Little Problems

This comedy made me laugh the most since Been There, Done That. It's the first one in quite a while that's funny without being foolish. A few of the jokes may give the Moral Majority fits, but the rest of us adults will just sit back on our couches and crack up.

For those of us keeping track, Xena's soul has now been in seven people:

Callisto
Autolycus
Gabrielle
Melinda Pappas
Artimnestra
Harry
Daphne

Also to relieve some acting time for a star who's getting reeeallly big (wow, I think that kid was setting up condos for rent), Gabrielle and Aphrodite get to have some romp time on the screen. And my heavens, does Gabrielle ever romp. Her fight scenes were awesome. She not only throws around the sai like a pro, but wields a sword, a mace, and a flaming whip. I'm with Gabrielle in wishing that Xena could have seen that one; by my count, that was ten guys she beat up! Watch Gabrielle drop the sword-n-mace at the end of the first fight like they're diseased - ha!

Kudos to that little kid for doing a heck of a Xena impersonation! She beats the pants off that Pepsi girl for the voice-changing business (and I think in this episode's case, that's actually the kid doing the voice). I thought she did a better job as Xena than she did as Daphne, although both were darned decent efforts. Go, kid! Live a long and happy acting career.

Speaking of the girl, what kind of dream job must this have been? Even if she never watched Xena, to get to whip a sword around and run all over the countryside and castle sets for the cameras? What a rough way to spend a couple of weeks. I bet she had all the other kids beat on the "what I did for my summer vacation" essays.

Continuity nit: When Daphne looks in the mirror for the first time to see Xena, Xena's in control, so Xena shouldn't have been speaking in the mirror.

Best one-liners of the episode:

• "She got me right in the jewels!"
     - wimpy de-jeweled henchman, while retreating
• "Aphrodite's succoring the ill." "I AM NOT!!"
• "We're not (twins)? You lied to me?" [WHACK!]
• "Junior Amazon cookies". I nearly fell off my couch.
• "Think of them as really mean trout", especially with the grrrr-imace Gabrielle gives when she says it.

New outfit for Aphrodite: she's traded in the nightie for a (spangled) sports bra and short shorts, for that on-the-go athletic sex kitten look.

But for all the characters in this episode I liked, I gotta say: the head bad guy, Theron, was lame. Lame lame lame. Every time he showed up to try to be menacing, I had pretty much the same reaction that the head henchman did when he was threatened by Daphne. "Ooo! NOW I'm scared!" The metal origami mask was ridiculous looking - did he decide to stop kids being afraid of his scars by making them laugh themselves to death? And after all that buildup, THAT was a scarred-up face? He just looked suburned. It's a sad bad guy who lets his head henchman show him up - now THAT guy was fun.

I partially blame the lame bad guy, but episodes like this bring out my worst couch potato instincts. "Yeah yeah yeah, the kid's in turmoil, the bad guy's after Xena... enough dramatic meaningful stuff, get back to Gabrielle and Aphrodite bickering! Show another fight!"

I love the history of Gabrielle and Aphrodite: Gabrielle seems to have, and always has had, special dispensation to banter and harangue Aphrodite. Xena gets to mouth off to Ares, Hades, and pretty much anybody else. Aphrodite usually ignores/interacts minimally with Xena, but Gabrielle has her number.

Notice Gabrielle's emphatic "NO hensbane!" Memories of rock choirs, Gab?

Was Lucy really lying in that pallet that Gabrielle dragged and Gab and Aphrodite wrestled onto the dias? (If it wasn't, they have a very Lucy-looking mannequin.) Trusting actress!

I love the Xena theme music when Daphne goes into full Xena mode. Hearing the warrior princess songs to a slow-motion running kid was hilarious.

This town must manufacture metal polish in bathtubloads. EVERYthing reflects. Even the soup shines!

Possibly the funniest moment of the whole episode is when Gab and Aphrodite are trying to talk their way into the Gemini club, when their horns lock together and nearly knock Aphrodite's helmet across her face. Alexandra Tydings looks like she almost cracks up, but the scene goes on, and they end up bravely marching into the club, blind twin and all.

Aphrodite in a sex show club! No wonder she's out of control almost the entire time. She gets off on the wrestling (and I'm not EVEN gonna comment on those two ladies at the start of the scene), she's ready to start the foursomes at the word 'go', and she gets... distracted... during the wrestling. Gab's plan was marvelous, she just forgot to bring a few buckets of cold water to hose the goddess of love down.

Mythology note: Castor and Pollux really were twins and the sons of a god, although they weren't siamese twins, they were just inseparable by choice. There's also no mention of Castor and his oil... castor oil, ha ha. (And thank you, XenaWriters, for NOT spelling that joke out for us. We can connect the dots.)

This week, thousands of kids are looking up the word "linguists" in their dictionaries to try to figure out what the heck that line was about.

Aphrodite and Gabrielle oil wrestling with Siamese twins... I'm speechless. I can NOT add a crack to top that.

CLASSIC Gabrielle when she's exposed (so to speak) after the wrestling match and promptly launches into an outraged speech about the shameless exploitation of the female form. Ahh, she can still be an idealist.

Amazing how the neck pinch works through a leather collar! (With kid's fingers, even!)

What's with the feel of finality at the end? The long shot of the walk on the beach, the swelling music? I felt like I was watching the end of a season. If the director needed to fill in 30 more seconds, I could have suggested some other spots.

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

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