From: davideml@bellsouth.net   
      
   4-22 Déjà Vu All Over Again   
      
      
      
             First airing was May 17, 1999.   
      
             The story starts out at night in a modern-day bedroom with a couple   
   asleep in bed. One of   
   them, the woman, has a dream of Xena fighting Callisto in the episode   
   "Callisto" and Gabrielle is   
   hanging in the air. The woman, named Annie, wakes up boyfriend Harry, and   
   tells him she is the   
   vigilante Xena who is going out at night and fighting bad guys. She decides to   
   go see a Past Lives   
   Counselor.   
      
             They go into the waiting room where George Patton, Joan of Arc and   
   Pocahontas are also   
   waiting to see the counselor. Joan and Pocahontas are playing cards. Annie   
   challenges Joan to a   
   sword fight. The receptionist is named Marco.  Later, Patton disappears and   
   Custer shows up.   
      
             Mattie, the counselor takes Annie right in and makes Harry wait   
   outside. She puts Annie   
   into a trance and Annie goes back to "The Sacrifice."  Marco checks that a gun   
   in his desk drawer   
   is loaded. Annie wakes up screaming that she is the reincarnated Joxer. Harry   
   runs in and tells   
   Mattie to make her remember she is someone else. Marco is listening at the   
   door. There is a   
   flashback to "In Sickness and In Hell" when Joxer introduces Xena and   
   Gabrielle to the townspeople.   
   They wake up again. Mattie seems to remember something and goes to get Annie a   
   sedative. She and   
   Marco talk about a scam they are working. Everyone else has gone.   
      
             Mattie comes back in and sends all three of them back to "In   
   Sickness and in Hell" again.   
   When they wake up, Marco comes in with the gun. He ties them up then sets a   
   briefcase bomb to   
   explode in 10 minutes. Harry tells Mattie to send them all back because one of   
   them IS Xena.   
   Another flash back to "Family Affair" when they are fighting Dinsdale and   
   Hope. When they wake up,   
   Annie crawls across the floor to where Harry and Mattie are. Another flashback   
   to Xena  in   
   Autolycus' body and they kiss. Mattie is confused. Another flashback where   
   Joxer runs in to save   
   Xena and Gabrielle and Xena lifts her Chakram from Callisto.   
      
             They wake up and Harry does the same to the one Annie is wearing,   
   throws it up and it   
   comes down to cut his ropes. He disarms the bomb by cutting the blue wire when   
   Mattie says it's the   
   red one.   
      
             Marco comes back in and changes into Ares. Harry is now Xena. Ares   
   talks about the Y2K   
   thing he came up with when he got out of the tomb Xena left him in (The Xena   
   Scrolls). He wants   
   Xena by his side. She refuses and they fight, with Harry/Xena using an   
   umbrella to disarm Ares.   
   Annie cuts her ropes on the Chakram and manages to hit Ares with a vase. He   
   says it isn't over and   
   disappears.   
      
             Annie tells Harry they can't be together, that he and Mattie are   
   soul mates, and she   
   leaves. Another flashback to "One Against An Army" when Gabrielle thinks she   
   is dying and Xena   
   tells her even in death she will never leave her. Annie peeks back in to see   
   them kissing.   
      
             Annie leaves singing a version of the Joxer song, saying that she   
   can be Xena in the next   
   life.   
      
   .........   
      
             Another comedy, and a good episode to end the season with   
   (ALREADY?). A lot going on with   
   all the clips (I left out a few of them, I know). It was nice to see Lucy,   
   Renee and Ted playing   
   different parts for a change.   
      
             Not much to pick at, but I did notice one blooper in the teaser.   
   When Annie has the sword   
   on Harry she tells him leave the life-size cutout of Xena alone and he drops   
   it. But when she hands   
   him the newspaper clipping it's standing up again.   
      
             As everyone knows, Renee directed this episode, and in the   
   commentary she mostly she   
   talked about the technical side of directing the scenes. One thing she said I   
   didn't realize was   
   that when Annie put on the sweater (which I never knew why) it was the Joxer   
   sweater, signaling her   
   change to Joxer.   
      
             She also said there was some negative feedback from fans when Harry   
   knocked Annie down   
   when she was going to disarm the bomb with her teeth. Reneé said since Harry   
   was Xena and Annie was   
   Joxer, and since Xena always smacked Joxer, she didn't have a problem with it.   
   And it was a comedy   
   hit - no one was hurt.   
      
             In the flashback, Ares had short hair, but present day Ares had hair   
   down below his   
   shoulders.   
      
             There were a lot of good one-liners -   
             Annie about Joxer - "He's the comic relief .They should never have   
   introduced his   
   character in the first place!"   
      
             Mattie to Marco - "I don't watch that show. Bunch of chop-socky   
   crap. Besides, this was   
   so repulsive. It couldn't have been an episode." (talking about "In Sickness.")   
      
             Annie to Joan - "Bet my sword's bigger than yours."   
      
             Annie's extended wailing when she found out she was Joxer.   
      
             Annie to Harry - "Oh, um, Harry... I've been aware for some time   
   that you've been going   
   into my underwear drawer at night and um... it's nice to know it was in a good   
   cause."   
      
             Mattie worried about her karma - "This is a karmic catastrophe...   
   I'm gonna come back as   
   a worm... or a cockroach. No! A TV evangelist!"   
      
             I could go on and on, but won't. So back to the comments.   
      
             So why was Annie taken ahead of the others in the waiting room? And   
   where did they all   
   go? Did Marco send them home?   
      
             Would Ares really want Xena now that she looked like Joxer? Or was   
   he over her and just   
   wanted a warrior?   
      
             And the Y2K thing was his idea?  Diabolical!! And it didn't work.   
      
             Some of the clips that showed Gabrielle's or Xena's love for the   
   other touched me again   
   even though they were only a few seconds long.   
      
             Near the end Mattie/Gabrielle says to Harry/Xena "it's been a long   
   time" and he replies   
   "too long - friend."  So does that mean they never knew their lives as Xena   
   and Gabrielle until now   
   even though they were reincarnated together during the intervening years?   
      
   And what's with the  "friend" part? And then they kissed. So I guess Mattie   
   threw out that friend   
   part?   
      
   Does anyone know if that final flashback quote was from an episode?  "Xena--   
   life is eternal.  It   
   has no beginning and no end.  The loving friends we meet on our journey--   
   return to us-- time after   
   time.  We never die-- because we were never really born." It doesn't sound   
   familiar to me.   
      
   There was the interview clip with Rob, Lucy and Renee. Renee talked about how   
   hard it was to direct   
   herself and act, and she ran a day over because she would stop to watch her   
   performance after every   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)