Xena: Season 4, Episode 7: "Locked Up and Tied Down"

ALTERNATIVE TITLE: 

"The Shawshank Redemption Episode"

OK, now, THIS STORY, I like. I love this shit. It's a jail theme, and I am on board with all of it. All of these themes lately. They're so fun.

I hate to do this, but I keep talking about fan art. I am not going to lie, I have a fan art slide show that I watch from time to time. I'll get around to posting it one day, but there is one particular fanart that I love at 17:40. It's interesting watching these episodes and seeing a scene that's an exact moment captured in a piece of art.

I have an Aeon Flux cel. I have two actually but the one I'm talking about, I couldn't figure out where it was from in the show. Then after I framed it and hung it, I was watching the whole series when BAM, the cel appeared for a split second, and I was so delighted. It was such a surprise.

Robert Tapert, Hilary Bader and Josh Becker wrote this episode. Hilary also wrote, by herself, three episodes in Season 3, including “Been There, Done That” which I fucking love (the Groundhog Day episode), and "Forget Me Not" and "The Quill Is Mightier," two episodes I also love. Actually, I marked three of her four episodes as favorites, including this one. Josh Becker usually directs. He’s actually directed quite a few episodes, but this is one of two that he’s had a hand in writing.

And as we all know, Lucy Lawless married Robert Tapert, the year this episode came out.

SPOILERS: My reviews are full of them! I'll try to note when I'm about to spoil the series by posting [SERIES SPOILER] before said item and [END SPOILER] after. Please don't read the review, unless you've seen the episode under discussion or don't care if I spoil it.

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EXTRA QUOTES:

1) Judge: “Xena, do you accept the condemnation of this court for your guilt in this matter?" X: "I do." Judge: "Then I sentence you to life imprisonment on Shark Island. And may the gods have mercy on your soul." — Praise to the writers for "Shark Island."

2) X: "I'm not looking for redemption any more. Gabrielle, we're always talking about your spiritual quest. You say that you need something to make you feel complete. Well, so do I." — I don't know about this. If I were Gabrielle, I'd be thinking, "I'm not enough?" Couldn't Xena realize that she's of better use to the innocent as a free woman?

3) Ersina: "I heard you let them take you without a fight. I think that being a good girl made you soft." X: "I wonder if you're not right." — Subtle but hilarious retort.

4) Thelassa: "You know, it would have been far better for you, and for mem if you had killed me. Yeah, that's right, Xena, it's me, your victim, Thalassa." — Some of this dialogue is a bit robotic.

5) Captain: "A healer has arrived along with the new prisoners, Commandant." Thelassa: "Well, send him in. [Gabrielle enters] A girl?” — I love this delivery.

6) Thelassa: "Why do I feel like it's still there?" Gabrielle as Healer: "Maybe you haven't accepted the loss." Thelassa: "What would you know about loss?" Gabrielle as Healer: "A few things." — Perdicus, Hope, Solan, her blood innocence, to name a few.

7) Thelassa: “Whatever beauty I had inside me was crushed the day evil entered my life, a tall, dark-haired evil. She took my beauty and she mutilated my soul…What's the matter?" — I love this, because Gabrielle’s realizing she’s talking about Xena and that Thelassa could have been her. Maybe Gabrielle is asking herself, “how am I different.”
 

8) G: "So, how about it?" X: "How about what?" G: "Forgiving yourself." X: "Gabrielle, that's not for me. But I won't let that monster that I used to be, the one that's sleeping so close to my heart, destroy all the good I can do now." G: "Not as long as I'm around." — This is very gay...and that line "the one that's sleeping so close to my heart" is so terrifying and beautiful.

POLITICAL CORNER:

1) All these episodes are relevant to what’s happening now. This episode in particular reminds me of the Mueller investigation. I guess it's jumping out at me more, that most Xena episodes are about government corruption and dictatorships. 

I feel, strongly, that Xena's rainy burial scene is an homage to this famous part from the Shawshank Redemption (1994). There are a few elements from Shawshank in "Locked Up." If you've never seen Shawshank Redemption, please skip this clip and watch it. You'll thank yourself.

Here's one of the tamer clips from Reform School Girls (1986), a movie which still terrifies me to this day.

What I was listening to, the day I watched this episode. Courtney Barnett "Out of the Woodwork:"

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