| When it first aired, I loathed the companion episode to Lifeblood, Kindred Spirits. It seemed to represent the complete degradation of the promise showed in Adventures in the Sin Trade. When I learned that the creative team of Xena suffered numerous defections to Peter Jackson's production of Lord of the Rings, and lost the full attention of Rob Tapert and RJ Stewart to the spin-offs Cleopatra 2525 and Jack of all Trades, that confirmed in my mind that the show had forgotten itself. Even Rob Tapert himself seem to say so, in interviews, when he said, regarding the fifth season: "Nobody was thinking. Nobody loved the show." And regarding these two episodes, in the same interview, he said: " I really shot myself in the foot with those two Amazon episodes, KINDRED SPIRITS (107/517) and LIFEBLOOD (106/516)."01 I was comfortable for a long time accepting Rob Tapert's mea culpa as a confirmation of my own judgment of these episodes, but after studying the overall patterns of the show, and realizing that these stories fit in quite well, I realized I fell into a logical fallacy. I assumed he was criticizing them for the same reason I was. Thinking it over, I realized that my assumptions didn't make much sense: after all, if Kindred Spirits should have been, as I felt, in the mold of Adventures of the Sin Trade, and the resulting comedy was a sign of degradation, then what kind of decision led to that? I mean, if there really was no thought put into it, why would anyone follow up the Northern Amazon arc with something closer to The Three Stooges? Wouldn't they just rely on what already proved successful? In that case, the show's declining standards would have manifested itself in slavishly copying its successes, but not getting it quite right: Kindred Spirits should have been a lame knock-off of Adventures in the Sin Trade; instead, we got a well-executed comedy that seemed very much unrelated to the entire spirit of the Amazon storyline. That's not a slavish decision, but a bold one; and we know Tapert made it himself. The question we should be asking, then, is why did he decide to transform what was supposed to be a very dark episode into its exact opposite? Leaving aside whether he made the right decision or not, it was certainly a calculated decision. When we look at Lifeblood, we see a decision that looked good on paper; it's more reasonable to assume that the decision regarding Kindred Spirits also looked good on paper. Let's examine possible reasons why. First, we should realize that Tapert and Stewart's involvement with the two spin-offs were probably not detours from what they had previously collaborated on, but rather, sprang directly from them. Both of those shows, as I see it, drew from the same well as Xena and Hercules. They picked up inspirational threads introduced on those shows, but were not going to be explored there further in such depth. For example, it's clear to me now that Cleopatra 2525 picked up the mining elements and their religious associations from the third season of Hercules, as well as the fertile source of Euripides' The Cyclops: the robotic overlords, the Baileys, no doubt take their single-mindedness, with their giant single eyes, from the giants of the play (the fact that Baileys are inoperable when they hit the ocean effectively makes them creatures of the land, not the sea, much like the Cyclops versus Odysseus the sailor).
Keeping all this in mind, we can see that Tapert and Stewart weren't as terribly distracted as we might think during season five. In fact, we can see plot points taken from Xena directly, such as Cleo taken to an underground cocoon lab and cloned, looking very similar to Gabrielle and Hope in Sacrifice. We also see surface dwellers, one of which is played by the same actress who played Yakut, living in a village very much resembling Siberian huts, who practice their own form of sacrifice to the gods. We should also consider that if our analysis of the show's patterns up until now has been accurate, then the patterns themselves would provide continuity on Xena, when they were applied from the top. With a less experienced team, the quality of the stories might suffer, but the patterns would still hold. I think this is what happened with Kindred Spirits, and actually, I think this episode is filled with more patterns than most; so much so, that I'll have to defer some of this discussion to another essay, even in regard to some of the Euripides' references! We might never know just what went into Rob Tapert's decision to remake Kindred Spirits into a slapstick comedy, but maybe we can learn something from the timeline: third-in-command Steve Sears had left the show, contributing only one complete episode, right after the season's powerful start with Fallen Angel and Chakram. After that, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman took his place, fresh from apprenticing on Hercules (now drawing to a close), where they not only handled some of the key dramatic episodes (including one based on The Bacchae), but some of that series' silliest episodes, like Porkules, during the period when star Kevin Sorbo was too ill to work, and the show relied on its comic actors to fill in the gaps while the main dramatic threads were on hold. They had proven themselves capable of handling not only the most important themes, but just as importantly, turning those themes on their head in the "satyr plays" when needed. When it came time for Xena to rely on their ability to vamp while the main players were otherwise occupied, they provided crucial episodes for the Twilight of the Gods arc, and a lot of silly fluff to alternate with. They began with Them Bones, Them Bones: Steve Sears's character, Amarice, was originally intended to be a refugee from an Amazon tribe that battled one of these primordial hordes, becoming as fierce and animalistic as them. In season five, however, her character was evolved into comic relief, in Animal Attraction, and Them Bones, Them Bones. At some point during this (or perhaps, before this), the actress showed potential as a lead for a comedy series, and "Cleopatra 2525," developed during this time, became her vehicle. Following this, they returned to a China two-parter, to follow up season three's The Debt. However, unlike The Debt's stately plot based on Greek tragedy (from Euripides, which I'll address in part two of this essay), these two episodes drew from the fantasy realms of Hong Kong cinema that Xena was based on. Purity and Back in the Bottle were as canon as The Debt, thematically and stylistically: instead of Schopenhauer and the Tao, they featured references to The Bride With White Hair, Once Upon a Time in China, and plenty of ideas from Mircea Eliade. These elements would be tough for anyone to reconcile, and the result is that the China episodes of season five were a bit muddled on the surface. Just before Lifeblood we have Married With Fishsticks, often cited as the worst Xena episode ever by fans, but was intended by Rob Tapert as a potential pilot for another series. Given that he was also launching two other comedies spun off from Xena at this time, it makes more sense when viewed in the context of the other decisions they were making: season five starts looking more like a transitional period, with old and new projects and strategies jostling each other as they try to find their way. After Lifeblood, there were no further comedies for the remainder of season five, but much potential comic material that remained to be used in the Amazon storyline, left over from Adventures in the Sin Trade. The notion that a very serious episode like Adventures in the Sin Trade could actually have been based in part on comic material might surprise us at first, but as we'll see, it helps explain why Kindred Spirits, which was originally intended to be a dramatic episode, could so easily switch to comedy. Tapert had a choice to either use this material now, in the latter half of season five, or discard it forever and finish the season with seven unrelentingly dramatic, and sometimes quite dark, episodes. The comedic Amazon approach couldn't really be postponed to season six of Xena, since Hercules had ended its run at this point, which meant Xena was counted on to spend its final year winding up the threads for both shows. Hercules already ended its Amazon thread with a comedy, Love, Amazon Style, and Xena would have to focus its Amazon episodes in a more serious fashion, since they were involved in the story of Gabrielle's following of Xena's path into violence. That doesn't leave much room for an Amazon satyr play in season six of Xena, not to mention that Joxer wouldn't be around to play the leading "satyr!" With this in mind, let's take a fresh look at Kindred Spirits.  Aristophanes wrote The Thesmophoriazusae towards the end of Euripides' career, and he continues to mock the distinguished playwright here; this time, he makes Euripides the star! The title refers to the secretive Women's Festival of Athens, which celebrates the mysteries of Persephone and Demeter. We'll recall that Cyane the nymph is related to the story of Persephone, and that this Women's Festival is probably the original model for the Amazon society of Xena. In The Thesmophoriazusae, the women are concerned that Euripides has been revealing too many secrets about their ways to men, in his celebrated plays featuring troubled women characters. Word of this has gotten back to the playwright, and he cowers in fear that they'll want to have him tried and convicted at their secret festival. He tries to enlist his friend, colleague, and some say, lover, Agathon, to infiltrate the Festival and discover their intentions. Agathon refuses on the grounds that there's no possible way he could pass for female--this is an obvious in-joke by Aristophanes, since Agathon is presented as an effeminate character who dresses in saffron colors of the lascivious East (as the ancient characterization of Persia by the Greeks went). Euripides then turns to his own father-in-law, Mnesilochus, to take on the mission. The comedy ensues as Mnesilochus proves to be an unconvincing woman, both in appearance, and in attitude, as he betrays his gender by spouting all kinds of male chauvinist harangues against unfaithful wives. I've already mentioned the scene involving the baby disguised as a wineskin, in Amphipolis Under Siege, and there are hints of it in Kindred Spirits, when we hear the Amazons cooing over baby Eve:
Returning to The Thesmophoriazusae: like Joxer, Mnesilochus is captured and placed in the stocks to await his judgement; the women of the Festival, like Cyane, are offended by this outrage against their honor:
Having failed to deceive the Scythian with acting out scenes from his own plays, Euripides decides to take a more below-the-belt, crowd-pleasing approach: he dresses as an old woman and brings the Scythian a comely dancing girl to grab his attention: "Come, my little wench, bear in mind what I told you on the road and do it well. Come, go past him and gird up your robe. And you, you little dear, play us the air of a Persian dance." The Scythian is immediately charmed:
There are references to The Bacchae throughout, in addition to those already mentioned: the kind of horned altar we saw in Sacrifice, and the horned headdresses of the Amazons are prevalent in this episode. The young Amazon who plays the role of Aristophanes' "dancing girl," Rhea, takes her name from the Great Goddess in The Bacchae whom Dionysus studied from. As Robert Graves tells it in "The Greek Myths: "Next, Dionysus returned to Europe by way of Phrygia, where his grandmother Rhea purified him of the many murders he had committed during his madness, and initiated him into his mysteries."03 In Kindred Spirits, we'll see Joxer "purified" of his crimes by pledging loyalty to the Amazon Queen, Gabrielle, as part of a ritual, which is appropriate, since Joxer is a Silenus-figure, who was tutor and fellow traveller with Dionysus. But we'll see a variation on this in Coming Home, the first episode in season six and the next Amazon episode following this one: there, an adult Eve will be acquitted of the many murders she had committed during her "madness" as Ares' pupil. But the significance of Rhea's name doesn't end there: Another name for Rhea in the myths is Cybele, the Great Goddess of Phrygia, and we'll recall that Joxer was paired with her as Attis the Ape Man in Fins, Femmes & Gems, another episode that had Xena and Gabrielle divided by their separate pursuits, and just as she did there, Xena tries to avoid solving her problems by going fishing. Just like its source, The Thesmophoriazusae, Kindred Spirits depicts a gender war in comic fashion, and is consistent with the very first Amazon episode in this regard, Hooves & Harlots. Aristophanes' play ends with Euripides promising to keep their secrets if they release his father-in-law from captivity. Of course, Euripides had the last laugh in real life: he followed this play not long after with The Bacchae, using the image of the disguised man trying to discover women's secrets, but ends up beheaded by his own mother, winning first prize by revealing the most ancient secret of Greek theater and of Greek women: the rites of the Bacchae and the power they hold over Greece's thin veneer of civilized culture. |
