Written by Gene O Neill and Noreen Tobin
Directed by Paul Lynch
When Gabrielle is struck with a poisonous arrow, Xena must find a way to save her while battling the entire Persian army on her own.
Tropes
- Batman Gambit: An incredibly clever one for being on-the-fly. When Dorian returns to finish off Gabrielle, Xena fights him off. When a Persian shoots an arrow, Xena catches it, smells it to see that it's poisoned, and stabs him with it. She then leaves him be so that he would lead her straight to the antidote.
- Bluff the Imposter: Dorian is a Persian pretending to be a Spartan soldier that deserted during the fight. Xena is immediately suspicious and baits him by asking what village he's from. When he says he's from Mizola, she mentions a beautiful waterfall that she knows doesn't actually exist. Dorian falls for it, but Xena doesn't call him on it so that she can manipulate him for the sake of her own gambits.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Gabrielle has a prophetic dream of a Persian warrior leaping down through the roof and killing Xena. She warns her of it, and Xena heeds it, managing to kill the man before he kills her.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: Xena is faced with saving her friend or saving Athens.
- Godzilla Threshold: Xena tries to empty her mind in order to bring back her Enlightenment Superpowers, not seen since The Debt. She failed, likely due to the fact that she relinquished those powers by killing the Green Dragon. The fact that she would attempt to bring back a technique that was impossible to bring back shows the lengths Xena was going to have any shot of taking on the Persian Army.
- I Just Want to Be You: While out of it from the poison, Gabrielle recalls when she first met Xena and pleaded to travel with her.Gabrielle: [dazed] Take me with you. I want so much to be like you.
Xena: And I want to be like you. [cries] - Imposter Forgot One Detail: The reason why Xena immediately doubted Dorian's claims of being a Spartan is because he lacks a lot of callouses on his hands. Xena knows that Spartan males are trained as children to hold weapons and harden their hands, so they would have many callouses by the time they're adults.
- The Needs of the Many: Gabrielle argues that stopping the Persians is more important than saving herself.
- One Woman Army: Xena vs. "the most ruthless army ever to take up weapons."
Orphaned Reference: Gabrielle’s murmurs about being gifted with prophecy is meant to be a callback to a deleted line in the first episode when she’s trying to convince Xena to take her under her wing.- Race Against the Clock: A two-fer. Xena has to figure out a way to stop the Persians from getting to Athens and get an antidote for the poison afflicting Gabrielle.
