Welcome to my overall review of Season 3 of Xena: Warrior Princess. (I won’t link to all the individual episodes that I reference, since you can access them from the tag cloud under Xena Season 3.) This season’s overarching theme would seem to be the Rift, the fans’ name for the anger and mistrust that pulls Xena and Gabrielle apart, causing them to lose trust in each other (and ultimately leading to the death of Xena’s son, Solan). I think the season can almost be split in two, with the first half dealing with the Rift, while the latter half shows how Xena and Gabi get past all that and find their love for each other again. If we shuffle the episode order around a bit to put all the Rift episodes (Deliverer, Gabrielle’s Hope, The Debt I & II, Dirty Half Dozen, Maternal
Instincts, and Bitter Suite) together, we see the downward progression of their relationship, culminating in the anger and outright hatred of Bitter Suite before they get past all that and start working their way back to each other. It takes the rest of the season for them to rebuild what they had, but I think they end up stronger for it. (For a closer look at my re-ordering of this season’s episodes, check out my Geography and Chronology post tomorrow.)
In a way, the Rift was almost necessary to Xena and Gabi’s relationship. 
They needed to see the worst, not only in each other, but in themselves … and they needed to find a way to accept that and move forward, something I don’t think they could’ve done without purging all that negative energy first. Xena and Gabi both kind of idealized each other; Gabi thought of Xena as a heroic figure, someone she wanted to be like, while Xena looked to Gabi as a role model whose first instinct is always an unselfish one. But they both found out that neither of them is perfect and they have to recognize and accept each other’s flaws (and their own) in order to have a real relationship. What they had before was somewhat superficial—not their feelings, but what those feelings were based on—but now that they know the worst of each other, they can move
forward with their eyes open. They aren’t blind to the darker parts of each other anymore and I think that puts them on a more equal footing, instead of putting each other on pedestals and being disappointed when the reality can’t measure up to the ideal. The fact that they were willing to bare their souls (both the good and bad parts) to each other will make their love stronger, since they’ve never allowed themselves to be that vulnerable with anyone else.
So it makes sense it would take time for them to recover from the Rift, since 
it took a while to build up. (Steve Sears said the Rift technically started in the first episode because Xena and Gabi are such different people.) It’s nice to see Xena and Gabi rebuild the love and trust they had before everything went to shit. I think the scene with them lying in the surf at the end of Bitter Suite represents not only the washing away of all the negative emotions they felt, but the way their love will rush in to fill that void, which we see in One Against an Army. That’s my favourite episode because it shows how much they love
each other, but also how willing they are to show that love, which is something they had trouble with in Season 2. The comedic episodes lighten the mood a bit and I appreciate episodes like When in Rome and Forget Me Not because they show that everything won’t always be perfect between Xena and Gabi—they’ll always have disagreements—but they can work through them now without lies and mistrust.
Obviously, the Rift screwed up the romantic aspect of Xena and Gabi’s relationship, but like I said, I think it ended up strengthening that
connection in the end. They’re definitely more demonstrative with their feelings in the second half of the season: all the touching scenes in One Against an Army; Xena’s forgiveness when she finds out about Gabi’s jealousy in Forget Me Not; the mutual I love you’s at the end of When in Rome (which makes me think they might have finally consummated their relationship on that long sea voyage home); Xena telling Gabi how important she’s been to her in Sacrifice II (not to 
mention her casual admission in Part I that Gabi is the person she loves most in the world); and of course, Gabi’s sacrifice to keep Xena from dying. So I think the Rift ultimately did a lot to advance their romance. By the end of the season, they’re definitely in love, definitely comfortable showing it to each other, and almost certainly physically intimate. I don’t know if they’ve actually sat down and had the “defining the relationship” talk yet, but I think they definitely do early next season.
In my first two season overviews, I likened Xena and Gabi’s relationship to a see-saw or teeter-totter (or the ladders in Callisto), where it took them
some time to find the right balance and then they started moving towards each other, trying to meet in the centre to achieve equilibrium. This season starts out with them centred, but the Rift soon pulls them apart, causing them both to move away from each other and throw the teeter-totter wildly out of balance, so much so that they come close to falling right off. But they manage to right 
themselves and the second half of the season has them finding their way back to each other, meeting in the centre again and getting back the balance they’d lost. That doesn’t mean everything is perfect, but now I think that, rather than letting themselves be pulled apart again, they’ll cling to each other to keep that balance—something they’ll keep for the rest of the series, despite whatever new challenges come their way.
And that’s my take on Season 3. As always, comments (and alternate viewpoints) are welcome. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my analysis of Season 3’s geography and a possible alternate viewing order for the episodes. If you aren’t a fan of deep dives into continuity and minutiae like I am, feel free to skip that post and join me here again next Wednesday for my first review of Season 4.