91: 6x05 "Legacy"

This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, we’ve got sand up the wazoo! Vera, Katie, and Livy discover strange beauty in the desert with 6x05 “Legacy.” We discuss this episode’s moral questioning as it returns to the wellspring of the show’s most potent ideas: the consequences of violence, the greater good vs. individual desire, justice vs. redemption, don’t venerate your heroes, hot tubs. Plus: Gabs’s long overdue identity crisis, what the scrolls left out, butts!, Missy Good’s salute to Conqueror fic, Neigh!, desert Melosa, and bad hats. I don’t like sand; it’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets EVERYWHERE.

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90: 6x04 "Who's Gurkhan?"

We’ll take “Let’s Fill Up the Problematic Jar for $1000,” Alex! This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, Vera, Katie, and Livy analyze 6x04 “Who’s Gurkhan?,” one of the show’s bloodiest outings thus far and the phenomenal kick-off to a Gabrielle-centric trilogy of eps that center around her ever-evolving relationship with violence. (And VENGEANCE! And very sexy dancing!) Plus: Michael Hurst’s amazing directorial choices, the Joxerification of Virgil, so many harem lewks, the progression of graphic violence on television, and fans on set!

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89: 6x03 “Heart of Darkness”

This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, we live to sin! Vera, Katie, and Livy wrangle with the infernal 6x03 “Heart of Darkness.” We discuss our problems with this episode, its wonky take on Xena’s character, its reductive moral determinism, and the total lack of chemistry between Xena and her new beau, Lucifer a.k.a. Lucy (?) a.k.a. Big L (???). Really? Him?? Plus: pegging, what’s in the box?, lazy angels, the male gaze, so many lewks, go away Virgil, and that dance, you know the one!

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88: 6x02 “The Haunting of Amphipolis”

Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST! This week, Vera, Katie, and Livy ain’t afraid of no ghost in 6x02 “The Haunting of Amphipolis,” the show’s Halloweeniest Halloween episode. We discuss its many horror homages including Evil Dead, The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and The Haunting of Hill House; the effective use of sound design and editing to craft a freaky atmosphere; and the real darkness and psychological terrors underpinning the silly ghosts, the foremost being Cyrene’s truly awful ending. Justice for Cyrene! Plus: this ep as a thematic bookend with the series finale, Renée gets her Deadite on again, Eve does Dreamworker, blood innocence symbolism is totally there, everyone’s hair is blowing nicely in the hellwind; and Gabrielle learns half the Pinch!

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87: 6x01 "Coming Home"

This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, we’re baaaaaaack! Vera, Katie, and Livy are kicking off Season Six with 6x01 “Coming Home.” We discuss the show’s weird decision to change its credit sequence so late in the game, screenwriter and fan-turned-pro Melissa Good and the fandom phenomenon of BNFs, Tsianina Joelson (aka Darcy from Bring It On) kicking butt as Varia, and Ares’ toxic masculinity meltdown. Plus: TV CPR is back to save the day, our new ship Evaria, the chakram takes a lunch break, the flippidy-flippidy doo, Lucy and Renée wrote a thing, and slo-mo mouth blood fisticuffs. The Bees is buzzing!

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