Elfrieda

Gina Torres!!! I love her, and I love the fact that you guys cast her as Zenobia. She's perfect, and she would be a very convincing bad guy/possibly good guy.

The pictures were exceptionally terrific in this ep. I especially loved the pic of Gina with the snazzy background, toward the beginning of the ep (either in the teaser or Act 1, I'm not sure). The manipulations looked really good, too.

I'm glad you chose to explore the character of Eve a bit more in this episode - we can't have her languishing away in Amazon camp forever, right? And I can't help but feel a bit sorry for her over the whole overbearing mom thing . . . I thought my mom was bad!

I also thought it was great to see Xena a bit more vulnerable in this ep, and we get to see Ares save Xena - I can't wait to read what happens next!!!

I also like the whole Rome/Visigoth storyline, and I'm also interested to see where the whole Gab/Haimon relationship will go. I also like the small added details that didn't directly relate to the ep, like Gab thinking about Darion (and something else, but I can't remember now what it was!).

This may be one of my favorite eps so far!

Deirdre

Great Episode guys, very dramatic! It had that Classic Xena drama feel. I love the montage!

X_A

I knew I was going to like it from reading the promo and it certainly didn't disappoint me any!!

Of course my favorite parts are with Ares even though there's not a lot what we do get is definitely some good stuff. Their idea of what to do on a date is definitely interesting. A couple of times I found myself yelling at Xena for not listening to Ares he has been correct in the past especially when it comes to knowing when she is not focused but yet she never learns and refuses to listen to him, awww....but this does make for good drama. I love the way he shows up in the fight scene and the ending just makes me want to scream because I don't want to have to wait. I really didn't think it was going to be any big deal to wait for the second part but now after reading it, it is.

Eve really shocked me as I'm not a big fan but I actually think I like this character or maybe I should say I liked her part in the episode. She's not her typical pacifist self, she's actually doing something and yes it's fighting but it's a good fight and a big plus she's not whinning about it.

Xena is overprotective in words to an extreme but it works and is almost a bit humorous to imagine a woman telling another woman who's of close age and has racked up almost the same body count as herself that she can't fight for what she believes in. But that's just so Xena!

Gabrielle sort of takes a back seat in this one but yet still has a lot going on, with her relationship with Haimon and she's thinking about Darion. She and Xena are still very much intune with each other.

The collage and images are great and fit really well with the scenes.

Again it's a great episodes and thank you to everyone involved for giving us such a great story!!

CasualFan

Yay - Nebula finally makes an appearance on X:WP (that "Zenobia" business didn't fool me for a second )! I could see Gina Torres delivering that dialogue with real flair, much as when she affected to join Dahak in Let There Be Light. Zenobia is a great part for her, and she makes a worthy adversary for both Eve and Xena.

Good use of historical background once again, with the traditional RenPics timeline-mixing in full cry. Thanks for introducing Vespasian; he's always been one of my favorite Roman emperors. He might be the only proconsul in Roman history to leave office poorer than when he entered it, because he refused to use his power to enrich himself. He also incurred Nero's displeasure during a tour of Achaea by falling asleep during one of the emperor's singing performances - that might have made for a fairly amusing vignette during the Nero/Agrippina arc. He had a great deathbed line - "Oh, I think that I'm turning into a god" - a wry comment on Rome's tradition of apotheosizing emperors. You could have some fun with this guy!

This ep explored Eve's identity crisis perhaps more than any to date, with her links to her foster-family, first teacher and first enemy all examined. Is she justified in reassuming at least some aspects of her dark past if it's in the name of the Greater Good? It's an interesting moral crisis for Xena as well - does her own obligation to the Greater Good cover those who happen to claim Roman citizenship as well?

Fine ep, and my compliments to LK, Aurora and Ryan - the next installment should be great!

Sais 2 Cool

this was a great episode. of course i'm a sucker for any episode that has gabrielle and haimon basking in all their dysfunctionality .

and interesting the way zenobia was incorporated into the episode. living in a judeo-christian culture, the romans are usually portrayed as the bad guys and so by default any enemy of rome MUST be a good guy. who would expect that x&g would fight against zenobia and with rome ?

and quite a cliffhanger! i'm starting to get quite antsy for part 2!

cool stuff , AG and LK!

Steph

I was hoping for some more dramatic action episodes and it looks like we got one. First I would like to talk about my concerns for the episode. It seemed like this episode had a lot of descriptions and such and sometimes it was just hard to follow because it was just too long. I really think you guys do a good job with character dialogue as well as description which is way I had to stop myself from just skimming through the long parts because I didn't want to miss anything. But like in the very begining of the episode it was hard to tell what was going on. I like the fact that it was like a scene from the future but it really confused me because so much seemed to be going on. The episode also seemed to go at a much slower pace in the begining and it took time to get the whole story actually started. I realized the episode took a while to set up but it didn't seem as fast paced as some of the previous episodes and this might be because it was so full of characters and stories that somethings didn't flow as smoothly.

What I liked about the episode was the focus on Eve and her role as a Roman leader and how they all loved Livia and it made Xena mad. I also thought the character Zenbia was interesting from what we saw of her and I am guessing that we will see more of her past and when she attacks Rome and how she knows Livia. Xenas doubt to help the Romans was very well depicted and an interesting twist that she is actually helping Rome and I will like to see how the rest plays out. Also I am a little worried about Xenas condition considering it seems like with Eve mentioning her mortality and Ares too then Xena might die again but I hope it won't happen. The only thing is I never understood exactly what happened to her except that she was just lying on the ground. Did someone knock her out or is she close to death? My prediction is that Ares will give up his immorality for her and then the rest of the adventures will be with mortal Ares instead since it seems this episode really focused on that.

Other than that I really can't completely judge this episode without seeing part 2. The main problem I had was it seems to packed especially when comparing it with the Rome episodes from last season. But I think the main points of the story are good and I am very curios to see how the rest will happen with Xena injured. I give this episode a 7/10.