Hobbit & Xena

They released another Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies poster. I really like it.. it's not as dramatic as the first one (Smaug) but none the less.. very cool.

Since I couldn't move at all and when I did I still had some pain (read previous blog post) my favorite Irishman, Thomas came over to watch some more Xena with me. We continued from were we left off before SDCC, Season 1 episodes 15 - 18.

First up was S1 Ep15 "Warrior... Princess" Someone is trying to kill Princess Diana, so Xena has to protect her. Since Xena and Diana are physically identical, they exchange their roles so Xena can discover who's the killer.

Not sure I liked the fact that this Princess looks exactly like Xena but it was fun seeing Lucy Lawless play a completely different character and when she would play one character pretending to act like the other character, it was pretty fantastic. The story was fine and the fighting was pretty good.

Then we watched S1 Ep16 "Mortal Beloved" Xena's dead love Marcus appears on earth to tell her the underworld has been taken over by mad Atyminius, who has confined the good souls to Tartarus and given evil the run of the Elysian Fields. But if Xena succeeds in getting Hades' Helmet of Invisibility back, Marcus will be punished in Tartarus forever.

I was happy to see Marcus again. I liked that we got to see the Underworld. The Harpy effects were pretty rough, even for Xena but I liked the story.

The third episode of the night was S1 Ep17 "The Royal Couple of Thieves" Xena drafts Autolycus to steal back the property of some friends of hers, which turns out to be the Ark of the Covenant.

The return of Autolycus.. well the first appearance of him in Xena but he's been in Hercules. I love Bruce Campbell and his character is funny and kind of slimy at the same time. I did like the ending when you find out that he didn't take the villagers money. He's a nice guy after all. 

And the final episode for this evening was S1 Ep18 "The Prodigal" After she and Xena are assaulted, Gabrielle asks herself if that's really the kind of life she wants to spend and returns to her village, Potadeia, which is going to be attacked by a warlord. Their only help will come from a former mighty warrior, Meleager, who is now but a shade of he used to be, while Gabrielle has to face her sister, Lila, who doesn't like the decision she took when she decided to travel with Xena.

It's funny but when I started watching this episode I knew I had seen it before. This is one of the very few episodes that I have previously seen of Xena. I liked this episode as it was more of a Gabrielle episode and we don't get to many of those. We get to see how much Xena has really rubbed off on her, made her a pretty good fighter. I also liked the character of Meleager.

Though my day started in pain, it end with a good friend and a fun few episodes of Xena.