6-06 The Abyss

The first airing was Nov 6, 2000.

The story starts with Virgil and a man named Hosep running through the woods being chased by men
wearing boar's heads and skins. Hosep's foot gets caught in a trap and is carried away by the men.
Virgil follows them.

Gabrielle has a bow and arrow and shoots at a deer, and misses. She isn't happy about it.
Xena tells her they can have fish instead. Gabrielle decides to get their boat ready so they can
meet with Virgil and Hosep.

They are on the river and see Virgil's campsite and land the canoe. It is deserted.
Gabrielle notices there is blood everywhere. Xena finds a sword with a skull on it and says they
escaped in their canoes while running for their lives.

Virgil sees Hosep tied around a pole used for a spit and he is covered with mud and being
cooked alive. Virgil runs away.

X&G are back in the canoe. Gabrielle yells for Virgil. She is still blaming herself for
killing Korah. She says she has the reflexes of a warrior but not the judgment. She yells for
Virgil again. They find Virgil's canoe broken to pieces. Xena says they are being watched. They
keep heading down river toward a waterfall.

Virgil is caught by the cannibals and taken back to their camp.

Gabrielle says if she had listened to her heart maybe Korah would still be alive. Xena
says she's glad she can trust Gabrielle with her life, especially now. And two spears or swords
come up through the bottom of the boat. X&G fight off two of the cannibals, then head toward shore.
They have many cannibals to fight. Once again, Gabrielle hesitates to kill, and gets stabbed in the
side. She is picked up by one of them, carried to the river, and is thrown in. Xena dives in to
save her.

Gabrielle's foot is caught on underwater branches and goes under. Xena finally finds her
and swims her to a cave in the side of the cliff. Xena tells her they were cannibals. She has to
use her knife to get a broken piece of blade from the wound. She tells Gabrielle she can't see
Korah's face every time she fights. Xena tells her to try to stay warm. And leaves.

Xena tries climbing up the cliff, but the cannibals throw rocks down on her and she falls
back into the river. Back in the cave, Gabrielle's wound is getting infected.

Virgil tries telling the cannibals Xena is coming after him, but they don't seem to care
(or understand).

Gabrielle is getting delirious from the fever. She thinks Xena is Hope and tells her she
loves her and would never hurt her because she is her child. Xena starts crying and says she
understands - everything.

Virgil is thrown into a jail with a skinny man named Rubio. There is a lot of food in
there. It is to fatten up Virgil. He tells Rubio Xena will come for him.

A storm rages and the river rises, starting to flood the cave. Xena tells Gabrielle she
is going to get her out of there. Gabrielle says she has a last wish - she doesn't want to be
buried with the Amazons, but with Xena because she is a part of her and she loves her. Gabrielle
says (getting stabbed) is her fault. Xena tells her she set Gabrielle on a path she was never meant
to walk. Gabrielle says any path is okay as long as she's with Xena.

Xena ties Gabrielle to her back with a stout vine and climbs up the face of the cliff.
Gabrielle is shivering with fever and the cold. She tells Gabrielle to trust her, then gives out
her war cry, bringing the cannibals to find Gabrielle. They carry her back and put her inside the
jail with Virgil. Xena kills two of the cannibals and puts on the boar's head and skin.

The cannibals come into the jail and put Gabrielle on a bed/table. One of them (the witch
doctor?) pours liquid down her throat to make her still. He chants over her and sprinkles stuff on
her wound. Then they leave.

Xena sneaks into the camp, looks around, then leaves. She goes to the top of the
waterfall and using her Chakram, chops down two trees and releases boulders. She uses her sword to
cut down more trees, damming the river. She ties a vine around some boulders and ties it to a tree.

Gabrielle's fever breaks, then cannibals come to get her. They tie her feet and arms
together around a pole and start smearing mud over her body. Then they put a large reed in her
mouth so she can breath. Virgil yells out Gabrielle's name so loud Xena hears it and comes running.
She throws her Chakram around and it kills a bunch of them, and also frees Gabrielle, who then uses
the pole to fight with. Xena spits fire. And she tells Gabrielle to free Virgil and to go to the
horses. Gabrielle does that and, as Virgil fights, she drags Rubio after her.

They all get on the horses and get away to the top of the falls.

Xena says she is going back to lure the cannibals to the bottom of the falls, and when
she yells, Gabrielle is to cut the rope. She tells Rubio to take the horses and get away. Four of
the cannibals are sneaking around.

Xena war cries again and she is chased by the rest of them. When her back is against the
waterfall cliff she repeatedly yells for Gabrielle, but Gabrielle and Virgil are too busy
fighting. Gabrielle makes the choice to kill the cannibals, and finally uses her sais to cut the
vine.

The dam is washed over the falls and Xena jumps to the cliff wall to escape the falling
water and debris. The cannibals are drowned and she climbs back up to Gabrielle.

Back at the cannibal camp, Gabrielle is clean again. Xena asks how she is "upstairs".
Gabrielle says she will learn to live with her mistakes.

..........

Not too shabby. Not a good as Gurkhan or Legacy, but not bad.

At first I thought the cannibals were just more of the Horde, since the head cannibal
looked like one of the head Horde.

Poor old Hosep should have been wearing a red shirt, it was so obvious. (If this inside
joke escapes you, I'll explain it at the end.) BTW, just who WAS Hosep?

I liked the deer hunting outfit Gabrielle was wearing at the beginning. I wonder where it
went (Xena's too).

Pretty good fight against the cannibals when Gabrielle got stabbed. Although Xena seems
to do better in the camp when the whole tribe is after her. And that fight was very good.

Xena carrying Gabrielle up the cliff was cool. I'd rather see those kinds of feats of
strength rather than the sooperdooper back flips to the tops of walls and trees.

When Gabrielle was being covered with the mud, I wonder who the lucky one was who got to
smear it over her breasts.

I always like seeing Gabrielle pick up a spear or pole and use it to fight with. (For
fighting weapons, her sais don't seem to be very pointed.) She must have really had the adrenaline
pumping when she used both of them to cut/break the vine, since they have no cutting edges.

Excellent scene with Xena and Gabrielle when Gabrielle was talking about Hope and Xena's
eyes were pouring with tears, then leaning down to hold her closer, saying she understands
everything. Very touching. Exactly why we watch them.

I didn't quite understand why the cannibal threw Gabrielle into the river rather than
running off with her back to camp.

And I didn't understand what Gabrielle meant about not wanting to be buried with the
Amazons. I thought they cremated the dead. Xena cremated Solan, and Gabrielle was going to cremate
Xena when she thought she couldn't get her body back to Amphipolis (The Quest).

But that was another excellent X&G moment. I can't ever remember Gabrielle making Xena
cry twice in one episode.

About the only time I liked Virgil in this episode was when he was trying to comfort
Gabrielle. (Actually, had I my druthers, I'd prefer HE was the Red Shirt Guy, and Eve was the one
dragging Rubio toward the horses.)

Xena used her Chakram quite a bit in this episode - chopping down trees, freeing
boulders, chopping up cannibals. But not once did it split into two halves. I wonder if Xena
controls it, or does it just split on its own accord, like it "knows" when it's necessary? Anyway,
I like it when it ricochets back and forth between two closely spaced walls or rocks.

Couldn't help but notice that during the last (in-camp) fight a lot of the cannibals
where just running to and fro, like they were getting their goodies together and beating a hasty
retreat since their buddies were the losing fight.

I liked it when Xena was facing the whole cannibal tribe and kept yelling to Gabrielle
(to cut the vine). And yelling and yelling and yelling. And getting worried?

I was wondering if X&G were in back Greece. And if so, were there barbaric cannibals roaming the
forests, womenless (maybe they ate them first)?

Not sure what the title, "The Abyss," refers to.

No cast or crew interviews.

I liked some of this a lot - the fight scenes were well done, and the two scenes with X&G
in the cave (delirious Gabrielle and Gabrielle telling Xena she didn't want to be buried with the
Amazons) were two of the best ever. But for some reason, the rest of it wasn't that great. But they
can't all be GREAT. An 8 out of 10.

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6-06 The Abyss ..... 8

6-05 Legacy ....... 9

6-04 Who's Gurkhan? .... 9.5

6-03 Heart of Darkness .... 9

6-02 Haunting/Amphipolis . 8

6-01 Coming Home ..... 8

Average .......... 8.6

{{Okay, the Red Shirt Guy - In the original Star Trek series, whenever there was an away
mission to some alien planet, the guy wearing the red shirt (a security officer) was the one who
(almost) always got killed.}}