Sins of the Past

There's a reason, a fundamental reason, I first started liking this show way back when, and right here in the opening scenes of the very first ep is why: unabashed, pure and joyful butt-kicking. There's other stuff, too, sure, while butt-kicking's fun, it can't, all by itself, sustain a dramatic narrative, but by golly Xena certainly does it well.

The very first show of the very first season opens in time-honoured fashion: a woman on a horse rides out of the mists and into a burnt-out village, sorta like Mother Courage or The Trojan Women, but not really. A (remarkably chubby) child asks for food, interrupting her reverie, which consists mostly of flashbacks of her and a slew of other bad guys wasting that same village, she looked really happy then, and doesn't now, this may lead to some problems psychologically, and then the kid tells her (she did ask) that Xena, the Warrior Princess, killed his parents, she rode out of the sky on a chariot breathing fire (he doesn't look like he actually believes this, he probably doesn't have much of a future in anything but locally made auto shop commercials, on the other hand, it is a stretch), so she gives him her lunch (half a wheel of prime brie and a loaf of bread, takes a lot to keep a warrior princess chugging along) and keeps going.

Cut to her burying her chakram and sword; her leathers and armour are likely somewhere about, since she's wearing only a shift, it laces up the back else she'd have likely taken it off, too, Suddenly, the peace and quiet of this rustic glade is broken by a horde of screaming women and yelling ruffians, it's like some kind of Homecoming Week beach party, Xena (look, we all know it's her, right?) presses back into the bush, they can't see her, she's hidden (she's not four feet away and in plain sight, it's one of those dramatic convention things), and observes as the head ruffian gets ready to tie up the women and kidnap them into slavery. One of the young ones tries to sacrifice herself for the sake of the others, but he disses her and she hits him and then Xena gets into it. She whirls and twirls, kicks and punches and finally starts smiling again, this is better than Prozac. Meanwhile, the horde of women are kicking and biting and punching, and the upshot is that between them all, they drive off the ruffians.

Xena figured out who they work for, someone named Draco, and tells the leader to tell him that, "Xena says 'hello'." Then she slams her elbow into his neck, and cut to titles!

(I'm doing this off DVD, so now I have no idea when commercial-time was, which is a shame in some ways but when one considers the average sponsor of this show, not in others.)

When we get back, we're in Gabrielle's family's home. Mom is doing minor triage on Xena, sister is helping Mom, and Gabrielle is talking. She'll be doing a lot of that in coming eps. Her father comes in with some village extras and urges Xena to not let the door hit her in the ass as she leaves town, and one of the extras turns out to be Perdicus, Gabrielle's betrothed, and yet another reason why Gabrielle wants Xena to take her along.

Xena's not up for that, no way. She's going home to Amphipolis (which is in Thrace, as Gabrielle notes) and she doesn't need company.

Cut to Draco's camp, it's night now, where Hector the Ruffian has reported in and Draco's not quite laughing at him. He knows Xena of old, and thinks Hector got off lightly. Later inside his tent, Xena slips in and they have a little chat, she wants him to spare Gabrielle's village and he wants her to join up with him, and in the end he says he'll spare the village but if she's intent on going home she's a fool, he tried it once and was nearly killed by his own father for his pains.

(Just an aside, Draco's head covering bears a striking resemblance to those really cute hats worn by French women during the Regency period. All it needs is a flouncy plume, wait, his ponytail is fluffy enough to stand in, so that's all right, but I'm thinking this may be part of the conflict he has within himself, between his butch and femme sides. And having a high voice like his can't be helping.)

Back at the farm, Gabrielle tries to sneak off but her sister, Lila, wakes up (Gabrielle trips over a table, I'm surprised the cows in the barn didn't wake up) and they have a quiet good-bye scene.

The next morning, Xena hurts Argo's feelings by referring to her as a "boy", and then humiliates a blind cyclops by busting up his ambush by a bridge. Since she was the one who blinded him, it's kind of a double whammy.

Back at the camp, Draco's planning an attack on Amphipolis; he's set it up to be blamed on Xena. He's kind of a controlling guy.

On the road, Gabrielle runs into the same cyclops, and we find out that talking a lot can be good, since by the time she's done with him, he's her biggest fan.

On the path, Xena's still riding, but she's removed her armour. She's being followed by Draco's men, who are under orders to note when she gets through the pass. Or something. They're wearing all kinds of clanking, jangly bits, so of course she hears them and ambushes the lot, one by one. Then she puts the Pinch on Hector. For once, thirty seconds is thirty seconds, and Hector spills the plot to her.

(My sakes, New Zealand sure is easy on the eyes. Most as nice as BC.)

Somewhere behind her, Gabrielle is cadging a ride from a traveller on a wagon. He doesn't want to help her at first, but she talks him into it, She sure was a forward young thing. Worked, though.

Xena's still pressing onward, though not on the road. She's making her own way through the wilderness. Wouldn't be surprised if Gabrielle got there before her.

Not that she did. Xena rides into town, her sword slung at her side, which emphasizes what a big hilt it has, its pommel is practically on level with her armpit. In the tavern, Mom disowns her, so do the rest of her customers, and none of them want to have anything to do with any defence she's organizing against Draco. Apparently it didn't go well the last time this happened.

(In camp, Draco's found out about Hector screwing up and kills him while revising his plans. I think he's well rid of Hector; should have done this a long time ago.)

In town, Xena's back in the tavern, it's the next day, and she's re-armoured and come back for her sword that Mom took off her the day before. She tells her mother that maybe she can't make up for all the terrible stuff she did (and Mom doesn't know the half of it) but she'll spend the rest of her life trying. Mom's wavering, but then half the village storms into the tavern with rocks, saying there's an army burning the fields and calling Xena's name. Mom leaves and the villagers start throwing their rocks, but that's when Gabrielle shoves her way to the front and... talks them out of it. True, she as good as says that they're right and Xena is Draco's woman, which is kind of like being saved from drowning by having a rolled up newspaper stuffed down your throat, but the essential purpose is accomplished and Xena accepts Gabrielle's presence to the degree of taking her along as she rides off to see her brother.

That'd be, her brother's tomb.

Her favourite brother is Lyceas (the choice is between him and Torus, I'd pick the dead one, too), the brother for whose death she bears responsibility since she was leading the village defence at the time, not at all the future Mom had mapped out for him. This is what comes of being the oldest in the family, everything that happens to the younger kids is your fault.

There's some freaky designs carved onto the side of that boy's tomb. Skulls alternating with axe-heads; another reason why he'd be Xena's favourite. Xena tells him it's hard to be alone; Gabrielle sticks her head in and tells her she's not alone. I don't think she can see the carvings.

Back in town, Draco meets with the village headmen and toys with them, emphasizing what a psycho he is. He doesn't want their loot or their future cooperation/enslavement, he wants Xena. She was just in his tent three nights before, he didn't feel up to the challenge then, but he thinks if he terrorizes her home town, that'll change. This is beyond deluded.

Anyway, she shows up before he can seriously hurt the village guys. There's some back-and-forth, she won't go with him in love (read "lust" with these lads) so they'll have to fight. He gets choice of weapons, while she gets choice of conditions, and he still can't give up hope, he chooses staves (non-lethal), so she has to lay it out for everyone, they'll fight on the scaffolding on the other side of the barn, and the first one who touches the ground, dies.

Almost immediately the villagers watching this set-to begin cheering for Xena, guess when it came down to it, they could finally see the difference between kin and alien. It's a way cool fight, combining all sorts of flips and tricks with log-rolling (the scaffolding is not up to OSHA standards, I'm afraid, which leads me to worry about the conditions under which workers labour in Amphipolis), and, when the scaffolding comes apart, they balance on the heads and shoulders of the crowd. Everyone's rooting for Xena now, offering their shoulders and grimacing when Draco steps on them, so it's not long before Draco finds a hole in the air and hits the ground.

His army can't bring themselves to shoot him, like they would've Xena if he'd beaten her, so she makes him swear to leave the valley by sundown and take his army with him.

The village headman offers the loot wagons to her, showing how little he understood what just happened, and she shows great restraint in not smacking him into next week. Later, as Xena prepares to leave, her mother finds her and forgives her, and says how happy she is Xena is back, so at least someone understood.

That night, or a week later at night, Xena's camped out and Gabrielle finds her camp. Xena wants to send her home, but Gab won't budge. In the end, she says something that resonates with Xena, that it's hard to prove you're different from what the people around you think you should be. Then, the next day, Gabrielle reiterates that she's only doing what friends do: stand by one another when there's trouble. And we're done!

It's a workmanlike first ep, an introduction of all the major characters and their motivations and patterns, a little bit of back story, a little bit of overall development, a chunk of foreshadowing, that kind of thing. Draco's a cool villain, most of the villains are right out there in their badness, they're gut-wrenching evil, but in this early ep, Draco seems to be not that bad, more or less clean, articulate, able... but his methods, the way he chooses to go after what he wants indicate a sophisticated degeneracy that's out of the ordinary. Hm.