Altared States
| Xena: Warrior Princess episode | |
|---|---|
| “Altared States” | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 19 |
| Guest star(s) | David de Lautour (Ikus), Karl Urban (Mael), Teresa Woodham (Zora), David Ackroyd (Anteus) |
| Writer(s) | Chris Manheim; editor Robert Field |
| Director | Michael Levine |
| Production no. | 76926 |
| Original airdate | 1996 April 22 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "The Prodigal" | "Ties That Bind" |
Xena and Gabrielle run into a 12 year old boy, hiding for his life from his father who wants to sacrifice him to his god. Religious fanaticism and spiritual delusion abounds.
The same plot -- the father wants to sacrifice the kid, the mother wants to protect the kid -- also turns out to have been part of Xena's life; see "The Furies".
Intertextuality
A take on the Old Testament story of Abraham / Isaac. (Anteus is Abraham, Ikus is Isaac.)
Xena-Gabrielle relationship
The first episode that shows some of the sexual subtext between Xena and Gabrielle. The scene starts with the two of them in the pond: The camera pans past their clothes on bushes, making it apparent that they are skinny-dipping. Their banter is ambiguous. Xena urges Gabrielle to dive, and she comes back with a slippery fish. ... At the end of the episode, Xena and Gabrielle are thrown down a well; Xena has Gabrielle climb up her body, before Xena begins climbing up the rope.
Dialog
- Mael: I don't know who -- or what -- you are, but this business is none of yours.
- Xena: My name is Xena. And the way I see it, a half-dozen men going after one small defenseless boy kinda makes it my business. (pause) Call it my maternal instinct.
...
- Mael: preaching to a bunch of men: My father is a wise man, but also an aging man in failing health. No doubt, he doesn't see Xena for what she truly is: A trial, sent to us, by the Almighty, to test our resolve. Can you doubt it? All you have to do is look at her, to see she's unnatural -- an affront to God. A woman with the strength of ten men? Out on the road alone, save only her scrawny little companion? It's a complete abomination! And to think -- this ... freak of nature has my brother. A boy, so innocent and pure that the all-powerful one has called him to his side at the tender age of twelve. How do you think the Supreme Deity feels about that? Leaving his chosen one in the hands of a woman whose gods are as primitive as she is?
- Crowd: Xena must die!
- Crowd: Yeah! [cheers]
Disclaimer
"No Unrelenting or Severely Punishing Deities were harmed during the production of this motion picture."