Warrior Princess 101 – Lesson 28: Medieval E.R.

with Professor of Fangeekonomics, Ms. Melissa Voelker

Reference Materials for today’s class:
Xena: Warrior Princess, Episode 1.24 – Is There a Doctor in the House?

Well here it is, class, the final episode of the first season of “Xena: Warrior Princess.” We have seen our lovely warrior maiden fight inner demons, outer warlords, and bad dialogue, all while searching for peace, happiness, and probably a good saddle sore ointment (come on, she is riding Argo in a tiny leather skirt. She has to have HUGE saddle sores by now or wicked hard calluses.) In this first season finale, Xena must face her bloodies, and toughest challenge yet – teaching a zealous general a lesson while saving the life of her super BFF.

A summary of today’s reference material:
Intent on following the shortest route to Athens, Xena and Gabrielle make their hurried way through a war zone. By an AMAZING coincidence they happen upon their old Amazon pal Ephiny who is lying wounded and massively pregnant in the woods (remember, she hooked up with the centaur that she originally accused of killing another Amazon.) Her centaur hubby has been killed and she needs a place to hide out. Xena goes looking for such a place, and comes across a band of soldiers and their general plotting attack strategy. For reasons that aren’t all that mysterious, Xena captures the general and wounds him. Now he is stuck with Xena and her girl posse as they head off to a temple of healing.

The general, Marmax, rejoins some of his wounded men who are already at the temple, while Ephiny laments her life and wishes to curl up in a ball and waste away. Gabby and Xena try to comfort her, before the warrior princess runs off to work her healing magic (um, yeah, right, cause she had lots of time to go to medieval medical school while marauding villages) on the wounded that fill the temple. The head healer (I LOVE alliteration) isn’t terribly pleased that she is butting in on his turf, but being Xena she doesn’t care that she is stepping on his toes. The younger healers, being more open-minded and probably a little horny, take a shine to Xena, Gabrielle, and their straightforward techniques.

While Xena is performing awesome feats of E.R. skill, Gabby bonds a bit with General Marmax (Marmax? What the heck kind of name is that? Sometimes it is obvious that the writers for the show were just pulling stuff out of their butts). She tells him a story that is supposed to teach him a lesson, much like Xena stabbing him and dragging him into an enemy house of healing is supposed to teach him a lesson. This episode is in love with the lesson teaching. And not just for General Marshmallow (or whatever.) The head healer is still pissed over Xena’s somewhat violent medical techniques and orders her thrown out of the temple. She teaches the temple guards a quick lesson in pain when they try to force her out. Then she shares some very sharp words with the head healer, though they are interrupted by the death of a patient Gabrielle was looking after. Gabby is bummed, and the head healer blames the death on Xena because she doesn’t respect the gods. He’s a pretty whiny old dude, really. I wouldn’t want him in charge of my medical treatment.

General Marmalade calls Xena out for bringing someone as good hearted and kind as Gabrielle into a war zone, and then tries to prove how great and wonderful he is because the cause that he started the war over is really quite noble (in his own mind.) Xena verbally bitch slaps him down, making sure to point out how noble war really isn’t. Gabby gets some talk time of her own with one of the young healers who has taken a shine to her. They flirt a bit, while Xena and the head healer clash some more, this time over a wounded man who needs to have his leg amputated. Xena forces General Martian to help her out, even though the soon-to-be-amputee is an enemy soldier.

While their attention is diverted on bigger (and more cringe-inducing) things, another patient begs Gabrielle to go out of the temple and find his wounded son. She can’t refuse a cry for help and takes off. As she currently is available to do her usual bonding duties, it is left to General Marzipan to bond with Ephiny as she begins to go into labor. He starts on again about how great his cause is and how the war was brought on his enemies by their own actions, until she too verbally bitch slaps him down. They can’t go into their argument too far, however, as Gabby is brought in on a stretcher and Xena flips out a little.

The war outside the temple is trying to become the war inside the temple, but Xena only has eyes for her BFF. Gabrielle, thinking she may be knocking on Hades’ door (haha, that’s funny cause he is death and all of that), gives Ephiny her Right of Caste. The young healers are fearing the worst as well, and try to move any patients they can out of the temple. The young man who was so flirty with Gabrielle is wounded almost immediately and brought right back inside. Xena saves his life even though she doesn’t really want to leave Gabby’s side. General Marvin’s army attacks the temple but since he isn’t leading it, he agrees to help everyone, his wounded enemies included, escape into the woods.

Before anyone can really do anything, however, Ephiny decides she isn’t getting enough attention and needs to do something drastic, like have her baby. And here is where I really shut down for a few minutes, because SERIOUSLY THERE IS NO WAY SHE COULD HAVE THAT BABY NATURALLY. Xena does a c-section on her because she says the kid is breech (or however that is spelled, I don’t know the lingo for having trouble splooshing out a baby), not because it is physically impossible for a human woman to squeeze something the size and shape of a half-horse/half-person out of their tiny little woman area. I’m willing to go along with the hokey centaur thing even though they look pretty silly in this show, but I draw the line at the baby-having thing. So we will skip the rest of this scene and move on.

Having finally learned his VERY IMPORTANT LESSON, General Marmaduke declares that the war is over and he will talk peace with his enemies. His men argue but he shoots them down. It looks like things are looking up, until Gabby takes a bad turn and starts to seizure. Xena runs to her side, only to have the smaller woman die in her arms. This does not sit will with the warrior princess, who proceeds to lose it all over the body. One of the young healers and General Marvelous try to console her but she is having none of that. She rants, she raves, she tries CPR (which hasn’t been invented yet) and, miracle of miracles (well not really, considering how impermanent death is in this show), Gabrielle comes back to life.

The war has ended, Marmax (I’m willing to use his actual stupid name one more time) has become a better person, the young healer Hippocrates has become a better medical man, and Ephiny has birthed a miniature fertilizing machine. Gabrielle and Xena head off into the sunset (well okay, sunshine, as it isn’t really sunset yet) more secure in their friendship and partnership and all of that lovely, tear-inducing, blah blah blah.

Discussion from today’s reference material:
Xena being an experienced and amazingly talented healer is one of the skills I have never really been able to get behind. Where would she have picked up the immense amount of surgical knowledge that she has? Sure SOME of it makes sense if she picked it up from her years on the battlefield, but not ALL of it. Especially as she was supposed to be an almost uber-bad guy back in those days (she was against killing women and children so she wasn’t as uber-bad as she could have been.) She was busy destroying villages and sleeping with warlords and having an on-again/off-again love affair with Cesar. When would there have been time to learn healing? You never see her practicing it in any of the countless flashbacks that permeate the series, and by the end those flashbacks cover quite a lot of her past. I don’t mind the basically impossible level of skill she has as a fighter, or the fact that her timeline of exploits makes no sense really unless she is about 60 years old (or more.) But the healing thing has always and probably will always bug me.

The hinky healing business aside, this is one of the better episodes of the first season, with less of the hammy acting and bad dialogue and more of the dark intensity that made episodes such as “Callisto” so riveting (even though I so incredibly dislike Callisto the character.) It is also one of the bloodiest, without having a whole lot of actual fighting involved (which is probably why its so good.) It is a sound and proper note to end the season on, and a good promise of things to come when Season 2 begins.

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About Melissa: By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine – for now.