Forgiven

I liked the idea of this episode: Xena attracts yet another groupie, this time a girl who's following Xena's footsteps in more ways than she knows. But the show tried to tackle a lot of things without getting any of them really down pat: Xena's identification with the kid, the kid trying to "learn the rules" of being a do-gooder, the kid pushing all of Gabrielle's buttons, and an interesting religious debate about faith in objects versus faith in self. The show had some good moments, but ended up feeling choppy as it jumped from idea to idea without settling on any of them for long.

The actress who played Tara was on target. Tara was an obnoxious, annoying kid, and if the actress who played her wasn't on top of her game, this would have been a painful episode to watch. But Tara was given heaps of spunk, which I have a soft spot for. She was a brat, but she was fun to watch, and the actress pulls off her part with style. Kudos to the casting staff.

So let me see if I have Micah's plan straight. Instead of just stealing the urn from his friends, he decides to lure the greatest warrior in Greece into his midst to cause a distraction. Kind of akin to pulling the pin on a hand grenade to make people run away. This fella was NOT long on the smarts department.

Line of the episode: "Oh, no. I knew you were evil, but you were obnoxious, too?" Followed closely by Tara's great delivery of "I don't know what that means, but you better take it back right now!"

Add to the list of Xena/Gabrielle innovations the invention of charades... and vaudeville. (Note to director: we didn't need to see it twice. It was funny the first time.) Gabrielle has great talent as a mime, Lord help us all. Hysterical "We donnnnn't know" line from Xena - that's who I always end up with on my team.

What a complex "before I kill you, Mister Bond" death trap the gang created for Gabrielle and Tara! That was the most complicated way to kill off intruders I've ever seen.

The opening fight between Gabrielle and Tara was just... wrong. Granted, Gab doesn't do much barroom brawling, but this is a lady who beats off warlords for breakfast, and she can't pull a kid off her? If Gabrielle hadn't thrown a punch, I would have said that she was just refusing to fight, but she *does* work in a few blows, so that wasn't the problem. Well, at least she got to prove that no chain-link-fence-eared punk can come near her when she staff-equipped.

What was the purpose of that opening montage to introduce the vase? The birth of the worship of Apollo? I'm not sure what that had to do with the price of eggs in Athens.

Apparently the bad guys burn houses for campfires. When we saw the smoke over the hill, I thought the gang had decided to wipe out a small village or two, until Xena & crew identified it as a camp. A camp for who, jungle deforesters?

The final fight was a return to the famous baby-tossing battle of Cradle of Hope - they even used some of the same tosses and camera shots as they did for little Gabriel soaring through the air. The gag doesn't work as well with pottery, though.

Tara didn't seem like an unusually bright kid, but wow, she knew how to press all the right buttons for both Xena and Gabrielle. She immediately hooked Xena into wanting to take her under her wing, and threw all the right barbs to drive Gabrielle right up the walls. It makes the mind shudder to think how obnoxious Xena could have been when she was an adolescent.

This episode goes up one notch in my book just for that last scene. Xena eclipsing the sun (Apollo) with that look of longing was amazing. Xena would love it so much if water from an urn could erase past evil, but she knows it won't. Unlike Gabrielle, who's willing to hear out other beliefs, Xena would be a hypocrite for even trying, and she walks away from the ceremony. Excellent, excellent scene.

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

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