Heart of Darkness – Director: Mark Beesley/Writer: Emily Skopov
Last episode, Xena defeated Mephistopheles to free her mother (and other souls) from his curse, but now she’s supposed to take his place as ruler of Hell … the portal to which is still open in Amphipolis. This episode opens with Archangels Michael, Raphael, and Lucifer talking about Xena’s reluctance to take up the rulership of Hell. Lucifer says he can make her do it and head down to Earth. Michael and Raphael aren’t too thrilled at the idea of Xena being the ruler of
Hell (considering all the trouble she caused last time), but they seem happy that Lucifer has gone to confront her. Lucifer attacks Xena and she recognizes how proud he is, pointing out that Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Xena pounds Lucifer and prepares to kill him.
Eve stops Xena from killing Lucifer and Xena invites Lucifer for a drink, telling him he may as well experience some earthly pleasures since he’s here. Eve mentions that she can see darkness growing inside Xena’s heart, caused by the open portal to Hell, but Xena suggests that Lucifer has his own darkness within him and that if she can bring it out, he can take her place as the ruler of Hell. While Xena tempts Lucifer with food and drink (the sin of Gluttony), Eve notices corruption growing in the hearts of the townspeople. Xena plies Lucifer
with wine and gets him to admit his Envy of the other archangels. A bunch of travellers show up in Amphipolis, including Virgil, who’s acting like a total asshole. Eve says the portal is drawing people to the town and causing evil to grow in their hearts in preparation for Hell on Earth.
Xena moves on to the next deadly Sin (Sloth), giving Lucifer a massage that 
relaxes him (although it seems to turn him on too), but he’s still ready to send her to hell. Virgil tells Gabi (who he constantly hits on) that he’s come to pledge fealty to Xena once she takes over Hell. (He also mentions that he was considering forgiving Eve for killing his father, but the evil in his heart has brought back all the bitterness he feels towards her.) Eve goes to a temple and runs into Lucifer, trying to warn him about his own corruption, since she is Eli’s Messenger. Xena and company show up in S&M gear and start an orgy (I guess they’ve moved on
to Lust now), with Gabi making out with Virgil and Xena dirty dancing with Lucifer. (Xena and Gabi do a little sexy dancing too, but unfortunately Virgil interrupts it.) Eve tries to tell them about the darkness growing in their hearts, but Gabi knocks Eve out and they all get ready for some serious banging, until Michael and Raphael show up to stop things.
Michael and Raphael take Xena and Lucifer to the portal, trying to force her into it. At first, Lucifer helps them, but Xena convinces him he’ll do better 
(and have more fun) helping her rule Earth. Michael and Raphael take off and Xena starts making out with Lucifer, but Gabi interrupts. Gabi is worried that Xena’s losing sight of the plan (to get Lucifer to take her place as ruler of Hell), and Eve is worried that both of them have become too corrupted by evil to know what they’re doing. Xena knocks Eve out, but later tells Lucifer that they’ll have to kill Eve to make sure she doesn’t interfere again.
Xena and Lucifer chase Eve to the temple, where she runs into Gabi and Virgil. Eve is ready to fight Xena and push her into the Hell portal, but Gabi
won’t let her. Eve tries to fight, but Lucifer kicks her ass. When he’s about to kill her, Xena stops him, saying Gabi has earned that right because she and Xena share something Lucifer could never understand. That pisses Lucifer off, making him manifest the last sin (Wrath) and turning him into a demon. He attacks Xena, but she distracts him by showing him what he’s become and kicks him through the 
Hell portal, which closes behind him. The corruption disappears from everyone’s heart and Eve apologizes for not trusting Xena. Xena and Gabi talk and we see that each of them was jealous when the other was getting chummy with someone else. Xena tells Gabi that thinking about her is what kept her from giving in to the evil in her heart.
This is one of my least favourite episodes (#125 on my all-time list), mostly because it just goes overboard on the Seven Deadly Sins thing. I get that
Xena is using the sins to tempt Lucifer (or to show what’s already in his heart), but it’s just too much at times. And things get a bit muddled in places too; I’m assuming Michael and Raphael suspected Lucifer of being less than pure and basically set him up to take Xena’s place, but when they’re fighting Xena it seems like they really are trying to force her into the portal, even though they earlier said they didn’t want her ruling Hell. I guess they were sure Lucifer would switch sides, but what if they’d been 
wrong? Them being in on the whole thing also explains why they showed up just in time to stop the orgy. I’m also not sure where exactly Lucifer committed the sin of Greed; I guess he was pretty greedy when he decided he wanted to help Xena rule the world, so maybe that was it. The main problem with this episode is that there’s no real tension, since we know from Christian theology that Lucifer does end up ruling Hell.
It’s interesting to see everyone’s hearts getting corrupted by the
emanations from the portal, although it’s hard to tell what’s actually corruption and what’s Xena and Gabi pretending to be corrupt. They took things pretty far with Lucifer and Virgil (and both were jealous about it), but in the end it seems like they knew what they were doing all along. Gabi seemed to resist the evil longer than Xena, which makes sense, and Eve is 
apparently incorruptible since she’s Eli’s Messenger. In fact, it almost sounds like Xena is in her Dark mode at certain times, but that might’ve just been her acting the way she thought Lucifer expected her to act. Gabi was obviously in on Xena’s plan all along and I guess Eve was too, but Eve must’ve lost faith in the plan at some point.
Noticeable Things:
- There’s a metal Jesus Fish in the temple which Gabi uses to knock Eve out.
Favourite Quotes:
- “You don’t mind if I call you Lucy, do you?” Xena getting meta with Lucifer.
- “Xena, no one is ready to go to Hell. That’s the point.” Gabi letting Xena know she’s taking too much time setting Lucifer up.
- “You’re a mortal female with a lying tongue, savage tendencies, and a blonde girlfriend.” Lucifer summing Xena up (and acknowledging the true nature of her relationship with Gabi).