July is turning out to be a busy month for me, so there’s been little activity on this blog of late. That means it’s time for another three episodes of Xena Warrior Princess, which take a break from the emotional intensity of The Deliver and The Debt to make room for three filler comedy episodes.
The comedy episodes of this show can be pretty touch-and-go: these ones are fun without being particularly clever about it…
King of Assassins
Plot: Joxer’s identical twin brother Jett is planning to murder Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. With Xena largely off-screen, it falls to Gabrielle, Joxer and Autolycus to thwart the assassination attempt.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before they paired up Joxer and Autolycus, but to be honest, the comedy stylings of Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi didn't mesh all that well together. Bruce is more verbal snark whilst Ted is all about the slapstick. I understand this was another Xena-lite episode to fill in for the fact that Lucy Lawless was injured and/or needed elsewhere, but the trio of Joxer/Autolycus/Gabrielle couldn’t quite pick up the slack in her absence – though that was largely due to the script. I lost track of who was trying to do what and why. Someone wanted to kill Cleopatra? For some reason?
I loved seeing Gina Torres as Cleopatra (this may well be the first time I've seen a woman of colour play the Egyptian Queen – amazing!) though I was a little disappointed that they wasted such an iconic character on a comedy episode. I mean, Boudicca may have had only fifteen minutes to strut her stuff, but at least she was in a weighty story!
Oh, and Joxer has a brother who is also a psychopathic assassin (and apparently there's a third one out there too?) Uh, okay. I guess it gave Ted Raimi a chance to stretch his acting skills, even though I don't think I'll ever be able to get my head around all the identical lookalikes on this show. And if I'm being really generous, I'd say that having what is clearly a very dangerous and dysfunctional family sheds some light on Joxer's personality. Oddly, his complete harmlessness makes him the white sheep in a black flock.
Oh, and I probably could have done without the extreme close-up of Bruce Campbell's face perving at Cleopatra undressing. That was just creepy (and didn't he direct this episode?!)
Warrior... Priestess... Tramp...
Plot: After Gabrielle rescues a strangely-passive Xena from being burned at the stake, she realizes that it’s not in fact Xena, but an identical stranger called Leah, a priestess of Hestia. On being told that she was ordered to impersonate Xena, Leah is taken to a brothel for her own protection, while Xena goes undercover as Leah at the temple in order to figure out what’s going on. And that’s when Meg shows up…
Oh jeez, ANOTHER lookalike episode? This is crazy!
Once I got past that this pretty fun, and Leah is probably my favourite of the Xena lookalikes (or at least the funniest). Lucy was obviously having fun with the woman's speech impediment: "pwaise Hestia!" and her pearl-clutching horror at Xena/Gabrielle's lifestyle.
More than that, Lucy gets to demonstrate her skills as actress in pulling all this off (though I think she overplayed Meg a little bit – I can't remember her waddling about with her dress hitched up above her knees the last time she appeared), especially in her ability to keep track of everyone – even when the other versions of her are pretending to be other versions of her. Heck, I even loved the way she reacted when Leah was first introduced to her: on saying “Diana” she was respectful and reverent, but on assuming it was “Meg!” she sounded much bawdier.
But speaking of Meg, what happened? I thought she was happily installed in that king's kitchen as a cook, and now she's running a brothel?
The villain was pretty dull, and though I understand that they were obviously juggling too many characters to go in-depth as to what his motivation was (religious intolerance, really?) I also believe that any story needs a decent villain to get it off the ground. This guy was a typical slimy sleazebag, but since we were dealing with the Vestal Virgins, couldn't he have maybe had some hang-ups over the fact that none of them were interested in him? Maybe he could have been carrying a torch for Leah that she snuffed out and he couldn't handle it. That could have led to some commentary on the agency of the women and Xena coming to respect Leah's vocation in life, especially since I felt there was a bit too much snark surrounding Leah's choice to be a priestess.
Sure, she needed to tone down some of her judgmental qualities, but by the day's standards, Leah was in one of the few positions where a woman was able to wield autonomy and power on her own terms.
I'm clearly overthinking a comedy episode.
The Quill is Mightier
Plot: Resentful that her temple has been desecrated by Xena fanboys, Aphrodite comes up with a petty scheme to cause trouble, cursing Gabrielle’s quill so that everything she writes will come true, no matter how metaphorical she’s being. On realizing what she’s now capable of, Gabrielle vows to use the scroll as a force for good, though her creative endeavours backfire in the expected ways…
Umm... not much to say here. This reminded me a lot of the Groundhog Day episode in the sense that it took a staple comedy situation and adapted it specifically for the show (and then I discovered both episodes were written by the same woman).
Aphrodite enchants Gabrielle's scroll so that everything she writes becomes literally true (just like that Buffy episode!) leading to all sorts of crazy hijinks. On the one hand, they didn’t really push this concept far enough (by the end it’s just a bunch of people chasing each other around) and on the other, I can think of a million things Gabrielle could have written to end the madness within a few seconds.
Minya was a bit wasted, though it was fun to see Aphrodite and Ares a) as mortals, and b) in each other's company. Is this the first time we've seen them in an episode together? Because they bounced off each other just as I thought they would: as terminally squabbling siblings. Oh, and some interesting Ares/Gabrielle interaction as well, in which they temporarily warm up to each other.
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| This picture sums them up perfectly... |
I think my favourite part is the warlord that’s told that he should attack when he sees the signal – and that he'll just know it when he sees it. After a bunch of false alarms, he goes with the chaotic chase made up of various naked girls, gay men, barbarians and leather-clad women.
***
Three incredibly light-hearted episodes to break up the darkness of the Dahak arc, which we dive back into in the very next episode…
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