What We All Owe to Ourselves.
THE DEBT 1 and 2
I watched the beginning half of this magnificent, two part episode in a
state of stunned wonder. I watched the second half in a state of horror,
excitement, love, and admiration. I was totally spent at the end. The
Debt is a profoundly moving character driven drama that gives us more
enjoyment in 90 minutes than I've experienced in millions of hours of
television and movie watching. Xena: Warrior Princess has always been
extraordinary television, and extraordinarily important to me, but somehow
I'd always maintained enough perspective that this was simple
entertainment. Not this time. The Debt transported me away into a
fabulous new world full of struggle, pain, fear, love, triumph, irony and
heroism. No television or film experience I've ever had comes close to the
effect that this awesome story had upon me. I felt as if I were IN a myth!
And to think this is but a part of a story arc! I just said several
weeks ago that The Deliverer was the finest television I've ever seen, but
the Debt leaves that awesome achievement parsecs behind. How are the Gods
at Renaissance Pictures EVER going to top THIS?
It all begins simply enough. Xena receives a message from a dying man
after fighting off a mob of assassins to save the messenger's life. This
happens every day to The Warrior Princess of Kalmai. The message is
unique: I was sent by the weak one who's as soft as water and hard as the
raging flood....The Green Dragon has become too large and must be made
small." From that moment Xena transforms! This fight is as terrifying and
earnest as any in the history of the show and she finishes it by stomping a
down a man while yelling "EAT DIRT!" Xena tells Gabrielle she's going on a
very long journey to the Kingdom of Ch'in
What happens afterward beggars the imagination. We are transported into
Xena's heart more deeply and horribly than we've ever been to before. At
last, Xena shows Gabrielle and us all the true depth of the agony she had
suffered in her past by telling an incredible tale. The death of M'Lila in
the episode "Destiny" had literally killed Xena. As she said unflinchingly
to Gabrielle, " {I was}An animal living one moment to the next, driven by
desire alone." (This echos Ares' crack about Xena should be the 'Goddess
of Desire') In the most sweeping and terrfyingly beautiful sequence I've
ever seen on TV, we see a troop of cavarly in hot pursuit of the remnants
of another force. A whip flys out from a hooded rider in the pursing
force. The target is swept off his horse and dragged until the man's neck
is broken by a rock. That very same rider then matter of factly runs a
surrendering enemy through with her sword. The human apparition pulls off
the hood and it is Xena smiling with deep enjoyment over her kill. She is
totally feral. She loves combat with all her fierce will. Killing is her
life. She is nearly giggling with joy. This is a horrifying and
magnificent moment. It is the key moment in the entire drama and the key
moment in the entire series. This is the base on which Xena must rebuild
her life. She has so, so far to go. Enough for plot synopses, others have
done it better than I.
I have always claimed that Xena: Warrior Princess is a show about one very
special person's spiritual quest. To reach salvation from such a depth of
depravity makes Xena's quest by far the most heroic journey ANYONE has ever
even attempted, but we know we KNOW! that she will DO IT! We just don't
know when or how. Xena is not an ideal. She is only partially an ideal.
Yes she's a superhero. She has gifts that were given to her by some higher
power (more on this later) yet at heart she is human and therefore
fallible. To my mind she has only one ideal trait, her courage. Xena's
courage is beyond anybody in fiction yet like us all her courage DOES fail
from time to time. THAT is what makes this character so compelling to me.
Can we as regular people live up to Xena's example? This makes for
fabulous storytelling. Only Lucy Lawless' tremendous talent can carry this
off.
The characters are so RICH in this episode. Lao Mai is a character of
enormous moral power who is not perfect. She is enlightened spiritually
but cannot break her attachment to her son, the vicious Ming Tien. She is
as compelling a character as I've ever seen, and her influence on the still
impressionable Xena is both immense and understandible. We now know that
Xena has had four women in her life that she loved profoundly: Cyene,
M'Lila, Lao Mai, and Gabrielle. Jennifer Kim is a very great actress. She
captures the dual character of Lao Ma brilliantly. The Weak one who is as
soft as water and as hard as the raging flood is a marvellous description
of this character.
Borias, played perfectly by Marton Csokas is a man who comes across as a
vicious thug, but he has intelligence, courage, a sense of honor, and some
political skill. He has raw animal sexiness and power. It's no wonder
that Xena wants him and eventually will fall in love with him. Ming Tsu
played by Grant McFarland is a coward with no character. It's hard to play
a nonentity convincingly yet McFarland does it. Ming Tien played by Daniel
Sing is a wolf. He is as dead as Xena ever was, and worse he has no desire
to improve himself. He is as chilling a villian I've never seen.
The writing is brilliant. The script, driven by the decisions the
characters make is absolutely dead on. Many of the lines of dialog are
burned into my brain. G: "You owe someone a debt so big that you're
willing to throw away the last few years?" X: "Yes!" Lao Mai: "I've been
blessed or cursed with the power to see into people's souls. You don't
know it yet, Xena but you are a remarkable woman, capable of greatness."
Lao Mai: "Xena, you've been dead for a long time already I'm offering you
a chance to LIVE!" X: "Scratch my nose, willya?" (This simple line is the
sweetest, most powerful line I've heard on Xena. Under the circumstances
Xena delivers it, there is no protestation of love for Gabrielle that could
possibly equal it!) X: "Lao Ma did more than save my life. She saved my
soul, my spirit, EVERYTHING! That's THE DEBT!" And of course, Xena, after
so many episodes, finally says "I love you." to Gabrielle.
Gabrielle is true to her character. Her betrayal CLEARLY from the
beginning comes from her love for Xena and for life. Her admission of her
mistake in the flooded dungeon was a blow to my solar plexus. Xena's
loving reaction made it even more powerful. If there is a tiny flaw, where
is the Gabrielle that was willing to sacrifice herself for those she loved.
This is such a tiny complaint that even I nearly ignored it.
The decline of the Gods. We see another aspect to this storyline
developing here. Lau Tsu (Lao Ma's) comatose, tyrannical husband, was the
purported creator of the Tao Te Ching. Taoism is the oldest and most
influential of eastern faiths. Xena is confronted with a mystical faith
that ultimately believes that the individual does not exist and that spirit
is all. In an unskillful way of presenting things, ultimately God is ALL
and one only needs to live in that fact. You begin the path by
surrendering all desire and all the feelings that stem from that desire.
Once that is done, all that remains is the most profound love. I am a
Buddhist. Buddhism is very closely related to Taoism. The symbolism and
the message presented here resonates with me greatly. I admire Xenastaff
for choosing this grand system of faith as the way for Xena to travel.
Visually The Debt is completely arresting. Every image struck me like an
avalanche. The cavalry battle...Xena's arrival in Lao Mai's camp and that
character's introduction...messing around on horseback...the dog
chase...Camouflage...the bottle breaking scene...the healing and flying
scene...Xena's tears as Gabrielle slapped her. They all filled me with a
growing sense of exhaltation as Xena's spiritual enlighenment approached.
Her soul was purged by fire in front of our eyes. The symbolism was
overwhelming. The bottles as metaphor for the container of the
spirit...The hair brooch as metaphor for desire...the execution table on
which Lao Mai died and on which Xena nearly expired, (The table is shaped
in the Chinese ideograph for DEATH!) all drove home the fact that for Xena
to save herself she must SURRENDER to the flow of existence. She must die
to be reborn yet AGAIN! Then Xena's failure. She had redemption in her
hand and LOST IT! She uses Lao Mai's hair brooch, the symbol of desire, to
again endulge her raging desire for vengeance by using it to kill Ming
Tien. Xena compounds her error by appeasing her desire for Gabrielle's
love by lying to Gabrielle. This brought about an emotional relase in me
that was indescribable.
Xena lost her enlightenment, but look how much she's won. She's taken a
huge stride towards the very greatness, and bliss she deserves. But her
ultimate triumph will need more intense struggle. More tests are to come.
Both Xena and Gabrielle have great lies that they are witholding from each
other. There are many foreshadowing lines in the script, many of which
make me feel things are going to get much worse between them.
The Debt is an overwheming triumph. Everything we've seen before has been
topped. As of now I ask all of you that read this to urge Universal and
Renaissance pictures to start a campaign with the Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences for Emmys for: Lucy Lawless, Best Actress; Jacquiline
Kim, Best Supporting Actress; Rob Tapert and R. J. Stewart, Best Original
Teleplay; Oley Sassone, Best Director; Ngila Dickson, Best Costume Design;
Best Production Design, (Can't see the credits clearly, can anyone tell me
who the Production Designer is?) and of course Robert Field, Best Editing.
BRAVO!!!
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