Purity

It seems like an awful lot of the fifth season episodes take place in cold weather. As I think about it, three are a lot of cold weather episodes in fifth AND sixth season.

Okay..this is another episode where Xena sees a dying messenger who manages to hang on after a long trip, only to deliver the message at the last possible moment before dying. The first I saw of this was Helen’s man in GREEKS and the Chinese guy in DEBT. Now we have yet another Chinese guy who is in the area where Xena just happens to be. They have to be near or in China, since they just were in Spamona, where everybody just happens to speak Greek, like they do even in Brittania, Rome, and India. I ramble.

Anyway, Xena awakens with a start as Gabby snores. She hears somebody, and jumps up to check out the noise. It is a dying messenger! What an angle! The guy has his tongue cut out and has a piece of paper on him. The message says “the hawk and the dove must be made one with the wisdom.” This is what Lao Ma has said.

How does this guy know where Xena is, and whom to seek anyway? Xena does not know the two daughters, so who knows Xena is back in China? Xena says the wisdom is Lao Ma’s book and someone did not want them to find out about it. HUH? Xena was given the book by Ming Ti’en in DEBT…she had it and left it somewhere. Exactly WHO doesn’t want her to know? This is confusing at the least.

Unfortunately, Joxer is with the girls, and we will see him making a fool out of himself yet again. Gabby mentions The Power Xena had in Chin before…Xena says “this time I’m gonna KEEP it.”…uh, huh.

They arrive in a town where there are craters in the ground made by something that exploded. Xena doesn’t know what made them…imagine that! Something Xena does NOT know. She makes a foolish statement that the reason the town was wasted was because someone wanted THE BOOK….Gawd! How can she surmise this? It could have been just another turf war in Chin. She assumes the villagers have taken refuge in the monastery on the hill. They see rockets hitting the walls, so in defense of her baby’s life, she RUNS RIGHT INTO THE BOMBING AND FIGHTING.

Somehow, Xena is on top of a wall, and does her flip, coming into the battle. How does she know who is right in this fight? She also sees a couple rockets coming into the town, and sensibly knocks both out of action with her new Chakram.Note: She doesn’t do this later.

The Evil Sister is there (we don’t know she is evil yet) and the attack is coming down at her order, so how come she is going right into the area which is being bombed? She could get hit.

This is unbelievable: Xena catches a rocket and turns it around and sends it back to the attackers on the hill. Gawd! These things have to be moving fast to do any damage. For those who do not understand gunpowder (the black powder) , it has to be confined in a small space to build up the pressure to explode. Otherwise, it just fizzles. Look how firecrackers work…same thing. If the powder is just lying there and is lit, it flashes slowly, compared to different smokeless powders.

A Chinese woman leaps into the battle and fights her own men with karate-style moves. Now Xena thinks the woman is on her side. Why the pretense by the woman? She does not know Xena or why she is there.

After the fight, the woman is revealed as Lao Ma’s daughter,, Pau Su. That’s the closest I can come to the name. The other sister’s name is unknown to me, no matter how many times I tried to hear it. I will call her Tau. Xena announces she has heard of the black powder and Pau says its manufacture is forbidden, but the bad guys made some….obviously.

Xena picks up an exploded rocket. I must be the tech advisor here. The nose of the BAMBOO rocket is perfect…no marks on it. In fact, the rocket is merely broken in half, BUT, it has just exploded and smashed a thick stone wall. This cannot have happened.

If the book is so valuable, why does Xena leave it there after DEBT? Gabby had said they would take care of it. Pau and Xena, with Joxer, are in the library. The book does not appear to be there and Pau leaves. Xena takes a book from a table and gives it to Joxer, telling him to put it into Argo’s saddlebag and say nothing about it. Note: I thought that this was THE book…it is just A book…something to make somebody else believe she has the real thing. She doesn’t know who has the real one.

Xena wants to make the powder to fight the bad guys. She sends Joxer and Gabby to the market for ingredients, since she knows sulphur and charcoal are in the mix, but does not know the third part….potassium nitrate, which is about 75% of the mix.

Xena and Pau walk along a trail as Xena says she will never give up THIS child. Recently, she had just said she didn’t think it right to bring a child into the world. Exactly where are they going?

At the market, Joxer messes up a transaction that Gabby made, costing more money by his bumbling. Joxer mentions the people there don’t “speak Greek too good” …..sigh.

Xena and Pau are now riding the horses along a stream, following some tracks. How does Xena know whom to follow? They dismount and Xena sends both horses off. She says Argo will be back with the other one later. I guess Argo has a pretty demanding schedule.

Note: It would make sense if they saw another woman steal the book and were following the trail, but we still don’t know who Xena is after or why.

Joxer dresses as a local and tries to find out the powder recipe. He has a portion of the rocket contents and a local calls the guards, since having the stuff is against the law….not for the bad guys, tho…

Xena and Pau see a cave and go to it, finding a woman reading a book The woman is Tau ( I still can’t decipher her name) and is the other daughter of Lao Ma. Why didn’t Lao Ma ever tell Xena about her girls? They were safe and away from the area. She did mention Ming Ti’en was her son. Also, if Ming Ti’en would have killed them, how did they manage to get back in two years, and one become a war-lady with a big army? M.T died two years previously.

I didn’t see that the two women were actually the same actress until the split-screen. They did a good job of making her look different.

There is a long bickering argument about which one is going to have the book. Xena breaks up the verbal fight. She is carrying the saddlebags….why not leave them on Argo? We will see now. Xena now takes the book from Tau, who Xena knows is the sister, and puts it into the saddlebag. This is a real stretch…how does Xena know there will be another daughter with yet another book and that Xena would have to pull the old switcheroo in a cave to confuse an evil sister and get her to take the wrong book? Gawd! How does she know the thief of the book is good anyway?

Pau and Xena fight with the usual leaps and punches…plus kicks. Xena is taking a chance her child will get stomped in the womb. Pau tosses a small smoke bomb ( like Gabby’s smoke compact) and escapes with the book from the saddlebag in the smoke. Where did she hide the smoke bomb? Never mind…She later sees it is a prayer book and is ticked off. Her captain wants her to forget the book and complete the conquest. She says no.

Why was Tau in a cave alone reading the book?

At night, Xena says she replaced the real book with a fake. She says as long as they possess the real book, the army will continue to look for it and not kill the peasants. Tau says Pau is bad and Xena says that Pau will destroy herself.

Note how Xena has the gift of prophecy: she sort of knows there must be another daughter, since she is not surprised to see her, and instantly trusts her. She has suspected Pau somehow, and knows there is going to be a fight, and that in some confusing way, Pau will not grab the whole saddlebag, but will take only the book from the correct side of the saddlebag…the fake book. This scenario defies reality.

The next scene was just too much:
Joxer and Gabby are in stocks like the one Xena was wearing in DEBT. Gabby gets the bright idea of blowing the padlock off her stock. She had asked Joxer if he still had the powder bag. He says he stuffed down his pants.

Note: Since the guards arrested them for the powder, why leave it with Joxer? Didn’t they even search them for it or even for weapons?

The sarcastic Gabby reaches over, without being able to see what she is doing. She then, with her left foot, tries to reach the powder bag in Joxer’s pants. OKAY….THIS IS STUPID. She reaches out and feels her way into his pants, while The Idiot grins and asks where Gabby learned “that.” He says, “we’re in public”. HUH? They are in a jail cell, which reminds me, how do they get out of the area unseen?

Gabby asks “what’s THAT?” meaning she felt Joxers’ manhood. He grins more, enjoying Gabby’s foot. She says to remind her to cut off her foot when she gets out. She never does, tho….pity.

She grasps the pouch and flips it perfectly to her confined right hand. Uh-huh….now she opens it with her teeth and SPRINKLES the powder onto the padlock.

Note: as I said before…for black powder to work and explode, it MUST BE CONFINED to have the necessary pressure. Now Gabby manages to pick up a stone with her foot and flip it perfectly into her hand. It contains iron, I guess, because when she strikes it against the lock and creates a spark, there is an explosion (couldn’t happen) and the lock opens, releasing her. How does she release Joxer? Were the keys just hanging around? Where were the guards? . Didn’t anybody HEAR the blast? Note: If it DID explode with enough force to blow an iron lock apart, Gabby would have lost her hand and most of her face, if she survived at all.

This was technical failure at its worst. Joxer says it was the first time he ever had three feet inside his pants. Okay. I get it…the reference to the length of his manhood. Remember…”just check out my shoe size” and “I’ve got plenty.” Besides, who walks around with their feet INSIDE their pants? Wouldn’t they trip and fall?

As Xena and Tau are walking thru the woods, Xena suddenly has a flashback (not a hot-flash) and sees herself being chased in the Debt…she says she’s “been here before.” What a coincidence! We also see some scenes with Lao Ma and other filler. Lao Ma taught Xena compassion…I guess dragging Gabby behind a horse reflected the mellowed Xena.

Where are Argo and the other horse? The girls go to Lao Ma’s place and again there are flashbacks. They agree to “study” in the presence of her spirit. In the woods, Gabby and Joxer meet Pau, who tells them to come with her---Xena’s orders. Note how wherever Xena is, everybody does what she says, tho in this ep. Pau is lying.

Meanwhile, Xena and Tau study and know a lot of the same verses. Xena says Pau has “a purity of hatred”….huh?

Now this next scene is ridiculous. Let me set this up: Xena, in FRIEND, learns to hear the sounds behind the sounds, and her hearing is fantastic, as we have seen for years. She and Tau hear Pau calling them outside.

Xena looks out to see that there are Gabby and Joxer tied to poles in the ground and are both surrounded by kegs of the black powder. Pau is standing with a torch in her hand waiting to drop it on the powder line to go in opposite directions to blow up Gabby and Joxer. By the way, THERE IS ALSO AN ARMY STANDING AROUND. It seems Xena missed all of this. A knife held to Gabby’s throat, as in so many eps before, would have been better. You have to admire how considerate everyone was to set up a Rube oldberg scenario and not disturb The Warrior Princess on the other side of the door.

Pau wants the book and Tau gives it to her, only to be kicked in the face…almost like paying taxes.

Pau drops the torch and she and her army ride off. The next action should only take a few seconds. The lit powder to Gabby is stomped out by Xena, but she cannot rescue Joxer in time the same way, so knowing the powder will blow at his place, Xena throws the Chakram and cuts the ropes from his hands and he dives to the ground at the last second.

This is important: We see Pau about a half-mile away stop and look back to see a huge explosion that has a blast and fire at least 300 feet in the air, judging by the treeline and distance. She insanely cackles and rides off. There was no way she could have gotten that far in seconds.The blast should have killed everyone and leveled the building, seeing how one rocket destroyed huge stone walls earlier. Also, it should have set off the powder near Gabby, too.

Joxer is on the ground a few feet away from the blast, with just a few smudges on him. Nobody else’s hair is even messed up. They should have been blown to smithereens.

Why didn’t Xena’s Chakram cut both ropes, since we know it can do all sorts of things? Why do two things at once?

In an entirely predictable scene, Gabby and Joxer try to make the powder, but can’t find the missing ingredient. Xena waltzes in and picks up the exact bottle of what they need right off. She tells Joxer to try it, and of course, it blows up in his face, making him look worse than when about a ton of powder didn’t do much to him at all….sigh.

Xena arrives in some Chinese duds, looking pretty spiffy. She convinces Tau to be strong and she will combine her knowledge with hers….they don’t need the book after all. Xena learns that SHE is the hawk, not Pau.

Pau reads from the magic book and can concentrate on breaking rocks with her mind. Xena and Tau pose and chant. They both had a vision….Lao ma sent them away for safekeeping from their evil brother, Ming Ti’en, who must have been about 10 at the time….huh?

Xena’s solution: dilute the purity of hate from Pau. The captain still tries to get Pau to let him finish conquering the area. She grabs his hand and it burns. She can break rocks, so he bows to her.

Joxer and Gabby make more powder. They need a fuse. First of all, where did they even know the terminology of explosives? Even Xena only “heard” of it. Gabby, in a Martha Stewart mode, grabs a LEAF and sticks in into the rocket…THERE!

Note: This is dumb. It will not burn as a fuse. She should have rolled some powder in paper as a cylinder, and THAT would have burned, sparks and all. We see later that the rockets they made DO burn as a real fuse…not as a leaf would.

Xena and Tau sit back-to-back as Gabby runs up and says they set off explosions to draw away the entire army. Now they can concentrate on attacking Pau. How does Xena know Pau won’t go with the army?

Xena and Tau go to the deserted army tent city to find Pau. Pau shows up in a weird Chinese getup and starts throwing fireballs, a bit different from the ones the Greek gods toss. She throws a lot of them as the action continues on the hills. Xena and Tau catch them, and the fire dies out. Pau says she does not need an army or family at all.

Meanwhile, in a really lame scene, we see Gabby and Joxer bringing rockets to the hill. The point: They are going to blow up all the black powder in the tent city with rockets. Neither has any experience with these things, but think they can aim and shoot them with accuracy EVEN THO XENA AND TAU ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL.

They are attacked by a group of soldiers, and as Gabby fights them all off, Joxer tries to set up the rockets and start shooting. He of course trips, and then drops the rockets into the fire. The missiles go everywhere and scatter the guards for a bit. Gabby fights…why don’t the guards go around her and some fight her while the rest stop Joxer?

NOTE: they want to stop Joxer from shooting into the tent city, so the captain says to start a rocket attack against Xena, who is near Pau IN THE TENT CITY! His men JUST HAPPEN to have a lot of missiles aimed at their own town and start shooting….Gawd! How were they supposed to hit only Xena and not their own leader or black powder? This reminds me of when Xena orders Greek Fire attacks during a fight with her own people next to the enemy. Unbelievable!

Xena tries to explain to Pau about Lao Ma, but nothing changes her mind. She throws two more fireballs at Xena and Tau, they catch and toss them back, and Pau is knocked down. Note: since these things emanate from her, why is SHE unable to catch them? She looks up to see two rockets coming at her, screams, and dies in the explosion. Note: We saw Xena knock down two rockets earlier, and why can’t Pau toss two fireballs and knock these down? She had time, but just sits there.

The WHOLE CAMP blows up…some bright idea from the captain…Gabby and Joxer, now left inexplicably alone by the guards, watch Xena and Tau walk thru the flames unhurt…not even scorched a bit. HOW????

Tau calls Xena her sister and they all walk away.

Note: what was the point of this whole episode? There was too much philosophy and special effects, which marks how the rest of the series is going to be.

We know this: one sister is dead.

Xena did not know who sent the messenger. She didn’t know who didn’t want her to know about the hawk and dove thing. She left this powerful book there for anyone to grab. She knows later that the book is useless to her, since the power is in herself. Gabby and Joxer’s main goal was to blow up the powder, even tho Xena was right in the middle of it. Why not just light a torch and throw it into the tents and blow it up? The army was GONE. Who does Xena think took the book? She had no idea of the two sisters, and Lao Ma never even hinted at this. If she had seen the woman run off with the book at the “library” and followed THOSE tracks, it would have made more sense.

Why does Xena carry the saddlebags with the fake book into an area where she doesn’t know whom she is after, and even so, does this person have the book? Why doesn’t Pau ask why Xena carries the bag? What’s with Gabby and Joxer being in the stocks and getting out without being seen? Why isn’t Gabby dead since an EXPLOSION went off in her face? She doesn’t even have a smudge on her face, but Joxer does in the kitchen when the small blast gets him.The army still is there and controls all they have conquered. They can make more black powder.

Mainly this: WHY WAS THIS EPISODE WRITTEN AND WHY DID WE SIT THRU IT AND ACCEPT THIS DRIVEL AS SOMETHING WORTHWHILE?

The next episode, Back in the Bottle, is next. It is so bad that it would have to improve a lot to be merely hideous. Sorry to sugar-coat it for you.

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