Xena Reviews: Season 5, Episode 4

Animal Attraction – Director: Rick Jacobson/Writer: Chris Manheim

This one starts with Xena, Gabi, Joxer, and Amarice travelling through some woods. Joxer is still hot for Gabi and his constant attention is making her uncomfortable, even though he swore there were no strings attached to his admission of love a couple of episodes ago. Amarice thinks love is stupid (and men are generally worthless) and says she’ll never fall into that trap. Xena’s half out-of-it, falling asleep in the saddle until she hears a horse screaming in pain. They find a horse with its hoof caught in a trap and Xena ropes it. She notices a rapport between Gabi and the horse, so she has Gabi talk to him while she frees his foot from the trap. Naturally, Gabi wants to bring the horse along and they stop in the next town … Spamona, noted for its hot springs. (This episode is basically a Western, so it looks like an Old West town, with everyone dressed like a Spaghetti Western.) The stablehand tells them there are no weapons allowed in town and they’re soon confronted by the sheriff, who squares off with Xena.

After a quick duel, Xena reveals that the sheriff (Thalia) is an old friend of hers and everything is cool. While Xena and Thalia are getting reacquainted, Thalia’s deputy reveals that a warlord named Darkon is coming to ravage the town (which he’s done before). The deputy quits, but Thalia refuses Xena’s offer of help. Amarice runs into Arman (from The Convert) … literally, as she accidentally knocks him out and has to save him from drowning. There’s an instant attraction between them, but Joxer kinda breaks the spell when he greets Arman. Amarice slips and falls on her ass, causing Joxer and Arman to laugh at her. That pisses her off and she goes to complain to Xena and Gabi, who are taking a steam. Xena’s stomach is giving her hell, so Gabi suggests she see a healer. The healer tells her she’s in great health … considering she’s pregnant.

Xena freaks, saying there’s no possible way she could be pregnant. (She describes herself as a “love-free zone” … I assume that’s excluding Gabi, who obviously didn’t get her pregnant.) Gabi tries to forge a deeper connection with the horse, bribing him with apples. She tells Arman to give Amarice flowers, since all women love flowers. Gabi tries empathy with the horse, wrapping her ankle in a bandage to give them something in common. Xena offers again to help Thalia, but she refuses, saying she has to handle Darkon herself because he’s her husband. She also points out that Xena is obviously pregnant. That really puts Xena in a bad mood and she gives Amarice questionable advice on love (and threatens Arman). Arman tries to make up with Amarice, but they start arguing … then end up making out.

Joxer interrupts them and they get back to arguing again. Gabi finally gets through to the horse and gets him to trust her. Meanwhile, we see Thalia riding out of town; I guess we’re supposed to think she’s abandoning her responsibilities, but she shows up again later with no explanation, so this scene is kinda pointless. Xena tells Argo she’s pregnant, but worries how Gabi will react. Xena apologizes to Arman and tells him to try again with Amarice, saying it takes more courage to risk yourself in love than in battle. He does, but they start arguing again and everyone ends up in the stable, where Xena ends the chaos by yelling out that she’s pregnant.

Gabi is stunned and wonders who the father is, but Xena swears she doesn’t know. Joxer tells them Darkon is on his way and Thalia has disappeared, so Xena starts planning a defense for the town. She puts Arman and Amarice together and they both admit their feelings for each other scare them … then they make out some more. Gabi’s still wondering about Xena’s baby-daddy, but has to take Xena’s word that she doesn’t know how she got pregnant. Darkon shows up and Thalia confronts him, doing a variation on the Wild West gunfight with thrown daggers. They start a sword duel while Xena and the others keep Darkon’s men from interfering. Gabi finds a guy about to burn the stables and begs him not to, but her horse comes out and kicks the guy into a water trough. Thalia wins the duel, but chooses to turn Darkon over to a judge instead of killing him. Later, Arman and Amarice say goodbye (with more kissing) and Xena and Gabi ride off toward Greece, finally a two-horse family. (There’s no sign of Joxer or Amarice, but she’s in the next episode, so I guess they followed at their own pace.)

This episode is pretty good (#89 on my all-time list), the main problem being that there’s too much going on. There are four or five plotlines (Gabi bonding with the horse, Xena’s pregnancy, Arman and Amarice’s romance, Thalia’s dilemma, and Joxer’s unrequited love for Gabi) and only half of them are really interesting. The way the episode is structured, Thalia’s story is pretty thin and the romance/antagonism between Arman and Amarice just comes off as forced. Either of those could’ve sustained an episode on its own, but they feel shoehorned in here. Thalia’s story is obviously based on High Noon, which is a great movie, but there’s not enough time to draw all the parallels. As I mentioned earlier, Thalia leaving town is glossed over and we don’t even see her come back … she’s just there when Darkon shows up. There were supposed to be repeated shots of a sundial (like the shots of the clock in High Noon) to ramp up the tension for Darkon’s arrival, but I think we only got one or two actual sundial shots, so it didn’t really work. And Arman and Amarice’s meet-cute and subsequent bickering are more annoying than endearing; I do think they make a good couple, I could just do without all the artificial drama. And Joxer’s crush on Gabi is kinda annoying too, especially since he told her he didn’t expect anything from her.

On the good side, I like Gabi’s attempts to bond with the horse. The producers decided it was a bit demeaning for Gabi to still be walking everywhere while Xena rode, so they finally gave her a horse of her own. And it’s pretty obvious Xena (or Lucy) is pregnant, so it’s about time they got around to having her tell everyone. Some of the side-effects are funny: her craving for raspberry jam and raw fish (which is still better than all of Gabi’s cravings when she was pregnant); and her sudden liking for flowers and teddy bears. She’s worried about telling Gabi (“Gabrielle’s gonna freak”) and Gabi is obviously bothered at first, naming Ares and Hercules as possible fathers (probably naming the first two candidates the audience would be thinking of). Xena assures Gabi that this pregnancy is definitely not evil and Gabi seems to believe her. Some fans think Gabi’s main problem with the pregnancy was that she was afraid the baby would turn out to be evil, like Hope did. Renee said she didn’t think Hope ever crossed Gabi’s mind and I agree; I think Gabi was bothered by the fact that Xena might’ve cheated on her with some unknown guy. But at the end, they refer to themselves as a family, so it looks like this baby will have two loving moms instead of one.

Noticeable Things:

• Xena and Thalia are said to be old friends, but we never hear how they met. I’m thinking they were friends before Xena became a murderous warlord. Thalia is played by Alison Bruce, who played Melosa in Hooves and Harlots and will return as another character next season.
• The scene with Xena and Gabi in the steam baths looks a little weird to me, almost like it’s CGI or something.
• Gabi’s horse is never named (not even in future episodes), although she does refer to him as “handsome” a couple of times. Apparently they were going to name him Amber, but Renee didn’t like that name. The horse’s real-life name was Flash, but Renee didn’t think that worked either because the horse was actually rather slow.

Favourite Quotes:

• “Women … can’t live with them, can’t chain them in the yard.” Joxer, summing up the opposite sex and showing why he’s still single.
• “Joxer, get your hands off my apples.” Gabi letting Joxer know he’s coming on too strong.
• “I said milk! What, am I over age?” Xena at the saloon, reluctantly (but not gracefully) accepting that she’s pregnant.
• “Any fool can risk his life, it takes a hero to risk his heart.” Xena’s good advice to Arman about taking a chance on love … and she’s obviously speaking from experience.