Xena: Season 3 Summary

WHEW!! GD, what a ride. Season 3 is special for me, for a couple reasons. Please read my biblical passages below:

1. Somewhere in Season 3, as the show aired in real time while I was a teenager, I stopped watching (Remember I started over and watched the whole series, proper, in 2009.) 
2. And ironically (ironic because this is when I stopped watching in the 90's), Season 3 is when Xena started to get really really good. I mean, Season 3 took a serious turn. I can't explain it, but Season 3 is just serious. It was during my 2009 rewatch that I knew something bigger was happening, other than fluffy television.

For example, Season 3 gave us "The Rift," which was an arc of about five or six episodes (depending on whom you ask) that followed a storyline of Xena and Gabrielle infighting. And it's intense as SHIT. But that's not all that happened in Season 3! Let's hash it out, like a couple o' broads:

1. We learn that Ares quite possibly...might be...Xena's dad. 
2. Xena's Groundhog Day episode
3. Gabrielle gets raped and impregnated by Dahak
4. Gabrielle kills someone for the first time
5. Gabrielle gives birth to Hope (and lies to Xena about killing her)
6. We learn about Xena's past with Lao Ma
7. Gabrielle betrays Xena in Chin
8. Xena kills Ming T'ien (and lies to Gabrielle about it)
9. Hope kills Solan
10. Xena kills Callisto, twice
11. Gabrielle kills Hope, twice
12. Xena and Gabrielle enter into the first huge feud of their lives
13. Xena's musical episode
14. The legendary "One Against an Army" episode
15. Gabrielle dies

So, to reiterate, the shit went down, and it seems like it can't go down any further. [SERIES SPOILER] But I guarantee you it totally does in Season 4, amirite?!? [END SPOILER] I hedged in my Season 2 Summary that Xena dies in every season, but I was wrong about this season. She does not die in Season 3, and Gabrielle does not die in Season 2. GOT IT. Moving on...

I'm DYING inside to watch Season 4. Watching it in 2009 affected me more than A Raisin in the Sun and the Thundercats combined. It is just a gorgeous thing to behold, and I can't wait to behold it again in the safety of my own home. [SERIES SPOILER] At this moment, I'm wondering which season will be better: Season 4 or Season 6. [END SPOILER]

QUALITY: Season 3 continues as a 4:3 standard TV ratio, as with the first two seasons. Quality rating is "good."

RANK: I loved the titties out of Season 2, but going off favorites AND general, overall loving feelings, Season 3 tops the burrito bowl. Favorites numbered 13, just beating Season 2's 12. One thing I will note is that I had an easier time choosing Season 3 over 2, than I did Season 2 over 1. Like a galloping Argo, Season 3 is full-stride.

Favorite Seasons Rank:

1) Season 3
2) Season 2
3) Season 1
4) 
5) 
6) 

SUBTEXT: All right, betches. Lots of shit to hash-out here. Lots of declarations of love in Season 3, definitely not for the faint of heart. And what the fuck is happening with Lao Ma? Clearly Xena isn't new to this whole "thing." 

Here are the sub-sexual highlights:

1. Apparently Gabrielle gave Xena a hickey in "Been There, Done That." 
2. It seems Xena *very much* had a thing with Lao Ma.
3. Just how hurt Xena and Gabrielle are by each other's lying.
4. The profession of love at the end of "The Bitter Suite." 
5. "One Against An Army," basically one lover's ode to another.
6. Gabrielle admits her jealousy of Lao Ma to Ares in "Forget Me Not": "I hated her for loving someone else. I wanted her to hurt!" 
7. A couple times Joxer tells "Gabrielle" (once when she has no memory and once when it's really Hope) that Xena loves the shit out of her. 
8. And Xena does tell Gabrielle in the last episode that she's the one she loves most in the world.

Again, I am just not sure if Xena and Gabrielle have a full-blown relationship in this season. There are some writers who make it so, and some who absolutely do not, which is a shame... Actually, I'm going to go ahead and say that they definitely are in a relationship at this point. Their relationship proper started in Season 3. As above, so below.

I'm annoyed; in the extremely terrible episode "King Con," the writer makes Xena kiss a dude, who sucks. Aside from that, neither Xena or Gabrielle engage with the opposite sex in Season 3... I want to say that episode doesn't fucking count, but I can't do that, can I. It's a real episode that happened, and I'm just going to have to deal with it. [SERIES SPOILER] I will wager though that there's no more male kissing from here on out, except for a weak moment in Season 5, which ran off-rail throughout most of the season due to a writer shake-up. [END SPOILER]

Look how beautiful my Season 3 Summary is:

CLICK HERE for full page view.