PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical, psychological, sociological*
For the whole season, Xena and Gabrielle remain dead and Joxer becomes the new star. Or maybe not. OK, they both come back to life and somehow Xena gets pregnant, because Lucy Lawless had become pregnant back during Season Four. This meant that Season 5 saddled O'Connor's Gabrielle with most of the action scenes, and Lawless's Xena spends most of her time covered up by heavy clothes or appliances.
FALLEN ANGEL (F)-- The spirits of the two heroines go to heaven, but promptly become bones of contention between the angels and demons. In fact, most of the episode consists of either Xena or Gabrielle shuttling back and forth between Perdition and Paradise, while back on Earth their mourners, Joxer and Amarice, seek to take the crusaders' bodies back to Xena's hometown. There are only two scenes of mythic substance in the episode. First, when Angel-Xena struggles with a demonic version of Callisto, Xena decides to use her spirit-power to redeem Callisto's soul from her obsessive evil, and succeeds, though Xena herself becomes a demon. Second, after all the otherworldly transformations run their gamut, Eli pulls a Lazarus, reviving the bodies of X and G with their spirits once more intact. Though Eli was seen performing other magical acts, this is the only one that's a definite Imitatio Christi.
CHAKRAM (F)-- There's a twist to Xena's resurrection: she forgets all of her experiences as a warrior, becoming something of a goody-good milquetoast. Also, Xena's Chakram was broken by Callisto in THE IDES OF MARCH, and it can only be repaired by a complicated process, while both Ares and a rival war-god, Kal, seek to obtain the weapon for their own benefit. Inevitably Xena regains both her weapon and her full memories, while from somewhere Gabrielle acquires a pair of sai-knives. These apparently symbolize her decision to become a full-time warrior-companion to her BFF. Eli departs once more, but presumably spends more time building up his peace-and-love movement, given later events. Also, Joxer confesses his love to Gabrielle, while she puts off making any response.
SUCCESSION (F)-- Though Ares seems to have mostly given up on re-recruiting Xena, an intense warrior-woman named Mavican (Jenya Lano) stumps for the job of the war-god's new emissary on Earth. When she challenges both Xena and Gabrielle, Ares flings all three of them into another dimension to fight it out. The rules of the game are pretty clever.
ANIMAL ATTRACTION (F)-- High Plains Warrior Princess! The action takes place in a town called Spamona, which one might assume is in North Greece, since the very next story has the cast hike all the way back to the territory of the Siberian Amazons. Anyway, everyone in Spamona wears cowboy hats and dusters, so that Xena and Gabrielle-- who have picked up Joxer and Amarice again at some point-- stand out a bit, even though Xena volunteers to protect the town from yet another warlord-horde. Also, Gabrielle makes friends with a new horse, and is seen riding out of town on it at the end, though the new mount is only irregularly seen from then on. Amarice gets an "animal attraction" for a young stud, but the big news is that Xena's pregnant-- and to the best of her knowledge, there's no way that could have happened.
THEM BONES, THEM BONES (F)-- Xena begins to experience bad symptoms from her pregnancy, and the eventual diagnosis is that the spirit of the slain villain Alti is seeking to possess the heroine's unborn child. So the two heroines, Amarice and Joxer hoof it to Siberia for the help of the Amazon shamans. If only because it's shorter, this is a much better shaman-outing than ADVENTURES IN THE SIN TRADE, though it's still rather derivative. Amarice stands revealed as a pretender to Amazon status, and she stays behind to join the Siberian tribe.
PURITY/ BACK IN THE BOTTLE (G)-- These two strongly related episodes send the heroines back to Chin, this time with Joxer in tow. Xena learns that there's a secret book of magical/martial techniques left behind by her late, cherished mentor Lao Ma, and her two surviving children both want the book. But Kao Hsin wants to keep the book's secrets away from evildoers, while Pao Ssu wants to share the secrets with her warlord friends-- who also seek the secret of gunpowder to begin a wave of conquest. Pao Ssu perishes in the first episode, and then comes back merged with Xena's no-less-dead enemy Ming Tien. (The merger is probably a tip of the hat to the 1993 BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR.) Xena, who wielded supernatural power in THE DEBT thanks to Lao Ma's tutelage, steps up her mystical game to defeat a teeming army. A few lines from Lao Ma's book sound like Schopenhauer, an alleged favorite of Rob Tapert.
LITTLE PROBLEMS (P)-- Thanks to yet another goofup by ditzy Aphrodite, Xena's spirit becomes lodged in the body of a little girl, Daphne, who has problems communicating with her daddy. There's a forgettable warlord in a Doctor Doom mask to provide peril. The only memorable schtick involves Gabrielle and Aphrodite masquerading as conjoined twins to have an oil-wrestling match with another pair of such twins, Castor and Pollux.
SEEDS OF FAITH (G)-- Despite the fact that the writers don't build up to the revelation, it seems that Ares and the other Olympians fear a "twilight of the gods," when they will be replaced by other forms of worship, presumably the real-life religion that Eli represents. Ares plans to send an army of soldiers to slay Eli, and Eli begs Xena and Gabrielle to stay out of the matter. The angel Callisto informs that Eli's sacrifice alone can cause the Olympians' downfall-- and just for a topper, asserts that she's the one who created Xena's immaculate pregnancy so that she could become reincarnated in the burgeoning infant. Xena decides she's OK with all this, and that's the last appearance for Hudson Leick on the show. Eli dies but clearly has a supernatural survival that betokens the rise of his religion of peace.
LYRE, LYRE, HEARTS ON FIRE (P)-- All the good credit the show earned from THE BITTER SUITE is largely wiped from the slate by this musical mishmash. Xena and Gabrielle insist that two claimants to a mystic lyre should fight things out in a battle of the bands: one band led by a tribe of Amazons, the other a group of raiders led by Draco, still in love with Gabrielle since A COMEDY OF EROS. There are a few amusing scenes, such as Gabrielle getting a little jelly when another woman makes moves on Joxer. Less successful is a heavy-handed lecture about tolerance, as Joxer is shown to be embarrassed by his flamboyant brother Jase (also Raimi). Since the writers wanted Joxer to remain sympathetic, his discomfort never rises to the level of homophobia.
PUNCH LINES (P)-- Call this "Adventures in the Shrink Trade," as the gloomy god Lachrymose subjects Gabrielle and Argo to a "reduction derby." Amid all the lame humor, including an old-style pie fight, Xena has some decent dialogue worrying about her fitness to be a mother.
GOD FEARING CHILD (P)-- Unlike the comedy episodes, the writers clearly meant this opus to be deep and meaningful, but failed due to an overall meretricious outlook. The Fates decree to Zeus and Hera that the Olympian gods are doomed by the rise of a child not born of man, so Zeus sets his sights on Xena's daughter. Hercules shows up and seeks to intercede with his godly father, but to no avail.
For some dubious reason Xena decides she and Gabrielle must journey to Tartarus to steal Hades' cap of invisibility, even though the baby will be stillborn if birthed in the underworld. X and G have various adventures, including once more encountering the shade of Solan, but the main thrust of the story belongs to Hercules. His stepmother Hera switches sides for no good reason and guides Hercules to a graveyard where the hero can fashion a weapon from one of the ribs of Kronos. (One HERCULES show claimed that Kronos was in Tartarus, so how'd he get there without his ribs?) Zeus punishes Hera by absorbing her, but Hercules fulfills his destiny by killing his own father with a rib-weapon--the TV hero's last act, since the HERCULES series had ended. The heroines win free of Tartarus in time for Xena to bear her immaculate progeny, whom she decides to name "Eve" for no reason. The writers were presumably trying to go for some symbolic link between the ribs of Kronos and the Adamic rib from which the Biblical Eve was created, but it's a clumsy juxtaposition.
ETERNAL BONDS (F)-- The surviving gods mount a campaign to slay Xena's newborn child, attacking both with their own godly forces and with human servitors. (Three such servitors appear before Xena and Gabrielle, offering gifts, but this Magi-imposture is just a trick.) Joxer is wounded by a poisoned blade from a priest of Artemis (Apollo would've been more appropriate), so Gabrielle must take him to get a cure. This errand frees up Xena, traveling covertly with Eve, to encounter Ares once again. The war-god is now convinced that the Olympians are doomed (Eve oddly taking the place of the previous gods'-bane, Dahak) so he wants Xena to bear his child. For the first time since the series' beginning, Xena is visibly tempted by her buried erotic feelings for Ares, but she rejects his bargain and re-united with her friends, escaping the gods once more.
AMPHIPOLIS UNDER SIEGE (P)-- This is just another "city under siege" story. Joxer wanders off somewhere else while Xena, Gabrielle and Xena's newborn proceed to her home town. Xena's mother gets a chance to play grandma and Ares renews his offer of salvation when the other gods descend to invade the city. The one virtue of the dull story is a moment when Ares KNOWS that Xena makes a bargain with him as a means of playing him, but he can't resist letting her have her way.
MARRIED WITH FISHSTICKS (P)-- Here's one last silly-pants episode before Season Five concludes on a lot of heavy-themed stories. The heroines witness two petulant goddesses, Aphrodite and Discord, dueling with lightning-bolts, and a wayward blast tosses Gabrielle into the sea. Gabrielle then dreams most of the rest of the episode, which is a revised version of the Goldie Hawn movie OVERBOARD, sans the big romantic hookup with the male lead (Ted Raimi again). Lots of makeup and monsters make this one mildly palatable.
LIFEBLOOD (F)-- For an episode that recycles footage from a failed pilot called AMAZON HIGH (about a 20th-century woman joining a primeval Amazon tribe), this story works out better than expected. The heroines seek out the Northern Amazon tribe (which I didn't think was homologous with the ones who made Gabby their queen, but whatever). Both the head Amazon Yakut and the long-unseen Amarice have died, and the tribe plans a mission of vengeance. Xena gets visions that link her to the primeval Amazons, and this helps her avert senseless killing.
KINDRED SPIRITS (F)-- This is a largely comic episode but it's not completely silly. Joxer finds his way to the Northern Amazon tribe but he peeps on some of the nubile wenches at their ablutions. Gabrielle, installed as temporary chieftain, must find some way to keep Joxer from being executed for his offense without violating Amazon tradition. An Amazon named Rhea, who's not seen many men before, visits the captive male with the idea of siring a child by him, but it's just infant-envy at work. A big ring-fight between Xena and Joxer, spiced with spoofs of pro-wrestling, is more memorable than most Xena-japes, particularly since Xena finally loses her damn pregnancy concealing coat.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (P)-- This episode serves largely to set up Xena becoming an ally of Octavius, one of the major players vying with Brutus and Marc Antony for Roman power. An assassin sent by Brutus slays Cleopatra, so Xena poses as the Egyptian queen and seeks to run rings around the Romans. Xena makes love to Marc Antony but ends up killing him, while Gabrielle offs Brutus. Just can't trust them Romans.
LOOKING DEATH IN THE EYE (F)-- The fate of Xena and Gabrielle, seeking to protect Eve from the gods, is related in piecemeal fashion via a frame-story which takes place 25 years in the future, related by an aged Joxer (now married to Xena-lookalike Meg and possessed of a strapping young son who looks like neither parent). Xena arranges a massive hoax that involves kidnapping the death-goddess Celesta (last seen in DEATH IN CHAINS). Xena fakes the deaths of herself, Eve and Gabrielle, so that neither Ares nor Joxer knows the truth, though Octavius takes custody of Eve. But because Ares believes the heroines are dead, he enshrines their comatose bodies in an Arctic ice-cave.
LIVIA (G)-- X and G escape their icy confinement, find out that 25 years have passed, and seek out Joxer the Aged. They meet both wife Meg and son Virgil, who's become a proficient warrior after being raised on a diet of Joxer's stories of his glorious actions. Xena, Gabrielle, Joxer and Virgil go to Rome to demand an accounting from Octavius as to the disposition of Xena's daughter.
But-- never trust a Roman! Octavius renamed Eve "Livia" (note the slight name-resemblance) and raised her as a warrior-woman who devotes herself to gladiatorial games and persecuting the still-extant followers of Christ-like Eli. (To be sure, since Livia shared the "blood" of both Xena and Callisto, Octavius may not have much of a choice.) Octavius eventually tells Xena that he's in love with his adoptive daughter and plans to marry her. But that enormity doesn't frost the warrior princess' butt as much as finding out that Ares-- who still believes that Baby Eve died for real-- has become both mentor and implied lover to Livia. Livia considers Rome itself her only "mother," having never been told of her mortal sire, so when Xena reveals the truth, Livia reacts with scandalized hatred-- and for a bonus, Ares figures out that his new squeeze is Eve, Doom of the Gods. Mother and daughter battle in the Colosseum, but though Livia is spared by both Xena and the citizens of Rome, she vows undying hatred of the warrior princess.
EVE (G)-- Forget the struggles of Livia/Eve; the standout event here is Xena's daughter finally kills someone Xena and Gabrielle actually care about. Due to traveling with Xena's group, Joxer becomes embarrassed by his ineptitude and leaves himself open to being slain by none other than Livia. But before that big moment, Ares, having been rejected by Xena once again, encourages Livia to kill her mother. For Xena's part, she's all but convinced that Livia is beyond recovery, though she prays to Eli for guidance. With the help of some Roman allies, Xena sets a trap for Livia and her soldiers. When Xena conquers Livia, she pauses before the final stroke and implores the aid of Eli once more. Whatever power is behind Eli gives Livia her own personal "road to Damascus" moment, and she sees the evil of her entire life, effectively transforming corrupted Livia back into innocent Eve. Virgil takes his father's body back home.
MOTHERHOOD (F)-- It's "Twilight of the Gods" in overdrive, as Eve seeks redemption from a prominent Eli follower, "The Baptist." Somehow this redemptive power also confers on Xena the power to kill gods, which will come in handy throughout Season Six. Athena mounts a sneak attack, sending the invisible Furies to seduce Gabrielle into killing Eve. (The Furies also show Gabby visions of Joxer and Hope.) Eve tries to make amends to Virgil, but he rejects her. The plot is partly successful, though Xena has to severely wound Gabrielle to prevent Eve's slaying. Four gods show up to attack Xena and Eve, but Xena kills two and the others retreat. Aphrodite appears, but cannot help dying Gabrielle without the blessing of Athena. She transports Xena, the wounded Eve and the dying Gabrielle to Olympus, where the warrior princess seeks to make a deal with Athena, though Xena's in danger of losing her power to kill gods if Eve dies of her wound. The writers then blatantly contradict Aphrodite's testimony, that only Athena can bring healing, by having lovelorn Ares heal both Eve and Gabrielle, making it possible for Xena to slay Athena. (They throw in a weak excuse that Ares can only do this deed by giving up his immortality, which gives him an excuse to dodge the Gotterdammerung and to hang around through Season Six.)
While it's too early for a series overview, I have to say that this season places the show-runners very much in the mode of Gabrielle in THE PLAY'S THE THING. They have the characters make lots of speeches about the importance of "letting go" and extending mercy, while finding lots of excuses to unleash crowd-pleasing mayhem (this time, expressly aligned with a fictional version of the Judeo-Christian religion).
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