written by Gene O’Neill & Noreen Tobin
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 03
SD: As freelance writers, what were you told when you were hired to write this story?
Gene: The genesis of this story came from Rob Tapert. We met with him, R.J. Stewart, Liz Friedman, Steve Sears and Chris Manheim and the idea was to do a show where Xena would be in a situation where she had to go up against this incredible army. And she would be hindered by the fact that Gabrielle had suffered an injury. Xena would be pulled between these two forces — the need to save Greece and saving Gabrielle.
Noreen: The challenge was that they wanted, what is called in the theatre, a two-hander — a two character play. It's harder to write that type of script. When there are four people on screen, everybody can say things and it really moves.
Gene: Our original beat sheet — five or six pages outlining the story in brief paragraphs — had more characters.
Noreen: That was what changed so drastically. But the great thing is that they trusted us to go away and try again. That was a gamble on their part.
SD: I suppose it can happen that a freelancer turns in a script and it will be rewritten in house.
Gene: That does happen. We were trying to write a typical action-oriented Xena episode and they wanted an atypical one.
SD: What did they give you to use as source material to learn about the characters?
Noreen: They gave us all the scripts and videos of various episodes. We knew we wanted a scene where Gabrielle would be hallucinating about the past. So we paid special attention to “Sins Of The Past.”
Gene: Plus, we were trying to do that classic paradigm of denial/rejection — when you realize death is coming.
SD: There were some devastating lines by Gabrielle — “I know that I'm going to die. I accept that. Why can’t you?” “A long time ago I accepted the consequences of our life together - that it might one day come to this. It has. I’m not afraid.” I was not expecting that!
Gene: It's great to play Gabrielle’s intelligence.
SD: She’s not your typical sidekick, i.e. Chester on Gunsmoke.
Gene: Right. She thinks about things like this and I think it makes her more powerful when you realize that.
SD: There was a lot more discussion between Xena and Gabrielle than we usually see.
Gene: It’s not a typical episode, but this was what Rob and R.J. envisioned.
Noreen: We wanted to put more action in it, but R.J. said we had to keep the whole third act in a room — do blackouts. It really pushed us. The dream sequence was Rob's idea. He said we could use things from the fourth act that would seem like additional action, but really weren’t because they were repeated scenes. And R.J. kept at us to make it more emotional. He added the lines, “Even in death, Gabrielle, I'll never leave you.” Only he knew how far he wanted to go. He also knew what was going to be in “The Debt,” which we had not read at that point.
SD: We’ve always known that there was some special relationship between Xena and Argo, but this episode really drove that point home.
Noreen: Rob really wanted her to say good-bye to Argo.
Gene: Argo doesn’t want to leave because she knows Xena is sending her away for good this time. Xena’s preparing to die.
SD: Did you know this is the first time Xena has worked up a sweat in a fight? She did the first half of the battle and then they beat her down. Suddenly, we hear Xena’s battle music. She comes up and wipes the place out. And when she comes up, she’s sweating.
Gene: That was intentional, but I didn’t realize that she didn’t usually do it. We wanted to amp the thing. She’s at her lowest here. This is as difficult a thing as she's ever done.
SD: Thirty campfires with ten men at each. Even Xena can’t defeat that many men at one time. But I saw a technical way to make it work — they came through a doorway. If she had been on an open field…
Noreen: Right. Only so many guys can get into the room at once. And the other thing is, they're thinking, “There’s nobody in there.” So, they're not attacking. They’re just coming in. It’s divide and conquer. Then Xena goes up on the roof and kills another 50.
SD: And that is, again, a small, confined area.
Noreen: You never saw as many soldiers as you thought were there. It was the “idea” of a lot of soldiers.
SD: “Go home! There are thousands more like me!” What a terrific line. (laughing)
Noreen: Rob said Xena fights about 100 guys and Steve Sears said, “No, no. It’s the whole Persian army!” And then, after we’d done it, we thought, how are they all gonna turn back? And that was the only way we thought of. (laughing)
Gene: That was the line we said she’s gotta say!
SD: Someone said on the internet, “And if Meg, Diana and Leah had shown up, the whole army would have high-tailed it back to Persia!”
Noreen: Did you catch the thing that could not have possibly happened? The oil? Xena drags the oil across the floor — burning oil. And then she had to get it up the ladder! No way!! (laughing) The only way you could do it is with a cut. We just prayed that no one…
Gene: We had to get it up there! (laughing)
Noreen: We wanted Gabrielle to do something to help Xena when Xena was at her weakest. The only reason Xena got through the fight is because Gabrielle helped her.
SD: “I'm done paying for my past mistakes.” What did that line mean?
Gene: I thought it was her trying to BS Gabrielle. Xena doesn’t feel she's done paying. I don’t think she ever gets rid of the guilt that she feels. But I think this was a way of saying to Gabrielle, “I’m done paying. Now I’m taking care of you.”
Noreen: We wanted a different color in it instead of just acceptance. We wanted her to be angry and pacing — “I’m getting outta here!” Heroes are more interesting if they have a moment of indecision.
Gene: It's the High Noon moment. Gary Cooper before the bad guys show up.
SD: They had that conversation three times with Xena wanting to leave and take Gabrielle to safety. You had to hold the same discussion three times and make it interesting.
Noreen: What we thought about it was that Xena goes back and forth because to face that many people, you’d have to be stupid or have a really good reason. It’s like, “Come on, you know this is bad. We both know this is bad.” And that’s why we liked Gabrielle saying to her, “Oh great, only 30 campfires. For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.” What she was saying is, “We’re dead!”
SD: We know about Xena’s use of pressure points. Why didn't she use them when she was removing the arrow from Gabrielle?
Noreen: We talked about that. It was part of a staff discussion.
Gene: It had to do with the poison. It was a question of whether or not she would be able to trace the course of the poison if she used them.
Noreen: That was also part of the discussion of Act Three when Xena was going to give Gabrielle some herbs and — I can’t remember if this was in the final cut — but Gabrielle said, “No, I want to feel everything for the last hour.”
SD: Were there any scenes that were written that didn't make the final cut?
Noreen: When you write, things change. The character of the Spartan changed three times. First, he was supposed to be an older guy.
Gene: Originally we had him as a kind of Falstaff character. He accosted them, but he was a sniveling coward and he was comical.
Noreen: So you never thought he was gonna be the bad guy. They wanted it to be more serious. And they were right. Gabrielle telling him to go back to his family and then at the end, he is the soldier who is about to kill her — “I told you I’d be back.”
SD: I almost forgot one of my favorite lines, “But you're my source, Gabrielle. When I reach down inside myself and because of you. Don’t you know that by now?” It surprised me that freelance writers would be able to write a line that is so pivotal to the characters' relationship having just been introduced to them.
Gene: We immersed ourselves in them. I think we benefit from being married to each other a long time. The love between these two characters is very strong. And we write from that point of view of how you feel about somebody you care deeply about.
SD: At the end, Xena was tired. She’s never been tired at the end of a fight!
Gene: We wanted to push it to what we thought was the nth degree with her. She’s never had to reach down this far for this much. Everything was on the line.
Noreen: Plus, we wanted to make it seem like she really was going to die.
Gene: I also like to see her vulnerability. I thought we had to show that.
Noreen: You can kill 300 people, but — please be tired!