XWP: Devi
I'm at a random house right now watching Venus Williams playing Kimiko Date-Krumm in the second round of Wimbledon. Venus lost the first set 6-7 so she has some work to do.
But since I've been temporarily exiled from my house, I figured it was the perfect time to write my review of Devi. By the time I'm finished, I'll wonder why I didn't just record it instead but oh well.
1) It's officially official! Xena and Gabrielle are in India! I mean, look at all the people! The colors! Listen to that vaguely Indian music! They made it!
2) They come across a street magician named Eli who puts on a hell of a show. He has this illusion (I'm respecting GOB Bluth by not calling it a "trick") where his assistant crawls up a rope and vanishes into another realm. All goes according to plan, even after Xena cuts the rope to test it's magical validity, except that Eli has a hard time getting Mya back. And when she comes back, she comes in pieces.
And when he heals the pieces so that she's alive and in one piece, she's possessed by an evil demon.
Not part of the act! Not part of the act!
3) If I may interrupt the plot, Xena is wearing a headband. Seriously, wardrobe people? I thought we had this talk way back during the first episode. Admittingly, this headband is a thousand times better than the monstrosity that was on her head in Sins of the Past but still. She's so much more attractive without it. I like to ogle my Xena, okay? I don't want to be distracted by headbands.
4) So Mya's possessed. Gabrielle runs up to try to help and as she holds Mya's convulsing body down to the ground, the demon flies away. Almost like . . . magic!
The locals are super impressed, though. That demon fled at Gabrielle's touch, they say. That must make her a devi, a spiritual healer who can cure and cast out.
5) If Gabrielle is a devi because she drove the demon out of Mya, than Eli is in trouble because he's the one who allowed Mya to be possessed in the first place. Apparently, ever since Eli showed up in this town (he's very clearly not Indian . . . he looks like a white guy from Jersey) things have been going wrong and people have been dying.
He's about to be stampeded by angry townspeople before Xena very kindly intervenes. The two hide in one of Eli's props and disappear, astounding the locals who quickly forget they were mad at him and go on bowing to Gabrielle, their devi.
This brings me to the major thing I dislike about Devi: The Indians. It's not that I dislike them as much as I dislike the way they are portrayed. They're kind of like these weird props that seem to lack much sense. Bad things happen so there must be a demon. A good thing happened with Gabrielle so she must be a devi. They're so . . . simple minded that it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, yes, there are bad demons and devis in this episode but they don't use any kind of critical thought or investigative powers to figure it out. They just kind of fall forward into the action without thought.
6) Once Xena and Eli escape to a local temple (Xena figures it's the last place Vikrum, Eli's main accuser) would think to look.
Eli wants to get the bottom of what Gabrielle is. Is she a devi?
"Not the last time I checked," Xena tells him, arms crossed in front of her and a small grin on her face. (Because she's investigated Gabrielle a lot. A lot a lot.)
Eli tries to hypnotize Xena with this candle he finds but this is Xena we're talking about. She plays along so she can kind of figure out Eli's angle. It turns out that he wants to know if Gabrielle is a devi because he wants to be a devi. When he was a kid he thinks he may have healed someone and he's been searching, ever since, for the power he might have to do so again. Like Gabrielle, he kind of just wants to heal people and what better way than to have the spiritual power to do so. If Gabrielle is a devi, Eli thinks, maybe she can teach him how he can heal.
7) Back in the square, Gabrielle's really heating up with her new powers. She accidentally heals a blind man.
This scene is straight out of Lisa Ling's documentary about North Korea where this Nepalese doctor goes there and gives many of the Koreans cataract surgery and when they are healed the first thing they do is give thanks to Kim Jong Il and they pledge their lives (again) to him. No thanks are given to the doctor or his staff. Nope. It was all Kim Jong Il.
The first thing this man does when Gabrielle "heals" him is to swear allegiance to her with his sword. (See? That's totally irrational.) And this prompts lots of men in the crowd to also pledge their sword to her. (Again, irrational.) So Gabrielle kind of has her own person army at this point.
8) Later that night Gabrielle's back to massaging Xena. (There's been a lot of massaging this season. I like!) Gabrielle is, at this point, pretty convinced that she's the devi everyone is saying she is. She tells Xena about how she healed the blind man. She's certain she has the healing spirit in her.
Xena's not so convinced. Gabrielle may have a spirit in her but it might be a bad spirit.
This should be the point where Gabrielle thinks, "You know, Xena's usually right about these things. I should consider it" but it's not.
9) The next morning, Xena tries to covertly suss out who she's dealing with: Is it her girlfriend best friend Gabrielle or is it a demon? Gabrielle immediately catches on, though, after Xena suggests they both go do some yoga. (I love that Gabrielle knows Xena is up to something because she suggests doing yoga.)
Gabrielle's kind of over the initial excitement of the previous day. Says that maybe all that happened was a strange fluke and that everyone's probably forgotten about it.
In this town, Gabrielle? With these people? Not likely. They both head to the balcony to oversee a gigantic crowd of unthinking drones shouting for their devi.
10) Xena goes back to the temple where she hid Eli and finds Vikrum, the priest, dead from hanging. It's obvious that it was a murder and, though Eli was there, Xena does not suspect he was the murderer.
But now Eli is freaked. Because he knows he didn't kill Virkum and he was at the temple and didn't know Vikrum was dead until just about right then. So that means there really are demons and spirits afoot and that is not cool.
11) Eli and Xena go out to the square and find Gabrielle and her merry men and Gabrielle's eyes meet Eli's and he gets super spooked (he's like a horse or something) and he runs away.
This doesn't not help his cause, though, because he runs across some dogs who decide he'd be fun to chase.
Xena saves him (of course). The both run back into Gabrielle and Eli collapses to his knees and begs Gabrielle to heal the demon within him. She levitates him and this must mean he's cured.
The thing is, Eli only did it to get the locals off his back and Gabrielle is convinced that she was not the one levitating Eli. She can't take credit for "healing" him.
So what did?
12) Xena goes back to the temple and gathers some water from the Ganges that she can use against bad demons. Eli's there (because these two keep hanging out at this temple) and he tells her about this demon on the wall of the temple named Tataka. The demon is dressed all in pearls and was able to fool people with her sweet face and sweet healing nature. Basically, she's heal people only to screw them in a bad way later on.
Now . . . this does not sound good to Xena. The last time she saw Gabrielle, she had some pearls. And who has a sweeter face than Gabrielle? And who has a sweeter nature? And who is randomly suddenly healing people all over the place?
Uh oh.
So when she runs outside to find Gabrielle . . . Well, she finds her quickly, sitting in some kind of gazebo, draped in an outfit of pearls with a gaggle of worshipers surrounding her.
This? This is not normal.
13) The good news? New outfit! This pearl outfit isn't going to last long but we have officially seen the last of Gabrielle's old outfit that's been with us, in some form or another, since season two!
YAY!
14) Gabrielle and Xena meet up again back in their room. (Do devis stay in hotels?)
"Okay," Gabrielle concedes. "It's a bit much. I know."
Xena is really concerned at this point and Gabrielle is pissed off that Xena is concerned. She finds Xena's stash of water from the Ganges, which is holy and, therefore, not good for demons. In anger, she takes the water and splashes it all over herself, trying to prove a point. Xena's pissed, now. She had the water, yes, but it was insurance for Eli, trying to get him to stay near because his only combat against a demon was the water that only Xena now had. Plus, the water is only dangerous to demons in the hands of a holy man so Xena certainly wasn't going to use it against Gabrielle because she literally can't.
Gabrielle's just bummed that Xena has these doubts that Gabrielle's actually doing good. She cries and Xena, who hates to see Gabrielle cry, hugs and comforts her.
Now, we all know at this point that Gabrielle isn't really Gabrielle, but I do have a bone to pick with her in this scene.
Can we all be reminded of the last episode, Paradise Found, where Xena had her suspicions about Aiden that Gabrielle did not heed? How did that end up? With death and statues. Gabrielle's really battling with trusting Xena's instincts this season and the bad news for her is that Xena's instincts are almost always right.
15) Back in the temple, Eli is attacked by one of Gabrielle's men, Ravi, but Xena shows up out of nowhere and fights him.
One of the unsuccessful parts of this episode is how often Xena just kind of shows up at the right time with no indication as to how she knew to be there. It's like they had to cut a couple scenes.
Eli manages to use some of Xena's Ganges water to burn Ravi's face, indicating that there's something demonic about him (whether he is also possessed of if the healing Gabrielle gave him kind of made him into a bit of a demon, I'm not sure).
But this is good news for all of them because Eli was able to hurt Ravi with the water it means that he has some kind of holy power. Gabrielle's not the devi. Eli is.
16) Xena goes back to the hotel and wakes up Gabrielle, feeding her a story about Eli getting hurt and needing a healer. Gabrielle goes to tell her guards that she's leaving, but recognizes that Ravi hasn't yet returned from the temple and if Ravi isn't back yet . . . Well, the Tataka demon in Gabrielle knows now that Xena is lying to her.
And, because she's Xena, she realizes that Tataka knows that it's a set up and the game is over. Tataka warns Xena that she sent back up to go after Eli (probably because she realizes Eli is a devi and is the one who can hurt her) so Xena, as usual in this episode, is off and running to save Eli.
17) She finds him in the forest. He's not really running away from anything but his shadow because he's a big fat coward and Xena is upset that he left because she needs him to heal Gabrielle.
Eli agrees to go back but he gives Xena some tips on how they can expel the demon in other ways. For example, if they have an exorcism, Xena needs some kind of icon of Gabrielle's.
18) Back in town, Gabrielle's turned into quite the saucy demon with a serious amount of lipstick.
My favorite part of this episode is Renee O'Connor's performance of Tataka. It's pretty awesome.
19) Xena goes back to their room to find an icon to use. She decides to use Gabrielle's quill.
20) Down on the street, all of the men are starting to fight each other. Tataka's influence is really doing its work. Tataka, as Gabrielle, blames it on Xena. Xena's not having it.
She jumps down from the balcony to confront and fight Tataka and her seriously rad abs. Tataka manages to kick the holy water out of Xena's hand as she goes to pour it on the quill, so that's out.
Now it's all coming down to a seriously hardcore fight that involves licking (yay! licking!), kicking, punching, jumping. Tataka is not going to go down easy. She doesn't want to give up Gabrielle's "firm young body" (who can blame her?) and ends up getting Xena on a bed of nails.
Xena manages to bounce her off and almost kills her but at the last minute Gabrielle manages to break through Tataka's influence, begging Xena to help her. In one of the most surprising moments of the series (for me), Xena doesn't stop her assault. She prepares to bury her sword deep into Gabrielle's body and only stops because Eli finally mans up and shouts for her to stop.
This gives Tataka the distraction she needs and she pushes Xena's sword away and flies towards Eli. Xena corkscrew spins after her and tackles her to the ground, quickly putting the pinch on her and basically offering her up to Eli to heal.
21) Kind of understand that her time is coming to an end, Tataka tells Eli, "The power you seek . . . It's a lie."
I don't know exactly why, but I love that line.
And it's not a bad tact to take because Eli is such a fecking wimp and is too busy whining about he's not sure he can save her and I pretty much want Xena to just pummel him to pieces, but eventually he gets his stuff together and calls on "Abba" to help him. (The god, not the Swedish pop band.)
It works! Tataka is cast out and Xena quickly takes the pinch off of Gabrielle, hugging her and kissing her.
I love these two.
22) So now everything's write in India. At least for now. Eli decides to take his leave of Xena and Gabrielle to go figure out his powers.
Gabrielle, in her new outfit, wants to travel with him or have him travel with them because she wouldn't mind helping Eli explore what's next. The way she sees it, yes, the power that she had was evil but, if an evil like that exists, it must also have a counterbalancing good force, too.
She's probably right.
But the three part company anyway but something tells me we haven't seen the last of Eli.
So that was Devi. It was a pretty good episode, though I have issues with the way the Indians were portrayed and there were a few too many "Xena randomly shows up to save Eli" scenes. It was really pushed into "really good" territory at the end with the revelation that Gabrielle was being inhabited by Tataka. Again, Renee's performance was really stellar. It turns out that Evil!Gabrielle gets me hot, too. I'm going to give Devi 4 out of 5 airlocks.
But since I've been temporarily exiled from my house, I figured it was the perfect time to write my review of Devi. By the time I'm finished, I'll wonder why I didn't just record it instead but oh well.
1) It's officially official! Xena and Gabrielle are in India! I mean, look at all the people! The colors! Listen to that vaguely Indian music! They made it!
2) They come across a street magician named Eli who puts on a hell of a show. He has this illusion (I'm respecting GOB Bluth by not calling it a "trick") where his assistant crawls up a rope and vanishes into another realm. All goes according to plan, even after Xena cuts the rope to test it's magical validity, except that Eli has a hard time getting Mya back. And when she comes back, she comes in pieces.
And when he heals the pieces so that she's alive and in one piece, she's possessed by an evil demon.
Not part of the act! Not part of the act!
3) If I may interrupt the plot, Xena is wearing a headband. Seriously, wardrobe people? I thought we had this talk way back during the first episode. Admittingly, this headband is a thousand times better than the monstrosity that was on her head in Sins of the Past but still. She's so much more attractive without it. I like to ogle my Xena, okay? I don't want to be distracted by headbands.
4) So Mya's possessed. Gabrielle runs up to try to help and as she holds Mya's convulsing body down to the ground, the demon flies away. Almost like . . . magic!
The locals are super impressed, though. That demon fled at Gabrielle's touch, they say. That must make her a devi, a spiritual healer who can cure and cast out.
5) If Gabrielle is a devi because she drove the demon out of Mya, than Eli is in trouble because he's the one who allowed Mya to be possessed in the first place. Apparently, ever since Eli showed up in this town (he's very clearly not Indian . . . he looks like a white guy from Jersey) things have been going wrong and people have been dying.
He's about to be stampeded by angry townspeople before Xena very kindly intervenes. The two hide in one of Eli's props and disappear, astounding the locals who quickly forget they were mad at him and go on bowing to Gabrielle, their devi.
This brings me to the major thing I dislike about Devi: The Indians. It's not that I dislike them as much as I dislike the way they are portrayed. They're kind of like these weird props that seem to lack much sense. Bad things happen so there must be a demon. A good thing happened with Gabrielle so she must be a devi. They're so . . . simple minded that it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, yes, there are bad demons and devis in this episode but they don't use any kind of critical thought or investigative powers to figure it out. They just kind of fall forward into the action without thought.
6) Once Xena and Eli escape to a local temple (Xena figures it's the last place Vikrum, Eli's main accuser) would think to look.
Eli wants to get the bottom of what Gabrielle is. Is she a devi?
"Not the last time I checked," Xena tells him, arms crossed in front of her and a small grin on her face. (Because she's investigated Gabrielle a lot. A lot a lot.)
Eli tries to hypnotize Xena with this candle he finds but this is Xena we're talking about. She plays along so she can kind of figure out Eli's angle. It turns out that he wants to know if Gabrielle is a devi because he wants to be a devi. When he was a kid he thinks he may have healed someone and he's been searching, ever since, for the power he might have to do so again. Like Gabrielle, he kind of just wants to heal people and what better way than to have the spiritual power to do so. If Gabrielle is a devi, Eli thinks, maybe she can teach him how he can heal.
7) Back in the square, Gabrielle's really heating up with her new powers. She accidentally heals a blind man.
This scene is straight out of Lisa Ling's documentary about North Korea where this Nepalese doctor goes there and gives many of the Koreans cataract surgery and when they are healed the first thing they do is give thanks to Kim Jong Il and they pledge their lives (again) to him. No thanks are given to the doctor or his staff. Nope. It was all Kim Jong Il.
The first thing this man does when Gabrielle "heals" him is to swear allegiance to her with his sword. (See? That's totally irrational.) And this prompts lots of men in the crowd to also pledge their sword to her. (Again, irrational.) So Gabrielle kind of has her own person army at this point.
8) Later that night Gabrielle's back to massaging Xena. (There's been a lot of massaging this season. I like!) Gabrielle is, at this point, pretty convinced that she's the devi everyone is saying she is. She tells Xena about how she healed the blind man. She's certain she has the healing spirit in her.
Xena's not so convinced. Gabrielle may have a spirit in her but it might be a bad spirit.
This should be the point where Gabrielle thinks, "You know, Xena's usually right about these things. I should consider it" but it's not.
9) The next morning, Xena tries to covertly suss out who she's dealing with: Is it her girlfriend best friend Gabrielle or is it a demon? Gabrielle immediately catches on, though, after Xena suggests they both go do some yoga. (I love that Gabrielle knows Xena is up to something because she suggests doing yoga.)
Gabrielle's kind of over the initial excitement of the previous day. Says that maybe all that happened was a strange fluke and that everyone's probably forgotten about it.
In this town, Gabrielle? With these people? Not likely. They both head to the balcony to oversee a gigantic crowd of unthinking drones shouting for their devi.
10) Xena goes back to the temple where she hid Eli and finds Vikrum, the priest, dead from hanging. It's obvious that it was a murder and, though Eli was there, Xena does not suspect he was the murderer.
But now Eli is freaked. Because he knows he didn't kill Virkum and he was at the temple and didn't know Vikrum was dead until just about right then. So that means there really are demons and spirits afoot and that is not cool.
11) Eli and Xena go out to the square and find Gabrielle and her merry men and Gabrielle's eyes meet Eli's and he gets super spooked (he's like a horse or something) and he runs away.
This doesn't not help his cause, though, because he runs across some dogs who decide he'd be fun to chase.
Xena saves him (of course). The both run back into Gabrielle and Eli collapses to his knees and begs Gabrielle to heal the demon within him. She levitates him and this must mean he's cured.
The thing is, Eli only did it to get the locals off his back and Gabrielle is convinced that she was not the one levitating Eli. She can't take credit for "healing" him.
So what did?
12) Xena goes back to the temple and gathers some water from the Ganges that she can use against bad demons. Eli's there (because these two keep hanging out at this temple) and he tells her about this demon on the wall of the temple named Tataka. The demon is dressed all in pearls and was able to fool people with her sweet face and sweet healing nature. Basically, she's heal people only to screw them in a bad way later on.
Now . . . this does not sound good to Xena. The last time she saw Gabrielle, she had some pearls. And who has a sweeter face than Gabrielle? And who has a sweeter nature? And who is randomly suddenly healing people all over the place?
Uh oh.
So when she runs outside to find Gabrielle . . . Well, she finds her quickly, sitting in some kind of gazebo, draped in an outfit of pearls with a gaggle of worshipers surrounding her.
This? This is not normal.
13) The good news? New outfit! This pearl outfit isn't going to last long but we have officially seen the last of Gabrielle's old outfit that's been with us, in some form or another, since season two!
YAY!
14) Gabrielle and Xena meet up again back in their room. (Do devis stay in hotels?)
"Okay," Gabrielle concedes. "It's a bit much. I know."
Xena is really concerned at this point and Gabrielle is pissed off that Xena is concerned. She finds Xena's stash of water from the Ganges, which is holy and, therefore, not good for demons. In anger, she takes the water and splashes it all over herself, trying to prove a point. Xena's pissed, now. She had the water, yes, but it was insurance for Eli, trying to get him to stay near because his only combat against a demon was the water that only Xena now had. Plus, the water is only dangerous to demons in the hands of a holy man so Xena certainly wasn't going to use it against Gabrielle because she literally can't.
Gabrielle's just bummed that Xena has these doubts that Gabrielle's actually doing good. She cries and Xena, who hates to see Gabrielle cry, hugs and comforts her.
Now, we all know at this point that Gabrielle isn't really Gabrielle, but I do have a bone to pick with her in this scene.
Can we all be reminded of the last episode, Paradise Found, where Xena had her suspicions about Aiden that Gabrielle did not heed? How did that end up? With death and statues. Gabrielle's really battling with trusting Xena's instincts this season and the bad news for her is that Xena's instincts are almost always right.
15) Back in the temple, Eli is attacked by one of Gabrielle's men, Ravi, but Xena shows up out of nowhere and fights him.
One of the unsuccessful parts of this episode is how often Xena just kind of shows up at the right time with no indication as to how she knew to be there. It's like they had to cut a couple scenes.
Eli manages to use some of Xena's Ganges water to burn Ravi's face, indicating that there's something demonic about him (whether he is also possessed of if the healing Gabrielle gave him kind of made him into a bit of a demon, I'm not sure).
But this is good news for all of them because Eli was able to hurt Ravi with the water it means that he has some kind of holy power. Gabrielle's not the devi. Eli is.
16) Xena goes back to the hotel and wakes up Gabrielle, feeding her a story about Eli getting hurt and needing a healer. Gabrielle goes to tell her guards that she's leaving, but recognizes that Ravi hasn't yet returned from the temple and if Ravi isn't back yet . . . Well, the Tataka demon in Gabrielle knows now that Xena is lying to her.
And, because she's Xena, she realizes that Tataka knows that it's a set up and the game is over. Tataka warns Xena that she sent back up to go after Eli (probably because she realizes Eli is a devi and is the one who can hurt her) so Xena, as usual in this episode, is off and running to save Eli.
17) She finds him in the forest. He's not really running away from anything but his shadow because he's a big fat coward and Xena is upset that he left because she needs him to heal Gabrielle.
Eli agrees to go back but he gives Xena some tips on how they can expel the demon in other ways. For example, if they have an exorcism, Xena needs some kind of icon of Gabrielle's.
18) Back in town, Gabrielle's turned into quite the saucy demon with a serious amount of lipstick.
My favorite part of this episode is Renee O'Connor's performance of Tataka. It's pretty awesome.
19) Xena goes back to their room to find an icon to use. She decides to use Gabrielle's quill.
20) Down on the street, all of the men are starting to fight each other. Tataka's influence is really doing its work. Tataka, as Gabrielle, blames it on Xena. Xena's not having it.
She jumps down from the balcony to confront and fight Tataka and her seriously rad abs. Tataka manages to kick the holy water out of Xena's hand as she goes to pour it on the quill, so that's out.
Now it's all coming down to a seriously hardcore fight that involves licking (yay! licking!), kicking, punching, jumping. Tataka is not going to go down easy. She doesn't want to give up Gabrielle's "firm young body" (who can blame her?) and ends up getting Xena on a bed of nails.
Xena manages to bounce her off and almost kills her but at the last minute Gabrielle manages to break through Tataka's influence, begging Xena to help her. In one of the most surprising moments of the series (for me), Xena doesn't stop her assault. She prepares to bury her sword deep into Gabrielle's body and only stops because Eli finally mans up and shouts for her to stop.
This gives Tataka the distraction she needs and she pushes Xena's sword away and flies towards Eli. Xena corkscrew spins after her and tackles her to the ground, quickly putting the pinch on her and basically offering her up to Eli to heal.
21) Kind of understand that her time is coming to an end, Tataka tells Eli, "The power you seek . . . It's a lie."
I don't know exactly why, but I love that line.
And it's not a bad tact to take because Eli is such a fecking wimp and is too busy whining about he's not sure he can save her and I pretty much want Xena to just pummel him to pieces, but eventually he gets his stuff together and calls on "Abba" to help him. (The god, not the Swedish pop band.)
It works! Tataka is cast out and Xena quickly takes the pinch off of Gabrielle, hugging her and kissing her.
I love these two.
22) So now everything's write in India. At least for now. Eli decides to take his leave of Xena and Gabrielle to go figure out his powers.
Gabrielle, in her new outfit, wants to travel with him or have him travel with them because she wouldn't mind helping Eli explore what's next. The way she sees it, yes, the power that she had was evil but, if an evil like that exists, it must also have a counterbalancing good force, too.
She's probably right.
But the three part company anyway but something tells me we haven't seen the last of Eli.
So that was Devi. It was a pretty good episode, though I have issues with the way the Indians were portrayed and there were a few too many "Xena randomly shows up to save Eli" scenes. It was really pushed into "really good" territory at the end with the revelation that Gabrielle was being inhabited by Tataka. Again, Renee's performance was really stellar. It turns out that Evil!Gabrielle gets me hot, too. I'm going to give Devi 4 out of 5 airlocks.