Episode 21 & 22: The Greater Good & Callisto
Gabrielle gets rescued by a horse who hates her, fizzy water becomes A Thing in Ancient Greece, and Joxer the Mighty (AKA the original Tinder dudebro) makes his first appearance!
Season 1, Episode 21: The Greater Good
DEVIN:
As usual, our heroines are making their way through a forest, looking for a crisis to solve. Sure enough, just as Xena is about to take a drink at a well (from a bucket that’s just sitting there! Standing water! Xena no!), she’s interrupted by a villager who begs her to come help out their village, because someone named Talmadeus is about to take away Lord Seltzer and he’s, “attacking the factory.” I rewound to make sure I got that correct but yes, that’s what’s happening here.
The ladies high tail it to what seems like a different angle of Gabrielle’s village and, my goodness, our enterprising Lord Seltzer is none other than recurring souvenir salesman Salmoneus! Of course he’s set up a factory to make money selling fizzy water, a delicious scam if there ever was one. However, Salmoneus’ previous business idea was selling dissolving metal swords and armour to someone named Lord Talmadeus, and now Talmadeus is out for blood. Xena easily deals with Talmadeus’ men, but as she crosses the town square someone is hiding up in the trees, out in the forest, wearing a suspiciously familiar leather corset and outfit, and shoots a small dart from a mile away across a huge meadow, and hits Xena right in the neck.
Xena shakes it off and heads after Talmadeus, but in the middle of the fight, Xena starts to become disoriented, and Gabrielle has to throw her staff like a javelin, grab Argo, throw Xena on her, and escape.
It seems the dart contained nothing less than a terrible poison that I’ve never heard of and no one ever explains exactly how it works! And worse, now Talmadeus thinks he’s grievously injured our warrior princess, and it seems that the best way to ensure he doesn’t find out how ill Xena is, is for our crew to orchestrate a ruse wherein Gabrielle pretends to be Xena, wear her costume out, and, most problematic of all, ride Argo, who apparently hates her. (I don’t understand why or how this was the best plan they could all come up with.)
It’s a lewk.
As Xena explains to Gabrielle as she grows steadily weaker from the poison, the greater good is helping good people like these villagers against tyrants like Talmadeus. So, Gabrielle and Salmoneus have to rise to the occasion to help the villagers and I guess keep Talmadeus busy, which seems weird because no one is trying to find an antidote for the poison, or go get a doctor, or anything, and Xena ominously implies she’s going to die, and everyone seems kind of okay with this because I suppose Gabrielle is coming into her own, but I just don’t know if this is going to end well, notwithstanding the great scene when Talmodeus’ men try to attack the village and all the townsfolk aiming their Sodastream bottles at them and bombarding them with pressurized corks.
Gabrielle heads out by herself with Argo and sets up a one-woman trebuchet situation where she just throws a bunch of fireballs at the guys while ululating wildly (how does she do this? Unclear.) But when Gabrielle gets too confident (I mean wearing that leather corset would do that to anyone) and tries to gallop through town, she’s immediately thrown off Argo, who gallops away while Gabrielle is left sopping wet -- and surrounded by bad guys! -- in a trough.
Me, when given a smidgen of power.
While Gabrielle’s away, Talmadeus sends more men after sick Xena (he suspected something was afoot) and she fights them off with one single Perrier while a church choir sings in the background and Xena looks like she’s about to die. Is this the end???
Back at Talmadeus’ camp, things are looking pretty bad for Gabby, but who turns up to save her but Argo the horse! All the guys try to…. fight off a horse? Argo spins in circles kicking people and there are several shots of this horse’s ass just spinning around while men go flying. Gabrielle manages to jump aboard and off she goes. I honestly can’t believe that we have an episode about Gabrielle being saved by a horse that hates her.
Because meanwhile, Salmoneus enters his warehouse to find Xena dead on the floor, surrounded by cases of seltzer. “Brave warrioress… I will miss you…”
What I love about this show is that despite most of the time being campy as hell (hello horse martial arts), a minute later it will pull an emotional punch. Renee O’Connor is particularly good at playing both earnest and comic relief. When she comes in, we see her face change as she realizes that her best friend is dead. She kisses her face. “We’ve got to get out of here,” says Salmoneus. But all Gabrielle can think about is the greater good, she immediately starts to plan the defense of the town. Iolaus is somewhere nearby, she thinks, we can go and find him and Hercules and they’ll figure this out. But Salmoneus wants to get the hell out of dodge. While Gabrielle goes out to hit her staff at a tree in furious grief and presumably go to find Iolaus, Salmoneus goes to Talmadeus and tries to trade Xena’s body (?) for the safety of the town. He says bring everyone to him and they’ll all survive. Salmoneus! Nooooo!
Anyway, somehow we end up with all the villagers and Salmoneus in Talmadeus’ camp and Gabrielle is lurking in the woods (did she get Iolaus? Is something else happening here? I don’t understand!). Talmadeus is going to use Argo and another horse to draw and quarter Xena. yikes yikes yikes.
But Gabrielle channels her own inner warrior princess and enters the fray. Gabrielle is ROWDY and takes out every single soldier! They barely manage to grab her.
And in a really absurd turn of events it seems this episode is as much about Gabrielle’s personal growth as it is about Argo’s character arc, because the horses refuse to move when whipped. The horses have strong personalities this week! And just when Talmadeus is going to have Argo murdered in front of us, Xena’s hand whips up, apparently the poison has worn off! She’s back and she’s stronger than ever! She fights in her nightgown, defeats everyone, and we all live happily ever after, except that we still don’t know who shot the poisoned dart at Xena. Oh, and Iolaus never showed up to help. We only have 3 episodes left of the season, and I think they’re about to get spicy.
SAGAN:
Lord. SELTZER. I can’t stop laughing.
Okay:
a) They’re finally referring to Argo as Argo, instead of “The horse” (took long enough!),
b) Xena definitely had a “please no, I just want to kick back with my gal pal Gab this episode” expression on her face when the woman arrived at the well, pleading for her assistance, and
c) here’s a moment early on in this episode when a bad guy has an arm wrestle with another dude, resulting in the guy getting his wrist burned, and I’m getting major Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves intro scene vibes from it.
The cinematography in this episode is fantastic. For example, the scene where Xena whistles, and then there’s a scene cut so that Argo bucks, and the scene cuts again to show a random soldier flying through the air. Artful! Truly the inspiration for widespread use of CGI. There is A LOT of horse acting/stunts in this episode, and it really makes me think that this was the turning point for Xena when they must’ve gotten a bigger budget.
I totally agree with you—One of the most powerful things about this show is how it’s SO GOOD at making the viewer *feel.* The casting of Xena and Gabrielle is perfection. The writing and performance are carried out with so much earnestness and emotion. I love that with Xena, you really get the sense that everyone involved with the making of this show WANTS to be there, and genuinely cares about it. No matter how budget some of the actors might be (lol Salmoneus lol), they’re putting in the effort and trying hard to do a good job! That’s why the campiness and super emotional elements of it work so well in conjunction.
Also, I love watching Gabrielle fighting so intensely in her Xena garb! And she learns how to whistle for Argo by the end of the episode!
Four important questions:
WHAT is Salmoneus smoking? (Like, literally—is that a Grecian inhaler? A bong? Inquiring minds want to know.)
Where did they find THE PERFECT XENA WIG for Gabrielle to wear, when she’s impersonating Xena? I don’t hate her as a brunette! It suits her just as well as the blonde! (Actually I think the hair colour somehow makes Renee O’Connor even MORE expressive) But hooooow did they find this exact Xena wig???
The fake chakram is HILARIOUS, however… How could they find a perfect Xena wig at such short notice in this tiny village, but NOT a fake chakram? I feel like there would be more blacksmiths available in town than wig makers??
WHO WAS THAT PERSON WHO HIT XENA WITH THE DART??? I can’t wait to find out in the next few episodes!
Main gripe with this episode:
There’s a whole scene where Gabrielle tries (and fails) to do “that yell thingy” that Xena does (it’s called an aye-aye-aye, jeez), but we’ve totally seen her do a more accurate version of it in the past! Her aye-aye-aye DOES improve as the episode continues, although I feel like poor Gabby’s throat must be burning by the end of it. That’s a lot of war cries!
Most curious about:
Xena’s relationship with Argo. How did they meet? I want backstory about the horse please! Argo has been an important character right from Episode 1, but we have no idea how or why Xena and Argo got into cahoots, and that history seems like a very important part of X:WPU, imo.
Okay one final note:
While she’s suffering and sickly, Xena specifies “I want to be taken to be buried beside my brother Lycius,” and I love that she felt the need to specify her brother’s name. Wouldn’t Gabrielle KNOW her brother’s name? She only has one brother! Gabrielle is her BFF!
But I gotta say, as someone who just got her second vaccine dose this week (and was WIPED for two whole days, shivering uncontrollably, etc), seeing Xena all sweaty and tired feels very relatable.
DEVIN:
It wasn’t a wig! They implied that they found a perfect jet black dye for Gabrielle’s hair that washed out the second she fell into a horse trough.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
“Water. FIZZY water. He’s making money selling water!” I’ll take some.
“The best of friends are made in strange situations.”
Season 1, Episode 22: Callisto
SAGAN:
This episode opens on—surprise surprise!—a village being attacked. And guess what? IT’S THE SAME WOMAN WHO SHOT XENA WITH A DART IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE!!!
This (blonde) woman calls herself Xena, Warrior Princess, AND she’s dressed like Xena, so… at first glance, it makes one suspect that Ares is up to some tricks and bestowing his powers on someone new. (This also reminds me that we REALLY need to watch the Hercules episodes that introduce Xena, because we still don’t actually know how Xena got to be the way she is etc! We should probably look into that!)
Next scene shows Xena meeting a dude in a bar, they introduce each other, and then he gets all upset:
“Go ahead. Murder me. Just like you did my son!”
Xena: “...What are you saying?”
Xena, it seemed pretty straightforward what he was just saying!
Anyway, he explains himself, and Xena and Gabrielle realize that someone is ~impersonating~ Xena. They go for a walk and happen upon a group of people, including… JOXER THE MIGHTY!!! Yes!!! Omg, he’s a staple from now on in the X:WPU! I feel like Ted Raimi’s acting is very inspired by The Princess Bride.
Cut scene to Xena riding on Argo epically, with Gabrielle sprinting as fast as she can to keep up (she’s got really great cardio) to come upon the False Xena wreaking havoc on yet another village.
Anyway, False Xena (FX) tells Real Xena (RX) that RX *made* FX, because “Remember Cirra?”
Um. No. No, I don’t. Who’s Cirra?
Real Xena does the whole fingers-blocking-blood-flow-to-your-brain-so-tell-me-what-I-need-to-know bit (AKA her signature move), and discovers that False Xena is named Callisto, who wants to tarnish RX’s name and then kill RX.
Apparently this all comes back to Cirra. Again, who. Is. Cirra???
Okay it turns out it’s not *who* so much as *what*... Cirra was a village that Xena destroyed back in her warlord days. But still, how did Callisto get an outfit exactly like Xena’s? And a chakram? I have questions!
Next, Joxer appears in front of Callisto, offering his services (but a moment ago he hated FX? I’m confused. I think his presence here is just for comedic relief, although let’s be honest his entire role in every scene on this show is just for random comedic relief. This show was already funny enough! I think I remember reading somewhere that his character was deliberately added as a staple to this show so that it wouldn’t *just* be women as main characters, though, which is a weird flex.)
Joxer tries to attack Gabrielle, who takes care of him no problem, which is extremely satisfying. This feels like a very 90s girl-power scene.
Meanwhile, Xena is dressed in costume (as always!), trying to protect the oracle from Callisto’s chakram. At which point I only just realized that Callisto didn’t get a duplicate chakram, she stole Xena’s chakram! I guess this happened early on when I was busily writing notes and missed that happening in the scene itself, whoops. The X:WPU requires viewers to PAY ATTENTION while watching!
Xena chases Callisto on horseback for a weirdly long scene, in which nothing happens except horseback riding, and I feel like the writers were stumped for what they should write in this episode so they were like, “Oh, we’ll just have an unnecessarily extended horseback riding scene so that we don’t need to bother writing dialogue.” Smart.
Xena ties Callisto up and apologizes to her (Idk if that’s the best way to apologize to someone? Then again, Callisto has been killing people and trying to destroy Xena, so…)
Callisto gets inside Xena’s head, but then she mentions that if Xena released her, she’d kill her horse Argo, and that makes Xena really upset. (Again, I want the backstory on Xena and Argo’s relationship!)
Xena takes Callisto to prison, and Callisto looks VERY satisfied with this situation. As far as I understand, Callisto is
a) upset that Xena used to be bloodthirsty, and simultaneously
b) wants Xena to be bloodthirsty again and kill Callisto? Why? I don’t understand the logic of it? She hates that Xena was a villain, but she also… WANTS Xena to be a villain again? FOR WHAT PURPOSE?
Then there’s somehow… fire in Callisto’s prison? How? Who started the fire? Callisto somehow manages to escape and lock Xena inside the jail. There’s fire all around here! But it’s a thatched roof, so Xena just needs to take a running leap and then she can easily explode through the roof, no bigs.
Meanwhile, Joxer tries to grab Gabrielle “to trade you for Callisto,” and—again—WHY???? Gabrielle gets Joxer to talk to her and it turns out he comes from a long line of warlords (lolol). He says he likes steel and fishing (so probably your basic Tinder dudebro). Anyway, since Callisto escaped from prison, she captures Gabrielle and hangs her high in the air (rude). Joxer appears again (he has a knack for showing up at random), and Callisto brings Gabrielle down from where she’s been tied up weirdly high in the air.
“Do her,” Callisto says. “The irritating blonde. Slit her throat.”
Then Callisto proceeds to ILLUSTRATE HOW TO SLIT A THROAT with some serious crazy eyes.
Joxer refuses, but his refusal involves *dropping the knife on the ground*
Dude, that’s not going to help anyone! Callisto will just find someone else to kill Gabrielle!
Callisto decides to tie Gabrielle up and once again raise her weirdly high off the ground, though, so at least she doesn’t kill her outright? By this point, Xena has arrived to save Gabrielle, and Callisto is doing her best to thwart Xena through an elaborate series of… ladder fights? (Again, I think the writers were feeling uninspired on dialogue in this episode. Especially with the repeated “Go Xena! Hurry!” But I’m REALLY digging the ladder fights, regardless)
Actually, this whole epic ladder scene is driving me nuts, because I know it’s reminding me of SOMETHING—I just can’t figure out what! There’s a movie that we watched in the 90s that has a scene just like this, isn’t there? Am I thinking of Indiana Jones? Robin Hood? Am very distracted by this.
This episode finishes with an epic battle (more ladders! More fire!) and Xena saving Callisto:
Gabrielle: “I’m glad you saved Callisto.”
Xena: “It was the right thing to do.”
Callisto, smirking after they’ve walked away: “The right thing to do? That’s what they think.”
Duh-duh-duh…
DEVIN:
Swoon.
Okay, so I was thrilled by the arrival of Ted Raimi, because his song “Joxer the Mighty” [stay tuned] gets stuck in my head, to this day, whenever I think about him. Will I like him as much as an adult as I did as a kid? TBD, but I always thought Joxer was hilarious.
I also liked that despite Gabrielle having to be saved by a literal horse last week she more than holds her own against Joxer this week. I guess the hierarchy of competence goes Xena > Argo > Gabrielle > Joxer.
Introducing two major characters this episode is a lot, but I’m really excited about it. Callisto will return in a variety of ways, and this introduction was, I thought, actually a good reflection of how her relationship with Xena is going to proceed over the next several seasons. Callisto is a perfect representation of the guilt Xena feels about her past. If she kills her, she will be fulfilling everyone’s assumptions about her, but she’s too dangerous to let go and live on. But Xena created Callisto through her own dark actions, and this is something we’re going to spend a lot of time grappling with as we go forward with these characters. What does it mean when you let a dangerous person keep existing when you had the chance to destroy them? But killing them would prove to everyone that you haven’t changed at all?
Anyway, these themes might not be perfectly clear yet, but there was also a lot of fun stuff happening in this episode. From the medieval-style jousting Xena and Callisto participate in, to the vaguely slow motion stunts throughout this episode, to yet another watermelon representing a skull being smashed. I love that Gabrielle was sort of everyone’s therapist in this episode, and I love Callisto’s ridiculously uncomfortable-looking boob armour, and I love how hilariously easy it was for Xena to escape a prison on fire by simply leaping her way through the thatched roof as though she was wearing a rocket pack (this reminded me of the episode where she escaped another prison through a roof, and, noted, I will keep that in mind should I ever find myself in an ancient prison. The roofs are always thatched!).
But the two best parts of this episode are really the very intense campfire scene between Xena and Gabrielle, and the final fight on a set that definitely cost money because it looks like something out of Mad Max and I am here for it. The ladder fight is absolutely bonkers and the fact that Xena casually kicks several ladders into a balance beam is my favourite.
My favourite set in this series by a lot.
Anyway, I’m excited about these last two episodes, and for the record, ancient Delphi does not have huge sand dunes, it looks like this:
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
“Don’t go changing, Gabrielle. I like you just the way you are.” - TRUE LOVE from Xena.