Eternal Bonds

Here are Gary’s thoughts:

 

This episode could have been called, “Okay…here we go again…another baby

hanging from a rope----TWICE.”

 

Anyway, there is a big storm in which Gabby, Xena, and Eve are riding. There

is a tornado and a lot of thunderbolts trying to hit them as they ride in

the darkness. Eve sure has grown in the last week! Gabby says the gods are

throwing everything they have against them. Well, if that’s the best they

can do, we can all go home now, right?

 

A hooded figure points to a cave into which the trio enters with the horses.

Xena mentions grandchildren to Eve, and Joxer suddenly appears from the back

of the cave…what a coincidence! HOW does he happen to be in the right place

at the right time? He says he was looking for them ever since he heard of

Eve’s birth, which has to have been a while since the kid looks at least

seven months old.

 

Xena still looks a bit heavy. She notices there are three more people in the

cave. Joxer tells them to come out and not to be afraid. He calls them the

Magi…what another coincidence! Just like the Christ child, the “Magi” have

gifts for the kid. Joxer says they followed “a light.”

Sheesh!

 

Note: How in Tartarus does everyone happen to know where this cave is? Also,

why the pretense of worship to this kid? It was never claimed to be a

goddess.

Xena is offered laurel oil, and knows it is sacred to Artemis, so she

instantly thinks something is wrong…maybe it is because the three Magi

attack. Joxer does his best and gets cut while Xena and Gabby kill the other

two.

Dumb: Xena holds the kid as she fights…why not have Gabby hold her in a

corner while Xena kills the three…it should be easy for her.

 

Xena wants to find out who sent them. Why? She has to know ultimately that

it has to be the gods. Now Ares appears. Xena said she smelled a rat.

The gist: there are three temple armies after Eve…the ones of Artemis,

Apollo, and Poseidon.

Why does the laurel oil seem to sizzle?

 

Gabby tells Joxer that he led three killers straight to Eve. Well, maybe,

but HOW does everyone happen to come to the same remote cave at the same

time?

Xena knows Joxer’s wound has poison in it if it came from Apollo’s temple.

He needs the antidote, which is the resin from a mandrake tree Xena just

happens to know about in the area. She makes a poultice to delay the

poison’s movement.

 

Gabby asks “what good is a priest without a god?”

 

Xena wants Gabby to take Joxer to the tree but Gabby doesn’t want to leave

her and Eve. Xena shames her into it.

 

At the temple, the woman leader kills a guy who was on an altar. This woman

is the same one who was Ravenica in TAKES ONE. I noticed her prodigious

mammaries…I never forget a face, heh-heh.

She cuts out the guy’s heart…it is full of maggots. To save the gods, she

says, they must kill Eve and Xena.

 

Xena wants to check things out and will meet Gabby and Joxer at the tree,

which is an overnight trip, as we will see. This poison is fast, so this is

a flaw in the story. Even the poultice can’t slow it that much, as we see.

Besides, we see Gabby and Joxer riding slowly…he isn’t that bad off yet, so

why not hurry when they have the chance?

Gabby, who has been with Xena over four years and is a farm girl, has no

idea which way is North.

 

Xena is singing in the woods, breastfeeding Eve in a nice scene. There are

some bad guys sneaking up on them, and Xena says she will keep Eve’s supper

warm for her.

The next scene is too ridiculous : Xena uses the Chakram to get one guy,

tosses a dirty diaper into another’s face, then throws some nails (diaper

pins?) and kills two more.

She also uses a cloth to knock down more guys…impossible! This is as bad as

Gabby using a piece of rope in PROBLEMS.

She does all this while holding Eve in one arm. Gawd!

 

Ares shows up later still trying to make Xena like him. He wants a child

with her. She says he is Ares: that means he always lies.

 

Joxer’s wound is worse. Now they are lost. Gabby will stay with him when

Joxer says for her to go back and help Xena.

Gabby says “I can be a real bitch sometimes, huh? Can’t I?”

Well, SURE, Gabby…what’s new?

 

This scene threw me. Xena kisses Eve goodnight and turns to see Ares there.

She punches him a few times and reminds him of what he did to her in the

past. Ares asks for forgiveness and they kiss. A guy attacks, and Xena hits

him with the Chakram as Ares hits him with a fireball. Meanwhile, Xena cut a

rope and Eve goes up in the air and hangs from a branch.

Xena wakes up---it was all a dream. She is a bit flustered from kissing Ares

in her dream.

 

Morning: Gabby and Joxer camped out all night. For a bad poison, they are

taking their sweet time. The two are stopped by a bunch of Amazons from the

Artemis temple. The leader says to kill them because they are on land sacred

to Artemis. These Amazons have crossbows, unlike the other ones using

regular bows.

 

Note: Velasca was ticked off in A NECESSARY EVIL because Artemis abandoned

the Amazons, so why are these ladies so faithful to the goddess?

 

Gabby says they are on their way to Artemis’ temple to worship her and says

not to kill them. HUH? The Amazons lead them to the right trail. WHY? Joxer

and Gabby both said they knew Xena was in the area…why let them go since

they had information? They also

Said they were attacked by Xena…if so, how could anyone live who was

attacked by the Warrior Princess?

 

Xena cuts some branches thru the woods. She is laying a false trail so the

temple armies will be misled.

She has four flashbacks of herself making out with Ares, and she gets red

and flustered.

She says it is crazy as she sees herself having sex with him in her mind’s

eye. She looked as if she were ready for it.

 

Joxer says Gabby is really beautiful and misses her long hair. FINALLY!

Something that made sense in this episode. I am STILL having withdrawal

pains from when she chopped her hair. Gabby denies she is an angel or a

warrior. Okay. Explain FALLEN ANGEL and all the episodes where she IS a

warrior, as in A GOOD DAY.

 

The temple army follows the false trail and misses seeing Xena and Eve

standing right near them. These guys are poor trackers.

 

Gabby, showing a lot of cleavage, is at the waterhole filling the canteens…I

was going to say “jugs” but a friend of mine would pick up on that at once.

She sees an army, and crouches on the ground next to the trail WITHIN PLAIN

SIGHT OF AN ENTIRE ARMY and NOBODY notices. She isn’t even concealed. Gawd!

 

Xena makes it to the mandrake tree ahead of Gabby and Joxer. She climbs up

the tree with Eve on her back and Ares appears next to her. He tries again

and wants himself and Xena to be together. He will save everyone if Xena

says yes…she says “no.”

 

The leader of the temple army following the false trail knows someone got

wounded and knows Xena is at the mandrake tree.

 

Xena sees the three temple armies approaching. There has to be around 200 of

them.

Gabby finds Joxer hiding in a hollow log and he cannot move anymore. Gabby

says she can love Joxer only as a friend.

 

Xena tells Eve she is looking for a sign from Gabby. Eve notices a big

scroll flying like a kite…then Xena sees it. Usually, you’d expect Xena to

see it first.

Uh…wouldn’t THREE ARMIES notice it, too?

 

In a sad scene, Gabby holds Joxer and says there can never be an “us”. Joxer

says Gabby made him feel special (I remember all the times she slugged him)

and Gabby says she has come to rely on him. He is a “very good friend.” Oh,

boy…the Kiss of Death in a boyfriend-girlfriend scenario.

She wishes she did love him, but can’t.

 

Xena runs to the clearing where Gabby and Joxer are. The three armies attack

at once.

NOTE: Joxer is out of it, and Xena is holding a baby, and Gabby has her

sais…they are surrounded by about 200 warriors, and what happens?

The following:

Instead of going right to Xena in a group and killing Eve and Xena at once,

even using arrows, they sort of mill around and wait their turns at bat.

Some attack while others wander around aimlessly. Xena uses spears and

Chakram and sword, ALL THE WHILE HOLDING EVE IN ONE ARM!  Again….Gawd!

 

Are these warriors nuts?  There are arrows in the ground, which means

someone tried to hit Xena, but the angle is almost vertical. There are more

coming at Xena when Ares freezes the scene. He gives Xena one more

chance…this is getting boring.

“Give me a child.”

“You’re my worst nightmare.”

 

Ares starts the action again. This is insane: with an army right beside her

trying to kill her, Xena has time to take out a rope, throw it over a high

limb, tie Eve to it, and hoist it up and fight later STILL with one hand as

she holds the rope. Where did this rope come from she just happened to have?

Now the kid goes up and down on the rope as we have seen in many others

episodes.

It was nice of the armies to wait around for Xena to take a few minutes off

for the baby.

 

Doesn’t anyone even notice the kid in the air? It is their main target.

Now the three leaders attack at once. The woman takes a bow from her fellow

Amazon and nocks an arrow. The two other leaders charge Xena on horseback.

 

Xena STILL has her back to the armies…the woman shoots the arrow and the

impossible happens. Xena throws the Chakram at her, kills her, and on the

way, the Chakram splits the arrow down the middle and each half goes and

kills the other two leaders.

Come ON!!!! For the gods’ sake!!!

 

Now all the rest of the “warriors “ run away.

 

Xena makes Joxer eat some of the resin and he instantly is almost better. In

seconds, the line of red poison is almost gone.

Sorry….GAWD!

 

At the end, they all walk, and Joxer says he will always really love Gabby

even if she can’t love him the same way.

Xena gets philosophical. She asks if it is right to expose a child to

violence. Gabby says they should fight until they find a more effective way.

By the way, what about the “cycle of violence” we have heard so much about?

 

Xena: ”It doesn’t matter where we take a stand, as long as we make one.”

 

NOTE: the attack was so feeble and meaningless I had to cringe. We saw a lot

of people apparently lost as Tartarus, just running in circles and not going

en mass towards Xena. She and Gabby never even get a wound.

 

Ares appeared to be there because Kevin Smith just happened to be on the set

with nothing much to do.

The poison’s speed was emphasized at first, and we saw that the poultice

wasn’t working very well, so Joxer and Gabby take their time to get to the

tree.

Why does Xena HAVE to find out who sent the Magi? So what?

How does the resin work so fast? It looked so foolish to see Joxer recover

in seconds. It would have been better if Ares just healed him as a bribe for

Xena.