Written by Hilary J Bader
Directed by Andrew Merrifield
Only Xena can unravel the mystery when she awakens each morning to find that she and her companions are actually beginning the same day over and over again.
Tropes
- Angrish: Xena breaks out in an enraged rant of nonsense words after waking up in another loop when she thought her first successful attempt at peacekeeping solved the problem.
- Bound and Gagged: Xena eventually resorts to this in dealing with Gabrielle and Joxer continually coming to sticky ends in the "Groundhog Day" Loop.
- Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: Every morning, until Xena ends up killing it in frustration.
- Driven to Suicide: Hermia's father was going to make her marry someone else. Neron had intended to elope, but he found out too late that Hermia had already taken night's bane poison.
- Enemy Mine: Joxer's plan to break the "Groundhog Day" Loop is for Xena and Gabrielle to pose a greater threat to the village than the Feuding Families, thus forcing them to team up. The day ends with all three of them riddled with arrows.
- Feuding Families: The Menos and Lycost families.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The main focus is on Xena trying to figure out how to get out of one.
- Group Hug: Joxer joyfully yells this and joins in when he sees Xena hugging Gabrielle.
- Grumpy Old Man: The heads of the Menos and Lycost families primarily.
- Meaningful Background Event: Hermia is frequently seen wandering around in the background throughout the episode.
- Mêlée à Trois: When Xena completely ignores the town's problems calculating how to throw her chakram, the whole town breaks down into a free-for-all fight. Gabrielle ends up being the last person standing, even when Xena temporarily took her staff away. Xena is briefly impressed with this feat.
- Pet the Dog: The loops were because of Cupid. He couldn't undo Hermia's death, but because the love was so genuine, he gave Neron a wish. Neron wished that tomorrow would never come, so Cupid granted that and said the loops would only end once a hero fixed everything.
- Pinball Projectile: Xena throws her chakram into dozens of angles that not only prevents Hermia from drinking the poison, but prevent every other possible death from occurring in town. Justified in that she spent at least one day plotting how to do this.
- Race Against the Clock: Hermia takes the poison right after the rooster crows and her house is too far away from the barn Xena's staying in to simply run to.
- Royal Rapier: Favoured weapons of the Feuding Families.
- Sanity Slippage: As noted above, after multiple loops, Xena is reduced to spewing an Angrish rant.
- Smooch of Victory: Xena gives Joxer a platonic one after she realizes that tomorrow has finally come.
- Strolling Through the Chaos: Xena spends a day plotting and measuring for the next loop while the town tears itself apart around her.
- Symbolism: The signboard with the two bulls represents the increasing tension between the two houses. The sign looks normal in the beginning, then it shows the bulls facing off in subsequent time loops culminating in the two bulls attacking each other after the big fight in the town.
- Take That!: Cupid said a hero would be fixing this mess, but he didn't tell Neron which hero that would be. This leads to a knock on the franchise's competition at the time."Well, frankly, I-I was expecting Hercules, or at least Sinbad."
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Zig-zagged. Because she doesn't know why the loops are occurring, Xena keeps trying to solve a particular problem she stumbles into—only to wake up to that damn rooster. In the end, she learns about Hermia and realizes she has to solve all of the problems because they're interconnected.
