Episode 1 & 2: Sins of the Past & Chariots of War

An eisegesis of Xena and fake relationships in ancient Greece

DEVIN:

Two women who watched Xena: Warrior Princess during some unknown years in the 90s (it had to have been before ‘97, which puts us at nine and eleven, at the oldest) decide to watch it again.

We were terrified of our basement as kids. It was dark, and cold, and we only had “farmervision,” which was five channels, anyway, so we never watched tv. It was a small town in central Canada, and we spent our entire childhoods outside, exploring, imagining. And then one day one of us figured out that the Saturday afternoon for a local channel was a weird mix of action, adventure, and ancient Greek mythology. We were hooked.

We started with Sinbad, which started at 1 or 2pm. Hercules followed it directly, and then Xena. Within a few weeks we realized that Xena was by far the best one. Two women kicking ass and battling monsters? It was more than our small town souls knew was possible. We wouldn’t get the feminist and queer subtext until, I guess, all millennials did, a lot later. Lucy Lawless continues to be an icon, and it was in the 4th quarter of the pandemic while I was watching her call out the erstwhile Hercules on Twitter that I texted my sister, Sagan: Should we rewatch Xena? I was about 7 weeks into obsessing over the Gilmore Women substack that she’d shared with me.

So, here we go. We had this idea two months ago, when Covid-19 had a birthday, and I was back after several years abroad, and though Sagan and I are on different sides of the same country, it’s the physically closest we’ve been in years. The world feels a whole lot more optimistic (er, pandemic-wise) now than it did two months ago when we decided that hey, we’ve watched everything else, we want a summer project, so let’s watch Xena, and see if we remember anything in 25+ years it’s been since we watched it the first time. And once we started, we couldn’t stop, so here we go. 

SEASON 1, EPISODE 1: SINS OF THE PAST

DEVIN:

Watching the cold open I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever seen it. (I think we started watching Xena sometime in the middle of its run. Once we found it though, we taped it religiously.)

The 90s were a wild time for tv, and the first episode is simultaneously comforting, weird, and oddly ahead of its time. The basic plot is this: Xena is trying to atone for her past mistakes. She is a “warrior princess, forged in the heat of battle!” with a pedigree of gods. She’s lived off of violence and war for years. We meet her as she tries to put that all behind her (we don’t know why, yet), and in doing so, meets a plucky young woman named Gabrielle who is trying to escape her family and a terrible marriage, and off they go into the beginning of a beautiful, complicated friendship (maybe more!) and the most simultaneously sexy, cheesy, heartfelt, confident, hilarious, dark show of the 90s. In our opinion.

Xena is unique and weird. The feminist and queer subtext has been pored over in more recent years and I’m excited to get into that as we go through our rewatch. But to be totally honest, I still only watched it for the first and only time as a child, so we’re gonna come at this from whatever dregs of my memories I have and how my 34 year old brain takes it in for the first time in 25 years. We were *obsessed* with Xena as children. She seemed powerful, and confident, and, unlike other characters, she was complicated and flawed and trying to atone for her past. The first episode has simultaneously too much plot, and not enough! I am full of questions! Whatever happened to Renee O’Connor? How the hell was this on Saturday afternoons! The sexual tension between Xena and Gabrielle is there from their first scene together! Everyone is shirtless all the time! Toxic masculinity pops up in the first 9 minutes! Indiana-Jones-style whip stealing! Kill-Bill-style-martial-arts-to-cut-off-an-artery! Boob armour! Sassy takes! Extremely nerdy references to ancient Greek myths! Stunts that you will truly not believe until you see them!

I can’t wait to watch this with you.

SAGAN:

I agree—I’m pretty sure we never actually saw this pilot episode when we watched this the first time in the 90s. Which is wild! It makes me wonder when, exactly, we first started watching Xena? How many reruns would we have watched out of order, too? 

The only thing I *really* remember about Xena’s backstory is from the intro theme song (which, by the way, is epic and fantastic)... I’m assuming that’s because, as a kid, I was more concerned about the adventure that Xena and Gabrielle were having in any given moment? Getting a bit more backstory in this first episode was great. Although I still found it vague—like, okay, Xena was a cold-blooded killer? Why? What exactly made her suddenly change from there? Do we get more details in a future episode? I have questions. 

Xena’s first battle cry happens approximately 4 minutes into this episode and I am here for it. The chakram makes its debut one minute later, along with her second battle cry! I wonder if they had a standard amount of times that the chakram needed to appear and the battle cry needed to be voiced in every episode...

Every scene just kills me. This show is the epitome of 90s campiness, which I am obsessed with. 

Exhibit A: Xena removes her armour and “buries” it (AKA tosses a bit of random dirt across it), and the next second, suddenly there are tons of people that apparently came out of nowhere. How did she not see them? How did they not see her?

Exhibit B: The dialogue and delightfully campy one-liners. 

“Okay, we can do this one of two ways: You can let us have the girls and go back to that hovel you call a home, or… we can hack you all into little pieces and take the girls anyway!” says Bad Guy #1 while he laughs maniacally. I love the dichotomy of it with Xena cackling as she disarms and then knocks out Bad Guy #1. 

And then, a little later on: 

“What do you think?” Bad Guy #1 says. Xena, cutting off his air supply: “I think you got a sore throat!” 

Also, when Xena says, “Don’t even think about it, following me. You don’t want to make me mad, do you?”, Gabrielle is clearly SMITTEN.

I’m pretty sure Lucy Lawless has chemistry with everyone she interacts with. Can we talk about her eyes? And her intense focused determination? I would still watch this show if it was just her journeying by herself and nothing else happened. She has the best chemistry with the camera.

And Renee O’Connor is a TREAT to watch. She must have started out as a stage actor, right? Her mannerisms, gestures, everything—it really feels like she came from a theatre background. 

Gabrielle is already kind of a badass right from the start, and she’s so cute. I mean, just take this exchange:

Gabrielle: “I’m going to be a warrior!”

Her sister: “A warrior? Uh, Gabrielle... I can beat you up.” 

Gabrielle, dismissively: “Well, you’re strong for your age.”

And then we also have Gabrielle brushing off her betrothed and why she wants to follow Xena instead of marrying him: “It’s not the gentle part I have a problem with. It’s the dull, stupid part.”  

I feel like my memory of Gabrielle isn’t quite of her being *this* carefree and whimsical? I really love that this is how her character is depicted (at least in the beginning of the show)—she’s such a great contrast to Xena’s tortured sort of state. And the way she forces herself into Xena’s life is so sweet.

DEVIN:

A quick google tells me that Renee O’Connor did some Shakespeare before her role as Gabrielle, and has done theatre since 2017. You’re right, she has the delivery of a stage actor in everything she does. But considering the true silliness of much of the dialogue, I think you need to come at this with some humour. That’s another thing I like so much about this show is that it can’t really figure out its genre. Is it a buddy comedy? A love story? A tragedy? It definitely gets darker as it goes on, I remember being quite worried as a kid by some of the storylines in later seasons -- particularly the tragic arcs focusing on our heroines’ future children. 

I like that the series opens with this attempt from Xena to reform from a history we don’t know about yet - we find out more as it goes on. In fact, it’s a theme that will carry itself across the entirety of the series. What does it mean to be good or evil? Can you change who you are? Are you fated? These are complicated through their exploration of the setting in ancient Greece, which was fundamentally about fates and gods and how they meddle in your lives. I’m looking forward to how the show explores that more deeply or if I’m being eisegetical.

SAGAN:

YES, 100%. I love that this show is what you make of it. And this, I think, is really emblematic of a lot of 90s shows: How do we want to interpret them? What do we want them to mean for us? Maybe it’s just the Rhetoric major in me, but I feel like they involve so many different iterations of humour and action and love and social commentary and inner psyche and so on that we can really watch them through a variety of different lenses. That’s pretty cool!

A few more things that stood out to me while watching this episode: first, Draco is everything you want in a villain. Second, Xena has a brother? What! I don’t remember that. Why are there skulls on his coffin? Third, I adore how the scenes with the Cyclops address an ongoing theme with *how to deal with bullies* throughout this show (which I feel like resonated with me as a kid). Fourth, the background characters are really well-thought-out—from those background voices chiming in when Xena’s mother renounces her (“Not this time Xena!” “We remember!” “Never again!”) to the people’s expressions when Xena and Draco step on their heads, you definitely get the sense that everyone on the set wants to be there and is committed to their role. Fifth—and this goes without saying—I’m really digging the landscape views.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

Silliest stunt: Xena and Draco using the townspeople’s heads as stilts in a to-the-death round of The Ground Is Lava

Best Renee O’Connor lines: 

“I love to study maps, and place names”. 

“Being an adventuress isn’t that hard.” 

“She’d never let a man close enough to do her. At least not that kind of ‘do her’. But! A young, innocent looking girl like me, I’ll catch her totally off guard.” 

Number of Xena “aye-aye-aye-aye-aye” battle cries: RECOUNT

What, exactly, is a chakram?

SEASON 1, EPISODE 2: CHARIOTS OF WAR

SAGAN:

The storyline: A widower and his three children live in a town that’s been attacked by rogue soldiers, so naturally, Xena saves them… but gets wounded in the process! Widower guy (who happens to have Disney prince hair, just saying) needs to nurse Xena back to health. But during Xena’s recovery, the townsfolk continue being attacked. Clearly they must be stopped!

(Sidebar: This family is also apparently from Troy, but “this is their home now,” which makes me want to do some backstory in terms of what’s the chronology supposed to be here? At what point, exactly, of history and Greek mythology are we in right now?)

Meanwhile, Gabrielle is waiting for Xena to show up in a tavern. She receives unwanted advances from a dude in the bar (I mean, who HASN’T been there), so she basically tries to start a fake relationship with another dude in the bar in order to ward off the first guy (I mean, again, who HASN’T done that).

But gasp—It turns out that Fake Relationship Dude is the very person who wounded Xena! He works for his warlord dad, but doesn’t want to be in this line of work anymore. Anyway, there’s a whole thing where Xena and widower make eyes at each other, Fake Relationship Dude feels tortured over his day job, warlord tries to trick the townspeople into a false sense of security, and then Xena and Gabrielle reconnect to stop the warlord once and for all and reform Fake Relationship Dude. 

Important note: Once again, Xena’s first battlecry happens at the 4-minute mark of this episode. Is it the 4-minute mark in EVERY episode? I kind of hope so. But I don’t think the next instance of it comes up again until 22 minutes later, although that time it happens with Xena ripping the legs of her dress for better movement (a woman after my own heart), while a townsperson mutters, “I told you she’d ruin everything!”

God I love this show.

On another note, based on the sheer amount of slapstick humour and physical comedy in this show, you’d think that I’d love physical comedy a lot more than I actually do. I ADORE it in campy 90s shows, but for some reason I’m not a fan of it in more modern stuff… I wonder why that is?

Three more initial thoughts that stood out:

#1 I love how Xena’s kindhearted nature comes out while she’s talking with the widower’s kids. This show (and Lucy Lawless’s portrayal of Xena) does such a great job of showing all the layers and complexities of her personality, and I LOVE the underlying feminist themes that depict how you can be strong and vulnerable at the same time; that you can care about people and also be driven in your pursuits, etc.

#2 Then there’s this exchange between Bad Guy Leader and his soldier son who wounded Xena:

“Hello, father.”

“You’re growing more... powerful, my son. Ares will be pleased!”

“My warrior education is complete. I am ready to take your place.”

<Evil laughter> “There’s still something missing… the desire to kill! You must prove yourself worthy.”

Are we watching Star Wars? This definitely has Star Wars undertones to it.

#3 There’s something we haven’t talked about yet with regards to Xena: Warrior Princess, and that’s this: hairstyles and facial hair.

The bowl cuts. The goatees. The Disney prince hair on Xena’s almost-love-interest. The bangs!

We basically had Xena and Gabrielle’s hairstyles as kids. This makes me wish so much that we could track down a photo of my Xena Halloween costume from the 90s!

DEVIN:

My first thought to myself was also, “where in Greek mythology are we, exactly, right now?” Like how recent was the sack of Troy? Is Odysseus still on his Odyssey? Do I have any other idea how the timelines of Greek myths outside of the Iliad and the Odyssey sync up despite just finishing Madeline Miller’s wonderful Circe? Absolutely not!

Also, Sagan, you know I love your penchant for nicknames but we’re in ancient Greece and these characters either have ridiculous names and/or are based on real characters in mythology, so let’s use them: 

Bad Guy Leader (father to below): Cycnus

Fake Relationship Dude (son to above): Sphaerus

Widower: Darius

While googling these characters’ names, I also learned that Xena’s introduction was actually in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys starring Kevin Sorbo (who would later turn out to not be a great guy, actually). Anyway, the three episodes she starred in acted as both prequel and pilot to Xena: Warrior Princess and examine her redemption story from big baddie to reformed heroine who breaks with Ares, god of war, to put evil behind her for good. I’m pretty sure we revisit these as the stories go on, and that there are more crossovers with Hercules. We’ll have to wait and see I guess.

Anyway, back to the episode. My main takeaways were these:

1. What is with the weird trope of men handing women mediocre dresses and saying things like, “I’d love to see you in this”? Usually they’re not even that great of dresses! To be fair, apart from Darius, I’m mainly thinking of Belloc from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

2. Does Fake Relationship Dude/Sphaerus have culturally appropriate hair? I… don’t think so..

3. There are some seeerious daddy issues in this episode which obviously is a reflection of ancient Greece, which invented daddy issues.

4. I really love that only two episodes in, and already Xena is fully committed to Gabrielle - pulling herself out of bed with her unhealed arrow wound (which she cauterizes with a red hot poker! hello!) to go back and get her friend from the last town. It’s nice! This show was passing the Bechdel test left right and center, way before it was cool.

Now obviously the first season is going to be the most procedural of the series. The idea being, each episode, Xena and Gabrielle rescue a person or a town from a local baddie. But I’m already excited about the broader arcs and the recurring guests that come later! I can’t wait! 

I also didn’t realize that this whole show was filmed on location in New Zealand. I love it! I also like when the Kiwi actors’ accents (including Lucy’s) slip, every now and then. 

SAGAN:

That makes so much sense that Xena’s story began in Hercules—the first episode of Xena left me with a lot of questions! There are definitely a lot of crossovers coming up with Hercules, which will hopefully provide more of that backstory.

That dress that Belloq gives Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark is in the Top 5 Worst Dresses in this trope of men giving women mediocre dresses. It makes you wonder, who is responsible for choosing the dresses in those scenes? Both Xena and Marion have excellent fashion sense otherwise—does someone overrule the costume designer specifically in those scenes?

Getting back to Xena and away from Raiders of the Lost Ark—the immediacy within which Xena and Gabrielle become best friends is delightful. I guess that’s what fighting for your life together in various circumstances will do for you.

There are definitely some daddy issues in this episode, and in general, the relationships and complications with parental figures on this show are fascinating, such as Xena’s mother turning her away in Episode 1. I’m curious to see whether Ares plays something of a father figure to Xena at all, and whether we ever see Gabrielle’s family again. And of course, we see a lot around the concept of “family is who you choose” as the show progresses.

DEVIN:

In my (admittedly bad) memory, aren’t Xena and Ares lovers eventually? I can’t remember and I refuse to watch the ‘prequels’!

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

Number of “aye aye aye aye ayes!”: 3

Best lines delivered by Renee O’Connor:

“I’m looking for my best friend, maybe you’ve seen her? Six feet tall, dark hair, lots of leather.”

“He was cute, in a sort of rugged, outdoorsy way.” --oh Gabrielle, we’ve all been there sweetie. 

Most bisexual comment between Xena and Gabrielle: “Remind me sometime to talk to you about your taste in men.”