Welcome to my Season 2 overview for Xena: Warrior Princess. As I did for Season 1, I’ll be discussing the themes I see in the second season and trying to relate them to the show as a whole. I won’t link to individual episodes, since you can access them in the Tag Cloud under Xena Season 1 or Xena Season 2. There isn’t really one clear theme for this season, but there are several common threads that run through a lot of episodes. Obviously, Xena and Gabi’s relationship gets more profound and (in my opinion) this is where it first turns romantic. We also get a look into Xena’s past, with several episodes dealing with her history and how it made her the person she is today. But there are also quite a few lighter episodes this season, as the creators leaned into the comedic aspects of the show and the characters. While many iconic characters were introduced in the first
season, a few who make their debuts here (Aphrodite, Minya, Caesar, Meg) will go on to become very important parts of the show. Maybe the biggest “theme” of the season was Lucy’s real-life accident, which happened when she was doing a stunt for an appearance on the Tonight Show. I saw that episode of the Tonight Show (even though I wasn’t a Xena fan back then) and I remember Jay Leno telling the audience about Lucy’s accident. It happened while Xena was on a production break, but it still forced them to rewrite some episodes and come up with ways to work without Lucy until she recovered. The first 
show shot after the accident was Ten Little Warlords (where Hudson Leick played Xena trapped inside Callisto’s body), followed by For Him the Bell Tolls (which only features Xena for a few minutes at the beginning and end), and then The Quest (where all we see of Xena is her lying in the coffin and later talking to Autolycus and Gabi while sitting and sharpening her sword). Originally, Xena was supposed to get switched back to her own body at the end of Intimate Stranger, and was supposed to come back to life at the end of Destiny, but the accident forced changes (which worked out pretty well, since The Quest is one of my top twenty favourite episodes).
As I said, Xena’s past is explored a lot more this season and we get to see some of the Warlord Xena that she used to be (in The Price), and what made
her that way (in Destiny). In fact, Destiny suggests that Caesar had the most impact on turning Xena evil, before she ever met Ares and after her village was destroyed by Cortese. (Probably the reason the creators settled on Caesar as Xena’s bête noire was because Death Mask was so poorly thought of.) We also learn about her son Solan and Borias (both of whom we’ll see again), along with a little more information on the Battle of Corinth. And of course, we finally get to see 
Xena’s brother Lyceus and the deep connection they had. Lyceus will be mentioned many more times (while Toris will be pretty much ignored … did I mention how much most people hate Death Mask?) To a lesser degree, Giant Killer and Blind Faith get into Xena’s past too; Giant Killer shows her friendship with Goliath (who was probably a mercenary fighting with Xena’s army) and how seriously she takes her promises, and Blind Faith has Palaemon praising the terrible things she did as a warlord and Xena teaching him to admire the person she is now rather than the monster she was then.
But it wasn’t all serious; we got lots of funny episodes too. I know some people don’t like the tonal shifts in the show from comedy to melodrama
(as Marco/Ares will point out in Deja Vu All Over Again), but I like the light-hearted episodes. They’re a nice change from the more serious stuff … a steady diet of doom-and-gloom is just depressing after a while. We got another “Xena double” episode, this time with an extra lookalike (Meg, who I absolutely love). The Solstice episode might’ve been a bit too goofy at times, but it’s still a great one to watch right before Christmas and the Xena Scrolls was a cool way of doing a 
clip show that gave Lucy and Renee the chance to play against type. Here She Comes … Miss Amphipolis was pretty goofy at times, but Day in the Life makes up for it with its everyday, understated (and very meta) comedy. For Him the Bell Tolls was pretty good, although I wish Gabi had gotten a bit more to do; I guess it was a Joxer-centric episode, which usually means it’s not to be taken too seriously. And Comedy of Eros is basically a straight-out farce, which the cast played perfectly.
On the romance front, I think this is where Xena and Gabi’s romance really takes off (bearing in mind I’m a straight, cis-male, so maybe I’m missing
stuff other people are seeing clearly). My theory is that Xena realized she was in love with Gabi when she almost lost her in Is There a Doctor in the House? and was working her way up to telling her. (Not knowing how Gabi would react, Xena was being more cautious than usual.) On Gabi’s side, I think she was basically oblivious at that point, not because she’s not into same-sex relationships (she’s very open-minded), but because she tends to hero-worship Xena while underestimating her own good qualities, so it probably wouldn’t occur to her that someone like Xena might have those 
kinds of feelings for her. (In modern parlance, Gabi would consider Xena to be out of her league.) So when Gabi married Perdicus, that obviously put a crimp in the Xena/Gabi romance; Xena wouldn’t want to ruin Gabi’s big day by sharing her feelings, but you can tell from the wedding scene that Xena’s heart is breaking (and that kiss she gives Gabi is basically her only way of expressing those feelings). Did Gabi really love Perdicus? I think she probably did on some
level (she’s not the type of person who would lie about something like that), but I don’t think it was the same kind of deep love she has for Xena; I think Gabi’s love for Perdicus was mostly because he was so broken after all the fighting he’d done (maybe Gabi felt party responsible for that), and she because knew he needed someone to take care of him. R.J. Stewart said Gabi is someone who needs to be needed, and I think maybe she figured Perdicus needed her more than Xena did at that point (underestimating, as she usually does, how much Xena really depends on her). Anyway, Xena couldn’t very well declare her feelings 
right after Perdicus died, since Gabi was still pretty raw at that point (and Xena probably blamed herself for his death). But in The Quest, Xena decides to go for it (maybe because she and Gabi had both died by that point and she didn’t want to waste any more time) and kisses Gabi. That kiss let Gabi know how Xena felt about her and put the ball in her court. After a period of reflection (because we know Gabi likes to deliberate over things like that), she decided to go ahead with a romantic relationship (which is why she told Xena she wanted to forgive Callisto at the end of Necessary Evil so she could move on). So why didn’t they get together? I think Xena pulled back from the relationship, possibly because of what happened in The Execution. Xena mentions Gabi’s tendency to put people on pedestals and maybe seeing how disappointed Gabi was with Meleager when she found out he 
had feet of clay is what scared Xena. She might’ve started worrying about Gabi seeing her for who she really is and didn’t want to end up hurting her. (Of course, you could say Gabi actually does see the real Xena, even better than Xena herself does, but Xena always has a terrible opinion of herself.) Or maybe Xena’s afraid of Gabi getting hurt in other ways: emotionally, if things don’t work out; physically, since Xena’s life is so dangerous; or spiritually, if Xena’s darkness somehow tainted Gabi. So I think by the last quarter of the season, Gabi’s the one who’s enthusiastic about a relationship (she tells
Vidalis she’s in love with someone she can’t be with “right now”, and she’s clearly jealous of Xena and Ulysses), while Xena’s holding back and trying to deny her feelings. Those feelings show through a bit: she almost tells Gabi she loves her in The Price and jumps onto a cursed ship to be with her in Lost Mariner (where even Cecrops can see how much she loves Gabi), and naturally Gabi won’t just let the issue rest. In Comedy of Eros she keeps talking to Xena about love being worth the risk and seems to convince her by the end. We’ll see more of that next season, but then the Rift will come along and fuck things up for a while. By the way, I’m not counting A Day in the Life as clear evidence of the 
Xena/Gabi romance, so many of the references are meta-textual (including Gabi’s “She likes what I do” line, which was an ad-lib by Renee); I think Day in the Life shows us the closeness that Xena and Gabi have, and I think they both have romantic feelings for each other at that point, but I don’t think they’ve acted on them yet (based on the way they interact in surrounding episodes). I should also add, since we’re talking about romance, Comedy of Eros is the first time we see that Joxer is in love with Gabi, a love that will continue pretty much through the fifth season, but go unrequited. (Even if Gabi wasn’t in love with Xena at this point, Joxer’s really not her type.)
In my overview of Season 1, I mentioned how I see the whole series (and especially Xena and Gabi’s relationship) like the teeter-totters in Callisto. I think this season starts out with Xena and Gabi basically in balance; they just have to move toward the centre at the same pace to find their
equilibrium. But the romantic feelings they have for each other are out of balance through most of the season (as I explained above), so I think that prevents them from reaching their centering point. It’s only at the very end of the season, when Gabi kinda convinces Xena that a romantic relationship is worth the risks, that they can start moving toward each other again. Unfortunately, the Rift will pull them apart and throw them wildly out of balance next season (but don’t worry, they will eventually find their equilibrium).
So that’s my Season 2 overview. If you have anything to add or if you (politely) disagree with my conclusions, let me know in the comments. Tomorrow I’ll be putting up a special Geography and Chronology post for Season 2 (like I did for Season 1), where I talk about the locations where the episodes might have taken place and suggest a viewing order that might make the episodes flow a bit better (at least in my opinion). If that sort of nerdly minutiae isn’t your thing, feel free to skip tomorrow’s post and come back next Wednesday when I review The Furies, the first episode of Season 3. I hope you’ll all join me.