RED SONJA (2025)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

"[Hyrkania] was a place of breathtaking beauty and pristine nature, where people lived as one with the Goddess of the Earth ... it was a time of peace and harmony, until the rise of the barbarian king Anzus, who swept across the land, bringing terror and destruction wherever he went."-- Initial voiceover to RED SONJA.    

"It's knowledge that brings civilization to the barbarians."-- Draygan, haranguing a defeated ruler about the foolishness of theism.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

My first reaction to the voiceover was that writer Tasha Huo was putting some heavy symbolic baggage upon Hyrkania, the native land of heroine Red Sonja. The "Red Sonya" created by Robert E. Howard was a denizen of 16th-century Poland, so Marvel comics editor Roy Thomas probably decided that Marvel's version, "Red Sonja," would hail from Howard's quasi-Russian realm of Hyrkania. Since Marvel writers never made much of Sonja's national origins, it's likely Huo conceived the movie's opposition between a prelapsarian, paradisical Hyrkania, violated by barbarians, and evil Draygan's vision of a grand future that eliminates both gods and barbarians. 

The comics-Sonja became a woman warrior after losing just her immediate family, but this Sonja (Matilda Lutz) loses her whole village when it's ravaged by Anzus the Barbarian. She and a few others escape death in the forests, but the other refugees perish. Sonja spends the next decade or so looking for any other survivors in the vast Hyrkanian forests, accompanied only by her loyal steed Vihur. Aside from her fruitless searches, Sonja does little but worship her people's goddess Asherah (modeled on one of the fertility deities of the ancient Near East) and hone her swordfighting skills, like a blade-wielding Sheena of the Jungle. Meanwhile, her fated enemy Emperor Draygan (Robert Sheehan) has tapped the powers of strange science to conquer many realms including that of Anzus. Then Draygan decides to extend his empire into the Hyrkanian forests, along with a retinue of soldiers and some key henchpeople. The most notable of these is Annisia (Wallis Day), a swordswoman who was given her freedom after killing dozens of opponents in Draygan's gladiatorial games, but who is now haunted by the voices of those slain in the arena. Once Draygan starts clear-cutting trees and caging wild creatures, Sonja utters the classic line, "Now we have a quarrel." (Just kidding, that was from SWORD AND THE SORCERER.)   

Later Huo's script will get confused about whether Sonja should be termed a Hyrkanian or not, despite the voiceover's clear implication that she belonged to that realm. And here's where I unleash my only major "spoiler:" Huo allows this confusion because she wants to sell a "big reveal" at picture's end: that Draygan was also a survivor from Sonja's village. However, though young Draygan was enslaved by the ravagers, the boy somehow kept hold of an incomplete "Book of Secrets, taken from the village temple. While Sonja grew up in the forest, venerating the Earth Goddess, Draygan reviled all deities and used the proto-science from his Book to become a new Emperor. When Sonja gets in Draygan's path of conquest, he gets the idea that she, being a Hyrkanian, can lead him to the missing parts of his Book of Secrets, which supposedly will give him even greater power.

Since Draygan wants Sonja's supposed knowledge, the Emperor tries to break her by sentencing her to the arena. This backfires, for Sonja gathers her fellow gladiators into a fighting-force, and after a nice (albeit short) battle with a giant Cyclops, she and her allies escape. As a further touch of irony, one of the other gladiators, name of Daix, really is one of the "special Hyrkanians" both Draygan and Sonja have been looking for. This development leads to an equally ironic resolution of the Book-subplot, which I'll pass over. Annisia and Sonja duel just twice before both Draygan and his forces are defeated by Sonja and her warriors. After much carnage, I'll state that the concluding face-off between the three opponents isn't like any other sword-and-sorcery film I've ever seen.

It's fair to argue that Huo and director W.J. Bassett may have cadged their dialectic from a lot of earlier, non-Howardian sources, particularly the 2009 AVATAR, with its opposition between nature-worshipping primitives and materialistic, acquisitive invaders from Earth. Yet in one respect RED SONJA plays fair with its dialectic more than AVATAR does, in that SONJA addresses (to revise Ingmar Bergman) "the Silence of Goddess." Comics-Sonja lives in a world of demonstrable gods and sorcery. But there's no real magic in the SONJA world-- only scientific devices and some nonhuman species. Both theist Sonja and atheist Draygan complain that Asherah does not answer their appeals, and the Goddess only speaks to Sonja once, when the wounded heroine hovers between life and death. So is Asherah real, or is Draygan right, that all gods are just conjured from the imagination?

Now I've written so much about SONJA's plot and theme that one might think it's some feminist lecture against toxic masculinity, like the execrable 2020 BIRDS OF PREY, to name another adventure-flick with both a writer and director from the XX side of the gene pool. SONJA might not be a great adventure-movie like the classic 1982 CONAN, but it shows the same excellent bloody-mindedness seen in the early Kathryn Bigelow films. Star Matilda Lutz, despite standing only a little over 5'6", displays a tigerish quality foreign to other Sonja-actresses (all two of them). If all one wants from a barbarian fantasy is throats slashed and guts stabbed, SONJA ought to fulfill those needs. I've avoided looking at other reviews, but if it's true that most of SONJA's reviews have been negative, they must have all come from people who never saw a really bad S&S film.      

GUARDS OF SHAOLIN (1984)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Just as this streaming flick was coming to an end, and I was thinking the film's alternate title NINJA VS. SHAOLIN GUARD was thoroughly unjustified, the four Shaolin monk heroes get attacked by a bunch of black-masked, black-clad fighters who throw shurikens and some sort of fiery powder. Still, the emphasis of the story (such as it is) is clearly upon the four stalwarts, not their enemies, so I'll go with the streaming title.

The GUARDS-- billed as First Brother (Alexander Lo Rei), Second Brother, Third Brother, and Fourth Brother-- are charged by the dying abbot of their temple to take a "Golden Sutra" to another temple. The abbot was killed by another monk at the temple, addressed as "Uncle" (though probably none of these characters are related to one another). The method of his death is one of the few things that stand out about this Taiwanese-South Korean chopsocky: Uncle's minions attack the abbot, and one of them, a woman in drag (Jin Nu-Ri), bares her tattooed breast, distracting the monk and causing his death.

The four monks head out on their journey, but with the exception of Fourth Brother, the comedy relief, they're all but identical. Ah Mei, Fourth Brother's girl-cousin from his former village, happens across them and invites them to her father's estate. However, Uncle's minions, who theoretically ought to be pursuing the four guardians, somehow decide to run ahead of the heroes and attack Ah Mei's home, killing her dad and all his retainers. This makes the young woman embittered against the Brothers, and that's a pain for Fourth Brother, who harbors a desire to marry her. However, the girl has nowhere else to go and continues with the heroes on their trek.

The rest of the film is just one attack after another, including a pointless encounter with some very solid ghosts (or maybe zombies) who pop out of their coffins and menace the stalwarts. Up until the final confrontation between First Brother and Uncle, only one battle stands out: one of the bros has a nice fight with a female opponent, possibly the same one who did the "boob-fu" earlier. This fight may have confused the streaming reviewer, since he wrote that the monks were joined by a "female fighter"-- and Uncle's minion is the only kung-fu honey, since Ah Mei can't fight. One reviewer said that Ah Mei falls for First Brother, but the film didn't bother developing the romance-angle after bringing it up in the first place. GUARDS is not the worst of the worst, but it's pretty unremarkable.

SAMURAI REINCARNATION (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*                                                                                                                          The Japanese book on which this film is based translates to "Reincarnation from Hell" in English, so I assume someone threw in the word "samurai" for marketing purposes. Yet the original title is just as fitting, since at base REINCARNATION is a horror film, in which the "monster" is the main character.                                           

 The film begins with the aftermath of the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637, following the slaughter of thousands of Japanese Christians by the reigning Tokugawa Shogunate. Dying, the Christians' leader Amakusa Shiro (Kenji Sawara) bemoans the failure of his god to succor the believers, and he swears allegiance to the powers of hell to gain vengeance. There's one subtitled line that suggests he may have sold his soul to some Christian devil, though it's more likely that Amakusa simply incarnates the native Japanese belief that ghosts, when they cannot move on from the regrets of their lives, will manifest as malignant spirits. To gain vengeance upon the Shogun Ietsuna and all those who served him, Amakusa recruits a veritable "Avengers" made up of Japanese historical figures who became legends. This group of evil spirits includes the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi-- probably the figure best known to non-Japanese audiences-- and the warrior-monk Hozoin Inshun, whose Buddhist outlook was challenged by his sadistic feelings toward women. Arguably the recruit who gets the most dramatic attention is Hosokowa Gracia, one of the Christian believers killed during Shimabara. Her own lord deserted Gracia for a mistress because her Christian beliefs interfered with her duties as a wife, so in her "angry ghost" persona, Gracia becomes a seductress who inserts herself into the bedroom of the Shogun.                                                                       

As in many horror films where the monster methodically stalks several victims, much of the plot of REINCARNATION revolves around Amakusa and his minions setting up the lords of Tokugawa for annihilation. The ghosts aren't shy about involving the peasants either, for at one point they curse the farmers' crops, so that once more the lords are forced to cope with rebellion. The demons' main opposition stems from the Yagyu family. Patriarch Tajima Yagyu (Tomisaburo Wakayama of LONE WOLF AND CUB fame) uses an enchanted sword to destroy the monk Inshun. But then Tajima dies, and Amakusa beguiles him into reincarnating as an angry ghost despite Tajima's attempts to die without regrets. Amakusa's main foe is Tajima's son Yagyu Jubei (Sonny Chiba), another historical figure who has taken on legend-status via fictional elaborations. A swordsmith forges for Jubei a sword capable of "killing even God," and after a prolonged struggle Jubei brings Amakusa's reincarnation to a halt if not a permanent end.                                                   

  Though REINCARNATION sports some bloody sword-work, the story emphasizes the dramatic conflicts more than the physical ones. I found the drama good though not great, perhaps somewhat hampered by reiterating the way the ghosts seek to hold on to negative aspects of their former lives just as an excuse not to die completely. Tajima, as mentioned, tries to expire with a clear mind, but he's tempted to reincarnate by wondering if he could beat his son Jubei in a sword-match. Even after Gracia has seduced the Shogun, she angers him by muttering in her sleep the name of the lord she once loved in life. Jubei manages to defeat Musashi, Tajima and Amakusa one after the other, and the reign of the angry ghosts is ended. As I am not an expert on Japanese history and legendry, I don't know how much real history appears in the interaction in these characters, but given the involvement of the supernatural here, I would tend to think the fiction predominates, as much as it would in a western where Jesse James teams up with Wild Bill Hickock and Billy the Kid.       

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS: SEASON SIX (2000-2001)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

The final season of XENA, while keeping up a decent level of quality, becomes rather rootless in its more up-for-grabs mythology. I'd have to say that, if the main point of Seasons Five and Six was to give Xena's daughter her own quasi-Christian place in the Xenaverse, the show-runners flopped in that endeavor, and it didn't help things that the time-jump mitigated against using any of the mortal personages from the defunct HERCULES show. Like Nietzsche, who gets some play once again, they killed the gods and had nothing to put in their place.

COMING HOME (F)-- The writers don't bother to explain how Xena, Gabrielle, Ares and Eve get back to Earth from Olympus; fan-commentary attributes their transition to help from surviving god Aphrodite. Wherever they end up, some time evidently passes, for the three females are on their own with no comment about the disposition of Ares, who sacrificed his godhood to save the women, due to his investment in Xena. Then the heroines are summoned to Amazon territory to help the tribe repel an invading force. The big catch is that the invaders are under the command of mortal Ares, pretending that he's still a war-god. He's also being manipulated by the Furies, who desire both to become the new gods of the world and to avenge the slaughter of the old. A further complication is that one of the Amazons recognizes Eve as the former Livia, who slaughtered many of the warrior-women for Rome. In addition to keeping Eve safe, Xena must find a way to stop Ares without killing him. Her method of doing this, and of slaying the Furies with her god-killing power, is pretty far-fetched even for the Xenaverse. But Xena's bare-knuckle brawl with Ares is fun, as are her conflicted feelings about the former war-god.

THE HAUNTING OF AMPHIPOLIS (P)-- For the first time since being time-jumped, Xena and Gabrielle, accompanied by Eve once again, seek out Xena's home town, to see what's become of the locals and of Xena's mother Cyrene. The city's become a ghost town, and a surviving local claims that everything in Amphipolis became cursed by evil magic. For some reason the townsfolk accused Cyrene and executed her, but with no result. In the clouds above Michael and Raphael, two of the angels encountered by the heroines in FALLEN ANGEL, survey all that happens but vouchsafe no advice. After many encounters of the spooky kind, Xena learns that the source of the evil magic is Mephistopheles, whom none of the heroines have known about except indirectly, through his influence upon Callisto in IDES OF MARCH. He's apparently chosen to victimize Amphipolis not only to revenge himself on Xena but also to create some sort of beachhead for a war on Heaven. The demon, not content with also possessing Gabrielle, tells Xena she can't kill him without taking his place in Hell. Xena kills him anyway, but in the next episode she finds a way around her dilemma. Cyrene stays dead.

HEART OF DARKNESS (F)-- For a pagan Greek who barely knows anything more than the basics about the Jude0-Christian mythos, Xena seems to have some advanced research in order to figure out how to con a prideful angel-- that is, Lucifer himself-- into taking her place as the ruler of hell. Superficial though the myth-making is, it is fun to see Xena pulling one of her "long cons," seducing Lucifer into committing the seven deadly sins so that he'll be consigned to the throne of Hell. Eve registers a meager protest against using evil to escape evil, and Virgil, absent in the previous two episodes, is worked into the story to no great purpose.

WHO'S GURKHAN? (F)-- As if to make up for Season Four's horrendous TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE, this episode successfully interbreeds Xena's peplum adventure with a detective story. Xena, Gabrielle, Eve and Virgil visit Gabrielle's home town. They meet Gabrielle's sister Lillah and learn that eight years previous, Gabrielle's niece Sarah (whom of course Gabrielle's never met) was carried off by the slave-traders of a mysterious, rarely-seen warlord, Gurkhan. The slavers also slew Gabrielle's mother and father, so the usually peaceful heroine wants vengeance, and Xena guarantees to give her the opportunity. Eve is sidelined while Xena and Virgil arrange for Xena to be sold as a "harem wife" to Gurkhan. Gabrielle horns in against Xena's advice, and the two heroines must discern the identities of both Gurkhan and Sarah while figuring out a way to liberate the female slaves. Gabrielle can't take the warlord's life in cold blood but Xena arranges for his death through a trick. Sarah and Lillah are presumably re-united but not seen again.

LEGACY (F)-- Maybe Eve and Virgil escort Sarah back to Greece, because X and G are still hanging around North Africa for no particular reason. They rescue a band of nomads from a raider-attack, and the leader of the nomads, the chieftainess Karina, doesn't believe the heroines when they give their names. X and G learn that in the past 25 years they've become legendary figures thanks to the good press of Gabrielle's scrolls. Once the nomads are convinced, they welcome the heroines into their camp, and also reveal that the various quasi-Arab tribes are being menaced by invading Romans. Just as the episode seems to be shaping up to one more "Beat the Romans" routine, Gabrielle accidentally slays the innocent son of a nomad chieftain, and all of the nomads want her head. Naturally, Xena manages to channel all that anger against the Roman incursion. While neither LEGACY or the previous North African episode are outstanding as stories, the costume department excels in capturing the exoticism of the Middle East.

THE ABYSS (G)-- Like THE PRICE, this episode is something of a "defense of the ways of war." Xena and Gabrielle are back in Greece and have somehow hooked up once more with Virgil. They get waylaid by the Djindar, a made-up tribe of white cannibals, and like the Horde in the original PRICE episode this tribe seems utterly devoid of humanity. Both Virgil and Gabrielle are captured to become entrees, and Gabrielle is explicitly undone because she second-guesses her moves after killing an innocent in LEGACY. Xena manages to wipe out most or all of the whole tribe, which is rather refreshing in light of the reformation of the Horde's rapacity. Virgil survives but gets written out of the mythos.

THE RHEINGOLD/THE RING/ THE RETURN OF THE VALKYRIE (P)-- Apparently the extirpation of the Greek gods moved the writers to go poaching on Nordic preserves, but with dire results. This three-parter cudgels together aspects of two unrelated epics, BEOWULF and THE NIBELUNGENLIED, and on top of that it's also another, "Current Xena must undo the acts of Bad Past Xena." Modern Xena tries to leave Gabrielle out of Beowulf's summons to the Far North, where Bad Past Xena created a monster called Grendel from the spirit of a good Valkyrie. Apparently after Bad Xena's adventures in Chin, but before she united again with Borias and conceived Solan, the evil warrior princess rode into the Northern lands and met Odin, hanging himself on a tree due to his Schopenhaurean despair. Xena gives the King of the Norse Gods a kind of "Spake Zarathustra" rap and he recruits her for his valkyries. Covetous Xena steals the Rheingold and forges it into a ring, able to grant great power, but only to those who renounce love. Past-Xena is forced to leave the Ring on the finger of the monster Grendel, and then Present-Xena is summoned to keep the ring's power from falling into the hands of Odin, now turned into a corrupt Nietzschean. Oh, and when Gabrielle follows Xena, the young heroine befriends a Norsewoman named Brunnhilda, but Brunnhilda wants to be more than just friends. Gabrielle is put into the position of the Brunhild of the NIBELUNGENLIED, where she's surrounded by protective flames-- but it's not no scuzzy MALE champion who releases Gabby from durance vile. Messy though the scenario is, Xena does undo her past evil and doesn't bring about any "twilight of the gods" with the Norse deity best known for the story.

OLD ARES HAD A FARM (F)-- Stop me if you've heard this one, but Xena and Gabrielle walk into a bar, and-- beat up on everyone there. Of course, all the occupants are cutthroats in the service of warlord Gasgar, all united to collect a bounty on the head of now-mortal Ares. X and G take him to an abandoned farmhouse where Xena's family once lived, near a town called Ipeiros, nowhere near Amphipolis. The ladies help Ares fix up the run-down place, which allows the three performers to put aside sword-and-sorcery for something akin to a Li'l Abner routine. The menace of the warlords is resolved with barely any violence at all, and Ares remains on the farm in the end, though he appears in other, more martial episodes later. A fair amount of the comedy is repetitive but I rate the "bed scene" as one of the ten best comic scenes on the show.

DANGEROUS PREY (F)-- Former Amazon Marga is slain by soldiers in the service of warlord Morloch, who's something of a "Most Dangerous Game" fan who likes to hunt human prey Xena and Gabrielle seek to organize the Amazons against their enemy, but Xena literally has to put the contentious Varia on a short leash. Xena and Varia end up being hunted by Morloch, who captures Varia and places her in a death-trap broadly similar to the one in CALLISTO. Morloch's one of the few male foes able to go toe-to-toe with Xena, so the way she defeats him is a slight surprise. Gabrielle hardly has anything to do here.

THE GOD YOU KNOW (F)-- X and G journey to Rome, informed that Xena's daughter Eve has been defying the current Roman emperor, the lubricious Caligula. But the heroines have been preceded by Ares. He reveals that his sister Aphrodite, unbalanced by the end of the cosmic force of "war," has fallen under Caligula's thrall, and that he may for some reason be able to siphon the godhood out of her. Xena is encouraged by the angel Michael to use her god-killing power to slay Caligula, but she must also figure out some way to liberate Aphrodite. However, Xena doesn't move fast enough to suit Michael, who moves to slay Aphrodite so that she won't make Caligula a full god and thus interfere with the spread of the Eli religion. Xena stops Michael and almost kills him, but the power of Eli removes Xena's god-killing power and Michael disappears. Still, Eli's mission is imperiled because Caligula completes his godhood-sapping, so that he becomes a god and Aphrodite becomes mortal (though she regains her memory). Xena, this time with no help from Heaven, must find a way to slay Caligula, less for the Eli-cult and more to preserve Eve's life. It's a lively episode but undermined by confused plotting.

YOU ARE THERE (F)-- Though this is mostly a comedy episode-- as well as the one that most overtly broaches the subtext question-- it's not nearly as silly as most funny XENA episodes. TV reporter Nigel and his unseen cameraman appear, with no fear whatever of anachronism, in Xena's world, and some scenes even depict Nigel's guests in a TV studio being interviewed. Nigel has heard rumors that Xena is planning to attack Odin to obtain the Golden Apples of Immortality, and the reporter seeks to find out why, theorizing that she hopes to return Ares to Olympus and to reign at his side. Xena won't reveal her plans, and Nigel pursues other interviewees with his aggressive style, with some amusing results, as when peace-minded Eve ends up punching him out. Since it's germane to the general evolution of the storylines, I'll give the game away: Xena does get an immortality-apple and re-god Ares-- but she does the same for Aphrodite, because the forces of love and war must have cosmic incarnations in order to spread their influence to mortals. 

PATH OF VENGEANCE (F)-- No good deed goes unpunished. Though the season started with mortal Ares making war on the Amazons, his first move upon regaining his godhood is to beguile the women warriors into becoming his new pawns, launching an offensive against Rome. But the new emperor (not named, though implicitly Claudius) has liberalized his treatment of the Eli-cult, which may signal a shift in the Xenaverse in the real world's transformation of pagan Rome into a Christian nation. On the emperor's order a Roman detachment escorts Eve to make peace with the Amazons. However, new queen Varia not only refuses peace thanks to the blandishments of Ares, she decides to try Eve for the murder of many Amazons, including Varia's sister. Gabrielle tries to challenge Varia's queendom in a big fight, but she loses, and that leaves it to Xena to sway Varia's vengeful heart and to foil Ares' plans. Eve ends her dubious career on the show by deciding to drop whatever progress she's made in Rome and begin proselytizing in Chin.

TO HELICON AND BACK (F)-- Call this one "the evil that gods do lives after them." Of the many gods Xena slew to protect Eve, one was Artemis, and now her half-mortal son Bellerophon (apparently not related to the guy who mastered Pegasus) is out for blood. His desire to kill Xena and Gabrielle is logical enough, but his main gambit is using a small army of masked men and fire-blasting catapults to attack the Amazons commanded by Varia. The script claims that Bellerophon got cheesed off because the warrior women deserted the worship of Artemis and so made it easier for Xena to kill the goddess-- which may be the flimsiest excuse the show ever devised. Since the enemy soldiers capture Varia, Gabrielle takes charge of a force to attack Bellerophon's fortress, but the Amazons are outgunned, and the resulting carnage provides the show's most harrowing images of war since the first season's IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? There's a subplot about Varia being used as Bellerophon's catspaw, but it's insubstantial. Inevitably Xena faces off against Bellerophon, albeit reluctantly.

SEND IN THE CLONES (P)-- It's another one of those stupid clip-shows that no viewer anywhere misses. In 2001, three TV-watching nerds work with scientist Alexis (Clair Stansfield) to create and revive clones of both Xena and Gabrielle. They succeed, resulting in lots of nerd-jokes and "fish out of water" humor. The nerds want modern versions of Xena and Gabrielle to battle modern forms of evil, but Alexis, who is a new incarnation of Alti, just wants Xena to serve her in a 21st-century reign of evil. Only a lively hand-to-hand beween Xena and Alti-- usually seen battling with shaman-fu-- saves the episode from being as bad as ATHENS CITY ACADEMY.

LAST OF THE CENTAURS (F)-- Frankly, I hadn't seen the centaurs and Amazons together in a story for so long, I didn't remember how things were between the two tribes, nor what role Xena's old lover Borias played in the rapprochement with the two groups (though the viewer gets a belated summation late in the episode). But the ghost of deceased Amazon Ephiny beseeches the help of X and G to help her son, the Centaur Xenan, against the warlord Belach. Belach, it seems, is the now-grown son of Borias, and he hates centaurs partly because his father revered them. Bad Xena was partly responsible for Belach's negative opinion of Borias, since the warrior princess stole Belach's father from his mother. This is a nice little melodrama with a little less action than the average episode.

WHEN FATES COLLIDE (P)-- Though the Fates were perfectly willing to rewrite all of reality to benefit Xena in REMEMBER NOTHING, they don't like it so much when the shade of Julius Caesar escapes Tartarus (thanks in part to Xena having killed Hades) and redoes the loom of Fate for his own purposes. This time, the evil emperor doesn't betray Xena as he did in DESTINY, but he makes her his consort in Rome. Yet, apparently to hedge his bets, Caesar also makes common cause with Alti. But of course this playwright named Gabrielle comes mooching around. It's a pretty confused plot and of course everything goes back to the original cosmos, with no new insights into character or history. There's a small reward in that Ted Raimi gets to play a non-Joxer support character.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS (F)-- While X and G are on their way to Thebes to drop off the Helmet of Hermes-- no reference as to who gave the object to them or who they're giving it to-- Gabrielle wonders what kind of birthday gift she'll get from her warrior-BFF. The heroines interrupt a sacrificial ritual, in which "zealots" try to execute a young woman named Genia (possibly named for Classical sacrifice-victim Iphigenia). However, once liberated, Genia claims that no matter what the heroines do, she plans to sacrifice herself to her god. In order to dispel the young woman's foolish devotion, X and G take Genia to Aphrodite's temple, so she can see how superficial gods are. All four of them end up going to Thebes, and there the warlord Ferragus seeks to steal the Helmet, since it confers on its wearer the power to fly. The high points of this comedy episode are the jousting between X and G, though there's a "serious" meaning in terms of getting Genia to choose her own path.

SOUL POSSESSION (P)-- Since it's all about the modern-day Xena-cultists finding a lost Gabrielle-scroll, shouldn't they have called it "scroll possession?" Anyway, the new scroll purports to tell an interstitial story following Season 4's SIN TRADE, Xena is convinced by a vision that Gabrielle is still alive, and she tries to convince the mourning Joxer of this fact. But Xena doesn't know where to start looking, and Ares offers to find the supposedly living Gabrielle-- if Xena will marry him. Xena goes along with the charade, says the scroll, only to find out what Ares already knows about what happened to Gabrielle and Hope (who was carrying Ares' child). However, to gain that intel, Xena negotiates a deal where Ares must leave the two heroines in peace in the ancient world, but the scroll binds her to the war-god in a future life. Thus, back in the 21st century, Ares, still hanging around since being released in XENA SCROLLS, claims the binding scroll, but has to fight the current incarnation of Xena in the body of Harry. Ares switches the soul of Xena into the body of Alice, and that of course leads to his final defeat. It's the last of the silly-pants episodes, but is bearable for giving Ted Raimi one more outing.

A FRIEND IN NEED PTS 1-2 (F)-- I guess the show-runners must have felt they'd wrapped up all the extant plot-threads in the Xenaverse, because for the show's finale, they decided to remake THE DEBT. The remake substitutes some Japanese people who were done dirty by "Bad Xena," in between her part of the DEBT II narrative and her segment of ADVENTURES IN THE SIN TRADE, which begins with Bad Xena leaving the Far East for the Siberian North. Perhaps this "Bad Xena" has been softened by the influence of Lao Ma, even though the former has reunited with Borias to continue their depredations. Bad Xena attempts to ransom Akemi, a young Japanese noblewoman, but despite her mercenary motives, the would-be evildoer becomes enthralled by Akemi's graceful spirit. Akemi guides Xena into fighting a duel to acquire a magical katana which will later become important to the story.

"Current Xena" and her battling bard buddy are summoned to Japan by a monk trading on the name of the long deceased Akemi. Together the heroines save a burning city from the onslaught of a Japanese warlord. But Xena's saving of the city now doesn't erase her past actions.

Back to Bad Xena: on the way to the house of Akemi's father to collect a ransom, the persuasive young woman also talks Xena into teaching her the nerve pinch. When Akemi confronts her father Yodoshi, she kills him with the pinch in vengeance for various unspecified crimes. Then Akemi commits hari kari, forcing the reluctant warrior princess to finish Akemi off to end her suffering. However, the killing of Yodoshi makes his evil spirit into an angry ghost, and after Bad Xena accidentally sets the city on fire, the Yodoshi-ghost collects all the slain spirits and prevents them from going on to the afterlife.  

Good Xena's only way of battling Yodoshi is to let herself be slain, though with the plan of her mortal being revived in the nick of time. Xena's spirit meets that of Akemi on some astral plane controlled by the Yodoshi-ghost, and soon Xena also meets, and is humbled by, Yodoshi, though she only feigns to give in for good. Gabrielle and a ghost-hunter, Harukata, join Xena on the spirit plane but neither they nor Xena can slay Yodoshi. Before Harukata expires, he tells the heroes to prevent Yodoshi from accessing "the Fountain of Power." The good guys are not able to prevent the ghost-warrior from upping his power-level, and Yodoshi consumes the spirit-form of his rebellious daughter. But Gabrielle is able to get some of the fountain-water to Xena, so that she can fight and defeat Yodoshi on his level. The downside is that even though Xena frees the slain spirits from Yodoshi's gullet, she can't allow Gabrielle to resuscitate her body or the spirits won't be able to enter "a state of grace." So Xena sacrifices herself for this belatedly mentioned atrocity and Gabrielle vows to pursue the life of a warrior woman alone, with Xena still united to her in a spiritual sense.

The final XENA episode is colorful and action-packed, and the performances are typically soulful. But despite fair potential, Akemi and her evil father lack the symbolic resonance of their rough analogues from THE DEBT, Lao Ma and Ming Tien. And the make-work feel of the Japanese atrocity undermines the hypothetical sacrificial culmination of Xena's life.

Though my mythicity-ratings of the XENA episodes matter only to me, my argument that most seasons had on average four-five stories with strong myth-discourse demonstrates that the producers and writers had largely exhausted their creativity by Season Six. I may expound on a separate ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVE as to the overall significance of this fan-favorite (but critically overlooked) TV series.

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS: SEASON FOUR (1998-99)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

Though Season 3 had some moments of mythic genius, there was always a limit on much brilliance could be worked into a weekly, hour-long television series. Season 4 places that limitation on greater display, and there's conspicuously less employment of Greek myth than in previous seasons.

ADVENTURES IN THE SIN TRADE, PTS 1-2 (P)-- Xena, having seen Gabrielle and Hope plunge into a fiery abyss, believes her cherished friend dead. But the god Hades claims that Gabrielle has not appeared in Tartarus. Since Gabrielle became an Amazon Princess, Xena theorizes that her spirit may be in a different underworld, to which all Amazons go. This idea leads the heroine to return to Siberia, where she and her warlord-lover Borias plied their raiding-trade following their adventure in Chin, and where they engaged in battles with Northern Amazons. In addition to experiencing flashbacks to Old Xena's misdeeds, Current Xena must liberate the spirits of slain Amazons from limbo and face a new/old enemy, the shamaness Alti (Clair Stansfield). Despite a lot of mystical blather, SIN feels artificial, like the writers culled a lot of info from monographs on Siberian shamanistic practices. Though Alti would make more appearances, she never registered as anything but a routine world-conqueror.

A FAMILY AFFAIR (F)-- A vision causes Xena and Joxer to seek out Gabrielle's home town. They apparently find their late companion hale and hearty, but there's also some sort of big monster in the area. Xena's suspicions are duly aroused, and sure enough, "Gabrielle" is really her lookalike daughter Hope, and the monster is the creature Hope conceived by Ares. (I guess falling through a fiery abyss doesn't interfere with a smooth delivery.) Yet somehow Gabrielle also appears on the scene, none the worse for wear, even though she's not the spawn of a demon-god. The happy reunion is sidelined in favor of the destruction of Hope and her child, and this concludes the Dahak storyline for the series in a very underwhelming manner.

IN SICKNESS AND IN HELL (P)-- Despite Gabrielle's returning from death, the first thing on the writers' alleged minds was to afflict her with foot fungus and give Xena a case of lice-- all while repelling an invasion of Scythians. Oh, and Argo deserts Xena for a very stupid reason. The level of humor is such that the scriveners don't even come up with any good lines or slapstick routines for Joxer.

A GOOD DAY (F)-- Julius Caesar and Pompey pit their forces against one another, and once again Xena shows forbearance, trying not to kill her old enemy but to keep the forces of the two Roman enemies from devastating Greece. Gabrielle has an atypical scene donning armor to fight with the Greek soldiers, and Xena engages in a three-way sword-battle with Caesar and Pompey, both of whom survive to menace the Xenaverse again later.

A TALE OF TWO MUSES (P)-- A more honest title might have been "Bootloose," since it really is just a Xenaverse reworking of FOOTLOOSE. The heroines meet again (for the last time) with punk girl Tara, who reveals that the magistrate of her home town has banned all dancing. Xena and Gabrielle enlist Autolycus to trick the townspeople into kicking out the mean magistrate and embracing their inner dance fever.

LOCKED UP AND TIED DOWN (F)-- And back we go to "Guilt-Obsessed Xena." The lawmen of an unnamed town arrest Xena for having slain a native, Thalassa, during the bad old days. Xena confesses her guilt and allows herself to be sentenced to a women's prison on the dismal Shark Island. While Gabrielle seeks to find some way to effect her friend's release, Xena makes a vital discovery: Thalassa is not only alive, she's the commandant of Shark Island. That makes Xena technically innocent of the crime, and that allows her to start busting heads. It's not a great story but Guilty Xena is generally preferable to Wack-a-Doodle Xena.

CRUSADER (G)-- FINALLY, an episode that clicks on all cylinders. As a result of her shamanistic experiences, Xena had a vision that Gabrielle would die. Then the two heroines run across another female crusader, Najara (Kathryn Morris), who leads a small coterie of warriors against evildoers and who appears to be as skillful a fighter as Xena. In many ways, Najara seems to be "Xena without all the negative baggage," in that she's totally devoted to a vision of goodness she calls "The Light," and she shows a certain attentiveness to Gabrielle that just falls short of being in "subtext territory." Yet, to prevent Gabrielle's death, Xena persuades her BFF to join Najara's crusade instead. Then Xena learns that Najara's devotion to Good may not be all that great, and it's sword-slingin' time again.

PAST IMPERFECT (P)-- Xena tells Gabrielle about the vision of the latter's death; Gabrielle agrees to be on guard. They attempt to protect an embattled city against an advancing army, and Xena realizes that the enemies are using tactics that Xena herself used as a raider and warlord. The narrative becomes somewhat confused by flashbacks to the days of Old Xena and her lover Borias, but they're necessary to the revelation that the enemy forces are being led by someone Old Xena knew in the Bad Days. 

THE KEY TO THE KINGDOM (F)-- This time there's no Gabrielle at all, and Xena barely appears, though there's plenty of Lucy Lawless as Xena's conniving lookalike Meg. Meg, Joxer and Autolycus team up to swipe a key to a great treasure-- but the key is an enchanted infant. Call this one THREE DORKS AND A BABY, but it does rate a little higher on the mythicity scale for expounding on Meg's complicated past. And at least Autolycus is once more involved in thievery. But Joxer's participation in a Big Heist doesn't ring quite so true.

DAUGHTER OF POMIRA (G)-- Once again the warrior women fall afoul of The Horde, whose proper name is "Pomira." This episode is somewhat indebted to the classic film THE SEARCHERS, but the writers manage to give the conflict its own identity. After encountering a small Pomiran hunting party, X and G behold a female with atypical blonde hair, and they later realize that the girl was abducted from the nearby Greek town. X and G rescue the girl from the Horde tribe, only to learn that the female, who calls herself P'Lee, has no memory of being a Greek and considers herself Pomiran. In fact, P'Lee, who still speaks her birth-language, justifies her people's warlike ways, upgrading them from senseless marauding Mongol-types to something more like Native Americans, defending themselves from incursions. Ironically, the Greek most hostile to P'Lee and her people ends up providing a means for Xena to stave off a Horde attack.

IF THE SHOE FITS (F)-- Despite the title, this parody of "Cinderella" never gets to the part about the glass slipper. Little princess Alesia runs away from her widowed father when he remarries, because Alesia's jealous of sharing her daddy with another female. Alesia initially takes refuge with Aphrodite, and then gets taken in by Xena, Gabrielle, and Joxer, even though they're in the middle of trying to rein some local warlords. On the way back to the kingdom of Alesia's dad, everyone takes turns telling Alesia fractured fragments of the Cinderella story, some of which are moderately funny. Aphrodite is deeply offended that Alesia chooses a bunch of mortals over her company, but only makes a minimum of trouble this time.

PARADISE FOUND (G)-- The title is possibly a play on the title of a Milton poem, "Paradise Regained." The heroines journey toward India in the unexplained belief that they can find insight into Xena's earlier vision in that land. (Were all of the Greek oracles busy, or did Xena piss off Apollo in some undisclosed adventure?) They pass into a barren mountain range, and when they make camp, Gabrielle brings up a common philosophical brain-teaser: is Xena good simply by doing good, or is it possible her good deeds are a means for exercising her penchant for violence?

They pass into a lush paradise with a beautiful palace, and in the latter they encounter a spiritual yoga-master, Aiden, and his one servant, Gar. It's not clear how Gabrielle heard about yoga before this, but she's eager to accept Aiden's tutelage, while Xena expressly says that yoga is not for her. Aiden shows that he's mastered his mental powers so greatly that he conjure objects out of nothingness, which foregrounds the later discovery that the entire paradide is his creation. While Gabrielle becomes more calm and focused in "paradise," Xena finds herself distracted and irritable. Xena then learns from Gar that the man was once a bandit-leader, and that Aiden slew all of the other bandits by siphoning the goodness out of them, though he couldn't quite do so with Gar. While Gabrielle's spirit in in thrall, Xena comes to blows with Aiden, her belief in her own evil nature proving a benefit, so that she can fend off many of his illusions. When she kills the yoga master, the paradise disappears and Gar goes home while the heroines resume their journey. "Paradise," though maybe a little reminiscent of "Crusader," suggest that even being good can be too much of a good thing.

DEVI (F)-- The dazzling duo finally make it to India, though they don't seem to have any particular person or temple on their agenda. They encounter a street magician, Eli, who will later become a regular character in their exploits. Eli's stage-assistant goes berserk, manifesting powers that suggest she's demon-possessed. The demonic powers vanish from the assistant when Gabrielle touches her, but in very little time Gabrielle manifests powers herself, and the Indian people begin to call her "devi," meaning "goddess." It takes far too much time for Xena to figure out that a malignant presence has taken up residence in her friend. But at least when Xena goes to to toe with her possessed buddy, the episode culminates in one of Season Four's best fights, rife with lots of references to stereotypical Indian entertainments like "the bed of nails" and "snake charming." Eli's name suggests a connection more with "The Middle East" than with "The Far East," and later he takes on a somewhat soteriological role.

BETWEEN THE LINES (F)-- The two heroines don't seem in any great hurry to suss out the meaning of the death-vision as they soak up local Indian color. Then they rescue a woman named Naiyima from a suttee-pyre-- but the near-sacrifice seems a bit like a set-up, for Naiyima suddenly shows herself aware of Xena's special destiny. She sends Xena's spirit to inhabit another body in a future era of medieval India, and when Gabrielle asks, Naiyima does the same for her. They end up reincarnated in other bodies, but nothing that happens in the future is that important, except that they both meet a future incarnation of the witch-woman Alti, whom they jointly defeat. Nice FX make the confusing plot go down more easily. The  "lines" in the title may refer to the Hindu custom of "mehndi," of lined patterns drawn on the skin (specifically Gabrielle's), which play a role in defeating Alti.

THE WAY (F)-- In this episode it's clarified that the whole "getting info on dream-visions" was just a dodge, and that the only purpose of the Indian journey was to place Gabrielle on a new path of peaceful non-violence, while Xena embodies the "way of the warrior." However much time has passed since the heroines met itinerant performer Eli, he's somehow become a quasi-Christ, complete with a "turn the other cheek" philosophy that deeply impresses Gabrielle. But the demon-lord Indrajit-- son of the famed demon-lord Ravana, slain by the hero Rama in the epic RAMAYANA-- desires to destroy Eli and his religion. The monkey-god Hanuman, also a veteran of the RAMAYANA, volunteers to help Eli and the heroines, suggests that they consult the supreme lord Krishna. Indrajit captures both Eli and Gabrielle, so Xena must appeal to Krishna on her own. Krishna's advice is much like his counsel to Arjuna in the other major Hindu epic, the MAHABHARATA, telling the warrior princess to kill dispassionately. Somehow this pearl of wisdom allows Xena to become turn into the goddess Kali and to defeat Indrajit. The mythic mishmash is not much of a finish for the Indian sojourn, but Gabrielle's new path, that of renouncing violence, will yield loads more stories.

THE PLAY'S THE THING (P)-- Suddenly, the duo is back in Greece again, though Xena departs Gabrielle on an errand and doesn't return until the last fifteen minutes. Gabrielle meets Joxer in Pireaus, a major city for stage-drama, and two fraudsters offer to become "THE PRODUCERS" of a play based on Gabrielle's scroll-stories. Gabrielle thinks she can use the theater to spread the good news of non-violence, but everything goes less than right. It's another silly romp, but funnier than most of them.

THE CONVERT (F)-- X and G interfere with a band of slavers, and find that Xena's old nemesis Najara is among the slavers' victims. In the confusion the incompetent Joxer accidentally kills the slaver-captain, leading to an unusually serious character-arc when he later tries to confess his deed to the man's son. Najara once again seem attuned to Gabrielle's spiritual progress, for Najara has at some point encountered the teachings of Eli and has become a pacifist as well. Will she manage to seduce Gabrielle with fair words? Of course not, and when Najara's commitment to non-violence is shown to be false, we get one of the best female-on-female battles in the XENA series-- though it proves the last roundup for Najara.

TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE (P)-- A better title would have been "No Clue Like an Old Clue," because the plot is nothing but a send-up of the board-game CLUE. At the home of Xena's mother, Xena and several other support-characters gather to celebrate Gabrielle's birthday. However, a passerby boarding at the house is killed, and almost everyone present takes turns being either potential suspect and amateur detective. To provide a ticking-clock, the goddess Discord functions as a bush-league Fury. She confines everyone to magical "house arrest" and demands that Xena find and turn over the culprit to Olympian justice for some damn reason. After much silly sleuthing, Xena proves that "Argo did it in the window with his hooves," or something like that.

ENDGAME (F)-- Those warring Roman factions spill over into Greece again, this time infringing upon Amazon territory. Queen Ephiny is slain by Caesar's right-hand man Brutus, so the Amazon tribe reaches out to the next in line for leadership: the now-pacifist Gabrielle. Yet this time the main enemy for both Xena and the Amazons is really Pompey, who's taking slaves, particularly Amazons, to fund his rebellion against Caesar. Perhaps because of Gabrielle's deep love of Ephiny, she accepts temporary queendom of the Amazon tribe and makes no speeches about non-violence, though she doesn't fight in the field, allowing Xena to take command. Xena kills Pompey in battle and Brutus, who proves himself an honorable warrior, is appointed to carry a message of peace to Caesar. Caesar's main response is to issue a huge bounty on Xena's head.

THE IDES OF MARCH (G)-- While traveling with the impulsive young Amazon Amarice, X and G find out about the bounty on Xena's head the hard way, so Xena lays plans to go to Rome and kill Julius Caesar. 

Meanwhile, Callisto, since getting slain by Xena at the end of "The Sacrifice," has been tormented for some time in some non-Greek netherworld. Then the unnamed lord of that domain-- later revealed as one "Mephistopheles"-- charges Callisto to play tempter with Xena, to encourage the warrior princess to give up the "way of the warrior." Meanwhile, Caesar's soldiers, led by Brutus, successfully capture Gabrielle and Amarice while in the company of Eli, who is taken prisoner as well. 

Xena seeks to liberate her three friends, but Callisto haunts the heroine like Banquo's ghost, trying to get Xena to give up the way of the warrior for peace with Gabrielle, all of which will presumably benefit Mephistopheles. Xena finds out the location of her friends by revealing to Brutus Caesar's deadly plans for his good friend, and the heroine's revelation will in turn bring about a fatal day in March for the Roman Emperor. Xena shows up to free her allies, but is wounded due to Callisto's interference. Though Eli, Amarice and others escape, Gabrielle goes berserk at seeing Xena hurt, and she slays several soldiers before she and Xena are re-captured. The long tease about the mutual deaths of Xena and Gabrielle is finally borne out, as they're raised on crosses to die. At the same time, Caesar meets his end, which presumably frustrates the plans of Mephistopheles. (This tale wouldn't be the first or last time Imperial Rome got equated with Things Satanic.) From the apparently dead bodies of the heroines rise their spirits, and that's the season cliffhanger-- though not the final episode of the season.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN (P)-- Yeah, it's another modern-day take on the supposedly ancient adventures of Xena and Gabrielle. Alice (Lawless), a big fan of the XENA TV show, tells boyfriend Harry (Raimi) that she's been experiencing memory-flashes of a previous life, which she thinks prove her identity as the warrior princess. The two seek out a past-lives regression specialist (O'Connor), and it turns out that all three of them are reincarnations of their ancient selves, but not the expected analogues. Not very funny, but it gets half a point for one outdated joke: "Zoomer" viewers will all wonder about the puzzling reference to an impending disaster called "Y2K."

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS: SEASON THREE (1996-97)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

Season Three begins the series of generally serious stories that fans term "The Rift." Had the entire season followed this theme, I would probably judge it as possessing good mythicity. However, the various comedic interludes keep the overall level merely at "fair." There's an increased emphasis on "subtext" in this season.

THE FURIES (G)-- The writers' reworking of the Orestes myth is considerably more successful than the second season's meretricious takes on the narratives of Ulysses and of the Athena-Poseidon quarrel. Ares persuades the Furies-- the judges of Greeks who commit sins against their families-- that Xena has failed to avenge the slaying of her father. The Furies strike Xena with madness, and though some of her distracted actions are humorous in nature, on the whole the warrior princess is tormented by her irrational urges. The master stroke in Ares' plan is that the slayer of Xena's estranged father, whom she barely remembers, was her mother. Thus, like Orestes, if Xena kills the slayer, she will still be consumed by the Furies' vengeance. But whereas Orestes's sin is purged by the gods in mythology, Xena must use what remains of her wits to out-think Ares, by accusing him, her former mentor, of being her real father. A commentary states that the writers thought of presenting Xena's hoax as the truth, but changed their minds because the "shared universe" already had a demigod hero. Ares makes a speech about how the only true victory is of those strong enough to "twist" reality to serve them, and his use of the phrase "beyond good and evil" suggests the usual bad reading of Nietzsche.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT (F)-- Lucy Lawless gets to exercise her comic chops big-time in this reprise of "Groundhog Day." I find the XENA episode funnier than the movie, thanks in part to lots and lots of Joxer. There's a rather singular use of the phrase "seize the day."

THE DIRTY HALF-DOZEN (F)-- Gabrielle, whose good effects upon Xena's character are constantly touted, gets to see how "Bad Xena" changed six formerly ordinary individuals into career criminals. Xena recruits these half-dozen former followers for a vital mission. The heroines and their unruly allies must foil Ares' current plan to hurl the world into war by gifting a petty warlord, Agathon, with near-impenetrable metal armor for Agathon's soldiers. Comedy and drama intermingle as Xena and Gabrielle must ride herd on their aides, some of whom are perfectly willing to turn on their former benefactor. There's a minor theme thrown in, wherein Gabrielle wonders if her identity is innate or was forged by the influence of Xena, like the Half-Dozen. Katrina Hobbs, also on HERCULES, has a nice role as a man-hating hot babe.

THE DELIVERER (G)--  Were the allusions to the monotheism of Israel in the previous two seasons turn out to have been a setup by the writers and producers for this turn of events? The episode takes place at the time Julius Caesar has invaded an area of Gaul termed "Brittania." After Xena and Gabrielle rescue a mild-mannered slave named Krafstar, he gives every impression that the "One God" he worships is related to the Judeo-Christian faith. Xena, motivated by her grudge against Caesar, drags Gabrielle to Brittania with the goal of rendering aid to Caesar's enemy Boudicea (who ruled a tribe in eastern Britain, not Gaul). Ares tries to persuade Xena not to help the acolytes of the One God, trying to evoke her loyalty to Greek culture, but his arguments fall on deaf ears. Sure enough, Krafstar's true allegiance is to a demon-god, Dahak, and Dahak has selected Gabrielle as the innocent pawn he will impregnate, in order to have a half-mortal scion on Earth. Gabrielle's violation is in some sense made possible when she knowingly kills an acolyte in self-defense, giving up her "blood innocence"-- somewhat homologous with virginity, even though Gabrielle is not a virgin in the sexual sense. Xena can't prevent her friend being subverted by Dahak but she does destroy a demon-bodied Krafstar. The episode ends with the two women not yet aware of Gabrielle's supernatural violation.

GABRIELLE'S HOPE (G) -- It doesn't take long for the heroines to figure out that Gabrielle is now "in the family way." While trying to arrange passage back to Greece, the companions are harried by "banshees," who apparently have some investment in the fortunes of Dahak (even though in the previous episode Krafstar states that Dahak would wipe out all the "old gods"). Brittanian villagers condemn Gabrielle as a witch, but a strange contingent of knights renders some aid. These warriors are portrayed as symbolic anticipations of King Arthur's knights-- they even have a Round Table and a stone with a sword in it, which is presumably going to remain in place until Arthur is born a few centuries later. The demon-child comes to term quickly and is born, with yet more crypto-Christian symbolism, in a manger. Gabrielle names the girl-child Hope, but Hope is pure evil and kills a knight while she's still in swaddling clothes. Xena becomes convinced that the child must be slain, but Gabrielle hoaxes her friend by faking Hope's death. This gambit allowed the writers to suspend the demon-child plotline and give viewers a breather from the heavy drama that would dominate the arc's conclusion.

THE DEBT, PTS 1-2 (G)-- Xena must discharge a blood debt in the distant realm of Chin, and the more Gabrielle learns about the reasons, the more she dislikes hearing about the foul deeds of "Old Xena." Those deeds occur some time after the heroine's betrayal by Caesar, when she and her warlord-lover Borias led raiders into Chin. When Borias sought to forge a pact with either of the local petty rulers, Ming Tzu or Lao, Old Xena, despising the idea of peace, is rude to both Ming Tzu and his ten-year-old son Ming Tien, and then to Lao's emissay, his wife Lao Ma. Old Xena kidnaps Ming Tien for ransom, but Borias betrays her.

Lao Ma, not unlike M'Lila in DESTINY, intuits some greatness in Old Xena and rescues her from Ming Tzu. DEBT PART 1 features a scene one might call "lesbian-adjacent," since Lao Ma saves Old Xena from drowning with a little "mouth-to-mouth" oxygen. Current Xena doesn't precisely tell Gabrielle who she wants to avenge-- though it's not surprising that it's Lao Ma, slain by the new ruler Ming Tien-- but Gabrielle actually warns Ming Tien before Current Xena can kill him. This is also potentially a major move in the "subtext canon," since it can be deduced that on some level Gabrielle is jealous of the intensity of Current Xena's loyalty to a dead woman (lover?)  PART II fills in some of the narrative blanks, showing that Old Xena converted young Mien Tien to evil by twisting his nature, just as Ares purportedly did with Xena. Significantly, Lao Ma's death is given Christian iconography, as the Chinese woman is sacrificed on a cross-altar, garbed in white and refusing to use her power to escape. In the end, Xena escapes Ming Tien's power, but lets Gabrielle think she spares the corrupt ruler, when in fact she covertly takes Ming Tien's life-- an act that will have repercussions in THE BITTER SUITE.

THE KING OF ASSASSINS (P)-- And boom, just like that, after four very heavily dramatic episodes, we're back to wacky comedy. Xena puts in a quick appearance at the opening and then doesn't come back until the last quarter of the episode. Gabrielle, Joxer, and "king of thieves" Autolycus must endeavor to stop Jett, Joxer's evil brother, from assassinating Queen Cleopatra. I can't say two Joxers were better than one.

WARRIOR... PRIESTESS... TRAMP (P)-- Yeah, four Xenas IS too many, even if Princess Diana sits this one out. This time Lucy Lawless plays warrior Xena, tramp Meg, and Hestian priestess Leah, a prissy-pants who judges any woman who's not a virgin. This time an evil schemer wants to use Meg to masquerade as Leah to bring about the slaughter of the Hestian priestesshood  for some reason. Lawless created a lot of distinct toss-off characters on the show but Leah's not one of them. Good action scenes but no baby-juggling.

THE QUILL IS MIGHTIER... (P)-- Again Xena is absent for over half of the episode. Ares is pissed off about Gabrielle for some reason, so he manipulates Aphrodite into enchanting Gabrielle's scroll, so that everything written there becomes literal truth. There's quite a bit of building on the idea, established in COMEDY OF EROS, that Joxer secretly loves Gabrielle while she's utterly unaware of his feelings. Otherwise, lots of silly-pants goings-on.

MATERNAL INSTINCTS (G)-- "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."-- EXODUS 20.5.

It's not a jealous god, but mortal passions which end up costing the lives of children for the sin of the parents. In a curious inversion, though, Gabrielle's child perishes because of Xena (who brought about Gabrielle's impregnation by taking her to Britain for vengeance on Caesar) and Xena's dies because of Gabrielle (who allowed her demon-child to live, and so was responsible when Hope slew Solan). 

Hope also frees Callisto from her prison, largely to keep Xena busy, though Callisto is also a "child sinned against," loosely created by the evil of Old Xena. Hope and her demon-father are not as dramatically vivid as Callisto, who finally gains the vengeance she desired against Xena, only to realize that her triumph is hollow. In addition, the episode still delivers lots of kick-ass action. Though this could have been a good finish for Callisto's first arc, she appears again at the season's conclusion.

THE BITTER SUITE (S)-- The density of the imagery here, mostly derived from the Tarot, makes this the only episode of a serial TV show whose mythicity I rate as not just good, but "superior." Because SUITE is so complex, I won't attempt to shove all that complexity into a paragraph or two here, but will just recommend some of the online studies of SUITE, as on the Xena-site WHOOSH. Just summarizing the plot-action then: the rage Xena and Gabrielle harbor for one another propels them into a world of musical fantasy, wherein they must work through their issues before they can return to the living world. The episode isn't perfect, but its most problematic aspect is that once the show hit this level of dramatic and mythopoeic intensity, almost everything else seems like weak tea by comparison.

ONE AGAINST AN ARMY (F)-- Xena not only has to stop an army of invading Persians, she has to worry about finding a cure for her poisoned partner Gabrielle. Excellent fight-scenes, though even the best choreography can't make probable the Warrior Princess defeating a full detachment of soldiers.

THE FORGIVEN (P)-- When the heroines seek to recover a priceless religious urn, their biggest headache is dealing with Tara, an obnoxious girl who wants to replace Gabrielle as Xena's sidekick. It has lots of catfights and "no such thing as a bad kid" dialogue, not much else.

KING CON (P)-- Joxer is severely beaten by the thugs of a casino owner, Titus. Xena and Gabrielle enlist the aid of two swindlers, seeking to fleece Titus of his riches with a "long con." Ted Raimi does one jokey routine at the beginning but spends the rest of the episode recovering from his injuries.

WHEN IN ROME (F)-- Xena takes a stand against Caesar again. However, instead of seeking pure vengeance on the Roman, she seeks to liberate Caesar's captive, the rebel hero Vercinix of Gaul, scheduled to be executed in Rome at the Circus Maximus. Xena and Gabrielle kidnap Crassus, one of the three lords with whom Caesar shares the rule of Rome, hoping that Caesar will prize his need of an ally over that of a rebel execution. Yet Xena knows how crafty Caesar is, and lays contingency plans. These plans don't keep her from having to fight armed horsemen in the arena (a throwback to countless gladiator movies). As a side-dish, Gabrielle, not having learned anything from her adventure in Chin, believes Crassus when he claims to be innocent of fomenting slaughter. Naturally, her childlike innocence is betrayed-- though this time, Gabrielle takes an action to make sure Crassus is punished.

FORGET ME NOT (F)-- In a story that would've been more apt coming right after BITTER SUITE, Gabrielle feels so tormented by her bad experiences that she seeks out the temple of the Goddess of Memory, to exorcise all of her poisonous recollections. Yet for some reason the sidekick's spirit goes on a quest to explore the evil memories, while Joxer takes charge of Gabrielle's body, fully functional except for lacking any sense of past events. While Joxer fantasizes about "re-programming" his crush to love him back, Gabrielle's spirit is hassled by a mental construct that looks like Ares. The comedy-section with Joxer is adequate, while the Big Reveal of Gabby's torment is predictable. She realizes she really wanted to punish Xena during THE DEBT because the young sidekick was jealous of Xena's regard for Lao Ma. Xena herself only has a few new scenes at the end, not counting a handful of clips from Gabrielle's "memories."

FINS, FEMMES, AND GEMS (P)-- Even for a wacky comedy episode, this one's all over the place. Aphrodite sends some goons to steal a mystic diamond, so the heroines, plus Joxer, give pursuit. The love-goddess zaps all three do-gooders with an "obsession-perfume," causing them to become obsessed with whatever was in their minds at the time. Gabrielle turns incredibly vain, Xena becomes a nut about fishing (particularly with the New Zealand variation called "kite-fishing"), and Joxer fluctuates between acting like a monkey or like Tarzan. The goals at stake are confusing and most of the slapstick is un-amusing. O'Connor's egomaniac act is nice though.

TSUNAMI (F)-- Xena and Gabby relive THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, sort of. When the heroines see their bud Autolycus on a ship taking convicts to an island prison, they intervene and get stuck on the ship. A tsunami strikes, turning the ship over and obliging the survivors to figure out some logical way to escape the slowly sinking vessel and to reach land. The dramatic arcs of the guest stars, including that of Autolycus, are forgettable.

VANISHING ACT (F)-- Now this is what the Autolycus character was meant for: heist stories. There's a golden statue, Pax, whose existence is crucial to the peace of several neighboring villages, and one night the statue goes missing. Xena and Gabrielle want to find the statue to preserve the peace, but so does Autolycus, because he fears that his fame as "King of Thieves" will be endangered by such a stellar rip-off. But to add a sop of altruism, the rival thief is also a villain who killed Autolycus' brother. Xena and Gabrielle both masquerade as buyers for the missing artifact, with Lawless delivering a fun over-the-top perf. 

THE SACRIFICE PTS. 1-2 (G)-- Though the trope of "ultimate innocence births ultimate evil" is still strong enough to endow this two-parter with high mythicity, the script is extremely rushed and inconsistent with respect to character continuity.

X and G stumble across a sacrificial cult, whose main sacrifice is an old friend of Gabrielle's, Seraphina. The heroines witness the rebirth of Callisto, and at first think she's become the object of the cult's worship. But a reborn Hope (how? who knows?) is the true cynosure, and when enough sacrifices are heaped up to her, she will be able to admit her demon-father Dahak into the Earth-plane. All of this activity MAY stem from Ares making common cause with Dahak. He's apparently overcome his repugnance for the demon-lord's plan to obliterate the old gods, as long as he Ares survives, and he increases his worth to Dahak by coupling with Hope, who has now assumed the adult form of her mother Gabrielle. Supposedly Hope will then bring forth a demon army able to conquer Earth. The big question, though, is whether this time Gabrielle will make the right choice regarding her demon-daughter's survival-- which she does, though it leads to a cliffhanger conclusion for the season. In order to reduce the odds somewhat, Callisto has now become so beset by divine ennui that she desires oblivion more than anything, and when Hope doesn't deliver on her promise quickly enough, she switches to Xena's side. But, appearances to the contrary, all three vile villains survive to menace the world again in future seasons. 

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS: SEASON TWO (1996-97)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

Nothing about the basic setup of XENA changes from Season One to Season Two, so I can get right into episode reviews, with ratings of (G) for "good," (F) for "fair," and (P) for "poor."

ORPHAN OF WAR (F)-- The season opener provides a big reveal about Xena's past. Years ago, before her decision to seek redemption, she birthed a child, Solan, by her fellow warlord Borias, who perished by an assassin's blade. Xena gave the baby to the king of the Centaurs to raise, and something like ten years later, she and Gabrielle return to Centaur-Land to prevent an incursion for a new warlord, Dagnine. This new villain wants a talisman, "The Ixion Stone," which stores all the potential evil of the Centaur race, and can in theory make a man into an immortal being. In addition to thwarting this over-reacher, Xena must come to terms with young Solan, who thinks Xena guilty of killing his father. There's a particularly good line in which Xena describes a mother's connection to her child long after birth.

REMEMBER NOTHING (G)-- This episode easily could have degenerated into just another riff on "It's a Wonderful Life," but the writers imbue the rewriting of Xena's reality with a strong sense of existential ambiguity. When Xena becomes mournful over his lost brother Lyceus and wishes he were still alive, the Fates change history for her. The heroine finds herself in a world where her brother never died and consequently Xena never became a warlord, though of course she keeps all her memories and skills from her other life. "Reborn Xena" soon learns that not fighting evil in one situation just propagates new types of evil, one of which is that in the adjusted world Gabrielle is now a beaten-down slave. The Fates also give Xena a "reset button," and significantly, she only uses it when she sees Alt-Gabrielle loses her blood innocence. 

THE GIANT KILLER (F)-- In another episode alluding to but not naming the Israelites of the Bible, Xena and Gabrielle must defend the people of King Saul-- including his son Jonathan and the singer David-- against the incursions of the Philistines, led by King Dagon. Xena's championing of Saul's people is complicated in that she has an old friendship with Dagon's champion, the literal giant Goliath. The script tangentially addresses the basis of the cultural quarrel but only in very simplistic terms, and the main focus is on finding a way for Xena to lend David some behind-the-scenes aid.

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN (P)-- The mythology of the god Bacchus gets turned into a Greek version of Dracula, fanging girls so that they become "Bacchae," who are basically vampires. I suppose the association may've been that some of the archaic god's followers were violent "wild women." Joxer makes his first return appearance, bearing with him the head of Bacchus' enemy Orpheus. The script throws together those two figures and a very peculiar depiction of "dryads," but the faux vampire mythology is half-baked. Gabrielle does get turned into a vamp and bites Xena. Possibly this was the beginning of the infamous "lesbian subtext," though there's no further comment on the fanging when both heroes revert to normal.

RETURN OF CALLISTO (G)-- Xena comes to regret having spared Callisto (Hudson Leick), for the vengeful vixen wins free and seeks to destroy both the warrior princess and her best friend. By chance, Gabrielle's old boyfriend Perdicas shows up and signals his status as a redshirt by proposing to Gabrielle. Sure enough, Callisto murders him, and Gabrielle is gripped by a lust for blood. Yet to Callisto's immense puzzlement, Gabrielle can't follow through on the ethic of revenge. Joxer further astonishes the villainess by challenging her, but of course Xena's the only real opponent here. And this time, Xena doesn't save Callisto from death-- though that doesn't put an end to Callisto's status as a recurring enemy.

WARRIOR-- PRINCESS-- TRAMP (F)-- If two Xenas are good, three must be better-- and this time, it's perfectly true. Xena's lookalike Princess Diana summons her to help protect her new baby, but a plotter finds a second dead ringer, name of Meg (Lawless of course). I didn't really follow the plot, but with three Xenas running around-- one of whom has the hots for Joxer-- who cares? Oh, and there's another round of baby-juggling.

INTIMATE STRANGER (G)-- This direct sequel to RETURN OF CALLISTO has the heroine haunted by her non-action in allowing Callisto to perish. But that guilt leaves Xena open to dreams sent from Tartarus by the show's first "super-villain team-up." Ares and Callisto then work a body-switching magic on Xena's spirit. Now Xena occupies the form of Callisto in the world of the dead, while Callisto is in Xena's living body. And since Callisto's whole reason for being is to destroy anything Xena loves, the villain's first project is to try corrupting Gabrielle into committing evil. Real Xena gets back to Earth, and with some timely if comical assistance for Joxer, manages to overcome Callisto. However, in the real real world, Lucy Lawless suffered an injury and couldn't resume her Xena duties in the next filmed episode. So instead of both spirits going back to their bodies, Xena stays in Callisto's body on Earth while Callisto still has Xena's form in Tartarus. NOTE: Ares's dialogue indicates that he's probably had sex with Xena's body while it was occupied by Callisto-- and Real Xena's reaction to the news supports the thesis that prior to the heroine's reformation she had voluntary carnal relations with the war-god.

TEN LITTLE WARLORDS (F)-- This one's almost as funny as "Warrior-- Princess-- Tramp," and its setup has great mythic potential. Someone steals Ares's sword, consigning him to mortal status. While no one occupies the throne of the war-god, ordinary, non-aggressive people like Gabrielle become hyperviolent. A better script might have dealt with the interdependence between "war" and "peace" in the mortal realm. Unfortunately, the rest of the script is a labored play upon the "Ten Little Indians" conceit, which is part of some incomprehensible plan by sword-stealing trickster Sisyphus, last seen in "Death in Chains." Kevin Smith has a lot of fun with portraying Ares as a god brought low, but Hudson Leick plays Xena with a sort of glum dutifulness. By episode's end, Sisyphus is foiled, Ares returns to godhood, and Xena is once more Lucy Lawless at the close.

A SOLSTICE CAROL (F)-- TV is even more rife with riffs on "A Christmas Carol" than with those on "It's a Wonderful Life." And at first, the story of the two heroines trying to reform nasty King Silvus sounds VERY familiar, right down to substituting an alleged Greek custom of "Solstice" for Christmas. But I give the writers credit for ringing in a couple of Xmas-tropes not present in Dickens. The first is Gabrielle's friendship with an elderly toymaker named Senticles (by any other name, Jolly St. Nick), and the second is a very indirect allusion to the Journey to Bethlehem. Lightweight fun.

THE XENA SCROLLS (F)-- As if to make up for Season One's terrible clip show, this one only works a very few clips from earlier episodes into a 20th-century adventure riffing on RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Lawless and O'Connor get to reverse roles for the most part, with the former playing mild-mannered Melinda, an archaeologist, while the latter plays Janice, a female Indiana Jones (complete with whip). Together, with the dubious help of French agent Jacques S'Er (Ted Raimi), they seek to uncover the secret of certain scrolls that both relate old Xena-stories and lead them to a strange visitor from another era. The action-choreography does not 

HERE SHE COMES, MISS AMPHIPOLIS (F)-- Good old Salmoneus summons Xena and Gabrielle to a city under constant threat of an attack from its neighbors. The only thing that can preserve the peace is a beauty contest, "Miss Known World," so Xena reluctantly assumes the role of contestant "Miss Amphipolis" and seeks to find out who's planning to foment a new war. It's intentionally goofy, but the biggest saving grace is a messed-up dance routine a la Busby Berkeley. One of the beauties in the contest is a transvestite guy, and perhaps it's politically inevitable that he wins the contest-- but at least it's only after three genuinely female contestants drop out.

DESTINY (G)-- Xena and Gabrielle visit the land of Sura, where Xena's army wiped all the denizens, except for survivor Callisto. There Xena is injured by a deadfall, and Gabrielle takes her dying body to a healer. Meanwhile, Xena's mind flashes back ten years, to a time when she and her soldiers took a valuable prisoner-- Julius Csesar, improbably rising to power in Rome at the same time as Xena's inchoate era. Xena places her faith in Caesar, and he repays her by stringing her up on a cross and having her legs broken. The Christ-parallel is reinforced by the fact that Xena has a protector, the warrior M'Lila, who somehow knows that Xena has a special destiny, one involved with individual acts of salvation. However, in the real world, Xena's body apparently dies.

THE QUEST/A NECESSARY EVIL (F)-- A mournful Gabrielle attempts to take Xena's corpse back to Amphipolis for burial. She's interrupted by the Amazon tribe that made the young heroine their princess, and they want Gabrielle to take the place of the deceased queen. Complications ensue. Xena's spirit seeks to re-enter her body, and she can only do so if she gets hold of godly ambrosia. To that end, she takes possession of the body of super-thief Autolycus. Once Gabrielle is convinced that Xena's spirit is in the burglar's bod, they acquire enough ambrosia to bring Xena back to life. However, ambitious Amazon Velasca gets hold of enough ambrosia to change herself into a virtual god. Xena and Gabrielle can only battle Velasca by releasing Callisto-- who also got a deity-upgrade in a preceding episode of HERCULES. Good action, and some nice character scenes between Callisto and the two heroines. Velasca never makes another appearance, but Callisto's career of villainy is not yet done.

A DAY IN THE LIFE (P)-- This is predominantly a comedy episode exploring the day-to-day interactions of the two heroines in between saving people. Many character interactions, but nothing especially mythic. One of the episode's foes is a giant named Gareth, mentioned (but not seen) as an enemy of Goliath in "The Giant Killer."

FOR HIM THE BELL TOLLS (F)-- Another comedy episode, but it scores higher on the myth-meter thanks to dealing with the trope of manipulative Greek gods. In this case, Cupid has promoted the wedding of a prince and princess of neighboring lands. But the love-goddess Aphrodite opposes the marriage because it'll cause her worship to be eclipsed. She enchants goofy Joxer into becoming a hero able to charm the princess out of her senses-- at least, when he hears a mystic bell ring. Xena has a mission elsewhere and Gabrielle gets to play "straight woman" to Joxer instead of being the comedy relief herself.

THE EXECUTION (P)-- Before becoming Xena's sidekick, Gabrielle had a hero-worship for a famous warrior, Meleager (Tim Thomerson). But when the two heroines stop by the hero's town for a visit, they find him accused of the crime of murder. Gabrielle believes in Meleager and helps him escape justice, so Xena must capture him to protect her friend. Fortunately for all concerned, the real murderer is a corrupt member of the establishment. This one could almost be an episode of any TV show. Thomerson's performance is one of the few assets.

BLIND FAITH (P)-- This time it's the old "enemies forced to work together" chestnut. Palaemon, a young warrior gunning to be known as the man who beat Xena, arranges for Gabrielle to be sold into a strange sort of slavery: destined to marry a local king. Xena, whose eyesight is compromised, forces Palaemon to guide her to the rescue of her friend. This proves a good move, since Gabrielle's ultimate fate is to be a dead queen. 

ULYSSES (P)-- Time for a brand new Xena love story. She and Gabrielle encounter Ulysses just a year or so after they participated in the Fall of Troy, so I guess the Greek adventurer didn't remain cursed by Poseidon nearly as long as he did in the Homeric epic. The heroines help the hero battle pirates to lay claim to his ship and then journey back to Ithaca. However, this Ulysses has been led to believe that his wife Penelope is dead, so it becomes easy for him to fall for Xena and she for him. But even before the characters reach Ithaca and learn the real state of affairs, viewers will guess that the great love has no future, particularly after Ulysses offers to join Xena and Gabrielle on their all-girl peregrinations.

THE PRICE (F)-- Xena and Gabrielle take refuge in an undermanned Athenian fort from a vicious tribe of marauders, the Horde. Xena's seen these merciless warriors before, and she becomes totally focused on using any means necessary to save lives from the raiders. Bleeding-heart Gabrielle is deeply offended by Xena's ruthlessness, though everything Xena does is entirely logical against a near-unstoppable threat. The script's pretty clever about finding a way for Gabrielle to provide a crucial insight into the Horde, allowing Xena to save the day.

THE LOST MARINER (F)-- Xena and Gabby meet the Flying Dutchman. Well, this time the cursed ship with an immortal captain is tied to a major Greek myth. In the myth, Athena and Poseidon each sought to become the principle deity of Athens, and depended on Athens' king Cecrops to decide the matter. In the myth, Poseidon lost and took godly vengeance. In the Xenaverse, the sea-god made Cecrops into an immortal captain with a ship no one could board without becoming part of the crew. Xena and Gabrielle get stuck on board the lost mariner's ship, so Xena has to figure out the escape clause in Poseidon's curse. Nothing special as myth, but that CGI Poseidon is very cool.

 A COMEDY OF EROS (F)-- The season ends with another goofy comedy. Cupid's son Bliss-- the avatar of Cupid-as-cherub-- gets his hands on his dad's love-arrows and flies down to Earth. Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer seek to protect a village from warlord Draco, but the arrows cause a Midsummer's Nightmare, with Xena falling for Draco, Gabrielle for Joxer, and Draco for Gabrielle. The wacky comedy works, but there are a few "serious" moments that clash with the whole.