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just-here-for-iolaus · 2 months

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HTLJ S1E2 "Eye of the Beholder"

The great HTLJ/XWP/YH (re)watch continues!

This episode was such a lovely treat honestly. I had a great time!

We open on about 30 (uncomfortable) seconds of heavy breathing that turns out to be Hercules running from a group of women. Man is not having it.

There's no further context to this at all before we cut to the next scene, which I thought was funny, but it's then addressed.

Herc has arrived at a tavern of some kind and tells the guy there that "King Thespius wants every one of them to have a child by [him]".

50 women. That's a lot of babies. Also damn Thespius how many wives you got to end up with 50 daughters?

Would Herc's kids be like... demi-demi-gods? One-quarter god? We didn't get to explore that with his kids before they were killed off.

Androcles walks over and asks Herc what he's gonna do about a certain cyclops. The guy he was talking to tells Androcles to give Herc a break and then tells Herc that the guy is "a wet-brain" ever since "a run in with a lion"... Herc just shakes his head and tells him it's alright and to let Androcles talk.

I liked this moment because Herc is willing to hear someone out that seemingly isn't in high esteem. Whether it's because Herc himself has not been believed about things, or because he's learned that the local "loony" is sometimes right, I don't know, but I feel like it showcases a noble character trait he has.

Turns out the cyclops protects Hera's secret vineyards - which is enough of a reason for Hercules to get involved, so off he goes.

THEN WE GET THIS CHARACTER INTRODUCED!

No name yet in this scene, but played by the same actor that played the slave I liked in one of the movies. I was sooo excited to see him haha.

He encounters a cyclops who tells him not to walk through the vineyard and then KICKS HIM INTO THE SKY. (Presumably over the vineyard instead of through it?) Surely this would kill a man.

Naturally it doesn't kill him, though, so Herc stumbles upon the little guy hanging from a tree. He asks to be helped down, but end up falling down before Herc can do anything. He's introduced as Salmoneus, the travelling toga salesman.

Salmoneus is excited to see Hercules whoop the cyclops. (Though Herc does try to discourage Salmoneus tagging along, for his own safety.)

We get a brief scene where some guys (Atreus and two others) are trying to push a boulder into the river, to get it back on its course. One of them runs off when they hear the cyclops approaching. The other guy that's not Atreus (I couldn't tell what his name was - Haymander?) picks a fight with the cyclops and gets smushed into the ground by the cyclops's fist, which is a bit grim. Atreus runs off back to town.

We cut back to Hercules and Salmoneus, and Salmoneus is trying to figure out a way to rope Herc into his toga business (surely more for his own profit). Atreus and the first guy who ran off run up to them and tell them about the cyclops, and warns them not to go that way. Salmoneus says the cyclops can't hurt Hercules, but Atreus isn't so sure. They go on to explain that they were trying to reroute the river that the village relies on (after it was rerouted to serve Hera's vineyards) and says there's no other river they can make use of instead.

Atreus: "You'd help us? Are you serious?" Herc: "When it comes to Hera, I'm always serious."

Cheesy lines like that just feel so good.

I feel like Herc's hatred of Hera makes even more sense now that she killed his family. I got his motivation before, since she had been messing with his life already, but now seeing him just be like “I’m gonna travel around making trouble for Hera” feels really satisfying lol. She's just reaping what she's sown.

We then cut to the Cyclops eating in a cave. Some guy is being a little rude to him, but we find out that he's the one paying the cyclops to be mean to the people of the village (Traycus). We also learn the villagers haven't necessarily been great to the cyclops in the past, but the cyclops seems a little torn about this job. I did immediately think "ah, okay, he's gonna end up not being so bad".

We then cut to Traycus holding a party to celebrate Hercules coming to help them. Herc seems to be having some guilt about it, since he hasn't actually done anything yet, but Atreus assures him that everyone has complete faith in him.

Thespius's daughters show up and announce they're lookign for Hercules, who immediately hides and starts crawling his way through the party to leave. The villagers don't rat him out, and Salmoneus chats up Thespius's daughters about togas as a distraction.

It was around this point that I noted how nice it was to see Hercules smiling again so much in this episode. He comes across as so good-natured when he's smiling, and he was so upset in the last episode (understandably).

The next morning there's a brief scene where the woman from Traycus that Herc briefly interacted with at the party is alone picking flowers. The cyclops comes along, and she is pretty chill about it, saying the river and vineyard belong to him and she's not bothering him, but he gets aggro so she runs off. She leaves behind her scarf and he rubs his mouth about it.

We cut back to Traycus where Salmoneus starts giving Herc a bit of a hard time.

Salmoneus: "You sir, truly are the strongest man in the world if you can, uh- (gestures crudely and laughs before deadpanning) hold fifty hearts in sway at once."

Hercules: "All they want is my body." Salmoneus: "I know the feeling."

(I took this as Salmoneus feeling himself, and I LOVE it. I could also see this as being interpreted as wanting Herc lmao.)

The woman who had been chased off by the cyclops comes back to town and Atreus alerts Hercules to what happened. She says it wasn't an attack, exactly, and explains. When Hercules asks if the cyclops had a weapon, a male villager picks a fight with him, calling him a coward for running from the daughters of Thespius the night before.

When Hercules shrugs this off and tries to continue the discussion with Atreus, the guy headbutts him! Salmoneus encourages Herc to dent the guy's head, but Herc announces he won't play this game, only to get another headbutt.

What I didn't understand was why Hercules didn't defend himself here. And I don't mean, "Why didn't he hit back" but literally, like, why didn't he block or dodge? Make any attempt to avoid getting hit, at all???

I guess two hits was enough, though, so Hercules then headbutts the other dude back (while the town seems to be cheering him on to do it!). This knocks the guy back into a wagon of hay. The fight seems to be over, so Herc helps him up, but then the guy kicks Hercules (in the nads? It's unclear.), before flirting with the woman who encountered the cyclops (who we now hear called Scilla!). She's not interested and insults him, and then Hercules punches him in the face, knocking him out cold.

Hercules announces that he "really [doesn't] have time for this nonsense" which prompted me to write in my notes "What's the rush?". There isn't really anything else that's urgent on his list that I know of. I guess he just means he wants to help the village as soon as possible.

Scilla follows him partway and is trying to find out his plan and warn him to be careful. Hercules doesn't have a plan, and clearly intends to talk to the cyclops before deciding how to proceed. He asks Scilla to wish him luck, so she does before leaving him to his task.

We then cut to Hera's secret vineyard, which of course is run by slavery????

A weird guy we saw briefly at the party in Tracyus (I looked up his name just now, and it's - I shit you not - "The Ferret") is talking with the guy who the cyclops is working for (Castor). Castor is explaining how the slaves are making the wine that Hera's chosen people will drink, and The Ferret asks if the slaves (who are stomping grapes) ever have any issues with their feet, like diseases or open wounds. A valid question, one would think, but it earns him a smack.

The Ferret then tells Castor that Hercules is coming, which he initially disbelieves, but then laughs.

The Ferret: "What's funny?" Castor: "EVERYTHING'S FUNNY, YOU IDIOT!"

Castor is convinced cyclops will do away with Hercules.

These two are so intense and weird. I commend them.

We cut back to Hercules, who hears someone following him and jumps them. It turns out to be Salmoneus.

Salmoneus: "I wanna see you do cruel and unusual things to that monster."

Herc tries to convince Salmoneus not to hold grudges, and Salmoneus tells him not to be so preachy. He tries to get him to go back to town, but he doesn't want to, so off they go together.

We cut back to Castor talking to the cyclops and questioning why he has a scarf. He kind of.. bullies him? Then tells him to kill Hercules.

Back to Herc and Salmoneus in the woods, and unfortunately Thespius's daughters have caught up to them. Herc tells Salmoneus to run, and they both do, but Salm can't keep up and the girls swarm him.

I question how the women are traveling around in these revealing, mostly-white dresses with seemingly no posessions or bodyguards or anything. Don't you get cold? What do you eat? How do you sleep?

Castor then prays to Hera and promises that Hercules is about to die and he will bring Hera his head.

My immediate thought was "Dude, you are now overpromising to Hera. You are gonna fall short and die."

Some guy shows up and says if Castor's plan doesn't work, the Executioners will.

Herc makes it to the cyclops and there's a brief fight. Hercules overpowers the big guy, who then asks him to kill him and get it over with. Herc says he'd rather find out why he's always in such a rotten mood.

We then cut to them together in the cyclops's cave. Cyclops reveals that the villagers harassed him when he was younger, and that he got tired of it after a while. I felt bad for him and wrote "This cyclops is definitely a soft-heart. I hope Herc doesn’t kill him." in my notes haha.

The cyclops reveals he doesn't work for Hera, he works for Castor. Herc says that now that the cyclops lost, Hera and Castor won't like him, suggesting he team up with the village now instead. He leaves him to think about it.

Herc finds Salmoneus on his way back to Traycus. The women didn't "hurt" him, but they did take his clothing. Herc has the decency to check that Salm is not injured before laughing.

The Ferret overhears Hercules implying that he beat the cyclops to Salmoneus, and he reports this back to Castor.

Back in Traycus, Salm regales the villagers with a completely fictitious story about the fight between Herc and the cyclops.

Hercules explains to Atreus that the cyclops isn't dead, just that Hercules had convinced him not to hurt the village anymore. He even goes so far as to say he never intended to kill the cyclops.

Scilla calls out Atreus for bullying the cyclops when he was a kid, and Atreus calls her an ungrateful wench. Scilla calls him an ass and Hercules announces he's gonna stay to help the village fix the river (because he likes the idea of Hera's grapes dying on the vine).

The daughters of Thespius show up again and Hercules gives a speech about why he won't bed them.

Hercules: "No matter what you think, I'm not opposed to pretty women. And I'm not opposed to having children, but if I'm going to become a father again, the mother will be someone that I love. And I- I don't love any of you. I mean, I like to look at you, and I might even like to talk to you if I didn't always feel like I was the fox and you were the hounds, but that's as far as my interest goes. I hope you understand."

I thought the part about Hercules feeling like prey to them was telling. I imagine most of us can relate to not wanting to feel objectified and to have our own desires completely ignored by someone who wants something from us (sexual or otherwise).

It all feels very congruent to his character as he's behaved up to this point. I also thought that this was a clever way for the writers to leave things open-ended in terms of Hercules possibly falling for someone else in the future, and to avoid making Dei's death seem like something that doesn't matter to him by having him constantly getting into meaningless flings.

I say this without knowing where the show is going of course.

We cut back to Castor giving the cyclops a hard time about losing to Hercules. He guesses that the cyclops might have changed sides, and he says he hasn't decided yet. Castor tells him that the Executioners will kill everyone, and that he's doomed. Cyclops cries into Scilla's scarf. TT_TT

The guy who visited Castor before ("Chief Executioner", apparently) summons the Executioners by whipping the group until skeletons come out and turn into warriors. The chief then kills Castor rather unceremoniously.

We cut back to the villagers trying to push that boulder from before into the river. There's a funny bit with Salmoneus again.

STOP. I love him.

After watching everyone, though, he does eventually join in, in a sort of bemused way.

Salmoneus: "The first labour I’ve ever done!"

Cyclops sees them getting that big boulder into the river and contemplates things some more. He heads over toward them, but the villagers start attacking him (despite Scilla and Hercules telling them not to). Cyclops walks off, and Scilla follows after him.

Hercules tells off all the villagers, saying they "put the evil in him". The guy from before who was headbutting him then says the cyclops is probably having his way with Scilla (how would that even work? he's a giant) and Herc says she's better off with the cyclops than him, which was a good burn. He tries to attack Hercules again but Herc finally blocks him.

Scilla finds the cave and disavows the villagers' behaviour. They have a little chat and Hercules shows up to find out about the Executioners. Cyclops offers to help Hercules fight the executioners.

They arrive back to where the others are in time to intercept the Executioners. Their weapons aren't very effective against the cyclops, and Hercules performs about as well as you'd expect.

The villagers watch and someone suggests they should help.

Atreus: I won't die helping a freak! Or anyone who sides with one. Even if it is Hercules. Salmoneus: It would be better to die with them than to stay here with eunuchs like you.

Salm rushes to help, surprising the villagers (and winning me over even more.) Didn't love the use of eunuch as an insult but-

Scilla tries to grab an abandoned sword to help, but the Chief Executioner ends up taking her hostage and dragging her away. The cyclops sees this and goes to grab a boulder. The villagers assume cyclops is going to attack them, so they flee back toward Traycus, before someone points out that the cyclops is attacking the Executioners. They're impressed that Herc and cyclops are winning.

From my notes: Cyclops bowling the executioners hahaha. Somehow this wins over the villagers? Oh because they’re WINNING? XD XD XD These people are so stupid haha.

Cyclops trips the Chief, freeing Scilla. When the Chief tries to run off, Hercules... basically throws him? at the guy... squashing him dead.

Meanwhile Salm only arrived in time to help Scilla up. XD

The villagers want to know how they can repay Hercules for his help, and he says to be nice to the cyclops but Atreus says they can't. They've tried.

I love Salmoneus too much. He'd better stay likeable.

Scilla: You know, this man did something for you and me today that you would never have done for him.

The cyclops vows to help them live in peace as long as he's treated with respect. Atreus begrudgingly agrees to "give it a try".

Salmoneus basically announces that he's going to stick with Hercules (my heart, how I wished it was true!) but then the daughters of Thespius show up and announce that they want Salmoneus now, to which he agrees. XD

This show is so goofy sometimes and I am HERE for it.

This was a really fun and feel-good episode! It was nice to see Hercules more chilled out and happy, and Salmoneus tickled me so much. Looking forward to more episodes like this if possible. :)

#htlj #hercules the legendary journeys #the great (re)watch #htlj s1e2 #i didn't die so here's the next episode

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