The Path Not Taken

Xena, it would seem, never took so much as a weekend off from the time she left home (in pursuit of the remnants of Cortese's army, plus loot) to now. She never took time, for instance, to do stuff like wander the banks of a placid stream in springtime, holding hands with someone whose only goal in life was to make her smile instead of feuding with her family, or nestle under a broad shade tree with tasty nibblies and wooden goblets painted to look like some form of almost-metal filled with sweet wine. Or to watch masked raiders swoop out of the nearby bushes and knock her love senseless before carrying her off to their lair.

Come to think of it, that last doesn't sound like much fun. Probably just as well she skipped it.

Anyway, the boy that was left behind on the ground, Prince Agranon, is having no fun at all. Not only is his fianceé kidnapped, but he cut a less than heroic figure during the preceding fracas. However, he's determined to rescue her.

In a nearby village, Xena and Gabrielle are looking for somewhere to eat. Gabrielle is talking and doing her best to ignore that the only tavern for miles around is hosting a brawl at the moment. As they get their drinks, she congratulates Xena on her success with the Cradle of Hope baby in case anyone missed seeing the last show, and Xena breathes fire on a pushy stranger, also in case anyone missed seeing the last show. Now that we're all clued in, verbally and visually, on the high points of the previous ep, Agranon approaches with a bag of gold and a proposition that Xena rescue Jana. He manages to piss her off pretty quickly, and has to grovel a bit before she directs him to give the gold to the poor (she doesn't add "abandon all and follow me", probably on purpose) while she takes his medallion, and says she'll do it. (Apparently, Xena doesn't do this sort of thing for money. Left completely unspoken is what she does do for money, I'm guessing a trust fund figures in here somewhere, maybe bonds. Let's face it: neither Gabrielle nor Argo can be cheap to feed.) Jana's been stolen by a local arms dealer, Myzantius, a real scumbag, and Agranon says he did it to provoke a war between his family and Jana's (she's a princess, too), since both families think the other one did it. Either everybody he knows habitually ignores Agranon when he opens his mouth or he sucks at the high-level diplomatic approach. It should have been a cinch to call down both his dad's army and Jana's dad's army on Myzantius, but instead he's hanging around the local dive trying to hire a mercenary.

You know, there's probably all sorts of dysfunctional stuff going on in both households, neither of those two heirs to thrones had any guards around while they were picnicking, Agranon is wandering the streets unguarded even now, you have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, their parents want them both waylaid. Or perhaps it's some kind of tough love thing, they're trying to avoid making the beggars' children jealous.

Xena rides off toward Tracus, where Myzantius and his hirelings are holed up, while Gabrielle waits back in town with Agranon. His ears are barely hanging onto his head before Xena gets fair out of the door.

While she's on her way, the bad guys get there with the princess. We don't see this, we just hear Myzantius talking about it with one of his lieutenants, after concluding a deal with a Boetian emissary (Jana's family runs Boetia, Agranon's Colonnus. Traditionally speaking, Boetians are among the simplest Greeks around, dumber than potshards. This may explain a lot.)

Xena enters the tavern at Tracus and the ruffians there fall all over themselves welcoming her back to their ranks. Okay, one of them seems kind of suspicious that she's still evil, he keeps asking why she did this thing and that other thing, sounds altruistic to him, but he shuts up when Myzantius' lieutenant enters, his name is Marcus and he and Xena were quite an item at one point. I'm guessing it was after Borias and before Herc, since previous to Borias she was too busy, but however long ago it was, so far as Marcus is concerned it might as well have been yesterday. He's really glad to see her, and it's not one-sided, she's just as glad to see him.

While they're reunioning, there's a bit with Myzantius and some of the ruffians that shows what a ruthless guy he is and is otherwise pointless, and Gabrielle convinces Agranon that they should go talk to Jana's father so he can see what a sensitive, new-age guy Agranon is, not at all the kind who would screw up an impending marriage by stealing the bride. Agranon goes along with this, it's as though he'd never met his future father-in-law, one wonders who was planning the wedding, maybe it was meant to be a surprise, and then Xena gets Marcus to take her to Myzantius, but he takes her the long way, via the hot spring under the stronghold, it gets a bit steamy, but Xena gets him back on track when she looks through a window and sees Jana being drug off to an intimate meeting with Myzantius.

Xena pushes Myzantius into talking with her right away instead of raping Jana, Marcus nodding like a poodle right behind her, she's kind of charismatic that way. Myzantius has heard of her and they cut a deal whereby he doesn't kill the princess, and instead holds her for ransom, and in return Xena's army will fight on both sides and so keep the war going on for a long time, and she and he split the profits 50/50. Myzantius thinks he's a smart guy, why he agreed to this I cannot figure out, it complicates his original plan beyond recognition, must be the way Xena smiled at him. Marcus thinks it's a great idea since it keeps Xena around, neither of them have noticed that she doesn't have an army, the Boetians and the Colonnis aren't the only ones who take everything at face value, and look where they're headed, Lesson for the kidlings: do your homework before you sign any contracts.

Outside, the princess has gotten loose long enough to steal a dagger (it is an arms manufactory, after all) and hang herself out over a second-story landing. She's threatening to jump while cutting her own throat as an alternative to spending the night with Myzantius, I can't blame her, he keeps giving consecutive lines the same reading and we all know how annoying that kind of thing can be. Xena goes up and talks her out of it, showing her Agranon's medallion, so now she's got something to live for and agrees to meet Xena that night at the hot spring under the stronghold (where the candles are being stored for this ep), just like she wasn't a prisoner and kept under guard and in durance vile and so on, guess she isn't, she seems to be able to come and go pretty freely. Must be that face value thing again, they say she's a prisoner, she says she's a prisoner, no need to go to the trouble of actually imprisoning her. Verisimilitude is for the little people, that's what I always say, and I'll bet it's what Myzantius and the Colonnis and the Boetians say, too.

Meanwhile, Gabrielle and Agranon have been picked up by a Boetian patrol. Gabrielle thinks this is great, they'll get to see the king, well, it should have worked.

That night (full moon, looks like everything's back on track) Xena knocks out the guard (you wouldn't believe the silly helm he's wearing, looks like someone glued and reglued horns and rabbit fur from Pier 1 onto half a football) outside the room where the weapons are stored and sneaks in. She's digging through a box full of arrows and bows when Marcus finds her, he thinks she's up to no good since she knocked out the guard, says if she wanted to see the weapons all she had to do was ask him, but before she can explain that she wanted to see the weapons without him trailing hot fingers lightly through her hair, Myzantius barges in and he's even more suspicious. He says, "Faith in the people who work for me is certainly in short supply," which may be true enough, but doesn't actually mean what he thinks it means.

Marcus spins him a yarn, with Xena's backing, and he goes away. Then Marcus accuses Xena of planning to steal weapons, to which plea she cops, and he agrees to cut her in on his own sideline op. There's a bit with a well that isn't a well, it's how he gets the weapons out, but it doesn't matter at all, it has nothing, not a sausage, to do with any storyline in this ep. They must have cut at least twenty minutes' worth of script, since between this and the choppiness of the Gabrielle/Agranon sequences, there's a whole lot of hanging going on.

Anyway, the well thing segues pretty quickly into a sensitive chat where Marcus explains why he wanted to get out of the plunderin' lootin' killin' business, and is probably why the well thing was left in, but being good didn't work out for him. He saw a kid get murdered by one of his own men; comparing that to his time with Xena, he says he suddenly understood why she didn't let her guys kill defenceless people. Yet another reason why I think he must follow rather than precede Borias, since we know she ate innocent babies for breakfast between Caesar and Borias. (Look, this kind of obsessing keeps me off drugs, okay? Okay, then.) Back to Marcus, being good didn't take for him, it was too hard, but he's thinking Xena's not the same murdering pillaging warlord he remembers, either. So she kisses him. He's easy to distract.

Gabrielle and Agranon are in jail in Boetia, and they're set to be executed in the morning. Gabrielle is in major denial and Agranon's in shock. This is supposed to be comic relief, but it's kind of jarring, like a ladder with missing rungs.

Xena gets free of Marcus and heads for the hot spring, where Jana awaits her. Just as they're leaving, Myzantius bangs on the door. Why is this man still up? Xena looks like she's thinking the same thing, should've drugged him, who knew he had insomnia? and she hides Jana in the pool while donning her purple robe from Dreamworker, and no, I don't know where she kept it all this time either. But I will say she's looking a little bustier in this ep than previously.

Myzantius is way chuffed to find her there without Marcus, and wants to improve their acquaintance, but Xena puts him off. He tells her that Boetia's captured Agranon and a companion, and they're set to be executed in the morning and isn't that a great start to the war effort? Jana's making puppy noises in the pool, but Xena pushes her head down and Myzantius doesn't notice.

He leaves, Jana gets out, and the scene switches to the Tracus tavern, where the suspicious ruffian from earlier accosts Marcus and tells him the gossip he'd heard from a trader, to wit: Xena's turned good, and has done all this nice stuff for folks, so Marcus beats him up for impuning her reputation and then rushes out to find and confront her and haven't we all been there?

Xena's just hidden Jana in a weapons box intended to be shipped to Boetia in the morning when Marcus catches up with her. He figures out what they're up to, but Xena tries to convince him to help her, she appeals to the good in him, it almost works, but at the last moment he draws on her and calls the guards.

Xena knocks him down and hauls Jana out of the box, stashing her up on a ledge behind some barrels, she's not as used to this as Gabrielle and wants to know her motivation. There's a big fight between Xena and the guards, she can't help but have a good time when she's whupping up on folks, Myzantius hears the commotion and runs in just as the guards go down and Marcus gets back up and on the ledge with Jana. He puts a knife to her throat and says he'll kill her if Xena doesn't surrender, but Xena says Jana's no different than the kid Marcus saw killed that so upset him, this hits home and he lets her go.

Myzantius gets all the way in the room, enraged, he wants his war, and he picks up a bow and arrow and shoots at the princess. Marcus, finally taking that first step toward living for good, gets in front of her and the arrow hits him instead, they're too far from Xena for her to catch it, and in revenge she chakrams Myzantius.

Marcus dies in her arms, as she reassures him that yes, that was it, that was doing good for its own sake.

Presumably, Myzantius' business disbands immediately and Xena makes it to Boetia with Jana in time to free Agranon and Gabrielle, since the next scene is Marcus' funeral procession and pyre and it made me cry, being all beautiful and terrible and haunting and sad. Xena says that Marcus was her friend; she repeats that twice more, so we know it's true beyond life.