5-01 Fallen Angel

First airing was Sep 27, 1999.

The story starts out with Amarice knocking Joxer down thinking he's a Roman soldier. He tells her
he's been having nightmares about Xena and Gabrielle and has come to see if they need his help.
Amarice looks down from the cliff they are on and shows Joxer the bodies of Xena and Gabrielle
still on the crosses. Then Eli comes up. Joxer says he's going to take their bodies back to Greece
whether Amarice and Eli help or not.

We see them on the crosses, then look up at the falling snow. Gabrielle and Xena are on the top of
a craggy mountain. Light comes down and turns into angels. They take Gabrielle up and then Xena.
Xena looks down to see demons flying up at them. They cause the guardian angels to drop them and
they are falling towards Hell. Just as Xena is about to grab Gabrielle's hand someone grabs Xena.
It's demon Callisto. She says she is going to take Xena to her lord. Gabrielle continues to fall
down. Xena fights off Callisto, grabs onto a cliff face, but as she begins to fall, Archangel
Michael grabs her and takes up and away.

Xena tells Michael she is going after Gabrielle and dives off the cliff, Michael grabs her feet and
brings her back. He says if she goes down she'll be doomed to everlasting torment.

Gabrielle wakes up next to demon Callisto. She tells her she gets to spend eternity with
her. Gabrielle says Xena will rescue her. Callisto wants Gabrielle to eat fruit set out for her.
Gabrielle guesses it wall turn her into a demon and refuses.

Amarice takes out the two guards, they remove the nails from Xena's and Gabrielle's hands
and take them down from the crosses.

Michael tells Xena in order to get her wings she has to walk into a cave. She sees two
ways to go - through fire or through water. She comes out of the cave on fire. Michael says she
walked through the fire of purification and has to get into the divine water. She does and gets her
archangel wings.

Amarice chastises Eli for infecting Gabrielle with his peace and love talk that made her
helpless -- she lost her warrior spirit and it got them killed.

Xena has her wings and is ready to go down to rescue Gabrielle. Michael tells her if she
releases Gabrielle from her pain she would doom herself to stay in her place. Xena says she's
ready.

Callisto has demons force feed Gabrielle until she wants more and she eats some of the fruit,
convulses and begins to turn into a demon. She asks Callisto if she saw her parents on fire and
did she smell their flesh sizzling. She says she thinks she wanted them dead so she could be a
bitch. She and Callisto being fighting.

Xena and the Archangels come down and everyone sword-fights. Xena yells for Michael to
get Gabrielle away while she fights Callisto. She cuts off Callisto's wings. Callisto says she will
never stop hating Xena. Xena puts her hand on Callisto's chest, taking her pain and demon-ness
away.

Michael throws Gabrielle into the divine water and she is saved. When she gets out she
asks for Xena. He tells her Xena gave herself up to save one of the damned and after she is rested
he will tell her who it was.

In Hell, demon-Xena tells the other demons it's time to launch a full scale attack on
Paradise.

Gabrielle sees the now pure Callisto and can't believe Xena is in Hell instead of her.
She tells Callisto she murdered her husband and many innocent people Callisto says she doesn't
remember. Gabrielle doesn't believe her . Michael tells her she is seeing Callisto as she would
have been if Xena hadn't killed her parents. And he says now that Xena is a demon they may not be
able to defeat her.

Joxer and company have taken Xena and Gabrielle's bodies to a cave or barn or some place
inside. Amarice says they should bury them there because they will never get them to Greece. Eli
has gone off somewhere.

Gabrielle tells Michael when the fighting starts Xena will come after her. He says to
get her wings she'll have to undergo a trial of purification. Inside the cave she sees Callisto.
She asks her if they're going to fight. Callisto says she's not a good fighter. Gabrielle is
disgusted at Callisto's sweetness act. She says she's evil and always will be. Callisto talks about
the love her family had for her. Gabrielle is still not convinced. Callisto puts her hand on
Gabrielle's cheek. Gabrielle sheds tears and touches Callisto's.

Michael tells Gabrielle that her forgiveness of Callisto made her soul as pure as the
divine water. Gabrielle is now an archangel. Another archangel tells them the demons are coming.

Gabrielle and Xena face off. Xena tells her they shouldn't be fighting, their love is
stronger than good and evil, their souls are destined to be together forever, and she doesn't want
to walk through hell alone.

Gabrielle says she's sorry, they fight, then Gabrielle flies away with Xena after her.

Eli is having a crisis of faith, and praying and lamenting that his friends are dead
because of his teachings, and that the way of love wasn't Gabrielle's way. He wants a sign of some
kind. Callisto hears him and appears in front of him as an angel. She tells him to go to Xena and
Gabrielle. He does so and puts his hands on their foreheads. Callisto appears behind him and puts
her hands on his.

Xena defeats Gabrielle and she falls down to the top of the mountain. Xena picks her up
and walks to the edge. Michael runs after them and they all fall over the edge. Xena tells them
they're going to Hell.

As they fall, they disintegrate. Xena and Gabrielle wake up back in their bodies and sit
up. Michael and Callisto are watching. Michael nods to Callisto and she touches Xena's back. He
then lets her join her mother and father (What happened to her sister? Maybe in Hell and Callisto
didn't have time to find her?)

Xena and Gabrielle look around and at each other, confused. Then Gabrielle tells Xena
they're going to be together for eternity. Xena agrees.

...........

The first episode of the Fifth Season. And a mixed bag of tricks. This episode had some
really good things about it. And it had some really hokey things as well. First the good -

*Callisto. I've said this before and I'll say it again - NO ONE does evil so deliciously
and with so much fun and gusto as Callisto/Hudson Leick. Her Demon-Callisto was as much fun as
Callisto has ever been. Especially when she was taunting Gabrielle. Xena's demon was good, and
evil, and enjoyable but she couldn't compare to Callisto.

Of course, I can't compliment Hudson's performance without doing the same for Lucy and
Renee (I'm discounting the action scenes and talking about the drama between them). Although most
of Lucy's time was being demon-Xena, she was as evil, and as cunning as they come. And Renee's work
was as good as she's ever done.

*The scene of Joxer, Amarice and Eli pulling the nails from Xena and Gabrielle's hands as
they were taking them down from the crosses -- more subtle, but almost as dramatic as when they
were nailed up there.

*Gabrielle in hell asking Callisto about seeing her parents die - finally a bit of
payback. (They keep saying it was Xena who killed them. But if I remember right, it was Xena's men
who set the fires that destroyed the town and killed Callisto's parents).

*Xena willing to dive into Hell after Gabrielle with no way to save her.

*Purified Xena walking from the cave on fire - cool effect!

*Amarice giving Eli hell for Xena and Gabrielle's death - "You might as well have driven
in the nails yourself!" (Although - I didn't see HER running back to help Xena and Gabrielle.)

*The look on Gabrielle's face when she finally forgave Callisto.

*Xena, Gabrielle and Michael disintegrating as they fell off the cliff - another cool
effect.

*The demon wings and makeup.

*Callisto's change from demon to angel - Ugly, ugly beast to gorgeous beauty.

*Joxer - except for getting knocked down at the beginning, nothing goofy or silly about
his actions or feelings concerning X&G's death, or their resurrection.

........

The not-so-good -

*The angels and their stereotypical winged-ness. I realize if they were going to show angels they
HAD to have wings, and I don't know how else they could have done it, but they weren't very
convincing.

*So what happened to the Elysian Fields? If Xena and Gabrielle had made it to Paradise would that
mean that Xena would never have seen Solan again? [Someone in one of the Whoosh commentaries also
mentioned the Amazon Land of the Dead for Gabrielle, maybe?]

*How did Joxer know where to find X&G?

Other comments -

I guess Callisto's punishment for physically interfering with, and crippling Xena was to be turned
into a demon.

After Xena took Callisto's demon-ness away, how did Callisto get back up to Paradise?

There was Hell, and Paradise, but no Heaven. I guess Paradise is rocky and barren, kind of like
Hell except it's high up in the clouds.

Even though we knew demon Xena was evil, I think there was still some of the old feelings for
Gabrielle in there somewhere. Her "you can't let me walk through hell alone" plea sounded very much
like not-demon Xena.

I really expected that Xena was going to have to save Gabrielle's soul. I didn't expect it to be
Callisto's - nice bait and switch. So I guess this means no more Callisto. Kind of sad since next
to X&G she was the one I most liked to see.

[SPOILER ALERT!! So, why impregnate Xena and not Gabrielle? Callisto killed Perdicus, so she owed
Gabrielle. Of course, she brought back Hope and so indirectly killed Solan. Why not both of them?]

I couldn't help but notice that when X&G woke up, everyone rushed to help Xena sit up, but
Gabrielle had to help herself.

The interview clip was with Hudson Leick (with strawberry blond hair). She said she LOVED being in
the demon makeup. But she hated getting up at 4 a.m. for three hours of putting on the makeup and
an hour afterward to get it off. She said she liked the flying part and wearing a harness, unless
she was up there too long and had to go to the bathroom. She talked about how heavy the wings were
and they had two people off camera supporting the ends of them. She also said how much she loved
the scene where Xena gives up her "light" to save Callisto. I couldn't see them, but she said
Xena/Lucy was shedding tears as she did so.

RJ Stewart wrote the episode and said this was the first time they had covered the mythology of
heaven and hell.

......

Originally I wasn't all that enthused about this episode, what with all the angels and the wings
and angel sword-fighting. But as I was listing the good things about this one, I realized it was so
much better than I thought it was. I still think the story itself is very non-Xena-esque and not
what I really would have liked to have seen after "Ides of March", but the performances were so
good I had to rate it higher than I would have otherwise.

An 8.5 out of 10.