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Another "better than I remember it" episode -- those low expectations really help!

When I first saw TOTKO years ago (on Sci-Fi in my pre-fandom days), I remember thinking the detective genre was not a good fit for X:WP. I'm still a tad iffy about Xena: Warrior Sleuth, but I found the ep more enjoyable than I expected. There were some cute jokes; I liked the "friends and family" theme (particularly Xena's interaction with Cyrene and the Lila/Minya teamwork). Plus, it's always nice to see such a prominent role for Argo!

The plot is pretty thin, and logically challenged even by X:WP standards. Above all: Why on earth would the Goddess of Retribution be in charge of avenging the run-of-the-mill murder of some bounty hunter at a small-town inn? Why not leave it to the human agency of the justice system? This is not a case of someone who offended the gods or escaped human justice. (Also, is Ares now in charge of assigning jobs to lesser gods? Was Discord's new post as the Goddess of Retribution ever mentioned on H:TLJ, or was this a one-episode X:WP gig?) A second, more surmountable problem: Ravenica apparently hobbles her targets' horses to make them easier to pursue. But if she's close enough to hobble the person's horse, why does she need to pursue them? She has presumably already caught up with them. Indeed, Xena is right there at the inn, no need to go after her. Generally, you would lame the horse of someone who's tracking you in order to slow them down and get away, not of someone you're tracking -- it makes a lot more *snicker* *ahem* sense. But I suppose Ravenica could be waiting for a convenient moment to pounce (and what would that convenient moment be in Xena's case? the next time she gets hit with a poison dart a la The Greater Good? the next time she gets a combined attack of lice, fungus and food poisoning ...?) and trying to facilitate the job of keeping up with Xena once she leaves the inn. And finally, why isn't Xena the least bit curious about why there's a bounty on her and who placed it? (Kind of ironic in view of the fact that Caesar will put a huge bounty on Xena just two episodes later.)

Nonetheless, Discord definitely added some wicked broad fun to this episode! I liked her growing frustration and her angry outburst at the discovery that the "murderer" is a horse; her displays of powers were enjoyable too, particularly when she conjured up an hourglass by the neat trick of making her eyes glow an electric blue! Also, nice bit when she arbitrarily decides to shorten the time left for the investigation and, just like that, makes some more sand run out. That's the gods for you!

Some good mother/daughter stuff in this ep -- it's always good to see Xena and Cyrene interact. Nice continuity with The Furies, introducing a somewhat dark note into this otherwise rather fluffy episode. Cyrene, already revealed as a woman with a very strong will and a dark past of her own in The Furies, shows here that she still has an edge: she readily admits that she would kill to protect her adult daughter -- not even from a warlord but from a bounty hunter who is presumably acting under the color of some official authority. I agree with EpTalk -- definitely some maternal warm fuzzies here. There's a very genuine sense of caring between Cyrene and Xena, and the sense of these two women's different types of strength is very well conveyed. Of course, in this episode we also learn that Cyrene has a rather freakish sense of humor ("Maybe she liked her pears bruised!"), but ... you know, that actually kind of fits the character, I think.

We also meet a very wide-eyed Lila, in her last appearance on the show before the tragic events that befall her during her sister's 25-year beaty sleep; it's too bad there isn't more Gab/Lila interaction here, as CasualFan says, but it's nice to see Lila show up for her sister's birthday (were Hecuba and Herodotus busy, or do they still disapprove of Gab's way of life?), and I also agree with CF that Minya and Lila make a nice "odd couple." It's also nice to see that Lila is willing to take some risks to protect Xena.

In addition to Young Lila's last bow, this episode also marks the final appearance of Minya and Autolycus. Minya gets some good lines, particularly the "that's not what I heard!" one to Discord. Her description of how she confronted Ravenica and just saw red ... and then ran out screaming ... was quite funny too. Btw, that's a rather elegant dress she's wearing; life's obviously been good to her. Maybe she really is a thespian now! (An actress, that is.) It's a bit of a disappointing last appearance for Auto, but at least he gets to show his devotion to Xena and the interplay between him and Cyrene was good as well. (I didn't realize until I read joxerfan's post that they were deliberately playing it as flirtation!) But good grief, that haircut! I should have guessed it was for another movie role. All I can say it, it was not flattering. At all.

Joxer predictably bumbles his way through the episode, but he also gets to received a perfumed love note and to make a noble gesture when he offers to sacrifice himself in Gabrielle's place. Oh, and he's rewarded with a kiss on the cheek that almost makes him pass out. Sweet.

That brings us to Gabrielle. I agree with the other commenters that her appearance in TOTKO was quite disappointing; they probably should have had her show up at the end, as CF suggests (though that would have deprived Joxer of the opportunity to offer to sacrifice himself in her place). In my review of The Play's the Thing, I remarked that it looks like our bard has left her brain in India; she obviously has yet to retrieve it. "You know, if she was short enough, she could have been stabbed through the keyhole" sounds like a Joxer line mistakenly assigned to Gabs. Come to think of it, so does this brilliant deduction: "Now, we've assembled the facts -- and there's one thing we know beyond the shadow of a doubt -- to be the indisputable truth. Ravenica is dead, and someone here killed her."

This loss of brainpower seems to be accompanied by a corresponding decline in sensitivity. For all her high-minded talk of Love, Gabrielle comes across as quite mean-spirited as several points in the episode. She berates poor Joxer for borrowing from her scroll for a letter (it's not like he was going to publish something under his own name!) and only then belatedly remembers that oh, by the way, he offered to sacrifice himself to save her. Her comment to Xena upon seeing the dead Ravenica -- "Oh. I see you already found her first" -- was quite grating as well. (As Gabrielle will say in the next season, "I can be a real b*tch sometimes.") To compound all this, Gabrielle's pacifism hits a new low in this episodes as she runs off to hide in the kitchen when the fight starts. Even Cyrene gets a piece of the action -- but not Gabs.

And now that we've gone down the list of characters, let's not forget Ravenica. She actually has the makings of an interesting character, IMO (quite apart from the assets she shared with the similarly hapless Mavican ), and Natalie Duggan (who will reappear as the evil priestess of Artemis in Eternal Bonds) gave a good performance. It's really too bad this character was wasted on a throwaway episode in which she spent most of her screen time as a corpse. It would have been interesting to see her and Xena as reluctant partners teamed up to catch some malefactor.

The dialogue, by one-time screenwriter Jeff Vlaming, could have been sharper; there was certainly no need for Joxer's repetition of "Minya in the bedroom with a knife" (though admittedly Minya's "Get a clue" was cute), and some lines were ruined by a too-obvious follow-up (e.g., Auto's "Tell us something we don't know" after Gabrielle's "Ravenica is dead, and someone here killed her"). However, there were some good lines -- e.g., Joxer's "When I left her, she was stained, but standing"; his "Maybe you liked those horsies a little too much! ... Let me rephrase that"; and this Joxer/Auto exchange: "Maybe she had a heart condition. -- Yeah, maybe it grew that knife"; and Gab's "She's your mother" (though more than half the fun of that was in ROC's delivery). Xena's "That's inhuman!" in response to Gabrielle's revelation that she tried to feed Ravenica Joxer's gravy was also good. Not sure this counts as dialogue, but I also liked the moment when Auto tells his "cover story" about what happened during his meeting with Ravenica, then the screen freezes on the near-kiss as Joxer says that's not what he heard, and we get "take two."

Not a whole lot of action in this episode; the fight with Discord's muscleboys was quite dull, IMO (the best part of it was watching Cyrene in action and seeing Minya display her fighting prowess). Ravenica's demise, however, was rather impressive.

Odds and Ends:

* The episode's references to "Clue" are obvious, but one often-overlooked factoid is that TOTKO is an "homage" to one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, "Silver Blaze," in which Holmes thus reveals the identity of the killer: "Yes, the horse. And it may lessen his guilt if I say that it was done in self-defence." (In that case, it was a racehorse whose trainer was hoping to make a large amount of money by secretly betting against his own horse, a favorite, and then causing him to lose by nicking his tendons with a knife. Those interested can find the story here -- there are some interesting similarities, right down to the man receiving a gash from his own knife as he falls.) By the gods -- it's Xena Holmes!

* I share CF's consternation at Gabrielle's lack of reaction to the startling revelation that her sister has a crush on Joxer. (I also agree with Joxerfan that Lila's infatuation with Joxer is first suggested in A Family Affair. But I'm also puzzled as to why Lila doesn't show any embarrassment or other emotion when Joxer starts telling the whole world, including her own sister, about her love note!

* Finally, as a shipper, I must confess to a fondness for Discord's line, "All of Olympus knows the Warrior Princess. Ares has made sure of that."

All in all, a sometimes entertaining episode with some nice character moments and some good fun with Discord. Not too bad, but Autolycus, Minya, and Young Lila deserved a better sendoff. 6 chakrams out of 10.

Well, I don't think a bounty hunter is supposed to be very emotionally open. I think she conveyed the tough, ruthless and somewhat sleazy persona rather well.