Death Mask – Director: Stewart Main/Writer: Peter Allan Fields
This one starts with Xena and Gabi discussing how Xena catches arrows (by listening with her whole body) and when a couple of guys in iron masks ambush them, Gabi actually stops an arrow with her staff. She and Xena pound the ambushers and Xena interrogates them, learning they work for Cortese … the raider who attacked Xena’s village ten years ago and set her on a path of revenge and darkness.
Xena and Gabi interrupt Cortese’s men as they’re raiding a village and fight them off. Cortese’s men retreat into the forest, but one of them looks back and recognizes Xena. The King’s guard captain (Aescalus) tells Xena and
Gabi they can’t track down Cortese’s men because their camp lies outside their territory. The raider who recognized Xena tells Cortese’s lieutenant (Malik) about her and asks to see Cortese personally. Malik won’t let him and ends up taking the news to Cortese himself. Cortese isn’t surprised, which makes sense since he sent the two guys to ambush Xena. Xena and Gabi run into the raider who recognized her and he turns out to be Xena’s older brother, Toris.
Toris tells Xena he infiltrated Cortese’s army so he can get close enough to kill him for attacking Amphipolis ten years ago. Xena’s not happy about her 
brother being obsessed with vengeance, since she’s already been down that road and knows it doesn’t end well. It’s obvious Toris feels guilty that he ran and hid instead of staying and fighting like Xena did (although he does blame Xena for their brother Lyceus being killed). Xena tries to leave Gabi behind but she refuses, so they all head for Cortese’s camp. Toris brings Xena in as a “prisoner”, hoping that’ll get him an audience with Cortese. But Malik decides to take credit for Xena’s capture, saying he’ll deliver her after he has some fun with her. In Malik’s tent, Xena quickly escapes her bonds and finds some messenger pigeons and messages bearing the royal crest. When Malik comes in, Xena decks him and takes off. Gabi and Toris are waiting for Xena and Toris accuses Gabi of blindly following Xena, letting herself be turned into a
warrior like Lyceus did (and probably getting killed like he did too). Before Gabi can answer, Xena returns and tells them Malik has been communicating with someone in the castle. Gabi does agree to stay behind this time, so Xena and Toris go to the castle and take out a few guards to get in. They run into Aescalus and Toris blurts out that there’s a spy in the castle. Aescalus takes their weapons (although he sets them on a table only twenty feet away) and goes to find the King. But the King finds them first and it turns out the King is actually Cortese.
Cortese brags about his cleverness in playing both sides; he orders his bandits to raid villages and as the king, sends troops out to (supposedly) 
find them, while raising taxes to pay for the effort. But the soldiers are tired of losing, so he plans to give them Xena, telling them she’s his lieutenant. Toris is so mad he’s ready to kill Cortese, but the throne room is full of traps and they end up almost falling into a pit. They avoid the pit trap and Cortese takes off, yelling for the guards. Xena drops some guards in the pit and she and Toris take off, after getting past some more guards with some judicious towel-snapping. (Xena doesn’t want to hurt the guards since they think they’re obeying the rightful King.) At the village, Gabi is practicing arrow-catching, but it isn’t going well. Xena tells her about Cortese being the King
and Toris still wants to waste him. He and Xena talk and he realizes that Gabi’s not mindlessly following Xena … she’s just brave. Toris admits he ran away ten years ago because he was afraid, not because it was the right thing to do. Xena tells him killing Cortese won’t wipe out his guilt, but she’s interrupted when she’s summoned back to the village. The villagers don’t want Xena there and she agrees, since Cortese (or the King’s soldiers) won’t bother the village if she’s not there. Toris goes after Cortese again and Xena finds him in Cortese’s camp, tied and beaten. She knows it’s a trap, but goes in anyway and gets captured.
Xena and Toris are thrown in the dungeon and Xena explains why she 
doesn’t want Toris pursuing revenge against Cortese and how it turned her into a monster. They escape by taking Aescalus captive. Gabi hears about Xena being caught and heads for the castle. Xena tells Aescalus about the king being Cortese, but he doesn’t believe her. Xena sends Toris on a wild goose chase, while she sends a message (supposedly from Cortese) for Malik and the bandits to attack the castle in full force. She forces Aescalus to take her to Cortese and captures him. When the bandits attack, Toris and Gabi fight them and Xena joins in after
hanging Cortese from the wall and telling Aescalus to get some soldiers. Xena threatens Cortese and he calls off the bandits, proving to Aescalus that Xena was right about the King being Cortese. Malik is ready to waste Cortese for betraying them, but Aescalus kills him. Xena gives Toris the chance to kill the helpless Cortes, but he chooses not to and Xena tells him Lyceus would be proud. Toris and Xena say goodbye and he tells her he’s heading home to see their mother.
This isn’t really a great episode (it’s number 114 on my all-time list) and fans in general don’t seem to like it much. I don’t think the creators were 
too fond of it either, since they ended up focusing Xena’s descent into darkness more on Caesar than Cortese in later episodes (and apart from an oblique reference in Old Ares Had a Farm, Toris will never be seen or mentioned again). It has some good moments and there’s potential for a really good story, but it’s undermined by the fact the actor who plays Toris (Joseph Kell, who was apparently cast because of his resemblance to Lucy Lawless) just isn’t all that good. He seems to waver between being wooden and being way over the top; there’s no happy medium, no subtlety. It’s especially noticeable in his
scenes with Lucy and Renee, both of whom have great range and are capable of being very subtle when it’s called for; they often convey emotions just with facial expressions alone (not just here, but through the whole series), while the guy playing Toris is beating his fists on trees and yelling. This episode does have some interesting ideas (why Gabi follows Xena, Toris’s guilt about being a coward, Cortese’s influence on Xena), so it would’ve been nice to see it with a better actor in the key role of Toris.
We do get some interesting background on Xena here, like how she rallied the villagers to fight Cortese and ended up going overboard, taking over surrounding villages as a buffer zone and eventually losing sight of what 
she was fighting for in the first place. Xena knows from personal experience how hollow revenge can be and tries to explain the difference between killing in battle and planning someone’s death in advance. In the end, she lets Toris choose his own path and he chooses to heed her advice and not kill Cortese in cold blood. There are some interesting moments between Xena and Toris, showing the brother/sister relationship, like when Gabi asks what part of the bird Toris likes and Xena says he prefers drumsticks. Or when they’re escaping the throne room and Xena uses a wet towel to fight the guards, saying “Remember this Toris?” I get the feeling she (and maybe Lyceus too) used to snap wet towels at Toris to get him to stop being so serious all the time.
Gabi gets some cool scenes in this episode too, starting with stopping the arrow with her staff (and spending the rest of the episode wondering how she did it and whether she can recreate it). I wish we’d seen Gabi do more of that in later episodes, but I don’t think she ever does catch an arrow with
her hands, not even in the finale. Gabi has some pretty good fights in this one and Xena actually looks impressed when Gabi takes out one of the assassins at the beginning of the show. Xena also looks impressed when Gabi stands up to her and refuses to be left behind; I guess Xena’s proud that Gabi is independent enough to disobey her when Gabi has a good reason (like knowing Xena might need her help). Later, Gabi does agree to stay behind when Xena and Toris go to the castle, but Gabi probably figured Xena would be safe there, since they were just going to warn the King about a possible spy (and none of them knew Cortese was the King at that point).
Noticeable Things:
- The whole scheme of Cortese masquerading as the King and ordering his royal troops to hunt down his own raiders is pretty clever; I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done quite like that before, but it makes sense. Playing both sides and stacking the deck to insure the maximum amount of profit is a really good plan.
- When Gabi is trying to rally the villagers to follow Xena, she asks who defended them from Cortese’s men earlier and an elder points out that she and Xena did. Gabi is surprised and says Xena did most of the work, but it’s nice to see her being acknowledged, even if Gabi undervalues her own contributions (as usual).
Favourite Quotations:
- “So he’s the one who made you so … you know, aggressive?” Gabi finding out about Cortese’s early influence on Xena.
- “’Course it’s missing my sister’s seventeen secret herbs and spices.” Gabi talking about the game bird she’s cooking; apparently Lila is even better than Colonel Sanders.
- “Oh no. No, no, that’s your way of saying, ‘It’s too dangerous to be
around me right now, Gabrielle.’ Well, have you ever considered that there isn’t a safe time to be around you? Now, that village doesn’t need my help, but you might and I’m going with you. Now, if that’s all, I’ll just be practicing with my staff. End of discussion. Sorry you had to witness that, Toris.” Gabi standing up to Xena and refusing to be left behind. Judging by the look on Xena’s face, she’s kinda proud of Gabi for telling her off (and maybe slightly amused).
