Written by Paul Robert Coyle
Directed by Mark Beesley
This episode provides examples of:
- All Crimes Are Equal: After accepting Sin's power, Hercules starts making noises about how Arciana deserves the same lethal punishment as Xerxos, despite not having even remotely the same record. Iolaus is deeply disturbed by this.
- Armor-Piercing Response: After Hercules basically tells Sin to stop bothering him.Iolaus: You're gonna hafta spell it out for her, Hercules.
Sin: [telepathically] You should learn to hold your tongue, Iolaus. - Big Brother Bully: Implied, as Xerxos is dragging Arciana through the temple. She screams at him to not touch her, and he remarks this is like old times.
- Big Brother Instinct: At the orphanage, Xerxos is aware that the caretaker would take a belt to Arciana (which ultimately led to her running away and becoming a criminal). Xerxos proceeds to pummel the caretaker and leaves him to die in a fire (though Hercules and Iolaus save the guy from that).
- Bring It: "Come on, little man. Show me your stuff."
- Call-Back: Previous episodes like "Medea Culpa" and "Armageddon Now, Part 2" had Iolaus observe how Hercules made him a better person. Sin suggests he doesn't know the half of it, strongly implying he would've ended up in her realm if not for Hercules.
- Continuity Nod: When Iolaus observes Hercules looked pretty bad while possessed, the half-god reminds him he didn't look so great while possessed by Dahak. Iolaus retorts he was dead at the time, so it's different.
- Crapsack World: Being corrupted by Sin's power, Hercules scoffs at the state of the world, what with all the threats facing mankind (e.g. vengeful gods, hungry monsters, natural disasters). He caps it off by noting those lucky to survive such problems still ultimately die of old age, and he describes the Elysian Fields as The Nothing After Death instead of a paradise.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Xerxos tries reasoning with Arciana, but she naturally has no interest in hearing what he has to say. He resorts to Mind Rape in order to show her what kind of afterlife awaits her, if she stays on her current path.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The heroes suffer this the first time they face Xerxos. He is practically toying with them and enjoying every moment of it.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Arciana understandably so. She says she prayed the night her parents were burned alive and was ignored, so she came to believe the gods are just laughing at mortals and enjoying their suffering.
- Dead Guy on Display: Emerging at a forge, Xerxos roasts one worker alive and tells the second guy that he wants him to give Hercules a message. The next time this guy is seen, his corpse is hung upside down outside and has a note in his mouth.
- Deal with the Devil:
- Sin offers to give Hercules the power needed to beat Xerxos, and he reluctantly agrees after Xerxos dominates the first fight. He anticipated that it would make him nastier, but he overestimated how much he'd be able to control himself. And as it happens, Sin orchestrated Xerxos's escape so that Hercules would damn his soul and end up in her realm.
- Sin also made a deal with Xerxos: get Hercules in the above situation and have the opportunity to redeem his sister. However, Sin slips off to talk to Arciana about her potential and tells her where the Sword of Hera is hidden. She fully expects Arciana to wreak so much havoc that it will be impossible to redeem herself. The unaware Xerxos, however, gets to Arciana before she can do any real damage.
- Due to the Dead:
- Hercules takes the time to bury two of Xerxos's victims.
- Arciana would regularly leave flowers at her parents' graves before she became a criminal.
- Easily Forgiven: Hercules apologizes to Iolaus for trying to kill him. Iolaus doesn't begrudge him, saying he tried to kill him, too.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While dead, Xerxos came to regret how he ruined his sister's life. He made a deal with Sin in order to have the chance to convince Arciana to turn her life around and avoid his fate.
- Evil Is Petty: Sin wants Hercules condemned to her realm for the "crime" of rehabilitating people and thus denying her more souls.
- Flashback: Hercules recalling his history with the real Serena.
- Foreshadowing: At the cemetery, Xerxos asks the groundskeeper if he thinks a monster can grow a conscience, hinting at how his objective isn't to kill his only remaining relative.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Subverted. Sin claims she took Serena's appearance because she thought it'd be pleasing to Hercules, but he considers it insulting. It's later demonstrated that's exactly the reaction she wanted.
- Freudian Excuse: Arciana witnessed the murder of her parents and was left to die in a fire. She survived the experience and ended up getting bounced from orphanage to orphanage (the last of which employed a caretaker that took a belt to her, which prompted her to run away). Sin notes Arciana wasn't born bad, but the upbringing turned her into a rather bitter adult.
- Genre Savvy: Iolaus when trying to reason with Hercules and reassert his true personality.Iolaus: It's like the play we saw. You don't accept a gift that's been paid for with other people's suffering.
- Heel–Face Turn:Sin: We'll meet again, you and I.
Arciana: No, we won't. - Hell: Strongly implied to be the realm that Sin rules over. Footage from "The Ides Of March" is even reused during the Mind Rape sequence.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: The Sword of Hera is hidden among the temple's window decorations.
- Irony: Xerxos is somewhat amused by how his little sister grew up hating him, only to end up very similar to him.
- Karmic Jackpot: Sin strongly implies that Iolaus would've ended up in her realm, if he hadn't reformed during his Academy days.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Arciana is a vicious criminal out to wreak havoc, but compared to her brother, she's practically a saint. It's noted that she's just a broken individual shaped by a lifetime of hardship and has the potential to turn it around, whereas Xerxos was born bad and remained unapologetic about his actions to the bitter end.
- Little "No": Arciana upon learning the guy restraining her is her dead big brother.
- Meaningful Echo: "I enjoyed it."
- Mind Rape: Xerxos when showing Arciana the afterlife he was condemned to.
- Morality Chain: After Hercules accepts Sin's power, Iolaus does everything possible to be this to him. Iolaus even threatens to kill him with the Sword of Hera just so that he won't damn his soul.
- Neck Lift: During the first fight, Xerxos does this to Hercules.
- Noodle Incident: Hercules pursuing Xerxos and bringing him back to be executed.
- One-Winged Angel: Xerxos turns into a demonic version of an angel a couple times when fighting Hercules. Herc demonstrates his own demonic transformation at the temple.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: "Sin" is just a name she whips up to distinguish herself from Serena.
- Pet the Dog: Before terrorizing the orphanage caretaker, Xerxos tells the present children to Get Out! of the building.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Xerxos stops Arciana from delivering the killing blow against Iolaus. He couldn't care less about Iolaus, but Arciana committing murder in cold blood would derail the very reason he made deal with Sin.
- Properly Paranoid: When Sin offers to help bring in Xerxos, Hercules immediately knows she has an ulterior motive up her sleeve.
- Punch Catch: Xerxos does this to Hercules when he's done demonstrating his punches have no effect.
- Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Hercules the first time he fights Xerxos.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning:
- Hercules demonstrates this occasionally after accepting Sin's power.
- Sin when reminding Xerxos that he belongs to her.
- Sadist: Xerxos's first act was to restrain his parents and light them on fire. When caught, he remarked that he enjoyed it. As an adult, he still openly revels in the torment he causes.Xerxos: Well, here's a question for you: what kind of a man decides to make his living as a prison guard?
Guard: The kind that wants to see people get what they deserve.
Xerxos: Ah-h-h-h, you like to watch people suffer, do you? I know the feeling. - Shock and Awe: The Sword of Hera can fire lightning blasts. Iolaus learns this the hard way.
- Shoot the Dog: Iolaus is prepared to use the Sword of Hera to kill Hercules in order to prevent him from damning his soul.
- Shrouded in Myth: Xerxos escaped from prison before he was to be executed for the murder of his parents. He was subsequently blamed for every unsolved murder between then and when Hercules finally caught him.
- This Cannot Be!: After Xerxos drops a big hint over his identity.Arciana: No. But... you're dead.
Xerxos: I'm beyond dead. - Thou Shalt Not Kill: Why Sin's plan ultimately fails. For all his struggles with the power she gave him, Hercules won't cross this line when the final fight leaves Xerxos incapacitated.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Hercules won't return Arciana to prison, saying she's been punished enough.
- Understatement: After the heroes see what Xerxos did to the men working at the forge.Iolaus: Ooh, this guy's seriously disturbed.
Sin: [appearing] Now, that's putting it mildly. - Use Your Head: During a fight in the woods between the guards and the former prisoners led by Arciana, she kicks one of the guards in the face, headbutts him, then flips him to the ground.
- Villainous Crush: Sin wants Hercules in her realm to torment him, but she also repeatedly flirts with him and keeps invading his personal space.
- We Will Meet Again: Sin promises to be watching Hercules.
- You Monster!: Xerxos is so infamous that even a casual civilian like the cemetery groundskeeper knows his reputation and refers to him as a monster. Xerxos doesn't argue the point, either. According to Sin, Xerxos is not alone in this regard; some souls are just so irredeemable that Hades sends them to her instead of to Tartarus.
