2-01 Orphan Of War

First air date - Sep 30, 1996

The episode starts with Xena and Gabrielle walking through a battle scene.
Gabrielle says the totems there look like centaur totems. They are suddenly
attacked by Dagnine's men. Gabrielle fights some off with her staff and
Xena fights others with bare hands and one of the enemy's clubs. Then one of
them throws a spear at her and she holds her sword in front of her and it
splits the spear in two and it kills warriors on either side of her. {THAT
was one of the coolest things I've ever seen her do - Neato Torpedo!!}

They are saved when centaur archers kill or run off the attackers.
Xena and the head centaur - Kaleipus, face off. He says she said she'd never
return, and she says the old Xena hasn't. But she is there to see to it that
Dagnine can't get his hands on the Ixion stone.

Then a boy jumps out of a tree and wants to kill Xena because she
killed his father. When Gabrielle asks if she knows the boy, Xena says it's
her son !! !! !!

There is a flashback showing Xena willing to give up her son, and
Borias' son, and she will retreat if Kaleipus will raise him up so he won't
become a target, or another Xena. Sad scene.

Hey David, I'm kind of surprised at how much you liked this ep, because
I don't really care for it that much. It seemed like for S1 we tended
to have similar ratings for most of the shows, but for this one it
looks like we have different points of view.

I think this was an OK ep. It gives a lot of good back story on Xena,
which I like but, for me, either the writing or the acting seemed kind
of off. However, I did really like Solon's line when he was talking
to Xena about how he "wished he could have heard his mother sing". It
gave me a little smile to know that next season he will get a chance to
hear her sing. LOL.

It's a spoiler...... but considered what happened in FIN I would
think that leaving the pinch on someone would bring back some very bad
memories for Xena.

On a side note, I recently got an iPod Video so I've been converting
some of my DVD's to iPod format. I worked on Season 2 this weekend and
I forgot how many awesome episodes there are in this season. I'm
really looking forward to rewatching them.

"poker88" hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160955051.519954.161550@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

The first time I watched some 10 years ago, I don't think I liked it
quite so much, but I guess over the years I may have mellowed out some and
have gotten a bit sentimental in my older age. Most likely if there had been
a 'Solon' I liked better I might have given it an 8 the first time around
and maybe a 9 this time. I just felt bad for Xena at the end.

"poker88" hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160998769.121307.80240@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

I wonder how he got so much power he was able to do that.

Gabrielle: "Xena, do you know that guy?"
Xena: "Yeah, he's...um... the former love of my life, Marcus"

G: "Xena, do you know that guy?"
X: "Yeah, he's...um... my former lover turned former enemy, Iolus"

G: "Xena, do you know that woman?"
X: "Yeah, she's...um... my childhood friend, Flora"

G: "Xena, do you know that guy?"
X: "Yeah, he's...um... my ex-fianc

"Ahroo" hotmail.remove.com> wrote in message
news:Hm7_g.16575$e66.2157@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...

Hmmm...good question. I'm not really sure, but the surprise thing doesn't
work for me because it has already been so overused (so that you come to
expect it almost every episode by now!) and because I really think that by
now, Xena would have already told Gabrielle about Solon, or if she had
wanted to continue to hide the fact that he wasn't her son, she wouldn't
have blurted it out so easily. She knew where they were going, she knew that
there was a good chance of seeing him (and as you pointed out, maybe that
was part of her reason for going in the first place), so why wouldn't she
have just said something to Gabrielle before they got there like "There's
something I have to tell you....about my past...please don't hate me for
it...etc." Clearly TPTB wanted that little shock value knowing that the
audience wasn't expecting it, but if this were real life, I doubt Xena would
have handled it that way - yet again. On the other hand, that does seem to
be her way of handling surprise encounters with people from her past, so
maybe it is in character for her! ...

"Ahroo" hotmail.remove.com> wrote in message
news:wJ3%%g.19526$6S3.17287@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...

Well, the more I think about it, the more I agree that throughout their
years together, Xena has been reluctant to share info about her past with
Gabrielle until the time that she HAS to, due to "current" events in their
lives (and as a way to tell her story to the audience of events from "10
years ago", as it always seems to be!). But you'd think that after a while,
Gabrielle would get tired of all of these surprises, and discovering that
once again, Xena...