Xena: Warrior Princess Episode 1.02: “Chariots of War”

[chavalah.livejournal.com]

In the broad scheme of things this episode asked an existential question—what would it be like if Xena went after “normal” things like peace, farming, and love with a husband and children? It’s the life that Gabrielle just left behind, but it’s been inaccessible to Xena for years. It’s uncertain if she could even have that life, even if she wanted it. But for the first time since she became corrupt, the offer is truly on the table.

Of course connected to this idea is the notion of family…a place of belonging. I think there are signs, not yet proven ones but definitely hinted at for down the road, that Xena and Gabrielle will become their own family. For now they’re still finding their footing with each other. And this of course means that they have to fight a bunch of warlords. :P


In this week’s random village, Gabrielle is telling Xena the story of Zeus putting a spell on two lovers so that they turn into trees. “Did someone make a boat out of them?” asks an unromantic Xena. “No!” says Gabrielle. They were “entertwined forever….I think that everyone has a tree,” she adds dreamily. “I think the strongest trees stand alone,” Xena replies. Oh, metaphors.

Xena’s off to track a river to see what the best way is to get back on the travelin’ path. She leaves Gabby in the village…turns out for a long time!

Nearby a man named Darius and his three children, two boys and a girl, are building a structure with their neighbors. The little girl, who doesn’t speak, starts seeing signs of warriors approaching, just a few minutes before they actually do. Warriors? Peaceful farmers? The massacre is on!

Fortunately for said farmers, Xena is headed their way and decides to protect the innocent. I like the move where she jumps on a table and slams it in a goon’s stomach. :P Darius’s younger son is hiding beneath the structure…which is about to collapse. Xena saves him just in time, obviously earning the gratitude of the father. By that time, the head warlord has rushed into the fray and shoots Xena with three arrows. She catches two…the other one punctures her side. :-O Even more shocking, Renee still isn’t in the title sequence! I mean wth??

Darius lays Xena down on a bed in his house. He’s pretty clueless about how to treat the wound but Xena isn’t, a nice insight into what her character has had to endure. Even more to the point, the arrow has to be driven in to be effectively removed, and then she herself helps sear her skin with a hot poker, grunting painfully but obviously taking it like a pro. This woman is one tough cookie.

The kids look in curiously as Darius explains the situation. The warlord Cycnus has always felt privy to their land. Obviously he’s okay in killing to get it.

Cycnus turns out to be Ares’s master of horses and the thug who wounded Xena is his son, Sphaerus. The two of them spar and talk about how to prove the lad worthy to be his father’s successor. Cycnus is not impressed by Sphaerus’s “kill,” a female warrior…”You think killing a woman will impress the god of war?” Thank goodness Ares never found out which woman Sphaerus supposedly killed. :P

Oh, and there’s family drama! Sphaerus is “too soft;” he doesn’t have “the killing desire.” “If only your brother were still alive…” Cycnus sighs. “I’m not my brother,” son number 2 replies. “I’m reminded of that every time I see you in battle.” Ouch.

The boys sneak up on Xena and argues who’ll get her horse if she dies. Charming kids. Xena sits up long enough to tell them “It’ll take more than an arrow to kill me.” They scamper off to tell Darius she’s awake.

Night falls…Gabby is still alone in town, fretting over Xena, and trying to convince herself that the Warrior Princess is too badass to come to harm. :P With no money to buy drinks, she’s stuck on water.

The kids are back on Xena’s bed, listening to her tell a story about killing a giant… “with a feather,” she improvises once Darius gives her a meaningful look. One of the boys fantasizes about “life on the road,” but Xena counteracts by saying what she surmised to Gabby last week—life on the road is hard. “I don’t often share a meal with such good company,” she concludes. “Neither do we,” Darius replies with a smile. Sparks flying?

A neighbor, Tynus, comes to wreck the party. He goes into a spiel about “just because you’ve haven’t had a woman in your house for however many years…” Xena is a fighter, not a peaceful farmer like the rest of them. More to the point intel has come at last, naming Xena as a murderer. Xena listens to all of this from her bed and when Darius shoos Tynus, she’s gone.

He finds her dressed and saddling her horse. Your neighbor was right about my past, Xena confides. Darius takes the Gabrielle route—“The Xena I know risked her life to save my son.” The show is big on acts of redemption. Still, Xena wants to vamoose (to meet up with Gabrielle, she says,) but she’s still too weak to even pick up her saddlebag. “Are you so brave that you fear someone caring for you?” Darius asks. Intriguing question, to be sure.

Outside, Cycnus’s warriors set fire to the food grain! Darius goes for water and Xena’s pissed that she’s too weak to go after them.

In the morning, Gabrielle comes downstairs to the warriors celebrating. A man with an eye patch starts flirting with her, but Gabs finds him icky. She exhausts all her talky-options to get out of the situation…finally she points to none other than Sphaerus, sitting distracted nearby, and claims “he’s my boyfriend!” To prove it, she saunters over, sits in his lap and gives him a big, wet kiss. “Pretend you know me,” she whispers. “No problem!” a happier-sounding Sphaerus says. :P

Xena looks for her weapons so she can deal with the Cycnus problem, but Darius protests “We don’t need you to fight.” A peace offer is now on the table; the warriors are coming over to chat. Xena is incredulous; it’s a trap! But Darius went to war once and lost everything; he doesn’t want to do that again. Maybe, like Xena, other warlords can change.

Gabrielle and Sphaerus are awkwardly getting to know each other. When she describes Xena, asking if the young warlord has seen her, Sphaerus realizes that she’s the woman he allegedly killed. He sidesteps the question, plus the one about what he does for a living... “I work for my Dad.” He opens up that he’s not thrilled with his career. “He makes me do things I never thought I would.”

Gabrielle relays her own story about making a choice—her mother always hoped she’d settle down and marry in their village, but Gabrielle realized she didn’t want it so she ultimately left. Speaking of quick exits, Sphaerus makes his own. :P

Xena dons her armor for the “peace meeting” but Darius doesn’t like it. He offers her his late wife’s dress, hint hint. “You’d be surprised by the power of this dress,” he says. “She was wearing it the first time I saw her.” Cue feminine scene of Xena looking in a mirror as she slips into the soft fabric. A gentle breeze wafts through her hair from the open window.

Sphaerus has returned home where Cycnus tells him of the peace plan. Sphaerus looks pleased…until his father gets to the part where he kills all the farmers. :-O To make sure sonny-boy doesn’t back down, he employs a babysitter. :P

Another domestic scene at Darisus’s….the boys argue, Darius scolds, and Xena comes out wearing the wife’s dress. The little girl runs to her…the dress has softened Xena. Methinks because she looks so awkward in it. We can tell the master of the house is a fan, though.

Sphaerus looks freaked out as he stands before the farmers. He keeps stammering and stalling to delay what he has to do. He seems pretty surprised to find out that Xena is alive. Neighbor Tynus is just pissed…show of bad faith…so Xena promises to stand in the back. Turns out it’s a good thing she did, because she witnesses some of Cyncus’s goons slipping a blade through the door hinge!

Being Xena, she vaults out the window to greet the trap-setters. :P Holding up a finger before they attack she rips the dress by her legs so she has more versatility. That woman needs to perform some kicks, after all. :P As the fight moves inside, Xena orders everybody out. The goons make to follow, but Sphaerus forbids it. Uh oh.

Later, Darius is angry about the turn of events, and making preparations to leave. Xena comes in, dress all torn to ribbons, and tries to convince him to stay and fight. “Your suffering will not be eased by watching men like Cycnus slaughter the innocent!” she proclaims. Interesting…wonder if she’s really addressing herself.

Cycnus is ready to blame the babysitter for what happened, but Sphaerus steps in to take the heat. “My son the coward…you’ve disgraced the memory of your brother,” Cycnus seethes. It’s more personal than just a matter of escaped farmers. He just found out the identity of the female warrior; turns out Xena was the man who killed Sphaerus’s brother! When Sphaerus learns that, he vows revenge. Cycnus grabs his son by the neck and says he finally sees “the killing desire” in his eyes.

Xena is saddling up to fight when the boys ran out, pleading “You can’t go…they’ll hurt you!” Aw. Darius gives her food, and another chance to change her mind. She rides off.

…and finally meets Gab (who apparently decided to leave the village) on the road! Xena wants to send her to Darius to wait while she herself fights Cycnus, but the blonde refuses. “I’m not waiting around while you go have all the fun!”

Gabrielle babbles about “finding my tree…he’s cute, rugged in an outdoorsy way.” But Xena isn’t listening; turns out lover-boy, his father and some assorted goons are headed their way in chariots! Xena sets a nervous Gabby up on the horse to be a distraction. While the two chariots chase the blonde down the stream, Xena does her “swoop in from above” trick to enter one chariot…and yanks out the goons via some rope she tied to a tree. Now Xena has to catch up to the other chariot and Gabrielle, who is slowly losing her grip on the horse.

Gab jumps (what she terms a “frantic leap”) into Xena’s chariot, and takes the reigns while father/son ride up beside them. Xena and Cycnus are punching at each other when Gabby recognizes the lover-boy. “You?” she gasps. “Stay outta my way!” Sphaerus shouts back. (Later, when both chariots are downed, Xena tells her sidekick, “Remind me to talk to you sometime about your taste in men.” Touché, Warrior Princess, touché.)

Sphaerus blocks Gabrielle while Cycnus practices his Villain’s Monologue on Xena. He tells her she killed his son at Corinth…turns out the boy was trying to make peace and his own men killed him. (Though honestly it sounds like something Old!Xena would have done as well.)

Cycnus orders Sphaerus to kill Gab, and the boy hesitates. The babbling bard never misses an opportunity to talk her way out of situations, and she tells him “this is your moment, your choice” to be a different person. Meanwhile Darius has ridden up with Xena’s missing chakram, a nice way to bring him back into the fold here. :P Also the chakram becomes instrumental later, when Sphaerus throws down his sword and refuses to fight anymore. His father prepares to strike him down, but the chakram takes the blow! Then Xena finishes Cycnus off.

Sphaerus kneels at his feet as his father lays dying. “If you had done this, I would’ve died proud,” Cycnus rasps. Ah, the warrior’s life. Shpaerus turns to Darius and tells him to re-gather his neighbors; “no tricks…we will have peace.”

At the peace table, which kind of looks like a community dinner party, Darius and Xena sit with the children on their laps. Gabrielle approaches Sphaerus to say goodbye. “You saved a lot of people,” she tells him. “I don’t have any regrets,” he replies, though he is angsting over the fire about his dad. :P As a parting word, he thanks the influential bard for entering his life.

Tynus shuffles over to Xena and starts muttering something slightly kind. “You’re welcome,” Xena cuts him off. “And don’t worry, I’m leaving.” Tynus then sputters and stalks off…nice bit of humor.

The kids once again beg Xena not to leave, and the Warrior Princess looks pained. As a crowning moment, of course, the little girl starts talking again. Darius leads Xena outside for his final argument. “I have a home, I have a family. There’s no reason you can’t have those things, too.”

“One day, maybe…” Xena theorizes. It’s the first time she’s ever thought about settling down. But for now, she’s off with Gabrielle. “Do you ever miss your family?” she asks her sidekick. “Sometimes…” Gabrielle replies. “But not as much when I’m with you.” Aaw. And hint, hint ladies.

Gabrielle cites two lessons she learned this episode: you can find goodness in unexpected places (uh, wasn’t that what you learned last episode?) and she really, really hates chariots. :P

So the idea of family…obviously after six seasons, I know that the real family is Xena and Gabrielle, and not some outsider. If Xena had chosen to stay with Darius, she would have given up on an integral part of who she is. Her days of putting down her sword and living a simple farmer’s wife’s life are over. She’s already discovered that her path is to protect the innocent through the martial means she has available to her.

Gabrielle made me raise my eyebrows this week as well. After spending the first eppy trying to get away from a life as someone’s wife, she suddenly starts angsting to Xena about getting married ASAP before she ends up “some lonely, pathetic woman like…never mind.” O.o I thought the whole reason you went with Xena was that she provided a sound alternative to that life. Kinda sounds out of character. Though I do get the difference between falling for someone boring and predictable like Perdicas, versus a bad boy like Sphaerus. :P *sigh* Oh Gabs. Still so much to learn.
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