Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts – Director: T.J. Scott/Writers: Roy Thomas, Janice Hendler (story); Adam Armus, Nora Kay Foster (teleplay)
This one starts in the city of Troy, which has been besieged by the Greeks for the last ten years. The object of their quest, Helen, has a nightmare about something terrible happening. Her husband (or “husband”) Paris tells her not to worry about it, but she’s pretty freaked out, so she sends a messenger (Miltiades) to find Xena. Coincidentally, Xena’s not too far away, roaming the countryside with Gabi,
who wants to stop by Troy and maybe catch a glimpse of Helen, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Xena says Troy is no vacation spot and notices someone being attacked by bandits on the road. She fights off the bandits (giving one a slice on the cheek) and finds their victim to be Miltiades, who delivers Helen’s message with his dying breath, warning Xena not to let anyone know why she’s in Troy. Xena tells Gabi they’re going to Troy after all.
To get into the besieged city, Xena and Gabi make a mad dash through the Greek lines, fighting their way through Greek soldiers (who Xena has no 
problem killing … I guess she’s Thracian, not Greek, so maybe her loyalties lie elsewhere). A soldier inside Troy recognizes Gabi and opens the gates to let her and Xena in. He turns out to be Perdicus, Gabi’s erstwhile fiancé from Poteidaia, now fighting as a mercenary for the Trojans. Outside the walls, we see a cloaked figure meeting with the Greek general (and Helen’s former husband, who started the War to get her back) Menelaus, and they learn that Xena is now in Troy. Inside, Perdicus tells Xena about the commander (Deiphobus, who’s also Paris’s brother), but she can’t be bothered with protocol, so she heads off to see Helen. Gabi and Perdicus talk and she tries to come to terms with him being a soldier now. Xena talks to Helen, who’s ready to give herself up to
Menelaus to end the long and bloody war. Helen says whatever love Paris once had for her is long gone and she just wants everything over and done with, but Xena points out that the War stopped being about Helen a long time ago. Deiphobus comes in and insists Xena come to see Paris. Gabi tries to convince Perdicus he’s not a soldier but he won’t listen, saying she can’t tell him what to do anymore (which is pretty much what Gabi told him back in Sins of the Past). Xena meets with Paris and notices one of Deiphobus’s men is the guy she cut while trying to save Miltiades.
After a quick fight, Deiphobus kills the soldier to protect Paris and Helen … or so he claims. But Xena is suspicious, since the dead soldier can’t be questioned now. Gabi’s still trying to talk Perdicus out of being a soldier, but she sees him fighting and realizes he isn’t the same lovesick kid she 
knew in Poteidaia. Xena asks Perdicus about Deiphobus and tells Gabi something’s going on, warning her to stick close to Perdicus so she’ll be safe. Helen tries to sneak out of Troy, but Xena stops her, saying Menelaus won’t stop fighting even if he gets her back. They notice Deiphobus slipping out through a secret door and Xena follows him to the Greek camp, where he meets with Menelaus. Xena tells Paris what she saw, but Deiphobus claims Menelaus wanted to talk about ending the War. A report comes in that the Greeks are gone and have left a giant wooden horse as a gift for the victorious Trojans.
As the horse is pulled into the city, Xena warns Paris about trusting the Greeks—or Deiphobus. Deiphobus manages to convince Paris that Xena is the one betraying Troy and she’s thrown in the dungeon, over Helen’s
protestations. Deiphobus gloats to Xena in the dungeon and lets some Greek prisoners into her cell to attack her, saying she betrayed them by fighting for Troy. She kicks their asses and escapes through an air shaft, but it’s too late. The Trojans (except Perdicus) are all drunk or hung over from celebrating, so when the Greeks hidden in the horse emerge to open the gates, there’s hardly anyone to oppose them. Menelaus leads the Greeks into Troy, telling them to find Helen. Deiphobus has his own plans, ordering his men to find Helen while he deals with Paris. As the Greeks run amok through the city, Xena tells Gabi and Perdicus to get everyone they can find 
to the Temple of Aphrodite while she finds Helen. Xena saves Helen and brings her to the Temple, where everyone barricades themselves in. Menelaus orders Troy burned to the ground, but wants the wooden horse preserved as a symbol of his victory. Paris apologizes to Xena for doubting her and she says Helen’s the one he should be apologizing to. While Xena makes some smoke bombs, Helen tells Paris they’re no longer in love, so if she survives she’s leaving him to make her own way in the world. The possibility of imminent death gets to Gabi and Perdicus and they get all romantic and start making out. Deiphobus kills Paris and drags Helen off.
Gabi finds Paris’s body and Xena knows Deiphobus has Helen. The smoke bombs cover their retreat as they run to the wooden horse and hide inside.
Menelaus orders the gates sealed, but the horse is dragged outside first. Xena and the others bust out of the horse and pound the Greek soldiers and Xena leaves Perdicus in charge while she goes to find Helen. Deiphobus is sneaking her out of the city, but Xena knows about the secret door so she’s waiting for them. She pounds Deiphobus but doesn’t kill him, instead leaving him—with Helen’s diadem on his brow—for Menelaus to find. Perdicus tells Gabi their romance was probably just a 
“heat of the moment” thing and that he doesn’t expect anything from her. She actually seems a bit disappointed, but knows they have to go their separate ways. Helen is ready to make her own way in the world, not as a famous beauty, but just as her own person. She asks to join Perdicus on his journey to a neighbouring town and he accepts. Xena asks Gabi about Perdicus and she says he has his own path to follow. Gabi then asks if Xena wants the wooden horse, as it’s sure to be a “collector’s item”.
This is another first season episode that’s good but not great. There’s nothing really bad about it (although it does drag in a few spots), but there are just so many other episodes that I like better. That’s why it’s relatively low on my all-time list (#104), but taken in isolation it’s not too bad. And
keep in mind that the show is so good that even an average episode (like this one) is a seven-out-of-ten for me; in fact, this one’s probably a 7.5. The stuff with Helen finding her sense of self and realizing that she’d rather be her own person than the object of everyone’s desire is pretty cool. I guess Helen is kind of a feminist, at least after Xena gives her a push in that direction. Apparently, they were originally going to make her an insipid airhead, but I’m glad they went this way instead … it makes her much more interesting (and sympathetic).
I’m wondering how Xena and Helen know each other; Xena tells Gabi they met in Sparta “before the War”, which implies it was at least ten years ago. 
Sounds like it was before Cortese’s attack on Amphipolis and Xena becoming a warlord, or maybe right after that (and why was Xena in Sparta?). When they meet again, Helen says she wasn’t sure Xena would come and Xena replies, “Well, we’ve had our differences in the past, but you’re still a friend.” The obvious interpretation would be that they were rivals of some kind, and since Helen is no warrior, maybe they were romantic rivals? They could’ve competed for the same man (possibly Menelaus?) and Xena lost. I have another theory though: Xena and Helen were the ones who had a fling. There’s no really solid evidence for it, but the way they greet each other (Xena’s line that I quoted, plus the slightly awkward hug) has that kinda vibe where you run into an ex that you haven’t seen for a long time and the break-up wasn’t great, but
now you’re in a different place and the bad feelings aren’t there anymore, just the good ones … I dunno, maybe I’m reaching. But if Helen really is the most beautiful woman in the world, it makes sense that women (well, a certain sub-set of women) would be attracted to her. And we know Xena likes women. Some people think Lao Ma was Xena’s first dalliance with a woman, but think she probably had some flings before that, since Xena’s pretty self-aware and certainly not shy about acting on her feelings. So it could be that Xena and Helen were romantic rivals, or romantic partners; I kinda like my explanation better though … I think it gives Helen more character, knowing she’s potentially open to romance from a man or a woman.
Gabi and Perdicus are the B-plot in this one, although they pretty much go back to the status quo by the end. This is basically a wartime romance, one 
of those things that only happens when you think you’re going to die. As soon as the danger’s gone, Perdicus realizes they’re still not all that compatible and lets Gabi down easy. She’s a bit disappointed, but I think Gabi’s still searching for a soul-mate and maybe thought Perdicus was it, which would make him another boyfriend-of-the-week (except we’ll actually see Perdicus again, in next season’s Return of Callisto). What makes their romance untenable now is that they’ve both changed so much from their time in Poteidaia; Gabi always had trouble fitting in there, but Perdicus has changed into someone she doesn’t even recognize anymore. At the end, it almost seemed like Perdicus and Helen were being set up as a potential couple, which might
have worked since they’re both trying to figure out who they really are (as opposed to Gabi, who kinda knows—or thinks she knows—who she is at this point, or least knows what she wants to do with her life). It’s interesting that when Perdicus comes back in Return of Callisto, he’s completely in love with Gabi; he traveled with Helen of Troy, but Gabi was the one who stayed in his heart the whole time. That’s gotta be somewhat flattering for her. Of course, Perdicus’s love for Gabi (and hers for him) gets kinda complicated, but I’ll talk more about that next season.
Noticeable Things:
- When Xena and Gabi are wandering through the forest at the beginning of the episode, they’re running low on food and Gabi says they should’ve picked up supplies when they were at Mount Poulis. Mount Poulis is the volcano they throw the ambrosia into in A Fistful of Dinars, an episode we haven’t seen yet. But Fistful of Dinars was filmed right before this episode, so I guess the reference was meant to be a little continuity nod. Unfortunately, the episodes aired in a different order, so it kinda screws up the continuity instead. Maybe watching Fistful of Dinars right before this one would make it work better. As for Mount Poulis, the obvious assumption when watching Fistful of Dinars is that it’s in Greece, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be in Asia Minor, which would explain why they’re so close to Troy when this episode begins.
- In the Iliad, Deiphobus wasn’t a traitor at all. He was Paris’s brother,
but he fought loyally for Troy and was “given” Helen after Paris died fighting the Greeks. Helen wasn’t too happy about that and, depending on the source, she either killed Deiphobus herself or at least celebrated his death. - We never see (or hear mention of) any of the other heroes of the Trojan War. Achilles and Hector would be dead by now, but there’s no sign of Odysseus (aka Ulysses, who Xena and Gabi will meet later), Agamemnon, Diomedes, nor of Trojans like King Priam or Aeneas.
- Deiphobus says it’s strange that a Greek like Xena would fight for Troy, but Perdicus is Greek. I think a lot of Greek mercenaries fought for Troy (and I’m pretty sure Troy was originally founded by colonists from Greece), so I guess Deiphobus was just trying to discredit Xena (who’s Thracian anyway, not Greek).
- Xena delivers the title line about Greeks bearing gifts and is ignored by Paris. According to Virgil, it was Laocoon who warned the Trojans about the wooden horse (and was also ignored), although he said “Timao Danaos, et dona ferentes”, which means “I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts.” If Virgil the poet is the same Virgil who appears later in the series, maybe he got the idea from reading Gabi’s scrolls?
Favourite Quotes:
- “Last time I saw you, you were sprinting out of town.” Perdicus letting Gabi know he’s still upset about her abrupt departure from Poteidaia. Gabi left in the middle of the night, but maybe Perdicus was up late and saw her leaving.
- “Who’s she?” Xena’s question when Perdicus tells her that she should go see Commander Deiphobus. I love that Xena assumes the Guard Commander is a woman, because why wouldn’t she?