Takes Once to Know One

Capsule summary: When a bounty hunter turns up dead at Cyrene's Inn, Xena learns that everyone had a motive to kill her, and must sort through the clues to uncover the culprit in this homage to the murder mystery genre.

This episode was fun, if a bit slow. There is very little action at all until the final act, which upset some fans. Regardless, a wonderful ensemble cast makes this one fun to watch. Like all of the homage episodes on Xena, there are cultural references galore, but not much in the way of "seasonal theme". Still, that isn't a bad thing, and this episode works, at least in my opinion.

It was wonderful to see this cast brought together; Autolycus, Joxer, Minya, Cyrene, and Lilla. All have gathered in Cyrene's Inn as a surprise for Gabrielle (apparently it's her birthday). Also present is the bounty hunter Ravenica, who is after Xena for the bounty on her head. Ravenica turns up dead with a knife through her chest in a locked room. Discord, as the newly appointed Goddess of Retribution, gives Xena until dawn to deliver the killer, or she will take one of the others.

Needless to say, everyone had reason to want Ravenica dead. The mystery here is not tremendously complex -- the fun is not watching the mystery unravel, but watching the characters interact.

There are dozens of wonderful character moments in this episode. I think my favorite line comes early on when Joxer said (about the dead Ravenica) "Maybe she had a heart condition," and Auto replies, "Yeah, maybe it grew that knife."

Joxer, while back to his goofy self, was well used in this episode. A possible solution to the whole Gabrielle dilemma has presented itself -- Lilla seems to be rather smitten with him. But Joxer is still in love with Ga... er... gallivanting around and all that.

Autolycus is his usual slippery self, played with his usual arrogant sneer and self-interest by Bruce Campbell. His haircut, however, leaves something to be desired (many of the characters this season have hair problems one way or another).

It was nice to see Cyrene again. I don't recall her being in an episode since Sins of the Past. It was nice to see her relationship with Xena restored.

Minya and Lilla are as feisty as ever, having heard that Ravenica hobbles the horses of her quarry, they try to set her horse loose so that she won't be able to pursue Xena as effectively.

Gabrielle's admission of guilt at the halfway mark was not too surprising. I expected something like that (it was reminiscent of The Execution from season two). The method she thought she used though -- death by Joxer's gravy recipe (as Xena said, "that's inhuman") was clearly inaccurate.

In the end all the twists and turns get untwisted, and the culprit turns out to be no great shock -- none other than Argo, Xena's faithful steed.

This episode is light on the action -- there is one neat chakram trick shot, and then the final fight sequence where Xena figures it all out. Regardless, this episode is a nice diversion, and certainly not a waste of time.

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