Xena Warrior Princess: Miss Amphipolis, Destiny, The Quest

The next round of Xena Warrior Princess episodes deals with a light-hearted (but somewhat clunky) girl power episode, before heading into the first two episodes of a tenuous trilogy (I say tenuous because it starts with flashbacks to Xena's time with Caesar and ends with Gabrielle trying to escape a murderous Amazon Queen).

Shit gets dark kids

But with this turning point we've reached the start of what will eventually become Xena's ever-more-convoluted backstory and been introduced to two of its most effective villains - even if one of them is just a one-and-done.

Miss Amphipolis

Plot: Xena goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant to find out who's threatening the other beauty queens.

On to Miss Amphipolis, which is another comedy episode (there seem to be a lot of them this season) but with a Very Important Message: that beauty-show contestants are people too. Honestly, I don't have much patience for these sort of PSA type episodes, even though this was at least less obnoxious than others I've seen. It's not that the intentions are bad, it's simply that no one ever seems to know how to write them properly and it ends up being a confused mess of messages.

For example, take the contestant who entered the competition in order to get extra food for her village over the winter. She ends up quitting the competition because she'd rather have her pride and dignity. Er... first of all, what about her hungry village? Second of all, she already HAD her dignity and pride considering she was only in the competition to help out her village! People just shouldn't try to write these "moral of the story" episodes. They always seem to get hopelessly confused on what the moral is.

Also, the whole "beauty is skin-deep, treat women with respect" thing doesn't actually work when you have female characters dressed in bikinis wandering around acting petty and catty to each other, while most of the screentime goes to their male sponsors (okay, I didn't time it down to the second, but it certainly felt like it).

But okay, if I don't try to cross-examine it this was a fun episode. I loved seeing Salmonious again, and he had some funny moments as the MC ("thank you for that lovely rendition of whatever that song you just played was"). Renee was having a lot of fun with the crazy French accent. The clam-throwing teamwork at the beginning was cute. A nice touch was Xena being "Miss Amphipolis" (a reference to her home village).

The practice dance routine was pretty amusing, mainly because I think the idea was for the women to be acting all aggressive and pushy with each other, when in fact you could see the actresses were smiling and getting the giggles over bumping into each other. And the whole subplot surrounding Miss Artiphys was an anvil that probably needed to be dropped back in the mid-nineties (and heck, even today).

On the left is Karen Dior, who had AIDs at a time when people thought
you could still catch the disease through physical touch.
Xena/Lucy makes out with her at the end of the episode.

But basically, this felt like "the feminist episode" with a heavy-handed message about girl power. Newflash, show - you were doing a much, MUCH better job at being feminist when you were simply showing us the relationship between two women and their adventures together, instead of telling us about how beauty pageants are lame and exploitative.

Destiny

Plot: Xena is badly wounded, and while Gabrielle struggles to reach a healer, Xena recalls the key events of her past that initially led her down a dark path: in this case, her first meeting with Julius Caesar and a young girl called M'Lila who teaches her about pressure-points.

I get the feeling that Destiny is probably a pivotal episode in the show's run, and though I liked it, I didn't love it. Meep, have I just spoken blasphemy? I'll try and break down my thoughts.

(Though I accidentally started watching The Quest before Destiny and thought: what a weird cold opening. So now I'm back on track...)

This was our first episode to contain flashbacks to Dark!Xena, so that was pretty exciting, though the lead-up to it was rather awful. Gabrielle gets kidnapped again? By Aztecs this time? And why, if they think she's some sort of sign from their god, would Xena start beating them up instead of saying: "hey, release those hostages." And then she gets taken out by a badly constructed swinging log? Really? Okay, I get that it was all a vessel to segue to the flashback, but surely they could have done something more creative than this.

I did like the presence of two little girls though, the first one in Xena's memory of the ruined village (though I didn't realize until the credits rolled that she was meant to be Callisto) and the little girl with M'Lila's necklace.

But hey, here's the flashback and that's all that matters. It was interesting to see Xena at this stage of her life; it was before she went hardcore evil, and here her character was explored through her interactions with two guest-stars: Caesar and M'Lila. I don't think either one of them was as deeply sketched as they could have been (especially M'Lila), but I knew that Karl Urban would pop up eventually as Caesar and become a semi-regular nemesis for Xena. So though I'd never seen a single one of his episodes, I knew I had to keep a close eye on him.

Introducing Karl Urban... in his THIRD role in this franchise

Xena is at a stage when she's taking money and burning villages, but is still doing it (at least in her own head) for a good cause. Lucy did a good job of getting across Xena's naivety without making her look too stupid (even though Caesar's betrayal could be seen coming a mile away), as well as her fascination with the ideals that Caesar was spouting: of destiny and conquering and making history.

She almost seemed a bit intimidated at times by his complete and utter calm, and I liked the way he seemed so completely clear in his goals and his faith in himself. While everyone else is beset with doubts, it's easy to see why Xena would be attracted to the fact he's not, even after he's tied to her ship's mast.

I also liked the gender-flip of the seduction scene, but I think maybe his betrayal came a bit too quick. Was it meant to be revenge? Because otherwise (for such a calm and rational person) I'm not even sure why he would want to go out of his way to kill her slowly. At that point she was just a pirate, right? Wouldn't she be more useful as an ally?

But in any case, I liked his "hands behind his back" posture, and his line: "there is only Rome", which gives the sense that a part of himself considers himself the embodiment or an extension of Rome rather than an actual person.

As for M'Lila; well now we know where Xena got her knowledge of pressure points from. Origin stories are fun when they allow us to get that "aha!" moment, and as soon as you saw M'Lila fighting on the boat with all of Xena's tricks, you know that a friendship is going to ensue.

However, this was made difficult by the language barrier, which I'm not entirely sure was a good idea. Though it was nicely ironic that it was only through Caesar that Xena could communicate with M'Lila (and it was a sweet moment when she could speak directly to her in the Underworld) it kind of prevented the two women from forming any particular bond in the very short space of time they had allotted to them. As it is, I'm not entirely sure why M'Lila rescued Xena or gave up her life for her - the lack of dialogue meant she came across more as a device than a character.

But it struck me that although there are good male allies (Joxer, Hercules, Autolycus) and bad female enemies (Callisto, Alti, Najara) whenever Xena is paired with a malevolent male character (Ares, Caesar, Borias), she is never without a positive female companion to counteract his influence (M'Lila, Lao Ma, Gabrielle). It's provides an interesting pattern and dynamic.

There was also a pretty heavy emphasis on Xena's legs, whether it be M'Lila paralyzing them, the panning shot in the seduction scene, the crucifixion in which a hammer is taken to them, or the final scene in which she goes a little crazy at M'Lila's death and uses them to snap necks. They are pretty impressive legs.

The Quest

Plot: After Xena's supposed death, Gabrielle takes her friend's body to the Amazons for a proper ceremony, only for Autolycus to be possessed by Xena's spirit and urge him to find the ambrosia she needs to restore herself to life. Meanwhile, an Amazon called Velasca grows resentful that Gabrielle is now Queen of the Amazons.

This was a bit of an odd episode in that it felt rather disconnected from the previous one. There are no flashbacks, it focuses on Gabrielle, and apart from Xena's death it feels like a completely different story. It's not bad, just not what I was expecting. I guess I'm not going to get an answer on what the deal was regarding that little girl wearing M'Lila's necklace. Just a coincidence?

I understand that Lucy Lawless was nursing an injury at this time, which explains her temporary not-death, though a minor head injury feels like an incredibly anti-climactic way to go! Still, Gabrielle's grief was very touching, especially since her sadness seems to derive from her confusion that anything could actually permanently happen to Xena - as though sheer force of will could have kept her alive.

The best episodes of genre shows are usually the ones that utilize the entire cast and recurring guest-stars, so it was fun to see Ephiny and Autolykus again. Bruce Campbell put on a great physical perfomance as a man possessed by Xena, and had most of the best lines: "hey, I paid for an hour." It's nice that he's such a good friend to the women, though it was a bit sad that Gabrielle immediately assumed he was stealing Xena's body for his own ends (they should have linked this better to the scenario at the beginning in which thugs try to steal her body, then I could have bought it as a knee-jerk reaction on Gabby's behalf. I think that was the implication, though).

However, I really loved his final scene with Xena in which he's preening and expecting a thank you, but then gets all embarrassed when she does actually give him a sincere thank you. And the hand-kiss was cute.

Also nice to see the Amazons again, and they kept up good continuity regarding Ephiny's family life and the right of caste falling to Gabrielle. Melinda Clarke is a great cult actress with an awesome b*tch!face (I honestly mean that in a positive way - she always looks on the verge of attacking someone, so she was perfect for this role) and Danielle Cormack got to show a softer side in regards to Gabrielle. Though it was disappointing Melosa was dispatched off-screen. She was a great character, and deserved a better send-off.

All hail the cheekbones

I think the Amazon politics are a little bizarre, possibly because they're completely arbitrary and totally in service to the plot, but I actually felt that Valesca had a point when she said that Gabrielle wasn't suited to be queen. She doesn't know their ways and she's totally inexperienced!

Iolaus's cameo at the beginning felt a bit pointless. Shouldn't he have stayed to protect Gabrielle on the road? And why was she lugging around a giant sarcophagus instead of something much lighter before switching to a sarcophagus at her destination? Okay, I know I shouldn't poke too much at the plot holes in this show, but most of this plot was built entirely on contrivance.

I mean, how exactly was Xena controlling Autolykus? Why didn't she go straight to Gabrielle? The fact that Gabrielle suddenly decided to give Xena a cremation was no doubt to put her body in danger and necessitate an action-sequence, but then why didn't Xena rope Autolykus into stealing her body before it was in any danger? And why not have Autolykus just explain things to Gabrielle when he had the chance? And maybe sending a sarcophagus downstream in the hopes of picking it up later is perhaps not the best idea ever? I can think of a million things that could have gone wrong with that plan.

The ambrosia was an easy MacGuffin (and it looked like jello) but it served its purpose and was conveniently destroyed so that it can't be used again in the future - but I did smile when I saw Valesca's hand reaching for what was left over. I knew she was too good a villain to get rid of just yet!

Listen close and you can still hear the
sound of a thousand shippers screaming...

And then there was that kiss! Of course, Autolykus was something of a stand-in, but it still happened. So...not quite sure what to make of that. I'm (safely) assuming this was a huge deal for the show's fanbase but I'm not quite sure what it meant. Are they a couple now? Or was it just a tease? I guess I couldn't quite figure out Xena's motivation in doing it, and I hope it wasn't just done for titillation. There's follow-up to it, right?