First up, I'm usually pretty defensive of season 5. I think it's gets a worse wrap than it deserves. I understand why the time jump was chosen to resolve the Eve storyline, and I actually really liked Eve/Livia as a character. I'm not trying to be ruthless here.

But when you sit and think about this storyline and it's ramifications... the horror just is endless.

Take Cyrene in Amphipolis under siege, clutching her grandchild, defying her goddess! Talking about the heartbreak of the son & grandchild she already lost.

And a few weeks later, she's going to hear that Xena and her baby died in a fire, and she's just never going to see them again. She's going to watch Amphipolis decline and then she's going to die off screen in the timejump thinking that that her daughter and grandchild died a horrible death years before her.

That's a fucking depressing end for a beloved character.

And they're all like that. XWP was full of great recurring characters and little references to people she's saved acting as friends and allies. And, except for Joxer & Lila who's appearances are depressing for other reasons, they all just disappear. And when you think about them... Autolycus swiping a gem, Minya reading lines with her girl, Diana calling a healer because her chair was cold... just picture them getting this terrible news that their friends are dead and died horrible deaths.

And maybe never learning otherwise.

It's just really bleak.

And the terrible icing on it all... Callisto's purified soul got a second chance and still wound up becoming a fucking mass murdering warrior again. It's so depressing.