Been There, Done That – Director: Andrew Merrifield/Writer: Hilary J. Bader
This one starts with Xena and Gabi waking up to a rooster’s crow. They’re sleeping in a stable and Joxer comes in with goose eggs for breakfast. After accidentally dropping a horseshoe on Joxer’s head, the stablehand informs them there are two factions in town (Menos and Lykos) who hate each other and have been on the edge of open warfare for years. Outside, Gabi sends Joxer to get more goose eggs (the originals having been broken by the horseshoe bouncing off Joxer’s head). They notice a couple of
guys (Neron and Tybellus) getting ready to duel over one of the Lykos family (Casca) being run over by a cart driven by a Menos dude. Joxer tries to intervene and gets stabbed, which devastates Gabi. They have a funeral for him and Xena tries to console Gabi, saying things will be better in the morning. She doesn’t know how right she is: when the rooster crows the next morning, Xena wakes up in the stable again and is shocked when Joxer walks in with a hat full of goose eggs, just like the day before.
Xena thinks she was dreaming until things start repeating exactly the same way as the previous day. Gabi and Joxer think she’s crazy, but she won’t let them get separated in case Joxer gets killed again. She sends them to an 
alley for safety and breaks up the duel, but another fight starts in the alley. Xena breaks that up too, but accidentally kills a Lykos guy, causing the Menos family to be pissed off at her. They take revenge by killing Argo, which makes Joxer feel guilty since Xena’s repeating day saved him but got Argo killed instead. The next day, Xena wakes up in the stable again and is thrilled to see Argo is fine. Xena tells Gabi and Joxer about the repeating days again and wonders if saving Casca from the cart is the key to stopping it. The next day, she runs out as soon as the rooster crows and heads to where Casca is about to get run down by a cart (because he’s too deaf to hear the warnings).
Xena saves Casca, but the duel between Neron and Tybellus starts again, this time because Tybellus doesn’t like Neron going out with his cousin Hermia. This time, Xena breaks up the duel and slaps them around a bit, but
Gabi and Joxer end up in the alley again, where Gabi gets stabbed this time. Xena is freaked out and for once she actually hopes the day will repeat. It does, and Xena’s ecstatic when she wakes up the next day and sees that Gabi is okay. Joxer suggests maybe the rooster crowing is causing the days to repeat, so Xena kills it, but the day repeats again. She has trouble getting Gabi and Joxer to stay near the stable (to keep them from getting killed), so she tells Gabi that Joxer is in love with her. The day repeats again and Xena stops fights all over town, but more break 
out immediately. She finds an empty vial of nightsbane poison on the ground, but doesn’t think much of it. Since the beginning, Joxer has been urging Xena to try uniting the warring houses by insulting them, giving them a common enemy. She decides to give it a shot and it works a little too well; they all end up dying in a hail of arrows from both families. The day repeats again and Xena’s so pissed off she throws her chakram at Joxer when he enters the stable, killing him. (I’m sure a lot of Joxer haters loved that moment.) Gabi’s completely freaked out, but Xena just rolls over and goes back to sleep.
The day repeats again and Xena decides to do a little research on the feud, leaving Gabi and Joxer tied up in the stable to keep them out of trouble. (The pissed-off look on Gabi’s face is priceless.) Xena talks to the apothecary
about nightsbane poison and to the midwife about the history of the two families. After saving Casca the next day, Xena uses the knowledge she got from the midwife to point out the commonalities between the families and end the feud (which makes me wonder why the midwife hasn’t said anything all this time). Xena figures now that the families are willing to get along, it should end the repeating days … but we see Neron and Hermia off in a corner and she’s holding the empty nightsbane vial. When the day repeats again, Xena gets really pissed off and has a running monologue about everything that’s 
happened, trying to get her thoughts in order. She figures out what might be causing the problem and goes to see if she’s right (leaving Gabi and Joxer stunned into silence by her rambling … another great expression from Renee, who makes Gabi look almost catatonic). She finds Hermia, who has just drank the nightsbane and asks if she’s the cause of all this madness. Neron steps forward and says it’s all his fault, pointing out that Xena’s stable is at the opposite end of town from Hermia’s house, so she’ll never get there in time to stop her from taking the poison.
Neron explains how Hermia took the poison because their families wouldn’t let them marry, and how he prayed to Cupid for a reprieve. Cupid agreed that the day would repeat until a hero came who could stop Hermia poisoning herself and set things right. That night, Gabi and Joxer are still
stunned and Xena goes to sleep knowing what she has to do in the morning. As soon as she wakes up, she heads for Hermia’s place, but gets there just moments too late to prevent her from drinking the nightsbane. Xena gets an idea and spends the rest of the day measuring angles and distances all over town, as utter chaos erupts and the two factions beat the shit out of each other in the streets. Gabi gets involved in the fighting, but Xena ignores it, concentrating on honing her plan to the finest detail. The next day, Xena runs outside right away and hurls her chakram, bouncing it off numerous surfaces all over town. He chakram 
saves Casca from being run over (by knocking his hat off and causing to stop and retrieve it), then bounces to Hermia’s place where it knocks the poison from her hand before she can drink it. Xena then uses the knowledge she gleaned earlier to stop the feud and everything seems fine, with Neron and Hermia ready to announce their engagement. The next day, Xena is momentarily freaked out when things seem to be repeating, but realizes she broke the cycle when Joxer comes in with turnips instead of eggs (and gets hit on the head with a hammer instead of a horseshoe, which Xena and Gabi find hilarious).
This is a great episode (it’s #31 on my all-time list), which is obviously based on the movie Groundhog Day. We get numerous elements repeating
(the rooster, Joxer with the eggs, the horseshoe, the duels, Casca almost getting run over) and some new stuff to distinguish one day from the next. Lucy said she had to make a chart for herself while they were shooting so she’d know which day each event took place and could keep the order straight. I counted fourteen days in all (including the final day when things reset to normal) depicted on screen, but there could’ve been countless days in-between that weren’t shown. 
There are some great comedy bits throughout: Xena trying to explain things to Joxer and Gabi every day (and running through a litany of things that definitely aren’t causing the days to repeat); Xena killing Joxer with the chakram; Joxer repeatedly getting covered in egg goo; Gabi forced to fight a guy without her staff when Xena borrows it to work out her chakram angles; and the big brawl going on between townspeople (including one woman who beats the shit out of multiple dudes), which Xena cheerfully ignores while measuring out those angles for her chakram throw.
There’s also some interesting stuff on the romance front; when Xena’s showing Gabi and Joxer she doesn’t have any dart wounds or Bacchae bites, Joxer points at something on her neck and asks if it’s a hickey … and Gabi
looks away with a very guilty expression. (Ted Raimi claims Lucy came up with that line and told him to say it.) Since Gabi has no memory of events from day to day, she must’ve put the hickey on Xena’s neck that same morning (which was Day 4, the day Xena first saved Casca and the day when Gabi is killed later), otherwise she wouldn’t remember it. I’m wondering if Xena and Gabi haven’t actually had sex yet, but have maybe talked about it; I’m sure they’re in love at this point (and both aware of it), but maybe Xena put the moves on Gabi to test 
the waters a bit. If Gabi freaked out, or things didn’t work out, it wouldn’t matter since the day was going to reset anyway. Of course, judging by that hickey, things worked out just fine; Gabi won’t remember what happened, but Xena will, and she’ll now know that Gabi’s open to a physical relationship with her. There’s another sweet scene on the first day where Xena and Gabi lie down and snuggle together after Joxer’s funeral (although I doubt if they had sex that night; Gabi was pretty broken up). So things seem to be proceeding well in the romance department; too bad the Rift is about to fuck it all up.
Noticeable Things:
- There’s a pub sign that recurs throughout the episode with two bulls on it. As the tension between the families escalates the bulls change positions, going from lying down looking at each other to charging each other angrily.
- Joxer has a theory that they might all just be characters in someone
else’s imagination … how very Meta of him. - When Xena asks Neron why he didn’t just ask for her help, he says he was expecting Hercules to show up … or at least Sinbad.
- At the end, Xena is holding two turnips in front of Gabi’s chest and telling her to seize the day … it’s pretty funny, and apparently Lucy just ad-libbed that scene.
Favourite Quotes:
- “So you’re saying that today is actually yesterday for you, but for us today is today because we can’t remember that yesterday was today, right?” Gabi clearing things up.
- “No, no, yes, no, I tried that, yes both ways, no I don’t know, no again … are there any more questions?” Xena forestalling the usual queries from Gabi and Joxer by answering them before they’re asked.