XWP: The Deliverer
I'm so tired. Job fairs take a lot out of you, particularly when there are no real job prospects. But I really want to write this review for The Deliverer because I watched it, like, days ago, and I'm afraid I'm going to forget what was in it if I don't go for it now. I also kind of want to power through the next set of episodes because, while mostly very good, Xena's about to get super dark which is entertaining but not fun.
1) The Deliverer begins with an interesting scene between Ares and Discord talking about some kind of cult. They're vague enough that the audience doesn't have much of an idea of what they're really talking about, but it's got Discord kind of wiggy and, while Ares isn't freaking out about it or anything, he assures Discord (in a rather erotic way . . . though I've just always assumed that all the Olympians were related to each other) that he's on the case: There's this temple, see, and it is the worshipping house of the "one god". The temple needs to be destroyed, but it has to be done by a mortal.
So yeah. Vagueness. Who is this one god? Xena and Gabrielle met the Israelities in a previous episode, way back in the first season (Altared States) so it is their god? What's the deal with this temple? What exactly will happen when it is destroyed? And who is this mortal Ares has tapped to destroy it for him?
2) While Ares and Discord are doing whatever it is they do, Gabrielle and Xena are walking, not unusually, through a field, when they come across some Roman soldiers escorting some prisoners. They're pretty unconcerned until one of the prisoners mentions that he and his people will never bend to the will of Caesar and that catches Xena's ear because, you know, Caesar was the big catalyst to her transformation into Evil!Xena and, though Xena is now good, she holds a ridiculous grudge against the guy.
So, without even stopping to question who these prisoners are and exactly why they were arrested (except that they are somehow against Caesar), she runs off the Romans and frees them.
The main prisoner, Khrafstar, has a debonair English accent, wears a kilt, has super frizzy hair, and tells Xena that he was captured in Gaul trying to recruit soldiers to an army in Brittania, for a woman named Boudicea.
Xena is blinded by her hatred for Caesar and so basically commits herself and Gabrielle to this ridiculously long journey to Brittania (remember, they live in Greece. Even by boat, that is not a short journey), even though she has no idea who this Khrafstar really is.
Good thinking, Xena. Really good.
3) Khrafstar gets to talking to Gabrielle because he's a man and every man on the show is in love with Gabrielle (except for maybe Ares) and he reveals to her that he is a priest at the temple of the one god.
Hm. What was that? One god, you say? Weren't Ares and Discord fretting about a one god in the episode teaser?
4) Speaking of Ares and the one god, he shows up to manipulate Xena into doing destroying the very temple at which Khrafstar is a priest. He lets Xena know that Caesar currently holds the temple and, if Caesar wants the temple, there's probably a good reason for Xena to just go ahead and destroy it.
She doesn't disagree.
5) On the boat, Khrafstar and Gabrielle grow closer. Gabrielle's young and has a tendency to fall for any dude who looks at her sideways, but this one is particularly painful for me to watch because, seriously . . . Khrafstar's hair is out of this world ugly. So not a good look for him. At all. The kilt I can work with. But that hair? Painful.
6) After tearing herself away from her new love interest, Gabrielle goes and talks to Xena about Xena's troubles. Because not only are they going to Brittania to take on Caesar, Xena's arch nemesis (and being the ultimate nemesis of Xena is probably really saying something), they're going to Brittania to fight on the side of Boudicea, a feisty lady warrior Xena had betrayed many years earlier.
Xena is incredibly good at manipulation (coincidentally, so are Caesar and Ares), and in a bid for power, she befriended Boudicea, earned her trust, and then stole her army before ordering Boudicea's death.
So . . . bad blood all around! The things Xena gets herself into. But, for her, the chance to ruffle Caesar's feathers is worth the risk of incurring Boudicea's wrather.
7) When they finally land at Brittania, there's a skirmish that Xena and Boudicea (who Xena had contacted earlier and knew they were coming) battle off, but Gabrielle and Khrafstar are captured by Roman soldiers and taken to Caesar.
Xena goes for hours without realizing that Gabrielle is not at the camp. Yes, Boudicea had lied to her about it but let me ask this question: When Xena and Gabrielle are in the same facility, how often do they go hours without seeing each other? Xena never bothered to check that Boudicea was telling the truth about Gabrielle?
8) The problem that Xena has, according to Boudicea, is that "your [Xena] hatred of him hasn't allowed you to be elsewhere." Xena is in Brittania to get Caesar. She is not in Brittania to help Boudicea and her people (the Celts?). And that's a huge difference even though the two are tied together.
It's like when I root for Andy Roddick to lose but not for his opponent to win. The real goal is then somehow turned negative because losing isn't really good. So, similarly, Xena's reasons for being in Brittania may help Boudicea, but her they does not make her reasons pure.
9) Coupled with this, Caesar says that Xena's fatal flaw is her emotions. She feels and she cares and one can exploit that. How was he able to do that to her originally? By making her fall in love with him and then taking her for everything she had. How is doing it this time? By capturing Gabrielle, her constant companion and saucy life partner.
But what Caesar probably doesn't count on enough is that . . . Xena's hatred for him may actually outshine any other emotion she feels. She's so intent on him that she doesn't realize Gabrielle is missing. And doesn't actually go after her right away, either. Because her emotions towards Caesar are too strong and because that hatred for him doesn't allow her to focus on much else.
10) And on another shallow note, I hate Boudicea's hair, too. Why do the Brits (Celts?) have such crazy hair? Xena and Gabrielle live down in humid Greece but their hair is always shiny and beautiful (just wait until we get to the fourth season when I can wax on Gabrielle's early season hair) but Boudicea and Khrafstar live on a cool island. Yeah, it rains there a lot but still. Condition, people!
11) Caesar decides to have Gabrielle and Khrafstar crucified and orders Gabrielle's legs broken as a special shout out to his beloved Xena.
I kind of love that Caesar seems to hate Xena as much as Xena hates him. I wonder what Caesar made of Xena's warlord days? Xena did some pretty hardcore stuff for, like, a decade, and word of her evil affairs had to have gotten around. I'd love to know what he thought about that.
But, anyway, before Gabrielle's legs are broken (and, by the way, this is the second crucifixion on the show . . . and certainly not the last), Xena pops up from underground, totally like a vampire or zombie, and intervenes just at the nick of time. With her are some Brits looking to piss Caesar off. And they totally do.
By my calculations, this is the first time Xena has actually seen Caesar since Destiny. I'm pretty sure it's the only time we, the audience, have seen him since then, too.
12) Xena basically switches into a new gear and becomes determined to take the temple Ares was telling her about back in Greece.
They take it with little difficulty, though Xena neglects to destroy it.
13) Gabrielle goes with Khrafstar and other members of his religion to the temple and joins them in their ritual ceremony.
Gods, if I had a dollar for every single time Gabrielle just kind of went along with a new ideology without really knowing what the hell she was doing, I'd be so rich. It doesn't matter that she's been traveling for two years with Xena and should be way more savvy about people and about religious rituals in particular (the last time she went along with something, didn't the Titans escape and go on a rampage?). She's so naive in her trust that I think it's embarrassing for the character this late in the game.
14) While Gabrielle is making out with peace and love in the temple, Ares appears to Xena and tells her that she has to destroy that temple. The god of that temple, he says, is evil. She may have her issues with the Olympian gods, but she knows them and she knows, allegedly, that they may be tricky assholes at times, but they aren't really evil. Not even Ares.
Xena can't really trust Ares, though. Because he's Ares. He lives to manipulate her. Typically, when he wants her to do something, it's good for him and really bad for her.
15) It's a bad mistake on Xena's part because something evil is definitely afoot at that temple and Gabrielle, unfortunately, is in the middle of it.
For the god, Dahak, to arrive on Earth, innocent blood must be taken. A woman, Meridian, calls for Khrafstar to be put on the altar. Khrafstar, insisting that this is not in keeping with the will of their god, calls for Gabrielle's help. As Meridian goes to sacrifice Khrafstar on the altar, Gabrielle manages to stop her, but when Meridian goes in again to kill him, Gabrielle gets hold of a dagger and, in self defense, stabs Meridian in the stomach. Killing her.
That was exactly what Khrafstar and the others had been hoping for. Dahak demanded innocent blood, but wanted blood innocence, meaning he wanted the pure (Gabrielle) to kill.
So, goodbye to Gabrielle's blood innocent. Hello to Dahak.
16) Xena and Boudicea are all set to fight Caesar in some kind of epic battle, but Xena notices the sky above the temple is pretty dark and foreboding looking and realizes that that's exactly where Gabrielle is. In an abrupt turn around from her earlier behavior towards Gabrielle, Xena abandons her fight against Caesar to investigate the temple.
What she finds there is so not good. There's a dead body on the altar and Gabrielle's on the floor sobbing, her hands covered in blood.
When Gabrielle tells Xena what happened, Xena has a really hard time computing. Wait, so, who killed Meridian? You did? On accident right?
This blood innocence thing is interesting. Gabrielle did kill Meridian, yes. She took a life. But Meridian and the others were in on the elaborate manipulation, playing around with events to create a specific outcome. And it's not like Gabrielle took the blade and stabbed Meridian while she was standing there, defenseless. In trying to protect herself and in trying to protect Khrafstar, she acted completely on impulse. It wasn't on accident like Xena asks, but it wasn't deliberate, either. It wasn't even really conscious. It was instinct.
It's kind like a big trick, in a way.
17) But, as far as Dahak is concerned, it still counts. Khrafstar comes in, all creepy (because you had to have known he was evil by that crazy hair of his) and thanks Xena for all that has happened. After all, if Xena had not been completely obsessed with taking down Caesar, she never would have freed him, they never would have traveled to Brittania, and Gabrielle never would have killed Meridian, which made the coming of Dahak possible so that he could bring the "cleansing fire of war to the world."
Yeah, thanks Xena! Sounds great! The cleansing fire of war is my favorite kind of fire.
18) But it doesn't stop there. Khrafstar turns into some kind of weirdo demon and Gabrielle is captured by a scary whip of fire straight out of Lord Of The Rings, and is dragged to the altar. She's prone, elevated, and probably extremely uncomfortable, but Xena manages to fight Khrafstar, taunts him, and puts him into the fire, which breaks the fire whip and releases Gabrielle.
The temple falls down around them (and thus explains the origins of Stonehenge), but all is not right in Xenaland.
Xena embraces Gabrielle as the temple collapses around them. Gabrielle tells her, "It hurts inside. Everything's changed." And have truer words ever been spoken?
There's a lot I want to say, but this episode leads into Gabrielle's Hope, which leads into The Debt I and II which will take us into Maternal Instincts, and every episode really follows from each other and I don't want to get ahead of myself. But I will ask this: Is the loss of Gabrielle's blood innocence Xena's fault?
Khrafstar was right that Xena's hatred for Caesar is what brought them there. It blinded her to the realities surrounding her. Xena never suspected that Khrafstar wasn't on the up-and-up and she's usually pretty good at detecting true motives. She left herself and Gabrielle vulnerable to Khrafstar's manipulations. But she also ignored Ares' warnings about the temple and about the god of that temple. Ares told her, explicitly, that that god was evil and Xena still neglected to destroy the temple.
It's not looking good for our gal.
But you won't find blame placing on this blog. Not from me. Yes, Xena's hatred for Caesar put her and Gabrielle in a place they would not otherwise have been, which set the stage for Gabrielle's crime. But . . . isn't Gabrielle an adult? A real life woman? Who has thoughts and can take action and accept responsibility? As far as I'm concerned, it's her own fault for so easily being lead, like a lamb to slaughter, by Khrafstar and his ideology. Not bothered to investigate beyond, "Oh, your god likes love? Cool!" And, on top of that, though I don't blame Gabrielle in the way she reacted to Meridian's murder attempt, she does have to take responsibility for doing what she did.
So, no, Xena is not to blame. I kind of find it hard to "blame" either of them. Neither could foresee exactly what was going to happen on their trip to Brittania.
Here comes the beginning of the infamous Rift storyline that permeates season three. We're off to the races! Unfortunately, The Deliverer wasn't what I was hoping for. I like the drama, I like the conflict that Gabrielle now has, as it deepens her character and her interactions with Xena. But Caesar's almost a non-entity and I kind of wanted more between Xena and Boudicea, and I wanted to torch Khrafstar's hair and slap Gabrielle for being some frakking naive. So I can't really give The Deliverer more than 3 out of 5 airlocks.
1) The Deliverer begins with an interesting scene between Ares and Discord talking about some kind of cult. They're vague enough that the audience doesn't have much of an idea of what they're really talking about, but it's got Discord kind of wiggy and, while Ares isn't freaking out about it or anything, he assures Discord (in a rather erotic way . . . though I've just always assumed that all the Olympians were related to each other) that he's on the case: There's this temple, see, and it is the worshipping house of the "one god". The temple needs to be destroyed, but it has to be done by a mortal.
So yeah. Vagueness. Who is this one god? Xena and Gabrielle met the Israelities in a previous episode, way back in the first season (Altared States) so it is their god? What's the deal with this temple? What exactly will happen when it is destroyed? And who is this mortal Ares has tapped to destroy it for him?
2) While Ares and Discord are doing whatever it is they do, Gabrielle and Xena are walking, not unusually, through a field, when they come across some Roman soldiers escorting some prisoners. They're pretty unconcerned until one of the prisoners mentions that he and his people will never bend to the will of Caesar and that catches Xena's ear because, you know, Caesar was the big catalyst to her transformation into Evil!Xena and, though Xena is now good, she holds a ridiculous grudge against the guy.
So, without even stopping to question who these prisoners are and exactly why they were arrested (except that they are somehow against Caesar), she runs off the Romans and frees them.
The main prisoner, Khrafstar, has a debonair English accent, wears a kilt, has super frizzy hair, and tells Xena that he was captured in Gaul trying to recruit soldiers to an army in Brittania, for a woman named Boudicea.
Xena is blinded by her hatred for Caesar and so basically commits herself and Gabrielle to this ridiculously long journey to Brittania (remember, they live in Greece. Even by boat, that is not a short journey), even though she has no idea who this Khrafstar really is.
Good thinking, Xena. Really good.
3) Khrafstar gets to talking to Gabrielle because he's a man and every man on the show is in love with Gabrielle (except for maybe Ares) and he reveals to her that he is a priest at the temple of the one god.
Hm. What was that? One god, you say? Weren't Ares and Discord fretting about a one god in the episode teaser?
4) Speaking of Ares and the one god, he shows up to manipulate Xena into doing destroying the very temple at which Khrafstar is a priest. He lets Xena know that Caesar currently holds the temple and, if Caesar wants the temple, there's probably a good reason for Xena to just go ahead and destroy it.
She doesn't disagree.
5) On the boat, Khrafstar and Gabrielle grow closer. Gabrielle's young and has a tendency to fall for any dude who looks at her sideways, but this one is particularly painful for me to watch because, seriously . . . Khrafstar's hair is out of this world ugly. So not a good look for him. At all. The kilt I can work with. But that hair? Painful.
6) After tearing herself away from her new love interest, Gabrielle goes and talks to Xena about Xena's troubles. Because not only are they going to Brittania to take on Caesar, Xena's arch nemesis (and being the ultimate nemesis of Xena is probably really saying something), they're going to Brittania to fight on the side of Boudicea, a feisty lady warrior Xena had betrayed many years earlier.
Xena is incredibly good at manipulation (coincidentally, so are Caesar and Ares), and in a bid for power, she befriended Boudicea, earned her trust, and then stole her army before ordering Boudicea's death.
So . . . bad blood all around! The things Xena gets herself into. But, for her, the chance to ruffle Caesar's feathers is worth the risk of incurring Boudicea's wrather.
7) When they finally land at Brittania, there's a skirmish that Xena and Boudicea (who Xena had contacted earlier and knew they were coming) battle off, but Gabrielle and Khrafstar are captured by Roman soldiers and taken to Caesar.
Xena goes for hours without realizing that Gabrielle is not at the camp. Yes, Boudicea had lied to her about it but let me ask this question: When Xena and Gabrielle are in the same facility, how often do they go hours without seeing each other? Xena never bothered to check that Boudicea was telling the truth about Gabrielle?
8) The problem that Xena has, according to Boudicea, is that "your [Xena] hatred of him hasn't allowed you to be elsewhere." Xena is in Brittania to get Caesar. She is not in Brittania to help Boudicea and her people (the Celts?). And that's a huge difference even though the two are tied together.
It's like when I root for Andy Roddick to lose but not for his opponent to win. The real goal is then somehow turned negative because losing isn't really good. So, similarly, Xena's reasons for being in Brittania may help Boudicea, but her they does not make her reasons pure.
9) Coupled with this, Caesar says that Xena's fatal flaw is her emotions. She feels and she cares and one can exploit that. How was he able to do that to her originally? By making her fall in love with him and then taking her for everything she had. How is doing it this time? By capturing Gabrielle, her constant companion and saucy life partner.
But what Caesar probably doesn't count on enough is that . . . Xena's hatred for him may actually outshine any other emotion she feels. She's so intent on him that she doesn't realize Gabrielle is missing. And doesn't actually go after her right away, either. Because her emotions towards Caesar are too strong and because that hatred for him doesn't allow her to focus on much else.
10) And on another shallow note, I hate Boudicea's hair, too. Why do the Brits (Celts?) have such crazy hair? Xena and Gabrielle live down in humid Greece but their hair is always shiny and beautiful (just wait until we get to the fourth season when I can wax on Gabrielle's early season hair) but Boudicea and Khrafstar live on a cool island. Yeah, it rains there a lot but still. Condition, people!
11) Caesar decides to have Gabrielle and Khrafstar crucified and orders Gabrielle's legs broken as a special shout out to his beloved Xena.
I kind of love that Caesar seems to hate Xena as much as Xena hates him. I wonder what Caesar made of Xena's warlord days? Xena did some pretty hardcore stuff for, like, a decade, and word of her evil affairs had to have gotten around. I'd love to know what he thought about that.
But, anyway, before Gabrielle's legs are broken (and, by the way, this is the second crucifixion on the show . . . and certainly not the last), Xena pops up from underground, totally like a vampire or zombie, and intervenes just at the nick of time. With her are some Brits looking to piss Caesar off. And they totally do.
By my calculations, this is the first time Xena has actually seen Caesar since Destiny. I'm pretty sure it's the only time we, the audience, have seen him since then, too.
12) Xena basically switches into a new gear and becomes determined to take the temple Ares was telling her about back in Greece.
They take it with little difficulty, though Xena neglects to destroy it.
13) Gabrielle goes with Khrafstar and other members of his religion to the temple and joins them in their ritual ceremony.
Gods, if I had a dollar for every single time Gabrielle just kind of went along with a new ideology without really knowing what the hell she was doing, I'd be so rich. It doesn't matter that she's been traveling for two years with Xena and should be way more savvy about people and about religious rituals in particular (the last time she went along with something, didn't the Titans escape and go on a rampage?). She's so naive in her trust that I think it's embarrassing for the character this late in the game.
14) While Gabrielle is making out with peace and love in the temple, Ares appears to Xena and tells her that she has to destroy that temple. The god of that temple, he says, is evil. She may have her issues with the Olympian gods, but she knows them and she knows, allegedly, that they may be tricky assholes at times, but they aren't really evil. Not even Ares.
Xena can't really trust Ares, though. Because he's Ares. He lives to manipulate her. Typically, when he wants her to do something, it's good for him and really bad for her.
15) It's a bad mistake on Xena's part because something evil is definitely afoot at that temple and Gabrielle, unfortunately, is in the middle of it.
For the god, Dahak, to arrive on Earth, innocent blood must be taken. A woman, Meridian, calls for Khrafstar to be put on the altar. Khrafstar, insisting that this is not in keeping with the will of their god, calls for Gabrielle's help. As Meridian goes to sacrifice Khrafstar on the altar, Gabrielle manages to stop her, but when Meridian goes in again to kill him, Gabrielle gets hold of a dagger and, in self defense, stabs Meridian in the stomach. Killing her.
That was exactly what Khrafstar and the others had been hoping for. Dahak demanded innocent blood, but wanted blood innocence, meaning he wanted the pure (Gabrielle) to kill.
So, goodbye to Gabrielle's blood innocent. Hello to Dahak.
16) Xena and Boudicea are all set to fight Caesar in some kind of epic battle, but Xena notices the sky above the temple is pretty dark and foreboding looking and realizes that that's exactly where Gabrielle is. In an abrupt turn around from her earlier behavior towards Gabrielle, Xena abandons her fight against Caesar to investigate the temple.
What she finds there is so not good. There's a dead body on the altar and Gabrielle's on the floor sobbing, her hands covered in blood.
When Gabrielle tells Xena what happened, Xena has a really hard time computing. Wait, so, who killed Meridian? You did? On accident right?
This blood innocence thing is interesting. Gabrielle did kill Meridian, yes. She took a life. But Meridian and the others were in on the elaborate manipulation, playing around with events to create a specific outcome. And it's not like Gabrielle took the blade and stabbed Meridian while she was standing there, defenseless. In trying to protect herself and in trying to protect Khrafstar, she acted completely on impulse. It wasn't on accident like Xena asks, but it wasn't deliberate, either. It wasn't even really conscious. It was instinct.
It's kind like a big trick, in a way.
17) But, as far as Dahak is concerned, it still counts. Khrafstar comes in, all creepy (because you had to have known he was evil by that crazy hair of his) and thanks Xena for all that has happened. After all, if Xena had not been completely obsessed with taking down Caesar, she never would have freed him, they never would have traveled to Brittania, and Gabrielle never would have killed Meridian, which made the coming of Dahak possible so that he could bring the "cleansing fire of war to the world."
Yeah, thanks Xena! Sounds great! The cleansing fire of war is my favorite kind of fire.
18) But it doesn't stop there. Khrafstar turns into some kind of weirdo demon and Gabrielle is captured by a scary whip of fire straight out of Lord Of The Rings, and is dragged to the altar. She's prone, elevated, and probably extremely uncomfortable, but Xena manages to fight Khrafstar, taunts him, and puts him into the fire, which breaks the fire whip and releases Gabrielle.
The temple falls down around them (and thus explains the origins of Stonehenge), but all is not right in Xenaland.
Xena embraces Gabrielle as the temple collapses around them. Gabrielle tells her, "It hurts inside. Everything's changed." And have truer words ever been spoken?
There's a lot I want to say, but this episode leads into Gabrielle's Hope, which leads into The Debt I and II which will take us into Maternal Instincts, and every episode really follows from each other and I don't want to get ahead of myself. But I will ask this: Is the loss of Gabrielle's blood innocence Xena's fault?
Khrafstar was right that Xena's hatred for Caesar is what brought them there. It blinded her to the realities surrounding her. Xena never suspected that Khrafstar wasn't on the up-and-up and she's usually pretty good at detecting true motives. She left herself and Gabrielle vulnerable to Khrafstar's manipulations. But she also ignored Ares' warnings about the temple and about the god of that temple. Ares told her, explicitly, that that god was evil and Xena still neglected to destroy the temple.
It's not looking good for our gal.
But you won't find blame placing on this blog. Not from me. Yes, Xena's hatred for Caesar put her and Gabrielle in a place they would not otherwise have been, which set the stage for Gabrielle's crime. But . . . isn't Gabrielle an adult? A real life woman? Who has thoughts and can take action and accept responsibility? As far as I'm concerned, it's her own fault for so easily being lead, like a lamb to slaughter, by Khrafstar and his ideology. Not bothered to investigate beyond, "Oh, your god likes love? Cool!" And, on top of that, though I don't blame Gabrielle in the way she reacted to Meridian's murder attempt, she does have to take responsibility for doing what she did.
So, no, Xena is not to blame. I kind of find it hard to "blame" either of them. Neither could foresee exactly what was going to happen on their trip to Brittania.
Here comes the beginning of the infamous Rift storyline that permeates season three. We're off to the races! Unfortunately, The Deliverer wasn't what I was hoping for. I like the drama, I like the conflict that Gabrielle now has, as it deepens her character and her interactions with Xena. But Caesar's almost a non-entity and I kind of wanted more between Xena and Boudicea, and I wanted to torch Khrafstar's hair and slap Gabrielle for being some frakking naive. So I can't really give The Deliverer more than 3 out of 5 airlocks.