I would say the price is generally considered a pretty good episode by fans so surprised you guys disliked it as much as you did lol

I agree that the way the horde were depicted was troublesome, but i guess how troublesome/bad you find it depends on what you think the intent of the writers were

If you look at the episode with an after-school special lense of 'look guys non-white people are people too...who knew?' Then I can understand flat out hating this episode.

I think the writers intenty was a little more layered than that and more focused on deepening the complexity of gabrielles relationship with Xena and the audience relationship with our heroine. To this point, in the show we've mostly seen Evil Xena in theory, or in repercussion with Callisto.

The Price is one of the first episode where gabrielle and the audience has to come face to face with some uncomfortable truths about Xena. Evil Xena lies right under the surface at all times and it isn't some leaf she just turned on her quest to redemption and what that means for gabrielle/audience having to recommend with that going forward.

They could of just shown that by her going on a killing spree, but i think they wanted to take it a step a bit more uncomfortable for the audience by having a main character you love/the heroine of the show have some very prejudiced/racist thoughts. While we live in a day in age where anti-hero and really gray leads are common now, not sure how common that was on a syndicated show in the 90s.

I remember Lucy, being the lovely person she is had a VERY HARD time with this episode as she didn't was her character to be prejudiced/racist. The writer told her no one wants to see Xena being that...that's the point .

I can see both ways.