The Price

Wow. What a fantastic episode - one of those that, the moment it's finished, makes you want to hit rewind on the VCR and watch again. (I made myself wait a whole 24 hours before watching it a second time. Had to let things settle.) The first two minutes of the show give us the kind of light-hearted humor we've seen a lot of lately, just to make the next 58 minutes of dark grimness that much more jarring.

X:WP now has its equivalent of the Borg - The Horde. And our introduction to the Horde is one of the most bone-chilling things I've seen on television. At first, we see some nasty men surrounding Xena and Gabrielle with howling bloodlust - creepy, but been there, done that. (Anyone else notice that they even used dog/wolf sound effects for these guys?)

But as Xena and Gab flee down the river, the full horror starts to slowly dawn: bodies begin floating by like flotsam after a storm, followed by the tortures of those not killed yet. As the Horde begin to close on their canoe, the baddies rise from the river like crocs and peer from their hiding places on the riverbank with piercing eyes (anyone else reminded of Rambo in the clay cliff?). Now that's the way to make an entrance! Even Xena is afraid of the Horde - Xena, afraid? By the time that introduction to them is finished, we can understand perfectly.

The Horde get their own theme music, too - with a male soloist for a change - in kind of a Native American-sounding chant. The Horde's costumes and war paint seemed to be a mix of North and South American native culture with a healthy dose of African influence. Why all those guys are crossing oceans to pick on Xena, I dunno, but the effect is fairly cool!

This show belonged to Xena - no scene-stealing from the Warrior Princess THIS week, dammit! But Gabrielle (Miss Nightingale, I presume?) still gets a chance to shine. We'll talk about her first before turning to the heart of the episode.

"Here we go again" - nice foreshadowing for Gab's return to the battlefield, just like in Is There a Doctor In the House? In Doctor, Gab left the safety of the healing temple to go to the battlefield in an attempt to save lives. Here we go again, indeed. Gab knew very well what she was walking into when she left the compound; she's paid the consequences in a big way once before. Thank goodness, this time the results weren't so disastrous. But knowing what she was facing made her willingness to go all the more remarkable.

Her grim graciousness while she worked in the hospital and went onto the battlefield to give water to the dying was true nobility; maybe all these royal titles that keep getting shoved at her are rubbing off. "You don't know how much I love... that." As do we all. My breath caught in my throat when Xena spoke that line, with a suddeness that made my lungs wonder what the heck just happened. Acting kudos once again go to Lucy; that could have been an incredibly cheesy line, but she spoke it with sincerity and directness that made it haunting. So close to honesty, Xena, and yet still so far to go.

Our bard continues to grow - she can now organize a hospital as Xena has done. She's capable of handling the injured and mobilizing the soldiers, but she's still not up to making the cold, ruthless decisions that can be necessary, a theme that was briefly touched on in Is There a Doctor in the House. She doesn't have the detachment that can be necessary when treating so many wounded. She cannot see a life as just another body; she sees each man personally, instead. It's all to her credit, but it also means she'll never make a good triage admin.

Which brings us to one of the more interesting points of the show: What was Gabrielle's true source of horror for Xena and the battle against the Horde? This show was full of some of the grim, black realities of war and battle. Just to rattle off a few, we had:

• The torture of the men on the riverbank - and the necessity of leaving them behind
• The death of the man Xena and Gab fought to save
• Using corpses as decoys
• Wounded men lying dying, unattended, on the battlefield
• Denying food and water to men unable to defend the compound
• The slaughter of the enemy, including defeated and fleeing men

Yeah, I've dubbed them the dark Xena and the light Xena. The dark Xena is the Warrior Princess, the Destroyer of Nations, as she really was. A powerful, frightening, almost possessed woman. And looking exactly as she did in Dreamworker, even though that episode was so long ago. She didn't have that cold fire in the Hercules appearances, but in Dreamworker, Lucy got it down pat, and brings up a carbon copy in The Price to show us again exactly how nasty Xena really was back then.

The most amazing thing to me was that I could see the exact moment that the dark Xena set up residence, and the exact moment the light Xena regained control. The dark Xena moved in when the soldiers called for her. Xena really does have a heck of an ego, and she lo-o-oves to hear her name chanted by armies. It's of the show's themes; whenever she's being tempted by the dark side, it calls her name. This time, she reveled in it, and the dark Xena took the reins and submerged every lesson Xena's learned since, much to Gabrielle's appallment.

And the moment that the dark Xena broke was with the line "She was very convincing!" Xena was prepared to kill that poor sap who had let Gab pass through to the battlefield, but that one sentence reminded her of everything about Gabrielle that represented the innocence she cherished. The girl had managed to talk her way through a barricaded compound using nothing but fast talk, kindness, and a smile. That was the instant that the dark Xena disappeared again and was replaced by the light - although still awfully annoyed - Xena. Those stark moments were glory points in the show's plot, directing, and Lucy's acting ability.

Cool effect of the month award! Xena catches a throwing axe with her whip and shoots it right back at the guy. Eeee-yow!

And an X:WP first: two armies on the screen, and both are filled with competent fighters! Can you imagine how thrilled the extras must have been to be told "Hey guys, this time - you can actually whup on each other! You don't just fall down!"

Almost every episode has at least one of what I call the "This shot brought to you by the New Zealand Department of Tourism - Come to the Land of the Kiwi" shots. This one took the cake in the opening scenes for beautiful photography. That rainbow-ed waterfall! I recall reading once that if there was a nuclear war, New Zealand would be one of the only spots on earth that may still be fit for habitation. Maybe I ought to start checking out immigration laws.

"They'll be back, maybe not this year," but probably next season, for some trusty bad guys. Keep your eyes open for the Horde!

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

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