Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Season five begins with Xena and Gabrielle dead after the Roman crucifixions. Gabrielle’s spirit tries to save Xena from becoming a demon in the afterlife; Eli restores them to life. Xena returns with a restored chakram, then learns she is pregnant. After Ares kills Eli in “Seeds of Faith,” Xena and Callisto forgive each other, and Callisto reveals she will be reborn as the baby as a way to make amends. Xena gives birth to Eve, whose foretold role threatens the Olympian gods.
Zeus attacks before Hercules intervenes, and Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer struggle to keep Eve safe as the gods pursue her and attack Amphipolis. When Xena learns they intend to kill the child, she and Gabrielle stage their deaths. Ares believes them dead and seals their bodies in an ice cave; they awaken twenty-five years later to find Eve grown up as Livia, a Roman warrior hunting Eli’s followers. Xena and Gabrielle must face the adult daughter they left behind as the prophecy’s danger gathers around her.
When Xena tells Livia she is her birth mother, Livia says Rome is her mother and demands a fight to the death. After Xena spares her, Livia continues the campaign against Eli’s followers and kills Joxer; a vision of Xena’s love leads her to reclaim the name Eve. Eve turns toward Eli’s Way of Love, and her baptism gives Xena the power to kill gods. Athena’s attempt to stop the prophecy sparks the Twilight: Xena kills gods while defending Eve, and Gabrielle and Eve are gravely wounded. Ares gives up his godhood to save them. The season ends with all three women alive and the Olympian order broken.