Destiny

This episode's got a little of everything. Some head-banging battles (including the lethal crotch hit - yeow!), some pretty scenery. Some nasty Xena badness, some sweet bardly goodness. Some nasty, simple background on the Warrior Princess, some subtle poking into her psyche. Fun for everyone, unless possibly you have a personal thing against piracy.

"There are no accidents... only destiny." Xena does a lot of wrestling with this whole "destiny" concept. She asked Gabrielle to take her to Niklio, the healer, presumably to get healed, but then asked Niklio not to save her. Xena apparently believed, even at the time that it happened, that she should have died on Caesar's cross, or shouldn't have let M'lila die in her place. Her constant shame and guilt about the things she did after that night have been hanging on her for about a season and a half now. Somehow, she felt better going back to that spot to die, as if that could take her back to the first time when she "should" have died, when maybe she felt she (and M'lila) had cheated her real destiny and had gone on to become the ruthless killer she was now trying to atone for. Good thing M'lila and Gabrielle talked some sense into her about moving forward instead of looking back.

While we're thinking about Xena re-tracing her steps, count the parallels with me. Xena is injured (by wood, even, if you REALLY want to stretch it). She is rescued by her friend, who takes a wound meant for her. The friend even uses the same whistle to call for a horse to carry them to the healer. With all that, and a few good log-induced hallucinations, it's certainly understandable that Xena could decide she was fated to die in Niklio's cabin.

Great pulling out of an old fifth-grade gross-out trick when Gabrielle tries to wake up Xena, and her eyes are focused on two different points. Funky.

Ah, the bard's got spunk! Gabrielle shows true grit in her brief appearances. She takes a knife for Xena, crawls her way to the top of a mountain she's never been to before, keeps Xena alive throughout the trip... that is one hurtin' puppy by the end of this hour.

What a studmuffin Caesar was! Oozing confidence and "ain't I cool"-ness out of every pore. Made a nice match for Xena's subtlety-of-a-sledgehammer seduction routine. Mercy.

For once, Xena gets totally suckered. Somebody failed to fall right in line with her plans, she let herself get emotionally involved, and Caesar used and abused her. Watch their reunion when their ships dock together: their slow approach, Xena looking hopeful and nervous, Caesar looking smug and cold. Based on everything we've seen of Xena, the positions have been reversed a thousand times; she's been the one to use people's emotions, especially their emotions for her, to get one up on them. It's amazing she didn't see it when she found herself on the receiving end of a complete seduction.

M'lila calls Caesar "Kay-zar." Easy enough to understand how that could be a Gaelic pronounciation of his name. She seems to call Xena "An-weel," though. Wonder what that's supposed to be? Captain? Friend? Hey, you with the fancy duds?

As a small X:WP note, this is the first time we've seen snow. Wonder where Gabrielle picked up the blankets and the sharp cloak?

Be sure to check out the pattern on M'lila's shirt. It matches the brass breastplate Xena now wears. Did Xena have the pattern created as a memory of M'lila?

Xena was quite the successful pirate. She was practically swimming in wealth - lots of fancy metal, enough clothes to make the ship list to starboard, money coming in at every stop we see, and even her crew has quite the pack of fancy pirate duds. She was doing very well for herself - and was getting bored witless with it. Money has never been much of a temptation for Xena, apparently. It's power and conquest that makes her blood heat up.

The crucifixion was painful, painful stuff. The jolt of the cross dropping into place, the leg-breaking... brrr. Leg-breaking was actually done by the Romans, by the way, to speed death along when they didn't want to wait for their victims to die of exposure and thirst. Crucifixion frequently killed by suffocation; the person on the cross had to raise up a bit to get a breath, until he/she was finally too exhausted (or legs were too messed up) to get any more air. Nasty, nasty business.

But as nasty as the crucifying is, the scene that totally sets my teeth on edge is Xena's bone-setting by Niklio. Dear heaven, I don't want to know what possessed Lucy Lawless to scream like that, but it made me want to dive under my couch pillows. Ow owowowowowow OW!

The cross-cam (the rotating shot that follows Xena's head as her cross is raised and slammed into the ground) is classic Sam Raimi style. Do you think maybe he visited the set that day and told the director "Hey, here's a cool trick..."?

Besides the fascinating fun of watching the nasty Xena of yore, there's also some interesting glimpses of those threads that eventually pulled her out of nastiness and made her decide to be a do-gooder. She was getting bored with conquest and mayhem (remember Salmoneus's appeal for Xena because he amused her?), and M'lila was a source of fascination and stability for her. If M'lila had survived, would she and Xena have teamed up a la she and Gabrielle? Would they have been the Lone Ranger and Tonto or Bonnie and Clude? Despite Xena's fierce independence, when she does let someone close, they always have a profound effect on her. We see that to her good in the case of M'lila, Salmoneus, Hercules, and Gabrielle. We see that to her detriment in the case of ol' Julius.

Very nice montage from Gabrielle at Xena's deathbed. Her words are encouraging Xena to come back, and the pictures we see are perfect for the thoughts that run through her head at Xena's death. Xena and Gabrielle's closest moments and Xena's finest looks of nobilty and beauty in Gabrielle's eyes. The kinds of things anyone would remember when someone close to them has just left, but also a refreshing change for Xena to see; someone remembering her as brave and good and kind instead of the brutal nastiness she's been throwing at herself.

Besides all the obvious flashbacks to pirate queen Xena, we also get a brief glimpse of the destruction of Cirra, and wee Callisto's last few moments of sanity. Was that the first moment that Xena realized she could actually remember seeing the young Callisto at Cirra? Ouch, that'll leave a mark.

Xena's battle with the Roman soldiers is one of the nastiest - in terms of the pain that gets paraded in front us - we've seen on the show. Xena's fighting on broken legs. A soldier gets horrifically burned before getting skewered. Xena uses a soldier's own sword - and hand - to slice his throat, much to her evident delight. This is NOT a lady to get cheesed off at you.

The girl that Xena saves from the log wore a pendant that matched M'lila's and spoke in what sounded suspiciously like M'lila's Gaelic. That pendant shows up throughout the episode - Xena takes it from M'lila when they're practicing the neck pinch, it's what Xena is fiddling with while she's waiting for Caesar to show up for "dinner," and M'lila has it back on again soon afterwards. If M'lila was enslaved by the Gauls, it's a bit surprising that she wears a Celtic knot of theirs.

I *love* M'lila's song. We hear it twice; once during the "peaceful ocean sailing" montage, then again in the background during Gabrielle's monologue. The song really is a traditional Gaelic tune, Fraoch a Ronaigh, and my goodness, it's beautiful.

How long was M'lila on the ship? Xena sure picked up a ton of fighting moves from her, and M'lila even whistles for a horse just like Xena does now with Argo. Just how fast a learner IS Xena?

Historical note: this story is based on a germ of historical truth. Julius Caesar actually was captured by pirates, demanded that the pirates make a higher ransom demand for him than they had originally planned, then returned after he had been released and crucified his kidnappers. Xenaverse historical tweaking is all that much more fun when it's based on some fun reality.

Highlight: Xena's cute Roman salute.

Also: M'lila. For a woman who didn't even get an understandable line until the last two minutes of the episode, she was sure a fabulous character. Strong, confident, perceptive. We learn an incredible amount of information about her in a brief space of time - major kudos to the writers for sketching up such a fascinating person from Xena's past. I would have happily watched three more episodes to find out more about her.

Ten years ago was a heck of a busy year for young Xena. To put together all we've seen in the series, Xena captained a pirate ship, met and got double-crossed by Caesar, went to Chin and served in Borias' army, spent some quality time with Lao Ma, then headed back for Greece, battled the centaurs with Borias now a part of her army, and gave birth to Solon. This year was, what, 28 months long?

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