LITTLE PROBLEMS

Some thugs are stealing from Aphrodite's temple when Gabrielle and a very pregnant Xena fight them off.  Xena notices a brand on one of the men.  She recognizes this brand as belonging to someone named Tharon.  She sends the man away with a warning to Tharon: "Stop looting or I'll finish what I started."  As the gang runs for it, Gabrielle asks who Tharon is.  "Someone I thought was dead," replies Xena.  Aphrodite appears and soon shows Xena and Gabrielle what she's been up to lately.  She's allowed people suffering from illnesses to crash in her temple while the sisters try to heal them.  (She also mentions the 20% increase in her offerings since this charity began!)  Xena notices a little girl who appears to be asleep and alone.  Aphrodite explains that the girl's name is Daphne and she's lost her will to live.  Her mother died and her father comes by on his way to work every morning.  Xena is then moved to speak to Daphne saying, "Kid, if I could trade places with ya, give ya a second chance, I'd do it in a heartbeat."  Well...Aphrodite doesn't think twice!  Before we know what has happened, Xena passes out unconscious and Aphrodite is explaining to Gabrielle that she's switched Daphne's life-force with Xena's!  Daphne sits up and asks, "Where am I?  Who are you?  Where's my mommy?"  At that last question, Aphrodite looks away....  Suddenly, though, Daphne begins speaking like Xena...but with the voice of a little girl.  Xena doesn't realize that she's trapped in Daphne's body until Aphrodite hands her a mirror.  "Oops!  I guess I didn't complete the switch!" exclaims the goddess.  Gabby reassures Daphne that Aphrodite has put Xena into her body...but it's only temporary...because she's going to switch it back...right?!  "Right!  Just as soon as I figure out how."  And the goddess vanishes!  Then, Daphne's father comes in, surprised and delighted that she is awake.  Daphne asks again where her mother is and her father just insists that they go home and they can talk there.  Gabrielle interrupts saying, "Wait!  I have...um...I have a friend...in your daughter."  Ha!!  The Xena-quality comes out of Daphne then and reassures Gabby that she'll be fine and tells her to stay there and work out what's wrong.  Elsewhere, Tharon receives Xena's warning and is looking forward to revenge.  He sends his men out looking for Xena.  Daphne and her father get home and he finally tells her that her mother is dead.  Crying, Daphne runs away from him.  Back at the temple, Gabby has wrapped Xena up in blankets and she and Aphrodite are brainstorming how to separate two souls that are trapped in one body.  Castor and Pollux (Zeus' twins who happen to be two souls trapped in one body) come up in conversation and Gabby recalls that one of them had created an oil that can separate them in times of battle.  Castor keeps it on his belt!  Back in Daphne's bedroom, the little girl wakes from a sleep and washes her face in front of a mirror.  Xena's reflection is seen and speaks words of consolation to Daphne and encourages her to start opening up and start talking to her dad even though they've never talked much in the past.  Meanwhile, Aphrodite and Gabrielle move Xena's body into a secluded cave to keep her safe.  But the thugs show up and threaten to take her.  Gabby manages to offend Aphrodite, who takes off yet again, and leaves Gabrielle to fight off the baddies all by herself.  She manages this with the aid of a whip-like rope and fire.  Then, once the goddess reappears, Gabby convinces her to use her powers to seal the cave.  Later, Daphne and her father are in the marketplace and Xena keeps appearing to her in buckets of water, encouraging her to talk to her dad.  Suddenly, a man's horse makes a run for it through the market.  Daphne pulls some signature Xena moves and saves the day.  This does not escape the notice of the thugs.  Her father, however, seems to have missed the whole thing.  Elsewhere, Gabrielle and Aphrodite fail to get into the club where Castor and Pollux are rumored to be inside.  Evidently, it's a theme party, and the bouncer won't let them in unless he "sees double."  We see Tharon give instructions to the thugs to kidnap Daphne.  Meanwhile, she and her father are finishing a silent meal.  Daphne begins to clear the table and is beginning to become annoyed with Xena's encouragements.  (Her father thinks she's talking to herself when she replies out loud.)  Finally, Daphne asks her father how her mother died.  But he replies harshly and doesn't even answer the question.  Daphne runs away and her father grows even more distressed at his own situation.  Back at the club, Gabby and Aphrodite show up as, I guess, Viking twin sisters.  They call themselves Bruna and Hilda in a very funny bit.  (I swear Renee O'Connor and Alexandra Tydings are both about to laugh as their horned helmets keep interlocking and moving all over the place!)  Anyway, they claim that they wrestle in oil and this gets them into the club.  Daphne is still running away and falls to the ground crying right in front of her mother's grave when the thugs show up and threaten her.  Xena tells Daphne to give her control and a fight ensues.  Daphne/Xena wins.  Meanwhile, at the club, our Viking twin sisters find Castor and Pollux.  The boys waste no time in using their own language to ask, "How about a night of crazy sex back at our place?"  Having no idea what was actually said, the girls decide to just nod in agreement.  The boys seem pleased with this!  Daphne is back in her room, elated from the fight and confessing (to her Xena-reflection) her hopes that she can stand up for herself like that someday.  The conversation ends with Xena telling Daphne that she and her dad are going to have to look after each other now.  Tharon is picking on the lead thug, in disapproval that they were beaten by a child.  "That leather clad bitch took half my face," he explains of Xena.  And, instead of going after Xena, they now plan to lure Xena to themselves.  Back at Daphne's house, Xena confesses that she never really knew her own dad, but she guesses she misses the idea of him.  She then explains how the glass is half-full: instead of being unlucky to have lost her mother, she suggests Daphne to be lucky to have her father.  "And he is very lucky to have you," she adds.  Meanwhile, still at the club, "Bruna" and "Hilda" wrestle Zeus' twins with the goal of getting Castor's oil.  Aphrodite is easily distracted during the match, however, and enjoys herself a little too much!  When the girls are finally announced winners, their costume falls apart and their true identity comes to the surface.  "Hey, you're not twins!" says one of the guys.  "We're not?!" gasps Aphrodite.  "You LIED to me!" she exclaims as she hits Gabby over the head!  Ha!  "What happened to your accents?" asks the other guy.  "...It comes and goes!" answers Gabby (with the accent).  Lol.  Then, when the referee asks what's going on, Gabrielle explains, "It's a shameless exploitation of the female form, that's what.  You should all be ashamed."  She steals the oil from Castor's belt, grabs Aphrodite's attention, and they both run for it.  Elsewhere, on some ocean shore, Daphne is fishing for dinner when she remembers that place.  Her father runs onto the scene, alarmed that Daphne is standing so close to the water.  "I fell in and mom dove in after me.  She drowned.  And it's my fault.  It's my fault she died!"  Daphne runs away yet again.  This time, her father chases her.  However, the thugs find him.  "So you're a fisherman?  Hope you don't mind if we use you as bait!"  They knock him out and carry him away.  Xena counsels Daphne in her mind when we hear Gabrielle's voice calling from nearby.  Gabby shows Xena a scroll she found at Daphne's house.  It's a ransom note....  Xena tells Aphrodite to bring her body to the castle....  Daphne's father is chained up and Tharon doesn't explain much more than the fact that he's after his daughter.  Outside the castle, Gabby walks up to the guard with Daphne saying, "My little girl is selling junior Amazon cookies."  They offer him a free sample and Xena puts the pinch on him until they get information on Daphne's father's whereabouts.  Xena unchains Daphne's father and then relinquishes control so she and her father can talk.  We learn that Daphne's father has been blaming himself for her mother's death, too.  "I don't blame you for mommy's death," she says.  And they make a kind of amends.  Gabby shows up and they try to make an escape.  But, before they leave the castle, Daphne is captured.  Gabby and Daphne's father fight the baddies.  Xena takes over Daphne's body, and is confronted by Tharon who reveals his ugly face.  They fight.  Xena wins when Tharon accidentally overthrows a swing and falls from the castle's heights.  Aphrodite appears with Xena's actual body and Castor's oil.  When the fight inside is over, lo and behold, Xena is there in the entrance alongside Daphne!  Her father thanks Xena for saving his daughter.  Back near the ocean, Xena and Daphne say their goodbyes.  Aphrodite vanishes from Gabrielle's side.  And Xena and Gabby say their hellos and walk off chatting.