Written by Katherine Fugate
Directed by Josh Becker
Caesar creates an alternate future where he isn't betrayed, setting off a series of events he could not have foreseen.
Tropes
- Alternate Reality Episode: Caesar changes the world to a reality where he genuinely teams up with Xena instead of betraying her.
- Assassination Attempt: Alti tries to kill Xena in order to take the role of Empress for herself. Brutus stops her before it happens.
- Death by Irony: In this reality, Caesar stabs Brutus with a knife instead.
- Dragon Ascendant: Alti is poised to rule Rome herself after killing off Caesar.
- The Emperor: Caesar and Xena share the tile of Emperor and Empress respectively.
- Fate Drives Us Together: Caesar did not take into account that fate has a way of bringing Xena and Gabrielle together, no matter how different the two are.
- Fate Worse than Death:Alti: Aw such a pretty girl, huh? Do you know what a fate worse than death means? Dying before you get a chance to know who you really are.
- For Want Of A Nail: In the teaser, Caesar muses how vastly different things would've been had he not betrayed Xena all those years ago and finds this trope quite ironic. In changing that one event, he reshapes the world to where he rules over a vast empire, Xena is his empress, Brutus is once again his loyal underling, Alti is a prominent religious figure, Gabrielle became a famous playwright, and Joxer is still alive and working as a guard.
- High Priest: Alti becomes the High Priest of Rome and retains her abilities to make her victims live though their worst moments of life.
- His Story Repeats Itself:
- In the end, Caesar ends up dying the same way he did in the previous reality: by his most trusted advisor using a knife. In the new reality, it's Alti who takes this role.
- Xena is also hit with a case of history repeating itself being crucified under Caesar's orders. In fact, both scenes are cut in a way that is similar to The Ides of March.
- The same applies to Alti herself. In her moment of glory, she once again underestimates her opponents. In this case she doesn't forsee Gabrielle undoing this reality, leading to her downfall.
- Look What I Can Do Now!: If people thought Alti was scary before, she takes it up to an extreme level once she realizes her true potential. When she goes to hunt down Gabrielle, she showcases Flight, Super-Speed, Telekinesis and painfully revealing Gabrielle's past reality as well as all the pain it caused her.
- Near-Villain Victory: Alti has taken over the empire and has Xena crucified, but before she can truly savor this, Gabrielle destroys the loom and thus resets reality. Alti's even wiped out mid-laugh.
- Properly Paranoid:
- Xena is troubled by how ambitious Alti is.
- Alti notices the worried look on Caesar's face when Xena and Gabrielle first see each other.
- Screw Destiny: First invoked by Caesar when he tampered with the Looms of Fate to make himself emperor of Rome. Later used by Gabrielle when she destroyed the looms to set things back to where they were before.
- Spanner in the Works: Joxer keeps Gabrielle safe, thus inadvertently helping foil Alti's near victory.
- Undying Loyalty:
- Brutus to Caesar, and he suffers for it.
- Joxer to Xena. In this timeline, he had a sick daughter whose life was saved when Xena offered the services of her own physician.
- The Weird Sisters Caesar has them tied in chains, allowing him to change the Looms of Fate. When Gabrielle later destroys them, it's unknown whether they survived the resulting universal reboot.
