And we’ve made it to the end of season three! It’s general consensus that this season contained the very best of Xena Warrior Princess, what with its flashbacks and comedies and very real sense of stakes, pathos and drama. It was not without controversy (the Gab Drag) or a few duds (Forgiven, King Con) but it undoubtedly featured the very cream of the crop (The Debt two-parter, Maternal Instincts, The Bitter Suite, One Against An Army, When in Rome), all episodes that are imminently rewatchable, even decades after they first aired.
With Forget Me Not, they even managed to make a clip show episode fascinatingly relevant to the characterization and continuity of the show, and (miracle of miracles) many of their comedy episodes (Been There, Done That, The Quill is Mightier) are actually funny.
We got Gina Torres as Cleopatra, Jennifer Ward-Lealand as Boudicca and Jacqueline Kim as Lao Ma, three wonderful female guest star/characters, and even some of the less-than-stellar episodes had some interesting ideas (I’m sorry we never saw Glaphyra and Darnelle again, and there was potential to Tara even if they mishandled her introduction). And of course, the whole Hope arc, which reaches its climax (though not strictly its conclusion) here.
As it happens, this season ends with what is widely considered the worst episode, followed by a concluding two-parter that’s considered the best finale the show has to offer. That’s Xena in a nutshell: the highest heights and the lowest lows.
Vanishing Act
When a thirty-foot statue commemorating Peace is stolen from a seaside village, Autolycus fears the loss of his title of King of Thieves and recruits Xena to help him steal it back. An array of colourful costumes and disguises later, and the two are infiltrating the island fortress of Tarses, the man who killed Autolycus’s brother.
So Vanishing Act was a bit of fun, but far from the most innovative comedy they've ever done.
At least they had the sense to not only put Autolycus in the inevitable heist episode but to actually use him to justify why Xena doesn’t just go in, beat people up, and take the statue back. I suppose we'll never know why he was in Tsunami and not King Con where his presence also would have been more apt (just thinking about it, he could have convinced her of the value of taking on Titus on his own turf, and even the kissing bet could have played out as a battle of wills rather than a sleazy bet).
It was fun I guess, though rather low on the "heist" element, instead using the concept as an excuse for funny costumes and accents. I actually found Lucy to be a bit jarring in this episode: we've seen her play broad comedy before, but never as Xena. She either been playing a completely different character (Diana, Meg, Leah) or been under a spell of some kind. To see her like this didn't really feel like Xena.
Um... there’s not a lot to say about this one. As mentioned, it was really low on the "heist" angle, which is a shame because who doesn’t love a good heist? Ultimately the only clever bit was simply having Autolycus paint the side of the statue so that it looked like the wall behind it. Which doesn't really make that much sense, but whatever.
I love the rapport between Xena/Autolycus, especially since it's grown from the first time together when it was a lot of squabbling and getting on each other's nerves to Xena genuinely respecting the guy and understanding what he's trying to do. I really liked that moment when she offhandedly tells Gabrielle that it will take him "a few hours" to get out of two hundred locks, but with no doubt that he is able to do it.
The whole "dead brother" bit felt a bit shoehorned in so as to wring out some pathos (I like Autolycus, but I don't really care one way or the other about his dead and unseen brother) and I suppose that for an Autolycus-themed episode it just felt more slapstick than clever.
***
I’m taking a slight detour, as back during my original rewatch of this show, I was advised to track down two episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys to better understand some aspects of the Xena season three finale...
Armageddon Now Part I and II
At the conclusion of Maternal Instincts, we see that Hope survived her cremation and floated away as ashes before reforming into a very burned and scarred version of her preadolescent self.
Hope releases Callisto from her cave and sets her after Hercules, who is currently trying to talk a king out of waging war. Ares and Strife are plying him with weapons, but when Hercules successfully declares peace, Ares and Callisto combine forces to bring back Hercules’s doppelganger and take his pendant of hind’s blood, the only substance that can kill a god.
Hercules and Iolaus come across terrified villagers who claim that a man who looks just like Hercules is laying waste to their township, though after confronting him both Hercules and the doppelganger end up thrown through a portal into a strange limbo. (I swear I’m not making any of this up).
As Ares, Callisto and Strife celebrate the death of Hercules, Hope appears to claim the pendant of blood, easily overpowering Ares and pouring the hind’s blood onto a dagger, infusing it with god-killing powers. With it, she kills Strife, something that Ares is clearly very rattled by – so when Hope sends Callisto back in time to murder Hercules’s mother Alcmene before she gives birth to her son, Ares sends Iolaus back to the same time in order to stop it.
He finds a young Alcmene at the grave of her husband, and the two flee as Callisto appears, lobbing fireballs at them. He hides Alcmene in a barn, but while he’s distracted trying to get the dagger and the hind’s blood, Callisto successfully burns down the barn with Alcmene inside.
Now in an alternate time-line, Iolaus scrambles looking for a way to fix things, eventually ending up in Cirra where Evil!Xena reigns as a warlord, and a turn of events leads to Callisto herself being responsible for the deaths of her family.
Eventually Iolaus learns that the stone on Xena’s sceptre is called the Kronos Stone, and can use it to change time once more. He nabs it, uses it, and manages to save Alcmene from the barn, just as Hercules escapes from limbo and throws Callisto into it instead.
Whew... that’s a lot. All you really need to know is that the Hind’s Blood Dagger will come back into play in the two-part Xena finale.
See you in Xena...
This was the part-two season finale of Hercules season four, and the difference in tone between it and Xena is pronounced. I mean, wow. I was honestly shocked by how different they felt. I've watched mother-shows/spin-offs in tandem before (namely Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) but in those cases you could at least tell they were made by the same people. Here only the actors were familiar.
Ironically, despite watching these two episodes in order to get questions answered about Xena, I was left with even more questions about Hercules! Obviously this Evil!Herc has turned up before, and I assume the Hind's Blood was introduced earlier in the show...? Ditto the Kronos stone? Ah well, at least now I know where they are and what they can do.
Kevin Sorbo... yikes, he's not really the best actor is he. Most actors would relish playing an evil doppelganger, but if it wasn't for the facial hair, I don't think I would have been able to tell the difference. And what was with the whole "DISAPPOINTED!" thing? I guess it made sense in context of the show, but I was baffled!
And then the plot veered straight into Terminator territory when Hope suddenly decides to kill off Hercules and demonstrate hitherto unknown powers of time-travel. I'm sure she could have been using these earlier, but sure – let's go with this.
And as neat as it was seeing Xena back in her bad-girl persona and Iolaus trying to reason with her (along with Gabrielle in a little cameo role in order to demonstrate just how far Xena had fallen), it all rushed by too fast to get much poignancy out of it. Friend unknowingly killing beloved friend in an alternative world worked a lot better on Buffy – y’all know which episode I'm talking about.
All in all, I was left a little befuddled by the whole thing, as it just felt so different from what I'm used to seeing. Maybe the whole scenario would have worked better on Xena, not only in striking the right tone but because the characters are usually better served there. It's a little strange to me that they would choose to delve into Callisto's backstory on Hercules instead of the show she originated on, going so far as to make her the one responsible for her parents' death, but okay. Some of the pieces are now in place for the Xena finale, but... wow, that was a crazy ride.
Sacrifice Part I and II
Callisto returns from limbo through the portal last seen in Hercules’s Armageddon Now, while Xena and Gabrielle watch as a strange ritual takes place elsewhere, in which the latter’s childhood friend Seraphin is about to be sacrificed. The two women save her, only for her to be immediately kidnapped. On chasing Seraphin into the forest, Xena spots Callisto killing one of the priests and disappearing into thin air – now she assumes that the ritual had to do with a cult worshipping Callisto.
Ares warns Xena that Callisto is raising an army to conquer the world, but during their second attempt at rescuing Seraphin, they learn that she has no idea who Callisto is – the ritual is in honour of Hope and the return of Dahak to the world. Seraphin is convinced that Hope is a messiah figure, and on learning that she’s Gabrielle’s daughter, even more convinced of her beliefs.
Hope is currently preparing for rebirth in a cocoon hidden in a mountain cave, but when Xena manages to bury Callisto in rubble and destroy Hope once and for all, Ares appears and takes the cocoon to the Halls of War. As Xena and Gabrielle are attacked by braindead followers of Dahak, Gabrielle frees Seraphin and tells her to warn her daughter that Xena is coming to kill her – however, this is just a ruse so that Xena can follow her to Hope’s new hiding place.
As Xena enters the Halls to do battle, Ares grabs Gabrielle and takes her to the Fates, who tell her that if Xena kills Hope, then her own life will be forfeit. Only Gabrielle can prevent this destiny from coming to pass.
As the battle between Xena and Dahak’s disciples commences, Serafin gets injured and manages to press a blood-soaked hand to Hope’s cocoon – this is apparently enough for Hope to emerge from her slumber, looking exactly like her mother (she’s played by Renee O’Connor). Just as Xena is about to plunge her sword into her, Gabrielle tackles her to the ground, and even Callisto manages to join them as Hope takes her first steps as an adult.
Chaos ensures, and after a lengthy fight Callisto and Hope disappear together. Gabrielle explains to Xena that she prevented her from landing the killing blow because Xena will die if she successfully kills Hope, though Xena insists that that’s a price she’s willing to pay.
As Hope (who is now dressed exactly like Gabrielle) and Callisto make their way to Ares’s temple, Hope promises her companion that she’ll get her reward when the fighting is done: oblivion at the end of the hind’s blood dagger.
Even as Ares openly voices his allegiance to Dahak and goes ahead with Hope’s aggressive advances, he appears in secret to Gabrielle, reminding her of the danger Hope poses to Xena and what will happen if she tries to kill her. Realizing that Ares and Hope are an item, and doubting that Hope will keep her promise, Callisto goes to Xena and offers her help – if Xena kills her at the end of it all.
Seraphim makes a run for it as more people are ushered towards the various temples dedicated to Dahak, all intended blood sacrifices – and though Joxer tries to bar the way, he’s quickly knocked out. Hope looks for the hind’s blood dagger where Hercules hid it at the end of Armageddon Now, only to realize that it’s missing.
Gabrielle talks Xena into letting Callisto work alongside them, while elsewhere Joxer runs into Hope, and naturally believes she’s Gabrielle, giving Hope the chance to pump him for some information, a trick she pulls soon after when she takes advantage of a besieged village to impersonate Gabrielle and tries to discover where the dagger is from Xena.
Xena soon realizes what’s up, and after Hope escapes with Ares, she tells the others that Hope wants the dagger to kill the gods. As they approach the temple, Xena turns on Joxer and orders him to leave so that his bumbling doesn’t jeopardize the mission. At the campfire that night Ares appears to Xena to urge her to join forces with Hope, only for Xena to reveal that she knows Hope is pregnant with the first of six Destroyers that she plans to let loose on the world.
By the next morning all the sacrifices have arrived at the temple, with enough blood to free Dahak into the world. Callisto admits her frustration that she wasn’t able to find the dagger, and before entering the temple for the last battle, Gabrielle hears Hope calling for her. In a private moment, Hope offers her one last chance to join with her – though Gabrielle only apologizes that the poison didn’t work on her.
Callisto warns Xena that if she doesn’t go through with her promise, she intends to take it out on Gabrielle, and after some final goodbyes, they all enter the temple. The Fates watch from afar as the battle commences, and Joxer – who has been brought as a sacrifice to the temple – reveals that he’s had the dagger all along, and Xena’s banishment of him was just a ruse. He throws it to Xena, who threatens Ares with it, and Callisto takes the opportunity to blast him into the wall.
Xena advances on Hope, but just before she can make the kill, Gabrielle grabs Hope and throws them both into the abyss, extinguishing Dahak’s flame. Callisto is delighted, having finally found a reason to live again, but Xena quickly puts an end to that by driving the dagger into her heart.
In the aftermath of battle, Xena and Joxer can only stare in shellshocked silence at what Gabrielle has done...
Well, that was quite a season finale!
First of all, what I would have liked to seen more of is Dahak’s cult in general. We’ve had twenty-two episodes this season, and probably half of those have been linked to the Rift arc in one way or another, but I feel like we still don’t know that much about Dahak.
Strictly speaking, I suppose we don’t need to – after all, one evil god and his cult is probably much like another, but I still have a few questions about the nature of Hope and the powers that Dahak command. Like, was Hope truly irredeemably evil? A little more time, and it would have been nice to explore this in more detail, perhaps with Hope actually trying to be good, or at least pretending to for a prolonged period of time.
And just how self-aware were these followers of Dahak? At first it seemed that Seraphin was genuinely under the impression that Dahak was a good deity, and only later did we get the sense that she and all the others were brainwashed. In which case, how did that happen? Why did it affect them and not others? Over the course of this season I've liked the slow sense of dread that was building in the likes of Ares and the rest of the pantheon regarding Dahak, and a little bit more exploration of that might have given the threat a better sense of grounding.
Oh, and how did Hope go from the "burnt child" visage in Hercules to the gooey cocoon in Xena?
So, the first half was mainly set-up. Seraphin's introduction was a bit out of left-field, what with her being Gabrielle's never-before seen childhood friend (why not just use Lila?) who is worshipping at the cult of Dahak, and – like I said – it was hard to get a fix on her. At times she seemed to truly buy into the idea that her sacrifice to Dahak would bring about a golden age, yet later we’re given indications that she’s been brainwashed.
Still, her interactions with Gabrielle were really nice. Despite just introducing her, I believed that these two could have spent their childhoods together, and their attempts to reach each other and coerce her to the other's point of view were nicely done. When Gabrielle confessed that she was Hope's mother, I got the sense that Seraphin would turn on her – but she instead tried to work it into her argument, telling Gabrielle: "how could your child be bad?"
Which a few months ago is exactly what Gabrielle wanted to hear, and though by now she knows better, there's still a moment in which you can tell that she dearly wants to be convinced. The ploy in which she lets Seraphin go had me wondering for a bit as to her true motivations, as by this point you get the sense that Seraphin might be getting to her.
Callisto was back on form here, first with several effective scenes in which she makes herself known to Xena (silently cutting the throat of the priest before disappearing was very creepy) but Xena knowing her well enough to realize that all the worshippers and ceremonies can't possibly be about her, as what would Callisto want with such things? Her flip-flopping between Hope and Xena, determined to side with whichever of them is best able to give her oblivion with the Hind's Dagger was oddly poignant and humorous at the same time, and her drive for destruction makes perfect sense in the wake of her disappointment following Solon's death (and the foray into her past on Hercules, I guess).
Maybe a little less convincing was Ares's Face Heel Turn. Okay, I get that he's terrified and out to save himself, but I was a bit disappointed that after such a fantastic build-up with his general, in which he demands that the greatest army the world has ever seen "every general, soldier, warrior that's ever sworn allegiance to me" be mobilized with Xena at its head was immediately shutdown.
TV Tropes would call this a Negated Moment of Awesome, for he sides with Dahak as soon as he turns up. And does so off-screen at that. And his sudden interest in Hope came out of left-field. Did he know that he would get her pregnant with the Destroyer? Or were his pants ruling his head in this instance? Because I would have thought that he would have questioned Hope's sudden sex-drive, and/or known that sleeping with her would have serious consequences.
But naturally, he's got an ace up his sleeve. With a nice bit of continuity regarding "the debt" that Gabrielle owes him from Forget Me Not, he takes her to the Fates and shows her that if Xena kills Hope, Xena will die – leaving the rest up to her. What exactly was his endgame in this regard? I'm not sure, but Gabrielle taking the fall and killing Hope herself was certainly the best outcome for him (he gets to remove Dahak and keep Xena).
So it's somewhat amusing that Xena's would-be "allies" in this fight is a god just trying to keep his head above water and an immortal who just wants to be permanently killed.
Renee does a great job at playing Hope. The cocoon was suitably gross and the reveal that the daughter looks exactly like the mother was an unsettling moment, and I loved the darkness in her eyes and her slightly squeaky voice.
As I said earlier, I just wish that we'd been given more time to really explore this character. I mean, she's the daughter of a good woman and the embodiment of evil. She's newborn to the world, just discovering what it's like and what it means. She has a task to fulfil, but she clearly has her own opinions about things and a sense of curiosity about the people around – all this could have been delved into so much more. As it is, she's more plot device than character, but the writers give her just enough depth to make her tantalizing.
The best scenes were obviously when she was impersonating Gabrielle and gathering information on what her mother was like, being rather incredulous that Joxer loved her so much – and then later offering a genuine olive branch to her in the hopes that she would "be my mother." That was a great scene, mainly because you simply don't know where it's going to go. I had the feeling that narrative-wise, it would be wrong for Gabrielle to fall for her daughter's pleading, but to have her say: "I'm sorry the poison didn't work," was a great touch – not that she said it, but the way she said it: very gently and genuinely sorry.
Again, I find myself interested in Hope's worldview: on the one hand she defines what her mother did as "wrong", but is also objectively aware that love is "good". Along with the idea that many of her followers seemed to think that Hope is a benevolent goddess, I was really left wishing there was more context to all this.
So I haven't really had much to say about Xena. That's probably because there's not a huge amount of character exploration of her in this particular episode: she's very driven, clearly since this is the first time she's gone up against Hope since Solon's death, and there are a couple of moments where she seems to question Gabrielle's loyalties, but for the most part she's just doing her Xena thing. In many ways this was really Gabrielle's episode, for even though she has come to the realization that her daughter is evil (she resists temptation twice over, first with Seraphin and then with Hope herself, rejecting her to her face) she still has a choice to make in regards to Xena – and it's this choice that provides the key turning points of the episode: first in allowing Hope to be reborn, and then in shoving her into the abyss.
Oh, and Joxer. He was used pretty nicely here – a few moments of comic relief which then gets serious once Xena violently turns on him (I guessed it was a setup for Callisto's benefit, but I felt so awful for him!) The reveal that he was the one with the Hind's Dagger all along was nicely played, and his reaction to Gabrielle's death was pretty heartbreaking too.
A few interesting lines strewn here and there. Callisto's: "you should have been my child" to Hope was an unusual sentiment – I wasn't sure whether it was because Callisto sees herself as a sort of twisted mother figure to a helpless being or because she likes the idea of giving birth to a creature that would destroy the world (and thus bring oblivion?)
Still, it was interesting that she immediately dropped this sentiment and sided with Xena after realizing Adult!Hope and wasn't prepared to immediately give her the dagger. I also loved Xena's line: "may you live forever" to Callisto (interesting how Gabrielle is more or less able to put aside what happened to Petrocles whilst Xena is still rightfully bitter over Solon).
I could see the authorial fiat at work here, yet it worked well: on the one hand the writers could hardly let Callisto get what she wanted (her own death) after all that she'd done, and yet it hardly seemed right to keep her alive either. So have her do an about flip on her desire for death at the sight of Gabrielle losing her life, only for Xena to stab her to death anyway, was a great ironic twist. It also managed to be a nice reflection of her reaction to Solon's death, and yet she still managed to look grateful as Xena stabs her.
(Having written all that, I checked some of the fan sites and apparently Hudson Leick is on record as saying Callisto took advantage of Xena’s grief in the moment and deliberately goaded her into stabbing her. I mean, if that’s what the actress was going for, then hey – but I kinda like my interpretation better).
I watched the deleted scenes on the DVD and was sorry that some of the lines were snipped: the running gag of "you are nothing like your mother", Hope's declaration that her death by poison was slow and painful, and Callisto bringing up Solon in order to give Xena the closest thing to an apology she's ever likely to get. There was some good stuff there.
There were a couple of arbitrary plot rules that didn't make a lot of sense: like why was it specifically Seraphin's blood that the priests wanted? And why were they planning to sacrifice her when clearly a cut hand did the trick? And how could the priests talk to Hope in her cocoon anyway? (That is, why them and not Callisto?)
How did Ares know that Xena killing Hope would result in Xena's death? That whole thing seemed specifically designed to setup Gabrielle's sacrifice. Why release Seraphin to "go to Hope" when they'd already guessed that she would be in the Halls of War? And I also wasn't sure why they bothered to demonstrate that when Hope was injured, Seraphin seemed to "wake up" a little. Nothing seemed to come of it, though I suppose it was their way of showing that once Hope died, all the other followers would return to normal.
I also lost track of the high priest that seemed to be calling the shots (did he get killed off?) and I'm not sure what happened to Seraphin either. Oh, and I had to laugh at Ares giving instructions to his foot soldier in the middle of nowhere. I wonder how far that poor shmuck had to run before he was informed that the whole "gathering an army" thing was called off.
Oh, and the half-naked belly dancers? Gimme a break!
There was a little bit of filler here and there, what with Callisto continually getting buried beneath rock-fall and the weird zombie-followers that attacked Gabrielle and Seraphin (why do that, exactly?) but all these are just quibbles. I think this finale was pretty much everything a finale should be: a nice blend of small character moments and epic scope, as well as the culmination of all the seeds that had been strewn throughout the entire season.
***
So that was season three of Xena Warrior Princess, and it was quite a ride. In many ways it ended like it began: with weird stories about the progeny of gods and half-dressed belly dancers. This show can get so over-the-top sometimes, with story elements that seem plucked from a thousand different sources (and only seldom Greek mythology) and yet there’s an underlying method to the madness that somehow ties it altogether. Perhaps it’s Lucy Lawless herself, who clearly never saw a line of dialogue that she wouldn’t chow down, chew up, and deliver in the sincerest way possible.
There’s an alchemy to all this that reached its crescendo in season three, and though there are still plenty of highs (and lows) to come, the show never again reached the synergy and creative force of what we got here.
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