PROMO TRANSCRIPTION
ON THE NEXT XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS
Soldier: Attack!!
AN ARMY OF SAVAGES START A WAR
Soldier: They're gonna kill us all.
ONLY ONE WOMAN CAN STOP THEM
(men chanting "Xena")
Gabrielle: But these men will die without water.
Xena: This is war! What did you expect?
XENA GETS OUT OF CONTROL
(Xena throws ax. Gabrielle looks shocked)
Xena: KILL 'EM ALL!
Gabrielle: What happened to the Xena that I know?
WILL SHE MAKE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE?
(Xena fighting Horde leader)
Gabrielle: Xena! Watch out!!
BATTLE ON, XENA
TV GUIDE PROMO
Xena reverts to her old ways to whip a dispirited Athenian
army into shape to take on a horrific foe known as the Horde. But her
ruthlessness appalls Gabrielle.
Xena calls on her combat experience to fight a sadistic army of fierce
warriors, but Gabrielle fears her friend is reverting to her evil former
self.
Xena reverts to her bloodthirsty ways when she takes charge of a
decimated army struggling to fight off her old enemies, the Horde.
AIRING AND RATING INFORMATION
1st RELEASE: 04/28/97
An AA average of 6.0
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) XENA 8th with 6.0
(2) STAR TREK DS9 11th with 5.2
(3) HERCULES 13th with 5.0
(4) OUTER LIMITS 3.4
(5) BABYLON 5 3.3
2nd RELEASE: 08/25/97
An AA average of 4.9
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) XENA 9th with 4.9
(2) HERCULES 10th with 4.8
(3) STAR TREK DS9 21st with 3.5
(4) BAYWATCH 23rd with 3.3
3rd RELEASE: 06/01/98
An AA average of 4.4
Competition from Syndicated Action Dramas:
(1) X-FILES 8th with 5.2
(2) XENA 12th with 4.4
(3) HERCULES 14th with 4.2
(4) STAR TREK DS9 17th with 3.8
(5) WALKER TEXAS RANGER 24th with 3.5
SYNOPSIS:
This synopsis is by Bluesong.
The quickest summary of this episode
would be: lots of fighting. It has so much nuance and hidden
innuendo that a simple summary will not do it justice. It is also
complicated and this summary is not in scene order.
It opens pleasantly enough, with Xena
and Gabrielle fishing. Unfortunately the third fish they haul in
is a dying man. Xena realizes a cannibalistic tribe called "The
Horde" is in the area, and she and Gabrielle run. They escape in
a canoe. When they finally pull up on the river bank, Xena tells
Gabrielle that she and her army first met "The Horde" when her
army went west. They went into a ravine and many men were killed.
When Xena and the
rest of her army came to save the men, they had been tortured and
killed. Their skin had been stripped from their bones while they
were still alive. Xena appears very grieved by the memory. They
return to the canoe and go down river. They pass men being
tortured on the bank. Gabrielle wants to stop to help, but Xena
says it is too late. However, one man swims out to them and they
do take him along to the garrison down the river. He dies anyway,
though.
Once in the fort, Xena finds a bunch of
Athenian soldiers who have given up. It turns out there are no
reinforcements coming -- those were the men she and Gabrielle
saw dying before. Xena takes control of the army, giving them
hope. Gabrielle sets up a hospital, conducting triage with
reluctance.
Xena, meanwhile, becomes ruthless,
determined to kill the entire "Horde" -- she sets up traps,
hoists dead men up on the walls to make it appear like
reinforcements have arrived, and keeps food back from the
hospital, much to Gabrielle's chagrin. She makes the wounded
guard the walls, as well.
Gabrielle is horrified to see Xena
glory in killing during a battle, and is especially upset when
Xena kills one "Horde" man by throwing a hatchet in his back.
Gabrielle wants to know where the Xena she knows went. "If losing
her [that Xena] is the price I pay for saving us all I'll pay
it," Xena says. She snaps at Gabrielle, and tells her never to
question her "command" in
front of "her troops" again. "That's the price, isn't it? Losing
your humanity," Gabrielle says at one point.
Xena takes one of the "Horde" captive,
but he does not answer. She slaps him around in front of
Gabrielle; this does not go over well. Gabrielle learns from him,
though, that the word "kaltuka," which the "Horde" men say over
and over as they die, means water, and is not some god they pray
to, as the soldiers think. So Gabrielle decides that if she's
going to die, it'll be her way. She slips outside the fort and
gives the wounded "Horde" men who
are saying "kaltuka" a drink, and the "Horde" take this as a sign
of a truce. They come and gather up their wounded; the soldiers
go out and do the same.
But Xena knows the truce won't hold.
While Xena and Gabrielle are outside
the fort, they see that the man they had hoped would make it out
of the valley to get reinforcements has come crawling back. Now
they have their "battle to the death," Gabrielle tells Xena.
While Gabrielle is nursing this man, Xena goes to her and
apologizes. Gabrielle says if she had been through what Xena has
-- but Xena stops her.
No, Gabrielle, you understand hate, she says, but you don't give
in to it. You don't know how much I love -- that.
Xena has the captive "Horde" brought to
her. He has a warrior code; he will not kill her because she's
the leader. So she sends him out to get his leader; a one-on-one
battle. Xena meets the man and defeats him, but she does not kill
him. She turns her back on him and his own warriors kill him.
COMMENTARY:
Commentary Beth Gaynor.
Wow. What a fantastic episode - one of those that, the moment it's finished, makes you want to hit rewind on the
VCR and watch again. The first two minutes of the show give
us the kind of light-hearted humor we've seen a lot of
lately, just to make the next 58 minutes of dark grimness
that much more jarring.
XWP now has its equivalent of the Borg - The Horde. And our introduction to the Horde is bone-chilling. At first, we see
some nasty men surrounding Xena and Gabrielle with howling
bloodlust - creepy, but been there, done that. (Anyone else
notice that they even used dog/wolf sound effects for these
guys?)
But as Xena and Gab flee down the river, the full horror starts to slowly dawn: bodies begin floating by like flotsam
after a storm, followed by the tortures of those not killed
yet. As the Horde begin to close on their canoe, the baddies
rise from the river like crocs and peer from their hiding
places on the riverbank with piercing eyes (anyone else
reminded of Rambo in the clay cliff?). Now that's the way to
make an entrance! Even Xena is afraid of the Horde - Xena,
afraid? By the time that introduction to them is finished,
we can understand perfectly.
The Horde get their own theme music, too - with a male soloist for a change - in kind of a Native American-sounding
chant. The Horde's costumes and war paint seemed to be a mix
of North and South American native culture with a healthy
dose of African influence. Why all those guys are crossing
oceans to pick on Xena, I dunno, but the effect is fairly
cool!
"Here we go again" - nice foreshadowing for Gab's return to
the battlefield, just like in Is There a Doctor In the
House? In Doctor, Gabrielle left the safety of the healing
temple to go to the battlefield in an attempt to save lives.
Here we go again, indeed. Gab knew very well what she was
walking into when she left the compound; she's paid the
consequences in a big way once before. Thank goodness, this
time the results weren't so disastrous. But knowing what she
was facing made her willingness to go all the more
remarkable.
Our bard continues to grow - she can now organize a hospital as Xena has done. She's capable of handling the injured and mobilizing the soldiers, but she's still not up to making the cold, ruthless decisions that are needed, a theme that was briefly touched on in Is There a Doctor in the House. She doesn't have the detachment that can be necessary when treating so many wounded. She cannot see a life as just another body; she sees each man personally, instead. It's all to her credit, but it also means she'll never make a good triage admin.
Which brings us to one of the more interesting points of the
show: What was Gabrielle's true source of horror for Xena
and the battle against the Horde? This show was full of some
of the grim, black realities of war and battle. Just to
rattle off a few, we had:
The torture of the men on the riverbank - and the
necessity of leaving them behind
The death of the man Xena and Gab fought to save
Using corpses as decoys
Wounded men lying dying, unattended, on the
battlefield
Denying food and water to men unable to defend
the compound
The slaughter of the enemy, including defeated
and fleeing men
These are sad, terrible realities that do happen all the time in the thick of battle. But in addition to these, we have Xena's complete lack of remorse or compassion about them. Which was the part that bothered Gab the most? Maybe it was both; I saw all of the above in the bard's reactions. The dark Xena wanted to belittle her for the former, but the light Xena really needed to hear (and finally did hear) the latter. When the light Xena comes back, she helps tend the wounded, sends them food, and shows some sympathy for Mercer as she sends him out into the teeth of the enemy.
EDITS/CUTS ON THE USA/SCI-FI CHANNELS
03-25-00. From KSZoneW. Where Xena says b*st*rd is bleeped.
WHIMPERS, MURMURS, AND A LOVE GONE TOO
FAR
PRE-COMMENTARY: It looks like Gabrielle
gets pretty miffed at the warrior princess in this one!!!! In an
IRC chat it was overheard from XenaStaff that next season's (3rd
season) "extras" budget was thoroughly blown for THE PRICE. More
battles than you can shake a stick at. And it also looks like
XENA DOES BEAU GESTE. Stay tuned for more pithy observations...
HIGHLIGHTS:
Highlights by Beth
Gaynor.
Gabrielle's grim graciousness while she works in the
hospital and goes onto the battlefield to give water to the
dying is true nobility; maybe all these royal titles that
keep getting shoved at her are rubbing off. "You don't know
how much I love... that." As do we all. My breath caught in
my throat when Xena spoke that line, with a suddenness that
made my lungs wonder what the heck just happened. Acting
kudos once again go to Lucy; that could have been an
incredibly cheesy line, but she spoke it with sincerity and
directness that made it haunting. So close to honesty, Xena,
and yet still so far to go.
Cool effect of the month award! Xena catches a throwing axe
with her whip and shoots it right back at the guy. Eeee-yow!
I've dubbed the two Xenas we see in this episode the dark
Xena and the light Xena. The dark Xena is the Warrior
Princess, the Destroyer of Nations, as she really was. A
powerful, frightening, almost possessed woman. And looking
exactly as she did in Dreamworker, even though that episode
was so long ago (for the actors, at least). Xena showed some
of that cold fire in the Gauntlet, and in Dreamworker, Lucy
got it down pat, and she brings up a carbon copy in The
Price to show us again how nasty Xena was back then.
The most amazing thing was that I could see the exact moment
that the dark Xena set up residence, and the exact moment
the light Xena regained control. The dark Xena moved in when
the soldiers called for her. Xena really does have a heck of
an ego, and she lo-o-oves to hear her name chanted by
armies. It's one of the show's themes; whenever she's being
tempted by the dark side, it calls her name. This time, she
reveled in it, and the dark Xena took the reins and
submerged every lesson Xena's learned since, much to
Gabrielle's appallment.
And the moment that the dark Xena broke was with the line
"She was very convincing!" Xena was prepared to kill that
poor sap who had let Gabrielle pass through to the
battlefield, but that one sentence reminded her of
everything about the bard that represented the innocence she
cherished. The girl had managed to talk her way through a
barricaded compound using nothing but fast talk, kindness,
and a smile. That was the instant that the dark Xena
disappeared again and was replaced by the light - although
still awfully annoyed - Xena. Those stark moments were glory
points in the show's plot, directing, and Lucy's acting
ability.
And an XWP first: two armies on the screen, and both are
filled with competent fighters! Can you imagine how thrilled
the extras must have been to be told "Hey guys, this time -
you can actually whup on each other! You don't just fall
down!"
THINGS TO LOOK OUT
FOR
These things are by Beth Gaynor.
Almost every episode has at least one of what I call the "This shot brought to you by the New Zealand Department of
Tourism - Come to the Land of the Kiwi" shots. This one took
the cake in the opening scenes for beautiful photography.
That rainbow-ed waterfall! Gorgeous!
"They'll be back, maybe not this year," but probably next
season, for some trusty bad guys. Keep your eyes open for
the Horde!
MORE THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR
07-25-01. From baermer. In The Price, Xena and Gab furiously row a canoe that ain't going anywhere ("I can't fight them if I'm worried about you.") Just watch the background not moving.
Bret Rudnick. The incredible disappearing Argo -- must have been in the shop again this week, not a mention, hide, nor hair of our beloved quadroped.
Bret Rudnick. The incredible reappearing whip -- Traded to Minya for a frying pan a couple of eps back and not at Xena's side throughout most of the ep, Xena pulls her whip out of thin air to use against the Horde in a brief scene.
From KSZoneW. In HTLJ's ARMAGGEDON there where many clips shown from past Xena episodes, during the little time travel scenes of Iolaus. Clips where shown from "Deliverer", "Ties that Bind", "Callisto", "Destiny", "The Price", and many others.
TRANSCRIPT
Click here to read a transcript of THE PRICE.
DISCLAIMER:
To show sympathy for the Horde,
"kaltaka" was only served upon request during the production
of this motion picture.
