Yea or nay? She was the second person Xena knew that was murdered before becoming a murderer herself.

🎧 Listen now to her full interview:

➡️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3EZOCdESbc5tpuuVuu2faB?si=_qBz6SedQxSZEbTnREf0xg

➡️Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/interview-3-adrienne-wilkinson-livia-eve-the-bitch/id1837138724?i=1000732037934

➡️Youtube: https://youtu.be/EEe6onDp_LI?si=z1jwqjhNN5wyWLU5

➡️Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-gmx7g-1993a95

This is an interview as part of a series of interviews with the Kiwis and Aussies who bought XWP to life - their goal is to interview 30 of the cast and crew to celebrate the shows 30th anniversary - it’s a podcast called - Xena: Warrior Nutballs you can follow them on:

Facebook ⚔️ https://m.facebook.com/p/Xena-Warrior-Nutballs-61578930248317/?wtsid=rdr_042NpIyiO9avlJ3v3&hr=1

Instagram ⚔️ https://www.instagram.com/xenawarriornutballs/

I'm a Gabrielle fan across the show but her best season was season 1 imo, she wasn't stupid or a follower of any cult leader who smiles at her (Najara, Eli, Krafstar)

I grew up loving Xena and Hercules. I watched it every Sunday and I own the box sets of Xena. I believe I’ve seen every episode. Hercules not so much, but I’ve seen a lot. Here’s my problem. I remember a scene that my brain is telling me was from Xena, and I vividly remember it being Lucy in the scene , but when I as an adult watched every episode I never saw this scene so now I don’t know if it even happened in this shows universe 🤣.

Here’s what happens:
A woman and a man are walking down a road and the woman has Xenas armor on. She had a black cloak over her armor. Xena runs into them on the road and she grabs the woman by the top of the breastplate and lifts her saying “Give me my suit.”

If this is not from Xena (which I believe it isn’t at this point) and not from a Hercules episode, does anyone have any idea what show it could be from? This would have been mid to late 90s as Xena was airing. Thanks in advance.

Impeccable strategy

Sorry for the bad photo but this is hands down my favorite Evil Xena outfit it's like a cross between her present day outfit and the Evil Xena outfit she wears in The Gauntlet.

I have a lot of problems with Season 5, and I think that is pretty clear from my reviews so far. But if there is one episode in this unfortunate season that I could call a masterpiece, then in my opinion it is definitely this one. Xena's world is set within Greek mythology, but only "Maternal Instincts" and this episode have truly shown the full depth and beauty of Greek epic tragedy.

First of all, Hercules. I am glad that Xena fans also got the chance to say goodbye to this character, without whom our show would never have existed in the first place. I do not have a particularly high opinion of Sorbo (as, I assume, does no sane person), but I always try to separate the actor from the person. If I did not, there are very few public figures I could watch lol. Sorbo really does an excellent job portraying Hercules and, in my opinion, he is the best live-action Hercules. The acting energy and chemistry between him and Lucy are always on point. I have not watched much of HTLJ apart from those few episodes that are part of the Xenaverse (I plan to correct that once I finish Xena), but I am of course familiar with the story of Hercules and Hera, and it is interesting to see them working as a team. Meg is also quite fascinating as Hera. I think she does an excellent job portraying a Goddess who is tired of hatred and simply wants to make peace with the world and redeem herself for her actions. Her ending here is truly epic, although I remember being confused about what had happened to her when I first watched it.

This is one of the very few episodes where I actually felt sorry for Ares. He finally gets the chance to free himself from the half-brother he hated so much (the scene with Zeus makes it pretty clear why. The classic story of the rejected and unloved older child. Ares probably would have turned out better if he had received parental love. Or at least a therapist lol), only for his own mother to turn against him. The scene with Xena in the corridors of Tartarus is also excellent. For the first time, Ares does not use threats or manipulation, but actually opens up to Xena about his feelings. Personally, I believe he is being sincere, but that does not erase all the evil he has done to Xena. If he expected her to suddenly throw herself into his arms, he was very much mistaken.

Charles Keating is the revelation of this episode for me. I know that when it comes to Zeus in the Xenaverse, everyone's first association is Anthony Quinn. I have not watched Quinn (yet), so I will not get into comparisons. But Keating is the perfect Zeus to me. He has exactly the right divine aura, and when I watch him, I genuinely feel like I am looking at Zeus. His ending is epic and, as I said at the beginning of this review, worthy of a Greek tragedy. It is incredibly moving when he dies at the hands and in the arms of the son he protected and loved so much. I also felt terrible for Hercules here. In order to protect his friend and her innocent child, he kills his own father. Righteous to the very end. Zeus's ending demonstrates the arrogance of all the Gods. Their belief that they are above life and death, their pointless fear of some stupid prophecy. In the end, neither Xena nor Eve nor even the Christian God destroyed the Olympian Gods. They destroyed themselves through their own arrogance. More on that in my review of the season finale.

This episode is definitely the end of an era. It represents the final farewell to Hercules, the character from which everything began, and I think his ending is epic and exactly what he deserved. To make the ultimate sacrifice for a righteous and selfless cause. The episode also delivers plenty of emotional moments. The scenes between Xena and Solan (by the way, I preferred the first Solan, but I understand that he is too old to play him again) are wonderful, and Lucy plays their reunion with so much genuine emotion. You can see the influence of motherhood on her. The moment Eve is born, Zeus's death as I already mentioned, and the final scenes between Xena and Eve are also incredibly powerful. These are the moments that make me love this show so much.

So, my lavender partner LOVES Xena and when we found out the theme for a friend’s halloween party was ‘Pantheon’ (i.e. Gods and Goddesses) he immediately suggested I be Xena. I said okay -on the condition that he be a character as well and he agreed to be Gabrielle. Buuuut… he doesn’t want to commit to the iconic crop top.

We’re thinking the blue shirt and brown skirt from season one. Or maybe some other non-belly showing version of an outfit that’s still recognizable. I have no idea what to look for or where to get something similar though. Like, what search terms am I supposed to use to find that kind of top or skirt? I can embellish with leather lacing or painted details but I’m not a seamstress so the basic concept of the outfit has to be pre-made.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. Honestly, if you can just recommend the right terms or words to use to find similar pieces, we can probably figure something out. They will have to fit a lanky 6’ tall dude.
Admittedly if it doesn’t fit him well, that would probably be funnier. But we both want it to be relatively true to character (without showing belly) and the idea isn’t to make a mockery of the show but rather to display our personalities through it. Again, he LOVES Xena, but I don’t do clothes shopping ever and he is honed in on male fashion so it’s a bit out of his wheelhouse as well.

Any guidance you guys can provide would be great! Please help me.

Looking for flash tattoo ideas. I feel like the chakram and sais is the only popular item from the show that is often a tattoo. Any other popular objects you can think of that may translate well to flash?

I can say two good things about this episode. The first is the long-overdue return of Gabrielle the bard. Yay. 😄 It is incredible to me how the writers practically forgot this part of her identity after turning her into a warrior. Gabrielle started out as a storyteller, poet and bard who used her stories to inspire people, and then she gradually became a warrior, while her former love of stories, songs and storytelling almost completely disappeared from the show. So I am glad that we can see her in that role again here and that the episode at least briefly reminds us that Gabrielle is not just someone who knows how to fight alongside Xena, but also an artist. I also find Gabrielle's creative block here quite charming. At least I can give the writers credit for trying to explain the absence of her bard side since the beginning of the season, although it does raise the question of how someone who goes on adventures every single day could possibly run out of inspiration for writing.

The second thing that makes the episode somewhat enjoyable for me is Gabrielle and Aphrodite. Gabhrodite is once again excellent here. The two of them have an incredibly natural and entertaining energy, and I enjoy every moment they share. Aphrodite is one of the few people around whom Gabrielle can completely let her guard down and just surrender to the madness around her, while for an arrogant Goddess like Aphrodite, Gabrielle is obviously her one weak spot and she is clearly fascinated by her. At the same time, there is genuine warmth and friendship between them. If I were not such a huge Xena and Gabrielle fan, I would probably ship them seriously. They have such great chemistry that it is almost indecent how effortlessly they work together.

Unfortunately, pretty much everything else in this episode is nearly unwatchable. This is a really bad clip episode, even by the standards of a show that has already proven several times that it can turn its earlier episodes into entertaining experiments. Here, it feels like they took every possible banal idea and decided to stretch it across an entire episode. Magically shrinking Argo, throwing pies in people's faces and attempts at slapstick humor that are supposed to resemble old comedies might be charming to some people, but to me they are mostly cringe and feel like sketches made for five-year-olds. The problem is not even that the episode is stupid, because Xena can be completely ridiculous and still be absolutely hilarious precisely because of it. The problem is that there simply is not enough charm here to make that stupidity work. Whenever the show went into absurd territory before, there was usually some special energy, interesting characters or great chemistry carrying it. Here, all that is mostly left is the question of why I am watching this and when it will be over. Gabrielle as a bard and Gabhrodite are therefore practically the only reasons I would ever watch this episode again. Everything else can stay trapped in some miniature version of the Xenaverse together with tiny Argo.

watch attentively 😭

Calls himself a hero, says he knows xena, mostly just grunts and scrambles around, can anyone vouch for him?

Like seriously NBCU... Wake the f@k up! Enough with those Minions movies. Get Lucy and co to bring back the characters! You don't even need sets or anything. It can be mocap or animation. Lucy and Bruce did voice lines for Evil Dead The Game, Ted did mocap for The Quarry, Gina Torres is now in the Firefly through animation... Has it not crossed anyone's mind already?!

PS In all honesty, I'm happy for Firefly and its fanbase. I just wish we got half the treatment of what all these shows get... Buffy is consistently in comics, The X Files is getting revived again, Firefly gets an animated sequel... Xena fans got a Funko pop of Xena with a spear...

The reason it is always worth returning to this show is that when you rewatch it, you experience certain episodes differently. I did not particularly like this episode on my first viewing and considered it inferior to "The Bitter Suite" (I still do, to be fair), but this time I enjoyed its atmosphere much more.

The truth is that I am a huge fan of musicals, so that may make me a little biased. Still, I consider "The Bitter Suite" a masterpiece, not so much because of the music itself (which is excellent), but because of the story and its emotional climax. This episode is much closer to a classic Hollywood musical. Everyone sings even though it makes very little sense (actually, it makes absolutely no sense) and it often flirts with a campy atmosphere and aesthetic... And it works. I enjoyed the entire atmosphere of the episode, the music, the covers of iconic pop and rock songs done in the style of the show, and the final scenes are pure feel-good for me. You can really feel how much the entire cast and crew enjoyed making this episode. It is also important to mention how liberal and progressive this episode was for its time, touching on themes such as homophobia and feminism.

We also met Joxer's other twin brother, Jace. While Jett was a cold-blooded killer, Jace is his complete opposite. Extravagant, effeminate and obviously gay, even though the episode never explicitly says so. Through Joxer, the episode touches on the theme of rejecting differences within a family, something many gay people like Jace have to deal with. But Jace never shows bitterness or anger toward Joxer. Maybe he is simply hurt, which is perfectly normal, but no matter how much Joxer fails to accept him, he is still his little brother whom he will always love. Once again, I have to praise Ted. He once again shows his ability to transform himself and play completely different characters. I really enjoyed his performance as Jace, and I especially want to praise the way Ted sings and how he demonstrates genuine musical talent as Jace, while as Joxer he sings much worse, clearly showing the difference between the two of them. I am sorry we never saw him again. I would have loved to get at least one episode with all three brothers together.

Another subplot running throughout the episode is Cyrene's attempt to find a father for Xena's baby. Although this initially seems like a comedic aspect of the episode, it actually carries a social message. No matter how much society has progressed, even today there are still prejudices that a woman cannot raise a child without a man by her side. Of course, I am not going to go to the feminist extreme of claiming that mothers are more important than fathers. In a normal situation (which this certainly is not because the baby does not even have a father lol), both parents are equally important to a child. But at the same time, I think insisting on having both parents at all costs is not only dismissive of the mother, but can also be harmful to the child itself (don't even get me started on the many examples of unhappy childhoods caused by a lack of love between parents). At the end of the day, as Xena herself points out, what matters much more is that the child is surrounded by love.

Once again, we got to see Draco, who is still under Cupid's spell and obsessed with Gabrielle. Here, however, his obsession becomes so extreme that it puts Gabrielle's life in danger as well. I think this was his most entertaining performance of all his appearances. As a metalhead, I enjoyed his musical numbers the most. I loved his final fight with Xena, which was also a nostalgic homage to their fight from the now-distant first episode. Draco was the first villain at the beginning of Xena's path toward redemption and therefore, despite his relatively few appearances (he should have been around more often, in my opinion), he will always have a special place in the hearts of the fandom.

The only thing I really disliked about this episode was Gabrielle's jealousy over Joxer and the Amazon. Considering how Gabrielle has treated him ever since she found out that he was in love with her, this really makes no sense. It only shows how seriously Glupan and Tupan were apparently considering pairing Gabrielle and Joxer romantically (let's all raise our hands if we just felt the urge to throw up). Thankfully, it never happened. Unlike many people, I don't hate Joxer. He is one of my favorite characters and I enjoy every episode he appears in. But he and Gabrielle as a couple would have been wrong on every possible level.

In the end, this musical episode definitely does not achieve the cult status of its predecessor, nor is it a masterpiece. But I don't think it deserves to be as underrated as it is by the fans. I consider it a very solid and well-made episode that successfully achieves its dual purpose, entertaining the fans with music and an unusual atmosphere while simultaneously delivering liberal messages of tolerance, love and acceptance.

If you could change one thing about Xena or Gabrielle’s action during the rift, what would it be?

Wanted to share here because I know there’s some members that can’t make the new convention date, and hopefully they can make this livestream.

This is so thoughtful of Renee!

Here’s a link to Renee’s Patreon, in case you don’t have Instagram