PROMO TRANSCRIPTION
Gabrielle: What's your problem?
Girl: Your face.
SHE'S RUDE.
(Gabrielle and girl have a fight. Xena steps between the two.)
AND OBNOXIOUS
Girl: Xena, I'm here to replace Blondie.
AND SHE WANTS TO BE JUST LIKE XENA
(Girl follows Xena and Gabrielle. Xena walks toward the girl.)
Girl: I never said I was a goodie-two-shoes but I'm here to turn it around.
BUT FOR THIS YOUNG WARRIOR WANNABE
(Men with swords.) (Gabrielle and the girl are buried up to their necks in
dirt.)
Gabrielle: Wonder girl took matters into her own hands again.
IT'S TIME
Girl: Let's go, Blondie.
Gabrielle: I'm gonna kill her.
FOR A LITTLE
(Gabrielle hits the girl with her staff.)
TOUGH
(Whap)
LOVE.
Xena: I will straighten her out.
BATTLE ON XENA
TV GUIDE PROMO
A brash teen tries to convince Xena that she would make a better partner than
Gabrielle by lleading the duo to the stolen Urn of Apollo.
A young woman who wants to turn her life around joins Xena and Gabrielle in a quest for the stolen urn of
Apollo.
When Xena & Gabrielle set out to recover the stolen Urn of Apollo, they are joined by Tara, a feisty 16 year
old who wants a chance to turn her life around.
A teen with a bad attitude picks a fight with Gabrielle, then tells Xena that she wants to be her new partner.
Gabrielle's incensed, but Xena sees something in her. And as it happens, she can be helpful: she knows
who stole a missing urn that Xena and Gabrielle are after.
AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
1st RELEASE: 02/16/98
An AA average of --
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 7th with 6.7
(2) HERCULES (73/414 "Armageddon, Part 2") 11th with 6.3
(3) XENA 14th with 5.8
(4) STAR TREK DS9 (138/614 "One Little Ship") 16th with 5.1
THE OUTER LIMITS (60 "Stream of Consciousness")
EARTH: FC (15/115 "If You Could Read My Mind")
2nd RELEASE: 07-27-98
An AA average of 4.1
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 8th with 5.1
(2) XENA 14th with 4.1
(3) HERCULES 16th with 4.0
(4) WALKER TEXAS RANGER 18th with 3.9
(5) BAYWATCH 19TH WITH 3.9
STAR TREK DS9 did not place in the top 20
SYNOPSIS:
This synopsis is by Bluesong.
Greetings Apollo worshippers! Annointment from the urn of the Sun God will
appease your tortured souls and offer you forgiveness from past misdeeds, or
so says the priest at the Temple of Apollo. Unfortunately two goons konk him
on the head and take the urn away, leaving the priest without any holy water
for his work. So he visits Xena in a tavern and begs for her assistance,
telling her that some people simply cannot forgive themselves and need some
help so they can get over the past and get on with their lives. Xena believes
in strength of self, but agrees to get the urn back. She goes to retrieve
Argo, and while she is out Gabrielle finds herself dampened by a beverage
tossed upon her by a willful young woman at the bar. She doesn't like the
look of Gabrielle's face, she says. Then she tosses oatmeal at Gabrielle as
well. Gabrielle refuses to fight her, but the girl (dressed in black and
looking very much like a throw-back to rock and roller Joan Jett), attacks
Gabrielle. They have a little cat fight and the girl bites Gabrielle's ear
(Mike Tyson, anyone?). Xena breaks them up. The girl, whose name is Tara, says she wants to do good
and change her wicked ways. Xena tells her to
stay where she is; she already has a partner.
Xena and Gabrielle head out to find the gang whole stole the urn. Tara
follows. This distresses Gabrielle. Xena asks the girl to leave again, then
gives in to her pleas and allows her to join them. Xena tells Gabrielle she
reminds her of herself when she was young. Great, not only were you wild but
"you were obnoxious too," Gabrielle opines. Darkness falls, and Xena tells
Gabrielle and Tara to stay put while she slips up to the gang's camp to learn
where the urn is. Tara follows her, however. Xena sends her back. Tara then
approaches a guard. She knows these boys; she has been with them for a while.
She leads the guard over to Xena and watches her put "the pinch" on him.
Gabrielle is upset because Xena does not chastize Tara for following her; then
Tara takes Gabrielle's usual place beside Xena at the campfire. Tara asks
Xena what it takes to be good, and can she do it? Xena tells Tara that she
believes she can be good because everyone remakes themselves every second of
every day.
They follow the gang members the next day. Xena rides out to stop the people
who are going to buy the urn, telling Gabrielle and Tara not to move forward
until they see her riding toward the ridge. But Tara takes matters into her
own hands and runs off toward the gang's camp. She and Gabrielle are
captured, and Xena finds them buried up to their necks in a trap. Xena is not
a happy camper at this point, and she tells Tara that if she doesn't
straighten up very quickly she won't be around to learn anything from Xena.
Xena then jumps on Argo and heads off to find the gang. While she is gone,
Gabrielle beats up Tara (not intentionally, mind you, it was mostly self-
defense). Xena comes back very quickly, breaks them up, and holds Tara while
she cries. She and Gabrielle tend to Tara's bruises and Tara tells them about
her alcoholic father. They make camp, and Gabrielle invents charades.
During the night Tara leaves the fire and meets one of the gang members.
They
kiss. The next morning the three women head toward an abandoned castle, where
the gang members should be. Xena slips in and opens the door. The gang
members are arguing with the buyers, so Xena goes and looks for the urn. Tara
finds it and runs. She finds her boyfriend, who laughs about playing Xena for
a sucker. But Xena follows Tara and listens while Tara tells her boyfriend
that she wants to take the urn back, and she wants to change her ways because
Xena believes in her. He tries to kill Tara and Xena hits him. Tara runs
with the urn, but she goes into the room where all the gang members are.
There is a fight, with the urn being thrown about and up in the air and caught
(shades of "Cradle of Hope"), but Xena, Gabrielle and Tara win. Tara is
elated because she finally did good.
The urn is returned to the temple. The priest forgives Tara, telling her her
past misdeeds are forgiven; go and do good. He does the same for Gabrielle.
But Xena stands in the door, with the sun shining at her back. She does not
come forward. Tara asks Gabrielle, "Doesn't she want her sins to be
forgiven?" Xena looks sad, then turns and walks away into the sun.
COMMENTARY:
This commentary is by Beth Gaynor.
I liked the idea of this episode: Xena attracts yet another
groupie, this time a girl who's following Xena's footsteps
in more ways than she knows. But the show tried to tackle a
lot of things without getting any of them really down pat:
Xena's identification with the kid, the kid trying to "learn
the rules" of being a do-gooder, the kid pushing all of
Gabrielle's buttons, and an interesting religious debate
about faith in objects versus faith in self. The show had
some good moments, but ended up feeling choppy as it jumped
from idea to idea without settling on any of them for long.
The actress who played Tara was on target. Tara was an
obnoxious, annoying kid, and if the actress who played her
wasn't on top of her game, this would have been a painful
episode to watch. But Tara was given heaps of spunk, which I
have a soft spot for. She was a brat, but she was fun to
watch, and the actress pulls off her part with style. Kudos
to the casting staff.
So let me see if I have Micah's plan straight. Instead of
just stealing the urn from his friends, he decides to lure
the greatest warrior in Greece into his midst to cause a
distraction. Kind of akin to pulling the pin on a hand
grenade to make people run away. This fella was NOT long on
the smarts department.
Line of the episode: "Oh, no. I knew you were evil, but you
were obnoxious, too?" Followed closely by Tara's great
delivery of "I don't know what that means, but you better
take it back right now!"
Add to the list of Xena/Gabrielle innovations the invention
of charades... and vaudeville. (Note to director: we didn't
need to see it twice. It was funny the first time.)
Gabrielle has great talent as a mime, Lord help us all.
Hysterical "We donnnnn't know" line from Xena - that's who I
always end up with on my team.
What a complex "before I kill you, Mister Bond" death trap
the gang created for Gabrielle and Tara! That was the most
complicated way to kill off intruders I've ever seen.
The opening fight between Gabrielle and Tara was just...
wrong. Granted, Gab doesn't do much barroom brawling, but
this is a lady who beats off warlords for breakfast, and she
can't pull a kid off her? If Gabrielle hadn't thrown a
punch, I would have said that she was just refusing to
fight, but she *does* work in a few blows, so that wasn't
the problem. Well, at least she got to prove that no
chain-link-fence-eared punk can come near her when she
staff-equipped.
What was the purpose of that opening montage to introduce
the vase? The birth of the worship of Apollo? I'm not sure
what that had to do with the price of eggs in Athens.
Apparently the bad guys burn houses for campfires. When we
saw the smoke over the hill, I thought the gang had decided
to wipe out a small village or two, until Xena & crew
identified it as a camp. A camp for who, jungle deforesters?
Tara didn't seem like an unusually bright kid, but wow, she
knew how to press all the right buttons for both Xena and
Gabrielle. She immediately hooked Xena into wanting to take
her under her wing, and threw all the right barbs to drive
Gabrielle right up the walls. It makes the mind shudder to
think how obnoxious Xena could have been when she was an
adolescent.
WHIMPERS, MURMURS, AND A LOVE GONE TOO
FAR:
01-07-98. All I know about this episode is the name and the airing date!!! If you
know anything about this episode, please share!
HIGHLIGHTS:
Highlights by Beth
Gaynor.
This episode goes up one notch in my book just for that last
scene. Xena eclipsing the sun (Apollo) with that look of
longing was amazing. Xena would love it so much if water
from an urn could erase past evil, but she knows it won't.
Unlike Gabrielle, who's willing to hear out other beliefs,
Xena would be a hypocrite for even trying, and she walks
away from the ceremony. Excellent, excellent scene.
THINGS TO LOOK OUT
FOR
These things are by Beth Gaynor.
The final fight was a return to the famous baby-tossing
battle of CRADLE OF HOPE - they even used some of the same
tosses and camera shots as they did for little Gabriel
soaring through the air. The gag doesn't work as well with
pottery, though.
MORE THINGS TO LOOK OUT
FOR
From Lydia Forbes. In the episdode 'Forgiven' of season 3 of Xena: As she, Gabrielle, and Tara are walking towards the castle where the gang hides out and they stop, look closely at Xena's left-hand-side curly attachment metal thing on her armour, it has come undone and her armour is only being held on by one side of it!
TRANSCRIPT
Click here to read a transcript of FORGIVEN .
DISCLAIMER:
No street-talking, cat-fighting, barroom-brawling juvenile delinquents were
harmed during the production of this motion picture.
WHOOSH! ARTICLES:
The following WHOOSH! articles discuss this episode:
Coming soon
LINKS:
The following links discuss this episode:
Coming soon
