A village fights back against a brutal militarist regime that holds all power in town. Xena comes to the aid of their underground resistance when they're detained. A young woman who is part of this movement for justice knows Xena from many years in the past. Gabrielle proves that she can come to the rescue right when help is most needed.
SYNOPSIS
Xena sees a bunch of soldiers abusing innocent villagers when she rides Argo into a town. In fact, she personally knows a woman from many years ago when Xena was just a girl. This woman tells Xena that her daughter Flora has been detained and is in the dungeon of the local dictator Xerxes. Xena fondly remembers Flora from when she was a little girl, but Flora is now part of a resistance movement that follows a hero known only as the Black Wolf. Apparently no one ever leaves Xerxes' dungeon alive, but Xena of course volunteers to go in there and bring Flora back out safely.
Xerxes demands that his main security lieutenant Koulos identify and arrest the secretive Black Wolf so that he can be executed at a festival in five days. Suddenly Xena arrives in Xerxes' presence and offers to make him a deal. She will enter the dungeon and find out from the prisoners the identity of the Black Wolf. All Xena wants in return are 10,000 dinars and a new pair of boots. Koulos isn't interested in Xena's help, but Xerxes agrees and Xena is arrested in a public spectacle in order to convince the village that she's not really collaborating with Xerxes. Of course she's really not working for Xerxes' benefit, and she beats Koulos pretty badly during the staged arrest.
While Xena is meeting the resistance fighters in prison, and reacquainting herself with Flora, Gabrielle walks into town to find Argo with Xena's weapons, but Xena is no where to be found. Once Gabrielle finds out that Xena is in custody, she plans to get arrested to join her. However, an obnoxious and overly-aggressive salesman named Salmoneus interrupts her and actually gets himself arrested instead. Flora wont let Xena help only her escape, and instead she says that she wont go unless it's with the entire rest of the gang. Now Xena has to convince the rest of the Black Wolf's gang to trust her, and she has to figure out how to break 12 people out from the dungeon. She gets to work, and even recruits the newly imprisoned Salmoneus to help. Unfortunately for the gang, Xena's good escape plan never had a chance. Xerxes' security forces were onto them and had tons of soldiers stationed outside to capture them.
Xerxes demands to see Xena. She convinces him that she didn't betray him. Instead, she says, she was working to gain the gang's trust, and this could be easily achieved by helping them break out. Koulus doesn't like it, but Xerxes lets Xena get back into the dungeon. Suddenly Gabrielle is walked down into custody. It looks like she threw a bowl of stew into a soldier's face in order to be sent down to prison with Xena. Xena is not happy to see her, but Gabrielle snuck in the chakram along with Xena's whip. The gang has to betray the Black Wolf by sun up or else they'll all face the executioner. Before morning Xena finds out that an odd man in the dungeon with a pet rock was actually a spy to fed info out to the soldiers. He was the reason Xena's first escape attempt failed. All the members of the gang stay loyal, but Xena betrays her own friend Flora as the Black Wolf! Xerxes praises Xena and invites her to his side for the executions. However, as the executioner's blade is raised over Flora's head, Xena throws her chakram which destroys the executioner's axe and then bounces off the wall only to cut the chains of every prisoner who knew beforehand to raise their arms in the air once Xena tossed the chakram. Of course Xena had a plan! A fight ensues, but Xerxes and his stunned men are no match and so they all die.
Peace and justice is returned to the community. Flora is reunited with her mother and she and the other justice fighters have great plans for their town. How did Xena know that Flora was the true identity of the secretive Black Wolf? Xena says that whenever she proposed a plan to the resistance fighters in prison, they would always glance at Flora in order to gauge Flora's approval.
NOTES
Xena did have nice and large group of decent people in her distant past. Gabrielle wasn't front and center in much of this episode, but her efforts were crucial in allowing Xena to save the group. Salmoneus offers comic relief, and he's always got something to sell.
Enter: Flora, Xerxes, Salmoneus
0 out of 0 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
