Xena: Warrior Princess: The Complete Fourth Season

Another great season of Xena on 10 discs. WOW!
Gabrielle was killed at the end of Season Three and the beginning of Season Four finds Xena trying to find her. Xena continues to deal with mistakes of the past. Here is a brief episode guide:

1. Adventures in the Sin Trade (1): Xena travels to the Land of the Dead to find Gabrielle.

2. Adventures in the Sin Trade (2): Xena battles a shamoness and tries to free spirits of deceased Amazons before she can contine looking for Gabrielle

3. A Family Affair: Xena and Joxer discover that Hope is posing as Gabrielle.

4. In Sickness and In Hell: Xena and Gabrielle help Joxer defend an army.

5. A Good Day : Xena fights with Greek soldiers and tries to send Caesar and Pompey to from whence they came.

6. A Tale of Two Muses: Xena and Gabrielle try to help a friend change a town that has outlawed dancing.

7. Locked Up and Tied Down: Xena is convicted of murder and sent to Shark Island Prison.

8...

Big Changes in Season Four
At the end of Season Three, Gabrielle had jumped into an abyss to kill her evil child, Hope. Season Four opens with Xena undertaking a spiritual journey to recover her friend. I don't want to spoil anything major, so I'll just mention that the pair travels to India in search of Gabrielle's Way (path through life) and in the process Xena discovers her own Way. They bump into Pompey, Caesar, and Brutus repeatedly, and are instrumental in setting up the famous Ides of March incident at the Roman Forum. This sets up a big dramatic ending for the season, and there's a modern episode (about past life regression) in the final episode.

Season Four has important consequences for the Amazons, shows how Xena played a pivotal role in Roman history, dabbles in FOUR different spiritual paths (shamanism, crusaders, the Way of Love, and the Way of the Warrior), travels to a new part of the Hercules/Xena world, and kills off some major characters. Plus Joxer turns out to be less lame...

A huge step forward in story arc of an excellent TV series
The truly remarkable thing about Xena the Warrior Princess over its six-year run is not that it was one of the first series to show women as fighters who could hold their own. (Xena never needed a guy to step in and save her.) No, the really interesting thing about this series is that it was carried by two women characters... whose strengths and flaws, insecurities, doubts and struggles were central to the whole six-year epic story arc. With each season, the series grew a bit more complex. Season 3 was brilliant for its darkness, the "rift" of jealousy and betrayal in the partnership between Xena and Gabrielle. The end of Season 3, episodes Sacrifice 1 and 2 were an amazing testament to how much these two characters mean to each other. Season 4 carries this arc even further, with the first two episodes dedicated to Xena's search for Gabrielle, much more backstory about Xena's mean and murderous past (and the nasty friends she kept), and then deepening as Gabrielle tries to...

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