Between the Lines

This episode is, in this humble viewer's opinion, one of the best episodes of Xena ever. It ranks up there with my personal favorites, Is There a Doctor in the House?, Maternal Instincts, and A Good Day.

First of all, Alti (first seen in Adventures in the Sin Trade) returns, played with wicked abandon by the lovely Claire Stansfield. Apparently, since her defeat at Xena's hands, Alti's soul has been trying to track down Xena's, so that she can steal it and gain its power. Xena is sent into a future incarnation of herself to prevent this from happening.

The effects in this episode are incredible -- the dazzling formation of the vortex, the flying mendhi patterns (including two chakrams crafted of pure light) the spiritual fight between Alti and Xena (in which the aforementioned light weapons appear). Everything in this episode comes together to carry the viewer on a sometimes tense, sometimes funny, sometimes touching episode that is truly a work of art.

It is finally confirmed here; Xena and Gabrielle are soul mates -- at least in the sense that their souls tend to find each other time and again (not that there was any real doubt this was the case, but it certainly gives the whole uber-Xena genre a great deal more weight). The reversal of roles (Xena is reincarnated as the "Mother of Peace" while Gabrielle is the warrior) is interesting, and works. This lends credence to the idea that Gabrielle is just as much a warrior as Xena is. Gabrielle's growth in that role, however, has been held back by Xena's obsession over her blood innocence.

That is not to say that I think Gabrielle should go around wantonly killing -- far from it. Rather, both she and Xena are tools of Destiny (or karma, or whatever you wish to call it), and to fight the forces of the universe itself is futile. They need to accept the role they play in the cosmic dance, and get on with it.

Brought back into the past, Alti regains her spiritual powers (don't ask why, it just does, and it works). The fight here mirrors the fight in Adventures in the Sin Trade II -- in that fight, it was a spiritual battle with Xena being shown events in the future. In this episode, it is a physical fight with events from Xena's past being shown (I counted flashes from at least four different episodes, including Destiny and Callisto).

Gabrielle leaps into the fray, only to be knocked down by Alti, who grabs her by the hair and shows her "The Vision" (more on that later). Xena pulls out her chakram and throws it, cutting off Gabrielle's hair.

It was in many ways a shock -- while fans knew the haircut was coming, nobody expected it to happen at Xena's hand. The bard, freed from the torment of the vision, holds Alti still with power from the mendhi while Xena flings mendhi-chakrams of light, eventually destroying the shamaness.

Now about the vision... I think part of the problem Gabrielle had with the vision (before this episode, anyway) was that Xena was unable to adequately communicate the pain and horror of the moment. Somehow, I don't think that Gabrielle will doubt her quite the same way anymore. She will still doubt the truth of the vision itself, but she will certainly understand the effect it has had on Xena.

I am especially fond of the tag scene at the end of the episode, where Xena creates the "female" symbol so that they can remember the women they were. It extends the universality of the characters from specific heroes to universal heroes -- for both women and men.

One final word -- the maguffin that starts this whole thing with the woman being thrown onto her husband's funeral pyre is an actual belief. A woman's duty is to obey and follow her husband, even into the land of the dead. By western standards, it seems a barbaric and ridiculous notion (hence Xena and Gabrielle's interference). However, a wife who does not do so is denying her place, her role in the cosmic cycle. A wife who does this is while a wife who denies this is not. In this episode, the woman ends up following her husband despite our heroes' interference -- not by literally throwing herself on the pyre, but she does send her spirit after him.

This is an excellent episode. Tightly written. Well directed. Superbly performed. Like the mendhi itself, a seemingly simple pattern when viewed at a distance, but up close an intricate knotwork of lines that creates the whole work of beauty.

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