If the Shoe Fits...

and the people who lived there made a fun little syndie show, about Life in the Olden Days, when chariots were drawn by real horses, and Warrior Princesses were real Warrior Princesses, and hydras had just as many heads as we budgeted for, Frank, and don't yer go trying to add any, ya stupid git.

And then silly people like me actually watched them, frame by frame, and wrote down every little thing we thought of while watching them frame by frame (and quaffing whatever libation we had on tap that day) and sent these spoilers out into the world, to amuse hundreds more.

(a quick note for those of you who do actually read these—my bike's fixed, by truly competent mechanical persons, at a considerably lower price than the incompetent droolers up the road quoted me. Three cheers for British USA!)

So, onward with ITSF, which sounds kinda rude if you say it fast. Repeatedly. On the phone. With a handkerchief over the mouthpiece. Try it sometime, let me know what happens. Our latest (okay, I know I'm way behind here. Life is like that sometimes.) ep opens with a lovely silvan dawn, the camera panning lightly over treetops, bright blue sky, naked bard in the shower, Joxer snoring some distance away, Xena waking up looking like I feel when I wake up, I missed something important there, something major...

How the heck did Gab rig a shower in the middle of primeval Greece? I swear, I 'bout wore out the tape trying to figure how she managed that. For those of you who glued your beady eyeballs on scrumptious bardly behind and totally missed the true significance of this scene, ie, Gab invents plumbing, it appears to be an arrangement of cast iron piping leading from a nearby (unseen) water source and laid through the lower branches of several handy trees so as to take advantage of rushing current whose force is such as to propel the water vertically approx. fifteen feet (snoring yet? Don't worry, I'll wake ya. NEKKID BARD! There. Now stay awake.) and thence along a somewhat shorter, gradually descendent slope to where it decants into a (cast iron) stew pot with tiny holes poked in its base.

It must've passed through some kind of heat source along the way, else Gab would not have been singing a leisurely shower song about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, but would instead have been turning a fetching shade of blue and vibrating at the speed of a calf massager.

I can see it all now, the Night Gab Invented Plumbing... follow with me now, childrens, as I wander back to days past... it would be a Tuesday, late afternoon....

By the gods, where was I? Oh, right, spoiling If the Shoe Fits.... Anyway, Xena rouses from her slumber, her mind all a-fog, still whirling with dreams of dancing teddies and fast bikes and winged turtles and she ain't even got to India yet. She's got a before-breakfast agenda, cos that's how you succeed in today's fast-paced life, kiddies, you get things done and no dawdling over your Cheerios. Only they're low on supplies, Xena and Gabrielle, they've used the last of the rope playing horsie and rider the night before (It's my spoiler, dammit! It coulda happened that way!) and she doesn't have enough for her day job, which is tying up bad guys.

One thing about Warrior Princesses, they learn back in Junior County Princess Pageant days, when they're sharing stage time with half-tamed Hereford calves, that sometimes ya just gotta improvise. So Xena sneaks up to where Gab's noodling in the shower (remember Gab? Shower? Silly of me to think you'd forget.) and lifts her BGSB¹ off a nearby branch as neat as an Elizabethan cutpurse, and slips away into the forest.

In the meantime, slimey bad dude brothers are pouring over a map of Mordor and plotting how best to steal the ring from Frodo. Xena crashes their party, snatches the head bad guy (Zantar, as in "Zan-Tar! Jor-El needs you on the reactor floor!") and whisks him away through the treetops, just like She-Ra.

Are we to the opening credits yet? No? Damn, I do go on, don't I? Xena leads Zantar back to base camp, all tied up and gagged with the BGSB. Gabrielle has meanwhile made do with her old maternity blouse, and there's a bit of a to-do when she spots the use to which Xena's put the green one. It's her favourite top, ya know. It's the only one she has that goes with her skirt. And, as we all know, she ain't got but the one.

So off we go, heading... well, durned if I know where they're all going, but no matter. An Explosion rocks the forest! Our party rushes toward the noise, cos they're heroes, instead of away, like I would. A wall's been blasted out of a temple. Entering, X&G find Aphrodite confronting the miscreant, a tiny goldy-haired angel child who's been fooling with stuff she hadn't oughta. The child appeals to Xena, seeking political asylum or something, since she (surprise!) knows her. Roll credits!

(By the way, Joxer's in this ep. I know I haven't mentioned his essential contributions to the storyline so far, but he is in this ep.)

Anyway, so X&G agree to take the kid back to her parents, she's a princess, just like Xena, Princess Alesia, and her parents are worried sick cos she's run off. Apparently she disapproves of her daddy's new wife and wanted Dite to off the queen. That didn't quite go as planned, homey don't play that, and now she wants to hire Xena as her new hitwoman. Meanwhile, the grimy reality of everyday life is catching up to them in the form of Zantar's brothers. They want him back, he's the brains of the outfit (which puts them on the intellectual level of mushrooms) and besides, he's the only one who can understand Gollum.

Xena gets Gab to tell the kid a story to distract her while she backtracks along their trail to head off the brothers. Which of course is the real reason for this whole ep, retelling a story from different points of view, keeps the plot invention costs under budget, which is a good thing when you consider that it's Armus & Foster what wrote the whole thing and asking those two to come up with an original plotline is, frankly, cruel.

So we get to see bits of the story unfold, the beginning from Gab's POV, interspersed with Xena giving Argo complicated directions ("Head for the river. Make sure they see you. Pick up my drycleaning on your way back, and meet us at the deli on 45th and Lamar.") Gab starts in telling how Tyrella avoids intimacy issues by overanalysing the behaviour of her wicked step-family, and Alesia interrupts with her own take on the situation (Tyrella stabs her stepmom. Repeatedly. First the exploding wall thing, and now this. Alesia is so adorable, you can see why Aphrodite wants her back.)

Then Aphrodite, who misses having a dolly to play with, appears on the path behind Gab, Alesia, Zantar and Joxer (Joxer's in this ep. I keep forgetting to mention the crucial impact he's made on the story so far, but rest assured that's just my shortcomings. He's really been a lynchpin, trust me.) and launches in on her own take on the Tyrella thing. The story advances in some miniscule fashion, with beefcake and go-go dancing, since we didn't get enough of that stuff in The Quill is Mightier, you know we didn't, but is interrupted when Xena returns and Dite takes off.

They make camp shortly after and Alesia wants to hear what happens next with the story. This scene is kinda cute, if you like hanging out while two "close friends" snap irritably at each other over the chores. Gab takes over the cooking and delegates Joxer (you did remember he was in this ep, didn't you? Hey, it's Armus&Foster, of course he is!) to finish the story.

Meanwhile, the grave danger they're all in escalates as Aphrodite enlists the help of Zantar's brothers in snatching the kid for her, offering Zantar in exchange. Cue commercials.

When we get back (I dunno about y'all, but I was just riveted to the screen throughout), Joxer's version is well underway, and we get a much too clear view of why he's such a dork. Instead of casting himself as the Prince giving the ball, he does a fast sex change to be Tyrel(la). This is more insight into Joxer's inner psychological workings than I ever wanted to know. Even Xena notices. The Joxer-story goes on rather a long time, detailing Tyrel's transformation from klutz to self-absorbed twit at the ball and then back again at midnight. During this spell-binding narrative, Xena wanders off to do something. When she returns, thankfully shutting Joxer up, she notices that Alesia's run off again.

Xena sets off immediately to find her, and as soon as she's offscreen a kindly old woman shows up, telling a tale of bandits in the woods. Gabrielle runs off to take care of them, leaving Joxer to guard Zantar. But the old woman isn't, she's Aphrodite in disguise, well it fooled me, and quite a nasty shock it was to see it was all a trick. She's looking for Alesia, and when Zantar says he can help her find the kid, she puts Joxer down for the count. By kissing him. (I don't think TPTB pay Alexandra Tydings enough, do you?)

Xena finds Alesia clinging to the vine from Blind Faith, the one draped over a (gasp) cliff edge and hauls her up. The kid's making noises like a basket of St. Bernard puppies, it's really cute. So Xena rescues her and brings her back to camp (she ran off to escape the dismal fairytale world Joxer was constructing. No lie! That's what she tells Xena.), where Xena is not amused to find Joxer tied up and Zantar gone. Just then Gab gets back from her wild goose chase and they sort out who's who and what's been going on and set out looking for Aphrodite and Zantar. Apparently, they're headed for the castle where Alesia's parents live, doesn't that dovetail nicely? Once they're safely on the road again, we get back to the real plot, this time with Xena doing the narration.

Her Tyrella is well adjusted, purposeful, self-motivated and gives every impression of being the kind of woman who takes responsibility for her own orgasms. At the end of her tale, after she's sent the prince packing, she brings Gabrielle on as her fairy godsister and has her do the dishes while Tyrella runs off to save the kingdom.

That dog won't hunt, from the bard's point of view. She takes umbrage, and hits the road alone, saying she needs space. Xena tells the kid not to worry, Gab does this all the time, but no one believes that one.

(You know, in Gab's story, Xena played the part of an evil stepsister. Did Xena take offence? No. Was she even mildly distressed? No. Just thought I'd point that out.)

Our decimated party gets to the castle and find the Brothers Grime have been there before them. They untie the king (who looks just like a hobbit, except taller, hm...) and queen and then Xena, with her talent for setting up negotiations, locks the queen in a small room with Alesia, before running off after the bad guys. (Joxer's still in this ep. Just wanted to remind you.) The queen starts with the heart-to-heart and we cut to Gabrielle inside an outdoor shrine to Aphrodite. The bard summons the goddess using her unique paging system (she breaks a vase or two. Hey, it works.) and tells her off for being selfish and says she should leave Alesia alone before she really does manage to break up that family.

Back to the queen and Alesia. They finally come to an understanding, Alesia decides her stepmother isn't evil after all and didn't steal daddy (she did, too. she's just playing nice to placate the kid. In a month or so, she'll push our little firebug off a parapet, see if she doesn't.)

Meanwhile, Joxer (yes, he's still in this ep. Being useful. Really.) gets his butt captured by Zantar and gang.

Xena drops in just then and there's a big fight, and in the middle of it someone has an LSD flashback to Xena's story and Gabrielle/fairy godsister appears and gets in a few crucial staff whacks and next thing you know, Xena's tying up the loose ends for her audience—the king and queen and Alesia.

Aphrodite pops in then and makes a pretty little speech about love being something Alesia can learn best right here with her family, and there's a couple other bits and Gabrielle tells Xena she came back because of what Xena said about being a family and the important thing is to stay together and work stuff out when there's stuff to work out. And they hug and Joxer horns in on it (he's still in this ep. He was crucial in that fight scene, by the way. Tripped Gabrielle up once.) and we're done!

Whew. Okay, cool things to notice about this ep—we get gratuitously naked bard, and as we know from The Quill is Mightier, that kind of thing can go a long way when it has to. We find out Xena's not the only inventor of the two—Gab came up with plumbing. We find out that Argo is smarter than Trigger, even if she never did come back. Probably off calling her agent again. And that both Xena and Gab have the same mental image of Gabrielle (witness the similarities between Gab-as-Tyrella and Gab-as-fairy-godsister.)

And that image, friends -n- neighbors, is apparently Sunny Day from the last modern-day Herc ep.