Old Ares Had a Farm

This comedy was a departure from the past couple of seasons' lowbrow sledgehammer humor. Thank god, we didn't resort to reams of slapstick and bodily function gags to try to gain laughs. But the humor that was left was mostly just a droll "isn't that funny, Ares is trying to be a farmer" amusement, which didn't provide many opportunities to fall off the couch laughing. The episode was cute, harmless... but also nothing to remember past the moment the end credits roll.

Although there weren't MANY gut-laughs, I did hit a couple. Without further ado, my favorite jokes of the episode:

Ares, to Gabrielle: "Is there ANYTHING you and I agree on?"
(Gabrielle flashes a look at Xena.)
Ares: "Oh yeah. Anything else?"

Gabrielle: "I just used the first thing that popped into my head."
Ares: "I think that says a lot about you."
(No kidding! I was thinking the SAME thing!)

That was a very weird bleep on Xena's line about shoveling s__t. Usually these days, the local stations just drop the sound, not insert the loud BLEEEP of old. My theory: I think the studio added it in as obnoxiously as possible, knowing they wouldn't get away with that word, just to tweak up the humor of it.

I gotta side with Ares on his assessment of the ramshackle Green Acres ruin. Gabrielle called it "charming"?!? Xena said it smells like she remembers? Did it always smell of rot and cobwebs? Xena's grandmother must have been a lousy housekeeper.

Slight blooper: when Gabrielle knocks the table over, it lands with the legs up in the air. In the next shot of Ares walking past, it's lying on its side.

Best sound effect of the season so far: when Ares sucked in his chest for Greba's benefit. HA!

What on EARTH was up with the outfits Xena and Gabrielle were wearing? Maybe they were the clothes young Xena wore when she was at the farm; that would explain how small they were. And were those actually bows in Xena's hair? Those dresses were pretty horrid, and Gabrielle suddenly took a liking to polka-dotted bras. Apparently, being on a farm means losing all fashion sense.

I had my bets on the mysterious thief being a squirrel. How on earth did the dog manage to get the rags that were under the boards of the porch?

Ares tells Gabrielle that saving her was an afterthought, but I don't buy it. I think he was just trying to tweak her. His only motivation may have been to keep Xena happy, but nothing about giving up immortality is an afterthought.

The scene of the threesome in bed was contrived. But I couldn't help it, I kept chuckling at Ares' "I'm in Tartarus!" moan by the time Xena is plucking Gabrielle's hand away from where it landed with a resounding thud.

Mark your calendars: this episode may very well have provided more MALE eye candy than FEMALE. Gabrielle tried her darnedest to... ahem... hold up her gender's side with an avalanche of eye-popping cleavage shots. But the gals' outfits were just no match for Ares running around with no shirt and form-fitting leather pants for the whole episode. My favorite Ares moment: his growled "Thank god I'm a country boy" as he rolls out of bed, hops from the second floor window to the ground, and tiptoes barefoot through the back forty. Whew, no wonder the neighbor girl was swooning.

Speaking of that scene, though: when did the bedroom move to the second floor? When did that place even GET a second floor?

Is there a reason that the dog and the warlord both have different-colored eyes? I'd say that was something deep and meaningful, except that this episode never even paid "deep and meaningful" a passing glance.

Greba's a twit and mostly a waste of very dumb lines. But at least she provides an excuse for Ares to put his moves on someone besides Xena.

Ares gets one of the all-time great pitiful speeches of the show:

Oh, I'm just lying here... smelling my mortality. Every muscle in my body aching. I have gray hair. And the dog has his tongue in my mouth.

I liked that the first task Ares shows any enthusiasm for is to slaughter a chicken. Ares even gives a battle yell in the middle of the ensuing Sensitive Chat between Xena and Gabrielle.

When the army's search party arrives, steam is rising off of Ares. That must have been a COLD day of shooting!

OK, it was amusing that the dog bit Xena on the butt. I guess the reason that the dog didn't go after the lieutenant first when HE was beating up Ares was because it wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining.

Seeing as how all the fights on X:WP are faked, it was funny that the "fight" Xena and Gabrielle have in the warlord's tent is made to be very badly faked... so that it's a faked fake fight. It actually has some weird logic to it. I kind of liked the gusto that they had for tearing up the joint.

All told, it wasn't a rip-roaring side-splitter. But it was cute, and kinda sweet-like. A potato chip of an episode. I wouldn't want a bunch of episodes like it, but I didn't mind this one.

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

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