Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2
Xena: Warrior Princess Season 1
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
201: Orphan of War 1996 September 30
(First watched 2025-08-17) Me two episodes ago: "They've gotta be running out of family surprise episodes by now?" Well damn, how much wronger could I have been. They just dropped the secret son card.
202: Remember Nothing 1996 October 7
(First watched 2025-08-18) For a moment I thought they'd say her younger brother had somehow survived until she stabbed him at the beginning of this episode, but nope, they went a different way about bringing him onscreen.
It's A Wonderful Life, warrior style. I feel like this concept had enough ways to play with it that this episode alone couldn't do it justice. Like, the limitation placed on Xena was that things would go back to the way they were if she spilled blood in rage. Now, that leaves a lot of room for possible technicalities and workarounds! If she calms her emotions so her blood-spilling is cool and collected, does that count? If she kills people by burning them to death, poisoning, strangling, or other ways that don't technically spill blood, does that count?
It also only allowed a pretty shallow view of the differences. Basically she was able to see the difference it made on her immediate family and friends and decided that the "real" history was better. But we get no glimpse of the potential differences in the world due to Xena not being a warlord for a decade! Maybe hundreds of people are living happier healthier lives! Maybe other warlords just did the same damage! We don't know. We know some people like the centaurs and Amazons are worse off, but we still don't get the big picture. If the world was better for many people in this version, she could've found some other ways to positively influence things without returning the original history. She could take on the role of teacher, influencing others to do good in the world though she is by godly trickery unable to get involved.
I'll also note that just an episode after introducing her son, she never had a moment of pause about "Oh, in this alternate history my son doesn't even exist."
203: The Giant Killer 1996 October 14
204: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun 1996 October 28
205: Return of Callisto 1996 November 4
206: Warrior... Princess... Tramp 1996 November 11
207: Intimate Stranger 1996 November 18
208: Ten Little Warlords 1996 November 25
209: A Solstice Carol 1996 December 9
210: The Xena Scrolls 1997 January 13
211: Here She Comes... Miss Amphipolis 1997 January 20
212: Destiny 1997 January 27
213: The Quest 1997 February 3
214: A Necessary Evil 1997 February 10
215: A Day in the Life 1997 February 17
216: For Him the Bell Tolls 1997 February 24
217: The Execution 1997 April 7
218: Blind Faith 1997 April 14
221: The Lost Mariner 1997 May 5
222: A Comedy of Eros 1997 May 12