Who's Gurkhan?

Man, this old home week stuff is getting to be a little, well, old. First we ride in old Amazon lands, then it's back to Amphipolis, then Hell, well, sort of, now we're checking out what's left of Potedia. What's next, sliding by Rome to see if Evilia's kindergarten has a historical plaque? Ah, well, never mind me, this was a really cool ep and I've missed really cool eps, I have. I just can't help being snarky, it's my nature.

Like I said, this week's opening finds our heroines jogging along in glorious sunshine, on the yellow brick road to the clapboard village. They hove into view of the farm Gabrielle's parents had, and don't it look like the bank took it over some years ago? Makes you think that last wagon they passed was full of Joads. Exercise for the kidlings: rewatch Sins of the Past and get an eyeful of the Farm in the glory of its prime, when wheat prices and pork bellies were sky-high and Dad was thinking of putting up an extra silo. Now go back to Who's Gurkhan?. You tell me: where did the hillside with the terraced truck garden go? All speculations will be considered, except for "a wizard did it".

Outside, Eve says that all that matters is that the people inside are all right—*ding* that there's a plot point, childrens. Well, 'twouldn't be a Xena ep if everyone was fine, would it? So, anyway, Gabrielle knocks on the front door and Lila, baby sister Lila, answers. Lila's some 25 years older, and for a change, she looks just that. No more, no less. Kisses all round to the make-up crew. (After kicks in the behind for week before last's King O' Hell/Deliverer/Bacchus reworking.) Kicks and kisses, they work for RenPic, they'll love it all, I'm sure.

Back to the show—the reunion scene is wonderful, touching, not at all too much, and next thing you know storm clouds are moving in, threatening a bit of evening showers. Uh oh. Gabrielle and Eve, excuse me, Lila, hey, they're dressed alike for some damn reason, anyway, the sisters are chatting before a roaring fire the likes of which I'd be scared to light in that house without a platoon of firefighters standing by, hoses at the ready, and for some reason in all this time they haven't touched on the topic of Mom and Pop, Location of. They've had hours, maybe they filled in the time chatting on sheep futures, I dunno. Anyway, they get round to the personal touch with Lila mentioning that Gabrielle et. al. hadn't been dead after all (Gab replies, "not that time"), and then Lila brings up Sarah. Her daughter, it seems, and she's been gone lo these many years (just like Gabrielle and Xena, I love these little psychic tie-ins) and Lila's a bit sad about that. Seems Sarah was kidnapped by slave traders working for some guy named Gurkhan and when Mom and Pop and Hubby went after her, wanting to buy her back, nothing so confrontational as waste his village or set seige to his castle, but just pay ransom, Gurkhan chopped off their heads.

Weird. Most potentates woulda just laughed heartily and ignored them. Or enslaved them. Maybe Gurkhan had a surfeit of sad-faced slaves that month. Maybe they mouthed off to the castelain. Anyway, that's the premise and we're going with it. One niece enslaved and two out of two parental units beheaded. (I think Hubby lost his head too, but I can't really remember. Husbands are expendable in the Xenaverse.) I'd be a tad upset by this if it were my family, and I have extra nieces. Seems I'm not alone; Gabrielle is ready to kick ass and take names, too. She runs out into the gath'ring storm, and Xena follows. Gabrielle wants Vengeance, by golly, and in case we don't get the breadth and depth of her feeling in the matter, some damn fool at RenPic ordered up a lightning flash and downpour at that junction.

Possibly they've forgotten how to do stuff without the flash and sparkle of the FX department. Perhaps they have a bit extra in the budget. Perhaps they're just nitwits. Anyway, it's time for the titles and after all, this bit did give us a giggle to last through the moments of yesterminute and coming attractions, not to mention used car salesmen and truly offensive Molson Ex ads. Thank the gods (I'm sure there are a few still around, hiding in bunkers and plotting a comeback) for fast forward. (There was an ad for Return of the Living Dead in there. I have no comment.)

All aboard! Who'd have thought, back in the days of Lost Mariner, that they'd get so much mileage out of that ship? Okay, so for this one they've replaced the sails with that of a junque, but it's the same deck and all. Might be the same sailors, for all I know.

So we're on the ship and Gabrielle's practising with her sais and Eve and Xena are trying to get her to talk about what's on her mind and all they get in response is something General Patton would recognise. Gabrielle is totally focused. Her goal is to take out Gurkhan, she hasn't thought about how or what happens after. Sort of like Xena in Debt I and II. Must be an assassin thing. Then she throws up over the rail. I'll bet General Patton threw up a lot, too.

Xena and Eve bond some more over that, like they needed to bond more, and next thing we know, Xena's drugged Gabrielle just when they make landfall at Magador, Gurkhan's home base. Virgil (Virgil's in this ep, btw. Sort of Joxer-like, except not as over-the-top hammy.) is roped into working with Xena on her alternate plan of infiltrating Gurkhan's household while Gab snoozes. He gets to sell her ass to the highest bidder.

As better minds than I have pointed out, since when would a callow youth like Virgil get his hands on such prime material as Xena? You'd think the experienced buyers at the auction would question that, but they don't, maybe her serial number ain't been registered nowhere. The auction gets underway with a minimum of footage and turns out that there's three or four guys in the audience doing Gurkhan's bidding for him. Well, that's one way of spending excess dinars, just bid against yourself. Better yet, pay other folks to do it for you, then you don't even have to show up.

Anyway, after furiously bidding against his archrival, Gurkhan Procurer Number One, not to mention Nos 3, 4 and a couple of outsiders, GP#2 gets the goods. Nods from the women still on the block—Xena fetched a good price. Shades of Here She Comes, Miss Amphipolis, one of them earlier gave Xena the low-down on the future she had in store for her if she didn't make it into Gurkhan's harem. Ew. Puts me in mind of a Lifetime channel after-school special.

There's more, inside. Same kind of thing, only turned on its head. In the group bath, there's a wife/slave who dreams every waking moment of her fiance' as a panacea against the horrors of her daily life. That's also a plot point, so make a note. In the midst of all this cheery back-washing comes Number One Wife, who walks surprisingly steadily considering the size of the chip on her shoulder. Have you ever just wanted to smack someone into next week? That's Number One Wife. Patty Hearst got nuthin' on this bitch. She lets the rest of them know where they stand, and it's somewhere behind and below, say mebbe a mile, of her.

And she's a blonde, too. Hm.

Clicking right along, later that day or possibly next week, the other blonde in the ep makes her appearance on the arm of Superlious (aka Virgil), who is offering her and her dancing and her untouched status as a gift for the great Gurkhan, who ain't heard of Perdicus, well, it's been 27 years or so and he wasn't that memorable then. Ol' Gurk's dumb enough to go for it, he's a guy, and Gabrielle (it's her! I was shocked when the veil came off, I was.) shimmies and shakes, I think she does, the camera does focus quite closely onto her belly button, and shimmers and quakes. Gurkhan is charmed. Gabrielle has a knife tucked into the notions and gewgaws that make up the back of her haltar, or she does at the end. No sign of the knife beforehand, and it's not a size of cutlery one might mistake for a brassiere fastener. Wherever it came from, Xena leaps out and tackles her, just as Gabrielle's about to go for the gusto, whispering she had the situation under control before sending Gabrielle to dreamland once again. The guards surround them and take Xena away, after kicking her unconcious, it's a kind of tit for tat thing, without which the Universe becomes unbalanced. There's a lot of that kind of thing in this ep, once you start looking for it, you can't see anything else. That's part of what makes this ep so cool, all them eternal verities and stuff. And belly dancing, of course.

Some have said that Gabrielle was about to knife the wrong Gurkhan and that's why Xena dove into the act. Myself, I think that it was cos Gab's was patently a suicide mission, what with all the guards being there and wide awake. The camera kept showing one of the GP's from the auction, but all them boys were clustered together in the middle of the room, so it's odds on who Gabrielle was gunning for.

Well, never mind that—it's time for some more light-hearted, campy fun and games. Xena's taken to the dungeon, where's she's hung up, beaten bloody, kicked, knocked unconcious and woke up so they can do it all again. Throughout this senseless, brutal and purposeless footage, what keeps Xena from going under are her visions of Gabrielle, alternately dancing and offering comfort. Lesson for the kidlings: should you ever be a POW of a nation which does not observe Geneva Convention rules, hallucinate. (This also goes for working for large corporations, by the way.)

Gabrielle (the real Gabrielle) tries to see her but cannot. Eventually, though, Xena's released back into the harem and Gab can get on with the comfort part. (The torture dude first addresses Xena as "Sophia", then after she's convinced him of her loyalty to Gurkhan, renames her "Fatima". Works for me.) Within a very short time, Xena's completely healed up and in Olympic form. Next time I stub my toe, I want Gab to kiss it and make it better. Apparently, for her it's more than just a nice gesture.

While Xena's recovering (her body was black and blue all over, eyes blacked and swollen and oozing cuts over them, lips swollen, chapped and bruised, teeth untouched, bright white and in perfect order. Amphipolis water must just be 90% flouride.), she and Gab have a sensitive chat (the servant's right there, washing bruises away from Xena's arm, but she doesn't react to their talk of killing Gurkhan, maybe all the wives talk of killing him, I dunno) about Sarah, and Mom and Pop being offed, and Xena says she has a plan and Gabrielle can kill Gurkhan but she has to be ready. Gabrielle's ready, sir yes sir, you bet.

The plan goes into action when Xena's picked to "dance". Now it's her turn to shimmy and shake and show off her belly button and do stuff with a scarf I've never seen before in my sheltered life. Gurkhan is predictably pleased and agrees to reward her. She demands Sarah's head on a plate. That's fine with him, but not so fine with Number One Wife. Turns out her old name from another life was Sarah. Weren't our grrls looking for a Sarah? No chance there could be two of them, is there? Gabrielle doesn't think so, either, and looks shocked and dismayed as the guards take (follow as she stalks proudly, actually) Sarah away.

Now with Gurkhan in the Great Bed, Xena has him send for Gabrielle. He thinks that is a fine idea, what a cool new Number One Wife he's got. He's happy as a puppy dipped in warm bacon fat, leastways until Xena puts the Pinch on him. She turns him over to Gabrielle Montoya, who disdains actually killing him but does let him know why she's perturbed with him. Then she beats on him while he's still helpless from the Pinch. Since it makes her feel better, and he is the same scumbag in whose dungeon Xena was just whupped up on while similarly helpless, I guess it's okay. Anyway, it's more of that Universe balancing stuff.

They go to the dungeon and rescue Sarah, who is shocked to find out who Gab is, and Xena, and remorseful about her treatment of them and all the others and is going to need a lot of therapy, but Gabrielle insists on comforting her and it's a really nice scene.

They've drug Gurkhan down with them, and what we don't see is that they apparently dress him up as Sarah and leave him in her place. What they did about disguising his moustache is anyone's guess. The light ain't so good down there, so maybe they figured the pretty robe and headdress would suffice.

They stop by the harem long enough to invite the rest of the women to join them on their little cruise ship. It's a tiny junque, and there's like 20 of them, but maybe they don't mind sleeping on deck. Well, it is the Mediteranean. At some point in their leavetaking, guards stop by the cell and whack off Gurkhan's head, so that was a good disguise after all.

So that's all the loose ends tied and the tied ends loosed. The sun is shining, the waves are sparkling, the porpoises are playing, Magador is no doubt being looted and burned behind them by warring factions and Sarah learns she's not the biggest villain on board. Be darned if I can figure where Virgil's got to, but we were done with him after he delivered Xena to the Palace.

All in all, very cool ep. A serious lack of butt-kicking (I do not count the dungeon torture scene, that was just something else entirely), and rather more dancing than I'm used to seeing, but on the other hand, a total absence of glowing green pits to eternal damnation. And there's butt-kicking next ep.