Forgiven

Cults! Magic Urns! Teenage stalkers! Will Xena and Gabby save the day? MEANWHILE Justine and Hayley rewatch Xena Season 3's Forgiven and research Apollo and Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis!  

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Transcript

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unknown 0:01

Little bit.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Record Record, Record, Record, Record, Record.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Hello and welcome. We are in a Time of Ancient Gods, the Xena podcast, where we are reviewing every episode of the 90s TV show Xena Warrior Princess, and we are researching the myths, the heroes, the themes we meet in the Xenaverse. I am Justine, and here with me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

It's me, Haley. It's Haley. Hi, Haley. I'm pleased to be here. Hi. Hi.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Uh top of the episode, we're gonna plug our Patreon where we post screenshots from the episodes, our research references for every episode, and little mini sodes with extra research. There's a link in the description of this website. Uh sorry, there's a link in the description of this episode. But where else can you find all this information, Haley?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, you gave us a clue. It's at a website, www.inatimefancient gods.com.com. Really? Can you believe it? We have a whole website. It's a site where you can scroll up and down and find all sorts of links to research, episodes. It's what else?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Patreon. Yeah, Patreon, um, our merch. You can find uh we got mugs and tote bags and all sorts of cool t-shirts. We got a lot of cool podcast stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I am barely resisting the urge to type in www.in at timeofancient gods.com right now. Oh. Tip a tap tap. Tip tap tap tap tap. If you hear me tip a tap tapping, that's where I'm going.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Oh, I'm happy to see you, Haley. It's been so long. We haven't chatted in forever, so we're just basking each other's little zoom faces. Um you've been up to anything fun, reading anything?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

I have been trying to delve into some more horror, supernatural horror.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah. So I read Michael McDowell's The Elementals, which is like 1980s. It's you know, the some of the characterization is a little bit dated, but the atmosphere is really rich and the scares are spectacular. That sounds fun. I enjoyed that. Yeah. That was great. And then uh I read another one, but now I'm forgetting what it's called, but it's about kind of fairy people in Alabama. That sounds good. It was great. Yeah. It was kind of funny because it had like a very casual narrator. So it had this kind of like kind of sarcastic tone to it, but it had a lot of um spooky, spooky elements as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

And we don't remember what that book is called or who wrote it.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Why would I? Uh I'll I'll take a tap tap. I just said that as a joke.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Someone will know it.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Haley's hurriedly looking through her notes, but I'll shout it out at an inopportune moment.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Uh, please do. Uh well, I've been all in on Emily Wilson's translations of The Odyssey and the Iliad.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Uh I posted about these two wonderful texts on Patreon, but I'm obsessed with her. She is so great. She's in Philly. I think she's at Penn. And I've like never felt more in the Iliad. I've been trying to just in my personal practice of self-care, I've been trying to break up with doom scrolling in the morning, like when I first wake up. So instead, I've just been reading the Iliad like a couple pages in the morning. And let me tell you, it really sets up the day. Yeah, it helps with anxiety for sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

I I will say briefly, and I'll mention this very briefly in the episode too. I read some of Euripides today. Often I'll I'll read like the summary of a myth rather than kind of the theatrical treatment.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Euripides? But I love Rippid. Eripides stories. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Some kind of fun in there.

unknown 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Euripides stories are really rip rollickin' fun. You're rip rollickin' fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Oi. Oi. But yeah, no, he's great. His Medea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Delish.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I was almost crying. Oh, yeah, yeah. So good. You can just cry. Very emotional. Just let yourself. Just cry. I mean, I a couple tears came up. Okay. The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

There you go. Twisted Ones.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Are the Twisted Ones the fairy people?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

And there's a creepy. I won't spoil it, but there's like creepy like research. She goes back and finds a book that like her step grandfather's diary where he writes all sorts of incantations. It's fun. Cool. That sounds good. Yeah. But I want to read The Iliad too. Do you want to check out the new translation?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Gotta get them off it up there. Lady scholars, that's it. I think I want to make uh buttons that are like support your local femme classic scholars or something. I think that'd be a fun button.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

I will say also, um, Justine and I have been having a really fun time just kind of designing the seating chart for our ideal dinner party for everybody that we love. Oh, yeah. All time. Uh yeah, it's gonna be a great dinner party.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, he'd have interesting conversations because he didn't like I mean, as we've talked about him before on the pod, some people label him a misogynist, some people don't. Similar to that La Tigre song, What's Your Take on Cassavetis, you know? Exactly. What's your take on your side?

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Your bit is. Yeah, so we'll have to kind of think about keep thinking about it. We've got a few seats set, and we're just kind of arranging it. So I encourage you all to do the same with the historical and contemporary people you'd like to see.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I love it. Um, I also had a vision of like you know, Judy Chicago's uh dinner party art piece. Like I'm imagining a similar thing with we could actually bring this dinner party into realization of having physical place settings for everybody if you felt like doing that in a room at your house.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

One of my many, many rooms. Yeah, just have like the kids draw like crayon drawings on paper plates so that we're out.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Oh, I'm gonna go all out. Yeah, ceramic plates. You know, you can get those ceramic markers anyway. I should probably here we go. Okay, crap.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

We're we're gonna get into this episode right now.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Just you and I haven't talked for a while.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

We've already talked for like an hour and a half, but we're still chatting.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

So there's an episode to get to, and it's a whole long one.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

So let's get there. So this is Forgiven. Forgive me. The title is Forgiven. Episode Forgiven. Originally aired February 16th, 1998, written by RJ Stewart, one of our dear show creators, directed by Garth Maxwell, who directed season one's Mortal Beloved, season two's The Execution, and The Lost Mariner, one of our faves. And we're gonna meet him again in future seasons. So thanks, Garth.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

He loves to bring in a new kind of order-disrupting character.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Oh, he does. He does, he does very successfully. I like it. Okay, IMDB description. Are you ready? Drink that water, get prepared.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

When the urn of Apollo is stolen from his temple, Zina and Gabrielle go after it with the dubious help of Tara, a gang girl who wants to replace Gabrielle as Zina's sidekick. Hmm. Same, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

I feel I feel distracted by the gang girl element.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yep. B I give it a B minus. Like not a C because it gives us kind of, you know, we get the straightforward thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

It's nothing like the A plus from last time.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

No. We just don't like the term gang girl at all.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

No. And it's distracting. So we'll okay. They've got a B minus. They're passive.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah, it's fine. Okay. Mm-hmm. Who's the big bad for you?

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Well, I put warlords and depressingly child abuse and neglect.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I aged up a little bit and I was saying internalized misogyny, hitting young women against each other, like bullying in general, I would say. Big themes here, um, which applies to our lives today and the greater political landscape we live in.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Oh my gosh, we're here.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

We're here.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

We're here in Xena and we're here in the real world.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Sometimes Xeniverse is very separate, but sometimes, you know, what I love about the Xenoverse is time has no meaning. She jumps around. And similar to our universe, we're dealing with the same troubles today. Right? Right. Yep, absolutely. So gods we meet are uh Apollo. We don't actually meet him personified, but we talk about him. I would say we symbolically greet him as the sun. Yes. Anyone else from you? You feel good about that?

SPEAKER_02 9:40

I didn't notice anybody else. Yeah. Just the sun, the blazing sun. Any villagers today? Yes. We've got some villagers today. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

We I think we have villagers also doubling as cult members, but it's a good cult. Absolutely. Yeah. Doctor Xena?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

No. I didn't see any. Did you see some? Yeah, um Pitsi Pooh. They helped Tara a little bit. We have yeah, some nursing, some kind of caregiving. I see, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

God, you're cracking me up.

unknown 10:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I gotta get together. Okay. Cult watch episode. Uh kind yeah. It's a it's a friendly. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

It's a friendly cult, but it is a cult, very, very focused on redemption.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Not a death cult for very much about getting, you know, moving past things and continuing to help others and live our lives.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

It doesn't seem particularly coercive, but there are a lot of robes.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, it's a it's a cult I can get behind. We don't have any dungeons. Nope. Love interest, what some storerooms? A couple storerooms, yeah. Dungeons for ideas, I guess, but not dungeons for people. Yeah. Love interest, 100% Gabby in this one. Yep. That's what I put. And it's like all Gabby. It's so great because it's not even like romantic yearning. It's just like solid relationship. Yeah, we love it.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

I love how like now I appreciate the bittersweet because I'm like, oh, now we they couldn't do everything like to develop all of the kind of like transitional, like relational storylines. So the subtext is really important, but like that bittersweet gets us from the kind of rocky road of learning about each other into this solid relationship status.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

And you gotta go through it to get to this point of how long such a solid relationship. And yeah, oh God, it's so real between these two. It was obsessed.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

I know.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

It's great. Okay. So our research today, I researched Phoebus Apollo, his relationship uh God Apollo, his relationship with the sun. Uh, we're gonna be talking about that later. And then Haley, what'd you do?

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Well, I researched Iphigenia, and I'm gonna be sharing most of my research on our Patreon episode. You can check that out whenever you want. Well, click the link to our Patreon at www.finite time of ancient gods.com. Exactly. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Great.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

I'm gonna take a sip of water.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Gulp. I'm gonna do a sympathetic gulp. Gulp, gulp, gulp.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Thanks for acting that out for me.

unknown 12:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Here we go. We're starting off at a very unexpected opening. We open with the explosions on the sun, spooky music. The cameras zoom back to Earth, and we're in a village being sacked by bad guys. Women are running and screaming. We cut to a few characters wearing these like pale yellow cult-like robes. They're screaming as the light from the sun burns their flesh. We're a cult of Apollo staring directly into the sun. But don't worry, guys. These are all just little vignettes that are actually illustrations on a magic urn. The sun gives life and brings death. We zoom out further. We find ourselves and the urn in a candlelit temple.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Ah, and it's a nice looking urn. I was like, what is the real story here? But now I see it's all part. Well, I saw the the figures turn into the urn. Now I get the whole story. It's all sorts of vignettes. Yeah, it's just all these vignettes all together.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

It's you know, like red or black figure pottery. We're just telling the story of lives. Like we are the urn. The urn is us. We're all the sun is Apollo. Are we just figures on an urn? That's where we're at. But so what are these priests like in this temple?

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Well, they they're quite they seem fairly grounded. I mean, it's an acolyte, kind of blonde acolyte wearing a nice robe, and he's bringing the urn over to the high priest who seems to be wearing fairly silken ornate robes.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

They're like these primary colors, and he has a gilded sun kind of crest upon his chest.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

He does, and it is a very primary color, like colorful. I was surprised at how colorful and rich the temple looked.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

And I thought, I love this theater decor where it's like they're not gonna be able to have just a we're not doing yellow robes today. No, no, today is not a yellow robes day. Today is the high atonement celebration. So we're gonna need our purples and greens, just like me today, folks. Yeah. Haley dressed for the acquaintance.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I love it. Mm-hmm. We see a small group of penitent villagers who've come to this temple, uh, and the priest is anointing them with liquid from the urn, um, just doing a little design on their forehead. I wonder what the design is. It might be like a little sun with rays coming out, possibly. Yeah. And then this will purify them of all their past midsteeds. Because the urn of Apollo forgives. And once forgiven, the priest tells the villagers to go off and do good in the world.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Hmm. It seems pretty benign. Yeah, I like it. Some villagers, the villagers seem to be very appreciative of the ritual, and the priest seems to be doing it in good faith. So we feel like this is a very solid We're very suspicious.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

We're we're really dissecting this.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

We are our little cult antennae are up, but we're not sensing anything coercive or controlling in this scenario besides just the manipulation of guilt.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Yeah, if we were all border collies, we would be looking up quickly and then resting our heads back upon our paws.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

So these two But there are some people in the among the villagers that are kind of making us perk our ears right back up.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Well, because now we're seeing two very deep leather Vs. Mm-hmm. And we know what that means. Yeah, we're like, this is a character of interest. They are approached, so one of these guys is very blonde, the other has kind of like swoopy 90s like boy crush hair. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, I'd say so. The blonde one looks kind of angry and he's aggressive in a way that makes us feel uncomfortable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

The priest uh is does this whole ritual. He forgives the 90s crush one, but then the blonde guy pulls out a knife and he refuses to be forgiven. And the crush guy pulls a knife too and threatens all the villagers. And like, what's their plan? To steal the urn of Apollo.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Steal an urn. Oh no. So and then they punch the priest fully backwards, yeah, laying him on the floor, steal the urn.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Total bullies. And then Apollo feels like he doesn't appreciate this turn of events, and we see through the little skylight at the top of the temple, the clouds are covering and blocking out the sun. Uh-oh. I know. Would you like to hear a little bit about Apollo before we dive too much? We haven't even seen Xena yet, and we're just talking about the case.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

I haven't I don't feel like we've encountered Apollo very much at all. We have so far. We have not. Tell us about Apollo. Tell us about it. Doing taking our sip of water. I'll wait. I'll have a sip of water too.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Gulp. Okay. So my research today, I read the Encyclopædia Britannica article on Apollo, and I read a very cool article called Apollo, Helios, and the Solstices in the Athenian, Delphian, and Delian calendars by Thomas Love Billich. So Apollo is a very interesting god. We see versions of him with like different epithets, characteristics, and responsibilities like across the Mediterranean. And when a deity has so many like varied roles, it can suggest that he may predate the Olympian pantheon and was like gradually absorbed and syncretized into this more like dominant religious system and its mythologies. Cool. So he was a beloved Hellenic god in the Greco-Roman Roman world, but we don't really know his origins. Um he seems like this composite figure, possibly incorporating elements that originated in Western Asia and sped through Syria and Palestine to Egypt and then on to Greece. Very interesting. Interesting. So as a sun god, he's often referred to by the epithet Phoebus, meaning bright, radiant, or pure. And it's a term that links him to the sun. And Apollo was more increasingly associated with the other Greek sun god Helios after the 5th century BCE. And this is roughly the period we're in for this episode. So in some places, he was even called Apollo Helios. So the two gods were really enmeshed together. Interesting. So Apollo was associated with midsummer and the summer solstice and the first harvest of the year. And in the article I read, uh, the author is examining these Athenian, Delian, and Delphian calendars along with literary sources, and they describe myths in which Apollo leaves Delphi for part of the year and travels north. And in these stories, he visits the Hyperboreans. And in some locations, he's given the epithet Hyperborean Apollo. And Hyperborean means beyond uh Boreus, the north wind, right? So like far, far north. And the Hyperboreans were these mythic people said to live extraordinarily long lives in a land of perpetual sunshine and eternal spring. And some traditions even claim they founded the temple and oracle of Delphi. And like I was so struck by that, these characters. Like I feel like I'd heard Hyperborean before, but like as a term just kind of describing people of the north, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

But how they're described sounds so much like stories of like elves and aliens and fairies, like similar to this book you were reading.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

You know, it might be that they're related to the twisted ones from Kingfisher's novel, The Twisted Ones. Yeah, creatures live. Probably. But that's most likely.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

But that was just so I was like, oh, aliens, cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

It's tickling yet another element of my deep memory. And I believe in Indiana Jones and the quest for Atlantics, they go up north to look for the hyperborean.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

The Atlanteans. Well, then there's also the mythologies in Western occult theory of the Atlanteans like going to like going and taking the Celts and giving King Arthur power. And then I read this really great the Celtian series by oh god, what's her name?

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Go to your bookshelf. Look it up.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, I'm just looking behind me. Patricia Ceneally. Um, and so there that one's a really great. I think I've talked about it on a pod before, but just like sci-fi stories of the Celtic people were given space travel tools by like the Atlanteans, and then King Arthur just like goes into space so good. Of course. But like it all ties together, right? It's all tied together.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

The hyperboreans, they're the Atlanteans. Are they up in the far north? Or are they on islands in the middle of the Atlantic, or are they in Greece? Yeah. How are you gonna get the Oracle beads into that face? And what's gonna happen after?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

We're gonna have to do it. We're gonna have to figure out how a pouch of similar weight to swap around.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

That's right. Exactly. Bring your pouches. Okay, so the hyperboreans related to Helios, Apollo Helios Delphic Oracle.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

So we're well, it all kind of comes together. So just like we're thinking about the north, we're thinking about Apollo going to visit them. We're thinking about these like more ancient, ancient stories that like that doesn't quite make sense. Like, oh, because it's probably many stories pulled apart and we've lost bits over time, and then we're repurposing them to tell the story about Apollo. Very cool. Very, very cool. So his travels north all kind of point to this myth in mythic expression of the solar cycle. So he was celebrated uh with festivals tied to spring and summer and winter, thinking about the winter solstice, kind of across different parts of Greece. So rather than Apollo being this like daytime sun god, that's Helios, who's like in his little chariot going. Going, wee over. Apollo may be better understood as a solar year deity, kind of aligned with a seasonal change in the rhythms of the year. Okay. That makes sense. But what does he even look like? We're like talking about this guy. We don't know. Yeah. So he's typically represented as a beardless youth with long hair, considered one of the most beautiful gods. He's often shown holding a lyre, symbolizing joy, music, poetry, dance, and the arts in general.

unknown 22:28

I know.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

At least flushing.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

My goodness.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

In myth, he's credited as the inventor of string music and the inventor of the lyre itself. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, he was the god of divine distance, which is like an interesting description, kind of suggesting he's a deity who threatened humans from a distance with death or terror. So he um so I like how they've incorporated that into this episode. I don't know if it was intentional.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Right. And yeah, we But yeah, that urn in the beginning, we have that definite terror. That definite terror. That's so interesting. Yeah, like the solar god, too. You can imagine being like a distant and terrifying god who blinds you with his brilliance. Yeah, and he's part of a holiday.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

And to be so ancient and unknowable, right? To be so separated from like an anthropomorphic expression of that character. Right. Um, and he also seems having him be so distant, he kind of also has this like uh kind of like Christ-like figure. He's like absolving yet ominous, who believes in this like inner goodness of the guilty or forgives them so that they can forgive themselves. Um and he was responsible for making people aware of their guilt and purifying it.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Oh, I had no idea.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

No, I had no idea, which is like so much responsibility for this one guy. It seems like he must be on so much. So much afraid on a young beardless youth who just wants to sing his songs.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

We've all met them before. Beardless youths with their guitars and lyers. Oh. Uh feeling the weight of the world.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

You know, I just gotta sing it. And they're so distant, aren't they? Can't get through to them. That's just how it is. So he also presided over religious law and he communicated knowledge of the future through mortals, prophets, and oracles. Uh, and he also had pastoral aspects. He was a god of crops and herds, which makes sense with the solar deity kind of of the year. He governed healing, the arts, and archery. Uh, he was concerned with the health and education of children, and he was like very much related to youth, like as we were often seeing him as beardless, like long-haired. And many cultures, like areas had um a practice of youth when they're kind of coming of age, they would cut off their hair and dedicate it to Apollo. Oh. And he was very fun. He was deeply respected among the Greek gods. Um, in many myths, much of the pantheon feared him. Kind of only his father Zeus and his mother, the goddess Leto, are depicted as like standing up to him, which is kind of another hint that they m he may have originated as an older deity, like later integrated into the Olympian hierarchy. Traditional Hellenic stories say Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, our fave, Diana, uh, were born on the island of Delos. And we remember the Delians from the warrior priestess tramp, who kind of worshipped Apollo and wanted to kill all the Hestians. So it's kind of all tied together. So after growing up in Delos, Apollo traveled to Delphi, where he slew Python, the great serpent who is said to dwell at the center of the earth. And after killing Python, Apollo took over Delphi and its oracle.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Oh, I love this background because I have all these kind of like vague associations with Apollo. Yeah. And now I'm tying it all together. Well, you're tying it all together.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

And, you know, with many serpent slaying myths, it makes me wonder, you know, what this is an allegory for. Like what earlier religion or culture at Delphi might Apollo have actually replaced, you know? Like they couldn't destroy this oracle, but they could put this guy on it, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

And then we talked a bit about Delphi in our season one Callisto episode. So I'll refer anyone there for more insightful research. Yeah, wrapping up on Apollo, he seems like he had a lot going on under the surface, but he was, you know, cute dude, played guitar, writes poems. And I like that this episode chose to not represent him uh anthropomorphically. He did a great job.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Yeah, me too. We were all blinded by the sun at the beginning of this episode. We were and we feel that same distance now.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

There we are. Yeah. So yeah, and you feel good about Apollo? Feel good knowing about Apollo.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Apollo always reminds me of a moment in college when I had told my seminar class that I grew up with the Greek myths, and then I couldn't answer when the professor asked me what uh Apollo was the god of the. Well, he was so much.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

How dare you, professor?

SPEAKER_02 26:55

What an ignorant question. He was a very kind and good professor, but I just couldn't remember. And I was like, I don't know. Well, he's so much. So much. So much. He's uh he's a whole solar system in one. Did you answer anything?

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Or are you just like, I don't remember?

SPEAKER_02 27:11

I feel like I said I don't remember or something because I really couldn't. It it had been quite a long time since I had read the Greek myths at that point, and so and I usually identified more with Athena and Artemis than I they're your girls. Didn't spend a lot of time thinking about Apollo, but he sounds pretty fascinating. So I'm excited to have just delved just a teeny bit below the surface in this singing, distant, brilliant guy.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Oh yeah, who's just dispensing justice, letting people know they're guilty, just traveling north to hang out with the party. You just like go party with the hyperboreans for half a year. Exactly. So fun. Like, come up to the sunland. I'll go. Everyone else, you can be cold. I'll have a great time.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

This is the time for you to be golden hungry.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Up here, it's pretty nice. So speaking of returning to the sun land, yes, we're entering a standard issue village. It looks a little bit like amphipolis. We go inside a tavern, and the Apollon priest uh has recovered from his injury, and he's sitting at a table with the sunniest favorite light of our lives.

unknown 28:19

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Zina and Gabrielle.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Zena and Dorothy.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

They're gathered in a tavern. He's telling them all about the theft. And this is, I think, my favorite exchange on the entire episode. The priest says, The urn of Apollo gives a new start to so many people. And Zina, with zero hesitation, says, No urn can do that. That comes from within. And I just cackled. Did you not? Did you were you not struck with that line?

SPEAKER_02 28:46

I I was struck, but I didn't cackle.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

I um I felt just pleased. And I thought that seems very in character for Xena. I just I loved it. I love like, yeah, no urn. She's very skeptical. Well, also, I mean, the whole penitent environment of the temple is very like anti-Xenaverse like standard.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

And so it feels very post-Greek Christian type of penitence. That maybe wouldn't have been exactly how Apollo. But anyway, Zina's not into it.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

But she's happy to help those who need help. And the priest believes in the urn. Um, he tells Zina and Gabby how the urn eases people's conscience, helps them gain strength to face demons within and move on with their lives. Zina's not convinced, but Gabby is eating it up.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

She's like, yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Is this the cult for me? Give me more. Can I join this cult? Um, Zina agrees, she's gonna get the urn back. She's dedicated herself to helping people. She leaves the tavern to go get Argo. The priest leaves too, and Gabby stays behind to do some writing. She's just like us, going to our little cafe.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Like getting some work done. Like I brought a pen and paper. Oh, good, you're going? Good. You can take a little cafe. Get some thoughts out.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

She has a little drink. She wants some ambiance. And while she's rolling out her scrolls, what happens?

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Somebody has thrown something at her. Is it an accident? It's something gross, like oatmeal. Yeah, it's like really fluid.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

It's very gross. Very sloppy. And she confronts her with no fear. Like Gabby, I'm very impressed with Gabby. Just like, I don't think he needs to do that. Excuse me. And then it's just this girl who hates her, hates her face, hates her vibe. Gabby's not trying to get a snapper. She is a whipper snapper. It's a little spitfire. Gabby's not trying to get into a bar fight, and she tries some de-escalation techniques, but this girl just keeps throwing food at her. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

And she's also kind of like, she's got like instead of long blonde hair with bangs, she's got long black hair with kind of a fuzzy, like sticky uppy bang. A mullet.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

It's a mullet.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

A mullet is what we call it. Some kind of haircut where it's long in the back and short in the front.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, it's kind of like a what does it feel like? It feels like an 80s, like just like a wig you would buy at Spirit to be an 80s vampire, like off the shelf.

unknown 31:09

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Exactly. And she's got like braids, kind of with beads on the back. Yeah. But like, and then she's got also kind of like a little vest. Opposite, yeah, opposite Gabby vest, just like a cloth vest, like Gabby. It's like a crop top vest, but it's cloth and woven in the front, but it's black. And she's wearing pants. I'd love that she's wearing pants. So we can always see, yeah, I know. We can always already see like kind of the foil aspect of this character in Gabby. Yep. And the fight ensues. Oh gosh. And she uh Gabby's not winning this one. No, she kind of wrecks Gabby. Yeah. I don't know why, because Gabby's pretty skilled at this point.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

But I think she's gotten. I think Gabby just like really didn't want to hurt her. That's all I can imagine was happening. Because this girl like bites almost bites her ear off, scratches her face. The entire episode, Gabby's just like missing part of her ear, and her face is all scratched off.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

She's not pleased by how this turned out. And we're also very frustrated with this small person.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

So she's just okay, she comes in and she's like, gets Gabby on the table and she's just wailing on her. And then finally Zina pops in, grabs the teen by her mullet scruff, and knock it off. Like, what's happening?

SPEAKER_02 32:31

And we find out what this girl's problem is. She wants to replace Gabby.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

She has no idea what we've all been through in the last four to five episodes.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

It's like such a great uh example of youth. Like thinking you know anything about anyone.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Zina's like, we are two adults. We are not interested in what you have to provide right now.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

No, like you, anything you think is real is not. You need to live like 10 more years before you can be a part of this crew. And she yeah, she wants to be Zina's sidekick, and she calls Gabby Blondie, which is fun.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

And Zina just stares at her, and then we get to the bum bum bum bum bum bum bum dun dun dun dun dun dun dum.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

You know, it's so good. Um, we come back. Gabby tries to pull herself together. She really wants to just like kick this girl's butt, or she wants Zina to, and Zina's like just holding them apart. She says, No one's replacing Blondie. I mean Gabby, and then tells the girl the scram.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Scram, get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

And then uh the teen's like, no, I'm really valuable. I know who stole the urn. It's the Red Valley gang. But Zina already knew that.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Yeah. She's not providing a lot of new info. And Zina and Gabby are like, okay, thanks. Bye. Yeah. And then they leave and they start walking down a classic Zina and Gabby path.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

But who's behind them? It's gonna be, it's this girl, and she's just walking behind them like 20 feet. She's being really funny at stalking. She's kind of like looking like a dog for scraps, just sort of like obviously they know she's there. Exactly. Keeping definitely noticeable, but keeping a distance. Yeah, and Gabby's just pissed. And she wants Zina to shock run part of the girls off to even the score. And Zina's really not happy about this interpersonal drama. And she's like, This really bothers you. Fine, I'll deal with it. And uh she goes to talk to Tara, because I think we learn her name is Tara. Tara. Tara. Tara. Okay. We learn her name's Tara. Tara. We learn her name's Tara at this point. And then Zina gives her like a little abbreviated hero talk. She tells her she doesn't need another person to turn her life around. You want to be a good person, just do it. Then you'll be good. You'll be doing good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

That's good advice. Yeah. Tara's like, I've been bad all this time, and I really want to start being good. I just want to turn my life around just like you. I just want to be just like you, Zina. And Zina's like, ugh.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

And her heartstrings are tugged and she lets her come along. And then she goes back to Gabby. She's like trotting after Zina. And Gabby is like, you can feel her. Like, this is not how I thought this was gonna go. She's like, What? What is she doing here? Why is she falling? The tension between them when she's like, I don't know, it's like which episode was it? I'm loving angry Gabby in the so much. I think in the last episode, I forget what the line was, but Zina says something like, Oh, I won't say anything about like whatever. And Gabby's like, you'll work it in. Like that's the energy we have now.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

So now at the dynamic where we're just fully with them all the time. So we can see like Zina's trying to be, she feels compassion for Tara. And she says she used to hang with the young bucks in Amphipolis. So she's trying to provide like an alternative space for Tara to grow into herself.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah, have some female role models and not just hang out with a bunch of like just awful people who are gonna abuse her.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so like Gabby's like, uh fine, like we can try it out. But she's really angry, and Zina's like, I'll control her. Don't worry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

It's gonna be fine. And a great lesson for just really great lessons just watching Gabby like be so she's been so abused by this girl, but then returning to her own like inner piousness of like, okay, no, I actually do believe in helping people.

unknown 36:35

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

So we get to Zina's reminding Gabby of her core drives as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

So we go, it's nighttime, we're in the woods. Zina's uh Zina's kind of pacing. Tara's showing them where the red fern valley people gang boys are.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Who may or may not be fairy people living in the in the woods. Interesting thought. You know, red fern valley people sounds sounds like hyperboreans to me. They may simply be hyperboreans taking that urn up to hyperborea.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

And Tara's Yeah, they're around the fire, yeah. They're around the fire. Tara's like jumping out of her skin, ready to fight somebody. Um, and she wants to see Zina put the pinch on a guy. And Zina's like, no, we're gonna be stealthy. I don't want to break the urn. Uh, she's gonna go. She wants Tara and Gabby to stay behind, but Tara follows her, of course, because she's a menace. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

And then she's just like, Zina, Zina, let me watch. I want to do stuff. Zena, Zena. And everyone watching is like, I know.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

It's like, wait, yeah, stop. That's how we feel.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

But I don't love Tara. We love her as a person, as a human being, but we're not loving her actions at this moment.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Um I remember watching this as a kid or the younger person and hating Tara so much. But as an adult, I'm really loving her. Like she's just I love her screaming.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

I love the way she I love the way the actress conveys this character. And I love the presence of this character. Yeah, she's does a really great job.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Mm-hmm. Okay, so then Tara acts like she's moping back to camp, but we then we see her dart in another direction, and she walks up to the guy that Xina is watching, and then she tells him that someone is watching him in the woods. And then we get a commercial break.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Oh no, what's gonna happen? And Zina's like, what's happening? But she stays kind of cozy in her spot anyway. And we don't know what's gonna happen. When we come back from our commercial, we've seen several commercially from Motrin and Advil.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, maybe some folder.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Maybe some gum commercials. And now we're back.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

And Zina's still crouched in the bushes. Tara's talking to this guy, she's telling him he doesn't need backup, he's so smart, so handsome. Then she misdirects him to go off out into the open. And when he passes Zina, Zina's forced to put the pinch on him. And Tara's just like super annoying, pushing Zina to like hurt him even more.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Um, she's like super eager about it. Yeah. We all feel uncomfortable. Zina feels like it's getting in the way of her objective, which is to figure out where this urn is.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Yeah, she wants to do things clean, just do it clean and easy with the least amount of people getting hurt, right? Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. So we find out that a few of the Red Valley boys took the urn and they're gonna meet up with the Salesian traders. And they're just like so many people in the Red Valley boys. There's I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah, we don't, we're not keeping track of any of them. No.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Uh so Zina unpunches the guy, knocks him out, and then she stops Tara from like kicking him even more when he's unconscious. And she says he's a bad guy in such a way that I feel like there's I don't know. I felt the subtext so that he'd done some really awful things to her in particular, and that she's not just like hungry to hurt people. She's hungry to hurt like specific people for what they've done to her. Yeah. Um, and they head yeah, yeah. They head back to Gabby and uh head back to Gabby. Tara's like talking tough, like she really helped. And Gabby's just like, what?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Like he let this girl.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

I know you can handle this, Zina. I don't know why you're allowing this girl to just walk all over all the rules that we have.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Yeah. And then Zina's like a little proud of her, and then she's like, Hey, aren't we supposed to be like helping her turn her life around? And Gabby says, You can't save everyone. And then Zina accuses Gabby of thinking that Tara's a lost cause. And then Gabby's like, okay, she comes around again, and then she's still miffed about losing part of her ear, which is a really good running joke. Love, love the running joke of Gabby missing part of her face. Yeah, it's so good. And then she advises Zina to tell Tara that she believes in her because it's easier to believe in yourself if someone else believes in you first.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

It's true.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Very true.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Tell someone you love, you believe in them today.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

That's the only way we'll get through this, you guys. Yeah. So we cut to them making camp. Gabby's trying to lay out her bed area. Tara keeps putting Gabby's stuff in the fire. Very hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Mm-hmm. Her staff, even. Oh yeah. Gets all taught. I know.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah, really mean.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

So obnoxious.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

It's really awful. And they have a cute power struggle over who gets to sleep next to Zina. And Zina's like, I don't care. I'm just going to bed. Also a great running joke of Zina just wanting to go to bed. Yeah. She's like, I'm tired. I gotta go see.

unknown 41:16

We love it. I know.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

That's how we all feel, Zina. Just want to sleep. But Tara keeps talking like a little kid, and she's like, What is good? Yeah. And she point brings up the boys in the gang think they're doing good.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

And it is hard to tell sometimes. It is. And we learn that she was told she was bad from when she was a little kid.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Yeah. Her dad was really mean.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

So, yeah. And so Zina's like, yeah. Just like trying to figure out. She's like, You're not bad.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Give us some support. It's yeah, it's not always simple. I usually go with my gut when in doubt. I ask Gabby. Her instincts are usually unselfish. Mm-hmm. And then Zina tells her that we can recreate ourselves every second of our lives just by our actions. And then she believes in Tara. So don't listen to your bad dads out there, guys. Zina believes in you.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Yeah, we believe in you. And we believe in that. How about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

And then Zina's like, bedtime. Everybody go to sleep now. She's like, it's really bad to keep me awake.

unknown 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

So the next morning, they're hiding behind a rock. We're tracking the Salesian traders who we see are in this like kind of long line of guys on horses, carrying a lot of supplies to go trade.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Yeah. There's a fire over the hill. And so they think the the urn is over there, but they might want to catch them before the Silesians get there, kind of delay the interaction.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Yeah. And Xena has like kind of multi-pronged plan where she's going to like knock around the Silesians, slow them down, turn them around, maybe, or go make their move on the Red Valley gang. Kind of whatever happens, happens. But she's going to go first and then give to Gabby and Tara a sign when it's safe and they'll kind of run for the crest of the hill. And then Tara just like goes off on Gabby. She's so threatened by her because I think she's like never met an honest person. So she perceives everything Gabby's doing as a lie. And Gabby has the great wisdom that Zina knows Gabby's not perfect, but loves her anyway. And that's what friendship is about. It's unconditional love. Yeah. And then Tara's like, well, I've never had friends, so I wouldn't know. It's like so sad.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. This is a lot to put on Gabby and Zina after meeting them like yesterday. It's really it's like we need you to have a safe place, but it is a lot. We need we need Gabby and Zina to have some processing time too for this situation.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

They do. Um and then she like yells at Gabby for not taking initiative. Tara runs off to find the Red Hill gang. Gabby runs after her, worries she's gonna get killed. They make it to the woods and they're like army crawling through the grass up to the gang, and they're watching from the bushes. And then we see the boys have the urn, and then it's worth a thousand dinars. And they put it in a sack on the wagon. And I feel like A thousand dinars for what it is isn't enough. It feels like it should be worth more than that. But I did the little digging.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Yeah, we're not. Oh yeah. Do the digging. Tell us what the exchange rate is.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Well, we talked about ancient currency before, I think. I think you did that. I think so. So in the Xenoverse, they use dinars. In our universe, people in this part of Greece likely uh weren't using dinars in the fifth century BCE, possibly exchanging like drachmas. I think we talked about that before. And then I was trying to find out how much like a thousand attic drachmas would be worth today, but there's just like no way to compare purchasing power. Yeah, because the economies were so different. It's too hard. Just like no way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

Well, if it's bread, but it's the kind of bread that you make by hand. And so it's you can only get like one of them and then your clothes, like take a while to make that wool.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

But I feel like we've heard them haggling for like cloth at like eight and ten dinars.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

We could do the Xena exchange rate.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Yeah, so see how much that exchange rate, thinking like, okay, so if it's kind of like dinar to like American dollar, right? If it's one to one, then I really stand by it's not enough dinars for this urn.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Not enough dinars for like a hundred people to be trying to get this exold to the slightly scene.

unknown 45:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Yeah. So Tara's just like not listening to Gabby at all. And of course, while they're scrabbling in the grass, they make too much noise and they get caught. So Zina rides up with Argo. She's handled her own to the plant. Argo does look Argo's just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

You are shining in this scene, Argo. Zina nicely ties her to a tree and kind of goes to check out what the situation is.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

And then Zina finds the gang's camp is abandoned. There are piles of bones in this pit. She's a little confused.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Whose bones are those? What bones are those?

SPEAKER_00 45:43

That was frightening. They're picked clean. Why? What did she find, Haley?

SPEAKER_02 45:47

She finds Tara and Gabby buried up to their necks in dirt with a really elaborate trap above them. It's like a frame, a wooden frame. And Christine has her.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

I was doing my Terry Gross impression earlier. You guys want to hear it?

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Yeah, we want to hear it.

unknown 46:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

It's a frame. Oh yeah, keep doing it. All right, I'll pause.

unknown 46:11

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

And that's, and I'm glad you're excited about this, Terry, because it's a frame and it has two axes positioned directly above Tara and Gabby's heads.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

But it's not just that. Not just that. There's a little fire holding the rope. So once the fire burns through the rope, the axes will plummet into their skulls. I feel like we've seen this contraption before. This is a classic, classic contraption.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

I mean, if you are a bad guy in the forest and you meet two people that you don't want to have say anything about you, then you have four hours. The only thing to do, then you have about four to eight hours. You're going to dig two six foot deep holes in the ground, and then have your, you know, mate next to you tie up some ropes into a frame.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Take a couple axes.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

You're not going to need them later. So just tie them on top of the room.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Time up full, rusty, all good.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

And then start a fire. Make sure you got, and then you're set. And you're set. And then just hope Zina doesn't arrive in the next three hours.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Gravity is just going to take care of it all. That's the elements will murder your foes. Yeah, but we and the thing is we weren't even worried because Zina's there, so we know it's just going to be solved.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

We were not anxious about this situation at all. Zina gets there, and she's mad.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

She's not happy about this situation. She's serious.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

As we all are. People thinking, can't you follow the rules? And Gabby tried her darndest to follow those rules.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Gabby's not happy either. So Zina, of course, stops everything. Zina's next plan is to ride ahead, pick up the gang's trail, and maybe she'll come back. And uh, but I feel like the tension is really um, it's really between like Zina, Gabby, and Tara. Like there's not really any tension between Zina and Gabby. Uh like and not of Tara's plan of working.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

Nobody's mad at Gabby. Gabby's kind of mad at Zina, but only just annoyed at Zina because Tara's there.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Doing her thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Yeah. And she's feeling mildly threatened, but she knows, like in her heart of hearts, that's there's no threat other than this person.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

She's just annoyed that this other person is here and that Zina's not taking care of it. Yeah. It's like a couple's battle about taking out the garbage or something. Yeah. Or just like having a guest. They're like, uh not that Tara's garbage. Yeah. Like having it. Let's say having a guest, and and guests stay a little longer than expected. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Um, and then Gabby pulls Zina aside and is like, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? Which, oh, the best. So great. The best. And then she's like, I'm gonna eat her eyeballs and rip out her throat.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

So hard. They're confiding in each other. They're both pretty annoyed.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

And then Zina's absolutely had it. She sits Tara down, tells her she's acting like a selfish brat. It's not good person behavior. Tara throws a fit. She's blaming Gabby for Zina hating her. But Zina's just staying on task. She rides off. Tara's not backing down. She's like totally trauma re-traumatized, totally activated. She's like pushing, pushing, pushing Gabby to her limit, and they fight. But this time Gabby has her staff and she's not letting Tara get away with anything. She likes kicks her butt, knocks her all over the place. Um, she doesn't want to, and she keeps telling Tara to stay down, but Tara won't. And this girl is just like totally just triggered out of her mind. And she's like so full of self-loathing, she thinks she deserves to get beat up because this is the kind of attention she's received her whole life. Zina hears all the commotion. She comes back and she catches Tara. She's like crumbling, bleeding, sobbing, saying that she's a bad person. And Zina keeps telling her she's not bad. Yeah. And here we have a little of this, like this nursing doctor, caretaking Zina, where we cut to Zina and Gabby.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

Zina and Gabby both caring for Tara, which is such like a beautiful, lovely vision of them like caring together. Caring for this younger generation of women, too.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

It's like, I just uh I just love the show and all the female relationships. And it's just this like constant, ever expanding network of women supporting other women. It's like so great.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

Let's cry again.

unknown 50:22

I know.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

So she's um Tara's talking about her home life, how her mom had been a good person. And after she passed, when she was really little, her dad started drinking and beating her up. It's a really dark story.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

It's a really hard story to hear.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Yeah. It's super sad. Yeah. And she just like wanted to be long, so she hung out with these guys. And then she's just kind of reactivated after being so vulnerable. And she starts screaming at Zina and Gabby for being suckers, for being nice to her, that she's bad and does bad things. And Zina's like, You want to talk about bad things? And then we see Gabby feeling like a lot more compassion for Tara after this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

And then Gabby's like, You did that on purpose. Yeah. Because she's like, Yeah, I can see you needed this to come out and to have this like vulnerability between all of us. And you knew that there was this other side to Tara. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

That lies underneath all of the bravado. And then and then Gabby was just blinded by her own anger. And like we all gotta, you know, we gotta be aware of our own anger and how it blinds us to other people's pain. So sad. Um, and she's just, yeah, Tara's just a kid who really needed their help. And sometimes people need to have their butts kicked because they don't know any other language.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Well, boundaries are love too. Yeah, boundaries are a good way to love somebody too.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Okay, so we cut to nighttime, we've made camp. I love this scene so much. The fire's roaring, and Gabby has invented charades. Little did we know, Gabby invented charades.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

This is a new game that no one has played before. And Gabby's like, I'm sure it's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

And everyone play. I she's doing such a great job at acting the story out, but I would have had no idea what story she was telling. Yeah. Such a great story. Zina keeps guessing wrong and getting so annoyed. And I love that Zina hates playing games she's bad at.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

I we all relate so heavily. We are like, I do not know the rules, and I'm frustrated that I have to look them up now. Oh, so brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

We get it, Zina. And Gabby's like, no, didn't you see that I was acting out the masks of comedy and drama to indicate it's a play, it's not a myth. Like no one gets it. And then she does it again.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

Once she says it, then I see it. I'm like, oh yeah, that is a great illustration.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

So good.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Those masks.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

And yeah, and if you're interested in Iphigenia Aulus, uh just you can go to Patreon and hear Haley's version.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

And I will say, I don't think Gabby's seen the entire play. No. Because spoiler alert, Iphigenia doesn't die, yeah, she doesn't really kind of die. Yeah, she gets transfigured slash swept away and replaced by a deer.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Yeah. So which is interesting, thinking if this was contemporary theater and if this if she's doing the Euripides play, then this would place us at like 406 BCE. Just a little time stamp for us.

SPEAKER_02 53:21

Yeah. Close, close to the previous episode. Yeah. We're not so far.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

We're we're in the hundred years. Uh and then Zena's like, this will never catch on. It's too hard. And then Tara's like, I'll go. And she does such a good birth of Athena. Oh my gosh. It was amazing. It's the best. It was great.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

It's the best. And we all learn how important play is to relationships and feelings of security. Yeah, you gotta have fun. Play some things with people.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

You gotta just be goofy, go wiggle around be the birth of Athena.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

Be the birth of Athena.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

And then Gabby and Tara are totally getting along, and then Zena's like, oh, that's it, time for bed.

unknown 53:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

We're done. She's like, and now I'm sleepy. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

And then when we learn that we're still following the Red Valley boys, we're anticipating that they're gonna meet up with the Salesians near the Mani River. And Tara knows about an old abandoned castle that they like to hang out in. And then we see a big blanket, and then everyone's sleeping on Tara's in the middle. And then she tells Gabby she really likes the games she made up. And they all say goodnight, and Argo Winnies goodnight back to the I know. I wrote it down too.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

It's like this is my favorite camping sleepover ever.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

It's so fun.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

And we're starting to write a camping sleepover.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yeah. I want to do that now. Oh, I know. Just like shopping between anyone. Yeah, shooting. Yeah, let's play. But don't get too comfortable.

unknown 54:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

Okay. Yeah, it's true. We had a wonderful evening, a great kind of sleepy time.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

But in the middle of the night, something changes. Tara sneaks out into the woods to meet up with the swoopy 90s haircut boy, and his name is Micah. And he had a D V, and we knew that D V was trouble.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

I know. We were like, we were suspicious. Our ears were perked up. We were doing that kind of back of the throat growl growl from the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

And now here he is.

SPEAKER_02 55:24

Like the March Simpson sound.

unknown 55:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

Slash border collie. Border collie March Simpson. That kind of growl.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Gotcha. But you were call back to the border collie. Cool. Thanks. Oh, I'll explain it. Don't worry. So Tara and Micah are in cahoots, the technical term. And then planning to steal the urn for themselves. Ugh. So next morning, we're checking out the castle from a distance. We assume Zina and Gabby know nothing about Tara's midnight liaison. And we see the Salesian traders have arrived. They're ready to make a deal for that urn. Zina's plan is to climb up and over the wall to open the door for Gabby and Tara.

unknown 56:06

Great.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

She heads out. And then Tara has an earnest moment asking Gabby if the urn does have the power to turn people good. Can it really forgive them for bad actions? And Gabby's like, well, it can bring people peace, but who knows if that's from the mind or the urn. And Tara's like having doubts about being in cahoots with Micah or kind of whatever the scheme is. And she's trying to convince herself that if the people don't get the urn, it'll all be okay. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Yeah, she's like, it probably doesn't have magic, right? It's probably just a shiny thing that I can sell and it's fine. And Gabby's like, I don't know, I guess.

unknown 56:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

For she has no idea that she's about to sell it.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Yeah, no idea. Gabby's seen a lot of cults, you know. Yeah. And she knows she's like, this one is not the worst. Yeah. And she knows if an object means something to people, it can help people help themselves. Yeah. And she hints at having done some terrible things. And she's trying to make amends. And she's not a goody two shoes, as Tara suspects. And while they're chatting, Zina's opened the door, she's done everything. They uh hustle off and into the next phase of the plan.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

They peek in. Yeah, we go inside. We go into the castle. It's a great abandoned castle. It's like pretty dark. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

There's like rabble rousing traders, and the gang are all in one room.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Mm-hmm. Seems like they have a hubing around in there.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Lots to negotiate.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

And Zina can spy from through the broken door and holes in the walls. And she doesn't see the urn in the room with the boys. So they're gonna have to go hunt for it.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

They go into the next door. Well, they peek into the next door and there are two men in there. Zina feels pretty confident that she needs to get in there. So she knocks those guys out, and she and Gabby get to searching.

SPEAKER_03 57:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

Meanwhile, Tara kind of looks around like aimlessly. She's wandering through the room.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

And Zina can tell something's off, but she like doesn't say anything. And then Tara does find the urn, but lies to Zina and says it's not there. And she grabs it and she takes off running. Zina wasn't expecting that, but also is like not totally surprised.

SPEAKER_02 58:09

Yeah. She's like, okay, we can handle this. This is a new challenge. Yeah, or it's all good.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

And she thinks maybe Tara is bad to the bone after all. Tara's holding the urn, running down a hall to escape Zina. She turns a corner and runs into Micah. He tells her he's proud of her and they kiss. He says he loves her, but we don't believe him. I do not believe this nerd. While they're chatting, Zina, of course, catches up and she's like listening from around the corner. And Micah calls Zina a sucker and tells Tara to give him the urn. And it turns out they were planning to steal the urn, take it to Athens, and make some money there. But Tara's, she's having a change of heart. Uh, she wants to give the urn back to the cult. She and Micah can run away to the big city and get some action going. I really liked how she said that.

SPEAKER_02 58:56

Her big dreams.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

And get some action going. Yeah. And she's kind of like disturbed by how easily he dismisses Zina. Yeah. Because she's obviously developed a real affection for Zina. Yeah. Like defensive of her. And so she's really doubting Micah's deep vision that she might have trusted before.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Yeah, because Zina believes in her. So maybe she isn't all bad. And that belief got into her little heart. It's a little seed that's planted. And then Micah turns on her. He didn't really love her, obviously. He was just using her. But before he can put hands on her, Tara runs with the urn and Zina steps in and says, Yeah, hello, handsome, and punches him in the face. And I love this is like her first time seeing him. And it's such a great, like, generic insult from a woman in her 30s to like a young, dumb guy with like a deep V and swoopy hair. It's like such a good.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

Yeah, he's like, I'm gonna take the urn and sell it for myself.

unknown 59:48

I know.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

She's like, No, you're not. And then we cut out here. We cut to Tara running away blindly. She has no plan, but she's got to save the urn. She backs into a room, and it turns out it's the room with all the Red Valley boys and the Salesians. Uh-oh. The lucky for Tara and the urn, Zina and Gabby run in two. Tara throws the urn to Gabby, who flies and catches it before it hits the ground. She tosses the urn to Zina. Zina tosses it in the air and beats up everybody while it's flying, then catches it. We've seen this move before. Oh, she goes with a baby. Baby urns. Doesn't matter. Just toss them around. So good. That was in the solstice carol, I believe, where they're tossing the baby around. Yeah, it sounds familiar. So we're fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Uh Zina's kicking everybody. Gabby's got her little stick taking care of business. Micah runs in and Tara kicks him. I kick his butt. Then she jumps on him, fights over. Zina and Gabby confirm that Tara did good. Yeah. And Tara realizes that Zina knew she was up to no good. And then Zina confirms it. So Zina shares Gabby's great quote that no one can believe in herself unless someone believes in her first. And then Tara's kind of activated by that. And she's like, you two are suckers and runs away. Now they had big feelings, you know, every whatever, but everything's been solved. And we go back to Apollo's temple. We've returned the urn and urn return. We learn of the urn return without a second to burn. The urn's been returned. Gratitude earned. Like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:25

Hooray for the urn.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

The urn return. Okay. So we're in the middle of the Apollon forgiveness ritual. Tara's kneeling and accepting forgiveness at the altar. Yeah. She's forgiving. Gabby too. Gabby too. But Zina.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

Gabby loves this stuff. This probably is healing for Gabby after everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

I think she likes moments of reflection in and you she likes to vibe with people, you know, she likes to be in a group of people who are feeling a feeling. Zina, on the other hand, does not.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

Zina's not into it. No. But she's, you know, she feels we see that like just her shadow is present with them in the temple. And she's standing in the sun. Yeah. She's standing in the doorway.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

She's backlit by the setting sun. Tara asks if she'll accept forgiveness. And no, she doesn't want to be forgiven. And I feel like she doesn't want Apollo's forgiveness. And I I like this message. Like I feel like in pop culture and so many people I know, and like social media therapy, what therapy talk and stuff, people are always like, oh, you have to forgive yourself, forget about it, move on. And I feel like we need to like reflect on things we've done and learn from them, not do it again, help where we can to kind of even the scales. But we shouldn't uh not everything should be forgiven, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:40

Like it's not an easy ritual. I mean, and it's just it's not where Xina is either. Like Gabby, I think it is helpful for her because she enjoys oh, she like does so much reflection that the ritual is only kind of like one moment that's in a longer process. Agreed. But for Zina, she's so kind of suspicious of gods and rituals anyway, but that's not where she is. She doesn't want the kind of like a blessing. She wants to work through it herself. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

Zina has like much deeper relationship with the gods because she knows so many of them personally. Yeah. So she's like, she doesn't she's like, I don't think they're good. No, yeah. Like, would she ever have to like Aries for forgiveness? No, not at all. Right. No. I also uh think this is like what I was tying it to. When I was thinking about this, I was thinking um like an ER when the message is you'll never be a great doctor until you've killed someone. And not in the way that like lives are expendable, but meaning that like the weight of your guilt and shame of making wrong choices like out of hubris and youth will kind of inform your future choices and how you help people in the future.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:48

Yeah. So or even that like you can't perhaps do everything perfectly all the time. Yeah. And sometimes when you're trying your best, you still cause harm. So thinking very deliberately about how to move forward and continue to do good things and be a positive person.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

Or a positive force in the world. How can we move forward? Yeah. Also recognizing the extent of your power. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

It's exactly what this episode's about. So what what do we think Xena learned?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Zina learned. What did she learn? I think she learned, well, she learned that she does have the power to save anyone in the world that she chooses to. Even Tara. I think sh I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

But I think she specifically learned like to tell someone you believe in them, helps them believe in themselves because she hadn't quite internalized that before. What did she teach us?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:45

Well, she taught us about yeah, these processes of working through trauma that you kind of like her paying it forward to Tara and kind of thinking back through her own history and not like living in the regret and guilt, but living in the like, here's someone who needs me in this moment, and I can embrace that challenge in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

Yeah, and we can remake ourselves every second of every day. Like every choice is every second is an opportunity. And I also I really liked your your thoughts on Gabby and this ritual of forgiveness and having it be in this like long line and this long process of how she's processing everything, and that it doesn't like that's okay, you know, and Cena's choice is okay too. And you they don't have to be the you know, they're on the same kind of journey together, but they're not taking the exact same paths. I think it's really beautiful. Okay. Episode reactions. Who's your extra Oscar?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:45

Oh my gosh, who's my extra Oscar? Um, well, I think that's gonna go to the acolyte in the beginning. Um Well, or do I wanna give it to the sun worshippers who turn into the urn?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Well I was gonna give the scene queens to the entire first scene, like everybody who was turning on the urn. Like that's my scene queen. Um my extra Oscars, I think, were going to all the penitent villagers and the and they were great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

That whole setup was fantastic. I love see the acolyte, I loved his kind of like nervous presentation of the urn. He was like learning, yeah. He's excited to be there at the ceremony, but he's not fully the He was really good. Yeah, that's like we can give it to him. I mean, he Great. Yeah. It was great. I love the penitence too, but I like the acolyte.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Right, the acolyte. I'll add acolyte to my toss it in. Acolyte. Are you gonna let me edit here? Acolyte. Sure you will. So Sybil Awards for our favorite recurring actor. Yeah. So Merv Smith played Doris the Priest, and we met him before as head villager in season one's Fistful of Dinars, and we'll meet him again in the future. Oh boy. Wade Jackson as weigh-in, the blonde guy who punched Merv. Uh, he's popped up in the Hercaverse as a couple characters, but this is his first foray. So I'm gonna give it to Merv. I think he did a great job. I think so too. My scene queen, yeah, again, going to everyone in the urn scene. You agreed? Mm-hmm. Great. So good. Mm-hmm. No one was on Star Trek. Were they in Lord of the Rings? Well, Merv Smith. Merv Smith? Um, in uh the Hobbit Battle of Five Armies, he played a Hobbit named Tosser Grub. I have to see that. I know. I'm like kind of anti-the new Hobbit movies, but I like really appreciate one of those Xenoverse people in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:46

Yeah, same here. I don't know why they stretch that movie out into three, but no, but Tosser Grub will let some people enjoy that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

I we love Tosser Grub. And now we will introduce maybe we can call it the like tangential to the Xenoverse hyperfixation show Sybil Award. Yeah. Were they on ER? Oh well, oh my god. Dear dear Shiri Appleby, TV's Xena versus Tara, a bona fide star. Uh I mean she starred in the WB's Roswell, which I only watched like the first season of when it was airing.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:26

But uh her face is very familiar. I mean, she's really famous.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:29

Oh yeah. And she was actually two characters on ER. Oh my gosh. So she played in season one, episode one, uh uh a patient, I think a patient's wife named Ms. Murphy. And season 15, she's Dr. Daria Wade. She's a huge character. She's like she like dates John Stamos. I know it's a spoiler alert. But yeah, she's so great.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

For those of you who are planning to get through all 15 seasons of VR, like we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

I did it. I'm done. Did I tell you? Yeah. We alerted the work. Then it was all over. It's all over. It was yeah, such a blip of my life, but I'll think about it forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

So yeah, great. Shiri, your uh tangential to the Xenoverse hyperfixation show award is in the mail. In the mail.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

It's rhyming to you whenever we figure out what your address is. It's paper.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

What are your favorite Gabby moments?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

Well, I think there's one clear favorite for me in this episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

Which one?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

The charades. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:36

I I loved her in this episode. She was just great all the way through. This is prime Gabby time. I love For all of us. Yeah. Every time she asked Gab uh asked Zina, can I talk to you for a minute?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:49

So good.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

And the charades.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

We love angry Gabby.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:53

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:54

But like angry bickery Gabby.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:56

We love. Yeah, yeah. But her inventing charades and being so mad that she wasn't around to like fellow theater lovers.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

So funny. Britney O'Connor is so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

I also love and she's like, you can't guess it. You have to just know from the clues. Try again. No, you're playing it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

And like clearly, she won't adapt to the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

She's not going to give a different clue. No. The same clues.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

So funny. Well, everybody, we've come to the end of our show. If you like what we're doing here, you can like, subscribe, follow, leave us a review, share an episode with your friends. You can find us on Patreon. You can find like t-shirts and tote bags and mugs and stuff in our little shop. And you can find all of this at www.inatime of ancient gods. In a timeofancient gods.com. And stay tuned for our next episode, King Khan and Joxers coming back.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

Ah, great. Thanks, Joxon. Get excited, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah. It was delightful to have you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:09

Oh so delightful. Great. Thanks as always, Haley. So fun chatting. And until next time. Woohoo! And and stop. I was doing my Terry Gross impression earlier. You guys want to hear it?