Helen of Troy's abduction sets off the war in Homer's Iliad, and this fourth episode of Michael Wood's six-part series asks how much of that story the archaeological record can actually support. Wood travels the eastern Mediterranean comparing Bronze Age evidence, city layers, grave goods, and surviving inscriptions, against the women of the Trojan War as Homer describes them: Helen, Andromache, Hecuba, and the fate that meets them when Troy falls. The episode follows the destruction of the city itself, weighing burn layers and rebuilding phases against the poem's account of sack and slaughter, and asks what role women actually played in a conflict that later Greek storytelling reduced to a single abduction. Wood presents the case in person at the relevant sites rather than relying on narration alone, treating Homer as a source to be tested rather than a script to be illustrated. The series overall works through the Iliad episode by episode, checking legend against dirt.