Makes Tartarus Look Like The Elysian Fields [Xena Rewatch Season 4 Overview]
Season Four of Xena is… not very good. This is especially noticeable because the okay to mediocre to terrible episodes are loaded up quite heavily in the first half of the season, while the best episodes are left teetering right at the end, which is not very helpful when most of your audience has strained their eyeballs due to rolling them too hard.
Mostly, I found this one a slog. The India episodes are mostly not that bad, but I was well and truly over the spiritual quest by the time we got there.
Having said that, I admire the fact that Gabrielle’s trauma from Season 3 is addressed rather than swept under the rug. Her relationship with Xena may have been healed with a song back in The Bitter Suite, but the tragedy of Hope and the after-effects of Gabrielle’s repeated sacrifices have taken a toll on her.
Xena, it has to be said, got HER spiritual journey and mourning over with pretty much by the end of the opening two-parter of the season, but then Xena is more equipped to deal with guilt, angst and background misery on a daily basis, while it came as something of a shock to Gabrielle.
Other aspects shook this season up quite considerably: having (mostly) written out Callisto as a villain, they experimented with some different Big Bads for Xena. Something I’d never actually noticed before is the lack of Ares in this season as well – he would have been the obvious go-to villain to beef up in the wake of Callisto, but instead the series worked on creating some new female nasties, while also working towards the climax of the Caesar story. Like Callisto, Ares only made one appearance and at the very end of the season (and in his case, not in Xena’s usual continuity but in the far future).
I don’t love Alti or Najara but I do appreciate that the show was trying something different with them. The same can even be said of the India episodes, which aren’t nearly as bad (apart from The Way) as I remember.
Many familiar elements of the show were bid farewell in this season, including Gabrielle’s outfit, hair and fighting stick, and the recurring characters Hope, Ephiny, Pompey and Caesar.
In Season 4, Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship status, while still not overtly declared, begins to feel more like a common law marriage than anything else. They are accepted as a couple by their family and friends, they describe each other regularly as soulmates, and more importantly they both have a quiet confidence in each other which cannot be rattled by any outside force (though Najara has a red hot go at it).
You can still watch this show with a heterosexual lens, as I certainly did the first few times around, but it’s harder to do in 2013. What has really changed in Season 4 is that you no longer have to close your eyes or mentally edit out certain elements in order to view this purely as a lesbian relationship: there are no longer ANY hints of romance between current Xena or Gabrielle and any men that they meet.
The only man that Xena has any kind of romantic or sexual interaction with here is Borias in flashbacks.
Gabrielle’s friendship with Eli is firmly platonic (in her eyes anyway) – far more overtly so than her interactions with Najara. Joxer’s love for Gabrielle remains unrequited. Autolycus seems to have learned to keep his smouldering gaze to himself. Ares doesn’t even show up to flirt with the ladies (though he does have a good smoulder at Ted Raimi’s future Xena).
Another major shift which occurs in this season is the subject of the afterlife, and the acknowledgement that there are options other than Tartarus and the Elysian Fields (the bits that Hades has always been in charge of). Amazons have their own Land of the Dead. Xena is shown the repercussions of the fact that she will reincarnate into the future, and find redemption and peace in those future lives. Then, right at the end in Ides of March, there’s another revelation. Callisto tried for oblivion, but ‘it didn’t take’ – this time around, she ended up in a place called Hell. Run by a chap who isn’t very nice, but takes an interest in villains and politics. No horns have turned up as yet, but I think you see where I’m going with this!
Xena had mashed some Old Testament stories in with its Everything BC Is Good worldview before, and had teased the audience with their preconceptions around a ‘One God’ before revealing that Dahak was in fact a different kettle of fish to the ‘One God of the Israelites’. But from Ides of March onwards, there was going to be a LOT more Christian imagery and mythology mixed in with the Greek and Roman.
Heaven and hell, angels and demons… oh, yes. All that to come. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
Season Highlights:
The Play’s the Thing
Endgame
Ides of March
Déjà Vu All Over Again
Season Lowlights:
A Family Affair
In Sickness and in Health
Daughter of Pomira
Paradise Found
The Way
