Crusader

I shoulda spoilt this ep last Sunday, when I first saw it, but I was distracted, I was. Distracted by images of Flo Hendersen and Marcia Brady... images of the middle Brady girl whuppin' Xena's tail... it was all a tad overwhelming and I went for an extended lay-down on the sofa.

(I feel better now.)

Of course, there was more to it than just Flo-Marcia in tan&turquoise buckskin, but something was just not Quite Right somehow. I pondered and puzzled on this, alone in my little room, contemplating the Light... astride my bike negotiating rush-hour traffic and absentmindedly doing backbends over the seat while waving my sword at passing cars... and at work, taking calls on the phone, advising customers to abandon all and follow me....

And then it came to me—this ethereal creature in Samurai Nun's habit was not Florence, nor yet was she Marcia—it came to me as I saw that smile crease her face from ear to ear as she gazed upon Gabrielle, and I heard, as if a djinn spoke unto me, I heard the words, "Spank me! Spank us all!"

I knew I was looking upon the visage of the Ur-Zoot, Keeper of the Light that is Grail-Shaped.

(When I realized that, I must say I was much happier, since "Flo-Marcia" niggled at me as sounding more like some kind of Ronco appliance that you attach to your tub faucet so as to get that neato marbled jello look to your bathwater, but I digress.)

Who wants to hear about the plot? Oh, okay, just for you. It's very complicated, so pay attention: there's this cult chick, see, and she's got these followers, see, and they go round killing bad people and saving poor folks and razing villages and offing anyone what don't see eye to eye with 'em. It's cause they're so Good and all, and the Najara especially, and she knows she's Good cause the fairy voices tell her so, and she's got a little curl right in the middle of her... well, maybe not.

Anyway, her apostles meet up with X&G on the road to Damascus and immediately take an instant dislike to them, and there's a big fight and Gab gets knocked down when the UrZoot, henceforth known by her real name, Najara, which I only found out by finally checking a program guide, you'd think someone would mention her name once during the show without sneezing or chewing tobacco or trying to juggle at the same time, but no, I have to check a program guide if I want to know this stuff, anyway, Najara gets into the act. Najara, in fact, is about to skewer Gab for supper when the fairies get back from their interdimensional card game and put the brakes on, telling her to chill for a bit. Najara looks all shaken and begs X&G's forgiveness ("Spank me!") and then asks them to join with her and her, um, vast army of ten or so scraggy-haired men to do the good fight thing against some slavetraders holed up in a nearby village. And, as an added incentive, Xena can lead the parade if she wants, Najara ain't no glory hound, nuh-uh.

Well, who could resist such an invite? X&G get out their party clothes and they all head out. Najara smiles ("Spank me!") at Gabrielle, and the bard smiles back ("Okay!"). Next morning dawns bright and fine and Xena does her reconnaisance thing in the oh-so-quiet village, looks just like Amphipolis, and no one's there but her, there's Mom's tavern, and she creeps up onto the barn where she last played the footsie game with Draco on the scaffolds and opens the door and all the Amphipolitans are playing 'bite the wrist that sells ya' with the slavetraders, so Xena knows she's in the right place and pays the cover charge and they stamp her hand and...

Wait. I've got it wrong, somehow. Must be this coffee. Maybe I should warm it up.

Better now. Okay, all that there about Amphipolis is just me being silly. It's really a completely different village. With completely different villagers. And a totally unique economy. Honest. And those ugly dudes were slavetraders. Xena recognized them right off, and signalled to the Najaraites to do their thing. Big fight. Slavers doing badly. Then one of them gets an arrow off and it's heading right for Gab, oh gosh, oh no, wait, Xena's there, she'll stop it... no need, Najara catches it in one turq&tan gauntleted fist.

Has anyone seen Ares, lately? I ask cause I think he'd really like this woman's fighting style. Najara, and at least one apostle, during this first melee engaged opponents from behind. In other words, sistern -n- brethren, they done went and hit 'em in the back. Cain't say for sure, but I don't think I've ever seen Xena or Gabrielle attack an opponent in that way. Xena, as I recall, is always shown swinging at folks coming at her. Same with Gab. Hm.

Anyway, once the fight's done Little Miss Knight Templar lectures the slavers on the evil of their ways, offering them a really simple choice, convert or die, take your pick, big smile ("Spank me!") and the villagers as well, urging them to go forth and live good lives, as though what they'd been doing up till now was not quite up to snuff, and they give her flowers and hugs in hopes she'll go away and leave them alone before she takes it into her head that they're really demons of darkness masquerading as simple villagers and torches the place out of the goodness of her heart. And Gab looks on, eating it all up, cause she thinks that that little incident in Britannia, the thing with the One God and the blood sacrifice and the fire and Stonehenge and banshees and the demon-baby, that was all just a fluke, that kind of thing couldn't happen to a girl more than once in her life, could it?

They all retire back to their camp, the Najaraites and X&G, and plot the final assault on the slaver's castle, and Naj and Gab do the smile thing some more and Xena gets that funny look on her face that lets us know she's about to do something really dumb, like give her bard away for her own good.

Next morning they're all tramping around in the forest and Najara pulls Gab up onto her horse to go look at swans by the lake and have a sensitive chat and Gab is happy to do it since most of her sensitive chats till now were with Xena, and that's kind of a one-way thing, and she might this once get to do the spanking instead of the other way around, and all in all, it looks like fun. So she rides off with her arm tight around Najara's waist, there ain't no room between 'em, not even enough for the Holy Spirit, I'm tellin' ya—no good's gonna come of this.

As if all that ain't enough foreshadowing, later on in camp (this bunch is a regular Scout troop) Xena 'members her Vision, where she & Gab are staked out on Cross #42 and it looks like curtains for her and the Gabster and so she talks to Najara about it all (she knew anyway, the fairies told her, wouldn't it have been cool if the fairies had little voices like the lice?) as a prelude to (gasp) going off on her own and leaving Gab behind. Which she does, while Gab sleeps like an angel under the moon, cause Xena's thick-headed that way.

So Xena's off to catch the slaver leader by herself and then ride off into the sunset alone, leaving the Society of Najaraites little to do except party in the fields and the town, which they do like the wild things they are, singing off-key and passing flower garlands around and there's a ceremony in which Najara and Gab get married, or next thing to it, Gab dedicates herself to the Light but it's Najara she's snuggling up to when she does it.

Meanwhile, off in the slaver castle, Xena catches up with the bad guy and gets the word from him that Najara's been wearing her skullcap too tight and the blood ain't flowed to her brain in years and that she's been doing so much good up and down the coast that there ain't hardly anybody left alive for miles around. So Xena suddenly realizes that it's better for Gab to maybe die on a cross in the snow someday than to spend one more minute spanking a woman who listens to disembodied voices and does whatever they tell her to, for all Xena knows, the djinn are really just chatty lice under that headgear, it could happen, and she rushes back to the party and confronts Najara.

Who admits everything, says it's all for the best (she only kills wicked people, honest, they're bound to be guilty of something), refuses to let Gab leave ("My bard!" "No, she's my bard!") and beats Xena unconcious. Tries to kill her, but Gab won't let her. Throws her and her abs over Xena's bruised and prone body and says she'll go off with Najara if only she doesn't kill Xena. See, Gab's finally seen the Light, for real. Xena may be a dysfunctional psychopathic ex-warlord, but Gab's used to that. Najara, on the other hand, is really scary, since she doesn't have Xena's burden of guilt to temper her actions, and on top of that, she's got these voices telling her she's doing the right thing always. You can see the wheels going round in Gab's head—whatever one might say about Xena, she had the sense to kill her lice.

So Gab basically feeds Najara a line and they leave Xena there and run off to a cave and Xena pulls herself together (this is where she spits out a tooth and leaves it for the tooth-djinn on the counter, you wondered how Xena picked up a spare dinar or two, now you know. Look, it beats selling plasma. Barely.)

She finds Gab alone in the cave, after luring Najara outside and slipping past her, and they whomp up a plan in the 30 seconds they have available to them, don't take long since this is a remarkably well-equipped cave for that sort of thing. No wonder Najara knew about it—it's got all kinds scaffolding braced over bottomless pits where you could tie someone up in a variety of ways if you wanted to spank them... where was I? Right, Najara comes back in to find (she thinks) Gab tied up over the pit and a torch burning the rope slowly and she and Xena fight while Xena taunts her about caring more for Gabrielle than she would for anyone else and letting that caring distract her from the fight and it works and Xena knocks her back into the pit and she catches herself on the edge and sees, finally, how Gab's okay, she's standing on a plank and was faking it the whole time.

So now Gab's betrayed Najara, in essence, or at least that's how she'll see it. Wanna bet this comes up later in the season? Especially since Xena was gonna stomp Najara's hands so she'd fall and Gab tells her not to, so instead she pulls Najara out and chains her up and everyone's happy.

And X&G turn the lot of them over to the locals, who wanna discuss the exact circumstances of a smoking ruin where a nearby village used to be, but that's okay with Najara, she knows that village was full of pirates, and besides, she has other things to think about. Like Gabrielle. Who's going off with Xena. She forgives Gab for that, though. Really. She says so, she says, "I forgive you, Gabrielle," in a way that you know, if you've ever been forgiven by someone who hears voices, really means, "I own your bardly butt. And I'll be seeing you soon."

All in all, good ep. Several lessons to be gleaned from this little sojourn in Phoenicia: Xena learns that Gabrielle isn't a puppy for whom she needs to find a good home with plenty of room in the back yard, and Gab learns (hopefully) that number three on the list of Top Ten Signs of Megalomaniacal Culties is "sings insipid songs off-key incessantly" and number one is "pays attention when the lice talk".