A Tale of Two Muses – Director: Michael Hurst/Writer: Gillian Horvath
This one starts with Xena and Gabi trekking across a desert. Gabi is reciting some of her poetry, but her more immediate concern is getting new boots, since hers are falling apart. In a nearby town, we see Tara (from Forgiven) dancing with a boy named Andros while a bunch of other young people watch. The magistrate (Istafan)
shows up and everyone takes off, but he grabs Tara. She’s taken to the town square to be whipped, but Xena and Gabi show up and pound the militia, freeing Tara. Gabi asks what Tara did (and seems a bit judgmental … maybe she hasn’t forgiven Tara for that beating she gave her?) and she and Xena are stunned to learn that Tara’s crime is … dancing.
Xena, convinces Istafan to let Tara leave town with her and Gabi, aided by 
Andros’s father (Telamon) who gave her a job when she first came to town. Tara says goodbye to Telamon and Andros and leaves with Xena and Gabi, but as soon as they’re out of town, Tara says she’s going back. She says she wants to help free the town from the narrow-mindedness that won’t even allow the kids to dance. (Apparently, Tara is a really passionate about dancing, even though it was never mentioned in her earlier appearance.) She also wants to help Telamon and Andros, since they’ve been so good to her. Gabi says Poteidaia is a lot
like this place and it’s almost impossible to change the minds of people like that, but Xena figures they should give it a shot. They go back and Tara acts all contrite and reformed. For some reason, Gabi gets dance fever and can’t stop dancing, even when she’s lying down. Gabi goes to get her boots repaired (and is forced to wear some really funky loaners) and hears about Phillipon the Reformer, who’s coming to help whip the town into shape. When Phillipon shows up, he turns out to be Autolycus.
Xena called Autolycus in to help and he does a Southern Revivalist preacher schtick that has Istafan (and most of the villagers) eating out of his hand. When Autolycus preaches the evils of dance, most of the townsfolk agree 
with him … except Telamon. Xena talks to Telamon and learns he has another son who went to find work in Athens. Autolycus comes into Telamon’s shop with Istafan and points out that a mural Telamon painted is filthy. (It’s a landscape, but Autolycus likens two hills to a woman’s tits, which makes Istafan see a tower as a phallic symbol.) So, Autolycus seems to be convincing Istafan to declare war on all the arts, not just dance. That night, Tara and Andros dance and he says he wants to leave town, asking her to come with him.
Xena catches up to them and convinces them that running away won’t solve anything and that they should go back and try to help the people they care about. Meanwhile, Gabi’s still dancing uncontrollably, but it’s harder to
hide now that her boots have been repaired with metal pieces … yeah, like tap shoes. Autolycus convinces Istafan the kids need to channel their energy into military training, so Xena and Gabi lead them in military drills (disguising dance steps as fighting moves), which impresses most of the town but pisses Telamon off. When Autolycus and Xena suggest teaching the kids some lethal maneuvers, Telamon gets mad. He tells Andros his brother didn’t leave to find work, he just couldn’t stand living in such a narrow-minded town. Then Telamon announces he’s going to run for magistrate against Istafan.
Telamon rallies support and Istafan gets worried. He has his lackey try to 
assassinate Autolycus, to make it seem like anarchy will prevail is he’s not re-elected. Xena stops the assassination and exposes Istafan. Everyone breaks into spontaneous dance (including Xena, Gabi, Autolycus and most of the townsfolk) and Istafan realizes he’s lost the crowd and the vote. The episode ends on a goofy freeze-frame of Xena and Gabi laughing and hugging; it looks to me like Michael Hurst yelled “cut” and everyone broke character.
I really don’t like this episode, which is why it’s currently #134 on my all-time list; it could maybe move up a couple of spots, but I think it’ll always
be in my bottom five. There are just so many problems with it for me. Firstly, I’ve never seen Footloose (on which this is obviously based), so that doesn’t resonate with me. The whole “no dancing” thing is just weird and is pseudo-explained by some reference to the villagers worshipping Calliope. But Calliope is the Muse of 
Epic Poetry, while Terpsichore (who’s never mentioned) is the Muse of Dance. Is she supposed to the second Muse mentioned in the title? It feels like we’re missing a big chunk of the story here. The villagers supposedly hate music and dance, but at the end they pull musical instruments out of nowhere. There’s also no explanation for Gabi’s sudden compulsion to dance (maybe she got some more bad nutbread) and Tara seems like a totally different character from the first time we saw her. Not that I wanted her to go back to being an asshole, but she really doesn’t seem like the same person. I get the
feeling the producers found out Shiri Appleby had dance training and decided to base an episode around that. The only good things about this were Gabi kicking ass in the fight scenes and Autolycus’s revivalist preacher imitation, which Bruce Campbell seems to be loving. In fact, the whole cast seem to be having fun here, which usually translates to fun for the audience, but this one just doesn’t work for me.
Noticeable Things:
- I’m not sure where exactly this is meant to be. They’re in a desert and Autolycus says he was in Oman when he got Xena’s message (and it took him about three days to get there), so they must be in the Middle East somewhere, maybe Iran. I think the episode order is mixed up because it would make more sense for this to take place after Xena and Gabi leave Phoenicia (where Crusader is set), with them stopping here on their way to India.
- Apparently Autolycus was banging the king’s sister in Oman so he could get close to the royal jewels, but Xena warned the king, so Autolycus can’t go back there.
- When Xena’s taking a crap, we heard flushing toilet and zipper sound effects.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Extremism in the defense of piety is no vice.” Autolycus misquoting Barry Goldwater to get his point about morals across to the villagers.
- “Gabrielle, I sense that there’s some pent-up energy, some frustration eating at you, some unresolved desire. Ha, I can tell you need to get—” Autolycus about to tell Gabi she needs to get laid. Maybe Gabi’s dancing was sexual frustration? Maybe she and Xena aren’t banging while they’re in the desert since it’s too hot? Or maybe it’s the wrong time of the month for both of them and Gabi’s getting frustrated.