The Key to the Kingdom – Director: Bruce Campbell/Writer: Eric Morris
This one starts with Autolycus stealing a ruby from a castle. Before he can get away, he runs into Xena outside, which prompts him to toss the ruby back into the castle. He’s not happy when Joxer shows up to tell him this isn’t actually Xena, it’s her exact double, Meg.
Meg and Joxer tell Autolycus they have a plan to get the Crown of Athena (a prize Autolycus has been after for years), which was locked up when King
Cleades vanished twenty years ago. In order to get the Crown, they first have to find the Key, but Autolycus isn’t thrilled with Joxer and Meg’s plan, so he comes up with one of his own. Joxer and Autolycus try to rob the kingdom’s tax collector (with some terrible acting), but “Xena” shows up to stop them and asks to meet the guys in charge (Kryptos and Ormestin). Autolycus realizes Joxer has a 
thing for Meg and warns him not to trust her too much, since she has no loyalty to any one man. In the castle, Meg tells Kryptos and Ormestin she’s raising a new army and wants to ally with them, but her enemies have sent an assassin to kill them. They show her around the castle and she figures out where the Key is kept. Meg leaves chalk marks to guide Autolycus and he makes it into the Key’s chamber, but finds only a baby. Meg comes in and tells Autolycus she has a different plan, then yells for the guards.
Autolycus is chained in the dungeon with Scythian double locks (which he told Meg were hard for him to open), while Meg steals the baby. The baby’s
nurse (Gryphia) realizes what’s happened, but instead of telling anyone, she goes to ask Autolycus about Xena. He tells her it’s actually Meg and Gryphia leaves. A half-crazed prisoner recites a rhyme about the Key (“The Key will point to the door/to the Crown of Athena and more/Once the Key opens the door/the child will be no more”) and Autolycus busts out of the Scythian locks. Kryptos and Ormestin want the Crown too, but can’t figure out how the baby (who’s apparently 
been a baby for twenty years now) can be the Key. Joxer isn’t happy when he finds out Meg kidnapped a baby, but she changes his mind with visions of domestic bliss with her and the kid. When Joxer goes to get food (cheese and pickles) and diapers, Autolycus confronts Meg about her deception. While they’re fighting, the baby crawls away and Meg goes after him, followed by Autolycus. Kryptos’s men show up looking for “Xena” and during the confusion, the baby gets on their chariot and takes off.
Autolycus, Meg, and Joxer go after the chariot on horses and Joxer ends up being dragged behind the chariot (naturally). Meg leaps onto the chariot
(and her jump is pretty impressive) and rescues the baby just as the chariot overturns. Later, Meg plays with the baby and tells him about her shitty childhood. She tells him how she used to think the stars were really the lights from houses where happy families lived and how she always wanted to be in one of those happy homes herself. Autolycus and Joxer overhear her and Autolycus says he was wrong about Meg. They try to figure out how the baby is the Key and realize 
there’s a map to the Crown on his blanket. (I’m surprised that nobody noticed the map before, especially if the kid’s been using the same blanket for twenty years.) They go to the temple and find a pillow in front of a door, but Autolycus warns them about the ominous ending to the rhyme. Kryptos’s men show up and Autolycus tries to hold them back while Joxer and Meg prepare to take the baby out the skylight. In the confusion, the baby ends up on the pillow, which opens the door and transforms the baby into an adult.
They realize the adult is King Cleades, who helps them fight the guards. The
real Xena (who Gryphia found somehow) shows up to help and they drive the soldiers off. Xena explains that Athena turned King Cleades into a baby to teach him to see the world through innocent eyes, to make him a better king to his people. He knows Kryptos and Ormestin will try to loot the treasury before taking off and wants to stop them since his kingdom needs that money. After a big fight, Cleades 
chooses to exile Kryptos and Ormestin instead of killing them. And Gryphia turns out to be a young hottie (the Queen), who Athena made old to teach her how to care about others. So everyone’s happy … except Meg, who doesn’t get the baby she wanted. Xena tries to console her, saying Meg will have a family of her own someday, but Meg reveals that she can’t have kids.
This is a pretty good episode, although I think I like it more than most fans,
which is why it’s #59 on my all-time list. I like all the Meg episodes and while this isn’t the best of her appearances, I always like seeing her pop up because she’s so much fun, but she also has that sweet, vulnerable side to her that’s hard not to like. There’s no Gabi in this one (I think Renee was finishing up a movie or play or 
something), and I can’t help wondering how Meg knew about the baby in the first place, which is why this one’s not higher on my list, but there are some really funny bits. Meg has some great lines as usual (“suffer the wrath of Xener!”) and she again refers to the chakram as a shamrock. There’s also the baby in the chariot (a rather obvious doll), a random woman who beats the shit out of Joxer when he runs into her, and the screaming cat noise when Autolycus tosses his grappling hook out the window.
Like I said, I like how Meg has a vulnerable side and we really get to see it in this episode. Her story about the stars in the sky making her think of happy
homes is sweet and her tears at the end when she tells Xena she’ll never be part of one of those homes are heartbreaking. She obviously wants to have the kind of family life she never had as a kid. I think she and Joxer are well-suited and would make great parents, and they eventually do get together and have a family. Since Meg can’t have kids, I assume their later kids are adopted … or maybe Aphrodite 
decided to give them a gift and made Meg fertile. Some fans wonder how Meg could know she can’t have children, but if she’s had unprotected sex with tons of men (as the implication seems to be) and never gotten pregnant, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out. Of course, Joxer still has a thing for Gabi, but I think that’s more of an idealistic love; a more likely (and more interesting) love triangle would be between Joxer, Meg, and Lila. I wish someone had written that episode.
Noticeable Things:
- Meg refers to Autolycus as Mr. Stinky all through this episode, which some people find weird. My head-canon is that Autolycus wears some kind of cologne (he seems like the type of guy who’d do that) and Meg’s making fun of that.
- I’ve often wondered where Autolycus gets his fantastic burglar’s tools; I doubt if he could buy them, and having them custom-made might leave him open to blackmail, so I bet he builds them himself.
- There’s a scene where Autolycus seems to literally pull a rope and grappling hook out of his ass (or at least from somewhere behind his back).
Favourite Quotes:
- “You’d be surprised what a young, nubile guard will scream out when he’s about to—” Meg explaining her preferred method for getting inside information.
- “Oh, the secret police? Well, everybody knows about them.” Meg telling Kryptos that his defenses aren’t as impregnable as he thought.
- “And I can’t believe that with all the little lights in the sky, there isn’t one waiting for someone like you.” Xena trying to make Meg feel better about not being able to have kids.