From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #25 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 Saturday, January 25 2003 Volume 03 : Number 025 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Wisecracks from the irreverant [cr ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 02:46:36 +0000 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Wisecracks from the irreverant On Friday 24 January 2003 20:11, mirrordrum wrote: > watching yesterday with jb, my xenaho partner of retiring > habits and pithy commentary. (snip) > love that ep. i don't think it ever makes anyone's top 10 list, does it? It certainly makes mine! > but every time i see it i think it has a few of the top scenes in the show > in terms of acting. the whole interchange between callie and gab when > callie is just released is marvelous. well, that isn't one of ren's better > bits for some reason, but hudson and luce are marvelous. xena behind gab > sneering her head off as *only* xena can sneer while callisto does her > number on gab. What really broke me up was the moment in the quarry, waiting for Velasca, when Callisto gave Gabs that conspiratorial wink. Those few seconds were truly classic. > and hudson's very nice work in the village scene where xena cops to her > crimes to the extreme disinterest of the villagers. i thought all 3 did a > marvelous job even though they weren't on screen together. hudson > especially did well. > > and my favorite: the fireside scene between callisto and gab. i think that > really is one of renee's best bits of acting, maybe the best, to that point > in the show. no extraneous head movements, minimal facial work, understated > and very, very powerful. the sort of half laugh after callisto says "how > long did it take him to die was remarkable. she nailed it. that's a scene > i'd love to hear her comments on. how did she ever come up with that laugh? > (psssst--somebody nudge thelo. i think he's gone to sleep over there) I'm paying full attention, thanks, md :) That half laugh, are you referring to Gabby? I didn't really see any sort of laugh here. Well, maybe a sort of half-incredulous mixture of surprise and disgust at Callisto's audacity. Umm, I guess Renee was very good in that scene, but (as always) Hudson manages to attract my undivided attention without even trying. Callisto was the one who laughed. Of course what led to it was that Gabrielle was, typically, starting to show some sympathy for Callisto, and Callisto just didn't want (or couldn't handle) anybody's sympathy. So she just blew Gabs off with that unexpected line about Perdy. And got some amusement at Gabs' predictable result. Very nice writing and interpretation by the two of them, IMO. > and of course hudson. . .well, she was just superb, imo. the real pain > beneath the irreversibly vicious psycho. it happens and she iced it. Oh, agreed. Hudson was perfect in that scene. Hudson has big eyes, and she knows just how to use them (or maybe it's instinctive) to reinforce her expressions. Callisto was the most delicious villain. I also loved her confrontation with Velasca in the quarry - "You must have a death wish" "You know it's funny, I think I do". Callisto never cared enough about what anybody else thought to bother hiding her feelings. And another lovely one-liner: "You don't just kill me and walk away!" Just taking a quick look at my tape, I'm struck again with just how photogenic Callisto is, and how visually striking Callisto and Xena are together. 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: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 04:37:28 +0000 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] RE: HOD On Saturday 25 January 2003 00:43, Cheryl Ande wrote: > From: KTL > Subject: [chakram-refugees] SPOILERS FOR HOA AND HOD AND IOM > > Spoilers for HOA, HOD, IOM > > % > $ > & > * > @ > # > % > ! > + > % > $ > & > > > > > > "This ep has many traces of prior arcs and antecedents fueling its story. > Many different gods have been jerking Xena and her family around for a > long, long time. It must have been Mephistopheles, king of hell, who sent > Callisto out to woo Xena's soul two seasons and 27 years ago. He's been > after her soul for a LONG time." > > Interesting. So the chosing Cyrene's tavern just isn't random but a > deliberate choice. Well, if it was random, it was one hell of a coincidence, wasn't it? What would the odds be, several million to one against? > Meph is still carrying out a long term plan to get WP. > he failed with Callisto so now he takes a personal interest in the case. > Certainly destroying her mother, threatening her daughter and certainly > playing hobbes with her long time companion will get Xena to come to him. > I wonder if Meph wanted her not as his successor (since that meant his > death) but as his general. She did a dandy job leading his demons in > Fallen Angel. > > "And three seasons and 28 years ago it was Hope who said when plotting for > her god against the WP, "As Xena > goes, so goes the world."" > > I always wondered what Hope meant by that. Why was Xena so important? I couldn't figure that either. There are two possible interpretations - one is just a similarity, in other words, Xena's suffering right now, and the world will to - and the other implies some causative connection between Xena's fate and the world. I can't imagine any causative conncetion there (except some fairly tenuous remote ones), so I think I just have to interpret it in the first way. > Certainly Hope did everything in her power to force Xena back into the > cycle of violence and hate. She simply didn't kill Solan, she set her > mother up as the fall guy. Hope did everything in her power to destroy all > the people Xena loved either by murder or by destroying her faith in them. > If Xena, a person who has the courage to rebuild her life her life in an > extorindary way, can be corrupted then the rest of the puny mortal world > will be no touble. Actually, Hope was quite wrong when she said "I don't want to make her suffer, I just want to make her stop". If she thought killing Solan was going to make Xena stop she must have been totally dumb. > "Somehow, for some reason, Xena is the key in this ongoing war of the gods. > A number of dieties are battling to kill each other off and declare > supremacy over heaven (Elysian fields) hell (Tartarus) and earth (New > Zealand). The gods have worked Xena over for years to set her up and put > her in the position she's in. > > Ooh good point. Yes everwhere she goes gods or demons take an interest in > her - Greece, India, the Norseland, even Japa. I think they are attracted > by her spiritual strength and power or they just like tall blued-eyed women > in leather. ROTFL! > So is this what the big set up has been for. Xena practices on the > Olympians and now she's ready to take on Meph, heaven's real enemy. Was > Eve existance only a ploy to make Xena heaven's god killer? It's > interesting that Xena always has to kill gods to save Eve. In the God You > Know Michael deliberately sends Eve in harms way to force Xena into killing > Caligua. So is Eve important because she Eli's messanger or because she is > the means to control Xena. Then when Eli takes Xena's god slaying power > form her is he actually freeing Xena from Michael's power. Note that Xena > says Eli took her power and not God. Hmm, interesting. Could it be that Eli and Michael aren't in the same faction, Heavenwise? But who *gave* Xena the power? (checks Motherhood transcript) Xena was told she had the power to kill gods by a messenger from Michael, not Eli. So either Xena got the power courtesy of Eli and Michael got in on the act and claimed credit, or it was Michael's 'gift' in the first place and Eli took it away later. Or Xena was just assuming (in God You Know) that it was Eli took away her power. Possibly it wasn't Eli, but one of Michael's henchmen, turned the power off, or maybe it even had a safety built in so it self-cancelled if used against Michael. Or maybe, like Olympus, Heaven is not a monolithic organisation. Maybe it does have factions that don't always agree with each other. > "She planned, strategized and barely kept control over her actions, while > fighting a huge internal battle with her corrupted heart. Evil consumed > her and distracted her and could well have cost her her soul had she given > in to it and forgot her real self and her plans. Even Eve looks into her > heart and believes Xena is totally gone, totally subsumed by evil. > > Yes I agree Xena is being consumed by evil and she just barely hanging on > to her goodness. I think she finds the evil in her heart vert attractive > and you see that when she is talking to Gabby after the coat scene. For a > moment there Xena is planning her future at the Queen of Evil. She is then > gets a hold of herself possibly when Lucigfer so readily agrees to kill > Eve. Xena would never in cold blood kill someone she loves. So she could > never cross that line and it is that line that anchors her humanity. > > CherylA Really, this episode is notable for all sorts of dirty deals going on. Lucifer and Michael are not exactly angelic. It appeals to all my subversive instincts. ;) 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. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V3 #25 *************************************