By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 18 seconds ago
It’s hard for a series to stick the landing and provide a final episode that gives fans resolution while wrapping up years of stories and characterization. Star Trek: The Next Generation pulled it off, Scrubs did (before the last-minute renewal), Mad Men is another good one, but far removed from that list is one of the 90’s breakout shows, Xena: Warrior Princess. The final two episodes, “A Friend in Need, Part One” and “Part Two” are so bad that even Lucy Lawless refuses to acknowledge they exist.
The Death Of Xena
“A Friend in Need” takes Xena from the confines of Greece and sends her off to Japan, where she attempts to make up for the darkest act she ever performed: killing 40,000 people when she started a fire, out of anger, that burned down an entire village. If you don’t remember when that happened, don’t worry, it was never mentioned during the entire six-season run of Xena: Warrior Princess until, at the last moment, it became the most horrible, most heinous act she committed. It’s the equivalent of a sitcom spending years building up to meeting one character, for the sake of argument, say a mother, and then in the last episodes revealing that nothing mattered.
Xena and Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor) journey to Mt. Fuji, ready to face down an army under the control of Lord Yodoshi, the Samurai Lord killed by his daughter and Xena’s lover, Akemi, one of the most important people in the Amazon warrior’s life who again, we’re meeting now, in flashback, and then in the Underworld, in the series finale. In order for Yodoshi to be truly defeated Xena must die and fight him in the Underworld. That would be all well and good because the repentant hero gives up her life to set free 40,000 souls she unknowingly condemned, except for one thing: Xena chooses to stay dead.
Gabrielle picking up the blood-soaked chakram and successfully using it in battle is an amazing moment. Xena cutting Lord Yodoshi is immensely satisfying. The problem is that after Xena says in the first episode that Gabrielle is the most important person in her life, and we see flashbacks to past episodes, including “One Against An Army,” the two are denied the happy ending they, and the fans, deserved. Gabrielle has to take down Xena’s mutilated, headless body from where the Samurai put it on display, and then has to endure Xena choosing to stay dead for the sake of the lost souls.
Xena’s Massive Fandom Deserved Better
In spite of the horrendous ending, tens of thousands of fans still flock to annual conventions, Xena becomes a hit on every streaming platform lucky enough to host it, and the story lives on through multiple comic books, novels, and fanfiction epics. Lucy Lawless has explained over the years that at the time, the cast and crew thought it was a cool, crazy way to kill off a character, but seeing the way fans reacted broke her heart.
Xena: Warrior Princess started out as a spin-off of Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, but the rabid fanbase it attracted primarily for the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle has caused it to outlive the original series for decades. To turn around in the series finale and not only deny them a happy ending but to brutally murder Xena in the process, then choose people the audience never met over Gabrielle, is twisting the knife. There’s a reason real fans stop rewatches with “Many Happy Returns.” Stopping there means that Xena is still alive with countless adventures ahead of her. That’s how she should be remembered.