For Him the Bell Tolls – Director: Josh Becker/Writer: Adam Armus, Nora Kaye Foster
This one starts with Xena heading off to see King Lias and leaving Gabi behind. Gabi’s not too thrilled about that, thinking Xena doesn’t trust her, or sees her only as a sidekick. Gabi runs into Joxer, who says she can be his sidekick. Gabi humours him, letting him tag along with her. Meanwhile, Aphrodite is pissed off that Prince Sarpeidon and Princess Ileandra are getting married because when their two kingdoms are united,
their fathers will do away with some of Aphrodite’s temples. She decides to ruin the romance, even though her son (Cupid) wants her to let love run its true course. He accuses her of using heroes to do her dirty work and she says she could use any schmoe and get the same results … so Cupid picks Joxer. Aphrodite gives Joxer a bell, saying it’s a present for Ileandra, but she’s put an enchantment on the bell that turns Joxer into a hero. Gabi comes upon some thugs raiding Ileandra’s village and jumps in to help. She’s about to be killed when Joxer comes to the rescue.
Joxer pounds all the thugs, which impresses Ileandra and her attendants, and confuses the hell out of Gabi. (Joxer’s even dressed like a stud.) Joxer gives Ileandra the bell, ringing it in the process, which turns him back into a goofball and ends Ileandra’s infatuation. (Joxer remembers nothing of his heroics and is amazed when Gabi tells him.) Ileandra asks Gabi (and Joxer) for an escort to her fiancé, Sarpeidon, and Gabi agrees. Sarpeidon’s father (King Lynaeus) and Ileandra’s father (King Barras) are getting along well and when they hear Sarpeidon and Ileandra plan to elope, they’re happy to save the expense of a
wedding feast. But Ileandra’s attendant (Aria) tells them Ileandra was making out with Joxer and Lynaeus freaks, calling off the marriage. Gabi and Joxer deliver Ileandra to Sarpeidon, who’s set up an impromptu wedding in the woods. Aphrodite rings another bell, changing Joxer into a hero again. That gets Ileandra all hot and bothered over him, which doesn’t make Sarpeidon happy.
Sarpeidon and Joxer fight and Joxer changes back and forth between hero and loser as Ileandra’s bell rings. Joxer disarms Sarpeidon and tells him to 
go home, then leaves with Ileandra. Gabi goes with them to keep them separated while she figures out what’s going on. Sarpeidon tells his father what happened, but asks Lynaeus not to attack Barras’s kingdom, since Ileandra made her choice. Lynaeus decides to go after Joxer instead. Gabi, Joxer, and Ileandra spend the night in a cave and Gabi has a hell of a time keeping the two lovebirds apart. She knows Joxer changes whenever a bell rings, but doesn’t know why. King Lynaeus finds them in the morning and sends his men to get Joxer, who’s ready to take on the whole bunch of them … until the bell rings and he turns normal again.
Joxer faints and Gabi is outnumbered, so they’re all taken by Lynaeus. He plans to execute Gabi and Joxer for disturbing the public peace, but decides to spare Ileandra (although he refuses to listen to her explanation). When
they’re imprisoned, Joxer mentions Aphrodite and Gabi realizes she’s the one who enchanted Joxer. Gabi escapes, leaving Joxer behind to keep him out of trouble. When Barras hears his daughter has been captured, he heads for Lynaeus’s city. Gabi finds Aphrodite and asks her to remove the spell on Joxer, but Aphrodite refuses. Gabi asks Cupid if he can fix things once the spell is removed and he says yes, so Gabi starts thinking about how to get Aphrodite to cooperate. Whatever Gabi’s planning, she’d better hurry; Joxer is taken from the prison to be executed.
Just as Joxer is about to be beheaded, Gabi rings a bell in the town square by 
bouncing a rock off numerous items, chakram-style. Joxer turns hero again and starts duelling with Sarpeidon and King Lynaeus (including a Princess Bride moment when Joxer switches his sword to his right hand), which gets Ileandra all hot for him again. Gabi suggests he take the duel into Aphrodite’s temple and Joxer thanks her with a kiss (which apparently gets her a little worked up, until she realizes who she was kissing and slaps some sense back into herself). The fight in the temple wrecks a bunch of Aphrodite’s artifacts and Gabi threatens to take Joxer to all of Aphrodite’s temples if she doesn’t remove the spell.
Aphrodite finally agrees, turning Joxer normal again just in time to almost get crushed to death. Ileandra and Sarpeidon get married and Gabi gives them some good advice about love. Joxer feels stupid that he’s just a goofball and not a real hero (not even a real sidekick), so Gabi asks Xena to give him a pep talk. Xena tells Joxer the gods can’t give people anything that isn’t already there, so even if he’s not a great fighter, the heroic stuff he did is still part of him. That eases his mind and he goes back to being the annoying goof we all know and love.
This episode isn’t all that high on my all-time list (it’s #107), but it’s 
actually not that bad … I may have to move it up a bit. It was probably thrown together (or altered) to cover for Lucy’s accident, which explains why Xena only appears in the beginning and end scenes. I guess my main problem is that Gabi is kind of shunted aside to make Joxer the focus of the episode. I like Joxer, but when Xena’s away, the spotlight should be on Gabi; she should be the hero and Joxer should be the sidekick, or comedy relief, or whatever. Making Joxer the hero (even though it’s because of a spell) takes something away from Gabi, pushing her into the background a bit.
But it is kinda nice to see Joxer used as something besides a joke. Ted Raimi does a good job at playing the hero role; he said was channelling Danny Kaye in the Court Jester mixed with a little Bob Hope, and that combination works. He’s appropriately goofy as Joxer, but rather dashing as the
swashbuckler. And Xena’s advice at the end of the episode about how the person Joxer wants to be is already inside him rings true: Joxer doesn’t have the physical skills to be a hero, but he has the heroic instinct and the desire to help people, so that makes him heroic whether or not he (or anyone else) can see it. That kinda ties in with Xena’s advice to Palaemon in Blind Faith about how we eventually turn into who we pretend to be: if Joxer thinks of himself as a hero for long enough, maybe he can actually become one.
I mentioned Gabi getting pushed aside in this episode, but what really 
bothers me is that she seems to be feeling inadequate again. I thought she’d be past that by now, but I guess she just can’t think of herself in the hero role, at least not when Xena’s around. I suppose she’s comparing herself to Xena and inevitably falling short, which affects her perception of herself. Like when Xena leaves and tells Gabi she can handle anything that comes up while she’s away, Gabi immediately assumes Xena was being patronizing. But I think Xena was being sincere; she really did trust Gabi to handle herself. And Gabi actually does accomplish a lot in this episode: she escorts Ileandra to her wedding, figures out the bell is
changing Joxer (and that Aphrodite is behind it), busts herself out of the prison, and rings the bell with a perfectly thrown rock. (This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Gabi’s throwing accuracy—remember when she beaned that guy in The Prodigal?—and we’ll see more of it in upcoming episodes.) Gabi also manages to keep Joxer and Ileandra from consummating their desire, leading to a hilarious scene where she sprays them with water to cool them off. Unfortunately, Joxer’s “wet look” gets Ileandra even hotter, making Gabi’s job that much harder.
Noticeable Things:
- Karl Urban (who also plays Caesar in numerous episodes and Mael in Altared States) plays Cupid here and looks a little strange with blond hair, although Gabi seems rather taken with him. She also seems to find Sarpeidon attractive.
- This episode marks the first appearance of Aphrodite. She’s portrayed as very shallow, caring more about her temples than about true love (which she says is mostly just hormones) and talking like some kind
of Valley Girl/surfer chick stereotype. (“Bodacious waves at Naxos!”) There’s no hint of the depth of character she’ll eventually achieve, or of the friendship with Gabi that develops in future episodes. - In the first fight scene in the village, there’s another instance of Gabi standing back-to-back with an assailant and being flipped over him, and it looks like Renee does the stunt herself again.
Favourite Quotes:
- “I’m so good … but when I’m bad, I’m better.” Aphrodite congratulating herself for enchanting Joxer to screw up the marriage of Sarpeidon and Ileandra.
- “As far as your skin is concerned, it reminds me of cream just before it curdles, ’cause that’s when it’s best.” Joxer, without his heroic charm, trying to compliment Ileandra.
- “What a gyp, no last request; I’m gonna notify the Executioner’s Guild.” Joxer, disappointed that his last request to hear the ringing of a bell isn’t granted.
- “Maybe she gets it better than any of us.” Cupid, in response to Gabi’s statement about how love is about trust and giving, not anger and jealousy. I can’t help wondering if this is part of Gabi’s soul-searching now that she knows Xena has romantic feelings for her. It would be just like Gabi to philosophize about love before committing herself to it. Gabi’s statements about love and trust going hand-in-hand are interesting, considering what’s in store for her and Xena next season.