The Way

Well, now they've gone and done it. Two different versions of the same damn ep. We got The Way, we got The (Other) Way, and supposedly the only real difference tween 'em is that one's got a tad more headbutting and t'other's got PSAs.

Given my druthers, I'll yaw towards the headbutting. And since it's my furkin' dime, I'll be sure to pay Special Attention in a little bit to that five seconds or so of film footage calculated to send billyuns and billyuns of maddened religious fanatics rampaging through the streets and maybe turning all blue and growing a couple extra sets of arms apiece.

The Way opens with stunning, breathtaking shots of snowmelt in the mountains dripping and slipping and sliding (I'm feeling a need to fan myself, here) into rushing torrents and waterfalls and burbling brooks and then wide, placid rivers flowing through the plains, making their Ways to the sea, while Gabrielle in voiceover makes profound observations on the nature of rivers and the inevitability of Life. Xena, like any bright, practical person, challenges Gab's sweeping statements, whereupon Gab takes the low road with an ad hominem rebuttal. Tsk.

Instead of calling her on it, Xena tries to change the subject, but that won't work, there's a certain inevitablity about this ep and the need to tie together some of the stuff that's been going on since A Good Day, where Gab found out she can't throw a javelin worth squat and they set out on this whole Spiritual Journey thing. So that's what this ep's gonna be about: how to chuck responsibility for one's actions and inclinations onto the shoulders of some inchoate Destiny (Dis, dis, dis, that's all I do). And all that while getting to kick butt, too! There must be an 'all expenses paid Caribbean cruise' offer in there somewheres.

(Sorry. I'm still feeling pissy about that ad hominem thing, not to mention Bangless Xena, I really need to get over it, I know. Specially since this was such a way cool ep, with scads of special effects and featuring my all time fave furry walk-on, Hanuman, who's much cuter than Hercules, and Xena doesn't sleep with him, so it's just jam all around, know what I mean?)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Gab's suggesting that maybe Xena should go with the Mother of Peas flow that was such an incidental part of Between the Lines, and stop disemboweling strangers, or at least not enjoying it so much, well maybe only during Ramedan, and Xena's agreeing with her but only cos her mind's on business, there's summat Not Quite Right in their immediate environs (they're walking along a river, bet you guessed that) and next thing we know, she's used her walking stick to impale an eel.

You know, it's hard to spear a fish. Has to do with The Way of light in water, which is so very different from The Way of light in air. Just goes to show ya how spiritually evolved Xena is already.

So she flings this beastie onto the bank and as it hits it turns into a demon. Still impaled, of course, and in a terribly silly mask, but I don't want to hold that against it; it's so very cooperative about answering, truthfully yet, all questions Xena asks it. Without even needing to be Pinched. Like it took some kind of Demon Scout oath or something. It says it's been following them to keep them from reaching the avatar, then it puffs on some beetles on its palm and they turn into demons too. This must mean something to somebody. Don't mean fuck all to me, but I'm just a bikerchick, I'm happy if there's a decent amount of buttkicking at regular intervals, not to mention a glimpse or two of warrior thigh and a few bardly snuggles round the campfire under the omnipresent full moon... where was I? Oh, yeah—the buttkicking's started!

The demons are all wearing Masks of the Mayan Gods, think there was a sale on at pbs.org, and it's no trouble at all for Xena and Gabrielle to take 'em out, even though Xena does get slightly distracted once and picks up a nick on her arm, and when they've done for the demons (who exit this world even more arbitrarily than they entered it, vibrating at about 3000 rpms, I'd say) Xena interrogates the demon-on-a-stick and learns that it's someone named Indrajit, the King of Demons, the Prince of Darkness, the Earl of Misdemeanors and the Lord of Minor Traffic Offences who sent them.

Later that eve, relaxing by a campfire (under a NOT-FULL MOON, eek! they must be in a furrin country), Gabrielle stitches up Xena's owwie and they have a sensitive chat about Indrajit and avatars and we find out what an avatar is, thank heavens, Gab knows, it's a diety in human form, sort of like Ares, except possibly not so much a hunk, and then while Xena goes to curry Argo, sorry, that's just me being wistful, I miss Argo, heck, I miss Ares, anyway, Xena starts to wonder about whether or not her future life destiny as an old woman hobbling around on a stick and having to face down Alti with naught more'n her wits and whatever she's stored away in her cheek pockets will be undone by her continuing to off bad guys and spin-kick the Face of Evil. Well. At least she's gone off worrying about snowy Romans for the time being.

Anyway, that there's this ep's big crux—if Xena can't kick butt and take names, cos she's worried about her kharma, then she can't be a warrior, she'd have to do something else, this is a real issue since Xena: Mother of Peace Princess is, frankly, a ratings disaster.

So, we're up to the titles and car commercials, which gives us about five minutes to ponder on how the bangless look does nothing for Xena's closeup appeal, before we find out why she's sporting it: Eli the Magician is back, with long black hair and no bangs, it's a visual bonding thing, still wandering the countryside, only this time it's a solo act, he paid Vanna off in the last village and is now preaching to the multitude and snuggling tiny childrens. He's apparently graduated from being a devi to being an avatar, wonder what the orals were like? and he's just overjoyed to see Xena and Gab on the outskirts of the crowd around him and runs away from them as fast as he can down the path, calling out how glad he is to see them, let's do lunch sometime, but they catch up and insist on hanging with him and they all head off down the road.

That night, while there's still a bite tooken out of the moon, Eli is awakened by a Creature bending over him, looks like a giant flying monkey, or maybe a Wookie, and as he starts up Xena hurtles out of the bushes and punches the monkey in the face four or five times, then knees him in his side before he pins her arms and lifts her from the ground. Then she headbutts hims.

[That's the big scene, folks. Y'all might want to avert your eyes, cos simply watching this one causes Lord Krishna to doubt his own existence. Me, I can't help but think any diety what can be mortally disrespected by a headslam ain't, in the long run, worth two monkey butts. Certainly not two flying monkey butts.]

So, back to the story, the Furry Wonder asks Xena politely to chill, he's on their side. Turns out he's Hanuman, and his vocation in life is to be an avatar groupie, protecting young avatars from demons and teaching them to be snappy dressers, like him. And such a life it's been! Hanuman's been around simply forever, which might explain his resemblance to earlier forms of humans and just goes to show ya, Evolution is the Way.

Lesson there for the Kansas kidlings.

Next day they're still wandering through the forest when Hanuman senses danger, it's either a demon attack or Joan Rivers with her new line of swimwear, so he tells them all to take cover. He leaps vertically about fifteen feet into a tree as Gabrielle hustles Eli off into the bushes. Xena follows Hanuman, and that sets up the bit where we have sensitive chats in stereo and Xena finds out from Hanuman about how the Way of the Warrior is actually pretty cool, and beats hell out of the Way of the Flipflop, and Gabrielle finds out about the Way of Wimpiness from Eli, only he calls it Love, and she buys into it cos he's got that bangless look just like Xena and she gets a little confused.

The Way of Love, according to Eli, mandates that its adherents do nothing violent, even if attacked. Apparently, the Cycle of Violence is the reason why the world is in such a muddle, and the only way to stop it is through not being violent oneself. Gabrielle asks what happens if someone whups up on you, while you're hanging around being peaceful and suchlike, and Eli says that you keep on being peaceful and that this is some kind of winning strategy, though how you know you're winning when you're all busted up and rats're gnawing at your entrails is something he doesn't really explain, maybe he ran out of time, cos just then Hanuman blows the all-clear (Indrajit was spotted flying around in the wrong direction about a half mile away) and they get on with walking... where? Oh, they're going toward a village with a mondo temple to Krishna, where Eli will be safe from Indrajit. Since apparently the Way of Love only really works if one is indoors and protected by an all-powerful diety.

So they keep on, and it gets quite crowded as they near the village, everyone wants to see the avatar ("Look! It's Indrajit's Breakfast!") and they get right up to the temple where all the villagers want to fight for Eli but he tells them to get on home and not screw up their kharma by fighting for the Greater Good, since they're innocent as children in their hearts and fighting an evil demon would destroy this innocence of theirs, so next time a demon tries to take my soul, why, I'll just go on and let it. Wonder what the next change up from bikerchick is, and if it's anything like sidekick to a hot warrior babe? Though with my luck it's probably one of those really colourful poison treefrogs, and I'll spend my next life grousing about putting up with indigenous South American warriors scraping their darts across my back and being pooped on by canopy monkeys.

Goodness, that was a tangent and a half. Now all of you know the extent and nature of my secret anxieties. Damn. Now I'll have to kill you all, and spend my next life as a sea louse.

So Our Heroes (minus Xena, she stays outside, make that Our Co-star plus Guests) make their way into the temple, at the little half jog all interior scenes start with, and there, directly ahead of them, in the center of the hall, is a statue of Boy George. All painted blue and bedecked with flowers and playing a flute pointed the wrong way. Gabrielle and Hanuman continue down to the statue, leaving Eli to sign the guestbook in the entrance. Once there Hanuman lets on he knows about the Way of Love line Eli was feeding Gab with, and she's simply astonished, guess she doesn't know about how monkeys can hear really well, and he tells her that Eli's gig is the Ultimate Gig, which few can follow, since obviously not that many people have a strong compulsive death wish, and then the scene switches to Xena outside.

A slew of the nice innocent people outside have suddenly taken to wearing the Masks of the Mayans and trying to do damage to Xena, and while she's detailing the Way of the Warrior to them, Eli and Gab dash outside to help. Or something. Look like bait, maybe. Indrajit's coming in behind his ground troops, on a flying carpet, and we finally get a good look at what's been frighting everyone since the top of the ep.

Now, I ask you: have you ever in your life seen anyone who looked less like a bank teller? That demon-king is so establishment it makes you realize just how subversive this show really is. I'll bet Rob Tapert was turned down for a loan in his youth.

Anyway, much confusion and running hither and thither, Xena kicking butt with a precision and looseness that indicates she's at peace with her destiny, then Indrajit swoops down on the Gab/Eli knot and snatches up Eli before he can so much as turn the other cheek. Gab takes out a masked demon as Indrajit positions for another pass, then Xena sees the danger and shouts for her to run away! run away! which she does, except in the opposite direction from the temple (aka 'safety', it's ten yards away, bard, the bazaar you're running into ain't got near as much spiritual credit built up) and moreover, that saffron hip wrap she's been so keen on since Devi is just not built to allow a runner to stretch her stride at all, and so of course Indrajit captures her too, and stuffs her in his magic carpet with Eli and they fly off to the hills leaving Xena shouting "Gabrielle!" forlornly in the distance.

Xena is not a happy camper. She might try to give away her bard two, three times a season, but she don't like having her snatched away by evil bank tellers. Hanuman convinces her to pray to Krishna, saying she's just his type, having practised dissing gods since she was just a young punk ransoming Caesar, and Krishna likes attitude, he sees so little of it normally, and while she does so, we cut away to see Gabrielle and Eli in the palace (demon bank tellers do awfully well) alone, and Gab wants to fight their way out and Eli's just sitting back, being smug and saying they'll do fine, or rather, he'll be just fine, if they do nothing. Gab doesn't notice the qualification and settles down to meditate with him.

Meanwhile, back in the temple, the statue comes to life and its resemblance to Boy George intensifies. He reiterates the stuff Hanuman spouted 'bout the Way of the Warrior being the goods, and that if she commits to it wholeheartedly, why, he'll hang right there with her as she decapitates and burns all in her path and will even manifest in some kinda practical fashion if she calls on him to do so.

You know, if she'd known this stuff back in Ch'in, she'd probably have been able to take the entire Tien clan and likely done for Lao as well. Then she and Lao Ma could've got all snuggly on more equal terms (I think equality is so essential for a relationship to go long-term, don't you?) and done a fast Borias-drag on the way to consolidating her position as the Top of Asia. Not that that would have helped her stock in Greece, it's so hard to impress the folks in your home town, Cyrene especially would likely still have given her the cold shoulder, so I guess things did work out for the best.

Meanwhile, Gab and Eli are peacefully ignoring the posturing of Hell's Banker, until he cloaks his gnarly self in an illusion of a mortally wounded Xena. This punches ALL of Gab's buttons, it would mine, too, and she comes up swinging. Laudable though this reaction is, it just gets Gab caught up in a tootsies-swinging choke-hold, just like Alti, and Indrajit taunts Eli with Gab's predicament to come out and fight like a demon.

Eli is saved from having to do more than murmur "no" by a chakram trimming the arm holding Gab. Indrajit's hand hits the deck about the same time as Gabrielle's gasping self. Indrajit screams in outrage, his ability to enter debits and credits in the Great Ledger irrevocably compromised, and turns to face his new nemesis: Xena.

Anyone else would be scrunched up on the dais, watching their life's blood spouting out in quickstep, but Indrajit is, after all, a demon. He ain't got no blood, just oozing ichor, and so he makes like a cockroach and grows another hand, as well as a couple extra sets of arms. Xena courteously hangs back while he's doing this (and arming himself with stuff on the walls) instead of slicing and dicing while he's preoccupied, and then the battle is joined!

It's hard to fight a six-armed opponent, your whole stance needs to be different, and Xena is likely not the first to realize this too late. Bet if she'd paid more attention to Herc when he went on about how he took out the Hydra, she'd have lasted longer, but then, having your arms cut off by Indrajit still beats having to listen to Herc retell his monster battles.

In quick sucession, Indrajit disarms Xena, and then dis-arms Xena. This is way gory, and I recommend all you kidlings out there should play Mortal Kombat instead. At this point, with her dying breath, Xena first whimpers "Gabrielle" and then "Krishna". Gab's ready to take Indrajit on, she's a fiesty one, but the Krishna incantation does it, Xena starts growing arms her own self and next thing you know, it's one of those big fights like what the Japanese used to do with Jet Jaguar and Godzilla and that giant moth thing.

Except more realistic. As it were.

Xena's totally blued out and buggy, not to mention bedecked with weird-ass nasal jewelry that nicely mimics Indrajit's banker mustache, and since his walls are just covered with extra weaponry, all cleaned and sharpened, she has no trouble gathering a variety of metal accessories with which to take on her opponent. She lures him to the back of the hall, where there's all kinds neat scaffolding and stuff and places to hide, and they go at it, bashing and thrashing and whacking and hacking, climbing over stuff, hiding behind pillars, lopping off body parts to land with a squishy thud on piles of faux fur carpet remnants.

(Is there anyone besides me who thinks that Xena going after Indrajit sounds a lot like an alley cat getting a bit in the wee hours of the morning?)

Eventually, Xena beheads Indrajit, and returns to normal as the spirit of Krishna's Revenge exits her mortal self. Luckily, Krishna thoughtfully reattached her arms and returned her sword to its scabbard and she and Gabrielle can renew their bond as Eli and Hanuman stand by.

(Hanuman, btw, was busy guarding Xena's rear and taking out minor demons. What Eli was doing that was so bloody useful is not readily apparent, but in the final scene he does thank Gabrielle for being the first one to understand him. And says he won't forget that. I am so over Eli, I'd almost druther see Joxer. That, friends and neighbors, signals the end of the world. But if any of the PTB ever chance to read this (tee-hee) before we all go down in fire and brimstone and alien invasion, I'd really druther see Salmoneous. I don't CARE how difficult Robert Trebor may be to work with, the results are worth it. Comedy scenes that are funny over and over and over—you can spend all the spiritual coin you have praying to any god you like, it ain't no substitute for knowing what you're about, the way that man does. So there.)

Anyway, Gab, being all overcome with it all, the Way of Love and Feeling the Burn and Going For the Gusto, launches her staff into the Ganges as Xena watches, dismayed, the best throw Gab did was in The Greater Good, her first, and no coach she's had since can sort out what's wrong, so maybe laying off for a while is really the best course.

And then Xena apologizes for taking her into a life of violence and leading her into the path of evil and all like that there, and Gabrielle, who ain't so shallow as you might think from the way she fell for Eli's line, says that if it weren't for Xena and all they've been though together, she wouldn't have even got to this point in her Spiritual Journey. Gab's gonna give this Love/Nonviolence thing a try, but that don't mean she doesn't want or need her warrior princess around.

And Xena's cool with that; hey, if my soulmate wanted to try the way of the Poison Skinned Treefrogs, then whatthehell? it's fine with me, honey, see where it leads. Those of us who have lived through watching daily footage of Tianimen Square might have our doubts as to the effectiveness of the extremely narrow and naive view of the nonviolent life as Eli espouses it, especially since it only appears to work if conducted en masse, however, if Gabrielle wants to give it a go, who's to say it won't make a difference?

Not me, by golly. Though I do wish she'd lose the saffron hip wrap thing. If ya ain't gonna fight, you gotta be able to run.