3-22 Sacrifice, Part 2

First air date May 11, 1998.

The episode starts out with scenes from last week's "Sacrifice". Everyone is in the
temple watching Hope, covered in plastic-wrap looking goo, emerging from the cocoon. Xena starts to
attack her, but Hope uses mind control, and swords, daggers, and axes hanging on the walls start
flying at Xena. She uses her Chakram to deflect them.

Xena throws her Chakram at Hope and it cuts her on the arm, hurting her a little, then sticks into
the stone wall. Using her mind control, Hope makes it fly back to Xena and hits her in the belly,
throwing her backward, but no real damage. More weapons starts to fly but Xena use her Chakram to
cut a chain and a huge shield falls from the ceiling and she and Gabrielle roll it towards the
entrance as the swords, etc, bounce off it. Callisto starts to use a fireball on X&G but Hope tells
her they have more important things to do and Callisto teleports herself and Hope away.

Xena berates Gabrielle about saving Hope. Gabrielle tells her about Ares and the Fates and Xena's
life. Xena says she would gladly die to rid the world of Hope, but Gabrielle isn't ready to lose
her.

Xena mentions that the face she loves more than anything else in the world (Gabrielle's) is also
the face of the one she hates the most (Hope). (Almost exactly what Gabrielle told
Xena-in-Callisto's-body way back when.)

My first reaction to watching this ep was panic that Renee was leaving
the show. I had to get the S4 DVD case and make sure that there were
pictures of her on the box. LOL! I lived Xena but I didn't think the
show would be the same without Gabrielle.

This is jumping ahead a bit but in the commentary for A Family Affair
one of the producers / writers ??? said they never gave a lot of
thought into how they were going to get Gabrielle back after they
'killed' her off in S3. This seems very strange to me. Was Renee
actually going to leave the show? Renegotiating her contract? Was
there any talk about this when the ep actually aired?

I still can't get my head around the logistics of how Joxer got the dagger.

I was thinking that he must have gone to where it was hidden and collected
it before he got himself caught on purpose, but wasn't Callisto hunting for
it in the same place that Dahok's followers were taking the innocent to be
slaughtered anyway. Joxer couldn't have got there before Dahok's mob,
because they were already there before Joxer was given the mission.

Actually, this point spoilt it a little for me because we would have to
reject all that we were taught about Joxer to be able to believe that he
could pull it off without screwing it up. But no, he ends up in the right
place at the right time, with the dagger. I for one didn't hear him say
'abracaddabra'.

David Lloyd

"poker88" hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1186409945.032548.73890@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...

All good questions. I wish I had some answers.
Maybe they just figured someone would come up with a way to resurrect Gabrielle. Someone always
has an idea or two that will work.

"David E. Milligan" bellsouth.net> wrote in
news:in8ui.4926$QP5.2858@bignews1.bellsouth.net:

"poker88" hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1186409945.032548.73890@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...

Doing a quick Google reminded me that this was the time that Renee was off
filming Rubbernecking. I'll have more of an in depth look to see if there
was talk of Renee leaving for good, which I do seem to recall somewhere
along the line.

David Lloyd