Punch Lines – Director: Andrew Merrifield/Writer: Chris Manheim
This is another clip show (this time focusing on humorous clips), with another elaborate framing device. Xena and Gabi are spending the night in one of Aphrodite’s temples and Gabi tries to get some writing done, but she has writer’s block. Aphrodite shows up and psychoanalyses Gabi, trying to help her root out what’s keeping her from writing. Gabi tells Aphrodite what happened that
day and we get the main story told as a flashback. Xena, Gabi, and Joxer are travelling together and Gabi mentions Xena’s temper (illustrated with clips from Fins, Femmes & Gems, Animal Attraction, Return of Callisto, and Been There Done That) and Gabi bets Xena she can’t go a whole day without getting mad. Xena and Joxer head to town for supplies and Gabi takes the horses (yes, Gabi still has her own horse) to a nearby spring to water them. But when Gabi bathes Argo in the water, Argo shrinks down to the size of a pony.
As Gabi continues her story to Aphrodite, we get more flashbacks. Gabi finds 
out the spring belongs to Lachrymose, God of Despair, who shrank Argo out of spite for not getting the respect the other gods do. When Lachrymose mentions he’s never laughed, Gabi bets she can make him laugh and he agrees to change Argo back if Gabi succeeds. Gabi tells him about the killer rabbit from In Sickness and In Hell, but that doesn’t even get a smile. In a tavern in town, Xena freaks out someone’s baby and worries about what kind of mother she’ll be (recalling the baby toss from Cradle of Hope) and Joxer tries to reassure her. Back at
the spring, Gabi tells Lachrymose about Bliss’s antics in A Comedy of Eros, but that gets no response, so she goes on to try various forms of humour and we get more clips: slapstick (A Day in the Life, Takes One to Know One, King of Assassins); action (The Way); romantic comedy (Warrior…Princess…Tramp, A Comedy of Eros, Fins Femmes & Gems), and even a little sex appeal (A Necessary Evil, The Quill is Mightier, Altared States), but nothing works. Gabi tells Aphrodite how she 
stalled, hoping to restore Argo before Xena found out. Meanwhile, Xena runs into a drunken warlord named Blutos, whose brother she’d captured. She kicks him out the tavern door (which technically should’ve lost her the bet), but Gabi’s too worried about Argo to notice their confrontation. When Gabi gets back to the spring, Argo is gone.
Gabi tells Aphrodite how important Argo is to Xena (with a clip from The Execution) and how she searched everywhere, following Argo’s trail to the market where Xena and Joxer are shopping. Xena decks Blutos again and
worries about what kind of life her kid will have, thinking about giants (The Titans, Sins of the Past, A Day in the Life). Joxer mentions Dryads and Bacchae (from Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) and Harpies (from Mortal Beloved), but ends up telling Xena that her child will be fine because it’ll have Xena as a mother. Gabi finds Argo in the store, but Lachrymose shows up and shrinks Gabi too.
Joxer notices shrunken Gabi and Argo and covers for them with Xena before heading out to talk to Lachrymose. Joxer actually impresses Lachrymose 
with tales of his pathetic life, but can’t convince him to turn Gabi and Argo big again. Aphrodite questions why Gabi would trust Joxer to fix things and Gabi tries to come up with a time when Joxer was helpful (with clips from The Play’s the Thing, Fins, Femmes & Gems, Warrior…Priestess…Tramp, and Callisto). Gabi leaves out the time Joxer saved them in Return of Callisto, but she and Xena always seem to forget that. Xena heads to the tavern to find Gabi and Joxer, unaware that Blutos is stalking her.
Xena notices Blutos’s shadow in the tavern and decks him, but manages to piss of the entire place when she asks about guys in pointy hats (which
they’re all wearing). Gabi pisses Lachrymose off and Joxer suggests he make her big again to make it easier to blast her. Once Gabi is big, she takes off. Argo has responded to Xena’s whistle and walks into the tavern. Xena is pissed off (with clips from Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Paradise Found, The Way, and Fallen Angel to 
illustrate her anger) and Gabi comes in to explain everything. Blutos gets knocked into a plate of cream pies and Xena grabs another pie and tosses it at Gabi. That starts a huge pie fight, with everyone except Xena getting a pie in the face. Lachrymose shows up to watch the chaos, but still isn’t amused … until Xena gets him with a pie. Lachrymose laughs his ass off and turns Argo big again before vanishing. In the temple, Gabi realizes she’s been so focused on helping
Xena (and the world in general) that she hasn’t had time for herself, which is why she’s had so much trouble writing lately. She thanks Aphrodite for the help and writes the end of the day in her scroll, telling how Xena was gloating about winning the bet until she got a pie in the face from out of nowhere … presumably from Lachrymose, as we hear him laughing again afterwards.
This is a pretty good episode (#64 on my all-time list), highlighting many of the humorous moments from the show, although some of them aren’t 
quite as funny out of context. It’s cool to see more of Gabi and Aphrodite’s friendship and it’s funny how Aphrodite goes into therapist mode (complete with cute glasses). The dynamic between them is fun but despite the fact that Aphrodite turns the therapy session into a slumber party (and ends up in a hot tub later), I still don’t get the romantic vibe between them that some fans do. Aphrodite does (inadvertently?) help Gabi get past her writer’s block by making her realize that taking some time for herself won’t lessen her love for Xena or the baby.
A lot of the humour from this episode comes from the framing stories instead of the clips themselves. The whole market scene is funny, playing
on the feel of a modern supermarket. Everyone uses shopping carts, the guy behind the till has an abacus (and gives Xena shit for eating a turnip before paying for it), and when Xena decks Blutos, we hear a voice asking for “clean-up in Aisle 7”. The pie fight was maybe a little over the top for me, but they certainly went all out with it (even tossing in random characters like a Wagnerian soprano, a guru, and a Custer lookalike … all of whom get 
pied). Apparently, Renee got a busted lip during the pie fight, which she thought was funny since she’d done dozens of fight scenes up to that point without getting hurt. According to Lucy, it was Phil Ivey (the Art Director) who hit her with the pie in the final scene (and some of the pie splattered onto Argo, who rears up and almost pulls Lucy’s arm off).
Noticeable Things:
- When trying to come up with baby names, Gabi suggests Rochelle and Aloysius, neither of which works for Xena.
- Gabi says they’re heading for Pylos, which means this episode should come before Seeds of Faith.
- In one of his flashbacks, Joxer recalls Xena killing him with the chakram in Been There Done That, but how would he know about that if his memory was erased? Maybe Xena told Gabi and Gabi told Joxer.
- Gabi and Aphrodite eat chocolate in the temple, but chocolate is from the New World and wouldn’t have existed in Ancient Greece. I guess being a goddess gives Aphrodite access to it.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Xena doesn’t do any cleaning … have you smelled her feet lately?” Gabi complaining to Argo about Xena’s personal habits.
- “What do you have to do, add water?” One of the tavern patrons on first seeing the miniaturized Argo.
- “Patient is hostile, insecure, possibly masking some latent tendencies.” Aphrodite’s analysis of Gabi’s neuroses … but Aphrodite (of all people) should know there’s nothing “latent” about Gabi’s tendencies …
- “Although bombastic forms of circumlocution should be generally avoided, one mustn’t shy away from big words in the right context.” Aphrodite letting Gabi know she’s not just a pretty face.