Who would have thought that microbiology would be hard? I had to write two papers, complete three labs, and read two pretty hefty chapters this weekend, so sorry about the lateness, but school comes first, y’all.

Anyway, back to writing about episodes. It’s actually been kind of nice to look at things in more of a macro way, which may actually color how I approach the remainder of this year’s challenges. We shall see. But for today, I’m looking at the micro.

Season Four ranks second, maybe even just by a little, to the first, and it all starts with my favorite, “Adventures in the Sin Trade.” From the opening sequence of Xena desperately searching for where Gabrielle, I knew that whatever came after that was going to be incredible, and I was not disappointed. The two-parter was just … incredible. Great acting, great storytelling … literally, everything about this pair of episodes is exactly what Xena does best. And honestly, Alti nearly beat out Callisto as my favorite villain, because like Callisto, Alti knows her and her past, so any episode that features her is automatically going to rank up there.

There is so much plot in these episodes that it’s almost impossible to summarize it, but I’m going to try: Gabrielle sacrificed herself at the end of Season Three, effectively ending the season-long rift between her and Xena, and after talking a bit with Hades, Xena figures out that Gabrielle would have gone to the Amazon Land of the Dead and not Tartarus, so off she goes to sacrifice a deer and have flashbacks of when she met Alti. She then goes to the Amazons of the North and eventually crosses over in the Amazon Land of the Dead and helps the Amazons trapped there (it seems like the LotD is kind of like a limbo maybe?) due to a curse from Alti. In the second part, Xena fights Alti in the spiritual realm and discovers that Gabrielle is actually alive. There is a ton more to it, but you get the gist.

Xena’s love for Gabrielle is obvious here; not just because she’s searching for her, but because her behavior shows how much Xena has changed. She spends the whole time trying to right the wrongs she caused and then goes even further by setting Amazons – whose deaths she was in no way responsible for – free from wandering the LotD forever, keeping a promise she made to Gabrielle to not return to her warlord ways that we get glimpses of in “Adventures in the Sin Trade.” It was such a beautiful tribute to the woman who had shaped her in more ways than can be counted.

And you know what, that is how I’m going to treat myself for doing well on my papers: I’m going to go watch “Adventures in the Sin Trade,” and you should, too! It’s Tuesday, after all.

It is Tuesday, right??

Art Credit: Varese Sarabande