From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V2 #141 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Monday, May 27 2002 Volume 02 : Number 141 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] <> [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] <> [meredith ] [chakram-refugees] <> ["Cheryl Ande" ] Re: [chakram-refugees] <> ["Cheryl Ande" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 20:51:34 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] <> On Sunday 26 May 2002 15:46, Cheryl Ande wrote: > @ > @ > @ > @@ > @ > @ > > @@ > > > King Con is better than I remembered it. Patrick Fabian as Rafe is > certainly hansome enough to attract Xena and the actor has more chemeistry > with Lucy that the Ulysses actor. As a side note I think Cameron Rhodes, > who played Rafe's sidekick, was in the Lord Of The Ring as the Hobbit who > gets killed early in the movie - at least I thought it was him. He does look like a hobbit, doesn't he? ;) > As for the episode itself it was OK. It seems that there was quite a bit > of running around to set up a con that doesn't have much of a payoff. We > spend the entire episode trying to get the bad guy casino owner into a > poker game so Xena can win his establishment and in the end the poker game > just concludes in one big fight - I don't even know if the villian lost his > gambling house or not. Heck Xena could have just burst into the joint in > the first 15 minutes of the episode, knocked everyone around, sent them > all off to jail for attempted murder and saved herself a lot of trouble. Personally, I thought it was quite a passable ep. OK, it was a little bit contrived - I agree with you that Xena should just have beaten the casino owner to a pulp and left it at that. Still, I thought Rafe was well-played and quite interesting, in the way that he was falling for Xena while doing his best to deny it to his sidekick. And he was, under it all, quite a decent guy. > Homage - The Sting (I didn't like the movie either) I couldn't follow half that movie. :) cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 12:27:36 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] <> Hi, Cheryl reviewed: >King Con is better than I remembered it. Patrick Fabian as Rafe is certainly >hansome enough to attract Xena and the actor has more chemeistry with Lucy >that the Ulysses actor. I agree with the chemistry being better, but that certainly didn't take much. However, this still can't save the episode from sitting in my bottom 3 for the entire series. The annual "see, kids? Xena and Gabrielle can't POSSIBLY be anything but JUST FRIENDS!!!" episodes really pissed me off. > As a side note I think Cameron Rhodes, who played >Rafe's sidekick, was in the Lord Of The Ring as the Hobbit who gets killed >early in the movie - at least I thought it was him. Wow, good catch!! He did indeed play Farmer Maggot (though I'm racking my brain and I don't recall him getting killed ... he doesn't in the book, and I saw the film 3 times and I don't recall it either, though my short term memory is failing me at a distressingly early age). ============================================== Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ============================================== Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ============================================== ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 17:35:50 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] <> @ @ @ @ @@ @ @ This is one of the more underrated episodes. It is very good. It uses themes created through out the third season to build a very suspenseful episode. We have once again a confrontation with Caesar. Xena has captured Cassius,Caesar's partner in his triumvirate of Rome which also includes Pompey. Xena has plans to trade Crassius for Vercinix the Gaulic leader captured by Rome. Things go away when it becomes obvious Caesar won't trade Crassus and Xena plans to substitute Crassus for Vercinix which would probably result in Crassus's death. The plan depends on Gabrielle's willingness to be part of a plan the well result in murder. This is of course is where the suspense comes into play. Will Gabrielle follow Xena's plan? Advised by Caesar to play Gabrielle, Crassus tries to undermine Gabrielle's faith in Xena. He suggests that Xena is just out to kill Caesar and is using Gabrielle as a decoy. When she confronts him about the his execution of innocents, he said he wasn't there and he didn't order the executions. Added to this is Xena's understandable impatient with Gabrielle's hesitancy - Xena is juggling a lot of balls so she doesn't have time to reassure Gabrielle. Gabrielle herself must decide what to do - trust Xena or let own scruples guide her. Gabrielle does follow through but just as she is about to give Crassus a way out of his execution, she learns that he was responsible for murder. Gabrielle now allows Crassus to be lead to his death. For Gabrielle it is one more nail in the coffin of her innocence. She has become a willing accessory in murder. Although Xena latter tries to take the blame for Gabrielle's, Gabrielle will have none of it. She knows that she alone is responsible for her own actions and she now must wonder what kind of person she has become. This episode leads nicely into the fourth season where Gabrielle tries to find some remedy for her battered soul. Xena is also in rare from in this episode. LL is wonderful in the party scene. Xena attends a Roman party dressed in red (nice reminder of Xena's seduction of Caesar in Destiny) and carried in on a litter. From there on Xena is deliciously crude. She spits a cherry seed on the floor, announces to Pompey that "she's not a very nice person", and interrupts Caesar's attempted seduction with the announcement she has to go the bathroom. She is wonderfully feral when she sneaks in Caesar's room in the bogus assassination attempt and truly looks astonished when she is capture. She then withstands a brutal beating in the arena until she sees Gabrielle and knows the plan is on track. She turns the tables and beats the stuffing out of the gladiators much to the delight of the Romans (and us). She tops the episode off with a very nice sensitive chat with Gabby on board Rob's Folly - it necessary plot device so that the audience can once more view Xena as sympathetic after the brusque way she has treated Gabrielle's concerns. Favorite line: When a bloodied and battered guard announces Xena. Caesar upon seeing Xena sputters: What...How did... When did... Xena: I know there's a sentence in there dying to get out. Introduction of a great new character: Pompey played with smarmy enthusiasm by Jeremy Callahan. Historical YAXIs - I guess plenty but wasn't Caesar Pompey's father-in-law (or vice versa) so they shouldn't be the same age. CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 17:47:43 -0400 From: "Cheryl Ande" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] <> cr: > > Homage - The Sting (I didn't like the movie either) > > I couldn't follow half that movie. :) > Me too!! Anyway I like Rafe too _ loved the scene when Xena with her usual modesty drops her clothes and leaves Rafe with his mouth hanging open. It wasn't a bad episode but it would have played better in season one. Also I think the savage beating that Joxer made the episode just a little too dark. It should have been more light-hearted. Also I thought Reni looked very nice with her hair up. It is becoming obvious that Gabrielle's teen-ager long hair no longer really sorts the woman ROC is now. CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V2 #141 **************************************