From: davideml@bellsouth.net   
      
   5-07    Back In The Bottle   
      
      
      
   First air date was Nov 15, 1999.   
      
   The story starts out with scenes from Purity and the black powder.   
      
   Gabrielle is holding up a dead rabbit while Xena concentrates on it. It turns   
   to stone. Joxer   
   throws it down onto a pile of other stone rabbits. Gabrielle asks who has   
   money to buy food. Joxer   
   brings out a pouch of black powder. Xena takes it and has a vision of Joxer   
   and Gabrielle being   
   blown up from black powder rockets while fighting soldiers. She says they have   
   to go back.   
      
   Warlord Khan is praying to the Green Dragon, who appears. He says she's   
   stronger now that he's   
   joined with his dead sister. He turns around and Pao Ssu is on his back side.   
   She says she will   
   give Khan the secret of the back powder.   
      
   Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer see thousands of refugees coming from Lao Ma's   
   temple.  Xena finds K'ao   
   Hsin. She tells Xena Khan's army is approaching and has black powder. She   
   tells K'ao that under Lao   
   Ma's palace are tunnels and the refugees should go there to hide. She tells   
   Gabrielle to ride ahead   
   to make sure the path is clear. And tells Joxer he is to lead the people   
   there. Xena guesses Pao   
   Ssu has returned from the dead and has given the powder to Khan.   
      
   Gabrielle finds the leader - Lin Qi, and tells him about the refugees and the   
   tunnels. Soldiers   
   from an advanced party attack but they are defeated. Xena, K'ao and the   
   refugees arrive. Xena tells   
   K'ao about her vision, and K'ao saw it too. Xena says she can channel Lao Ma's   
   power but can't   
   control it against thousands of men.   
      
   Joxer and a few people are trapped in a minefield. Xena walks a safe path, but   
   when Khan arrives,   
   her footprints are blown away. Ming Tien appears. Xena uses her Chakram to   
   explode the mines and   
   the people run to safety.   
      
   Xena tries to use her mind on a vase. It falls over and breaks, not what she   
   wanted but it was   
   better than nothing. K'ao comes in and tells Xena about a warning in Lao Ma's   
   book - every time she   
   uses the power, Ming Tien and Pao Ssu also get stronger, so Xena is the only   
   one who can use it.   
      
   Khan's army is camped and Xena is going to it to destroy the powder, but   
   Gabrielle tells her she is   
   going to be a mother and it's not just her life she's risking. So Gabrielle   
   and Lin Qi will go.   
   They get inside the tent and fight off some guards. But a net drops on them   
   and they are trapped.   
   Khan says they have hundreds of such tents, and sets a trail of powder on fire   
   so the tent will   
   explode with Gabrielle and Lin inside. Xena feels Gabrielle's fear and causes   
   the wind to suck the   
   air out of the tent and the powder burns out. Gabrielle and Lin escape and   
   still blow up the tent.   
      
   Ming Tien tells Khan to move his troops into position for a morning attack.   
      
    K'ao tells Xena that since Ming Tien and Pao Ssu retuned because of their   
   hate, maybe love can end   
   the war. Both Xena and Gabrielle doubt it.   
      
   Gabrielle helps Lin fill sand bags while he is hinting maybe she and he could   
   get together. Joxer   
   interrupts and tells Gabrielle Xena wants her.   
      
   Kahn's army has villagers chained together in front of his men to act as   
   shields. Gabrielle asks if   
   Xena is prepared to destroy a hundred thousand men. She answers she doesn't   
   have a choice.   
      
   On the battlefield, Xena tells Gabrielle to leave, that she would be a   
   distraction.   
      
   Xena faces the army by herself. (While K'ao Hsin and the refugees hide down in   
   the tunnels.) Khan   
   has rockets fired at her, but she creates a force field over her and some of   
   the rockets explode   
   behind her and other bounce off and return to the army. Gabrielle, Joxer and   
   Lin run out to save   
   the chained villagers. Xena sees them fighting as she did in her vision.   
      
   Xena falls down exhausted. Three soldiers ride out to kill her. She sends   
   fireballs to kill them.   
   Then she sees images of the Green Dragon everywhere - on the soldiers   
   breastplates and burned onto   
   the backs of their hands.. Using her mind she causes them glow bright green   
   and then all soldiers   
   turn to stone. Ming Tien/Pao Ssu begin spinning around then they explode.   
      
   Gabrielle says goodbye to Lin Qi.   
      
   Xena tells K'ao Hsin (AGAIN) that she doesn't feel Lao Ma's power any more.   
   And that she felt   
   compassion for the people she was protecting and not anger at the soldiers.   
   And that she's finally   
   seen love end a war.   
      
   ..........   
      
   "Back in the Bottle" - every time I hear that, I think of "I Dream of Jeannie".   
      
   I didn't particularly care for this episode. But first what I did like -   
      
   Reneé, Lucy and (K'ao)'s costumes were gorgeous. Reneé was especially   
   beautiful.   
      
   The rockets ricocheting off the force field was kind of cool.   
      
   Lin Qi talking about the singing wind -  It's "the sound of my dead ancestors   
   making a place for me   
   at their table."   
      
   All the soldiers getting their hands branded (I know this was kind of gross,   
   but for some reason I   
   liked it).   
      
   Gabrielle using the spear as a battle staff after her sais are knocked out of   
   her hands. I like the   
   staff SO much better.   
      
   What I didn't like or understand -   
      
   The refugees were running away from Lao Ma's TEMPLE, so Xena redirects them to   
   Lao Ma's PALACE?   
   Since when did her HOME become a palace? And where did the temple come from?   
      
   K'ao didn't know about the tunnels?   
      
   So what would have happened if Xena had stepped on a trap set with black   
   powder? Would the force   
   field have surrounded her?  And just what, exactly, would have set off the   
   black powder?   
      
   And what caused the wind that blew away her footprints?   
      
   When the net dropped down on Gabrielle and Lin, all that was holding it down   
   were knives in the   
   sides of the net stuck into the dirt floor of the tent. How hard could it have   
   been to pull the net   
   up?   
      
   Xena sucked the wind out of the black powder tent - what kept the sides of the   
   tent from being   
   sucked in? Or more air from being sucked in through the door?   
      
   Just before the big battle, Xena tells Gabrielle she needs clarity and she   
   (Gabrielle) will be a   
   distraction and has to go. Gabrielle leaves, and Xena hugs K'ao Hsin - WTF???   
      
   All the magic --- Thumbs down.   
      
   In the interview clip, Rick Jacobson, the director, said there were unending   
   script problems with   
   BITB. The writers were in LA and the production crew was in NZ, and they kept   
   sending the script   
   back and forth with production problems and rewrites, and every time there was   
   a script change, it   
   was from a different writer. {{This episode sure showed THAT!}} He also said   
   it was probably not a   
   very happy ending for the families of the 100,000 soldiers.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)