Ulysses – Director: Michael Levine/Writer: R.J. Stewart
This one starts with Xena and Gabi walking by the seashore, with Gabi trying to get Xena to relax and enjoy life more. They hear the sounds of a fight and run down to shore to help a guy fight off a horde of pirates. He turns out to be Ulysses and says someone’s trying to stop him from getting home. Xena offers to help and Ulysses warns her his enemy is very powerful. As if to prove his point, Poseidon rises out of the sea.
Poseidon warns Xena not to help and reminds Ulysses there’s no point in going home to Ithaca since his wife (Penelope) is dead. After Poseidon
leaves, Ulysses tells them why Poseidon hates him (he blinded Polyphemus, Poseidon’s son) and tells Xena Penelope died in a shipwreck coming to look for him. The pirates have commandeered Ulysses’ ship, so Gabi dresses like a Romany and boards the ship, distracting the pirates with a sexy dance. Xena and Ulysses sneak aboard and pound the pirates, tossing most of them overboard. Since she doesn’t have her staff, Gabi fights with a mop but ends up a target for a pirate’s crossbow. Ulysses takes the arrow instead of Gabi and the pirate prepares to kill him.
Xena saves him and they sail the ship away from shore. While she’s tending his wound, Ulysses tells Xena about the special bow he left in Ithaca that 
only he’s strong enough to string and use. Xena offers to help get Ulysses home and he accepts. (Gabi is seasick and feeling like crap, but says she’ll go wherever Xena goes.) Poseidon sends storms and orders the Sirens to sing their enchanting song when the ship gets close to their island. Xena ties Ulysses up, but the song drives him to ecstasy and he breaks loose (almost breaking Gabi’s leg in the process) and tries to take control of the ship. Xena decks him, so he decides to jump overboard to be with the Sirens.
Before Ulysses can jump overboard, Xena sings her own song, drowning out the Sirens until they’ve passed the island. That night, Ulysses tells Xena he’s in love with her. She seems somewhat flattered, but not quite sure of
her own feelings (although she doesn’t stop him when he kisses her). Gabi overhears them and is obviously bothered by it, but the next day she tells Xena to follow her heart and not worry about Gabi’s feelings. They land on Ithaca (where Gabi is so happy to be on solid ground, she ends up French-kissing the beach) and run into more pirates pounding a guy. They run the pirates off and the guy turns out to be Ulysses’ old friend (Metocles) who tells Ulysses Penelope is still alive and will be thrilled to see him.
Metocles tells Ulysses how the pirates have been pushing Penelope to choose one of them as a husband, but if that happens the pirates will ruin 
Ithaca. Inside the castle, Penelope has found another way to delay the pirates; she promises to marry the first one who can string Ulysses bow. Ulysses leads Xena and Gabi through a secret entrance to the castle. He tells Xena he doesn’t care about Penelope and still loves Xena, but she gives him shit, telling him she was never really interested. Gabi knows Xena said that to get Ulysses to go back to Penelope and wonders what’ll happen if he figures it out. They sneak into the throne room disguised as peasants and servants. Ulysses strings the bow (although he has a little trouble and Xena has to help him surreptitiously) and reveals himself. Ulysses, Xena, and Gabi pound the
pirates and Ulysses is reunited with Penelope. Xena and Gabi try to take off right away using Ulysses ship. (I assume they’ll send it back once they reached mainland Greece.) Ulysses comes down to see Xena, telling her he figured out why she was so harsh earlier and offering to leave with her. Xena won’t let him, telling him he has to stay and make things work with Penelope and rule Ithaca. As they’re leaving, Xena tells Gabi to keep the part about her helping Ulysses string the bow a secret, since he doesn’t know and it’s better for him if everyone thinks he did it alone. Gabi agrees, but if these episodes are supposed to be based on her scrolls, she obviously left that detail in.
I’m not all that fond of this episode (it’s #120 on my all-time list), although I don’t hate it as much as some fans do. There are some cool scenes and 
some interesting parts, but Xena’s sudden infatuation with Ulysses makes no sense, especially since we know she already has feelings for Gabi. R.J. Stewart admitted the romance didn’t make sense and suggested maybe Xena was “just ready for a passionate fling and talked herself into it”, and Lucy said she had no chemistry with the actor playing Ulysses. One reason I rate this episode higher than similar ones (like King Con) is because here I can at least come up with an explanation for Xena’s behaviour, whereas in King Con I can’t.
Actually, I can think of two possible reasons for Xena having the hots for Ulysses. As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I think Xena is in love with Gabi at this point, but has recently pulled back from that a bit, probably
because she’s afraid Gabi will end up getting hurt if they have a romantic relationship. (Or possibly Xena’s afraid her dark side will taint Gabi somehow.) So Xena going after Ulysses may be (as R.J. suggested) Xena’s way of pulling away from her feelings for Gabi and trying to stop that relationship from getting more serious. That would sorta fit the facts here, but I’m not sure if Xena would do that because she knows it would hurt Gabi to see her suddenly fall for someone else (and Gabi is definitely jealous here). I don’t think Xena would hurt Gabi like that deliberately, even if Xena thought she was doing it for Gabi’s own good.
A more likely explanation (to me anyway) is that Poseidon put a spell on Xena (and maybe Ulysses too). When they first meet, Ulysses talks about 
loving Penelope and missing her, but later he says they hardly knew each other and he never really loved her. And Xena goes from being friendly to Ulysses to telling Gabi she might be in love with him. That makes me think Poseidon might have cast a spell, probably right after they escaped the Sirens since that’s when the “romance” suddenly shifts into overdrive. It’s possible Ulysses was already interested in Xena (which makes more sense than her being hot for him)
and Poseidon’s spell just amped up his feelings. For Xena’s part, when she’s talking to Gabi about possibly being in love with Ulysses, Xena looks more surprised than Gabi, so maybe her feelings are artificial. When Xena says Gabi taught her how to love, I think that’s Xena’s way of (almost) admitting she’s in love with Gabi, and she’s surprised that those feelings have suddenly transferred to Ulysses. That would explain Xena’s change of heart later on and why she was so adamant about Ulysses going back to Penelope; somewhere inside, Xena knew her feelings for Ulysses weren’t natural and maybe her genuine love for Gabi helped her realize that. (When Gabi urges Xena to follow her heart, Xena says “You’re part of my heart”.) If you’re thinking Poseidon doesn’t 
do love spells, remember he’s the one who made King Minos’s wife fall in love with the sacred bull in classical myth (which led to the birth of the Minotaur). So if Poseidon can make Pasiphaë fall in love with a bull, he should be able to make Xena fall for Ulysses. That would also explain Poseidon’s anger toward Xena a couple episodes from now in Lost Mariner. Poseidon tries to get Cecrops to kill her because she defied him, but maybe he wasn’t just talking about Xena’s actions in that episode; maybe he’s still pissed off that she managed to resist his spell here and help Ulysses reunite with his wife.
Noticeable Things:
- I really like Gabi in this episode. She holds her own in multiple fights, and we see that she definitely has romantic feelings for Xena but is
willing to put them aside for Xena’s happiness, just like Xena did with her in Return of Callisto. (And I think Gabi finally knows just how Xena felt seeing her marry someone else.) - In mythology, Ulysses wandered for ten years after the Trojan War before reaching home. It’s only been a year or so in this timeline (since the war ended in Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts).
- Gabi’s seasickness is played for laughs, with Xena enjoying her discomfort. In fact, Xena has more of a sense of humour here than usual; Lucy said she was trying to soften the character up a bit by this time.
- We get another instance of Xena saying she has many skills when Ulysses expresses surprise that she knows how to sail a ship.
Favourite Quotes:
- “I learned a long time ago not to try and leave her out of anything.” Xena telling Ulysses that Gabi will be coming with them to Ithaca.
- “Xena, would you mind knocking me unconscious?” Gabi seeking relief from her seasickness.
- “All right, I’m game; what’d you have in mind?” Ulysses as Xena starts tying him up before approaching the Sirens’ island.
- “Think of something else, Ulysses, like discus-throwing.” Gabi’s advice to take Ulysses’ mind off the feelings generated by the Siren song. I guess it’s the Ancient Greek version of thinking about baseball.