Aside #7
What you miss from the "video"commentary (but not the audio) on that Alti/Caesar scene is Lucy exclaiming, "Oh My God! Claire has SUCH an amazing physique!"
Lucy is intrigued by watching "Alti" use sex as a weapon, since that's not her usual M.O.
(I beg to differ with Xena's actress. Alti has used sex as a weapon, she just used her apprentice's sex {Adventures in the Sin Trades}... rather than her own.
)
Lucy and Rob both commented on how this was the "1st time" Alti was dressed up rather than covered up in deer hides, blood, chicken bones and black makeup.
Lucy revealed that THIS version of Alti... the sexy high priestess, was what Claire thought Alti was going to be all along when she arrived on set for the first time so long ago. Her thinking turned a full 180 degress when they put her into the traditonal Shamaness makeup and "She had to develop that character on set the first day" as Lucy tells us.
Whew!
If Claire came up with the frighting Alti with one morning's prep, imagine what would have happened with a week's forethought!
The final fight in the sun filled green grassy field shows us two things...
First, this isn't our Xena yet... since she let not one but TWO arrows hit her!
Second... this is no longer Caesar's Empress.
At the end of the teaser of this ep... where Xena has vaulted from the horse onto the steps of Caesar's palace to acknowledge him as "My Emperor" as he acknowleded "My Empress." there is a very uncharacteristic "giggle" escaping Xena's control.
When that happened, Lucy noted, "She's very pleased with him." and Rob commented, "Of course, she's happy." One wonders exactly what she's happy with, being Empress, being head of the army, being Caesar's wife?
We learn later that she likes being in the fighting in the senate for her Army's financial well being, that she likes playing the Empress at the theater as she interacts with playwrights from her home country. But in the bedroom scene between the "happy couple", we learn that intimacy between them has been absent "for a long time."
Caesar had promised to free Gabrielle, but Xena shed her velveteen robes and dressed in her leather garb to follow the playwright at a distance. Was she seeking a last talk with Gabrielle, or did she suspect her husband would betray her? We'll never know for sure, but it was very telling when she spat out...
"You betrayed me again, Caesar. No matter what life you live, you'll always be scum! Not even the Fates could change that."
Rob commented during the battle that it was a "stretch" for this Xena to have fought as well as she did, given the fact that the Warrior Princess never fully developed in this reality. I have to say, its been strange to watch Xena without her chakram... but even more to watch her without a sword! The only time we see her with one was when she ripped it out of her opponent's hands and killed him with it. Again... I see this episode as a timelapsed version of 6 years of Xena. We see her relatonship with Gabrielle blossum overnight, and we see her inherent talents as a warrior do the same.
Of course, if she WAS our Xena, fighting off 20 guys and avoiding the archers would have been a piece of cake! Not only that... but the person being dragged at the end of the scene would NOT have been Xena.. but would have been CAESAR!
What you miss from the "video"commentary (but not the audio) on that Alti/Caesar scene is Lucy exclaiming, "Oh My God! Claire has SUCH an amazing physique!"
Lucy is intrigued by watching "Alti" use sex as a weapon, since that's not her usual M.O.
(I beg to differ with Xena's actress. Alti has used sex as a weapon, she just used her apprentice's sex {Adventures in the Sin Trades}... rather than her own.
)Lucy and Rob both commented on how this was the "1st time" Alti was dressed up rather than covered up in deer hides, blood, chicken bones and black makeup.
Lucy revealed that THIS version of Alti... the sexy high priestess, was what Claire thought Alti was going to be all along when she arrived on set for the first time so long ago. Her thinking turned a full 180 degress when they put her into the traditonal Shamaness makeup and "She had to develop that character on set the first day" as Lucy tells us.
Whew!
If Claire came up with the frighting Alti with one morning's prep, imagine what would have happened with a week's forethought!
The final fight in the sun filled green grassy field shows us two things...
First, this isn't our Xena yet... since she let not one but TWO arrows hit her!
Second... this is no longer Caesar's Empress.
At the end of the teaser of this ep... where Xena has vaulted from the horse onto the steps of Caesar's palace to acknowledge him as "My Emperor" as he acknowleded "My Empress." there is a very uncharacteristic "giggle" escaping Xena's control.
When that happened, Lucy noted, "She's very pleased with him." and Rob commented, "Of course, she's happy." One wonders exactly what she's happy with, being Empress, being head of the army, being Caesar's wife?
We learn later that she likes being in the fighting in the senate for her Army's financial well being, that she likes playing the Empress at the theater as she interacts with playwrights from her home country. But in the bedroom scene between the "happy couple", we learn that intimacy between them has been absent "for a long time."
Caesar had promised to free Gabrielle, but Xena shed her velveteen robes and dressed in her leather garb to follow the playwright at a distance. Was she seeking a last talk with Gabrielle, or did she suspect her husband would betray her? We'll never know for sure, but it was very telling when she spat out...
"You betrayed me again, Caesar. No matter what life you live, you'll always be scum! Not even the Fates could change that."
Rob commented during the battle that it was a "stretch" for this Xena to have fought as well as she did, given the fact that the Warrior Princess never fully developed in this reality. I have to say, its been strange to watch Xena without her chakram... but even more to watch her without a sword! The only time we see her with one was when she ripped it out of her opponent's hands and killed him with it. Again... I see this episode as a timelapsed version of 6 years of Xena. We see her relatonship with Gabrielle blossum overnight, and we see her inherent talents as a warrior do the same.
Of course, if she WAS our Xena, fighting off 20 guys and avoiding the archers would have been a piece of cake! Not only that... but the person being dragged at the end of the scene would NOT have been Xena.. but would have been CAESAR!
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