SYNOPSIS:
Synopsis by Liz Sheppard
This episode starts with several people
looking at a king's treasures. Closing time comes up and the
guards make everyone leave, but a guard thinks he saw the hand of
a statue of Hermes move, but ignores it and locks up the room.
When the doors close, a bunch of flames rise up around a
stone-like thing. The statue comes to life and it's Autolycus,
coming to steal the stone.
Hercules is hanging out in a town,
fixing everything that needs it. It's the place that him and
Serena lived in, when she was alive. In the marketplace, Falafel
is trying to sell some weird cooking thing, but thugs start
picking on Falafel. Herc the Hero defends him and a big pointless
fight scene that's in every Herc ep breaks out.
The guard figures out that they
don't have a statue of Hermes and he calls
for guards and they storm the room just in time to see Autolycus
steal the
stone. Another big fight scene breaks out.
Then all of a sudden, the fights
stop, literally. Herc and Autolycus are
the only people who haven't frozen. Hercules realizes that
somebody has
stopped time. While Herc wanders around, trying to figure out why
time has
stopped, he sees Autolycus leaving the castle, notices him coming
his way,
and freezes himself. Autolycus shows up, finds Herc, thinks quite
fondly of
himself, sneezes, and Herc says bless you. Herc identifies the
stone as the
Kronus stone, which has the power of time travel. While Herc's
busy with thugs that Autolycus unfroze, Autolycus decides to
travel back in
time when Quallas was alive to steal in front of his face. Herc
catches him
before he goes, but they both go instead.
They go to the same village, except
a few years earlier. But the only prob
is that the stone was destroyed by a horse, but Herc tells him to
steal it
again. Autolycus wants to steal the stone alone, but Herc doesn't
want him
to go alone. Herc sees some weird lighningy thing going on in a
foresty
mountainy region and runs off, leaving Autolycus alone. He gets
there just
in time to see Zeus kill all the Golden Hinds with lightning
bolts. My
favorite Black Leather Duo is watching the whole thing go down.
Strife is
very entertained by the light show, but Ares is questioning why
it
happened. Zeus fears the Hinds because their blood can kill a
god. Strife
notices Serena and Ares makes her into a little naked woman and
tells her
to go to his temple. Herc sees Ares. Ares sees Herc. Ares does
his -evil
laugh-. Gotta love it.
Meanwhile, Autolycus is trying to
sneak into the castle, when he is
tapped on the shoulder by....himself. Here's where the Doublemint
commercial starts. Both Autolycii are kind of confused. The older
Autolycus
explains to the younger one what is going on and they decide to
team up,
but are caught by Quallas' guards and thrown in jail.
Ares and Herc are hanging out in
Ares' temple watching Serena cry and
wander around. Herc wants Ares to let her go, but Ares won't do
it. He
wants to protect his secret weapon. Ares also figures out that
Herc is the
Herc of the future. He figured it out just by looking at him,
too. He must
have some sort of cursh on the big blonde guy to be able to
notice a new
line on his face.
Serena's wandering around when she
finds a few guys with one of them
wounded. She does her touchy-healy on the guy. The guy touches
her and, of
course, she hinds out and they try to kill her. Herc the Hero
shows up just
in time and saves her. He explains to her what is happening to
her, and
tells her not to serve Ares, but she gets scared and runs away.
Serena(still in Hind form), once again, is wandering around. She
gets shot
by an arrow and falls to the ground, screaming really strangly.
Ares shows
up and takes the arrow out of her. He just tells her to be more
careful and
that he can help her. She brings up what Herc told her to do. Ares
just
cringes and tells her that only he can help her.
Ares is playing with the arrow
right in front of Strife, who's just eyeing
it. Ares convines Strife that Hercules has to die because he's
come back in
time to get Hind blood to use on them in the future. Ares, of
course,
leaves the arrow in the young god's reach.
Herc's wandering around(there's
alot of wandering around in this ep) when
Strife arms a bow with the arrow and shoots Herc(you had to have
known that
that boy would of done that). Herc falls to the ground and almost
dies, but
he doesn't(his show). Serena comes by and does her touchy-healy
thing again
and Herc lives. She realizes that she can touch him and not hind
out. He
tells her to think about what she's doing with Ares for a day
before she
decides anything.
The Kings of Thieves' break out of
jail and plan to wait until everyone
leaves to steal the stone. Quallas tells everyone that the twins
excaped,
so before the Autolycii got trapped in there, they Tarzan swing
out of the
closing doors. By the way, that door is the same door that
Callisto trapped
Herc in in Surprise. At a campfire, the Autolycii are fighting
with
each other when Hercules is walking by, hearing them, and thinks
that
Autolycus is talking to himself. Which he kind of is. They start
to fight
fight and Herc breaks it up and finds the two Autolycii. The
younger one
gets rude and the older one punches him out.
Ares is yelling at Strife on what
he did and on how he failed. Strife
doesn't seem to mind, he just yells back. After they're done
arguing, Ares
realizes that it's Serena that has to die in order for everything
to work out.
Autolycus tied up the younger
Autolycus and left to get the stone. He
reaches the castle, but the guards are too worried about the
other
Autolycus to notice that the one that's really there has already
got the
stone and left.
Herc and Serena are wandering
around a field when the Black Leather Duo
shows up and Ares stabs Serena with Stife being all happy happy
in the
background. Ares and Hercules have a big gravity defying fight,
showing
lots and lots brotherly love to each other. Herc eventually gets
the Hind's
blood covered knife to Ares' neck, but instead of killing him, he
makes
Ares give Serena her life back and spare her Hind life. Ares does
it,
destroying the Hind part. Herc and Serena reunite and the
villians leave.
Herc and Serena are in the marketplace
where a kid runs into Serena. She
freaks, but doesn't hind out. Autolycus runs by and the manly man
go back
to their own time. Herc takes the stone and destroys it.
Autolycus gets
mad. Herc runs into a little girl and Serena comes by to get her
child.
Serena has a whole other life now and what happened between her
and Herc
never happened. At least he saved her life. Would you consider
this to be a
happy or sad ending? I don't know.
COMMENTARY:
This commentary is by Kent Simmons.
Perhaps the most talked about episode was "The End of the Begaining" as far as the Hind Storyline goes. Many fans thought the ending was sad and others where confused. To me it was
a good ending to what was an intresting and dark part of Hercules life. Serena was killed by
Ares and Xena and Hercules used there power and minds to force Ares to admit to his
wrong but Hercules still blaimed himself because he thought that if he never married and
met Serena, he would never have got her killed and she would be alive still. In this episode
we get to finally see that come true. The acting work by Kevin and Kara was pretty good
and Kara was a better actor than Sam Jenkins, although Sam Jenkins was nicer looking. The
double storyline was good and Autolycus proved he had a good heart
This episode was a chance to the King of Thieves to rewrite his wrong. He somehow was once young and foolish as we see but as a full grown hair losing thief, he was able to steal to stone
of time travel and decided to resteal the stone in his youth so he could screw up time and rewrite
his wrong. But when he and Herc travel back, Auto meets his younger self and all hel l breaks loose as Auto trys to teach his younger self the rules of life. Bruce Campbell did a wonderful job and this has been the best Autolycus episode so far on Hercules, in my opinion. Bruce always does a good job as the King of Thieves. Its kindof funny that Auto would disguise himselfas the statue of Hermes, the god of thieves and travelers. [King of Thieves traveling through time] The evil King Qualis was also a unusual person as he was very crewl and somehow must of given birth to Nestor, who was the prince of Sernea in HTLJ "Encounter".
The relationship between Ares and Serena was created. We get to see how Zeus killed the Hinds and how Ares conned Serena into working for him. Hercules knew that any relationship between Ares and Serena would lead to her death in the future so he uses everything he has to help Serena be her own hind. But it takes Ares stabbing Serena with a knife to kill her and the Hind. Herc does have a chance to finally destroy Ares and maybe the future when he forgets where he is and why he's there and fights Ares. Kevin Sorbo did a incredible superkick which would make Shawn Michaels ticked off ! The fight that Smith and Sorbo acted out was very good and Herc showed his killed instinct and Ares showed his cowardnes when he begged for Herc not to kill him with a knife full of hind blood. Ares allowed Serena to live as a human and took away the hind, however it turns out that when Herc and Auto arrive into the future and there normal time, Serena is now married and has a child. Herc thus completed his mission but it ended in a sad way for him, cause he probally thought that Serena and him would still meet and wed. The sceens between Kara and Kevin where good and it was very good considering Sam and Kevin are a couple and did much better sceens as lovers. The emotion on Hercs face and his sad/happy look was perfect for this episode. Heros heart is also present as Herc rescues a boy from falling in well, which alters history which is something that Herc did not want to do.
The interaction between the two Autos was funny and entertaining. Autolycus must still have some of Xena inside him since he sure as hell was fighting the soldiers like nothing else. The music was great and the whole Auto stroyline was entertaining and worth watching. It did not outshine the Hind/Ares/Herc section of the episode. Both blended together good. The ending where Auto comforts Herc about losing Serena was a nice touch and showed that even cocky and brash Auto has a sensitive side. Strife was a good villan but was not as hated as in the trilogy episodes. Strife caused havoc when he shot Hercules with the arrow and its obvious that Ares worries very much about being stripped of his godhood cause Zeus wont let Hercules die and Strife could of killed Hercules. The folks on the forum who suggested that Strife was a better villan in the first 3 hind episodes are right. This episode is for anyone and is a mixture of dark stuff and some comedy. It gets 4 out of 5 stars. I would suggest to watch "Encounter", "When a Man Loves a Woman", "Judgement Day", and than "End of the Begaining" since it makes understanding the whole storyline easier, for those that have not seen it yet.
Things to Look Out For
The village used in EOB was also used in XWP's "Comedy of Eros" which aired during season 2.
The sceen where lightning kills the hinds is pretty cool.
The hunter that asks Serena to save her brother is played by Grant McFarland, who played Ming Tzu in XWP's "The Debt" and ‘The Debt II".
Bruce Campbell does his "Goody Two Shoes" skit from "Army of Darkness" in this episode minus the gunshot.
The sceen where Hercules says that he knows time stopped is a perfect shot of a studio backdrop as it looks so obvious that Herc is standing in front of a background. Sometimes its hard to tell.
Spiked doors in the Qualis castle where in the dungeon during "Surprise".
The forest route where Herc saves Serena from the hunters was used in many episodes including-"Atlantis", "If I Had aHammer", and " A Star to Guide Them".
Highlights
Hercules superkicking Ares in midair during there fight.
Ares taking Hercules down with a headscissors like move during there fight.
The Herc/Serena sceens.
The interaction between the two Autos.
Qualis saying that he needs to stop drinking wine for breakfast, after he see's the two Autos.
Auto complaining about Hercules tearing apart the crystal.
01-12-99. When this episode was first being discussed, several on the HTLJ Forum stated that this episode was supposed to be a "Bruce Campbell Episode" and there would be no Kevin Sorbo in it. No one ever found out any more. The reason for Sam Jenkins not playing the Hind was that she was shooting a commercial. Thats why Kara Zedikar played the Hind. Info heard in April/May 1997.
