Xena Reviews: Season 5, Episode 5

Them Bones, Them Bones – Director: John Fawcett/Story: Steven L. Sears, R. J. Stewart/Teleplay: Steven L. Sears

This one starts with Gabi gathering mushrooms to ease Xena’s morning sickness. Xena starts having terrible pains and Gabi takes her to a healer. Xena has a nightmare about a skeletal baby bursting out of her stomach like in Alien. She wakes up in the healer’s hut and says they have to go see Yakut and the Northern Amazons because someone wants to harm her baby.

Xena and Gabi are joined by Amarice and the three of them journey to see the Northern Amazons. (Xena takes Argo this time; I guess she remembers how Argo reacted when she left her behind last time.) Yakut had a shamanic vision, so she’s expecting them. She tells Xena someone in the Spirit Realm wants the baby and Xena realizes it’s Alti. Yakut explains the Spirit Realm to Amarice and Gabi convinces Xena that she should go face Alti instead of Xena. Xena teaches Gabi to be a shamaness, guiding her through the ritual of killing a deer and drinking its blood. Xena’s blood is in the mix too, since she’s acting as Gabi’s anchor to the real world. Xena gives Gabi a dagger to kill Alti with, but when Gabi goes to the Spirit Realm (with the usual psychedelic imagery), Alti is waiting for her.

In the Spirit Realm, the strongest mind wins and Alti’s had lots of time to practice. She uses her powers to fight Gabi at a distance, so she can’t get a killing strike with the dagger, and tries to stop Gabi’s heart with her mind. In the real world, Xena knows Gabi’s in trouble and brings her back with CPR. Gabi tells Xena that Alti mentioned not wanting to kill Xena’s baby, so Xena figures Alti wants the baby to be born so she can replace its soul with her own. Xena decides to use a burial ritual to trap Alti’s soul in her skeletal remains, so when Xena kills her in the Spirit Realm, her soul will die forever. Xena sends Gabi and Amarice to get some amber from a sacred Amazon cave, while Xena and Yakut go to get Alti’s remains. On the way, Xena confides that she’s worried about her baby’s future and Yakut tells her that when she’s ready to accept motherhood, she’ll see a sign in the form of a dove (representing the unborn child’s soul). Alti’s skull is missing from her skeleton and Yakut admits she took it to use Alti’s powers for good. Yakut feels guilty for releasing Alti’s soul, so she goes into the Spirit Realm to fight her and Xena follows. Xena runs into Alti (who has beat the shit out of Yakut) and Alti steals the soul of Xena’s baby.

Alti says she’ll give the soul back if Xena convinces the Amazons to bring her back to life. Gabi and Amarice find the amber cave, but the guardian reveals that Amarice isn’t a real Amazon and won’t let her pass. Gabi gets the amber and tells Amarice to stop living in the shadows and just be herself, Amazon or not. When they get back and find out Alti has the baby’s soul, Gabi wonders what they should do. Xena says they should give Alti exactly what she wants. Xena goes into the Spirit Realm and tells Alti the Amazons have enacted the ritual to bring her back. Xena wakes up in Alti’s cave and is startled when Alti’s skeleton animates and realizes Alti’s soul is in the skeleton.

Naturally, Alti refuses to give back the baby’s soul, but Xena has faked her out … they’re still in the Spirit Realm, a fact Xena demonstrates by peeling off her own skin and becoming a skeleton herself. In the real world, Gabi, Yakut, and Amarice wait by Xena’s body for a sign that the baby’s s soul is back where it belongs. Xena and Alti have a skeleton fight in the Spirit Realm, kinda like Jason and the Argonauts, except with the skeletons fighting each other. Xena takes some damage in the real world but finally defeats Alti (breaking off her leg bone and beating her with it) and reclaims the baby’s soul. In the real world, Gabi pours the amber over Alti’s remains and her soul dies in agony as Xena finishes her off in the Spirit Realm. Later, Gabi gives Amarice her Amazon bracelet, having added a stone for Amarice herself. Gabi didn’t tell Xena about Amarice not being an Amazon because Gabi figures she’s earned the right to be one. Amarice says she’s decided to stay with the Northern Amazons and learn a few things. Xena says goodbye to Yakut and mentions heading east to learn a few new tricks. As she’s leaving, Xena notices a dove in a nearby tree.

This is a pretty good episode (#81 on my all-time list) bringing back the Northern Amazons we met in Adventures in the Sin Trade. Although I’m kind of tired of Alti at this point (nothing against Claire Stansfield, I just think the character got overused), she is an appropriately menacing villain here, and her wanting to replace the soul of Xena’s baby fits with her character. It’s great to see Gabi and Xena acting like a real couple here, with Gabi willing to risk herself for the baby since she feels like it’s hers too. Gabi takes to the ways of the Shaman quickly, which makes sense; she’s a very spiritual person, so she’s probably more open to the process than most people would be. And even though Gabi’s foray into the Spirit Realm is unsuccessful, she does get to help later by retrieving the amber and using it on Alti’s skeletal remains. So it really is a team effort this time. Xena makes an interesting comment about Gabi “learn[ing] the ways of the Shamaness sooner than I thought”, which makes it sound like Xena always meant to teach her the Shamanic ritual, just not yet. I have a theory that Xena is slowly passing on all her knowledge to Gabi, but she’s doing it on her own timetable. We’ll see more of that next season, culminating in the final episode.

Unfortunately, this is the last time we’ll see Amarice. Amarice was supposed to have at least five more appearances, but Jennifer Sky left the show to take the lead in Cleopatra 2525, so Amarice doesn’t appear after this episode. I wish she’d stuck around, or at least come back for a guest appearance, but she ends up being killed ignominiously in-between episodes (which we’ll hear about next time Xena and Gabi visit the Northern Amazons). At first, I kinda found Amarice annoying, but she really grew on me and I ended up liking her character a lot. I wish she could’ve stayed around, maybe as a protegée of Gabi’s, learning the ways of the Amazons but tempered with Gabi’s more peaceful approach. This backstory (with Amarice not really being an Amazon) wasn’t the original one envisioned by Steve Sears when he created the character. He wanted her to be a real Amazon, who’d been raised in a very warlike tribe where dying with honour meant everything (kinda like the Klingons, I guess). When their tribe was wiped out by the Horde, Amarice’s mom saved her instead of letting her die with honour and that haunted Amarice afterwards. But Sears’s script was rewritten by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzmann (which is why Sears used his Buddy Williers pseudonym for the credits) and they envisioned Amarice differently. Jennifer Sky wrote a great op-ed for the New York Times where she talked about how great it was working on the show and how empowered it made her feel. (Apparently, she really loved those leather shorts!) She also mentioned Amarice having a same-sex relationship, but I’m not sure who she was referring to. I didn’t get much of a vibe between Amarice and Yakut, but maybe there was something in the early drafts that got taken out later. That would’ve been an interesting storyline to pursue as well, but unfortunately it just didn’t work out.

Noticeable Things:

• I guess the Greek Amazons don’t have shamans, since Xena had to travel to see the Northern Amazons to get help with spiritual matters.
• There’s no mention of Otere in this episode, so I’m not sure what happened to her.
• There are at least three great opportunities for Xena and Gabi to kiss in this episode (before Gabi goes into the Spirit Realm, when Xena brings her back to life, and when Xena wakes up after defeating Alti in the skeleton duel), but I guess that would’ve been too controversial back then.

Favourite Quotes:

• “Xena, don’t let go of me.” Gabi’s plea before going into the Spirit Realm, to which Xena answers “Never”. As I said above, the perfect place for a kiss …
• “Xena’s little bitch. Welcome to the doghouse.” Alti greeting Gabi when she arrives in the Spirit Realm.
• “Look, for many years I walked in Xena’s shadow. I wanted to be her. She taught me something … it’s warmer standing in the sun.” Gabi telling Amarice to stop measuring herself against the Amazons and just be her own person.