Season 2, Episode 4
Original Air Date: October 21, 1996
Xena always seemed like a logical next step for me after I finished Buffy and Angel all those years ago, but I never made the leap. In fact, all I really knew about Xena was she uses a metal frisbee as a weapon, she yells in a distinct way when she does finisher moves, and the opening credits are edited like a movie trailer. Oh and it’s as gay as a show on… WB? USA Network? Whatever this was on was allowed to be in the mid-Nineties. Which, if “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is anything to go off of, is pretty gay.
The adventure begins with Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renée O’Connor) traveling into the woods and rescuing the hapless Joxer (Ted Raimi) from some really aggro wolves. Joxer is apparently a recurring character who serves as comic relief by being a guy who just really sucks – he’s not a good fighter, he’s a coward, he keeps bumbling into traps, that kind of guy. This time he actually was looking for Xena because he’s got something for her: the still-living disembodied head of Orpheus (Matthew Chamberlain), a musician who has beef because he blames Xena for the death of his lover Eurydice. Orpheus lost his body to a curse by Bacchus (Anthony Ray Parker), a demon who just so happens to also be Eurydice’s killer, and now the only way Bacchus can be stopped is if they can use the combined power of Orpheus’ singing and his lyre. So the trio agree to help Orpheus get his lyre.
They go to a nearby village and Gabrielle splits off from the group to go to a lesbian disco. Like literally they play disco music like it’s freaking A Knight’s Tale. Unbeknownst to Gabrielle, all the other ladies at the dance with their slicked back hair and spooky yellow eyes and sharp canines are actually bacchae: female vampires created by Bacchus. Meanwhile, Xena, who has gone off on her own to get the lyre, finds it in the possession of some other bacchae who end up escaping the warrior princess. The four heroes reunite and Joxer can’t help but notice Xena has returned with a conspicuous wound on her neck.
Next, Xena decides she needs a weapon to kill Bacchus, as the lyre is surely in the demon’s possession by now. There’s only one weapon they can use: the bones of his sworn enemy, the Dryads. So they go to a graveyard and dig up winged skeletons which dive bomb the group until Xena kills them with her Chakram and gathers their point bones for stabbing. They head into Bacchus’ cave and Joxer and Gabrielle grow increasingly suspicious that Xena has been turned. But suddenly Gabrielle reveals she was bitten at the disco and escapes further into the catacombs! Joxer and Orpheus encourage Xena to kill Gabrielle but she says that’s not an option.
Finally they find Bacchus surrounded by bacchae, including Gabrielle. There’s a pretty sweet fight where Xena throws some of the bacchae into cavern walls and they straight up explode. Joxer takes the lyre and plays it while Orpheus sings along, but Xena is unable to harm Bacchus. Bacchus reveals he can only be killed by a bacchae, so Xena allows Gabrielle to turn her. Gabrielle bites Xena and sticks a finger in her mouth! Xena transforms into a bacchae and immediately kills Bacchus, who also explodes. That was easy! Orpheus forgives Xena and Joxer chickens out of going on further adventures, so Xena and Gabrielle are left free to travel alone again.
So yeah dude, this episode was pretty nuts. A lot of exposition, a lot of Nineties TV-budget CGI, a lot of explosions, a lot of implied lesbian lust. It was a good time. Reading up on Wikipedia, it sounds like this episode was somewhat more extreme than the typical Xena adventure, with the director specifically getting permission to make it more of a “stylised rock video horror.” That definitely came through in the over-the-top editing and anachronistic music choices, which I appreciated. Maybe a rare case where the Halloween special was the best episode that season? I’d have to watch a lot more to find out, and I kind of want to!