Season 1 Episode 20 - The Ties That Bind

Xena and Gabrielle are about to rescue a group of girls captured by a warlord, when another warrior appears and starts attacking the warlord's men. An older man, he seems unlikely to be able to hold his own, and Xena rescues him. When he hears Xena's name, he claims to be her father, Atrius; a claim she hardly even seems to consider, let alone believe, much to Gabrielle's astonishment. They free the slave girls and start to lead them home, meanwhile we see Ares appearing to the warlord and telling him that he'll fall to Xena. The warlord maintains that he'll defeat her. When ambushed by one of the warlords men, Atrius kills him after he has surrendered in front of Gabrielle who is shocked but when challenged shows evidence that he was pulling a dagger which appears contrary to what Gabrielle saw.

In the end Gabrielle decides that she should not stand between Xena and her father and arranges for them to have some time together performing a rear guard action. When they reach the town from which the girls were taken, Atrius is lynched by a mob and Xena asks them to spare him until she has dealt with the approaching army of the warlord. After a duel with the warlord, she gains control of the army and returns to the village, only to find her father strung up to die by the townsfolk. In a wild rage, she orders the army to destroy the town and kill them all, including Gabrielle, but Gabrielle makes her change her mind. When Xena sees sense she realises that the man wasn't her father it was…..Ares God of War, yet again he had tried to trick Xena, but this time it nearly worked.