Although Xena Warrior Princess peaked in season three, the next three episodes of the fourth season are pretty solid offerings, with knotty moral conundrums, some great scenes between our lead characters, and three significant guest-starring female characters.
Okay, “significant” is a relative term, as two of them are never seen again, and the other only gets one more appearance before she’s permanently written out. Furthermore, the writers take the easy way out when it comes to Thalassa, and though it’s difficult to say why Satrina didn’t pop as a character, the truth is she simply didn’t (it’s rather fascinating actually – on the page she’s intriguing, even compelling – but that just didn’t translate to the screen).
That leaves Najara, who is truly one of the show’s best antagonists, in one of the season’s very best episodes. Played by Kathryn Morris in her pre-Cold Case days, the character is like no one we’ve ever seen on Xena Warrior Princess before: a mentor figure who is in many ways an inversion of Alti, or a distorted reflection of Lao Mai, adding to the roster of complex female characters on the show.
Locked Up and Tied Down
Xena and Gabrielle are approached by a group of armed men who have an arrest warrant for Xena. On learning that it’s for the murder of a girl called Thalassa, who Xena tied to a stake in a tidal pool and left to drown, Xena allows herself to be taken.
Neither does she defend herself during the trial, where Gabrielle learns from eyewitnesses that Thalassa was held hostage in order to extort the location of provisions from the township. On discovering where these supplies were hidden, Xena allowed the villagers to free Thalassa, but it was too late – all that remained of her was a bloody arm.
Xena is taken to a women’s prison known as Shark Island, where a fellow prisoner is executed on the orders of the commandant. Xena spends the night digging a grave for the woman, while Gabrielle disguises herself in the attempt to take the recently-vacated position of healer on the island.
In the attempt to defend another prisoner, Xena fights one of the guards, only for the commandant to intervene and reveal herself as Thalassa. She has Xena thrown into a rat-infested pit, and later meets Gabrielle who realizes her true identity and tries to convince her she can return to her former self.
After Gabrielle secretly returns Xena’s chakram to her, she’s seized by the guards and scheduled for execution. However, as she stands on the gallows, Thalassa realizes she can’t go through with it, and the chakram cuts through the rope just as Gabrielle is about to hang. A riot kicks off, and only ends when Xena intervenes and reconciles with Thalassa.
So this episode was a little strange. I think it was a very good idea (to explore whether Xena should be locked away) but in entirely the wrong place regarding the show's progress. This should have happened LONG ago for it to have made any sense; I'm thinking maybe the third or fourth episode of the first season.
Because it was a good idea, and if it had been utilized sooner, could have left us pondering the interesting question of whether or not Xena deserved to go to prison for the crimes she committed, or whether she was better off out in the world, actively doing good. There are probably a lot of prisoners, both in the real world and the show, who regret their terrible crimes and wish to make amends, but nevertheless end up in prison to serve out their justified sentence. So why should Xena be the exception?
It's a moral conundrum that's well in keeping with the rest of the show's themes, but this late in the game, it doesn't work quite as well for three reasons: a) Xena should be well-aware by this point that she's more useful to the world as a free woman (maybe that's not fair to other criminals, but hey – it's not fair for innocent people to suffer either), b) she should be moving past her guilt by now (yes, it's a difficult thing to get rid of, and perhaps she'll never lose it totally, but the whole "redemption" thing hasn't been much of a factor for a while now and to dredge it all up seemed a bit arbitrary) and c) Gabrielle. It seems utterly selfish of her to just throw up her hands and let herself be arrested and leave Gabrielle in the lurch like that.
On points a and b, another problem is that rather than have Xena being held responsible for all the evil she did during her warlord years, the writers simply make up a completely new character that Xena killed in order to give these specific villagers an excuse to ship her off to Shark Island. It all came way too out of left field, and was negated anyway when it was revealed that Thalassa wasn't even dead.
I can understand that Xena doesn't feel like she deserves to be forgiven, and that an even greater part of her feels she needs to be punished – but it still felt rather out of character that she would go through with this.
Heck, it would have been interesting to see her argue in her own defense and tell the court that she's regularly haunted by her past as she attempts to make amends; that her mental anguish is sufficient punishment for anyone. That in turn could have resulted in Thalassa's family demanding justice anyway and plenty more juicy ethical debates – after all, jail isn't just about protecting innocent people, it's also about inflicting punishment.
Because there's really no right or wrong answer when you get down to semantics. Even people who accidentally kill other people get sentenced to jail time, regardless of how sorry they feel, and I think it was Callisto who originally asked what gives Xena the right to imprison/punish others when she gets off scot-free.
Yet in a roundabout way, Xena is punished for her crimes by the very guilt she feels for NOT being punished for her crimes. It would have been nice if that had been articulated somewhere.
And once we get to Shark Island, a bunch of crazy stuff happens. I'll admit that Thalassa's existence surprised me (on first seeing the cloaked figure in the window I assumed it was a disguised Gabrielle). But I have no idea what Xena thought she was going to achieve by digging a grave for the dead woman (did she really think her elaborately constructed grave-marker would be allowed to remain?) or what Gabrielle's plan was.
Gabrielle in this episode veered dangerously close to Mary Sue territory (and I hope you guys know by now I don't use that term lightly) given that after ONE conversation with her, Thalassa is ready to return to the light after several years of deformed bitterness and rage. Really? Is Gabrielle truly THAT inspiring?
Ultimately the character of Thalassa was rather short-changed, since she ends up feeling like a projection or representation of Gabrielle and Xena: essentially starting out as a Gabrielle and ending up as a Xena (during her darkest years). Why was she on the island anyway? Why didn’t she tell her family she was still alive? She deserved much more screentime in order to do her character and situation justice – either that or have her truly killed off in the flashbacks so that Xena had a legitimate crime to atone and/or be punished for.
Oh, and the man-eating crabs were ridiculous, even by the standards of this show. I mean, since the place was called SHARK island, why on earth didn’t they use sharks? Presumably they were in the vicinity, right?
Basically, nice idea, a few interesting scenes, but just sort of clumsily put together.
Crusader
Xena and Gabrielle are attacked by a group of men, only for their leader – a young and beautiful woman – to abruptly call a halt to the fight and ask for their forgiveness. She introduces herself as Najara, and explains that they mistook the pair of them for slave traders before the jinn (benevolent spirits that silently communicate with her) informed her that they fight on the side of good. Gabrielle is instantly intrigued by this new companion, and Xena agrees to travel with her on a mission to free slaves from the nearby villages.
Najara and Gabrielle strike up a friendship, and on seeing how well they get along, Xena considers leaving Gabrielle with her in order to protect her from the terrible crucifixion Xena has been foreseeing in her dreams. However, after the two temporarily split-up, Xena learns from a slave trader than Najara executes her prisoners without trial if they fail to embrace her beliefs. After a brief skirmish, Xena is defeated and Gabrielle begs for her life, with Najara agreeing to spare her for Gabrielle’s sake – someone whose light and innocence she wants to protect.
However, Xena can’t let Najara go free, and uses Gabrielle as bait to lure her in so she can be handed over to the proper authorities. In a role-reversal, Gabrielle ends up begging for Najara’s life before leaving with Xena, and Najara beatifically offers her forgiveness, while making it clear to Xena that she never told Gabrielle about her portends of the future.
In comparison, this episode was fantastic; definitely my favourite of the season so far. I’ll always be impressed by this show’s ability to effortlessly bring us so many complex female characters, especially ones that interact so fascinatingly with Xena. This is particularly true of the female mentor figures, such as Lao Ma, M’Lila and Gabrielle, and how they’re held up as foils to the evil male mentor figures: Ares, Borias, Caesar. You could explore these dynamics and the impact they’ve had on Xena’s life for hours, especially if you also throw Callisto in to the bargain.
This season has seen a bit of a mix-up in the genders of these archetypes, with the female Alti positioned as a dark foil to Cyane, each one vying for Xena’s loyalty. This trend continues with Najara, though in this case she’s designed to be to Gabrielle what all those above characters have been to Xena: a possible mentor with a specific path to share, but one (as it turns out) who is trying to lure her to the dark side.
Only it’s not the dark side exactly, it’s just a way of thinking that Gabrielle can’t allow herself to be a part of. Najara initially comes across as “good Xena”; a woman with all of Xena’s power and charisma without the grim backstory. It’s easy to believe she was deliberately designed as someone that Gabrielle would adore; someone that she could have very easily followed if Xena hadn’t come along first. The writers must have really brainstormed the question: “who could possibly lure Gabrielle away from Xena?” and they came up with the answer.
Najara is not only good and powerful, but someone who shares certain traits with Gabrielle that Xena doesn’t, such as appreciation for the scenery and a sense of joy in the world around her. She’s almost what you would call a Relationship Sue (someone deliberately designed to be the perfect match for a character) if it weren’t for the fact it was all done in order to be subverted.
Because as it turns out, Najara’s dark side is her ability to play judge, jury and executioner to the people she brings to justice. She’s what TV Tropes would call a Knight Templar or a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Yet even in this, there’s more nuance than I was expecting.
For starters, her “jinn” were apparently for real. Whatever they really were (and it remains ambiguous) there was clearly something there that was providing Najara with very real information and direction. She knew about Xena’s nightmares without being told, for example. So it’s hard to get a grasp on what she thought she was doing without a full understanding of what exactly was guiding her.
Secondly, Najara is one-hundred percent committed to her beliefs. If there had even been a shred of genuine malevolence or obvious craziness, then the whole episode would have fallen apart. But Najara remains sane and utterly convinced of her own righteousness, all the way up to her sincere and loving: “I forgive you” to Gabrielle as she departs. The writing never cheats. At no point does it paint her as a villain. From start to finish, it just lets her exist by her own moral code.
These two factors combined with Kathryn Morris’s utterly guileless performance makes the character that much more unsettling. I mean... what if she’s right? What if these jinn have given her the divine right to deal with criminals the way she does? And it’s not like she was going around indiscriminately killing anyone who disagreed with her. Xena and Gabrielle were free to leave whenever they liked; it was only ever warlords and other bad guys that she put to the sword if she thought they posed a threat to innocent people.
And as she points out, Xena’s solution to put men on trial for their crimes (which we seldom see, as most of them are killed in battle first) is flawed in many ways. Is it really that important for evil people to get a trial, especially if the jury decides they deserve to be executed anyway? If a court decides on the death penalty, does it make much difference if Najara dispatches them beforehand?
It's a pretty sticky conundrum, right up there with the question of what to do with Callisto. Because of course, if Xena or Gabrielle ever turned Najara over to a court to answer for HER crimes, there's very little chance of a jury finding her guilty of anything, not when most of what she does revolves around helping people. I ended this episode thinking: "heck, there are worse crimes than what she does."
Which may not have been what the show wanted me to think, as it adheres to a pretty strict moral code of conduct. But you still can't help but feel that Najara had a point, or that on a different show, she might well have been treated as the undisputed hero. And if Xena/Gabrielle were up against the likes of Alti or Callisto or Ares, Najara would unequivocally be opposed to them and be called upon as an ally. She's not a bad guy, just a different type of good guy (like Gabrielle said, one with a fatal flaw).
But moving away from Najara herself, it was interesting to see Xena come to the decision to leave Gabrielle with her (believing it could be a way of preventing her vision from coming to pass) and the conflict that emerged because of it. Is it selfish to keep Gabrielle in danger because Xena doesn't want to fob her off onto a woman who is (more or less) running a cult? Najara seemed to think it was. That final confrontation with Xena, when Najara tells her that "[hurting Gabrielle] is your job" was a fantastic scene.
And like all the best episodes, this ended on an ambiguous note. Eventually Najara is going to free herself and continue with her way of life. There's nothing Xena can do to stop her short of killing her, but not only would that be murder but – whether Xena likes it or not – Najara still does more active good in the world than evil.
And like I said, that final line of hers is brilliant, both as written and delivered. The woman honestly believes that she's right (unlike other villains who justify or just don't care about their evil) and is willing to forgive poor Gabrielle for her terrible mistake. I hope we get to see her again, though if this was just a one-shot, it was a pretty amazing showcase for her.
Past Imperfect
Xena finally tells Gabrielle about the vision she’s been having, of the two of them being crucified by the Romans at the based on a mountain range. For this reason, Xena is reluctant to have Gabrielle accompany her to a small town she’s trying to protect from raiders, but Gabrielle insists on going.
They find that most of the townsfolk are sick with the flu, and after an injury Xena recalls that the circumstances of this siege are very much like a similar attack that she led in her dark years as a warlord. She recalls how Dagnine and Borias split their forces to take the city, while her servant Satrina assisted Xena through the late stages of her pregnancy with Solan. Recalling these events, Xena realizes in the present-day that the grain supply has probably been poisoned to weaken the fighters.
Back in the past, Borias is trying to forge an alliance with the centaur Kaleipus, while Xena fights to find the Ixion Stone. Eventually the lovers are parted when their opposing views become too incompatible, and Borias sides with the centaurs over Xena. As she goes into labour, Satrina gives her a drug to ease the pain, promising to administer another to revive her again afterwards.
In the present day, Xena is struck by a poisoned dart with a distinctive scent, and realizes that the person responsible for their current predicament is Satrina – not a meek servant at all, but a warrior in her own right, who was seeking revenge on Xena for killing her lover. It was she that told Dagnine to murder Borias on the night she gave birth to Solan, and we get one last flashback that dramatizes these events, with Borias stumbling towards Xena’s tent and only just managing to hear Solan cry and witness Xena leave before he succumbs to his injuries.
Xena has pre-empted Satrina’s plan and taken the antidote to the dart’s poison, allowing her to battle at full-strength. Realizing she’s been outwitted, Satrina makes her escape, and Xena is left to ponder the scars of the past and her frightening vision of the future.
By this point, I know that if the credits tell me an episode was written by Steven Sears, it's likely to be a good one. And though this wasn't one of his best offerings, it certainly provided context to an interesting period of time, featured some neat continuity, and had a reasonably interesting mystery going on in the present-day storyline (who is the copycat?)
Dealing with the flashbacks first, I was rather bemused to see that they'd gone to the trouble of getting back the original actor of Dagnine, and yet play switcharoo with the actor who played Kaleipus – if memory serves, this was the original actor, which they then changed, and now have gone back to again. Personally I liked the other guy better. There was also a nice grasp of continuity in regards to mentions of Alti and the Ixion Stone (though I've forgotten what actually happened to this thing. Something to do with Solan's sword?) as well as Borias's political alliance with the centaurs.
Martin Csokas really seemed to be cranking up the Transylvanian accent this time around, but I enjoy this character and it's nice to see him taken full-circle in regards to his death and the birth of Solan (though seeing Xena leave the tent might have been overkill – it was enough that he died on the way to her tent, hearing the sounds of his newborn son crying).
The idea of a mysterious somebody using Xena's old tactics against her was intriguing, and I'll admit that I didn't immediately twig that it was Satrina (again, she looked familiar – turns out the actress also played Meridian in the Dahak arc) though the reveal was a little bit of a let-down. She didn't quite have the oomph-factor to pull that sort of role off, and surely it would have made more sense if the character had been Alti in disguise (given Xena’s frequent mentions of the woman, I was sure she’d pop up at some point).
The bit with the poison/antidote was a nice touch, with Xena realizing who is must be by process of elimination and taking measures to protect herself, but then I'm not even sure what it was Satrina was hoping to achieve. Was she still on her revenge kick? Female characters, especially villainous ones, don't usually fizzle on this show, but this one did. As it happens, they leave the door wide open for Satrina’s eventual return, but I know for a fact that this is the last we ever see of her.
Of more interest was the growing tension between Gabrielle and Xena concerning the vision the latter had. It's a pity that we didn't actually get to see Xena telling Gabrielle about it, but her reaction to it was interesting. They're at loggerheads now, and you can understand why.
To Xena the prediction is real, and it's her duty to protect Gabrielle from it. But Gabrielle doesn't believe it, and even if she did, she doesn't want to leave Xena. It's technically not Xena's choice to make in whether Gabrielle stays or goes. But then you could argue there's a certain amount of selfishness in Gabrielle's decision: she's now a constant worry and distraction to Xena in a way she's never been before, and if something bad does happen to her, she'll be crippled with grief for the rest of her life.
Would it be so bad if Gabrielle took a few months off just until Xena sorted things out? But then, constant danger is the choice Gabrielle made when she decided to travel with Xena, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds. The logical course is to stay as far away as possible from Romans and those mountains, though fate has a way of messing with sensible plans.
In terms of the battle itself, there were a few silly bits, including Xena yelling: "it's started!" at least thirty seconds after giant fireballs come flying over the walls (well duh, Xena) and the shock with which she kept talking about how someone was using her battle tactics against her, even though most, if not all, seemed to be pretty basic strategies.
Still, I liked it, and the flashbacks are always fun – though at this stage the show is running the risk of dipping into the well too many times. Xena was verging on the truly deranged back then, and it's difficult to reconcile her with the woman we see at the start of the show, not to mention her first appearance in Hercules.
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