Basically the entire premise of this show though.

WHAT EP OF XENA ARE YOU ON NOW WHATS HAPPENING LDKHFDKFLGHFLK

I’M AT THE MIDDLE OF 2X14 when OOPS gabrielle accidentally makes an enemy of an amazonian queen who then becomes a god SO THEN XENA RECRUITS IMMORTAL CALLISTO TO STOP HER bc season two is just fucking made of doozies (and what subtext! EVERYTHING IS MAINTEXT UNREQUITED HELL! ALSO XENA HAS  TWO TWINS WHATTTTTTTTT AND A KID WHATTTAWHAT!) I WANTED TO WATCH SOMETHING BREEZY AND FUN AFTER DUNE MIKA THIS IS NOT IT! also my stream cut off LOL

23: 2x13-14 "The Quest" & "A Necessary Evil"

Oh my Goddess, it’s time for another episode of XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST! This week Vera, Katie, and Livy embark on a quest: 2x13 “The Quest,” that is! This integral ep is a wild ride, with tragic soliloquies following right on the heels of screwball silliness. We discuss Autolycus’s swaggering return to the Xenaverse, Gabrielle’s emerging leadership skills, Xena’s lookalike coffin, and most importantly, THE KISS. The plot is so epic it continues into 2x14 “A Necessary Evil.” We compare/contrast the ep’s two lady villain-gods: the thinly sketched, high camp Amazon autocrat, Velasca, and increasingly complex, self destructive live wire, Callisto. Plus: Gabrielle moves on from dead BFOTW Perd (finally!), Callisto goes full Gollum, and nothing good ever happens near a lava pit!

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The Mothership

OKAY so Xena and Gabs start sleeping together between 2x14 and 2x15. It's pretty clear that there's a huge shift between them so I'm tryna figure out what happened. In the previous ep she seemingly decided she needed to let go of her pain and rage regarding her husband's death. So like one night, by the fire, Gabrielle is telling one of her wild stories and Xena is staring all lovingly like she always does. Maybe they are a tiny bit high off wine that they shared and Gabs feels this... pull. She looks at Xena and thinks of all the adventures they've had. She thinks of how deeply Xena cares for her. Thinks of how it often feels like they're the only two ppl in the world. She thinks of how mundane and unfulfilling life was before her. She thinks she wants to kiss her... so she does.

Xena forgetting she’s even hurt, taking care of the situation by literally running into a wall, meanwhile

I realize, intellectually, there must be people in the world who don’t love this show, but I cannot possibly understand them.

I understand all the reasons why they couldn’t extend these three working together beyond this episode, but god, some part of me will always cry longingly for more.

I love them, and will not apologize.

This exchange is done SO well. The flashes they allow us to see, just beneath the surface. What they’re saying and how they’re saying it, all true, but not the WHOLE truth.

Callisto, sincerely missing Xena. Xena gives her life meaning, after all. But the hatred there, always there, seething.

And Xena, unflappable and canny, able to think quick with the power to back it up. But also in her bag of Many Skills is the person she used to be. While Xena may every day make choices not to be that person, that person is still there, ready and able and in some cases EAGER to come back out and play.

But here, of course, we have the crux of the episode, as it pertains to “The Bitter Suite”. This seems as though we’re dealing with Gabrielle’s more forgiving nature, her capacity to find the good in people, even those who have wronged her.

TO THIS I SAY BULLSHIT

This time with Callisto has been the most Gabrielle has really gotten to interact with her, directly, without violence getting in the way. They’ll never come closer to understanding each other than this, and in that time, Gabrielle made exactly fuck all progress toward forgiving Callisto. I think she tries! At the campfire, they share as intimate a moment as they ever will. Gabrielle gets to see Callisto, REALLY see her, and know that what’s inside is twisted and broken. There was no forgiving, no acceptance, just another wound struck and Gabrielle having to go be anywhere else.

What I’m getting at is, there was a world of time for Gabby to tell Callisto she was forgiven. It didn’t happen. Because if these are the conditions Gabrielle needs for that forgiveness, if she needs Callisto’s remorse, SHE IS NEVER GOING TO GET IT. And she KNOWS that.

Easy as hell to assume whatever you want once Callisto’s dunked in lava, though! Once again, Gabrielle can write whatever narrative she wants, fine-tune the world into a place she understands, where things are tied up in neat little packages to be tucked away on the shelf, Callisto was sorry and evil doesn’t win and Xena will always swoop in and save her.

What a nice story! If only things worked out the way Gabby wants to write them, and if only forgiveness were that easy.

I’ve never sat down and made a top ten villains list, but I feel confident that Callisto would be high on it.

If your backfill exposition isn’t being delivered in monologue to a rat while bathed in dramatic lightning, what are you even doing.

I didn’t realize the IMMENSE grin I had on my face as I got these caps until I felt it relax when I came to write the post itself. I AM HAVING JUST AS MUCH FUN AS CALLISTO

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Hudson here, by the way. She walks between these lines with incredible grace and ease, pulling off such casual disinterest and deep, calculated, cruel cunning at the same time.

Once again, Gabrielle walks right the fuck into it. Every word, every gesture, she just can’t keep herself from reacting exactly the way she’s supposed to. Even as the depth of her rage, and willingness to feed it, exceeds Callisto’s expectations (HERE’S THAT WARNING SIGN AGAIN BY THE WAY), she’s still a note on a string that Callisto will never tire of plucking.

A thought occurs to me now, as well. I wonder if some of Gabrielle’s hate and rage toward Callisto isn’t due in some part to how she can never, EVER actually hurt Callisto in return. Not mentally, not emotionally, not even physically. She’s unable to have justice OR revenge (which one would she even truly want, I wonder?), and I think that as much as anything is what’s sunk its teeth into her.

The framework for Xena going to free Callisto is fantastic. They’re facing a near-unwinnable situation, and Xena’s up against it. If they don’t seize the opportunity to take Velasca out now, while she’s still a newborn baby god getting her footing, they may never be able to do it, and there’s pretty much no way that ends well for them. Callisto is unhinged and devoted to killing them, so also not a great choice, but at least they know where she IS, which means she’s the best chance they’ve got. It all sucks, and I don’t blame Gabby for being kind of pissed about it all.

But what I really want to focus on here is the way Gabrielle is -- and isn’t -- handling her loss and grief, and how we’re seeing another building block for The Bitter Suite.

Gabrielle has had her heart ripped to shreds by Callisto, in the most painful personal way possible. It’s part of what makes Callisto so an incredible and terrifying villain: she doesn’t want the kill, she wants the PAIN. Perdicus’ death wasn’t about Perdicus, and it wasn’t even about Gabrielle, which manages to make it all even more galling. It was about Xena and nothing but Xena. Someone three steps removed from all of this, someone who never heard of Callisto and only barely knew Xena, was brutally murdered on his wedding night because Callisto needs Xena to suffer, and this was a delightfully roundabout way of making that happen.

It’s Callisto’s doing, no question, but you can’t entirely strike out Xena’s role in it all which -- AND HERE COMES THE IMPORTANT PART -- is something Gabrielle NEVER. EVER. EVER. DOES.

Gabrielle has this burning coal of rage that she slowly, over the course of the series, continues to feed and nurture, but never allows herself to direct at the one place she needs. That’s what makes Callisto such a pivotal role in all this for Gabby, because she’s the “safe” one to hate. That’s what makes it all explode in their faces when when the coals get too hot, when Callisto can’t be blamed.

It’s so fascinating, watching this series from the perspective of knowing how it all unfolds, to see them ignore opportunity after opportunity to have avoided SO MUCH PAIN, because they couldn’t bear to help each other off the damned pedestals they’d built.

I just need to point out how Velasca hauled herself out of a spike pit UPON WHICH SHE HAD BEEN IMPALED MULTIPLE TIMES and then limped here, for two reasons:

to call out Gabrielle

THE DRAMA

I cannot shower enough love on villains who make things so deeply personal. This arc, however relatively small, was always a personal favourite of mine. Velasca is downright SCARY, she’s so fixated on fucking Gabrielle up, and it’s only made all the more sweet by how Xena’s genuinely scared she might not be able to stop it. I LIVE for this kind of shit, just inject it directly into my brain.

Gabby knows, I know, you know, WE ALL KNOW Ephiny is the best choice to be queen. A POWER VACCUUM IS WHAT GOT YOU ALL INTO THIS MESS. And even though I think it’s intensely myopic of Ephiny to be “I’ll just be a placeholder until you come back”, I also think it’s sweet and adorable. Ephiny wants Gabrielle to stay with the Amazons SO MUCH, and I’m not sure she could ever really “oust” Gabrielle, even if it’s what Gabby wants.

Honestly though, Ephiny, THINK LONG TERM. I love Gabrielle too, but already there’s a schism in your tribe over her leading you guys, and I don’t think it’s unfair. She’s NEVER going to pick you over Xena, and even if she did, she hasn’t lived your lives or by your ways, and those are pretty vital to successfully guiding everyone. YOU ARE THE BEST FOR QUEEN GIRL JUST OWN IT

WHO IS NOT TO LOVE IN THIS ENTIRE EXCHANGE

Callisto flipping through so many emotions, quickly and constantly. She’s a wheel in a slot machine, spinning so fast you have the impression of forms, you can vaguely make out the possibilities, but you never know where it’s going land and what you’re going to get.

Gabrielle, a seething pit of hatred, boiling over and not caring if the only thing she can burn is herself, she can’t even TRY to know where to begin to process all the things she’s feeling about Callisto. It’s no wonder, really, that Gabrielle embraced pacifism so hard, and how ultimately doomed it was for her.

And then Xena, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. The threat to Gabrielle is closing in on all sides, including from Gabrielle herself. Leading me to what may be my favourite bit:

XENA SITTING THE FUCK DOWN AND LETTING THEM WORK IT OUT

Xena’s talked Gabrielle into going this far, and it speaks volumes for both of them that they got here without a hell of a lot of drama. There’s nothing Xena can say now, though. These are Gabrielle’s issues, this is Gabrielle’s fight. Xena can be, and will be, on-hand to make sure it doesn’t go too far, but she can’t tell Gabby how to come to terms with this. This confrontation between these two is long overdue, and Xena knows from intense personal experience that the only way out is through. So she sits, and watches, and trusts Gabrielle to figure it out, and stays ready to catch her if she starts to fall.