Déja Vu All Over Again – Director: Renee O’Connor/Writer: R.J. Stewart
This one starts in modern times (in other words 1999, when this episode originally aired) with a woman named Annie—who looks a hell of a lot like Xena—having a dream. We get a clip of the ladder fight from Callisto and Annie wakes up, convinced she was dreaming of herself in a past life. Her boyfriend Harry (who looks like Joxer) thinks she’s letting her Xena
fandom get out of hand, but Annie shows him a newspaper clipping about a mysterious vigilante dressed like Xena who’s been helping people lately. Annie insists that she’s the vigilante, unconsciously compelled to be a hero because she actually was Xena in a past life. Harry thinks she’s crazy and is happy when she mentions seeing a counsellor … until he finds out it’s a past-lives counsellor.
At the counsellor’s office, Harry is very skeptical about the whole process, 
but Annie’s into it, even wearing her Xena outfit to help the process. (The fact that there are people dressed like Joan of Arc, Pocahontas, and George Patton doesn’t fill Harry with hope.) They meet the counsellor (Mattie, who looks like Gabi) and Harry gets even more cynical when he’s barred from the therapy session. Mattie hypnotizes Annie to regress her to a past life and we get a clip of Gabi and Hope falling into the lava pit from Sacrifice Part II. Annie is thrilled at the success of the regression, but says it felt more like she was watching events
happen instead of living them. Mattie regresses her again and we get a clip from Intimate Stranger. In the waiting room, Harry messes with General Custer, a report comes on the radio about the mysterious Xena vigilante, and we see that Mattie’s receptionist (Marco, who looks like Salmoneus because he’s played by Robert Tabor) has a gun in his desk. When Harry hears Annie cry out in anguish, he rushes into the office and finds her quite distressed, since she’s just realized she wasn’t Xena in a past life … she was Joxer.
Annie is devastated to be the “comedy relief”, but mentions that she saw Mattie in her flashback, so Mattie agrees to accompany her on the next regression. As Marco listens outside the door, we get a clip from In Sickness and in Hell. When Annie and Mattie wake up, Mattie confirms Annie was Joxer and leaves her and Harry alone. In the waiting room, we find out Mattie and Marco are scam artists, but Mattie is freaked out because she actually
experienced the regression along with Annie. She goes back into the office and Harry pronounces the whole thing as bullshit. Annie challenges him to regress with them and Mattie takes all three of them back. We get another clip of In Sickness and in Hell and when they wake up, Harry is freaked out too (and confirms Annie really was Joxer). They’re all ready to leave, but Marco comes in with a gun.
Marco ties them up and sets a bomb to go off in ten minutes. Mattie admits 
it was a scam but isn’t sure why the regression seems to be working and worries she’s ruined her karma forever. She regresses them again to see if Xena’s adventures contain a way out of their current predicament and we get a clip of Xena and Gabi killing Hope and the Destroyer in Family Affair. Harry and Mattie both assume Mattie was Xena, but Annie is confused since she didn’t experience anything. Mattie regresses them again and we get a clip of the big kiss in The Quest. That really confuses Harry and Mattie, but Annie decides she’s
going to be the hero by chewing through the bomb wires. Harry decks her to keep her from doing something stupid and Mattie regresses them again. We get a clip of Xena getting out of the chair in Return of Callisto and they finally realize the truth: Mattie is the reincarnation of Gabi and Harry is actually Xena (not to mention the mysterious Xena vigilante). Harry uses Annie’s chakram to get loose and defuses the bomb, but Marco comes back and reveals himself as Ares.
Ares still wants Xena to join him in ruling the world (thinking Y2K will be a great opportunity to take over), but Xena’s still not interested (and we get a clip from The Reckoning). Harry fights Ares (with a little help from Annie) and kicks his ass, duelling him with an umbrella. Ares takes off and Harry frees Mattie. Things are a bit awkward until Annie tells Harry that he and Mattie are soulmates (and that he’d know that if he bothered to watch Xena) and we get a clip from One Against an Army. Annie leaves (after reminding
Harry how Joxer saved them from Callisto) and Harry and Mattie finally feel the connection that Xena and Gabi always had (illustrated by clips from a bunch of episodes). Harry and Mattie finally accept who they are and kiss, while Annie leaves singing a song about Annie the mighty (and thinking she might be Xena in her next life … which shows that Joxer really doesn’t get how reincarnation works).
This isn’t a bad episode, but it’s a little weird (which is why it’s only #98 on 
my all-time list). There are some pretty funny moments, with a lot of meta-commentary on the show itself. And I thought Renee did a pretty good job her first time directing, although she said she had trouble switching back and forth between actor and director. This obviously continues the reincarnation theme introduced in Between the Lines, although I’m not sure why Xena ended up in a body that looked like Joxer and vice versa. Maybe Virgil and Eve got together after the show ended and their bloodlines are mixed? I personally like the soulmate stuff and it’s nice to see it still working after over a millennium, even if it takes Harry and Mattie a while to
figure it out. But their instincts are all still there: Harry (Xena) is running around helping people—and apparently raiding Annie’s underwear drawer for the appropriate outfit—while Annie (Joxer) still longs to be a hero. And Mattie (Gabi) still believes in karma and wants to help people. Xena’s natural cynicism shows through in Harry and when she decks Annie (a scene that bothered a lot of fans), I think it’s really Xena decking Joxer to keep him from doing something stupid … which we’ve certainly seen before.
As I mentioned, there are plenty of humorous touches in this episode. Marco (or Ares) points out the wild swings in tone (“one week they’re melodrama, the next Three Stooges”) and the serialized nature of the show (which a lot of fans complained about apparently). Mattie calls the show “chop-socky crap” and Harry mentions the ridiculous cliffhangers right before act-breaks. Annie derides Joxer as comedy relief and says they never should’ve introduced his character (another common fan complaint) and makes fun of Harry for not
being able to stay awake past the teaser. In the end, I think the idea is cool, but the execution is slightly off. The gender-swap idea is a good way to keep it from being too predictable, but a lot of fans were pissed off that Xena and Gabi were only allowed to kiss because their proxies (Harry and Mattie) are of the opposite sex … a valid complaint. If the show had been made a few years later, it wouldn’t have been an issue … look at Lost Girl. Xena and Gabi’s reincarnated spirits will eventually be put into the “proper” bodies.
Noticeable Things:
- We get an “I have many skills” utterance from Harry before he defuses the bomb.
- It seems like Annie is kinda hot for Ares; is that her female hormones asserting themselves, or did Joxer kinda have a thing for the God of War?
- The clips shown when Harry and Mattie realize who they are come from Sins of the Past, Altared States, Destiny, The Price, Between the Lines, The Prodigal, A Good Day, Lost Mariner, Is There a Doctor in the House?, A Day in the Life, One Against an Army, Devi, and A Tale of Two Muses.
Favourite Quotes:
- “Annie, you need a rub-down after a game of croquet.” Harry letting Annie know she probably isn’t physically qualified to be the Xena vigilante.
- “I’m gonna get you a sedative.” Mattie’s answer when Annie asks if she was Joxer or not.
- “I’m gonna come back as a worm, or a cockroach. No, a TV evangelist.” Mattie worrying about her future karma.
- “Xena, life is eternal. It has no beginning and no end. The loving friends we meet on or journey return to us, time after time. We never die because we were never really born.” Mattie (or Gabi) letting her soulmate know that they’ll always find each other again.