93: 6x07 "The Rheingold"

This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, we’re Ringing in the new year with 6x07 “The Rheingold,” the first installment of the show’s most ambitious serialization experiment yet, a three-parter! Vera, Katie, and Livy discuss the story’s roots in Wagner, Norse sagas, and Beowulf - plus Tolkien, probably; director John Fawcett’s experience with creature features and aerial battles; and some confusing quirks in the Dark!Xena timeline. Plus: thirsty nymphs, so many Nordic mullets, I am Grindl, Vera cannot handle the knowledge that Lucy Lawless almost played Galadriel, Gabrielle cannot button her coat, Brunhilda’s heart eyes, lipstick marks, and Xena’s magnificent Valkyrie lewk!

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92: 6x06 "The Abyss"

This week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST, you’re looking good enough to eat! Vera, Katie, and Livy are hungering for some flesh with 6x06 “The Abyss,” which features three fantastic cave scenes surrounded by...cannibals and Virgil? We discuss the highs and lows: the shippiest shippiness to ever ship; the final, very satisfying return of the Rift; the greatest, most shivery hurt/comfort since One Against an Army; Gabrielle’s tendency to bare her soul only while delirious; the conclusion of Gabs’s violence arc (for now); Xena’s sad faces; and this episode as an incoherent follow-up to “The Price.” Plus: nibbling on Gabrielle’s thighs, Zoe Bell loses her wig, Marco Rubio, Xena presses Gabs to her neck chest area, and Vera finally has a Virgil meltdown.

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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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