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scifi_rewatchHello, and welcome to a quicker, less rambly, easier-to-follow season of recaps, or so I hope. :P I plan to break things down into episode summary, thoughts, favorite quotes and, of course, the silly disclaimers. Starting with a brief teaser over the cut!
In theory, I like this opening to season two. We’ve already been introduced to a litany of people whom Xena has wronged directly by her vicious, warlord past. But what other parts of her life were tainted by her evil ways? The writers give us an estranged son! :O
But in practice, this story arc was hampered by shoe-horned exposition and a supporting cast of…not the best actors. :P Lucy’s reactions were touching, all the more so because there wasn’t much to play against. “Xena” will return to the characters and history mentioned here later in the run, and it’ll be far more satisfying.
Summary:
Xena and Gabrielle are traveling to centaur land to stop another villain from Xena’s former army. One might remember from season one that the warrior princess has a tenuous-at-best relationship with the centaurs, due to activities performed while the evil warrior princess. She’s cryptically explaining some backstory about how, at the last moment, she struck a deal to leave the centaurs in peace, but a sudden goon brigade is upon them. :P Xena’s major badass moment is turning her sword into a boomerang, which propels a club into all of their backs, hee. Some centaurs show up by then but the eye patch-wearing leader, Kaleipus, isn’t too thrilled to see her. She claims she’s here to stop her former goon, Dagnaine, and she’s not here for “anything—or anybody” else. Hmm. Cue sudden attack from a young human boy named Solan! He blames Xena for killing his father, Borias. Xena is too stunned to say anything until Solan is out of ear shot…he’s her son.
Thoughts from the credits: Renee’s name is finally included as a co-star. :D Yay, after spending several episode recaps last season whining about that, hee. Also, Gabrielle is onto outfit number three—her most iconic, featuring the green halter top/bilious sports bra.
Later, Xena watches Solan play ball with the centaur kids as she flashes back to ten years ago. She meets Kaleipus, now with a bloodied rag over his eye, with an infant baby. Kaleipus mentions Borias betraying her so the centaurs could fight back, but she’s here to make a shocking deal. Take this infant—her son’s and Borias’s. An awkwardly emotional Xena explains that he’d be a target if he stayed with her. Kaleipus agrees to take the child for Borias’s sake. In the present, Gabrielle berates Xena for being an absentee mother but Xena shoves her aside.
Alone with Kaleipus in his tent, they briefly argue over Solan’s use of a sword (Borias’s sword, actually)—neither of them want him to be a warrior, but Kaleipus says he’s raising the boy to make his own decisions. They both agree and they both talk about how important Solan is to them. They talk about plot things as well, which Xena later relays to Gabrielle—Dagnine and his goons are after the Ixion stone, which contains all the evil of the centaurs and makes the wearer bloody powerful. They quickly turn back to the relationship issues with Xena explaining how Borias sold her out when she tried to take the Ixion stone. Not only does she obviously respect him now, but she didn’t even order him killed then. Gabrielle is back on the absentee mother stint. Your son deserves to know who you are!
…suddenly someone else knows who Xena is: from afar, one of Dagnine’s goons is spying on the warrior princess with magnifying glasses. He can read her lips and has discovered she has a son here. Dagnine, who looks like he belongs in the chorus of the Goblin King of “Labyrinth,” is thrilled to have this weakness at hand.
Xena goes to pay her respects to Borias’s grave and runs into an angry Solan. She posits that she never killed his father, and in return he waxes poetic about the image of his mother Kaleipus imposed on him—sweet and good and all that. Xena tries to urge him off the warrior path and warns him not to confuse nobility with revenge. He runs off and she gets a whiff of the magnifying squint in the distance…she’s onto Dagnine! Before his men can escape, she flips onto the scene. She puts the pinch on the seer and learns that Dagnine knows everything.
Gabrielle goes snooping for Solan, first insisting that both she and Xena can be his friends. Then she tries to teach him about her staff, which is much less threatening than a sword and still good for defense. Case in point: she has to use it now against Dagnine’s goons! Solan whips out his sword but is frozen. As Gabrielle implores him to run, the goons knock her unconscious and take the boy hostage.
The girls run into each other on the road and Gabs relays that Dagnine has Solan. Xena tells the bard to keep the centaurs out of harm’s way, as she rides off to save the boy. Dagnine’s men lock Solan into a small cage outside and Dagnine saunters into his tent, only to find Xena sitting comfortably. She came in through a tear in the ceiling. Dagnine gives up the location of the stone—the Ixion caverns—and says that to get her son back, he wants the stone, for her to get out of the way, but first for a little “warmth” and “human kindness.” Xena knocks him out and flips through the hole ceiling.
From the sky, she lassos Solan’s tent and attempts to pull him up, though he slows things down by yanking his sword from the ground. Unfortunately the goons catch on before she’s done, so she has to fight them, leaving Solan to fall into…a huge, random cavern in the ground?? The Ixion cavern is RIGHT THERE in the camp, just paces away from Solan’s former resting place! Suddenly both she and her son are dangling, and they let go and fall an exceedingly long distance. Dagnine is pleased to have found the cavern, at least.
Xena and Solan are unharmed on the inside, except that Solan’s arm is broken. Using her pressure points and medical knowledge, Xena heals and splints the thing with the sword’s scabbard, and they talk more about Borias, how brave he was by recognizing what was right. Xena has to admit that in the past, she would have killed Kaleipus and all the centaurs. But in better news, Solan was brave for not freezing up in the enemy camp. Also, mother and son share their first embrace.
Gabrielle is having no luck keeping the centaurs out of the fray and quite easily gives up and joins the cause, even jumping onto Kaleipus’s back. (Seems a bit offensive, really, and Xena also does this later…ok, then.) Xena and Solan, meanwhile, have reached the Ixion temple, but no stone—Borias must have removed it! With nothing left to do, Xena immediately blows into some reeds like a horn asking for rescue. And Gabs, from afar, immediately recognizes this for what it is.
Dagnine and his men hear it, too, and they make it to the temple just as Xena and Solan are being lifted up from the ceiling. Dagnine cuts the rope with a knife throw, but all Xena has to do is fight the goons and flip back over to her son in time for Gabs to lower the rope again. Buuuut….Solan drops his sword and none other than the stone falls out! Bright green and everything. Dagnine picks it up and laughs evilly while Xena stares wide-eyed.
Dagnine and his goons drop the stone into a bubbling goblet where it distills into liquid. Dagnine picks it up with his bare hands (third degree burns, anyone?) and drinks it…the world goes fuzzy like a fun-house mirror and he screams. Meanwhile, Xena nixes the ideas of centaur archers taking magical Dagnine down; we need a wagon with a crossbeam. Gabrielle apologizes for her earlier behavior and states that Xena has obviously been hurting about this Solan thing. Kaleipus even comes over and says if he dies, he wants her to take the boy back. Their enmity from ten years ago is completely healed.
Gabrielle continues to sing Xena’s praises as she re-splints Solan’s arm. Solan admits he doesn’t hate her anymore. Along with most everyone else, they wait for Dagnine by the crossbeam. Evil Dagnine looks like a Neanderthal centaur on steroids. He easily fells the two regular centaurs who come at him with swords. He has Kaleipus in his clutches until Xena jumps in. They fight, and Xena tries to make Dagnine angry and thereby lose his focus. Instead, he gets the emotional upper hand when he admits to killing Borias all those years ago. Xena and Solan :O but then Xena finally triggers the crossbeam that goes right into his chest, killing him. The good guys cheer.
Later, Xena approaches Solan alone at a lake. He’s sad that she and Gabrielle are leaving…Xena tries to explain, cryptically, how she regretted leaving him but knows it’s the right thing. Solan, of course, misinterprets this as talking about her then-and-now relationship with the centaurs. She rambles on, uncomfortably, about how Solan has a good life here, “things I would wish for my son.” In return, Solan throws Borias’s sword into the lake, claiming he doesn’t want to be a warrior. Xena assures him that his mother would be proud of him. They share a goodbye hug, and an obviously conflicted, depressed warrior princess walks away.
Disclaimer: No Sleazy Warlords who deem it necessary to drink magic elixirs that turn them into scaly centaurs were harmed during the production of this motion picture.
Thoughts:
I love the introduction of Solan. I mean, the acting is a little “eh” but I love what Solan represents for Xena—that even when she was evil, there was this glimmer of a fresh beginning, a chance to bring something good and innocent into the world. The fact that they’re estranged also brings out a lot of new and complicated emotions. OK, so Solan himself isn’t much of a realized character except for brief, misplaced anger about his father and a fleeting desire to be a warrior. But hey, this show is primarily about Xena anyway. :P
The Ixion plot was largely perfunctory—no big deal, a little cheesy—and easily overlooked in favor of the more emotional mother/son storyline. Undoubtedly what pissed me off most about this episode was Gabrielle’s shallow judgments about “absentee motherhood,” as if there weren’t far more complicated issues at stake, like the fact that Xena was an evil warrior at the time. Not to mention how Xena was obviously in pain overseeing the boy; shouldn’t Gabrielle be responding to that? Her bitchiness seemed like a convenient way for the writers to stir up stupid conflict.
On the other end, everything that Xena did spoke to her sense of conflict—even as an evil warrior giving up the infant she was obviously upset and uncomfortable, and bringing up the negative aspects to her life choices. In the present, she had to owe up to her horrible behavior with her own son, which had to be hard for her even if he didn’t know her identity (part of the conflict, in fact.) There’s a more layered backstory with Borias coming, and he’s a favorite, I think, when he comes on stage. Very multi-dimensional character. And Solan may or may be back as well… *whistles* :P
Favorite Quotes:
*Solan and centaur children playing ball*
Girl: Hey, no high-hoofing!
*Xena remembers the past*
Evil Xena: Take this child. He’s my son, and the son of Borias. If he stays with me, he’ll become a target for all those who hate me-- and he’ll learn things a child should never know. He’ll become like me.
*Xena and Solan discussing the past*
Xena: Your father was very brave.
Solan: He was a great warrior.
Xena: His bravery wasn’t in being a warrior. It came from knowing what was in his heart. He recognized what was right, and he stood up for it.
Solan: Against you.
Xena: Yes, against me. That was important to him, even though--even though he and I were very good friends for a very long time.
Solan: I don’t want to talk about my father anymore. Before he-- became good-- did he hurt a lot of people?
Xena: Yes, he did. But, if it wasn’t for him, the Centaurs wouldn’t be alive now-- Kaleipus, your friends-- They’d all be gone.
Solan: You would have killed them.
Xena: Oh, yes, I would have killed them all. Thanks to Borias, I didn’t do it. And for that, I owe him more than you’ll ever know.
*The centaur party hears Xena’s horn call*
Kaleipus: What in Zeus’ name is that?
Gabrielle: If you don’t know, it must be Xena.
*Dagnine lays out his evil plans*
Dagnine: Everything-- all the strength and discipline of Ixion’s creation’s right here. With this, I’ll sweep the world like a rampaging wind. I’ll kill Xena. I’ll kill Hercules. I’ll take Athens! I’ve got so much to do. I’ll have to make a list.
*Xena and Kaleipus prepare for battle*
Xena: You should never have been my enemy.
Kaleipus: This Xena never was my enemy.
*Xena and Solan part company*
Xena: Solan-- sometimes people do things that they regret. Things which at the time seem like the right thing to do.
Solan: Like-- when I tried to hurt you.
Xena: Oh-- a little. But don’t feel bad. Often we don’t know if the things we do are right or wrong un-- until much later. Something I did a long time ago was wrong.
Solan: You mean-- trying to kill the Centaurs and get the stone?
Xena: Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. I’m sorry for what happened to your father-- and your mother. But here, you’ve got an uncle who loves you. And you’ve got friends who’ll protect you. And no one should take that away from you. I guess, what I’m saying is-- It’s time to let go of the past--and recognize that you have things here which I can only dream about. There are things which I would wish for my son.
___
In theory, I like this opening to season two. We’ve already been introduced to a litany of people whom Xena has wronged directly by her vicious, warlord past. But what other parts of her life were tainted by her evil ways? The writers give us an estranged son! :O
But in practice, this story arc was hampered by shoe-horned exposition and a supporting cast of…not the best actors. :P Lucy’s reactions were touching, all the more so because there wasn’t much to play against. “Xena” will return to the characters and history mentioned here later in the run, and it’ll be far more satisfying.
Summary:
Xena and Gabrielle are traveling to centaur land to stop another villain from Xena’s former army. One might remember from season one that the warrior princess has a tenuous-at-best relationship with the centaurs, due to activities performed while the evil warrior princess. She’s cryptically explaining some backstory about how, at the last moment, she struck a deal to leave the centaurs in peace, but a sudden goon brigade is upon them. :P Xena’s major badass moment is turning her sword into a boomerang, which propels a club into all of their backs, hee. Some centaurs show up by then but the eye patch-wearing leader, Kaleipus, isn’t too thrilled to see her. She claims she’s here to stop her former goon, Dagnaine, and she’s not here for “anything—or anybody” else. Hmm. Cue sudden attack from a young human boy named Solan! He blames Xena for killing his father, Borias. Xena is too stunned to say anything until Solan is out of ear shot…he’s her son.
Thoughts from the credits: Renee’s name is finally included as a co-star. :D Yay, after spending several episode recaps last season whining about that, hee. Also, Gabrielle is onto outfit number three—her most iconic, featuring the green halter top/bilious sports bra.
Later, Xena watches Solan play ball with the centaur kids as she flashes back to ten years ago. She meets Kaleipus, now with a bloodied rag over his eye, with an infant baby. Kaleipus mentions Borias betraying her so the centaurs could fight back, but she’s here to make a shocking deal. Take this infant—her son’s and Borias’s. An awkwardly emotional Xena explains that he’d be a target if he stayed with her. Kaleipus agrees to take the child for Borias’s sake. In the present, Gabrielle berates Xena for being an absentee mother but Xena shoves her aside.
Alone with Kaleipus in his tent, they briefly argue over Solan’s use of a sword (Borias’s sword, actually)—neither of them want him to be a warrior, but Kaleipus says he’s raising the boy to make his own decisions. They both agree and they both talk about how important Solan is to them. They talk about plot things as well, which Xena later relays to Gabrielle—Dagnine and his goons are after the Ixion stone, which contains all the evil of the centaurs and makes the wearer bloody powerful. They quickly turn back to the relationship issues with Xena explaining how Borias sold her out when she tried to take the Ixion stone. Not only does she obviously respect him now, but she didn’t even order him killed then. Gabrielle is back on the absentee mother stint. Your son deserves to know who you are!
…suddenly someone else knows who Xena is: from afar, one of Dagnine’s goons is spying on the warrior princess with magnifying glasses. He can read her lips and has discovered she has a son here. Dagnine, who looks like he belongs in the chorus of the Goblin King of “Labyrinth,” is thrilled to have this weakness at hand.
Xena goes to pay her respects to Borias’s grave and runs into an angry Solan. She posits that she never killed his father, and in return he waxes poetic about the image of his mother Kaleipus imposed on him—sweet and good and all that. Xena tries to urge him off the warrior path and warns him not to confuse nobility with revenge. He runs off and she gets a whiff of the magnifying squint in the distance…she’s onto Dagnine! Before his men can escape, she flips onto the scene. She puts the pinch on the seer and learns that Dagnine knows everything.
Gabrielle goes snooping for Solan, first insisting that both she and Xena can be his friends. Then she tries to teach him about her staff, which is much less threatening than a sword and still good for defense. Case in point: she has to use it now against Dagnine’s goons! Solan whips out his sword but is frozen. As Gabrielle implores him to run, the goons knock her unconscious and take the boy hostage.
The girls run into each other on the road and Gabs relays that Dagnine has Solan. Xena tells the bard to keep the centaurs out of harm’s way, as she rides off to save the boy. Dagnine’s men lock Solan into a small cage outside and Dagnine saunters into his tent, only to find Xena sitting comfortably. She came in through a tear in the ceiling. Dagnine gives up the location of the stone—the Ixion caverns—and says that to get her son back, he wants the stone, for her to get out of the way, but first for a little “warmth” and “human kindness.” Xena knocks him out and flips through the hole ceiling.
From the sky, she lassos Solan’s tent and attempts to pull him up, though he slows things down by yanking his sword from the ground. Unfortunately the goons catch on before she’s done, so she has to fight them, leaving Solan to fall into…a huge, random cavern in the ground?? The Ixion cavern is RIGHT THERE in the camp, just paces away from Solan’s former resting place! Suddenly both she and her son are dangling, and they let go and fall an exceedingly long distance. Dagnine is pleased to have found the cavern, at least.
Xena and Solan are unharmed on the inside, except that Solan’s arm is broken. Using her pressure points and medical knowledge, Xena heals and splints the thing with the sword’s scabbard, and they talk more about Borias, how brave he was by recognizing what was right. Xena has to admit that in the past, she would have killed Kaleipus and all the centaurs. But in better news, Solan was brave for not freezing up in the enemy camp. Also, mother and son share their first embrace.
Gabrielle is having no luck keeping the centaurs out of the fray and quite easily gives up and joins the cause, even jumping onto Kaleipus’s back. (Seems a bit offensive, really, and Xena also does this later…ok, then.) Xena and Solan, meanwhile, have reached the Ixion temple, but no stone—Borias must have removed it! With nothing left to do, Xena immediately blows into some reeds like a horn asking for rescue. And Gabs, from afar, immediately recognizes this for what it is.
Dagnine and his men hear it, too, and they make it to the temple just as Xena and Solan are being lifted up from the ceiling. Dagnine cuts the rope with a knife throw, but all Xena has to do is fight the goons and flip back over to her son in time for Gabs to lower the rope again. Buuuut….Solan drops his sword and none other than the stone falls out! Bright green and everything. Dagnine picks it up and laughs evilly while Xena stares wide-eyed.
Dagnine and his goons drop the stone into a bubbling goblet where it distills into liquid. Dagnine picks it up with his bare hands (third degree burns, anyone?) and drinks it…the world goes fuzzy like a fun-house mirror and he screams. Meanwhile, Xena nixes the ideas of centaur archers taking magical Dagnine down; we need a wagon with a crossbeam. Gabrielle apologizes for her earlier behavior and states that Xena has obviously been hurting about this Solan thing. Kaleipus even comes over and says if he dies, he wants her to take the boy back. Their enmity from ten years ago is completely healed.
Gabrielle continues to sing Xena’s praises as she re-splints Solan’s arm. Solan admits he doesn’t hate her anymore. Along with most everyone else, they wait for Dagnine by the crossbeam. Evil Dagnine looks like a Neanderthal centaur on steroids. He easily fells the two regular centaurs who come at him with swords. He has Kaleipus in his clutches until Xena jumps in. They fight, and Xena tries to make Dagnine angry and thereby lose his focus. Instead, he gets the emotional upper hand when he admits to killing Borias all those years ago. Xena and Solan :O but then Xena finally triggers the crossbeam that goes right into his chest, killing him. The good guys cheer.
Later, Xena approaches Solan alone at a lake. He’s sad that she and Gabrielle are leaving…Xena tries to explain, cryptically, how she regretted leaving him but knows it’s the right thing. Solan, of course, misinterprets this as talking about her then-and-now relationship with the centaurs. She rambles on, uncomfortably, about how Solan has a good life here, “things I would wish for my son.” In return, Solan throws Borias’s sword into the lake, claiming he doesn’t want to be a warrior. Xena assures him that his mother would be proud of him. They share a goodbye hug, and an obviously conflicted, depressed warrior princess walks away.
Disclaimer: No Sleazy Warlords who deem it necessary to drink magic elixirs that turn them into scaly centaurs were harmed during the production of this motion picture.
Thoughts:
I love the introduction of Solan. I mean, the acting is a little “eh” but I love what Solan represents for Xena—that even when she was evil, there was this glimmer of a fresh beginning, a chance to bring something good and innocent into the world. The fact that they’re estranged also brings out a lot of new and complicated emotions. OK, so Solan himself isn’t much of a realized character except for brief, misplaced anger about his father and a fleeting desire to be a warrior. But hey, this show is primarily about Xena anyway. :P
The Ixion plot was largely perfunctory—no big deal, a little cheesy—and easily overlooked in favor of the more emotional mother/son storyline. Undoubtedly what pissed me off most about this episode was Gabrielle’s shallow judgments about “absentee motherhood,” as if there weren’t far more complicated issues at stake, like the fact that Xena was an evil warrior at the time. Not to mention how Xena was obviously in pain overseeing the boy; shouldn’t Gabrielle be responding to that? Her bitchiness seemed like a convenient way for the writers to stir up stupid conflict.
On the other end, everything that Xena did spoke to her sense of conflict—even as an evil warrior giving up the infant she was obviously upset and uncomfortable, and bringing up the negative aspects to her life choices. In the present, she had to owe up to her horrible behavior with her own son, which had to be hard for her even if he didn’t know her identity (part of the conflict, in fact.) There’s a more layered backstory with Borias coming, and he’s a favorite, I think, when he comes on stage. Very multi-dimensional character. And Solan may or may be back as well… *whistles* :P
Favorite Quotes:
*Solan and centaur children playing ball*
Girl: Hey, no high-hoofing!
*Xena remembers the past*
Evil Xena: Take this child. He’s my son, and the son of Borias. If he stays with me, he’ll become a target for all those who hate me-- and he’ll learn things a child should never know. He’ll become like me.
*Xena and Solan discussing the past*
Xena: Your father was very brave.
Solan: He was a great warrior.
Xena: His bravery wasn’t in being a warrior. It came from knowing what was in his heart. He recognized what was right, and he stood up for it.
Solan: Against you.
Xena: Yes, against me. That was important to him, even though--even though he and I were very good friends for a very long time.
Solan: I don’t want to talk about my father anymore. Before he-- became good-- did he hurt a lot of people?
Xena: Yes, he did. But, if it wasn’t for him, the Centaurs wouldn’t be alive now-- Kaleipus, your friends-- They’d all be gone.
Solan: You would have killed them.
Xena: Oh, yes, I would have killed them all. Thanks to Borias, I didn’t do it. And for that, I owe him more than you’ll ever know.
*The centaur party hears Xena’s horn call*
Kaleipus: What in Zeus’ name is that?
Gabrielle: If you don’t know, it must be Xena.
*Dagnine lays out his evil plans*
Dagnine: Everything-- all the strength and discipline of Ixion’s creation’s right here. With this, I’ll sweep the world like a rampaging wind. I’ll kill Xena. I’ll kill Hercules. I’ll take Athens! I’ve got so much to do. I’ll have to make a list.
*Xena and Kaleipus prepare for battle*
Xena: You should never have been my enemy.
Kaleipus: This Xena never was my enemy.
*Xena and Solan part company*
Xena: Solan-- sometimes people do things that they regret. Things which at the time seem like the right thing to do.
Solan: Like-- when I tried to hurt you.
Xena: Oh-- a little. But don’t feel bad. Often we don’t know if the things we do are right or wrong un-- until much later. Something I did a long time ago was wrong.
Solan: You mean-- trying to kill the Centaurs and get the stone?
Xena: Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. I’m sorry for what happened to your father-- and your mother. But here, you’ve got an uncle who loves you. And you’ve got friends who’ll protect you. And no one should take that away from you. I guess, what I’m saying is-- It’s time to let go of the past--and recognize that you have things here which I can only dream about. There are things which I would wish for my son.
___
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