XWP: Gabrielle's Hope
I sure have been using that Gabrielle icon a lot. Can't help it. Season Three is kind of her season to shine and, let's face it . . . She looks damn good there. (Though I think the episode it comes from is really not so good.)
I watched this episode more than a week ago. Shame, shame. I've been horribly negligent of my Xena lately. I'm flogging myself as I type (which is very hard to do), but I'm ready now to get into the episode which represents, for me, the beginning of the infamous Gabrielle/Xena Rift. I think it'll be a fun time. (But forgive me if this isn't the greatest review. As I said, I watched this episode more than a week ago so a lot of the details, even with the notes I took, are already out of my brain.)
1) Gabrielle's Hope beings with a beautiful and glowing Gabrielle laying in a field, her abs gleaming in the intense overexposure of the sunlight. She looks up and sees Meridian, the woman she killed in The Deliverer running towards her. They embrace each other like long lost friends before Gabrielle whips out a dagger and stabs Meridian all over again, reliving the horror she experienced taking a life.
This must be a dream, right?
2) Xena assures Gabrielle that her body and dreams are reacting in a normal way to the trauma. Gabrielle's kind of horrified at the dreams and the sickness she's been feeling, but is, at the same time, glad for it because she believes that she deserves to be punished for what she's done.
Punishment? What a novel idea for this show!
No, seriously, Gabrielle wants to be punished for killing one person in self defense. And she's telling this to a woman who has not been officially punished for murdering thousands of people.
But I digress.
3) Gabrielle and Xena are still in Britannia. They actually have to walk to a port in order to find a ship back to Greece. Making a horrible decision, they decide to go into the forest. Seriously, never go into the forest. That's always the worst decision one could make. But Xena isn't acting as Xena-like as she should be and they find themselves surrounded by banshees. (Whenever I picture banshees, I see wolf-like creatures with scary claws but on Xena they're unhinged ladies.)
Xena tries to defend against them, but she can't hurt them. Whenever she comes close to cutting them down with her sword, they thwart it with their banshee magic. The good news, though, is that they aren't interested in hurting Gabrielle. In fact, they seem to worship Gabrielle. "You are the chosen one," they tell her.
Somewhere, Buffy Summers weeps.
4) It's a super creepy moment, for sure. Why are these unhinged lady banshees intent on worshipping Gabrielle as "the chosen one"?
My favorite part of the scene, though? Xena's annoyance at being unable to hurt them and her self-encouragement to get her timing right so that she can. Such a warrior, right? Like, "Yeah, try that again and I'll get you!"
5) They leave the forest without the banshees and find their way to a port town. While Xena goes to see about getting a ship back to Greece, Gabrielle finds herself at a tavern.
This is where things start to get a little extra weird. It's a weird fandom invention that Gabrielle is always super starving and can eat a horse. But . . . there's no real evidence for that on the show, aside from the fact that we know she likes eating nutbread. So her appetite at the tavern is a little strange. And it's not just that she wants to stuff her face to kingdom come, it's that she's eating pretty gross food. At least in combination.
And while she's eating livers and pork and cheese and cherries more crazy shenanigans begin. Some village people (not the musical group) father outside the tavern and start yelling at her and calling her a witch. They throw in a torch, setting the place on fire. Gabrielle manages to get herself out with some super Xena moves, but is chased through the town.
They think that she's going to bring the beginning of the end to goodness. Or at least that's what Xena and Gabrielle are told by some English warrior types (after Xena saves Gabrielle from the villagers) in the forest containing the banshees. And you know what I always do when goodness is threatened? I KILL! KILL THEM ALL! Because that's not hypocritical at all.
6) The banshees interrupt the forest party and inform Gabrielle, so nicely, that she's pregnant.
Preg-eh-nunt. Pregnant. Damn, girl!
Before much more can happen, Xena swoops in and they, with the English warrior types, run to the nearest castle (because of course medieval castles existed in England two thousand years ago).
The banshees, much like vampires, are not allowed into private venues without explicit permission, so they're stuck outside while Gabrielle is free to just, like, gestate and stuff inside. So not fair!
7) Gabrielle isn't necessary convinced that she's pregnant, except that there's definitely something inside of her that's moving around and growing at a pretty alarming rate. I'm not sure exactly how long it's supposed to have been since The Deliverer, but certainly not nine months. I don't even think it's been a week.
But whatever it is . . . It's super not good.
And Gabrielle thinks it's an extension of the punishment she was already receiving in her dreams.
8) Xena finds the Knights of the Round Table.
I love that Xena is so loose with time lines.
The Knights are debating Gabrielle's condition. She was impregnated by Dahak, but is the baby destined to be evil or is it capable of goodness. After all . . . The baby will be half mortal, the mortal part being pretty much the purest person on the face of the earth up until a few days before.
Xena isn't quite so sure what's going to happen, either, but she warns the knights that they aren't to come near Gabrielle.
9) It's around this time that Gabrielle goes into labor. Xena acts as midwife and after a short time . . . Boom. Gabrielle is pregnant no more as she gives birth to a baby girl.
Earlier in the episode, Xena assured Gabrielle that she would one day have hope again. And Gabrielle must be super full of crazy hormones and much be super exhausted after everything, because this baby she just gave birth to? The one that was implanted in her by a super evil god? That gestated in the span of a week? If that? That baby is her hope. She that's what she names her.
10) The knights (and Xena) are still iffy on the nature of Hope. It's a debate about human nature. Are people born as blank slates or are they born good or evil?
The knights mention this prophecy: A being is supposed to be born who will usher in the beginning of goodness. In the same vein, a being is supposed to be born who will save everybody with their goodness. The prophecy isn't really specific about the circumstances. Both beings are to be born in similar ways.
Man, those prophecies are never easy, are they?
It's kind of like the Jesus story, except for not quite.
11) One of my favorite parts of this episode is that Xena, with no trouble whatsoever and with no understanding of what she's doing, pulls the famous sword out of the famous stone.
Awesome.
12) As if the circumstances of Hope's birth weren't creepy enough, she's growing super fast out of the womb, too. She's still very much a baby, but in about a day she goes from a newborn to, like, a baby who is five months. (Maybe. I don't really know much about baby development.)
Gabrielle's in mucho denial about this whole thing. Xena asks her if it bothers her that Hope is obviously not mortal. She's incredibly concerned that Hope's father is Dahak, a god that kind of makes Ares shake in his boots.
But Gabrielle just looks at Hope and sees a baby. A supernatural baby, maybe, but still a baby. Who is also her child. She lacks concerns about what this child may be.
13) One of the knights (Eochid) lets in the banshees in exchange for Dahak putting him in charge of Britannia after the whole coming darkness thing. As though there'd be much there to rule at all.
While Xena goes to investigate Eochid's movements, Gawain (another knight and, if my memory of English III is right, that famous knight from the story Sir Gawain And The Green Knight) is killed. Choked with his own giant medallion. And the only other people in the room with him at the time? Gabrielle and Hope. And Gabrielle was sleeping.
Oh fuck.
Xena immediately draws her sword and moves to kill Hope. Gabrielle wakes up in time to stop it though. Xena is now convinced that Hope is evil itself but Gabrielle, quite understandably, really, protests. Lucky for her, the banshees arrive at the exactly the right moment and she actually goes with them, seeking their protection from Xena.
Yep. She trusts the creepy unhinged ladies of the forest over her best friend.
But it's not like she's out of the woods. (Pun?) Xena chases in close pursuit.
14) Gabrielle asks Hope, "Who are you?"
It's a smart question to ask. What is this child capable of? Murder? Evil? If she's the child of Dahak and Gabrielle, are the chances even that she could be good or bad? And if she's bad already, does that mean evil is more powerful than good?
15) Ultimately, though, Gabrielle is in total denial as to what Hope is. What is the deal?
It's hard to really know who to side with. Do I trust that Hope is good? Absolutely not. She was conceived in an evil flame. That's never a good sign for a healthy and happy pregnancy. Furthermore, her conception was made possible because of a murder. Again, not really good. Gabrielle is completely ridiculous in her unwillingness to accept the evidence in front of her.
But it's her child. And she's so traumatized by the murder of Meridian and the whole conception-to-birth thing that happened over the last few days that she's not really thinking right.
Xena is being a little heartless. Even if she believes that Hope is evil, she's not really going about solving the problem is a smart way. Knowing Gabrielle better than anyone, she had to have known her methods weren't going to work. And while she's chasing Gabrielle through the valley, yelling out, "That thing you're holding is a monster! It has to be destroyed!" Well . . . That's not going to make Gabrielle suddenly go, "Oh, you're right. I see it now. Here: Kill it." Uh, no.
Because Hope is, quite literally, Gabrielle's only hope. Her only hope that she can move forward with her life, back into goodness. Her world has been shaken to the core. I mean, she's killed. She has been raped. (And I think that's a fact of the storyline that gets ignored too often, but the truth of the matter is that Gabrielle was impregnated by Dahak and she had absolutely no consent in the act that made her that way.) She has given birth. And her best friend is trying to kill her baby. She just wants to keep her hope. She needs Hope to live.
16) So she lies to Xena about killing Hope. She tells her she dropped her off the cliff, that Hope tried to kill her while they were running, and she understood what Xena had been telling her. In reality, she put Hope in some kind of floating basket and floated her down the river, hoping, I guess, that she'd be rescued and raised in a safe environment.
Stupid idea. The banshees are, like, five feet away in that forest. What if they found Hope and raised her? That's probably wouldn't be a good thing.
What is interesting is the fact that Gabrielle kind of chooses Xena over Hope. I mean, she kind of has to in a certain way, because Xena certainly never would have let go of the need to kill Hope so Gabrielle couldn't have just said, "Well, what if she and I just stop traveling with her? Would that be cool?"
But she actually stays with Xena afterwards. Even though Gabrielle does not think her child is evil, she continues to stay with a person who thought her child was evil and actually tried to kill her.
That's just so . . . I don't know. Masochistic? Maybe that's Gabrielle's punishment.
17) But the episode ends with Gabrielle praying to the gods for Hope to be good.
It's a nice end to the episode, I think. Gabrielle's desperate to hold on to that hope. And I think the shit is going to hit the fan in a big way because of it.
I hadn't watched Gabrielle's Hope since the first time I saw it a little less than a year ago. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Like . . . for real. It was nice and creepy and it kind of makes the audience ask a lot of questions. I mean, are we born good or evil? Are we formed by our environment or does it go deeper than that? Is evil stronger than goodness? And who is right? It was a cool ride that really throws the show into a totally different kind of sphere or storytelling. I think I'm going to give Gabrielle's Hope 4 out of 5 airlocks.
I watched this episode more than a week ago. Shame, shame. I've been horribly negligent of my Xena lately. I'm flogging myself as I type (which is very hard to do), but I'm ready now to get into the episode which represents, for me, the beginning of the infamous Gabrielle/Xena Rift. I think it'll be a fun time. (But forgive me if this isn't the greatest review. As I said, I watched this episode more than a week ago so a lot of the details, even with the notes I took, are already out of my brain.)
1) Gabrielle's Hope beings with a beautiful and glowing Gabrielle laying in a field, her abs gleaming in the intense overexposure of the sunlight. She looks up and sees Meridian, the woman she killed in The Deliverer running towards her. They embrace each other like long lost friends before Gabrielle whips out a dagger and stabs Meridian all over again, reliving the horror she experienced taking a life.
This must be a dream, right?
2) Xena assures Gabrielle that her body and dreams are reacting in a normal way to the trauma. Gabrielle's kind of horrified at the dreams and the sickness she's been feeling, but is, at the same time, glad for it because she believes that she deserves to be punished for what she's done.
Punishment? What a novel idea for this show!
No, seriously, Gabrielle wants to be punished for killing one person in self defense. And she's telling this to a woman who has not been officially punished for murdering thousands of people.
But I digress.
3) Gabrielle and Xena are still in Britannia. They actually have to walk to a port in order to find a ship back to Greece. Making a horrible decision, they decide to go into the forest. Seriously, never go into the forest. That's always the worst decision one could make. But Xena isn't acting as Xena-like as she should be and they find themselves surrounded by banshees. (Whenever I picture banshees, I see wolf-like creatures with scary claws but on Xena they're unhinged ladies.)
Xena tries to defend against them, but she can't hurt them. Whenever she comes close to cutting them down with her sword, they thwart it with their banshee magic. The good news, though, is that they aren't interested in hurting Gabrielle. In fact, they seem to worship Gabrielle. "You are the chosen one," they tell her.
Somewhere, Buffy Summers weeps.
4) It's a super creepy moment, for sure. Why are these unhinged lady banshees intent on worshipping Gabrielle as "the chosen one"?
My favorite part of the scene, though? Xena's annoyance at being unable to hurt them and her self-encouragement to get her timing right so that she can. Such a warrior, right? Like, "Yeah, try that again and I'll get you!"
5) They leave the forest without the banshees and find their way to a port town. While Xena goes to see about getting a ship back to Greece, Gabrielle finds herself at a tavern.
This is where things start to get a little extra weird. It's a weird fandom invention that Gabrielle is always super starving and can eat a horse. But . . . there's no real evidence for that on the show, aside from the fact that we know she likes eating nutbread. So her appetite at the tavern is a little strange. And it's not just that she wants to stuff her face to kingdom come, it's that she's eating pretty gross food. At least in combination.
And while she's eating livers and pork and cheese and cherries more crazy shenanigans begin. Some village people (not the musical group) father outside the tavern and start yelling at her and calling her a witch. They throw in a torch, setting the place on fire. Gabrielle manages to get herself out with some super Xena moves, but is chased through the town.
They think that she's going to bring the beginning of the end to goodness. Or at least that's what Xena and Gabrielle are told by some English warrior types (after Xena saves Gabrielle from the villagers) in the forest containing the banshees. And you know what I always do when goodness is threatened? I KILL! KILL THEM ALL! Because that's not hypocritical at all.
6) The banshees interrupt the forest party and inform Gabrielle, so nicely, that she's pregnant.
Preg-eh-nunt. Pregnant. Damn, girl!
Before much more can happen, Xena swoops in and they, with the English warrior types, run to the nearest castle (because of course medieval castles existed in England two thousand years ago).
The banshees, much like vampires, are not allowed into private venues without explicit permission, so they're stuck outside while Gabrielle is free to just, like, gestate and stuff inside. So not fair!
7) Gabrielle isn't necessary convinced that she's pregnant, except that there's definitely something inside of her that's moving around and growing at a pretty alarming rate. I'm not sure exactly how long it's supposed to have been since The Deliverer, but certainly not nine months. I don't even think it's been a week.
But whatever it is . . . It's super not good.
And Gabrielle thinks it's an extension of the punishment she was already receiving in her dreams.
8) Xena finds the Knights of the Round Table.
I love that Xena is so loose with time lines.
The Knights are debating Gabrielle's condition. She was impregnated by Dahak, but is the baby destined to be evil or is it capable of goodness. After all . . . The baby will be half mortal, the mortal part being pretty much the purest person on the face of the earth up until a few days before.
Xena isn't quite so sure what's going to happen, either, but she warns the knights that they aren't to come near Gabrielle.
9) It's around this time that Gabrielle goes into labor. Xena acts as midwife and after a short time . . . Boom. Gabrielle is pregnant no more as she gives birth to a baby girl.
Earlier in the episode, Xena assured Gabrielle that she would one day have hope again. And Gabrielle must be super full of crazy hormones and much be super exhausted after everything, because this baby she just gave birth to? The one that was implanted in her by a super evil god? That gestated in the span of a week? If that? That baby is her hope. She that's what she names her.
10) The knights (and Xena) are still iffy on the nature of Hope. It's a debate about human nature. Are people born as blank slates or are they born good or evil?
The knights mention this prophecy: A being is supposed to be born who will usher in the beginning of goodness. In the same vein, a being is supposed to be born who will save everybody with their goodness. The prophecy isn't really specific about the circumstances. Both beings are to be born in similar ways.
Man, those prophecies are never easy, are they?
It's kind of like the Jesus story, except for not quite.
11) One of my favorite parts of this episode is that Xena, with no trouble whatsoever and with no understanding of what she's doing, pulls the famous sword out of the famous stone.
Awesome.
12) As if the circumstances of Hope's birth weren't creepy enough, she's growing super fast out of the womb, too. She's still very much a baby, but in about a day she goes from a newborn to, like, a baby who is five months. (Maybe. I don't really know much about baby development.)
Gabrielle's in mucho denial about this whole thing. Xena asks her if it bothers her that Hope is obviously not mortal. She's incredibly concerned that Hope's father is Dahak, a god that kind of makes Ares shake in his boots.
But Gabrielle just looks at Hope and sees a baby. A supernatural baby, maybe, but still a baby. Who is also her child. She lacks concerns about what this child may be.
13) One of the knights (Eochid) lets in the banshees in exchange for Dahak putting him in charge of Britannia after the whole coming darkness thing. As though there'd be much there to rule at all.
While Xena goes to investigate Eochid's movements, Gawain (another knight and, if my memory of English III is right, that famous knight from the story Sir Gawain And The Green Knight) is killed. Choked with his own giant medallion. And the only other people in the room with him at the time? Gabrielle and Hope. And Gabrielle was sleeping.
Oh fuck.
Xena immediately draws her sword and moves to kill Hope. Gabrielle wakes up in time to stop it though. Xena is now convinced that Hope is evil itself but Gabrielle, quite understandably, really, protests. Lucky for her, the banshees arrive at the exactly the right moment and she actually goes with them, seeking their protection from Xena.
Yep. She trusts the creepy unhinged ladies of the forest over her best friend.
But it's not like she's out of the woods. (Pun?) Xena chases in close pursuit.
14) Gabrielle asks Hope, "Who are you?"
It's a smart question to ask. What is this child capable of? Murder? Evil? If she's the child of Dahak and Gabrielle, are the chances even that she could be good or bad? And if she's bad already, does that mean evil is more powerful than good?
15) Ultimately, though, Gabrielle is in total denial as to what Hope is. What is the deal?
It's hard to really know who to side with. Do I trust that Hope is good? Absolutely not. She was conceived in an evil flame. That's never a good sign for a healthy and happy pregnancy. Furthermore, her conception was made possible because of a murder. Again, not really good. Gabrielle is completely ridiculous in her unwillingness to accept the evidence in front of her.
But it's her child. And she's so traumatized by the murder of Meridian and the whole conception-to-birth thing that happened over the last few days that she's not really thinking right.
Xena is being a little heartless. Even if she believes that Hope is evil, she's not really going about solving the problem is a smart way. Knowing Gabrielle better than anyone, she had to have known her methods weren't going to work. And while she's chasing Gabrielle through the valley, yelling out, "That thing you're holding is a monster! It has to be destroyed!" Well . . . That's not going to make Gabrielle suddenly go, "Oh, you're right. I see it now. Here: Kill it." Uh, no.
Because Hope is, quite literally, Gabrielle's only hope. Her only hope that she can move forward with her life, back into goodness. Her world has been shaken to the core. I mean, she's killed. She has been raped. (And I think that's a fact of the storyline that gets ignored too often, but the truth of the matter is that Gabrielle was impregnated by Dahak and she had absolutely no consent in the act that made her that way.) She has given birth. And her best friend is trying to kill her baby. She just wants to keep her hope. She needs Hope to live.
16) So she lies to Xena about killing Hope. She tells her she dropped her off the cliff, that Hope tried to kill her while they were running, and she understood what Xena had been telling her. In reality, she put Hope in some kind of floating basket and floated her down the river, hoping, I guess, that she'd be rescued and raised in a safe environment.
Stupid idea. The banshees are, like, five feet away in that forest. What if they found Hope and raised her? That's probably wouldn't be a good thing.
What is interesting is the fact that Gabrielle kind of chooses Xena over Hope. I mean, she kind of has to in a certain way, because Xena certainly never would have let go of the need to kill Hope so Gabrielle couldn't have just said, "Well, what if she and I just stop traveling with her? Would that be cool?"
But she actually stays with Xena afterwards. Even though Gabrielle does not think her child is evil, she continues to stay with a person who thought her child was evil and actually tried to kill her.
That's just so . . . I don't know. Masochistic? Maybe that's Gabrielle's punishment.
17) But the episode ends with Gabrielle praying to the gods for Hope to be good.
It's a nice end to the episode, I think. Gabrielle's desperate to hold on to that hope. And I think the shit is going to hit the fan in a big way because of it.
I hadn't watched Gabrielle's Hope since the first time I saw it a little less than a year ago. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Like . . . for real. It was nice and creepy and it kind of makes the audience ask a lot of questions. I mean, are we born good or evil? Are we formed by our environment or does it go deeper than that? Is evil stronger than goodness? And who is right? It was a cool ride that really throws the show into a totally different kind of sphere or storytelling. I think I'm going to give Gabrielle's Hope 4 out of 5 airlocks.