I just finished Xena and I’m devastated…
Posted by patcat__xena@reddit | xena | View on Reddit | 44 comments
I wasn’t expecting this ending. I’m in shock, with a lump in my throat since I saw that grotesque, dark scene where Gabrielle finds Xena. It was brutal, heartbreaking… and it completely shattered me.
Xena’s decision was deeply heroic, true to the redeemed woman we got to know throughout the series. But it was also devastating. It hurts to think that after everything she endured, everything she fought for to change, to leave the darkness behind… that was her fate. As if peace was never truly an option for her.
And Gabrielle… what can I say about their relationship? The way it evolved was the most beautiful part of the series. By season six, there’s no need to read between the lines: they choose each other, they hold each other up. They’re not just travel companions — they’re deeply bonded souls.
The ending left my heart aching. Emotionally, it was a blow I don’t know if I’ll recover from anytime soon. It hit me hard. It’s not the closure I wanted… but maybe it’s the one that reminds us that Xena’s story was never meant to be simple. It was epic. It was tragic. And it was painfully real.
The series itself was absolutely amazing. I’d honestly say it’s become my favorite show ever. I connected with it in a way I didn’t expect — and I already know I’ll be rewatching it soon, this time in its original version.
Also… I’ve heard about a director’s cut of the finale, but I’m not very familiar with it. I’d really like to know more. Does it change anything significant? Where can I watch it?
Is anyone else still crying about this years later? How did they get over it?
nygibs@reddit
It's been since the original release for me and I've never managed to watch the end again, or think too hard about it. It's still an open wound, like the sudden death of my extended family. You aren't alone.
LobsterFar9876@reddit
Just did a rewatch and couldn’t watch the last 2 episodes. If I don’t watch it I can believe xena and gabby rode into the sunset together on argo 2.
FirebirdWriter@reddit
It took me 20 years.
nygibs@reddit
Do you think it's safe..? I'm at 20 or so myself..
Lia_Delphine@reddit
Yeah I’ve never watched the final again after it originally aired. Hopefully old age will finally erase the memory because damn it I can still picture it in my head.
Tricky_Direction_897@reddit
Same here. I stop at Soul Possession.
skloop@reddit
I still have the video box set and almost the whole last season makes my heart hurt knowing what it's building up to 😭
Competitive-Maize996@reddit
What! They killed her! OMG! I hardly ever watch the last season of any show tbh. Most of them are too tragic!
MizzIzzSlays@reddit
The comics help. Lol Gabby brings back Xena and shenanigans ensue. They kiss.
There are sites to read comics for free and you can find them there.
TheSentientSnail@reddit
Have you heard of our lord and savior... fanfiction? That ache never goes away, but you can stuff it full of all kinds of little stories that can make it hurt a little less. I promise.
Source - OG xenite, I was where you are 24 years ago.
RotaVitae@reddit
The Director's Cut was released on DVD I believe. I don't recall anything particularly memorable about it, except two points. There's a scene where Xena and Akemi transform into birds to fly to Mt. Fuji for some CGI wow. And then just before Xena is about to battle Yodoshi, Akemi stops her and says "There's something I haven't told you about what you have to do" before the scene cuts.
So we do see Akemi about to tell Xena to stay dead, so it doesn't come out of the blue when she surprises Gab with it at the fountain about to scatter her ashes. But we don't see Xena's reaction to Akemi telling her.
RynnB1983@reddit
To piggyback off that, the directors cut is a version they aired as a 2 hour movie as well. They put it out as a 2 parter and in some television regions they put out the directors cut. They did it here in Florida where I live.
They showed the 2 parter split on one channel and then on a sister channel they ran a marathon and had the directors cut play instead of the 2 parter. And it even showed in the TV guide we used to get the movie was 2 hours, not split in two parts like usual.
The only other thing that changes is the title logo. If you watch part 1 and then 2, the opening on part 2 just flashes Xena Warrior Princess and not the original opening. When you're watching the directors cut they just show the opening shots of the second episode and go right into it as it was filmed like a movie. Hopefully this makes sense.
Pop_Stensbold@reddit
The showdown in the rain between Gabrielle and Morimoto is slightly longer and more tense if my memory is correct in the Director's Cut and there's a big change in the final shot of the episode - instead of panning away showing Gabrielle alone on the boat Xena's spirit is still shown beside her.
Severe-Chicken@reddit
Yes, in the directors cut we don’t see Gabrielle alone on the boat. That was the most memorable. Sadly most of the plot stuff in this episode and the justification for Xena’s sacrifice are pretty much BS. The music, the costumes were fab. The guest stars and plot were pants.
For me, When Fates Collide is the real finale.
Wicked68@reddit
We don't talk about Bruno-no-no (A Friend in Need Pt. 2). Just forget the last 2 episodes, they were a fever dream. The Series ended before them
Grumpy_Lez@reddit
The ending makes me so mad because how many times did both or one of them die and come back and THAT is what does it? BS.
Summer_1121@reddit
I can't do it unless I immediately follow up with When Fates Collide, and ending with Many Happy Returns.
dimerind@reddit
When Fates Collides is such a good episode, I love it so much! Alti is also my favourite villain of all. She's so good in this episode! Can anyone explain the end of it?, when Gabrielle meets Xena riding her horse in that foggy forest and says they greet each other, what does it mean? Are they back in the normal plot line and they remember everything that happened in the episode? Such a good episode!
Agent8699@reddit
At the end, Xena says that Gabrielle “brought the world back” and asks Gabrielle if she misses being a famous playwright, so they definitely remember.
I think they’re both meant to be shellshocked. It’s possible that everything feels a bit off after Gabrielle destroyed the Fates since previously their fates were all part of the loom and under the potential control of the Fates. Maybe they feel unsettled in the new fate-less world?
Or … maybe they each have fuzzy memories of an adventure in Jappa which they don’t fully understand and playwright Gabrielle not only returned to the original timeline, but also adjusted it to reunite with Xena.
Summer_1121@reddit
I honestly just love that she chooses to destroy the loom instead of freeing the fates to "correct" it
Agent8699@reddit
Playwright Gabrielle gives no f&$!s for the fallout. If she can’t save her own Fallen Angel, then everyone and everything is being burnt down!
sihnonsreject@reddit
two of the absolute best episodes in my opinion.
buttsquad@reddit
Honestly I got over it by being just a little delusional LOL! I read a lot of post-ending writings and the subtext virtual seasons are canon in my head.
Cautious_Parking2386@reddit
It's great to have another fan. AFIN is a hard blow to get over.
theking4mayor@reddit
The show actually ended at the end of season 4 when they were crucified. Every after that was just a death hallucination.
Goldar85@reddit
Season 4 could have been a perfect series finale.
Latte-Catte@reddit
I hold such immense grudge towards the monks showing up 36 damn years later to hold Xena responsible for a crime she did not commit. And that bitch Akemi I will never forgive for making killing Xena part of that plan smdh.
Negative-Turnover821@reddit
As a Xena and Buffy fan that watched them as they came out, seeing Xena and Buffy die the same month (although Buffy was resurrected the next season) was really hard on me😭😭😭
Nerdiestlesbian@reddit
I can’t watch most of the last season. I prefer to think of them as continuing to adventure and final settling down and take over Xena’s mom’s tavern. And Gab goes to Athens to teach but then realizes she’s not happy without Xena. So she comes back and finds it more fulfilling to teach the other young women to read and write. And xena gets a following with other young budding lesbians. She teaches them how to fight and be smart. Basically Gabby and Xena adopt all these young girls who are shunned for being different.
Most of my head cannon is filled with additional fan fic stories.
I can’t watch Xena die again. Once was too much.
loofychan@reddit
I’m still surprised to this day that this made it through the writing room, without someone having some awareness of how deeply this would hurt the fans. Brutal.
dimerind@reddit
Heartbreak aside, the finale really is a good episode, mini-movie. It combines lots of elements from Japanese culture, Xena's past, lots of soul-wrenching scenes like Xena's lynching in the village in winter while she's carrying Akemi's ashes, the fight where she explodes the chariot in an atomic style, and all the beautiful scenes in the teahouse, the symbolism, the three girls sacrificing men to a demon, Yodoshi's character, the Japanese music, and how overall beautiful FIN really is.
There's a few things about FIN I still don't like to this day and that I found very traumatizing watching as a kid: Xena's decapitation and showing her head was so raw, gore and unnecessary, and the monk's decapitation too. Just as a whole, Xena is not a gore show and seeing this really turns my stomach. The only other gore scene in Xena that traumatized me as a kid was in the India episode, where they amputate her arms. Really not a fan of these at all.
FIN got inspired by a few Hong Kong style movies, both in fight scenes and in sceneries around the tea house. I watched one of them, it was called something about a ghost, or dream ghost (I think Yodoshi is inspired from here too) but they didn't resonate with me, FIN was so much better and more beautiful.
Agent8699@reddit
A Chinese Ghost Story 1 and 3. There are a LOT of similarities in terms of storylines, scenes, characters, etc.
Agent8699@reddit
Please accept my condolences fellow Xenite.
The Director’s Cut doesn’t change a lot, but adds a little more. Here’s a summary: https://www.whoosh.org/epguide/friend2.html#directors
Item 28 of the list is arguably the most important addition in terms of providing much needed context, although it still doesn’t fully explain the befuddling situation following Ghost Killer’s unexpected death.
Some options for you:
Firm_Introduction937@reddit
I am one of the og xenites and watched the finale as it aired and cried my eyes out and still to this day I cry. I cry during the whole thing. What I really cry about is “I I only had thirty seconds to live, this is how I’d want to live them, looking into your eyes.” And all Xena wanted was to be with Gabrielle when she died and then she is in battle screaming her name bc all Xena wanted was to die is Gabrielle’s arms. I cry when she starts teaching her all the things she hasn’t taught her, when she does the pinch, the sounds, when she dies, her strung up body, seeing her head, and then watching Gabrielle see her body, and then them holding each other at the side of the mountain, and then when you see Xena’s face in the sunset.
I literally sob. I have watched those episodes maybe 4 times. And I try not to watch them at all. But her battle sequence in the second episode is badass.
Sugarloaf78@reddit
I wasn’t home the day it aired and after I heard about it, I’ve never watched it. I believe Xena being alive was far more useful and she had done plenty to make up for the damage she did as the Destroyer of Nations.
daryl772003@reddit
Take comfort in the fact that their reincarnated selves always find each other
Sinfjotl@reddit
This. I always remember they're meant to be together in each life. When Xena was born as Arminestra and Gabrielle was there to protect her, and when they're in the present day (1990s) and they do past-life regression. I loved those episodes because they show death is not the end for these two, and also because of my own belief in reincarnation.
Goldar85@reddit
That's a beautiful way to look at it. I don't even think the writers were conscious how beautiful the message is about their relationship. Literal soulmates. When one journey ends, it's only matter of time before their souls find their way back to each other.
daryl772003@reddit
I think the writers must have been
IseQween@reddit
It's amazing, almost everything you say reflects how I felt when I saw the first airing. I've rewatched several times over the years and still get teary-eyed, even when just listening to the soundtrack. But it's mainly because it was the end of new episodes of the show I've come to love above all others. In my head, they are flying, riding, walking or sailing off into the sunset together into old age and other lives, as suggested in alternate "finales" we also got to see.
I have the director's cut as part of the S6 boxed set and a standalone DVD with a few extras. I like that the DC makes it clearer that Xena didn't know she would have to stay dead until Akemi apparently reveals this just before the battle with Yodoshi. It makes her seem less intentionally suicidal, still hopeful Gabs will come through as usual, as well as Gabs' quest to restore her seem less meaningless and cruel. I also like that the last scene shows them together on the boat, as opposed to Gabs standing alone, though I'm okay picturing Gabs pursuing her own journey before somehow resurrecting the WP.
alonzo_raquel_alonzo@reddit
I’ve still not watched the final season because of the ugly ending.
KaidaStorm@reddit
I accidentally watched the last episode before watching some other episodes, I thought it was a standalone movie somehow. Either way, I used to not be able to watch the episode, I'd get to the end and just stop, even if I had planned on watching all the way.
That said, i recently watched with a friend (who'd never seen it) and they let me show it in the "updated order" and I realized I liked the episode better, because it is well done aside from the end.
So now I just always plan to watch it in the updated order
We did this order: FIN, Soul possession, when fates collide, many happy returns
PancakePanic23@reddit
Same with me, I am still hurting. My mom actually owns the whole DVD Collection and keeps the finale DVDs separate in a forbidden cupboard 😅😭 we watched the series as a family ever Sunday afternoon and it truly had a huge impact on me. I am rewatching rn, still fairly at the beginning. We will see if I can do it this time.
nonmiraculoussunofaB@reddit
I watched it once. I will never watch it again.
my only solace about it is that even Lucy grew to regret that ending because she learned how hurtful it was to the fans.