Lost Mariner – Director: Garth Maxwell/Writer: Steven L. Sears
This one starts with Xena and Gabi on a merchant ship that breaks up in a storm. Gabi manages to hang onto some flotsam (and Xena’s sword, which Xena gave her to cut the rigging during the storm) and gets picked up by a passing ship, along with a pirate from a ship that was trying to board the merchant vessel. Gabi wonders where Xena is and sees land nearby, but the ship’s captain
won’t let her off. The pirate recognizes him as Cecrops and Gabi realizes she’s on a cursed ship. The pirate swims for shore, but the curse kills him (with an eerie green light) before he gets very far. Cecrops tells Gabi the same thing will happen to her if she tries to leave, so she’s stuck on the ship until she dies.
Xena did make it to shore, along with most of the pirates (who are trying to collect a bounty on Xena’s head). Xena assumes Gabi was picked up by the 
passing ship, but the pirate captain (Basculis) tells her it’s Cecrops’ ship, so she’ll be cursed for eternity if she boards it. Xena doesn’t care and fights her way past the pirates to look for a way onto Cecrops’ ship. On board the cursed ship, Gabi is feeling seasick and gets hit on by an old reprobate named Altrech. The first mate (Hidsim) chases him away and Gabi goes to explore the ship, ending up in Cecrops’ cabin, where she finds a huge emerald among the many treasures. Cecrops catches her but isn’t mad and tells her his story, some of which she already knows. Basically, Cecrops pissed Poseidon off 300 years ago by choosing Athena over him as patron of Athens. Poseidon cursed Cecrops to never
touch land again until love redeems him, while Athena granted him immortality. Gabi figures Athena did him a favour, but Cecrops disagrees, assuming there’s no chance of any woman falling in love with him. They’re called to the main deck and watch Xena fighting pirates on shore. Gabi yells to Xena, who redoubles her efforts to get to the ship. But Cecrops doesn’t want to be responsible for another cursed soul (the only reason he picked up Gabi and the pirate was to save them from sharks), so he orders the ship to turn away from shore, just as the pirates close in on Xena.
Xena evades the pirates and uses her chakram to drop the yard from the mainsail, causing Cecrops’ ship to drift back toward shore. Xena makes a prodigious leap and lands on 
the ship to be happily reunited with Gabi. Cecrops isn’t thrilled about having another cursed soul onboard and Gabi fills Xena in on the situation. Meanwhile, Basculis assumes Xena boarded the ship to get Cecrops’ treasure and that she must have a way to defeat the curse, so he orders his crew to follow in their ship. Xena shows Gabi a pressure point to alleviate her seasickness and goes to talk to Cecrops, who returns her sword and tells her about his lost love, Terai. Cecrops tells Xena how Poseidon cursed him as he was sailing to see Terai and created Charybdis, the gigantic whirlpool, offshore from Terai’s village as a
reminder of the curse. After Terai died, Cecrops gave up hope, but Xena points out that Charybdis might have something to do with ending the curse. Cecrops is still skeptical, since he doesn’t think anyone’s love will redeem him. Gabi (who’s taken to eating raw squid) makes friends with Hidsim, who shows her how to splice rope and tells her about his daughter. Cecrops changes course to head for Charybdis, but pretends it has nothing to do with Xena’s advice. They notice Basculis’s ship following them but before they can react, Poseidon rises out of the waves.
Poseidon offers Xena (and Gabi) the chance to leave the ship, but Xena refuses. Poseidon sends a storm that buffets the ship and Xena tells Gabi that the pressure point she’s using to suppress her seasickness also numbs her taste buds, so she might start eating weird foods … like raw squid. Hidsim warns Xena that Cecrops is planning to turn away from Charybdis and attack the pirates. Xena confronts Cecrops, making him realize that he’s afraid of ending the curse because he’s lived with it so long and doesn’t know anything else (plus he’s afraid of losing the crew, who have become
his friends). The storm gets worse and a huge wave tosses the ship around, sending cargo sliding all over the deck. Hidsim pushes Cecrops out of the way of a runaway crate (forgetting he’s immortal) and gets crushed. Later, Poseidon offers Cecrops his freedom (along with his crew) if he throws Xena into Charybdis.
As they approach Charybdis, they bury Hidsim at sea and Xena heads up to the crow’s nest to keep an eye on the whirlpool. Basculis tries to cut across
the edge of the maelstrom to get ahead of Cecrops’ ship, but ends up getting pulled down into Charybdis. As the ship is pulled toward Charybdis, Cecrops has the chance to cut the braces and send Xena into the whirlpool, but he chooses not to. Cecrops has figured out that Poseidon’s curse didn’t refer to receiving love from someone, it referred to the love people feel for others … like Hidsim, who gave his life to save Cecrops, or Xena, who willingly jumped onto a cursed ship to be with Gabi. Cecrops decides his love for his crew will redeem him 
and he jumps into Charybdis. That ends the curse and his ship runs aground, finally allowing everyone to get back on land. Xena and Gabi find Cecrops alive on shore (since he’s immortal, Charybdis couldn’t kill him) and he thanks them for helping him defeat the curse. Gabi mentions Hidsim’s daughter and Cecrops says he’ll go visit her … but he’ll walk to get there in case Poseidon is still pissed off. Xena says Poseidon will find someone else to torment and we see Basculis steering a ship through a storm; presumably he’s the new Lost Mariner.
This is a really good episode; it’s #52 on my all-time list, but it could move up a bit since I like it more every time I see it. Tony Todd does a great job of playing Cecrops, making him a very sympathetic character even though he’s a bit like a pirate and unwillingly curses everyone who boards his ship.
But that’s what makes Cecrops such a good character; he’s come to accept his own fate (and even fears a change in the status quo), but genuinely feels bad about all the people cursed to die on his ship over the past 300 years. There’s a parallel between Cecrops and Xena, who feels guilty about her own past and is trying to redeem herself by doing good. Cecrops thinks someone has to fall in love with him to redeem him, but he finally understands that the love we give to others is more important than the love we receive. And that’s a lesson Xena’s learned from travelling with Gabi, so in a way, love is helping redeem Xena too.
And we do see more of Xena and Gabi’s love for each other, with Xena willing to jump on board the cursed ship rather than let Gabi go. At first, I think Gabi’s not sure how to feel about Xena’s sacrifice, but she’s obviously happy to have Xena with her. Gabi would’ve done the same if the situation 
were reversed (and basically does in Locked Up and Tied Down a couple seasons from now). There’s a great scene when Xena first boards the ship and she and Gabi hug, then when Gabi tells Xena how sick she’s feeling, Xena hugs her again. It’s really sweet and reinforces my theory that Xena and Gabi are in love at this point, but Xena’s been holding back for fear of hurting Gabi. I think this episode doesn’t just point out the power of redemptive love to Cecrops, but to Xena as well, maybe changing her mind about pulling back from her feelings. (We’ll see more of that next episode.)
This episode does raise a few questions, like what Xena and Gabi were doing on a merchant ship at the beginning; maybe they were travelling back to Greece from wherever The Price took place? And when Gabi first mentions
Xena, Cecrops seems to have heard of her; I’m assuming he heard tales of her from various pirates he’s picked up and made part of his crew, especially since Xena was a bit of a pirate herself at one time. The whole vibe with Poseidon and Xena is weird too. He offers her freedom but later wants Cecrops to kill her for “defying” him. I wonder if Poseidon isn’t just talking about Xena refusing to leave the ship here; maybe he’s still pissed off about her helping Ulysses return home. His comment about her defying him could reinforce my theory that Poseidon put a spell on Xena in that episode to make her fall for Ulysses, and is still pissed off that she resisted it.
Noticeable Things:
- Cecrops compares Xena to Sinteres, another guy he could’ve heard of from his crew (although he doesn’t seem to know Xena killed Sinteres).
- In classical myth, the whirlpool Charybdis was paired with a monster named Scylla, but there’s no mention of her here.
- While examining Cecrops’ treasures, Gabi sees the lost Athena of Antigus, which supposedly comes alive in the moonlight.
- When Xena tells Gabi about the side-effects of her pressure point
technique, Gabi mentions eating raw squid. You can see clearly that Renee says “raw fish”, but “raw squid” was dubbed in over top of it. Apparently, it was actually raw octopus she was eating; it was marinated to tenderize it a bit, but Renee said it was still so gross it put her off calamari for months afterwards. - There were plans to bring Cecrops back in an episode where Xena and Gabi chased Alti through time into the 20th Century. Apparently Cecrops (who is immortal remember) was going to be running a flower shop, but that episode never got made. Too bad, I’d have liked to see Cecrops again.
Favourite Quotes:
- “That’s the only way to judge beauty; not by the price, but how it touches the soul.” Gabi agreeing with Cecrops that the giant emerald’s worth might be more than just monetary.
- “Faith? Faith has killed more people than war.” Cecrops’ cynical (though largely accurate) sentiment when Xena tells him to have faith.
- “This is a boat, on water. Water, boat, my stomach, we don’t mix very well. So unless you want a quick and colourful deck-washing, I suggest you put me on a boat for shore.” Gabi trying to get Cecrops to let her leave the ship, not yet realizing whose ship she’s on.