Purity

This episode had the same problem that Debt II had; if you spend all your time talking about losing will, you're also talking about losing emotion. And without emotion on the screen, you don't have emotion in the viewers. Wake me in time for next week.

This episode opened just like The Debt - jumping up from sleep to find a messenger who hands over a cryptic missive from Lao Ma before dying. How many mysterious messages did Lao Ma send to Xena? Are they going to arrive every year? Will every messenger be signing up for a death march? Can Xena sue a dead person for stalking after four or five years of this?

Xena says she plans to keep Lao Ma's power this time, and says at the end that it can be called up at will. I sure hope that doesn't mean she's going to be turning into Serene Cardboard Woman and lobbing fireballs all over the show.

I liked the chakram scud! Grabbing the rocket in mid-flight and turning it around cracked me up with its craziness.

Not a good Gabrielle episode:

"Gabrielle, go disappear for a while. Stand around while the guests provide exposition. And whatever you do, don't let a warlord put a knife to your throat."
"How about tying me to a few kegs of gunpowder just to keep me in the story?"
"No, not that either."
"Whoops."

A little Too Much Information about Joxer in the "Three feet in my pants" scene. (Although it was Gabrielle's best scene of the episode.) But now we know why he was so popular at Meg's brothel!

The writers of this episode REALLY needed to study their Debt source a little closer. Major whups #1: Xena says the woods were where she first met Lao Ma. Never mind that whole "that's my piece of meat you're reaching for" and wee assassination attempt in Borias's camp. Major whups #2: Xena blisses out over Lao Ma's floaty-scarf, says that Lao Ma hid her, AND that Lao Ma died in Ming's palace. But the first two were in Lao's palace, not Ming's.

The set designer, on the other hand, had no such problems with staying true to the Debt. It was neat to see the same sets now with dust and debris scattered in them, especially when Xena and Kao Hsin stood where Xena and Lao Ma stood before in that silhouetted room in front of the bonsai tree. Nifty!

What on earth was that split-second shot of a curtain between the scenes when Xena and Kao Hsin decide to study in Ming's palace and when Gab and Joxer walk in the woods?

It looks like Pao Tsu got about five miles away in the two seconds between dropping the torch on the gunpowder and the explosion. Even before getting the book, she knew how to teleport.

Watch Xena pull Gabrielle back before Joxer can test the black powder in the fire. Heh.

Apparently, the secret to Lao Ma's mind pyrotechnics is to be purely focused on something. Anything. Pao Tsu had purity of hatred, which was threatened by finding out her mother sacrificed for her. Never mind all that conquering yourself and losing desire stuff. What were Xena and Kao Hsin focused on?

The final fight between Pao Tsu and Xena -n- Kao Hsin was darned repetitive. Pao Tsu launches a fireball. Xena and Kao Hsin strike-a-pose to block it. Pao Tsu tries again. They block again. They did this seven times. Another one of Lao Ma's lessons must have been "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

I think Go Kun deliberately blew up Pao Tsu - he seemed to know what he was ordering when he told them to blow up Xena. He was probably hoping they all three would go sky-high.

Gabrielle's now doing standing flip kicks and over-the-head kicks! As Xena gets less and less acrobatic (although Xena did quite a lot of flipping in this episode, AND gets kicked right in the stomach), Gabrielle's getting moreso.

Return to the Wool-Gatherings.

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