The Furies

The Furies try to entertain Ares when he visits their temple, but despite their efforts, his only interest is in hearing their judgement of Xena. He has laid a case before them that she has failed to avenge the death of her father; when they decide that she is guilty, he pleads with them to take the exceptional step of infliciting both of the possible punishments of persecution and insanity on her. Meanwhile Gabrielle is trying to get Xena to compete in a race, in the hope that she can win and extract a promise from Xena. However, their game gets interupted by a gang of thugs who are after Xena for a bounty that has been placed on her head. During the fight, The Furies judgement kicks in and Xena starts fighting in a rather unauthodox way. Once the fight is over, Xena starts juggling her chakram and eating fruit from the tip of her knife. When she starts calling Gabrille, Mavis, we start to suspect something is wrong. At Gabrielle's suggestion, Xena puts the pinch on one of the thugs and they discover that the bounty was placed on her by a priest from the temple of the Furies. Xena then mounts her horse with a backflip and facing backwards, and rides off. When they reach the temple of the Furies, Xena and Gabrielle learn the reason for the insanity and head off to visit Xena's mother to find out the truth.

En route to Amphipolis, Xena and Gabrielle camp out for the night. Gabrielle wakes in the middle of the night to discover that Xena is gone although her clothes remain; Gabrielle finds her standing naked at the edge of a town swearing curses and damnation at the town for their hideous crimes. Gabrielle leads her away. The following morning Xena rushes off and makes her way to her mother's inn. Once there she just about manages to explain to her mother what is happening and her mother confesses that

she is the murderer of Xena's father. Xena collapses into a silent stupor and is being nursed by her mother when Gabrielle walks in; Cyrene explains to Gabrielle what happened and tells her of another person who was faced with the same dilemma by the Furies. Gabrielle rushes off to find this man in the hope that he can show a way of resolving the empasse. When she gets there, Gabrielle

discovers that although he killed his mother as instructed, the Furies did not free him from the insanity and he is living as a lunatic in an asylum. In the meantime, Xena has realised for herself that doing

the Furies bidding is no way out, and has decided that is it she who must die on the grounds that she is deeply dangerous to innocent people in her insane state of mind. Xena makes her way to a clifftop where she intends to jump, killing herself - Ares appears to her and tries to pursuade her not to jump. Xena refuses to complete the act without the certain knowledge that the Furies will have seen that she has completed that which she is required to do and extracts a promise from Ares that he will bring the Furies to an agreed place to witness Xena's act of vengence.

Xena returns to her mother's inn and leads her mother to the temple of the Furies, where Xena straps her to the altar and waits for Ares and the Furies to arrive. Gabrielle arrives at the temple and tries to tell

Xena of the trick that the Furies will not free her from the insanity even if she does carry out their bidding and kills her mother, but is silenced by Ares. As Xena is about to kill her mother, she asks the Furies why she is being required to kill her father when he is very much alive. The Furies are

somewhat taken back by this and Xena proceeds to require Gabrielle to relate the tales that Ares takes on the form of absent warriors and visits their wives for sex. Cyrene then confirms that Xena was concieved when her husband returned unexpectedly from battle. Xena then asks for the opportunity to prove herself to be half-god by fighting Ares - if she can hold her own and defeat the god of war in a fight she reasons, this will prove that she is no ordinary mortal and infact has the blood of the god in her. The Furies accept this and the challenge begins; in the end Xena wins out and the Furies remove the curse and tell Ares that they will report his misdemeanours back to Zeus and the other gods. Ares is annoyed but impressed that Xena has beaten him again, and asks if she truely believes he is her father. She answers that she doesn't care; all that is important is that the Furies believe she is and that she has freed herself from the curse.

Xena's sanity was not harmed during the production of

this motion picture. The Furies, however, will be openning their own tap-dancing variety show off-off-off-Broadway soon.

Been There, Done That

Xena wakes up to the sound of a rooster crowing, and sits up as Joxer enters carrying some goose eggs in his helmet. Gabrielle surfaces from under a pile of straw. Then a horseshoe falls from above Joxer, falling into his hat, cracking all the eggs and splashing the yolks all over his face. The three of them rise and go off in search of new horseshoes for Argo, and come across a feud in the market square. Joxer tries to intervene and gets killed by one of the swordsmen. Come evening Xena and Gabrielle hold a funeral pyre for him, and rather shocked and clinging to each other for comfort, they go to sleep. The rooster crows and once again Joxer enters the stable carrying goose eggs in his hat. Xena has a serious case of Deja Vu, but is overjoyed to see that Joxer is still alive, and pushes him back before the horseshoe can fall on him. She tries to explain to both Gabrielle and Joxer that she's seen this day before and tries to change things. This time she stops Joxer from getting involved in the feud in the marketplace, only to find that he gets involved in a seperate feud in an alleyway.

Once again the day repeats itself, and this time Xena stops the cause of the original duel by ensuring that an old deaf man is not knocked down by a passing chariot. Despite her efforts, the same two men still pick a fight over a different, even more trival dispute, and this time Gabrielle tries to stop the alley fight and is killed by one of the two swordsmen. The next time round, Xena ties up Joxer and Gabrielle and attempts to stop the fighting herself. This effort too fails. Xena then decides to learn more about the feud between the main two families to see if she can resolve the feud through knowledge rather than direct intervention. This time she manages to stop the feud and pursuade the leaders of both feuding families to put asside their differences; this still fails to break the cycle. Xena then discovers that a phial of poison is missing from the local potion maker, and discovers that the daughter of one of the feuding houses has taken it because she is in love with a young man from the other house and knows it can never be while the families are feuding. The next day she endeavours to reach the woman before she takes the poison but arrives a moment too late; finding the man he confides in her that Cupid has set the town to repeat the day of the woman's death time and time again until a hero comes to release them. But he says there is no way that Xena can reach the woman after the rooster calls but before she takes the poison. The rest of the day, a somewhat distracted Xena is measuring up the town. The following morning Xena unleashes her Chakram along it's carefully planned trajectory, saves the deaf old man and shatters the phial of poison just before the woman drinks it. The day starts one final time, but this time Joxer brings turnips rather than goose eggs... they're free at last.

The rooster was not harmed during the production

of this motion picture, although his feathers were severly ruffled. However, a little gel and mousse straighted out the mess.

The Dirty Half Dozen

Ares decides to equip the army of a young warlord, Agathon, with armour made from the metal of Ephestis thus making them all but invincible. On hearing of this, Xena proceeds to rescue various of her proteges from her warlord period from prisons or execution and tries to pursuade them to join her in a mission against Agathon. She picks each of them for skills she believes will help with the battle with Agathons soldiers; their first encounter is less than successful although they do avoid getting slaughtered by using hand to hand combat techiniques. They travel in somewhat uneasy alliance to Agathon's castle, where Xena manages to break in with their assistance but she is soon captured and she, Glaphyra and Gabrielle are soon imprisoned in Agathon's castle.

No convicts were reformed during the production of

this motion picture. Can't we all just get along?

While travelling Xena and Gabrielle come across a slave train and decide to free the slaves. When one of the now-free slaves tells them that he was seeking help in a battle against Julius Caesar who has invaded Britainnia, Xena insists on returning with him to help. Soon after their arrival, Gabrielle and the former slave are captured and Xena meets up with Boadicea, a former foe who is now battling Caesar. Xena rescues Gabrielle and prepares to stand against his army with Boadicea, while Gabrielle takes shelter with the priest in his temple. Soon she discovers that he is part of a satanic cult trying to bring the evil god Dahak into the world. In trying to stop a ceremony, Gabrielle unwittingly stabs the priestess of the cult and the evil is released. Xena is distracted from the battle with Caesar by the gathering of storm clouds over the temple and races to rescue Gabrielle. She finds Gabrielle suspended in the air by talons of fire but does manage to free her and they escape. An ensuing explosion knocks out all of the walls of the temple leaving a very familar framework standing - Stonehenge.

Gabrielle’s Hope

Gabrielle is still tortured about the moment she killed the priestess and is unable to sleep. As she and Xena head towards the coast in order to leave Britainnia, they are greeted by three banshees. Making their escape Xena and Gabrielle reach the port, where Gabrielle waits in an inn while Xena looks for passage back to Greece. In the inn, Gabrielle suddenly has craving for lots of strange and bizzare foods, which she proceeds to eat.In the middle of her meal, a mob of villagers start to attack the inn and try to kill Gabrielle; at the same time Xena is attacked by a group of religious knights. Making a break for the mob, Xena and Gabrielle head for the cover of the wooded hills, where Gabrielle realises she's pregnant, and a fairly long way through the pregnancy at that. Searching for answers as to what is going on, Xena takes her to the castle from which the religious knights operate where she tries to find out what is going on by eavesdropping on their conversations. She discovers that Gabrielle is carrying the child of Dahak, and goes back in just enough time to help Gabrielle give birth to a daughter. Xena is very concerned about the child, but Gabrielle pursuades her that the child can be taught not to be evil, and that it should be given a chance at life. Gabrielle names her child "Hope" to reflect her belief that she can be a force for good despite being the offspring of Dahak. Xena agrees to give her a chance and is distracted by a battle outside. When she returns, she finds Gabrielle sleeping and one of the knights brutally murdered in a locked stronghold that only contained the knight, Gabrielle and Hope. Xena is now convinced that Gabrielle is terribly wrong about Hope and that she is already evil. Gabrielle takes hope and runs with Xena in hot pursuit. When Gabrielle realises that Xena means to kill her daughter and will not listen to "reason", she decides to abandon her daughter and then tell Xena that Hope turned on her and was killed. Xena isn't completely convinced but reluctantly takes Gabrielle's word for it.

Despite witnessing the bizarre and somewhat disturbing

birth of Gabrielle's Hope, no farm animals were harmed or traumatized during the production of this motion picture.