Death in Chains is basically the reverse of the last episode, after King Sisyphus (here interpreted as a criminal magician with a trap filled murder castle!) has the clever idea of cheating death by, well... cheating Death; he traps Hades’ sister in chains and separates her from her magic Murder Candle and, end result, nobody can die now.
This is revealed to Xena when she and Gaby open the episode the same way they always do (killing some bandits), and BY GOLLY, they turn out to still be alive. A better hint when Hades himself shows up and also explains things to her. Also, on their way to Sisyphus‘ Murderous Trap Castle they find a bunch of people who were in a rockslide and can’t quite die despite being in terrible excruciating pain and being pretty eager for it.
Xena leaves Gaby behind at a hospice to challenge the Murder Mansion of Sisyphus solo, and leave Gabys big ol brains to try to figure out some way to ease the terminal patients as best they can, and winds up falling in love with this episodes Handsome Young Man de Jour (who, it turns out, has... perpetual heart attacks?) and they decide to abandon their station when they find out that touching the Goddess of Death is lethal and feel that Xena should be warned.
Xena already knows this, because this ain’t her first magical quest, kid.
Also, all the dead bandits from the intro have formed into a hoard of ZOMBIE BANDITS and want to chop Xena to pieces, and can’t be killed in response, and you’d think that would make for a bunch of exciting fight scenes (especially since this is a Sam Raimi production), but they don’t really interact at all.
Anyway, Xena eludes all the traps and tries to convince him to release death because things are getting out of hand with the zombies and the like, but can’t make any headway with him, until Handsome Young Man shows up and informs him that nonstop cardiac arrests hurt like hell, and he would be happy to hop off the ol mortal coil, and he agrees.
So Death goes free, all the zombie bandits immediately die, and so does Handsome Young Man, and Sisyphus gets off Scott free so I really don’t know why he felt the need to get this thing started anyway.
This is revealed to Xena when she and Gaby open the episode the same way they always do (killing some bandits), and BY GOLLY, they turn out to still be alive. A better hint when Hades himself shows up and also explains things to her. Also, on their way to Sisyphus‘ Murderous Trap Castle they find a bunch of people who were in a rockslide and can’t quite die despite being in terrible excruciating pain and being pretty eager for it.
Xena leaves Gaby behind at a hospice to challenge the Murder Mansion of Sisyphus solo, and leave Gabys big ol brains to try to figure out some way to ease the terminal patients as best they can, and winds up falling in love with this episodes Handsome Young Man de Jour (who, it turns out, has... perpetual heart attacks?) and they decide to abandon their station when they find out that touching the Goddess of Death is lethal and feel that Xena should be warned.
Xena already knows this, because this ain’t her first magical quest, kid.
Also, all the dead bandits from the intro have formed into a hoard of ZOMBIE BANDITS and want to chop Xena to pieces, and can’t be killed in response, and you’d think that would make for a bunch of exciting fight scenes (especially since this is a Sam Raimi production), but they don’t really interact at all.
Anyway, Xena eludes all the traps and tries to convince him to release death because things are getting out of hand with the zombies and the like, but can’t make any headway with him, until Handsome Young Man shows up and informs him that nonstop cardiac arrests hurt like hell, and he would be happy to hop off the ol mortal coil, and he agrees.
So Death goes free, all the zombie bandits immediately die, and so does Handsome Young Man, and Sisyphus gets off Scott free so I really don’t know why he felt the need to get this thing started anyway.