Season 1, episode 20
Ares proves that he hasn’t given up in his quest to bring Xena back to the dark side. What a schemer. I really do enjoy the interaction between Ares and Xena. Kevin Smith is so good at being bad.
Xena and Gabrielle watch from the woods as a warlord puts women and girls into a cage. Xena wants to save them and hatches a plot, but before she can do anything an older man runs from the woods and attacks the warlords and is beaten down. When Xena goes to save him he tells her he is her father. Xena does not believe him. She and Gabrielle rescue the women and girls, and one runs away because she “went willingly” with the warlord’s men in order to spare her sister.
Gabrielle goes after her, and the man claiming to be Xena’s father stops a thug from beating up Gabrielle. Xena thanks him, and then they take the women and girls away. While the women bathe and ready themselves for the journey back to their village, Xena sits on a hill, watching, and humming a song. Then the man comes riding a horse through the creek, shouting for Xena. he is being chased by several men. Xena goes after them on Argo and once again saves her so-called father. The older man says the horse was owed to him; Xena does not believe this, so she checks out his story. Finding it to be true, she is confused about this man. Is he her father or not?
As the episode progresses we see the older man attempt to split up Xena and Gabrielle. When the old man is killed by the warlord she goes crazy screaming “kill them all and take the village”. Luckily it’s not long before we find out that Ares has been posing as Xena’s father in an attempt to woo her back to his side once more.
At the end of the episode, Xena says to Gabrielle: “We have families we were born into but sometimes families change and we have to build our own. For me, our friendship binds us closer than blood ever could.”
Gabrielle: “For me too”
Disclaimer: “No Fathers, Spiritual or Biological, were harmed during the production of this motion picture.”
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