Wow.

Okay... make sure you have a scorecard for this one, folks... I needed one.

First things first - they haven't changed the credits, at least for this episode...though I forgot to watch the after teaser credits to see if there were any changes in listings.

We start with Hades out and about, doing his thing. He's a cute god, we should see more of him.

On second though, given what he's god of, maybe not. (laughing)

Xena catches up to him. She's not happy. She's so far from happy, it's like she's been PMS'ing for... oh, a couple of weeks. She asks him where Gab is - he has no idea, and offers to get her a few minutes with Solon.. Xena turns this down, saying Solon doesn't need to know about her problems. (?!). She begs him.. she wants to know where Gab went after she died. Hades really doesn't know.. he asks if she's joined any cults lately.. Xena says no, then asks him if he gets the Amazon dead.. he says no, and he has no idea where they go. XEna says, she does.

What follows is either a return to North America, or a decent into madness, I can't decide which. Xena talks to Gabrielle a lot, and keeps hearing her voice on the wind. She tells Gabrielle that she's decending back into the darkness she swore she'd never return to, because that was the only way she'd get a chance to see her again.

XEna kills a deer, and fufills a favorite fanfic scene of mine by lifting it up onto her shoulders and carrying it. (laugh) then she skins it, and makes the horned hat, drinks blood, and generally goes a little nutso. ( a little? Merwolf was way, way confused at this point.)

We get a nookie with Borias scene... his accent's changed again - now it reminds me vaguely of Chekovs.

She goes into what I"m going to assume is SIberian Amazon territory... she finds and cuts down an Amazon, and the other Amazons watch her in secret.. she beats the tar out of a bunch of thugs, then makes camp.

She's visited by visions of Gabrielle, and is howling with grief and crying.. then she kills her horse (not Argo, now I realize why she coudn't take Argo with her.. killing Argo and drinking ARGO's blood would have gotten them a NC17 at least)

Anyway, drinking horse blood gets her to the Amazon land of the dead. She meets up with another Amazon spirt who was slain (the Amazon she cut down and allowed to pass over) who sort of guides her. She says that Gabrielle must have passed through the Gates of Eternity - and the girl asks her if she intends on following Gabrielle through the gates, and Xena says yes.

The girl asks, will you be able to get back? Xena says I don't know. Girl says, "She must be a very good friend" Xena says, "She's the only friend."

Girls asks why Xena's so familiar with the land of the dead - Xena tells her a story of when she was there last - when she followed another friend - who was not glad to see her there. Xena got there the first time wtih the help from a rather nasty looking Amazon witch, who is seducing her to the dark side. (Sorry.. but that's the only way I could put that (laugh)) Her name is Alti

Xena finds the Queen of the Amazons in the land of the dead.. whom she killed (ten years ago? Must be.. she hasn't had Solon yet) That was a busy year for the leather clad one, y'know? The Amazon is, to put it politely, hostile. But she agrees to lead Xena to the Gates of Eternity, when Xena tells her that she's looking for a friend, a Greek Amazon. The Queen looks very skeptical about that, but goes on anyway.

Turns out Alti condemed the Amazons to wander the land of the dead - they tell her where to find Gabrielle, and she starts towards the gates, because Greek Amazons can pass through, but then she stops, even though she can hear Gabrielle calling to her, and says she can't - that she just realized what it was that Gabrielle gave her..and that she had to do something, something that Gabrielle would want her to do, and that she loves her.

She goes back, and tells the dead Amazons she's going to stop Alti, and release them from the land of the dead... they are, in a word, skeptical. (so is merwolf..maybe it's those deer horns... they're making me giggle, which is not the intention, I would think)

Xena wakes up, and sets the prisoner the Amazons have taken free, tells him to tell Alti that she was coming. Alti knows this and sends grungy troops after the Amazons, which get neatly dispatched by the Amazons.. but the Berserker shows up, and starts pounding on Xena...she's reliving pain from her past...including her crippling by Caesar.. she manages to get to horse, though.. and pull her self on.. and we all remember what a good horse soldier Xena is.. she continues the fight...she kills the Berserker...but her legs still feel broken.. then she spots the horse...who has glowing red eyes.. and draws sword on it.. the spirit of Alti takes off, and Xena realizes that she will be a royal bitch to beat.. but that they have to, to release the Amazons spirits.

Whew.

First impression...the episode curiously lacked depth. (!!!) I could never really get into what Xena was going through, because it introduced so many unfamiliar concepts.. I felt like I was watching another character entirely. IF they'd started it out in Greece, and had Xena's campfire scene there, in a more familiar spot, where she's so despondant and desperate to get back to Gabirelle, THEN she sets off on this spiritual/whatever journey.. it would have been easier to assimilate. A person seeing this as a first time Xena ep would be completely comfused, I would imagine.

Interesting point - Xena fully intends to fufill her promise to follow Gabrielle into eternity, and is willing to do just about anything to achieve that.