Xena: Season 4 Pre-Thoughts

These are Season 4 spoilers, first of all. Know what you're getting into and be warned.

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First of all, I ask you to suspend your disbelief that I started this reviewing project over five years ago. I can't believe it's taking me this long. I plan to just bang-out the final three seasons, but I guess we'll see, won't we!

Let it be known to all who care about me, that I love this fucking season. Season 3 was amazing, but this one... I am so fucking excited to watch this. Because this, you see, is when the following happens (if i recall correctly):

1) The Amazons and the beginning..
2) Gabrielle comes back to life
3) India
4) A particularly hot henna scene
5) Our girls meet a girl, whom Gabrielle takes a liking to, but the girl is bad
6) Gabrielle and Xena switch into different bodies
7) Gabrielle gets her short hair
8) Gabrielle finds religion
9) Xena breaks her back
10) Gabrielle kills people on purpose
11) Caesar's assassination
12) Xena's and Gabrielle's crucifixions and deaths

In the words of Ariel: "You want dope-ass episodes? I got 22." This season is packed-full of them. And since the last time I saw this was in 2009, I don't remember much about my one and only viewing of Season 4, except that this was when Xena used a whole season to tell a story. And it is beautiful. I can't fucking wait.

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Xena: Season 4 Box Set Detail

Front

Back

Interior Unfolded and Discs

Exterior Unfolded

Close-up of Episode List

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Xena: Seasons 2 & 3, Outtakes

OK, now I think the first video is season 2 and the second video is season 3, but I'm not sure, so here they both are. Remember, if you haven't seen season 2 or 3, maybe don't watch these yet... Enjoy!!

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Xena: Season 1, Outtakes

Listen to me... If you're ever having a bad day, watch Xena bloopers. I promise they'll cheer you right up.

Below are the bloopers from Season 1. They pretty shoddy, but we're lucky to have them at all. As the seasons went on, the bloopers got longer and looked better, because it would seem Xena production realized they were onto something and cherished these goofs.


Bloopers - Season 1: Part 1

Bloopers - Season 1: Part 2

SPOILERS: My reviews are full of them! I'll try to note when I'm about to spoil the entire series by posting "series spoiler" before said item number. Please don't read the review, unless you've seen the episode under discussion or don't care if I spoil it. 

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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:

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Xena: Season 3, Episode 22: "Sacrifice II"

Quick, weird note: I have been doing this thing where I have a slideshow of Xena fan art, some 950 images that I watch for about two hours. I love it. Some images are replicas of actual parts in the show, and some are made up! Anyway, there is a particular favorite of mine that I now know is exactly the pose Xena is in when Callisto knocks her down at the beginning of this episode. In the illustration, you can see the opening of Xena's empty scabbard as you can in the shot. Onward!

SPOILERS: My reviews are full of them! I'll try to note when I'm about to spoil the series by posting [SERIES SPOILER] before said item and [END SPOILER] after. Please don't read the review, unless you've seen the episode under discussion or don't care if I spoil it.

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EXTRA NOTES:

1) Hope as Gabrielle walks into the village where Xena is kicking ass and looks at her with jealousy. I love this. Antoher layer to an already heavy episode. Interesting. Makes you wonder if Hope could’ve loved Xena.

2) Subtext too obvious to be subtext: Gabrielle gives her life for Xena’s. Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t do that for just a friend, probably.

3) Also, Gabrielle looks longingly into Xena’s eyes as she dies. (that was someone else’s idea, but it’s true.)

4) Callisto places her hand on Xena’s face and slithers down off her knife.

5) I love that Hope is staring-down Gabrielle as Callisto and Xena fight. It’s an interesting scene, because Gabrielle is looking at Hope with several things showing on her face:

• Don’t kill me.
• Jesus Christ, you look just like me.
• How the fuck am I supposed to kill you with you lookin' like me? And probably..
• I love you.

6) Xena arguing with Seraphin, knowing she’s totally under a trance as a follower, is like arguing with a Trump supporter. Like why is she even wasting her breath?

7) I’m just gonna put this together and blow your mind, ok? So, you know how Xena can sense when Ares is around and it’s possible that Ares is actually her dad? I wonder if this is why Gabrielle sensed that Hope was around. Hope is a god.

8) So like just a tiny continuity quibble: Hope has placenta or whatever all over her face one moment, then a few seconds later, her face is clean.

9) The way Hope is staring at Xena at 24:14 in "Sacrifice II" (and earlier at Gabrielle, actually) is very Kill Bill. I felt like I was waiting for the Ironside “EEE-eee-EEE-eee” music to come on. I love these shots. You know Quentin Taratino loves Xena, right? And surely Hope was looking at Xena as though Xena was getting the love that she herself should have had. So good...

 EXTRA QUOTES:

1) X: “You saw her face, didn’t you?” G: “Mm.” X: “It’s strange. The one I love most in all the world and the one I hate.. look exactly the same.” – Unexpectedly touching moment. Also “love”.. And such a fucked up thing for Gabrielle to hear.

2) Callisto: “All right, enough games! Where is it?” Hope: “I wouldn’t want you using it on yourself, Callisto. Yet.” Callisto: “I want it, NOW!” – Callisto sounding like Veruca Salt. I almost put that song in this review. I still might. 

3) Callisto: "So, how about it? I scratch your back, you stab mine.” X: “What’s the matter? Existence getting to be a bit of a burden?” Callisto: “Yes, honestly. I yearn for oblivion, annihilation. Peace, if you will.” – Such good, classic Xena and Callisto banter, and this is yet another interesting, deep nugget in this episode. They’re talking about suicide. Or doctor-assisted death. Callisto’s making a good case for it.

4) G: “Seraphin!” X: “Let her go! She’ll only slow us down. She’s doomed anyway if we can’t stop Hope. [To Callisto] May you live forever.” – My problem with this episode, is that there are so many good lines in it.

5) Hope as Gabrielle: “We’ve known each other for.. how long, now?” Joxer: “I don’t know, a couple years? Look, if we can get a small band together-” – Hahahha

6) Joxer: “Wait a minute, you-you-you-you wanna know how I feel about our relationship?” Hope as Gabrielle: “I wanna know how you feel about me.” Joxer: “Well, I, uh.. it’s a really big question. Um, I-I, uh, I feel, um, well, I feel, uh-” Hope as Gabrielle: “Would you call it love?” – Man, this is kinda heavy and intense.

7) Hope [Aside]: “Strange. There wasn’t enough love in her to let me live, yet people love her." Hope to Joxer: "What would you make of my feelings toward Xena?” Joxer: “Xena? Well, you know, you love her more than anybody in the whole world.” Hope as Gabrielle: “More than anyone.”

8) X: “Now, scram, ya fool! Moron. Get out of there!” – The fact that Xena calls Joxer a moron when she doesn’t really need to is hilarious to me.

9) X: “Ares, I know you’re here, ‘cause my skin is crawling. Show yourself.” Ares: “You’re the only mortal I know who can do that.” – Love this shit.

10) Hope: “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s growing, inside me, Gabrielle. The child. The way that I grew inside of you.” – What every mother wants to hear.

11) Callisto: “Try not to die before doing me first, or I’ll make Gabrielle wish you had. How’s that for incentive?” – Have the stakes ever been higher?

CALLISTO'S FUNNY LINES:

1) Callisto: “Aw, the mother and child reunion. I’m all misty-eyed.” – Hahhaaha! This is fucking hilarious.

2) Callisto: “I don’t know why you wanna look like her. She’s an annoying little-” Hope: “Do it.” Callisto: “So be it. [She does it.] Hm, well, it is a good disguise, and it’ll attract less attention than walking around naked, I suppose.” – Oh my god, Callisto is so gd funny.

3) Hope: “You could be a soldier in Dahak’s army. Instead, you choose oblivion.” Callisto: “Yeah, well, call me short-sighted, but that’s our deal.”

4) Callisto: “No, actually, the sight of her and Ares rolling around like weasels made me sick.” G: “Hope and Ares?” Callisto: “Oh yes, Gabrielle. It seems your daughter is in heat.” – It’s like everything she says is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. 

5) Callisto: "Well, why not let me help you? And then it would be so simple to just turn it on me.” X: “Because I like the idea of you living with your suffering.” Callisto: “Oh, please! Who said anything about suffering. Really, it’s more of a boredom thing, an emptiness, really.” – Oh my god, I can’t handle this. It’s so fucking funny. Whoever wrote this..

POLITICAL CORNER:

1) Ares: “Never gives up. Time was, it was a quality I admired about her.” G: “How’s life as a slave to your new master Dahak?” – A conversation between Elizabeth Warren and Mitch McConnell.

2) G: “Seraphin, you’re talking about the slaughter of innocent people.” X: “Save your breath. Dahak’s hold on his followers is stronger than ever.” – ….

As I mentioned before, Quentin Tarantino loves Xena, and sometimes I think I see elements of its influence in his movies, such as Kill Bill, when several characters intently stare at other characters. It happens when Kiddo's enemies stared down at her on the floor in her wedding gown, and it happens every time she sees one of them after that.  

The round thing falling from the ceiling and protecting them from Hope’s knife-throwing is straight out of Temple of Doom and you all know it. (1:50):

A gem I've been listening to, which seems a fitting end for the final ep of season 3: 

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