Blind Faith

Blind Faith was a fun episode: good swashbuckling (GREAT battle between Palamon and Xena), humor courtesy of our dear Gab (Gab, try looking at the statue's FACE next time), and "scene stealer of the month" award goes to Vidalis as the exasperated finishing school marm.

Palamon was a great character, and one I won't be surprised to see pop up again sometime. Shades of Xena's own start - by the end of the show, I was wondering if we were going to see a "Palamon: Warrior Wannabe" spin-off show with Vidalis trailing after him. And (pardon me for saying so) hubba-hubba: that guy was easy on the eyes, scar and all!

More showcasing of Lucy and Renee's acting: Renee is a marvelous comedienne. And Lucy did excellent work at playing blind. Keeping your eyes from focusing on the things around you is TOUGH; Lucy did a great job of leading her reactions with her ears instead of her eyes.

I know people have engaged in great debate about Xena ducking under the window in the parapet, but the biggest "blindness blunder" I saw was a little later, in the castle, just before they find Vidalis. Palamon and Xena walk past a candleabra, and Xena ducks her right shoulder so her sword doesn't hit the candles. It struck me the moment I saw it, but I have the Xena realism-editor who sits on my shoulder, the same one who says "Sure, she can run up vertical surfaces and leap thirty feet in the air - she's a Warrior Princess!" who this time said "Whoops, hey, don't worry about that, she felt the heat from the candles! Yeah, that's it! Look, they found Vidalis - watch the show!" :)

Did anyone else notice that Vidalis belittled everything about Gab that we all love the most? Those muscles, that voice, that stomach - hey! Those are her BEST points! :) And the lines about her "red" hair and her track record with boyfriends - oh, the writers were having a LOT of fun with us fans in this episode.

Nice Princess Leia-in-zero-gravity 'do they put on Gab - yeeeek. I think Vidalis should have been less worried about Gabrielle and been going medieval on the dressmaker's case, instead.

The last five minutes of the show were definitely the best: Xena's frantic search for Gab in the coffin (that was not a huge sarcophagus - how long does it take to find a body in it? whoops, there's my editor again, telling me to move on!), Xena's sight restored (thank yew, thank yew, I called the "there's a sight for sore eyes" line from the moment Gab was applying the senna solution ), Vidalis's decision to follow the "attractive" Palamon, and Xena's curtsey and two-handed wave.

And what the heck kingdom WAS this that they stumbled into? Those had to be the weirdest laws on the face of the earth. "If, however, the king dies on the third Tuesday of the month, we hold a random lottery to determine who will be the new potentate of the republic, and our head chef becomes the new military commander. But only if the full moon has already passed."

Before too much longer, Gab's name isn't going to fit in her underwear anymore: "Gabrielle of Poteidaia, Warrior Bard, best friend of the Warrior Princess, Queen of the Amazons, also deposed Queen of Someweirdkingdom, intended Bride of Morpheus, favorite enemy of Velaska the Goddess of Powertrips, etc., etc., etc..."

As for the great "did she say 'him' or 'them'" debate, it had sure sounded like "him" to me, and I smiled the moment she said it to think of the raging discussions it was going to kick up here. The only thing I can add to the discussion is to confirm that closed-captioning is notorious for being less than 100% accurate. Don't take a closed-captioned transcription as gospel, folks.

But I gotta agree with Mel on this: it means less than zip, whichever she said, to the great "they are/they arent" debate. As always, the show's leaving things wide open for either interpretation. Sure, she could have said "him," and been talking about Perdicus - she's made similar comments before. But this is also our dear fast-talking Gab, the one we saw at the beginning of the episode bargain her way into a deal at the market with quick thinking and bald-faced lyi^H^H^H haggling. If alluding to a knight in shining armor waiting for her just outside the castle would get her out of there, she'd be talking him into existence in no time.

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

	Web www.bethgriese.com