Ten Little Warlords – Director: Charles Siebert/Writer: Paul Robert Coyle
Throughout this episode, Xena is stuck inside Callisto’s body, so whenever I refer to Xena, she’s actually played by Hudson Leick. Gabi is still getting used to Xena being in the body of her worst enemy, but she’s trying to adjust. Joxer shows up with a message for Callisto asking her to come to a nearby port. Xena’s not interested until Joxer tells her it’s from Ares and he’s sent
identical messages to nine other warlords. Xena knows Ares is aware of her situation (since he helped cause it), so she knows the message isn’t really from him. At the port, Xena and Gabi see the other warlords congregating and wonder what’s up. Gabi is in a foul mood and ends up starting a fight in town, but the townspeople all seem pretty touchy too. Xena and Gabi run into a drunken Ares, who tells them he’s lost his sword and therefore his godly powers.
Xena isn’t too bothered, thinking the world might be better off without a 
God of War. But Ares points out Gabi’s suddenly bellicose attitude (and the rest of the town), explaining that without a sitting God of War, humans can’t control their anger. People like Xena (who have lived with anger for a long time) can channel it to keep themselves focused, but most people will just lose their shit. Xena’s still not inclined to help him, even though he offers to switch her back to her real body once his power is restored. That night Gabi’s unresolved anger toward Callisto takes hold of her and it’s so disturbing Xena decides to help Ares
after all. They waylay one of the warlords to get Ares an invitation and board the ship (with the other eight warlords) that’ll take them to their destination. They’re forced to leave all their weapons behind and when they’re underway, they all get a message from “Ares” saying that he’s retiring and wants one of them to take over as God of War. (For the record, the other warlords are Virilius, Tegason, Carus, Gagnon, Sudos, Devitocles, and a couple of nameless dudes … but it doesn’t really matter since they all wind up dead.)
Xena doesn’t think one of the warlords could be much worse than Ares, but he reminds her he was born into it and that no mortal could handle the 
responsibility properly. We see Gabi and Joxer in a boat of their own, Gabi’s anger at being left behind driving her to follow Xena. When Xena, Ares, and the warlords land, they hear the roars of some beast echoing across the island. Once they get inside the castle, Xena soon realizes their host is Sisyphus. Turns out he stole Ares’ sword (and his godhood) and now says he’s willing to give it to whoever can defeat the Barrachus—a fearsome monster that lives in a cave below the island. Sisyphus says he made a deal with Hades that he’ll gain immortality if the Barrachus is killed and he’ll reward whoever kills it with
Ares’ godhood. (Sisyphus also recognizes Ares and outs him to everyone.) The warlords realize the boat has left, so they’re stuck on the island whether they agree to Sisyphus’s deal or not. Gabi and Joxer land on the island and when they hear the Barrachus roaring, Gabi gets mad and decides to go after it. The warlords draw lots to see what order they’ll fight the Barrachus and Xena wins the first try. The others (especially Sudos, who drew number two) don’t like that and start busting up furniture to use as weapons, surrounding Xena and Ares.
After a brief fight where Ares gets his ass kicked and Xena pounds most of the warlords, Gagnon breaks Sudos’s neck, moving everyone up in the order. Gabi and Joxer sneak through a drainage pipe into the caves under the
castle to look for the monster, but Gabi’s anger is really getting to her. The warlords all head to their rooms and find weapons there. Xena figures Sisyphus wants them to kill each other, not the Barrachus. She binds Ares’ wounds and he tries to get romantic, but she isn’t interested. Ares tells her that being mortal has given him a new perspective, but Xena figures he’ll go back to being the same old asshole after he gets his powers back. Gagnon staggers into the room with Carus’s axe in his back. Xena and Ares take Gagnon’s body to the main hall, dumping it on the table. Devitocles attacks Xena and she kills him. After 
tossing his body on the table too, she says Sisyphus would hide Ares’ sword somewhere obvious, so they start looking around. In the caves, Joxer finally gives in to his anger (he’s driven over the edge by a fly) and he and Gabi almost get into a fight. They agree to set aside their beef until they’ve killed the monster. In the castle, Virilius and Tegason trick two other warlords into stabbing each other; now there are only three left, besides Xena and Ares. They’re exploring the dungeons and Sisyphus eavesdrops on them, figuring out that “Callisto” is really Xena. Ares falls prey to one of Sisyphus’s traps and ends up dangling upside-down over a pit of fire with spiked walls closing in on him.
Xena rescues Ares and they head upstairs where they run into Virilius, Tegason, and Carus. Xena tries to explain how Sisyphus is letting them kill each other and the last one standing will take his place in Tartarus, but the warlords won’t listen. Virilius and Tegason kill Carus and attack Xena and
Ares. Below the castle, Gabi and Joxer find the monster … it’s a huge fan that makes a roaring noise when air blows through it. Joxer smashes it with a stick and Gabi’s so mad she heads upstairs howling for someone’s blood. Xena and Ares fight Virilius and Tegason and Xena figures out where Sisyphus hid Ares’ sword … it’s sitting on top of Devitocles’ body on the table. Xena retrieves the sword and kills Tegason, while Ares buries a dagger in Virilius’s gut. Sisyphus appears, urging Xena to kill Ares and claim his godhood. Joxer and Gabi bust in to let Xena know the Barrachus was a hoax. Sisyphus admits he made a deal with 
Hades to send him ten top warlords in exchange for getting out of Tartarus. Virilius gets up to stab Ares and Xena throws Ares’ sword, killing Virilius and saving Ares’ ass. Ares reclaims his sword (and his godhood), banishing Sisyphus back to Tartarus. Ares thanks Xena, but disappears without putting her back in her own body. Gabi and Joxer are back to normal now and Gabi tells Xena she’ll stick by her no matter what body she’s in … even a snake-haired Gorgon monster. But Ares belatedly restores Xena to her proper body, so at least Gabi doesn’t have to look at Callisto every day.
This isn’t really a bad episode (it’s #90 on my all-time list), but it suffers from the fact that Lucy Lawless isn’t in it. Hudson Leick does a good job playing Xena, but she’s not Lucy and sometimes it’s hard to remember who
I’m supposed to be seeing on screen. This episode came about because Lucy was hurt doing a stunt on the Tonight Show and had to take some time off. Originally, Xena was supposed to get her real body back at the end of last episode, but when Lucy got hurt, this was written to extend Hudson’s tenure as Xena. Lucy doesn’t appear at all in this episode; the shot of Xena at the end is from the opening credits (with the background re-coloured) and that’s a stand-in walking down the beach with Gabi. I’m not sure if this episode would even exist if not for Lucy’s injury, so it’s hard to compare it with the rest of the series.
That being said, there are some good moments between Xena and Ares and 
we get to see a different side to the God of War. After living as a mortal for a while (experiencing things like drunkenness, a hangover, pain, and fear), Ares claims to have a new perspective. We could be cynical like Xena and assume he was just telling her what she wanted to hear (or what he needed to say to get her help), but Kevin Smith said he actually did play Ares differently after this episode, trying to make him more human and multi-dimensional. Some fans wonder why Ares waited to change Xena back if he really had changed. First of all, I think Ares would enjoy making Xena sweat a bit, letting her think he’d gone back on his promise to restore her to her real body. But I also wonder if he
wasn’t waiting to see what Gabi would do. Gabi was having trouble accepting Xena being stuck in Callisto’s body (understandable, since Callisto killed Gabi’s husband) and some of that came out in her unnatural anger. So I think maybe Ares was waiting to see if Gabi might leave Xena (since that would make Xena more vulnerable to his manipulations), and when Gabi promised to stick with Xena no matter what, Ares figured he might as well restore Xena’s body.
Gabi’s anger is actually quite funny at times, like when she pulls the bartender across the bar, tries unsuccessfully to put the pinch on him, and ends up knocking him out with a mug. Renee is good at playing that sort of over-the-top comical anger; Gabi’s real anger, like when she was goading Xena to teach her sword-fighting so she could kill Callisto, isn’t so funny. It took longer for the unnatural anger to get to Joxer than Gabi; Joxer claims it’s because he’s always fighting his warrior bloodlust, but it’s probably more that he’s used to dealing with
anger because of the way everyone treats him. A lifetime of being a joke to everyone would prepare him to handle the anger brought on by Ares’ loss of godhood, whereas Gabi (who’s generally just a nice person) is less equipped to deal with it. And Ted and Renee make a great comedy duo, playing off each other perfectly.
Noticeable Things:
- At the beginning of the episode, Gabi asks Xena (who’s in Callisto’s body) if she’d be willing to dye her blonde hair dark; I wonder if that’s a meta-joke, since Lucy Lawless is a natural blonde who dyed her hair dark to play Xena.
- After the last time we saw Sisyphus, he actually did go to the Underworld and then escaped (in a Hercules episode) and is now trying to get someone to take his place in Tartarus. I wonder if Hades helped Sisyphus steal Ares’ sword; last episode, Hades was mad that Ares had been interfering in his domain while helping Callisto switch bodies with Xena, so maybe he helped Sisyphus as a little payback?
- On the ship, Callisto says she heard how Xena dropped Virilius’s pants and sent him running away bare-assed. But later, Xena tells Ares she never faced Virilius on the battlefield. Maybe the pantsing took place somewhere more private, in a one-on-one fight.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Hey, hey, who do you have to punch to get a drink around here?”
Angry Gabi, demanding service in a tavern. - “There are certain advantages to being trapped in the body of a psycho.” Ares pointing out that Xena being in Callisto’s body gives her a built-in intimidation factor.
- “When I get my body back, remind me to take a long bath.” Xena, after finding out Ares and Callisto banged while Callisto was in Xena’s body.
