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| season two |
| The Execution : |
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| Pride comes before a falling-out, as Xena's suggestion that Gabrielle's faith in a convicted defendant may be misguided provokes a bitter, wounded response. The defendant is Meleager the Mighty, a warrior who once saved Gabrielle's town of Potidaea but now awaits execution for murder. Persuaded by his claims of innocence, Gabrielle helps him escape from prison but is shocked when Meleager later confesses that he might have been guilty, for he was too drunk to remember what happened on the day of the murder. Xena investigates further, though,clears Meleager, and finds that the venerable judge Arbus is so intent on an execution that he has conspired to kill everyone who knows Meleager is innocent. Realizing that where Arbus is concerned, justice is blind to the truth, Xena exposes the judge as a power-mad hypocrite and rescues both Meleager and a chastened Gabrielle. |
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| Blind Faith : |
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| As Palaemon kidnaps Gabrielle in order to provoke Xena into a duel to the death. Xena sees at once that Palaemon is redeemable: a decent person who has yet to discover what honor and glory are really about. Blinded by a splash of poison sumac, Xena rushes to save her friend rather than her eyesight. She drags Palaemon with her to find the men who are holding Gabrielle and preparing her to become their king's new bride. Gabrielle's alarm over her impending royal nuptials is not eased by her discovery that the king is already dead, and that she is to be a pawn in a sham ceremony that will allow the minister Apex to assume power-as soon as she is cremated. Xena retrieves Gabrielle's casket just before it is consumed by flames and defeats Apex with the help of Palaemon, who realizes that absorbing Xena's values will be more precious than any trophy of battle. |
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| Ulysses : |
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| The adventurer Ulysses gains unexpected help from the Warior Princess on returning from Troy to his kingdom of Ithaca. Despite warnings from the sea god Poseidon that he will destroy Ulysses, Xena fights side by side with Ulysses to recapture hs ship from pirates, then weathers the turbulent journey to his island. Convinced by Poseidon that his wife, Penelope, is dead, Ulysses confesses that he scarcely knew her on leaving to fight ten years at Troy, and that he realizes that Xena is his true soul mate. Xena, too, is strongly attracted to the handsome and courageous Ulysses, buton reaching Ithaca they find Penelope much alive and loyally keeping a band of plundering suitors at bay. Ulysses strikes them down with a hail of arrows and wistfully reunites with Penelope after Xena rejects him, refusing to take him away from his wife and kingdom. |
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| The Price : |
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| Xena has run a gauntle, fought countless battles, suffered near-fatal (and even fatal) wounds, been crucified, entered the dread realm of Hades, and never known fear. Until now. The advance of "the Horde", an alien, implacable force of primitives who give and exect no mercy, who once flayed her soldiers alive, sends her and Gabrielle on a desperate escape through the woods and into a river. They take shelter in a fortress whose demoralized Athenian defenders turn to the Warrior Princess, with her towering military reputation and iron will, as their only hope. But as Xena takes command she begins to lose her humanity, vowing a war of total destrution that appalls Gabrielle, who wants to explore paths to peace and healing. Xena spurns Gabrielle's way (" There is nothing about these people that we can or should understand!") until she finds that her friend's humanity holds the key to their survival. |
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