Xena: Season 5, Episode 15: "Married with Fishsticks"

ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
“The Worst Xena Episode”

Every part of my body hated this episode. My brain, my heart, my kidneys, my vaj.. I could go on and on. And I'm fairly certain in the Xena fandom, the condemnation is unanimous. Yes, reviewing this episode was the most agonizing moment of my life. Complete and utter agony.

Couple of hot takes:

• Under subtext, I wish I could just put, “Booooooo.”
• This episode is where bad jokes go to die.

Some episode swapping here: I think they filmed this one and "Lifeblood" right after Lucy had her baby, and the two eps before this were filmed later after she’d fully recovered and gotten back into shape? Maybe they even filmed the previous two before she started "showing." I don’t know, but these are clearly baby recovery episodes. Xena is even wearing her pregnancy outfit at the beginning of this episode, which she'd completely schucked in the last.

In closing, I'd like to point out that Dean in Overboard never tried to take advantage of Joanna, sexually. What he did was somehow not that creepy. In this episode, there is no tit for tat, just tit. Thank you.

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.

CLICK HERE for full page view.

 CLICK HERE FOR bigger VIEW! 

EXTRA QUOTES:

1) G: “Hush, now. Hush. I'll give you a dinar.” – Cute joke.

2) G: "Xena, I don't have the patience to even raise my own." X: "You rise to every occasion, Gabrielle. I don't think motherhood's gonna be any different." – What the fuck is Gabrielle talking about? She loved Hope so much and wanted to be a mother so badly. Also, fuck off, this is supposed to be Gabrielle’s kid, too. I hate this episode.

3) X: "What's this?!" Joxer: "You asked for baby food." X: "Babyback ribs are not baby food, Joxer." – Should be funny, but it’s not.

4) Discord: "Well if it isn't the ever-titillating Aphrodite. I almost didn't recognize you with your legs so close together." Aphrodite: "Discord are you still looking for someone to shave your back?" – Again, should be funny, but…

5) Discord: "Uh! You're dead, Bimbolina!" [Kerfuffle] Aphrodite: "Love-40!" – Love this tennis joke. Love tennis.

6) Hagar: "Keep the bed warm. I'll be back.” – This is so fucking gross.

7) Hagar: “Now, that's what I call a lungfish." – Horrible. Hagar the Horrible.

8) Hagar: “Next to him is the curious one, Urchin." Urchin: "What's a sphincter?!" – Die.

9) Crustacea: "Do you expect me to believe that I wear this to bed?" Hagar: "Ooh. Well, um no. Usually, you sleep in the nude." – I’d think this was clever if it wasn’t so rapey.

10) Hagar: "I should thank you because I am always at my best when I'm around you." – Fuck all the way off.

11) Crabella: "Um, before you decide, you should know that Sturgina snores like an asthmatic walrus." Sturgina: "You should also know that every member of the council knows exactly what the top of Crabella's head looks like, if you get my meaning." – This isn’t bad. It’s not great.

12) Hagar: "Look, after what I did to Gorb-, uh, Gerbil, uh…" Crustacea: "Gabrielle?" Hagar: "-Gabrielle. I'm gonna spend some time alone and figure out how to make it up to her." – Hahhahaaha

13) Crustacea: “Urchin, your curiosity is gonna take you many places." Urchin: "What?" Crustacea: "That's very funny.” – Not it’s not, this is a hooooorrible joke.

14) Crustacea: "You go to your wife, your real wife, and you show her what you've shown me." Hagar: "OK." Crustacea: "That behind the sexist, corporate-climbing, self-centerd, lazy, stupid-" Hagar: "OK I get it. I get it." Crustacea: "-there's a man with integrity who learned from his mistakes." – This is the best line in the whole dream. The part where she's insulting him, I mean.

15) Joxer: "Ooh. Hmmm. Heh." G: "What are you doing?" Joxer: "Well apparently just what you've always want- [Gabrielle hits him] ooh! Ooh!" X: "You wanna tell me something, Gabrielle?" – This is fucking hilarious and maybe the only time I laughed.

16) X: "Ladies, you wanna take this someplace else? Unless you want a taste of my new chakram." – “New chakram?” Fuck, when did they film this? After “Chakram?” That was like fucking 13 episodes ago, now it’s just the chakram again.

Is this Crustacea or Ariel? Hard to tell.

The only Hagar I'm interested in.

The octopus scene in this episode looks vaguely familiar to the one in Popeye (1980).

Now I haven't revisited it, but I used to watch the shiiiiit out of Married with Children (1986-1997). I loved this show. The whole cast is amazing. Everyone went on to do great things (besides this show), with the exception of maybe Bud, but there's still time.

Here's Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do," because nothing else will do. And because we need something good, like this video. I did listen to it this day, jammed hard to it as a matter of fact.

Don't forget to like the Xena Movie Campaign on Facebook!

Click HERE for an updated calendar/watching schedule.

 Xena Movie Review Templates: COLOR or Black & White

 Thanks for reading!