Vanishing Act

One of the sillier episodes, but I get a kick out of most of it.

Gabrielle is hysterical when she is "urged" to join in with the dancing. "Backatcha! Everybody, yeah! I'm gonna need my arm back."

I DO NOT like watching the mayor scratch himself.

Was Xena out of town as a convenient plot contrivance? It might not look good if the Warrior Princess was staying in a town which suffered from the biggest theft ever.

Xena has good distractive qualities, but Autolycus is overblown with his old lady disguise.

Why was Xena talking so loud when she knew it was Autolycus?

Her sarcasm is great, "What's that, Genius?"

"Thanks, but no thanks!"

Autolycus tells Xena "It takes a thief to catch a thief", and for some reason, the makes Xena stop.

She is actually listening to Autolycus.

This dialogue is among my favorite:
Xena: Why would I wanna do that?
Autolycus: Oh, I get it. What have I done for you lately?
Xena: Yeah!
Autolycus: yeah, nothing besides letting you live inside my body while I risked my life for you to steal back your shapely corpse, all the while having to endure Gabrielle's whining and crying 24 hours a day about how much she misses Xena.
Xena: Are you quite finished?
Autolycus: That depends…Did it work?
Xena (grudgingly): It worked.
Autolycus: Then I'm finished!

Xena's fun to watch during this exchange. She narrows her eyes, but you can tell he's getting to her.

Autolycus: Xena…one more thing?
Xena (exasperated): Wha-at? Me (delighted): Hee hee.

Autolycus is trying real hard to get a smile, but Xena just bares her teeth.

Still, he's happy…"That's my Xena!"

I adore this banter!

While waiting for Autolycus who is deep sea diving, check out Xena's unladylike stance.

Only Autolycus can get by with lines like "Exactly, my dear", in regards to Xena.

How would that metal helmet work? It's full of holes!

Autolycus gets the best sound effects!

That wharf master is pretty funny! "Look, Blinky."

Why is there a cat up Autolycus's sleeve?

Xena and Gabrielle just stand back and laugh at Autolycus's dealings with the wharf master.

Good centurion/bad centurion. Sort of like Good Cop/Bad Cop.

"Undo that pinch!" Xena looks like she's pouting.

Gabs is calmly counting down the pinch.

Tarsus is what's-his-face from Dirty Half Dozen.

Where did they dig up Gabs' duds? She looks like a nurse.

Gabs introduction is…"Myopia, the fence. I…fence."

She doesn't want the statue melted down "Because it get…gooey. I do not pay for goo."

Ezra with a mole was certainly a surprise to me.

Lucy sounds a lot like Fran Dreischer.

She gets in a little dig at Gabs, "They say you used to be good-looking."

The mole IS very distracting.

She gets in another dig at Gabs, "Well, that would be because you're a rank amateur."

Love the name she comes up for her assistant…"Bentley"!

Bentley talks like Ronald Reagan!

I like Xena's little laugh after she comes up with "Bentley".

Hey, where did Ezra get a chakram? Hee hee.

Why does Ezra sniff her finger? Uh…no…ain't going there!

What's up with Tarsus having a fake hallway?

Myopia is much calmer than Ezra during the bidding.

Xena really wanted to win.

She was dripping in sweat.

Ezra always looked like she was smelling onions.

My, but aren't Xena and Gabs very competitive?

They both had the same pouty look during the bidding.

Love Xena's throaty "Ah, Thebes…I've been there."

Autolycus just responds with a "Pay attention."

To which Xena gives that great chuckle.

It's terrific the way Xena gets that door unlocked with a Callisto kind of "oops".

Where did all the people at the party come from?

How and why would Myopia know where Ezra was?

Love Ezra's, "Really? Was he good lookin?"

And then, "So tell me more about this naughty general."

Are we supposed to believe that chick has a thing for humps? Come on!

Ezra kills me…"I kid you not…it was this big." That's an interesting conversation she's having with Tarsus.

Autolycus gives Xena a nix gesture on using the chakram, so she goes into her Emmy performance instead.

Including the immortal line to Autolycus, "I'll always love you!"

Even Autolycus reacts to that one!

Lucy is hysterically over the top in her big Emmy performance.

I absolutely hate the sounds she makes when her mouth is gagged though.

Xena is a quick dresser! And this was before she met Cyane!

She WOULD forget to remove the mole.

Hee hee…Gabs can't get the mole off her finger!

Gabrielle: 200 locks?
Xena: Yes, it's going to take him at least an hour to get out of that lock.

First of all, that's a very funny statement, considering Xena's talking about the King of Thieves. But wasn't that a flub on Lucy's part? Shouldn't she have said something like "It's going to take him at least an hour to get out of them?"

Xena had to bust a few heads. "Just couldn't begin to think how to do that his way."

I love these kinds of references, "The plan will go to Tartarus in a reed basket if he's not here."

Xena's breastplate looks like a ram's head. Just thought I'd point that out.

Great shot of Xena perched on the windowsill!

"All right, Xena. This is what you've been waiting for. since we started. Some good old-fashioned kick-butt 'that's my warrior princess action'."

But he doesn't get his wish.
Xena: Retreat…
Autolycus: What?
Xena: Retreat!!

Xena wraps his arm around her neck, and does a flip out of the room. Watch the carpet give beneath their feet, betraying the fact there's a hidden mat.

Why doesn't Xena do that "flip/rescue" thing more?

Parts of the fight are in slo mo, which bug me.

"Come on, come play with me, huh?" Xena just loves a good fight!

Xena, Gabrielle, and Autolycus make a good fighting combination.

It only took one punch to take down Tarsus. What a weenie!

I had a little trouble figuring out the ruse with the false wall at the end the first time I saw this one. Maybe I'm slow, but it seems like it should have been shown from a better angle.

Love Xena's playfulness at the end. Autolycus says, "Xena?" and Xena answers back, "Autolycus, Baby?" in her Ezra voice.

Autolycus tells Xena she isn't an easy person to thank. That's for sure!

But Xena says she doesn't need any thanks.

Xena let him kiss her this time….last time, she just wanted to shake hands.

Xena is the second best thief Autolycus has ever met, and she has free reign over his body, so to speak.

Xena just holds up a finger (not THAT finger). "Thanks."

Gabs was expecting a kiss too.

She just got a hand pat with a "You'll miss me."

Gabrielle is amused by the kiss Autolycus gives Xena.

And Xena grins at the hand pat.

Xena's "Ta ta", always catches me off guard. It's so out of character.

She's REALLY in a good mood. "Second best? He's got some noive," she tells Gabs before she chuckles.

And thus ends a good-natured comedy where we learn more about Autolycus's past.


And here’s what Gary had to say:


Here we have another episode with Autolycus joining Gabby and Xena. The opening is well-photographed, with the girls splitting up so that they can meet where the staute of Pax is. When Gabby goes thru some steep cliffs, it looks as if the frame was tilted to give the impression that it was steeper than it was.

The village has the statue of Pax, which is made of gold, and has been there for twenty years. Gabby arrives at a festival, and the mayor and the people are celebrating the peace. The next morning, the statue is missing, and the mayor thinks that trouble will arise if it is not found. It is sort of like the Urn of Apollo to the people.

Xena arrives, and sees an old "woman" who looks out of place. It is Autolycus, freshly back from his stint in TSUNAMI. Xena pulls him backwards down the steps, and he hits his face on the gangplank as he did when he and Xena first met when he had the rock-candy "diamond."

Auto knows that he did not steal Pax, but as the King of Thieves, he wishes he did, to keep up his reputation. He dressed as a woman to avoid capture, thinking people would naturally suspect him. He wants to steal it back, and wants Xena and Gabby to help. He reminds Xena that she owes him since the episode QUEST. She and Gabby agree to help, but to follow HIS plan, which again involves disguises.

His plan involves finesse, not brawn. Xena has a hard time thinking in those terms. Auot uses a "diving helmet" full of holes( what good is it then?) and flippers to look underwater to see that the statue was dragged by a ship...there were marks on the sea-floor.

There was a nice scene where Xena and Gabby sit on the dock waiting for him...nice scenery. Xena says Auto became a thief to right a terrible wrong. His brother's murderer was robbed by Auto as revenge.

In disguise as an Arab, Auto tries to bribe the wharfmaster, and when he gets nowhere, Xena puts the Pinch on the guy to make him talk. Gabby counts the seconds as the Pinch goes on. The guy says Pax was taken by a guy named Tarsus who has an island castle. They all agree to go there. There were a lot of aerial views of the ship, which were nice.

They arrive singly. Gabby poses as a "fence", a dealer in stolen goods. Tarsus realizes that a lot of people now know he did it, and wants to melt the statue into gold bars. Gabby says she doesn't pay for "gooey" gold. Her name is Myopia.

What do they use for currency to pay for gold? Isn't the dinar made of gold?

Enter Xena: she is Ezra, another fence, and she enters with a flourish, with acres of cleavage showing, plus an ugly wart Auto made her wear. Gabby tries to pull it off, but Xena stops her. Tarsus now has two bidders for the gold as he heats up the furnace to melt Pax.

Outside, we see Auto posing as a one-eyed hunchback named Bentley, and he talks like Ronald Reagan. He, at Xena's command, knocks over some torches as a diversion while the Chakram disables the furnace, saving the statue for a while.

Gabby delivers her patented "what?" line again. Plus, her earrings are really neat.

Auto goes inside and notices an optical illusion of a series of arches on a flat wall. This gives him an idea of how to steal back Pax. Outside, the girls try to outbid each other. It was planned this way, but they take it seriously, and Xena wins by offering the Ring of Apollo...again, the memory of the Urn of Apollo.

At the party, Tarsus' girlfriend wants to touch Auto's hump...she does so and tells Tarsus about it. He now knows about the impostor, and correctly figures out it is Auto, since a theft is involved. He orders Xena taken prisoner, too, since she fakes blaming Auto for corrupting her. Auto is chained in a cell with 200 locks and twenty feet of chain. He has his lockpick...you'd think Tarsus would have him searched first. Also, Auto is told he will be executed for his crimes...did he murder anyone?

Xena is tied to a chair and gagged. Tarsus will sell her as a slave where she willl be beaten to death soon afterwards. She makes the worst whining noises as a cover. She is left alone, as Auto is. What IS it with these warlords leaving people alone so they can escape? He had plenty of guards.

After he leaves Xena, I timed the next sequence, knowing what was coming. In 22 seconds, Xena is able to get out of her bonds, remove the gag, change completely into her Warrior Princess outfit(wherever that was kept) and kick open the door, knocking out the guard. HOW? Also, how does she know there is one guard and where he is standing?

Xena arrives to tell Gabby the score, and Gabby yanks off the wart Xena has. I would have, too. Xena and Gabby drag the guard out of sight in a very polite way, saying "excuse me" and holding doors for each other. They go to Auto's cell...why wasn't Xena put there, too? They see he has escaped. They were going to let him escape on his own while they stole back the statue, but he was faster than they thought. NOTE: The chair in the cell is the one from Return of Callisto....Auto was NOT chained to it. He was standing in the cell.

Gabby announces she needs paintbrushes. Why not take the ones from the painter that had been around earlier? In an improbable scene, Xena is above a walkway, and two guards, the only two with paintbrushes as decorations on their turbans, stop for no reason at all, right under Xena. She jumps down and nails them both, grabbing the brushes, saying to herself that there was no way she could have done that following Auto's plan.

Gabby says before they paint, that if Auto messes up, the plan will go to Tartaras in a reed basket.

Xena guesses where Auto went...to kill Tarsus. Auto has him at swordpoint, and is immune to the bribe to let Tarsus go. Xena, again on a window ledge as in When in Rome, jumps down and convinces Auto not to kill...his brother would not have liked it.

Tarsus rings for the guards and the fight begins, going outside. There is a lot of action, and as usual, Auto, Xena, and Gabby fight well, winning.

A general arrives to bid for the gold, and Tarsus cannot find Pax. It appears to have disappeared into thin air. The general tells Tarsus he'd better not waste his time again or he will die.

Tarsus makes one last charge at Auto, and Xena comes out of hiding to stomp him.

The statue was out of sight and a false wall was painted in camouflage fashion. Auto is proud of his trick.

With Pax restored to the village, Auto takes his leave of the girls. He kisses Xena on the cheek, and Gabby, expecting the same, leans in. Auto merely pats her hand, saying "you'll miss me."

Notes: wouldn't a gold statue in an unprotected area be a target for twenty years?

How does Xena get Tarsus from his castle with so many guards around? He is led away when Auto says goodbye to the girls.


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