss of desire, not a focus... but a will of its own. I wish the writers would make up their minds.

I *like* the spinning twin effect! It's another page borrowed directly from the Bride with the White Hair playbook (which The Gauntlet is taken from almost shot-by- shot), in which the head baddies were Siamese twins. It was nifty here, pretty cool-looking.

I MUST know if anyone else has this on their tape, or if it's only on mine (or was just my affiliate)! When Xena hugs Kao Hsin hello, listen closely when they part. I swear to God it sounds like the cameraman belched. Whatever it is, it may be the funniest blooper I've ever seen/heard in my life.
[Post-note: it's been confirmed, that was NOT just me, that's some rogue sound running around in the episode. Oh, my aching sides.]

Lao Ma's TEMPLE? Since when did Lao Ma have a temple? It's called her palace each time afterward - Lao Tsu might have a problem with that, but OK, no problem. But "temple"?

Lin Qi steps right to the front of the line with Talus from Death in Chains as my all-time favorite redshirt boys (and this one survives!). Doesn't mean I want Gabrielle to go packin' off with him, but this was a cool guy, a good fighter, nice fella... and a perfectly good actor. Thumbs up on the redshirt. Now buh-bye.

Holy cow, somebody told Xena she couldn't do something. And Xena took it! I'm too stunned to figure out if only Gabrielle would get away with that or if Xena needs to lie down until she feels more like herself again.

After Gabrielle's "You know what I'm looking forward to? The look on your face when Xena devastates your army!" line, I was kinda hoping that, at the end, Gabrielle would walk up to the stoned Khan, smirk, and say "Yep. That's the look." Ah well.

Khan puts his hand out for a torch, and his henchmen leave him hanging for three seconds. Watch the guy on the left look confused and glance offscreen for a split-second before he grabs the torch. I was laughing myself sick. Fire those flunkies, Khan!

Smart-aleck line of the episode goes to the redshirt for "That's the sound of my dead ancestors making a place for me at their table." Joxer would have won for the line "If you would concentrate on making that thing stone, maybe it would cook!", except that he tanked it so badly.

It's only the seventh episode of the season, but I'm going to go ahead and nominate the following for Most Disturbing Lines of the Year:

Xena: I have never seen a war ended by love.
Gabrielle: I used to think that love was enough... I was wrong.

On the other hand, there were a couple messages in this episode I could have stood up and cheered for.

Cheer #1: Lin Qi's insistence that Gabrielle is selling herself short if she thinks she can't be a bard any more. Lin Qi wins instant cool points in my book for that conversation, and I like that we're at least paying lip service to that little side of Gabrielle.

Cheer #2: The refutation of the above Scariest Lines of the Season. Xena's love for Gabrielle is what ended the war, fueled the power to turn an entire army to stone. Hatred of the ones you're fighting isn't nearly as powerful as the love for who you're fighting for/with.

Is Joxer cooking the same soup that got an entire army sick in Sickness and Hell? No wonder they're all curled up on the floor during the final fight - it's not fear, it's flu!

Why on earth was Joxer so out of breath when he reported the arrival of Khan's army?

Did Gabrielle really ask Xena if she was prepared to destroy a hundred thousand men? The Destroyer of Nations has been there, done that.

I never would have thought, a few seasons ago, that the line "With her by my side, how can we lose?" would be spoken about Gabrielle, not about Xena. It's cheesy, but I like it.

The gang is about to do battle with an army of 100,000. Xena has seen a vision of the death of them all in this fight. She's going to face the enemy alone in battle. Xena:

Shoos Gabrielle away
Wishes Lin Qi luck
Doesn't say boo to Joxer
Hugs Kao Hsin

Good spin consistency note: When Xena walks onto the battlefield, Pao Tsu is muttering insults. As we see Khan, we hear the switch sound effect, then Ming Tien is giving orders.

Joxer still does his best battle work when he's dodging madly.

The stoning of the army was mighty cool. Everyone with the mark of the dragon turns to stone (guess those horses were branded, too). In the burial site of the first emperor of China, there was an army of stone warriors guarding him. Was this Xena's contribution to Chinese archeology? The poses are all wrong, but I still love it.

Did Kao Hsin help Xena with the stoning? At first, I thought she did, and the ending made no sense to me because I couldn't figure out why, when she and Xena unleashed enough power to petrify 100,000 men, Pao Tsu and Ming Tien didn't become powerful enough to nuke the entire countryside. But after listening to Kao Hsin's lines again, I think the idea was that only the brother and sisters feed off each other's powers. Which means Kao Hsin didn't help and Xena was free to do all the blowing and blasting she wanted. But that begs the question: then why was Kao Hsin in this episode at all?

Joxer's story-telling ain't too shabby. I liked his spurting neck wound and beating heart. But for all that, Gabrielle's "amateur" look and "Tch" was even better.

Final thought of the night: What does this show have against rabbits? Sickness and Hell, Paradise Found, and now this episode all give gruesome ends to poor little bunnies. Did somebody in the production staff experience childhood bunny trauma?

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

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