Adventures in the Sin Trade
Season 4 Episode 1 Review by Donna with help from Sam

Guest Stars
Borias - Marton Csokas.
Alti - Claire Stansfield.
Cyane - Vicky Pratt.
Yakut - Kate Elliott.
Anokin - Charlotte Sounders.
Otere - Sheeri Rappaport.

Credits
Story By: Robert Tapert and R. J. Stewart.
Teleplay - R. J. Stewart.
Edited By - Robert Field.
Directed By - T. J. Scott.

Teaser
Opening scene of death and fire, we see Xena riding towards this. Hades is there choosing who goes to the underworld and who doesn't. Xena questions Hades, demanding to know where Gabrielle is. Hades answers that he doesn't know, but does she want a few minutes with Solan instead. Xena refuses saying Solan doesn't need to be involved in her problems.
Hades tells Xena that not all the dead come to him, especially if they were part of some cult. Xena then realises that Gabrielle was an Amazon so she would have gone to the Amazon Land of the Dead.

Xena prepares for along journey. She sets Argo free to roam in her absence and she rides off on another horse, pushing it as hard as she can.

CREDITS - See Note 1

Xena has travelled far crossing many lands. She starts to gather things needed for a ritual to be performed, killing a large deer, gathering herbs and chanting. All the while she is surrounded by Gabrielle's voice calling her name. Xena, obviously distressed, answers the voice talking to her soul mate, saying she is returning to a world of darkness she has sworn never to go back to, inducing memories of a darker and distance past, but this is the only way she can see her dear friend again.

(Past) We see Xena and her lover Borias. Not the Xena we know but a darker more selfish version of our beloved Warrior Princess. A side of Xena buried many years before. Living in a time of no love and a pure lust for land and glory. Xena wants to take on and destroy the Siberian Amazons and take their land, but Borias wishes to ally with them against their enemies the Centaurs.

This Dark Xena is made that much darker with the entrance of the shamaness Alti, and her apprentice Anokan. Alti used to be an Amazon until she was expelled for being too powerful. She announces to the room, and an unknowing father that Xena is with child. Xena seems instantly drawn to Alti, curious about her dark powers and ability to predict the future and welcomes them both.....


(Present Day) Xena continues with her ritual taking her further into Siberian Amazon land. She is being watched from a distance. She finds a dead body impaled on a tree branch, Xena gets the lifeless body down onto the ground and begins a ritual ceremony over the corpse. Suddenly she is attacked by the killers of this woman, still being watched, Xena fights the gang of men. Xena easily wins, and those that can, leave. The wounded come to and leave, but one is captures by the women of the land who are still watching Xena. Xena now carries the corpse to a clearing. The next moving scene is one of unbearable pain for Xena, she has built a funeral pyre and it burns furiously behind her. Xena mourns more for Gabrielle than the woman she is actually burning. Xena is flooded with memories of her and Gabrielle, her cries echo across the land, full of pain and agony.

One of the women watching remembers the haunting sound of those cries.....

(Past) When she was a young child her town was attacked by Borias and Xena's. She vividly remembers through the chaos and fire Xena caring a dead body, Anokin, and Xena morning for her friend. Borias rides up to Xena and demands they leave as he does not want the Amazons to feel threatened by them. He still wants an alliance with the them, but Xena wants revenge for her dead friend. Drawing her sword she sees the young girl. Borias seeing revenge in Xena's eyes snatches the child up from the ground saving her from Xena's bloody kill. Alti joins Xena by her young apprentices limp body and tells Xena she can see her again.....

(Present Day) Xena continues with her ritual, killing her horse (explaining why Argo was released, lucky for her) using it's soul to cross over to the land of the dead. Night comes, Xena dancing and chanting and drinking the horses blood begins the cross over. Xena's body falls to the ground, still and almost lifeless, separated from her soul as it now continues its journey to the Land of the Dead. Xena emerges finding herself greeted by the soul of the girl she had cut down and given a proper burial. The girl thanks her and expresses her sympathy for Xena's death. Xena tells her she came here looking for her friend and is not dead. The girl asks if she knows how to get back to the Land of the Living and Xena tells her of the time she last visited the Land of the Dead.........

(Past) Xena and Alti in the Land of the Dead. They find Anokin, who to Xena's surprise is angry saying that Xena "poisoned" her. Anokin then turns her back on Xena and Alti and walks away. Xena is angry and wants revenge. Alti tells her she can revenge, even on the dead. Xena and Alti's journey is cut short when in the living realm Borias, on finding Xena and Alti's soulless bodies in his tent, realises what is happening and hits Xena so hard he breaks the ritual bringing her soul back to rejoin her body. Borias then attacks Alti's body demanding Xena stops these rituals with Alti, especially as she is carrying their child. Alti, wanting to seduce Xena again, predicts that the child will be healthy, male but will not be named by either of his parents. Borias, furious at Alti, demands she stops her false predictions of the future and kicks Alti out of his tent. Xena defends Alti saying she is powerful, Borias' anger flares again when he turns and discovers a dead body of an innocent Xena has mur dered to aid Alti in her rituals.

Night time falls. Around a camp fire Alti further temps Xena into her ways of darkness by telling Xena that her friend, Lao Ma's powers came from sacrifice and self denial and were of the light. Alti tells Xena that they are both of the darkness, their strength is drawn from that darkness and death. Alti tells Xena she wants to become the face of death, destroying minds and souls using hatred and violence. She wants Xena's help and offers to make Xena The Destroyer of Nations.
(Present Day, Land of the Dead) Xena in the land of the dead meets Cyane, who tells Xena she is not welcome. Xena questions why Cyane is here and has not passed through the Gates of Eternity. Cyane demands to know why Xena is in the Land of the Dead, Xena tells her of her search for her friend, Gabrielle, a Greek Amazon.

(Past Flash Back) Xena and Cyane walking in the woods. Cyane asks Xena to join the Amazons Xena refuses.

(Present Day, Living Realm) The Watching women have approached Xena's soulless body. One of the women wants to kill Xena but is stopped by another.

(Present Day, Land of The Dead) Xena meets with Cyan's tribe, who are trapped in the Land of the Dead unable to pass through the Gates of Eternity, condemned to remain there by evil Alti.

(Present Day, Living Realm) The women move Xena's body to a safer place, a cave. The woman continues to share her memories with the rest of the group telling them she was saved by Borias.

(Past) Borias takes her in after rescuing her. The young girl overhears Alti predicting to Xena that she (the child) would one day take all of Xena's powers from her. Alti wants Xena to kill the young child. Xena had doubts. Alti asks Xena when have her prediction ever been wrong? Borias appearing from nowhere and rescues the girl a second time, but the child believed that Xena would not have killed her as she knew the prediction must come to pass.

(Present Day, Living Realm) The woman explains that this is why she does not want Xena dead, wishing to protect Xena's body and wait to see what happens as Xena is somehow part of her future.

(Present Day, Land of the Dead) Xena apologises to the condemned Amazons for her past wrongs (Flash back sequence - Amazons fighting and being killed) Xena discovers that it is only Cyane's tribe that is trapped by Alti, all other Amazons can pass through the Gates of Eternity. Cyane, still suspicious, tells Xena how to get to the gate, telling her to go find her friend and never return. Xena turns and heads towards the gate. She hears Gabrielle's voice again. Xena stops, realising she can not leave the cursed Amazons "You were my Light Gabrielle....You gave me...a light of my own" Xena says "I love you". Xena turns away from the gate and returns to help the Amazons return to fight the evil Alti.

Cyane, still doubtful, tells Xena that the Amazons holy word should have protected them from Alti but it wasn't strong enough. Xena tells Cyane they need to find a new, stronger holy word. Cyane shouts to Xena that the Amazon's holy word "...is courage, nothing is stronger than courage!".

(Present Day, Living Realm) Xena's soul rejoins her body and she awakens, confused and surrounded by women in a place she doesn't know. They tell her they have been protecting her body. Xena recognises one of the women from her past. The women introduces herself as Otere. Xena sees they have held one of the men they have fought earlier. She releases him with a message for Alti, "Xena's coming" . The women, fearful of what Xena has done, tell her that Alti will send Berserker to fight her, he is a warrior who has special powers and has killed all who have challenged him. Xena prepares for battle with the help of the women.
The wounded messenger tells Alti that "Xena's coming" This Alti already knew as she had been sensing Xena for days. Alti also knows that wounded messenger has lead Xena right to her with his trail of blood.

Xena follows the trail of blood, and goes into battle shouting "In the name of Gabrielle" Xena and the women battle with Alti's army. Concluding with the arrival of Alti's champion warrior Berserker. He uses a strong form of mind control which makes Xena simultaneously relive the pains of injuries past. Finally a pain from the future, a pain that has yet to come, the breaking of Xena's legs on a cross. Xena crippled and beaten pulls herself up onto her horse dulls the pain in her legs with "the pinch" and attacks Berserker her skill as a horse solider shines through and eventually Xena kills Berserker. Berserker's death should have ended the agony in her legs, but they continue to throb with pain. Xena then realised the sprit controlling this pain was actually in Berserker's horse. The horse eyes glow red with blood thirst and anger. Xena draws her sword and quickly rides towards the beast just in time to see Alti's sprit escape before she can kill either Alti or the horse. Xena realises that A lti is stronger, more powerful and dangerous than ever before and also has a new ability, to use painful memories against her foes.

The women wanted to know if the can beat Alti.

Xena replies "We have to......."

To be Continued..........................