Intimate Stranger
written by Steven L. Sears - Co-Executive Producer
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 05
SD: What was the genesis of this story?
Steven: The idea that your worst enemy would look like your best friend was something that intrigued me. Part of that comes from living during the time of Ted Bundy who was very good at convincing people that he was this wonderful, charming person when, in fact, he was this cold-blooded killer. We had already dealt with Xena seeing her dark side and barely controlling it and Gabrielle slapping her and bringing her out of it (“Ties That Bind”). What if she became this absolutely evil creature? The most evil creature in our series is Callisto. I had to find a way to get Callisto to represent Xena. The machination was already there in that Callisto was in Tartarus at the time.
SD: After she sank into the quicksand in “Return Of Callisto.”
Steven: Right. When I'm working on a script, I think in terms of visuals and one of the images I knew would be very interesting would be Xena kissing Ares in a very passionate embrace. So I wanted to work toward that since Callisto would be in Xena's body. I also wanted to work on the guilt that R.J. had already given me in “Return Of Callisto,” which was Xena letting Callisto die. Was that murder or was it not? Was it murder or was it justice? If you think “I am letting this person die for all the people they have killed,” some people would say that's justice; others would say murder. If you think “I’m letting this person die because of all the people they could kill,” that’s murder. What was going on in Xena’s mind when she allowed Callisto to die?
During Xena’s dreams at the beginning of the episode, that’s what’s plaguing her. Selling the dream within a dream sequence was extremely important. I told people, “The scariest part of that opening is going to be when Gabrielle looks at Xena and says, ‘If Hercules had done to you what you did to Callisto, you'd be dead right now.’” And Renee really sold that. People were shocked thinking, “Does Gabrielle really believe that?”
SD: Why didn’t Ares keep Xena in Tartarus and send Callisto up in her own body to be his one special warrior?
Steven: The evil of Callisto in the body of Xena is the perfect mate for Ares. But he misinterpreted Callisto's motivations. Callisto’s never been motivated by power. She’s never wanted to become a great warrior or become the person who rules the world. Her motivation is pure; it is to destroy everything Xena loves. He assumes Callisto has the heart and soul of the old Xena.
SD: If Callisto wants to destroy everything Xena loves, why didn’t she just kill Gabrielle?
Steven: What Callisto really wanted was for Xena to have to kill Gabrielle. When Xena (in Callisto's body) had Callisto (in Xena’s body) pinned to the ground, Gabrielle comes upon them and sees the woman who killed her husband, the woman who’s the most evil thing, the thing she hates most in this world, is about to kill her best friend. Callisto was trying to put Xena in a position of having to kill Gabrielle to save her own life. That's when Xena thought of the question about Gabrielle’s dreams. Callisto could not have known about a conversation that Xena and Gabrielle had just had — that Gabrielle hadn't dreamed since Perdicus’ death and her bardic ability comes out of her dreams.
SD: If the ending of "Return Of Callisto” had been, as Lucy had requested, that Xena actually tried to save Callisto from dying in the quicksand, that would have affected the story of “Intimate,” wouldn’t it?
Steven: The opening of “Intimate” wouldn’t have worked. If Xena tried to save Callisto and couldn't, there wouldn’t have been any reason for guilt. We have a lot of “hero” rules we pay attention to and they get so ingrained in us that everybody here, at one time or another, has said, “No, we can’t let Xena do that because she's a hero.” So, for Lucy to have wanted it that way is totally natural. We do it as well. But then we realize we have to break those rules because there's a difference between being a hero and being heroic. Heroes are not always heroic. Common people are heroic.
A true hero is not interesting because they cannot be beaten and there’s no risk. From the beginning Xena has had these physical powers that nobody could beat. We’ve seen her defeat the entire Persian army! (“One Against An Army”) It makes it difficult to tell a story when there’s no risk. Now, you can say that there’s never any risk because everybody knows you are going to do 22 episodes a season and Xena's got to come back. But with Xena, there’s a lot of emotional risk we play with.
A really gray area about Xena is how much does she really know? How wise is she? With somebody who is truly wise and makes all the right decisions, the episode is over in the first 15 minutes. So we have to find the flaws in Xena. We had a huge discussion about “Return Of Callisto.” Did Xena's emotions take over at the end or did her rational mind take over? Well, for “Intimate” to work, her emotions had to take over. And, given who she is, that's perfectly natural.
SD: Xena had an internal battle over her decision to let Callisto die?
Steven: There are certain people that Xena reacts to on a very visceral level. She tries not to, but… Callisto is one of them because Xena feels responsible for creating her. Xena is torn: “How can I kill something that I’m responsible for?” “How can I dispense justice when I should be taking the blame for her actions?”
The other person that Xena responded to in that way was Caesar, but she’s gotten over that. She knows her biggest weakness is that he affects her that way. When I came up with the line for Caesar where he says, “Divide a woman's emotions from her sensibilities and you have her,” I specifically wanted it to apply to Xena. When her mind is working and she has her sensibilities, she's almost unbeatable. But if you can find the one thing that will trigger her, that’s when you’ve got her.
SD: Ares says to Xena: “A young girl was before you. She had committed unspeakable crimes. Just like you. You were given a chance to reform - a chance you never gave Callisto.” Were there any discussions about whether Xena should have given Callisto the same chance that Hercules gave her?
Steven: In one sense, Xena did. At the end of “Callisto,” she didn’t kill her, she put her in jail. She let her live.
SD: Considering that apparatus they stuck Callisto in, I figured it was probably life without parole.
Steven: Right. This wasn't rehabilitation. But Xena did let her live.
SD: That’s not what Hercules did for Xena. He didn't just put her in jail, he found something in her — a spark of goodness that you and I have discussed in previous interviews. Does Xena know for sure that Callisto doesn’t have that same spark?
Steven: After Callisto killed Perdicus, that one act erased any kind of sympathy Xena might have had for changing Callisto. That is the real question. Could Callisto have been rehabilitated? The way the character was structured, there was absolutely nothing there. It comes back to the campfire scene in “Necessary Evil.” Callisto made Xena confess in public to the razing of Callisto's village. Then Gabrielle asks Callisto: “What did you feel?” And Callisto answers: “I didn’t feel anything.”
This is my interpretation of the look on Callisto's face when Xena was making her confession. Callisto looked upset because she really expected to feel something and she didn't. She expected to feel sadness or joy or victory or anything and she felt nothing. That’s what bothered her.
If Callisto had answered Gabrielle by saying, “I felt wonderful! I finally felt happy,” that’s a bit of humanity. It’s a disgusting bit of humanity, but it would have been a normal human feeling.
SD: Callisto is an empty shell?
Steven: When Xena’s army killed her mother and sister, this child, Callisto, would have tried to make sense of what happened. She would have waited for justice, but it never came. There was no law to avenge what Xena did. If Callisto had faith in gods, that belief was destroyed. She became consumed with hatred and it ate away at everything inside her until there was nothing left but purpose — that purpose being to destroy Xena the same way she had been destroyed.
SD: This is an action show and Xena certainly swings a mean sword, but there’s very little blood shown. I was struck by the fact that it’s uncommon to see it when Xena had blood on her hands at the end of one of the nightmares.
Steven: There’s a certain amount of TV convention we have to pay attention to in terms of showing too much blood. In “Hooves And Harlots,” when Xena opens the side of the centaur and reaches in to pull his rib out, we shot three different versions — one where her hand was absolutely clean, one where it was an absolute mess and one where she has blood on her hands, but nothing really gruesome.
“Is There A Doctor In The House?” was very bloody. The amputation scene of the soldier’s leg was a lot more graphic. In that particular episode, we wanted people to be disgusted. That was the whole point. We needed the general to see how disgusting war was and the audience had to see his point of view.
SD: You were in New Zealand for the filming of “Doctor”?
Steven: Yes, I was. I was looking at the monitor when Xena did the resuscitation scene with Gabrielle and when it was over, there was a moment of dead silence and then everyone broke into applause. We were just in awe over Lucy's performance.
SD: In the final scene between Xena and Callisto in Tartarus, Callisto’s mother appears. It seemed to me Callisto was feeling some confusion about her righteous hatred of Xena.
Steven: The only person who could possibly get to Callisto would be her mother. And this was the bookend to the beginning where all Callisto needed was for Xena to admit her guilt and that was when the body switch took place. Turning that around, what Xena needed at the end was for Callisto to have that one bit of doubt that she could be wrong about blaming Xena for what she had become. And keep in mind there was an original ending that was not shown.
SD: What was the original ending? Xena was going to end up back in her own body?
Steven: Yes. When Callisto was talking with her mother, the transfer took place at that moment. Callisto realizes she has been tricked by Xena, hands burst from the wall and grab her and she is ripped to shreds.
SD: The ending had to be changed because of Lucy’s accident?
Steven: Yes. Fortunately, we had the right things in place to do this and we said let’s be as creative as we can and do the things we might normally have done next season or the season after that. And everyone was on the phone volunteering to help - Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, Rob Trebor. One of the scripts we came up with was “Miss Amphipolis” which was perfect for Salmoneus. That’s a very good example of him being integral to a script.
SD: I’ve never talked with Lucy about the accident. It seems too close. And the story could have had a much worse ending.
Steven: Believe me, when we first heard about it, we all knew how bad it could have been. After the first day, we were all in good spirits because we knew she was going to be all right. The type of injury she had, they couldn’t put a cast on her. All she had were pillows holding her in place. And one of the first things she asked about were all the fans that had shown up to see appearance on the Jay Leno Show. She kept saying she had disappointed them and let them down. But we reassured her that everyone understood and only wished for her full recovery.
SD: Both Lucy and Hudson have said they hated playing each other’s character. They weren’t satisfied with their performances.
Steven: I thought they did a great job. Lucy made a comment about the fact that at first she was trying to figure out how to play Callisto. Then she realized what she needed to do with was figure out how Hudson played Callisto. Once she did that, she felt she had the key.
SD: One last question, but this pertains to “Remember Nothing.” When we get to the end of that episode, Xena has put history back the way it was and cosigned tens of thousands of people to their death.
Steven: But you can’t look at it that way. Anything you do at any time changes the future. The only thing you can do is take a look at what Xena does know. She knows that what she is doing now in the real world is good. She can sit there and say, “If I could go back and kill myself when I was born, should I do that?” Does that outweigh all the good she is doing now? The whole point of that episode is that you can’t second-guess the future. The idea that the future would have been better had she not been a warrior may not be true. And she sees one very real effect of her not having become a warrior and that’s that Gabrielle has become a completely different person who can kill and take joy in it.
SD: Gabrielle was a symbol of the good Xena can do in the world?
Steven: It’s a symbol of the bad that could have happened if Xena didn’t become that Warrior Princess. The real question is, was her brother’s life worth that? The choice was between her brother and Gabrielle. You can say that if Xena hadn’t taken up the sword, her brother might have died anyway. But it comes back to the fact that Xena had accepted her brother’s death. She realized she couldn’t accept the death of Gabrielle - the Gabrielle Xena knew. She couldn’t allow that.