Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts

Xena: Warrior Princess episode
“Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts”
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 12
Guest star(s)	Galyn Goerg (Helen); Scott Garrison (Perdicas); Cameron Rhodes (Deiphobus); Warren Carl (Paris); Ken Blackburn (King Menelaus); Adrian Keeling (Miltiades)
Writer(s)	Adam Armus & Nora Kay Foster (teleplay); Roy Thomas & Janis Hendler (story); Jim Prior (editor)
Director	T.J. Scott
Production no.	#76914
Original airdate	1996 Jan. 15
Episode chronology
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"The Black Wolf"	"Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards"
List of Xena episodes

A Xena: Warrior Princess retelling of the Helen of Troy story. Helen, feeling trapped in a war she doesn't want, sends for Xena to help fix things. Gabrielle encounters her former fiancé Perdicas, fighting for Troy, and is impressed by the new warrior-Perdicas. Paris' brother Deiphobus turns out to be a bad guy, in league with the Greeks against his own people just so he can get Helen. Helen is not so interested in begin gotten. Xena fixes everything, and has some empowering moments with Helen.

Notes

Helen was portrayed by Galan Görg, aka Gaylyn Görg, Galyn Görg, a woman of color. (The two most beautiful women in the ancient world, Helen of Troy and Cleopatra, were both portrayed by women of color on Xena.)

This is a rather feminist take on the Helen story, recognized as such by Ms. Magazine: It starts with the common characterization of Helen, trapped and feeling to blame; but it's made clear that the fall of Troy is not Helen's fault, but the fault of "two kings ... bent on destruction" (Xena).

Rather than being portrayed as flighty, willing to sacrifice others' lives for her own pleasure, Helen is shown as willing to sacrifice herself to end the war. She repeatedly offers to end the needless bloodshed, to be told by Xena that it is pointless. (And it's clear that Helen's first marriage to Menelaus was not her choice.)

Helen: Every day another soldier dies for my happiness. I can't live with it any more!

Xena: ... The war stopped being about your happiness a long time ago, Helen. ... The world will go on without you, Helen. Let it.

Helen: But where will I go? What will I do?

Xena: What do you want to do?

Helen: I don't know. No one's ever asked me that before.

Later, at the end of the episode, Helen tells Paris that she will leave him because he wanted to own her, not love her. At the very end she thanks Xena for helping her be able to choose:

Helen: You've done a lot for me, Xena. You've shown me the only person that can make me happy, is me.

Xena: What's next for you?

Helen: I don't know, but ... for the first time, it's my decision.

Xena's Helen is not addicted to vanity and the benefits of being the "face that launched a thousand ships". At the very end of the episode, Helen rejects the pomp and glory of her fame, choosing to be on her own, and to be "treated like a normal person for a change."

As Helen leaves, Xena mockingly places Helen's tiara on Deiphobus' dead body.

Intertextuality

A Xena: Warrior Princess retelling of the Helen of Troy story.