written by Joel Metzger
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 15
SD: You were brought on as a staff writer for Xena during the sixth season?
Joel: Yes, the beginning of the sixth season.
SD: Had you seen the show before you were hired?
Joel (chuckling): I hadn't seen a single episode.
SD: How did you come to write for the show? And how did they prepare you to write for a show that has been on for five years?
Joel: I knew one of the writers on Cleopatra 2525. I pitched successfully for that show and then wrote an episode. Because that was a new show, there wasn't much preparation needed. They didn’t have a history I needed to learn. That went well and I was asked to rewrite “The Haunting Of Amphipolis.” They gave me a ton of tapes and scripts and I watched hours and hours as quickly as I could to get a handle on it. They liked the work I did on that script and offered to bring me on staff. There was a lot to absorb.
SD: What story did they want to tell with this episode? What elements were you given to work with?
Joel: They knew they wanted to do an episode about the trial of Eve in this last season. She had this checkered past they felt needed to be explored. At first they thought it might take place in the Roman Senate or somewhere else in Rome. It ended up being an Amazon story because she was responsible for inflicting so much damage to them. So they wanted to put her on trial. That's the driver of the story even though there's a lot of other intrigue going on.
SD: It's interesting that you mention they were considering either using Rome or the Amazons as a background. Those are two of the most popular elements for many viewers of the show - Amazons and Roman politics.
Joel: Yeah.
SD: Was the episode ever titled “The Trial Of Eve”?
Joel: No, that was just a sentence that was tossed around during story meetings. They change titles a lot up until the last minute. Sometimes the story changes so much the working title doesn’t make sense so they have to come up with a new one. The season opener, “Coming Home,” it was a completely different story. Later, they realized the title referred to the original idea.
SD: Speaking of “Coming Home,” was anything in “Path Of Vengeance” left over from that earlier episode? There was a reference to the Amazon Queen Marga's banishment of Eve in “Path” that we never heard of before.
Joel: A lot of things used in “Path” were set up in “Coming Home” - Marga's banishment, Eve knowing if she returned to Amazon lands they would put her to death. Those points didn't make the final cut of “Coming Home.”
Also, in “Coming Home,” Varia recognizes Eve because of a certain fighting move Eve executes. That pays off in “Path.” We see Livia do it in the flashback sequence when she attacks the Amazons and then Varia does it to Xena. That was all Rob's idea.
SD: Long-time viewers noticed that move.
Joel: Really! Well, it was a through line that Rob wanted to do.
SD: Can you tell me anything about the birth of Varia as a character? Since “Coming Home,” she has appeared in quite a few episodes.
Joel: In “Coming Home,” we knew we wanted a hotheaded Amazon, a real aggressive go-getter. That's what she came out of. They didn't give her a whole lot to do in that first episode, just established that she was an angry chick. (laughs) I wrote the second episode she appeared in, “Dangerous Prey,” and I went round and round figuring out how to develop her more. I played her, in that episode, as really hotheaded and Xena tries to get her to control herself. The girl is so bent on vengeance she doesn’t realize the large part she would play in the future of her tribe if she would just stop acting like a kid.
SD: There's an ironic difficulty in a fictional character. One tends to wonder what Marga saw in Varia to make her think she would make a good leader for the Amazons, but as neither person is real, we’ll never know.
Joel (laughs): Right.
SD: So, as the writer, you had to find some way to convince the audience this character was worth Xena’s attention.
Joel: Yeah. The thing about Varia is that although she’s often wrong and hotheaded, she really believes in what she’s doing, she's brave as hell and she would just lay it on the line. And, at the end of the day, Marga knew the Amazons needed a queen who would never give up.
SD: That's something the Amazons are known for - their determination and steadfastness.
Joel: Right. She was the Amazon’s Amazon in that regard.
SD: We hear about actors who develop a back story for their characters that isn't shown on screen, but gives them more to work with when they play the character. Do you, as a writer, do anything like that?
Joel: Yeah, sometimes you don't have time to do a lot of that, but if you have the time to really develop your character, then if someone asks you where they went to high school, what their childhood was like and what kind of ice cream is their favorite, you can probably come up with an answer because they exist more fully in your imagination. But, in the world of TV, you're moving so fast sometimes it’s just, “She’s really pro-Amazon and angry.” That’s all you have time for.
In “Path,” we had the flashback where we learned two things - she always wanted to be a warrior and she failed her tribe. That was my main point. I wanted to show the reason she's such a hothead and so angry is that she's been carrying around her whole life the fact that she feels she let her tribe down. She had a chance to kill Livia/Eve and didn't. She was just a young girl and had never been in battle before and she choked. So she's been beating herself up this whole time.
SD: Varia was invented for “Coming Home.” Tsianina Joelson was hired to play her and turned out to be terrific. So good, in fact, they brought the character back for three more episodes. How does a character go from a one-shot to a recurring role?
Joel: Yeah, they really used her a lot. Originally, we were casting for the Norse trilogy (“The Rheingold,” “The Ring,” and “Return Of The Valkyrie”) and she came in to read for a Valkyrie part. We were going for a more Germanic blonde look. But she was so beautiful and obviously athletic and perfect for Xena that when we were talking about having a hotheaded character, we thought of her. Watching her work in the dailies for “Coming Home,” they saw how fit she was, her skill at martial arts and how good she was in the fight sequences, we wanted to use her again. They like to use what works. I don't think anyone sat down at the beginning of the season and said, “Let's have a character that shows up four times this year.”
SD: As I said, Amazons are very popular among Xena fans and they found a good one. It made sense to use her again. Were you there during Tsianina's audition?
Joel: Yeah. I was. She read some of my dialogue from “The Ring,” when she was auditioning for a Valkyrie. We saw about 20 girls that day. Some were better actors, some looked the part, some were more Germanic, some were beautiful, but just too skinny to be warriors. I gotta tell you, she really lit up the room! She's so beautiful in person, she stole everyone's breath away. Film doesn't do her justice. We really wanted to use her because we knew she would just leap off the screen and she does, I think.
SD: Is Varia an Amazon Queen?
Joel: Yes. The original story for “Dangerous Prey” was Marga is killed and Xena and Varia are going to rescue a young girl who Varia thinks is going to become the new queen. We had Varia go through all these trials and tribulations and she doesn’t realize that every step along the way, Xena is training her to become queen. At the end, when the girl is rescued, Varia finds out that she is actually going to get the crown herself. The story wound up going in a different direction entirely. We played a bit of that with Xena trying to teach Varia some lessons, but I think that part of the story became more of a background to the action and Xena's battle with Morloch. But our “B” story was that Varia grows up and takes command of her tribe. Then, in “Path Of Vengeance,” she becomes Queen of all the tribes.
SD: We saw, I think, almost all the Amazon tribes that had ever been shown on Xena.
Joel: Siberian tribes, African, Asian, Irish (laughs).
SD (laughs): The “redheaded” tribe.
Joel: Yeah. It was meant to be similar to the Native Americans banding together to form one giant nation.
SD: Varia hooked up with Ares. How did Ares become part of the story?
Joel: If Kevin is available, if we haven't used him in a while and Ares can fit into the story, Rob loves to add him in. He's like a chef sometimes, adding different ingredients to the stories. I thought if Ares had just gotten his immortality back, he would have been out of circulation so long that no one was worshipping him as they should. So Ares would think if he created this huge war between the Amazons and Romans, then both sides would be open to coming to him for success in battle. It was a great way for him to get back into the god business. And Rob really wanted to make a point of Ares becoming a shit again. (laughs) After spending the fifth season making him mortal and crazy, Rob told me to make Ares like he used to be - manipulative, cunning.
SD (laughs): Ares was quite different in this episode than he was in “Old Ares Had A Farm.”
Joel (laughs): Right. But I think as much as we wanted to make Ares a bad guy again, we didn't want to go too far. So R.J. (Stewart) tweaked the Ares stuff after I turned the script in. That resulted in the Scorpion and the Swan story about how it's in Ares' nature to do what he does.
SD: As bad as Ares has been in this show, I've always felt a touch of Cary Grant about him - devious but charming. I think that's one of the things that makes him so appealing, at least for me.
Joel: Right.
SD: That was an interesting glow Ares caused in Xena when he came up behind her in the field and put his arms around her.
Joel (laughs): Yeah! That’s not something I did. That was part of the tweaking. It showed he had his powers back and his tricks.
SD: That pose the two of them were in harkened back to “The Reckoning,” the first episode in which Kevin Smith played Ares. Lucy plays that so well - she falls under his spell and then reminds herself, “No, I'm not that kind of girl anymore.” I feel a touch of regret though. As if Xena wishes she could have her Ares and still be a good girl.
Joel: I think I saw that show. I remember that.
SD: I was surprised to see Eve working for the emperor of Rome. Do you know which emperor that was supposed to be?
Joel: If you remember, they killed off Caligula in “The God You Know.” I didn't have anything to do with that episode, but I think they had originally planned to put Claudius in there. When I was on board, they were going to make Claudius the new emperor. He would be kinder and gentler and was going to have a thing for Eve. He would have been under her influence and allowed her to go around trying to make peace with groups like the Amazons. And that's why the Roman bodyguard came after Eve to protect her. That became the powderkeg that started the episode.
SD: In “Path,” Xena says to Gabrielle, “I guess this new emperor's really serious about waging peace?” And Gabrielle responds, “Thanks to you.” I guess that refers to the death of Caligula and Claudius coming to power.
Joel: Yeah. I didn't see “The God You Know,” so I don't know if that part of the story made the episode. In the early discussions, we were throwing in the whole Claudius story. Xena would have been responsible for placing a good man on the throne. That's what that line was about. I guess it got cut out of the Caligula story.
SD: How did you approach Gabrielle in this episode?
Joel: In a story, you want characters in conflict. It's always good to have Gabrielle on one side and Xena on the other if they have a different point of view. Gabrielle loves Eve and she knows that, right now, Varia is misguided. But she also sees that for the Amazons to band together is the only way for them to survive cause they're dying out. The future of the tribes is at stake and she wants to help. But she sure as hell doesn't want Varia following Ares. The path of vengeance is the wrong path to go down. And Xena is concerned, first and foremost, with her daughter.
SD: Not being Eve's mother, Gabrielle is not as emotionally tied to the threat to Eve’s life. She knows they need to save the Amazons as well as Xena's daughter.
Joel: Exactly. Gabrielle’s trying to do both. Xena's caught in the middle. We all know that if push comes to shove, Xena could, theoretically, just pull out her sword, kill all the Amazons and take her daughter home because she’s so powerful. And that’s the challenge of this episode - to put Xena in a bind. Xena is kind of like Superman - no one can kill her, she’s too powerful as a fighter. As a writer you have to put her in double binds where she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. Xena doesn't want to slaughter the Amazons to save her daughter. Gabrielle wants the Amazons and Eve to survive, and Eve wants to be punished for her crimes.
That was my major challenge throughout my tenure at Xena - how do we put her in real danger because we've seen her go up against armies. She’s so good, she's practically invincible. It's hard to throw anything at her that the audience thinks she can't easily get out of. You have to set up a situation where, sure, she can pull out her sword, but it's not going to help solve the problem.
SD: In the first Amazon episode in season one, “Hooves & Harlots,” Gabrielle challenged Queen Melosa and then appointed Xena as her Champion to fight Melosa. Why didn’t Gabrielle do that this time? Why did she fight Varia herself?
Joel: I remember the scene you're talking about. It was good for the Gabrielle character to fight Varia herself because she really put it on the line for the future of the Amazons and Eve. She's willing to face a battle of “who's the toughest fighter in camp?” The fight was originally written as a kind of Roman wrestling match. There was a scene of Xena oiling Gabrielle before the fight where Xena was telling Gabrielle she didn’t need to do this.
SD: The fight between Xena and Varia over the lava pit was well done. The stunt coordinator came up with some clever new moves.
Joel: We really, really strive to top ourselves with the fights and it's difficult because we do it every week. We knew there was going to be a big fight at the end and originally it was set in the Temple of Ares. The scenes in the field were originally set in the Temple of Artemis which Ares was having made over into a temple for himself. The fight was going to be on top of a huge statue. After I turned in the script, it was moved to the outside pit. It was a fantastic fight! Xena was Varia's teacher and she knows a lot of Xena's tricks. She was also trained by Ares. Fictionally, we had two great fighters and in real life they wanted to take advantage of Tsianina's skills.
SD: Was it Xena's plan all along to let Varia get the better of her?
Joel: In my mind, at any point Xena could break the Amazon law and free her daughter. She gave Eve every chance to be acquitted and then it came down to the moment of Eve's execution. Xena tried during the fight to reach Varia. But it wasn't working. Finally, she realized Varia was willing to die rather than admit the guilt she felt over her sister's death. Xena thought if she could recreate that moment, Varia would realize what she was doing and why. At that moment, Varia saw that she had become just as bad as Livia.
By the way, Varia's little sister's name was Tura. I named her after my friend, Tura Satana from the movie, “Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill.”