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scifi_rewatchAnd now…the fast-paced conclusion to “Farscape”’s first two-part episode series! A really great piece of craftsmanship; perhaps not as airtight as the former, but pretty high up there in terms of good storytelling. Will Crichton get rescued before his brain is scrambled? Will Moya finally give birth to her baby? Is Scorpius the new villain? Is Gilina the new/old love interest? And what the frell is up with everyone being obsessed with wormholes? All these and more will be answered! Well, maybe not that last one. :P Give it time to marinate.
Great character beats, as always…some high-pressure gun fights with lots more extras than usual…the usual in surprising twists…and nice bits of comedy in an episode that overall is pretty dark. Something here for everyone, I think! Hope you enjoy.
Amidst Moya’s continuing labor Pilot has a talk via clamshell with Rygel and Zhaan in command. Although the dominar desperately wants to leave asap, she can’t starburst or even move all that well. The ship be lurchin. One would think this is a natural state for any sentient being having to push something out of herself, but Pilot says no; there’s something very wrong with this pregnancy. What is it? We’ll have to wait and see…
Zhaan leaves soon after to tend to Aeryn, who is slowly regaining her strength from last episode’s life-saving tissue graft. Aeryn thanks Chiana for her life, and Chi mentions that Gilina was also aboard the gammack base and helped out. Aeryn wants to know where John is…Zhaan tries to detain her, but D’argo tells her flat out that Crichton’s been captured and is being tortured. Well, that gets Aeryn in warrior mode right away! She lurches up—as the only person who can infiltrate the base undetected—but D’argo and Zhaan say they’ll go with her for military and medicinal backup.
John is where we left him last time, in the Aurora chair, which is yanking his wormhole memories from his mind. An agitated Crais tells him to stop resisting the chair now, with Scorpius in the background, and John is able to get out that he’s not resisting. PK Barbie says the chair indicates otherwise, and they increase extraction. Crais and Crichton repeat the same verbal battle, except this time John is roaring in pain.
Later, he’s back in his cell with his roommate who finally gets a name—Stark. Our human is attempting fitful sleep when he hears roomie tinkering with something. When John asks him about it, Stark gets violently paranoid as usual. John pushes himself up and over to Stark’s mattress where he’s concealing something; is Stark a spy for Scorpy? He tries to grab for what Stark hid, but roomie pushes him against the wall and threatens to kill him before letting him go. As John crawls back to his side, he notes that maybe Stark isn’t crazy—maybe it’s an act so the PKs will leave him alone some. Stark finally bends—maybe he’s lonely—and shows John his trinket; it’s a magnetic crypt encoder that he’s been making from scrap metal for two cycles. John laughs and predicts Stark will never be able to unlock the door with it. Stark backs away, offended, and then makes sure John won’t tell the PKs about his secret. Nah, John says, he’s keeping a secret of his own, but it has nothing to do with wormholes. But Stark, who’s been in over 100 times, warns that sooner or later, the chair will rip it out of him. :/
Cut back to Aeryn (in a PK uniform), D’argo and Zhaan leaving Moya in a transport pod. Aeryn’s hand shakes over the controls…uh oh. But she downplays it with her crewmates. D’argo confirms that Gilina’s blind from last episode, which allowed Chiana to escape undetected, seems to be holding. Aeryn is confident that there won’t be sensors on the surface level of the moon, because it would bely that there’s a secret base underneath. They land, and so far this seems to be accurate…
Back in John’s cell Gilina whispers for him from the camera, sending Stark into a panic. John hushes him angrily and Gilina reminds him to keep his back to the wall; apparently the PKs can see, not hear. Gilina confirms that Chiana made it off the base with Aeryn’s tissue graft, and John asks the tech to do what she can to get Scorpius off his back for awhile. Poor guy is mentally broken. :/ Gilina says she’ll think of something, and then he disconnects and packs up her gear, from the hidden circuit room where she’s been hiding.
On lurching Moya, Chiana has joined Rygel in command as Pilot continues to give labor updates. Might be worth it to get the baby clear as soon as possible…a plan Rygel is desperately on board with. Chiana tells him to chill, and Ryg has his usual hilarious response: “I’ve conceived hundreds of progeny! Humph! And those are only the official ones, with my wives…I was never present at the birth.” Hynerians are quite the chauvinists, it seems. :P
PK Barbie supervises the techs doing maintenance on the Aurora Chair. Perfect time for Gilina to sneak in! She scoots underneath, next to a friend, and convinces him that she can finish up here. She then inserts something into a port, removed something else and replaces it, and then gets out of there, all in a few seconds of terse orders from her superiors to get this thing operational ASAP. She then gathers up her tools and leaves like a normal day. Gilina is frelling awesome, let me tell you. Back in her cell she desperately tries to get John’s attention on their secure line, but John notes that someone’s coming! Gilina asks him to remember the kiss but John quickly protests—that’s the memory he’s been trying to hide! Such a good guy…protecting the girl. Gilina implores him once more, asking him to trust her, before Sorpius, Crais and their men come in. Stark goes back to crazy-mode, lurching for Scorpy and begging to be put in the chair; Crais beats him back quite soundly. Scorp appeals to John’s rationality; he doesn’t want to end up like Stark, does he? Just show him everything and the torture stops. John keeps up the lie—told you everything, but Scorp doesn’t believe him. He rehashes the big details he knows about John—living aboard an escaped Leviathan with fugitive prisoners…Leviathan be pregnant, too! “Do you know who the daddy is?” John chuckles. :P Scorp, unamused, tells his men to bring John. Crais, clearly amused, tells him, “I’m going to enjoy ripping the truth out of you, Crichton.”
Back in the Chair, John finally allows himself to remember what he’s been hiding—his kiss with Gilina on the Zelbinion. Gilina’s back is to the camera, and suddenly Crais enters! :-O He tells John he’s glad he’s enjoying his stay with them. Gilina turns, but she has a different face. Smart girl, real Gilina. :P Real John (and real Crais) are shocked. Fake Crais gives fake John a bit of backstory amidst occasional flashes to other, indistinct memories. He explains how he was born to common farmers and shanghaighed into Peacekeeper service, which meant he could only rise so far, thanks to class bigotry. But the wormhole information John gave him ought to help a bit! Ooo! Back in reality, John has the hiccups and Crais is having a meltdown. He turns to Scorpius and yells that of course John made it all up! Can’t do that for the Chair, Scorp says suspiciously. When he asks John what it is, he says it looks like an episode of “Melrose Place.” :P Crais starts hitting John; tell Scorp what that is!!! John finally pulls his wits together and uses what Gilina gave him—he confesses to Scorp that he gave Crais wormhole information in exchange for his life. Dun dun DUUUUUUN!
John is still strapped in the chair, but all eyes and guns are now pointed to Crais as Scorpius questions him. Even though he denies everything…uh, Crais was born on a farming colony and conscripted into PK service. So how did John know that? “He must have stolen it from a database!” “When he was in level three containment?” Point one to Scorpius…Crais is losing more and more composure as he keeps yelling that it’s just not true. Well, there’s only one way to be sure…go into the Chair himself. :-O “No captain has ever been subjected to such an indignity,” Crais says, trying to laugh it off. “There’s always a first for everything.” Oh Scorpy…you and your witty lines. John is sent back to his cell and Scorpy addresses Crais’s bemused-looking officers; Crais is obviously out of control. I mean, look at him. Completely emotional. Scorpy, meanwhile, is head of this gammack base and he—and all his men—will have to be killed in order to disobey them. Yikes. He tells them to put Crais in the chair.
On the roof D’argo is unloading the shuttle, Zhaan is upgrading explosives and Aeryn is about to go in; she’s found an access shaft. She tells her hand, quiet but firm, to stop shaking, and then she opens the door and descends down several metal staircases. She opens a door to a hallway, gun out, but finds herself alone.
Stark sits with John in the cell, trying to get him to rest as he babbles about Gillian succeeding and needing to get out of there. As he tries to get up, weakened he collapses in Stark’s lap. Stark repositions him to be more comfortable, then takes off his half-face mask. On the other side, his face is a sea of glistening gold. When he turns his head it shines on John’s face and John visibly relaxes. Stark showed him something…a smattering of soothing memories. He strokes John’s head and puts back on his mask. Stark explains that he’s been here two cycles, kept alive when most of his people were killed. “It’s almost ironic—what made me a slave now keeps me alive.” He’s part of the Banik slave race, because of his face, and because he can do such things as hide feelings and cloud thoughts. It’s why he’s such a tasty morsel for the Aurora Chair; he has memories it can’t touch.
I guess we know whether or not Scorpius convinced Crais’s men, because now we see the good captain in the chair. His memories flash by, focusing a bit on John and a promise he made to his father to protect his younger brother (preceding the memory of his burned corpse that Maldis used on him several episodes ago.) Crais is screaming and begging Scorp to take the image of his father off the screen. Scorpy wants to get to wormholes anyway; PK Barbie says he’s fighting it and increases the extraction. …Crais might be a bully, but it’s hard to watch even him get tortured like this. He keeps insisting, loud and frightened, that he doesn’t know anything.
Aeryn has reached actual people walking through the halls, but they largely pay her no mind; she seems to belong. Cut to Gilina prepping to leave her secret cubby…but she’s suddenly pushed against the wall! A female voice asks if there’s surveillance in here, and Gilina says no. We then see that her captor is Aeryn, and the two women go inside. Aeryn thanks Gilina for what she did for her, and Gilina responds with concern; she shouldn’t be walking around for 10 solar days! But there’s no time—where’s John? Gilina tells her the level he’s on and says there’s no way to get to him without orders from Scorpius. He’s blocking the memory of their kiss to protect her, but once Scorp realizes he knows nothing (more?) about wormholes, he’ll kill him. So much for John being out of the hot seat!
On the roof Zhaan and D’argo finalize their plan of attack if and when the PKs come up to the roof. Zhaan asks D’argo about his Qalta blade—very unconventional—and D’argo explains its storied history in Luxan past. After another species laid a bloody, months-long siege on their planet the Qalta blade was the only weapon the warriors had left. It’s now entered Luxan lore as the weapon that will lead them to freedom. …very touching tale (kinda made me think of Jedi and lightsabers,) if a complete tangent from the immediate plot. :P
In the cell John is once again shushing Stark—but not because of Gilina on the comms; because of Aeryn, seen through the crack of the door, talking to the lieutenant from the last episode! She’s cooked up some story about sensing a magnetic pulse from Crais’s carrier in this room…the lieutenant tries to scoff it off, but funnily enough for both of them, his sensor does pick up Stark’s crypt encoder! The lieutenant forces Stark off it and Stark attacks John, furious about being betrayed. But all movement stops when Aeryn knocks the lieutenant out. :P “Who is that?” Stark asks. And John, sounding very relieved and in awe, says “that is the radiant Aeryn Sun.” “How many Peacekeepers do you know on this base?!” Stark asks incredulously. :P Cute. John and Aeryn check in very briefly over their reduced states before Aeryn leads the boys out.
Crais is reliving a telling scene from “That Old Black Magic:” where he kills Lieutenant Teeg after learning she’s the only one who knows of PK Command’s orders to stop pursuing John. PK Barbie confirms this was the memory he was trying to hide…looks like Crais was less invested in saving his own skin than John was in saving Gilina’s. :P Scorpius and PK Barbie are coming to terms with the fact that Crais has no wormhole-knowledge memories when the alarms sound. A soldier tells Scorp on his comms that John has escaped! Most definitely a PK working with him. Seal the base, Scorp orders, don’t let him escape!
Aeryn leads John, Stark and Gilina towards the metal staircase leading to the roof access shaft, but this time sirens are blaring. Stark is able to get through the door, but suddenly the others spot soldiers afoot, led by PK Barbie! They run desperately for cover, finding a crate in the floor and climbing inside just before the red-headed, leather-wearing PK lady comes in and stands on top of them. Thank goodness she didn’t look down. :P Ultimately, she and her men move off.
Back on Moya, our poor girl is still in labor! And apparently, Pilot is just now realizing that Moya will have to equalize pressure—eg, suck the air out of her insides to match her outsides. So, uh, did he forget to look this up before, in all those earlier episodes where Moya was still pregnant, or is this a “strange pregnancy” thing? *eyebrow arch* Anywho. In the here and now, this causes major problems for Chiana and Rygel, who have to scramble to find cover in 80 microts. (Great chance for high-stakes drama, at least. :P) Pilot’s den is too far; there are air pressure tanks in the maintenance bay! The aliens dash…Rygel’s tank opens but Chiana’s does not. He leers at her about having plenty of room. :P Chiana spends a lot of time debating for someone who is about to be suffocated, but then again, this is Rygel, hee. She finally dives in and shuts the door behind her.
Our human-and-sebaceans team is also running into locked doors; Gilina, returning from reconnaissance, confirms that the only way to get out now is to steal an ident chip from a senior officer. John moves to get one—shaking badly—so Aeryn takes over and leaves to do the job. On Moya, a brief stint of comedy while Rygel presses up against Chiana trying to get “comfortable.” This also includes his hand slithering across her body (ugh, gross, actually,) but Chi’s response is a gritted “keep it in your caftan, pal.” :P She yells for Pilot, who confirms they’re ok and then says he has to sign off; the baby’s truly coming this time!! Rygel’s response is to fart helium, to which Chiana responds he’s disgusting in a high-pitched voice. :P The tank is rocked and outside in space, we see a huge vent on Moya’s underbelly open to reveal a red and black object covered by debris. …I imagine this might come off as gross, but what a geeky!cool mashup of a ship giving birth. :P
Aeryn, alone with her gun in the base proper, hears labored breathing. She enters from behind…it’s Crais, still strapped to the Aurora chair, the image of him breaking Teeg’s neck on screen. Aeryn wonders what he’s doing in the chair but he doesn’t recognize her voice until she says “irreversibly contaminated,” the damning sentence he placed on her in “Premiere,” which cost her her place with the Peacekeepers. “Does this contaminate you, Crais?” she asks sneeringly, moving into his line of vision and leaning into his face. Crais reminds her of the oath she took to obey her commanding officer—but she’s no longer a Peacekeeper, Aeryn says. “You are a Peacekeeper for life. On the oath you took…” Crais says, angry and manipulative, but Aeryn’s having none of it. With tears in her eyes, she tells him she lost everything because of him. “Do you know what I learned when I was away from you? Everything I lost isn’t worth a damn. And I don’t want to go back to your past.” Crais, meanwhile, is still trying to order her to release him. “You will never order me again!” She snatches his ident chip off his chest while Crais makes a new vow—he will track her down and kill her. “You know what I give you, Crais?” Aeryn answers. “Your life.” She walks over to the control console, punches some buttons and the chair starts up again. Aeryn leaves and Crais’s screams follow her down the hallway. …incredibly arresting scene; awesome acting between Claudia Black and Lani Tupu. I have to wonder, though…how did Aeryn know what to do with the controls? I suppose this is a quibble in the face of this scene, which brought closure to Aeryn’s angst from season one.
John and Gilina still wait under the grate, and as our human voices concern over Aeryn’s whereabouts, Gilina asks if he wants to be with her. John tries to laugh it off, taking her hand to avoid the question, but Gilina’s not budging. This is what her choice to leave or stay hinges on, so she asks him again. But before he can answer, conveniently enough, Aeryn is back. She “ran into an old friend” and has an ident chip. She helps John out, and then Gilina. Gilina immediately turns to her and asks if she wants to be with John. Aeryn also tries to avoid it—none of her business what she and John are discussing—but Gilina lays on the table that she’s not coming if he doesn’t love her. But you have to come, Aeryn says forcefully. Sooner or later the PKs will find you out. Aeryn feels she owes the tech but Gilina runs off after telling her to look after John.
Scorpy and PK Barbie are back at the Aurora Chair; thankfully they’ve turned it off since Crais is unconscious anyway. They note that his ident chip is missing, and they’re climbing towards the surface of the moon. We have to beat them there, and take Crichton alive! Aeryn has joined John at the door to the access shaft…John of course notes that Gilina is missing. Aeryn explains that she made the decision to stay (not Officer Sun’s fault!) but John still wants to go get here. He makes it a few steps before Aeryn’s words reach him—there’s no time, and again, it’s what she wants. The conflict plays out in John’s eyes, and he looks back towards the base, but ultimately he turns and follows Aeryn up the stairs.
The pressure tank in Moya is all steamed up and Rygel’s little hand-claw smears down it—what is this, “Titanic”? :P A still-squeaky Chiana screams for Pilot—can they get OUT yet? Yup, Pilot says, calm and aloof. The hatch flies open and Chiana stumbles out onto the ground, followed by Rygel and steam. Rygel attempts to apologize, perhaps, but Chi’s having none of it. :P Later, back in command, the two crewmates speak with Pilot clamshell about the first look at the baby…and it’s horrible. :-O He brings up a holographic view of Moya’s child…who, Rygel notes, is covered in weapons. Say whaa?? We see a closer shot of the baby in space, still connected to Moya. Pilot theorizes that when D’argo broke the contraception wall in “They’ve Got a Secret,” the “catalyst” (I guess the daddy-parts? :P) were modified by Peacekeepers to include weaponry in the DNA. There’s never been a Leviathan with weapons before…who will control it? Moya or the Peacekeepers? :/ But no time to linger on philosophy—Moya’s birthing channel wasn’t designed for the weapons, so the baby can’t get free, and now he’s panicking and firing up! :-O Yikes! Chiana, thinking quickly on her feet, asks if Pilot can get some air for her to breathe down the vent to where the baby is so she can help cut him free. It’s a possibility, so Chiana runs.
John and Aeryn make it to the ground/roof where D’argo, Zhaan and Stark are waiting. D’argo exchanges brief pleasantries with John , but no more time—PKs are on the move! They’re running for the shuttle, weapons at the ready (Stark gives John some,) when the PKs come out, and the biggest battle so far on “Farscape” ensues. Most of the crew are separated in groups—John and Stark are together—and Stark asks about the memory he was keeping from Scorp. About the time I kissed a girl, John says, and the boys laugh uproariously. Meanwhile, Chiana is in the birthing chamber—we can see pulsing parts of the baby, which she balances on to try and cut it free. “Don’t shoot me, baby Moya,” she coos nervously… Meanwhile, most of the crew is getting shot at. :P John asks Stark what his secret from Scorp was—it was the memory of a place he’d seen as a boy. “Must have been one helluva place,” John responds.
Chiana’s having no luck moving this pregnancy along; she argues a bit with Pilot and then poses: if the baby fires a low-level blast it won’t be that bad and it’ll get this thing over with. Damn, Chi is quick on her feet. She’s also quick on her feet as she scrambles, desperately, out of the vent and into the corridor…followed by a wall of fire as the baby amps up. Stressful midwifery! Luckily, Pilot confirms that the baby is free and Moya is ok. The rest of the crew are almost to the transport; Stark has one of Zhaan’s explosives, and he and John share a maniacal moment of pinning it to a wall, running like hell, and watching the fireworks begin. Lots of PK wailing…
John remains in the rear of the group, occasionally shooting at the surviving PKs, when a hand suddenly pulls him back—it’s Scorpius! You’re not going with them, he says…but then Gilina steps in front of them, gun in hand! :-O John laughs in relief and tells her to shoot him…but she hesitates and he shoots her first. :-O John throws Scorp off and D’argo and Stark are suddenly around, so Scorp retreats. John carries Gilina and the group runs towards the shuttle. Elsewhere, Scorpius walks, alone and ominous, through the fiery debris.
Aeryn and D’argo have joined Chiana and Rygel in command as Pilot confirms that Gilina scrambled the codes so they’re pretty untraceable for now. It’s a good thing, because with the offspring they can’t starburst or move far. Sounds a bit like the pregnancy! :P Aeryn asks about Gilina, but Pilot admits she’s not doing well. :/ As for the baby…he’s a boy (Rygel approves) and he’s a strange beast…he flies into the view finder, Leviathan-shaped except for the weapons, but red and black like a Peacekeeper.
Elsewhere, John and Zhaan attend to Gilina on a bed. John’s trying to keep up good spirits—Zhaan’s medicine will work—but Gilina tells him to stop lying. She tells him why she came back—she realized Aeryn was right and she would’ve been found out, plus she loves John. Had to help him. John reaches out to her, but she’s having dying pains; there’s nothing more Zhaan can do. Stark enters with some new healing—he puts his hand over Gilina’s face and gives her the memory of the place he saw as a boy. “It’s beautiful,” Gilina says wonderingly, no longer in pain. Hold onto it, Stark advises before he leaves with Zhaan. Alone, and now only able to whisper, she asks John if things had been different, if he’d have been able to love her. John considers and says yeah. Gilina asks for a parting kiss, which John ultimately gives to inevitably sad music. Gilina exhales once, and then passes away. The camera switches to a wider shot of John holding her hand.
Moving ending. I liked Gilina…she’s definitely one of my favorite guest stars. On the excellent Scapecast review of this episode one of the commentators said something that I’ve been grappling with—she said that, unlike John and Aeryn, Gilina couldn’t transcend to “be more” when she had the chance to shoot Scorpius but didn’t. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. What I mean to say is that we never got the chance to see Gilina’s full potential. John and Aeryn had to leave the worlds they knew in order to transcend into hardened warrior/free-thinking, emotionally-unstunted person, respectively. Who knows what we ultimately may have seen from Gilina a cycle after living on Moya with this crew. (Not to mention that she kicked technological ass in this episode…they all really do owe their lives to her.) Alas, it was not meant for her to join the crew (though think of the added J/A tension :P) and her death was believable.
All in all, a fantastic episode. We got to really meet Stark, and Moya’s strange baby. Scorpius is truly a villain now—for more than a brief stint, too. And wormholes are firmly established as a defining aspect of the show. A few iffy plot details, but over all those are just a few drops in the bucket. Great job!
___
Great character beats, as always…some high-pressure gun fights with lots more extras than usual…the usual in surprising twists…and nice bits of comedy in an episode that overall is pretty dark. Something here for everyone, I think! Hope you enjoy.
Amidst Moya’s continuing labor Pilot has a talk via clamshell with Rygel and Zhaan in command. Although the dominar desperately wants to leave asap, she can’t starburst or even move all that well. The ship be lurchin. One would think this is a natural state for any sentient being having to push something out of herself, but Pilot says no; there’s something very wrong with this pregnancy. What is it? We’ll have to wait and see…
Zhaan leaves soon after to tend to Aeryn, who is slowly regaining her strength from last episode’s life-saving tissue graft. Aeryn thanks Chiana for her life, and Chi mentions that Gilina was also aboard the gammack base and helped out. Aeryn wants to know where John is…Zhaan tries to detain her, but D’argo tells her flat out that Crichton’s been captured and is being tortured. Well, that gets Aeryn in warrior mode right away! She lurches up—as the only person who can infiltrate the base undetected—but D’argo and Zhaan say they’ll go with her for military and medicinal backup.
John is where we left him last time, in the Aurora chair, which is yanking his wormhole memories from his mind. An agitated Crais tells him to stop resisting the chair now, with Scorpius in the background, and John is able to get out that he’s not resisting. PK Barbie says the chair indicates otherwise, and they increase extraction. Crais and Crichton repeat the same verbal battle, except this time John is roaring in pain.
Later, he’s back in his cell with his roommate who finally gets a name—Stark. Our human is attempting fitful sleep when he hears roomie tinkering with something. When John asks him about it, Stark gets violently paranoid as usual. John pushes himself up and over to Stark’s mattress where he’s concealing something; is Stark a spy for Scorpy? He tries to grab for what Stark hid, but roomie pushes him against the wall and threatens to kill him before letting him go. As John crawls back to his side, he notes that maybe Stark isn’t crazy—maybe it’s an act so the PKs will leave him alone some. Stark finally bends—maybe he’s lonely—and shows John his trinket; it’s a magnetic crypt encoder that he’s been making from scrap metal for two cycles. John laughs and predicts Stark will never be able to unlock the door with it. Stark backs away, offended, and then makes sure John won’t tell the PKs about his secret. Nah, John says, he’s keeping a secret of his own, but it has nothing to do with wormholes. But Stark, who’s been in over 100 times, warns that sooner or later, the chair will rip it out of him. :/
Cut back to Aeryn (in a PK uniform), D’argo and Zhaan leaving Moya in a transport pod. Aeryn’s hand shakes over the controls…uh oh. But she downplays it with her crewmates. D’argo confirms that Gilina’s blind from last episode, which allowed Chiana to escape undetected, seems to be holding. Aeryn is confident that there won’t be sensors on the surface level of the moon, because it would bely that there’s a secret base underneath. They land, and so far this seems to be accurate…
Back in John’s cell Gilina whispers for him from the camera, sending Stark into a panic. John hushes him angrily and Gilina reminds him to keep his back to the wall; apparently the PKs can see, not hear. Gilina confirms that Chiana made it off the base with Aeryn’s tissue graft, and John asks the tech to do what she can to get Scorpius off his back for awhile. Poor guy is mentally broken. :/ Gilina says she’ll think of something, and then he disconnects and packs up her gear, from the hidden circuit room where she’s been hiding.
On lurching Moya, Chiana has joined Rygel in command as Pilot continues to give labor updates. Might be worth it to get the baby clear as soon as possible…a plan Rygel is desperately on board with. Chiana tells him to chill, and Ryg has his usual hilarious response: “I’ve conceived hundreds of progeny! Humph! And those are only the official ones, with my wives…I was never present at the birth.” Hynerians are quite the chauvinists, it seems. :P
PK Barbie supervises the techs doing maintenance on the Aurora Chair. Perfect time for Gilina to sneak in! She scoots underneath, next to a friend, and convinces him that she can finish up here. She then inserts something into a port, removed something else and replaces it, and then gets out of there, all in a few seconds of terse orders from her superiors to get this thing operational ASAP. She then gathers up her tools and leaves like a normal day. Gilina is frelling awesome, let me tell you. Back in her cell she desperately tries to get John’s attention on their secure line, but John notes that someone’s coming! Gilina asks him to remember the kiss but John quickly protests—that’s the memory he’s been trying to hide! Such a good guy…protecting the girl. Gilina implores him once more, asking him to trust her, before Sorpius, Crais and their men come in. Stark goes back to crazy-mode, lurching for Scorpy and begging to be put in the chair; Crais beats him back quite soundly. Scorp appeals to John’s rationality; he doesn’t want to end up like Stark, does he? Just show him everything and the torture stops. John keeps up the lie—told you everything, but Scorp doesn’t believe him. He rehashes the big details he knows about John—living aboard an escaped Leviathan with fugitive prisoners…Leviathan be pregnant, too! “Do you know who the daddy is?” John chuckles. :P Scorp, unamused, tells his men to bring John. Crais, clearly amused, tells him, “I’m going to enjoy ripping the truth out of you, Crichton.”
Back in the Chair, John finally allows himself to remember what he’s been hiding—his kiss with Gilina on the Zelbinion. Gilina’s back is to the camera, and suddenly Crais enters! :-O He tells John he’s glad he’s enjoying his stay with them. Gilina turns, but she has a different face. Smart girl, real Gilina. :P Real John (and real Crais) are shocked. Fake Crais gives fake John a bit of backstory amidst occasional flashes to other, indistinct memories. He explains how he was born to common farmers and shanghaighed into Peacekeeper service, which meant he could only rise so far, thanks to class bigotry. But the wormhole information John gave him ought to help a bit! Ooo! Back in reality, John has the hiccups and Crais is having a meltdown. He turns to Scorpius and yells that of course John made it all up! Can’t do that for the Chair, Scorp says suspiciously. When he asks John what it is, he says it looks like an episode of “Melrose Place.” :P Crais starts hitting John; tell Scorp what that is!!! John finally pulls his wits together and uses what Gilina gave him—he confesses to Scorp that he gave Crais wormhole information in exchange for his life. Dun dun DUUUUUUN!
John is still strapped in the chair, but all eyes and guns are now pointed to Crais as Scorpius questions him. Even though he denies everything…uh, Crais was born on a farming colony and conscripted into PK service. So how did John know that? “He must have stolen it from a database!” “When he was in level three containment?” Point one to Scorpius…Crais is losing more and more composure as he keeps yelling that it’s just not true. Well, there’s only one way to be sure…go into the Chair himself. :-O “No captain has ever been subjected to such an indignity,” Crais says, trying to laugh it off. “There’s always a first for everything.” Oh Scorpy…you and your witty lines. John is sent back to his cell and Scorpy addresses Crais’s bemused-looking officers; Crais is obviously out of control. I mean, look at him. Completely emotional. Scorpy, meanwhile, is head of this gammack base and he—and all his men—will have to be killed in order to disobey them. Yikes. He tells them to put Crais in the chair.
On the roof D’argo is unloading the shuttle, Zhaan is upgrading explosives and Aeryn is about to go in; she’s found an access shaft. She tells her hand, quiet but firm, to stop shaking, and then she opens the door and descends down several metal staircases. She opens a door to a hallway, gun out, but finds herself alone.
Stark sits with John in the cell, trying to get him to rest as he babbles about Gillian succeeding and needing to get out of there. As he tries to get up, weakened he collapses in Stark’s lap. Stark repositions him to be more comfortable, then takes off his half-face mask. On the other side, his face is a sea of glistening gold. When he turns his head it shines on John’s face and John visibly relaxes. Stark showed him something…a smattering of soothing memories. He strokes John’s head and puts back on his mask. Stark explains that he’s been here two cycles, kept alive when most of his people were killed. “It’s almost ironic—what made me a slave now keeps me alive.” He’s part of the Banik slave race, because of his face, and because he can do such things as hide feelings and cloud thoughts. It’s why he’s such a tasty morsel for the Aurora Chair; he has memories it can’t touch.
I guess we know whether or not Scorpius convinced Crais’s men, because now we see the good captain in the chair. His memories flash by, focusing a bit on John and a promise he made to his father to protect his younger brother (preceding the memory of his burned corpse that Maldis used on him several episodes ago.) Crais is screaming and begging Scorp to take the image of his father off the screen. Scorpy wants to get to wormholes anyway; PK Barbie says he’s fighting it and increases the extraction. …Crais might be a bully, but it’s hard to watch even him get tortured like this. He keeps insisting, loud and frightened, that he doesn’t know anything.
Aeryn has reached actual people walking through the halls, but they largely pay her no mind; she seems to belong. Cut to Gilina prepping to leave her secret cubby…but she’s suddenly pushed against the wall! A female voice asks if there’s surveillance in here, and Gilina says no. We then see that her captor is Aeryn, and the two women go inside. Aeryn thanks Gilina for what she did for her, and Gilina responds with concern; she shouldn’t be walking around for 10 solar days! But there’s no time—where’s John? Gilina tells her the level he’s on and says there’s no way to get to him without orders from Scorpius. He’s blocking the memory of their kiss to protect her, but once Scorp realizes he knows nothing (more?) about wormholes, he’ll kill him. So much for John being out of the hot seat!
On the roof Zhaan and D’argo finalize their plan of attack if and when the PKs come up to the roof. Zhaan asks D’argo about his Qalta blade—very unconventional—and D’argo explains its storied history in Luxan past. After another species laid a bloody, months-long siege on their planet the Qalta blade was the only weapon the warriors had left. It’s now entered Luxan lore as the weapon that will lead them to freedom. …very touching tale (kinda made me think of Jedi and lightsabers,) if a complete tangent from the immediate plot. :P
In the cell John is once again shushing Stark—but not because of Gilina on the comms; because of Aeryn, seen through the crack of the door, talking to the lieutenant from the last episode! She’s cooked up some story about sensing a magnetic pulse from Crais’s carrier in this room…the lieutenant tries to scoff it off, but funnily enough for both of them, his sensor does pick up Stark’s crypt encoder! The lieutenant forces Stark off it and Stark attacks John, furious about being betrayed. But all movement stops when Aeryn knocks the lieutenant out. :P “Who is that?” Stark asks. And John, sounding very relieved and in awe, says “that is the radiant Aeryn Sun.” “How many Peacekeepers do you know on this base?!” Stark asks incredulously. :P Cute. John and Aeryn check in very briefly over their reduced states before Aeryn leads the boys out.
Crais is reliving a telling scene from “That Old Black Magic:” where he kills Lieutenant Teeg after learning she’s the only one who knows of PK Command’s orders to stop pursuing John. PK Barbie confirms this was the memory he was trying to hide…looks like Crais was less invested in saving his own skin than John was in saving Gilina’s. :P Scorpius and PK Barbie are coming to terms with the fact that Crais has no wormhole-knowledge memories when the alarms sound. A soldier tells Scorp on his comms that John has escaped! Most definitely a PK working with him. Seal the base, Scorp orders, don’t let him escape!
Aeryn leads John, Stark and Gilina towards the metal staircase leading to the roof access shaft, but this time sirens are blaring. Stark is able to get through the door, but suddenly the others spot soldiers afoot, led by PK Barbie! They run desperately for cover, finding a crate in the floor and climbing inside just before the red-headed, leather-wearing PK lady comes in and stands on top of them. Thank goodness she didn’t look down. :P Ultimately, she and her men move off.
Back on Moya, our poor girl is still in labor! And apparently, Pilot is just now realizing that Moya will have to equalize pressure—eg, suck the air out of her insides to match her outsides. So, uh, did he forget to look this up before, in all those earlier episodes where Moya was still pregnant, or is this a “strange pregnancy” thing? *eyebrow arch* Anywho. In the here and now, this causes major problems for Chiana and Rygel, who have to scramble to find cover in 80 microts. (Great chance for high-stakes drama, at least. :P) Pilot’s den is too far; there are air pressure tanks in the maintenance bay! The aliens dash…Rygel’s tank opens but Chiana’s does not. He leers at her about having plenty of room. :P Chiana spends a lot of time debating for someone who is about to be suffocated, but then again, this is Rygel, hee. She finally dives in and shuts the door behind her.
Our human-and-sebaceans team is also running into locked doors; Gilina, returning from reconnaissance, confirms that the only way to get out now is to steal an ident chip from a senior officer. John moves to get one—shaking badly—so Aeryn takes over and leaves to do the job. On Moya, a brief stint of comedy while Rygel presses up against Chiana trying to get “comfortable.” This also includes his hand slithering across her body (ugh, gross, actually,) but Chi’s response is a gritted “keep it in your caftan, pal.” :P She yells for Pilot, who confirms they’re ok and then says he has to sign off; the baby’s truly coming this time!! Rygel’s response is to fart helium, to which Chiana responds he’s disgusting in a high-pitched voice. :P The tank is rocked and outside in space, we see a huge vent on Moya’s underbelly open to reveal a red and black object covered by debris. …I imagine this might come off as gross, but what a geeky!cool mashup of a ship giving birth. :P
Aeryn, alone with her gun in the base proper, hears labored breathing. She enters from behind…it’s Crais, still strapped to the Aurora chair, the image of him breaking Teeg’s neck on screen. Aeryn wonders what he’s doing in the chair but he doesn’t recognize her voice until she says “irreversibly contaminated,” the damning sentence he placed on her in “Premiere,” which cost her her place with the Peacekeepers. “Does this contaminate you, Crais?” she asks sneeringly, moving into his line of vision and leaning into his face. Crais reminds her of the oath she took to obey her commanding officer—but she’s no longer a Peacekeeper, Aeryn says. “You are a Peacekeeper for life. On the oath you took…” Crais says, angry and manipulative, but Aeryn’s having none of it. With tears in her eyes, she tells him she lost everything because of him. “Do you know what I learned when I was away from you? Everything I lost isn’t worth a damn. And I don’t want to go back to your past.” Crais, meanwhile, is still trying to order her to release him. “You will never order me again!” She snatches his ident chip off his chest while Crais makes a new vow—he will track her down and kill her. “You know what I give you, Crais?” Aeryn answers. “Your life.” She walks over to the control console, punches some buttons and the chair starts up again. Aeryn leaves and Crais’s screams follow her down the hallway. …incredibly arresting scene; awesome acting between Claudia Black and Lani Tupu. I have to wonder, though…how did Aeryn know what to do with the controls? I suppose this is a quibble in the face of this scene, which brought closure to Aeryn’s angst from season one.
John and Gilina still wait under the grate, and as our human voices concern over Aeryn’s whereabouts, Gilina asks if he wants to be with her. John tries to laugh it off, taking her hand to avoid the question, but Gilina’s not budging. This is what her choice to leave or stay hinges on, so she asks him again. But before he can answer, conveniently enough, Aeryn is back. She “ran into an old friend” and has an ident chip. She helps John out, and then Gilina. Gilina immediately turns to her and asks if she wants to be with John. Aeryn also tries to avoid it—none of her business what she and John are discussing—but Gilina lays on the table that she’s not coming if he doesn’t love her. But you have to come, Aeryn says forcefully. Sooner or later the PKs will find you out. Aeryn feels she owes the tech but Gilina runs off after telling her to look after John.
Scorpy and PK Barbie are back at the Aurora Chair; thankfully they’ve turned it off since Crais is unconscious anyway. They note that his ident chip is missing, and they’re climbing towards the surface of the moon. We have to beat them there, and take Crichton alive! Aeryn has joined John at the door to the access shaft…John of course notes that Gilina is missing. Aeryn explains that she made the decision to stay (not Officer Sun’s fault!) but John still wants to go get here. He makes it a few steps before Aeryn’s words reach him—there’s no time, and again, it’s what she wants. The conflict plays out in John’s eyes, and he looks back towards the base, but ultimately he turns and follows Aeryn up the stairs.
The pressure tank in Moya is all steamed up and Rygel’s little hand-claw smears down it—what is this, “Titanic”? :P A still-squeaky Chiana screams for Pilot—can they get OUT yet? Yup, Pilot says, calm and aloof. The hatch flies open and Chiana stumbles out onto the ground, followed by Rygel and steam. Rygel attempts to apologize, perhaps, but Chi’s having none of it. :P Later, back in command, the two crewmates speak with Pilot clamshell about the first look at the baby…and it’s horrible. :-O He brings up a holographic view of Moya’s child…who, Rygel notes, is covered in weapons. Say whaa?? We see a closer shot of the baby in space, still connected to Moya. Pilot theorizes that when D’argo broke the contraception wall in “They’ve Got a Secret,” the “catalyst” (I guess the daddy-parts? :P) were modified by Peacekeepers to include weaponry in the DNA. There’s never been a Leviathan with weapons before…who will control it? Moya or the Peacekeepers? :/ But no time to linger on philosophy—Moya’s birthing channel wasn’t designed for the weapons, so the baby can’t get free, and now he’s panicking and firing up! :-O Yikes! Chiana, thinking quickly on her feet, asks if Pilot can get some air for her to breathe down the vent to where the baby is so she can help cut him free. It’s a possibility, so Chiana runs.
John and Aeryn make it to the ground/roof where D’argo, Zhaan and Stark are waiting. D’argo exchanges brief pleasantries with John , but no more time—PKs are on the move! They’re running for the shuttle, weapons at the ready (Stark gives John some,) when the PKs come out, and the biggest battle so far on “Farscape” ensues. Most of the crew are separated in groups—John and Stark are together—and Stark asks about the memory he was keeping from Scorp. About the time I kissed a girl, John says, and the boys laugh uproariously. Meanwhile, Chiana is in the birthing chamber—we can see pulsing parts of the baby, which she balances on to try and cut it free. “Don’t shoot me, baby Moya,” she coos nervously… Meanwhile, most of the crew is getting shot at. :P John asks Stark what his secret from Scorp was—it was the memory of a place he’d seen as a boy. “Must have been one helluva place,” John responds.
Chiana’s having no luck moving this pregnancy along; she argues a bit with Pilot and then poses: if the baby fires a low-level blast it won’t be that bad and it’ll get this thing over with. Damn, Chi is quick on her feet. She’s also quick on her feet as she scrambles, desperately, out of the vent and into the corridor…followed by a wall of fire as the baby amps up. Stressful midwifery! Luckily, Pilot confirms that the baby is free and Moya is ok. The rest of the crew are almost to the transport; Stark has one of Zhaan’s explosives, and he and John share a maniacal moment of pinning it to a wall, running like hell, and watching the fireworks begin. Lots of PK wailing…
John remains in the rear of the group, occasionally shooting at the surviving PKs, when a hand suddenly pulls him back—it’s Scorpius! You’re not going with them, he says…but then Gilina steps in front of them, gun in hand! :-O John laughs in relief and tells her to shoot him…but she hesitates and he shoots her first. :-O John throws Scorp off and D’argo and Stark are suddenly around, so Scorp retreats. John carries Gilina and the group runs towards the shuttle. Elsewhere, Scorpius walks, alone and ominous, through the fiery debris.
Aeryn and D’argo have joined Chiana and Rygel in command as Pilot confirms that Gilina scrambled the codes so they’re pretty untraceable for now. It’s a good thing, because with the offspring they can’t starburst or move far. Sounds a bit like the pregnancy! :P Aeryn asks about Gilina, but Pilot admits she’s not doing well. :/ As for the baby…he’s a boy (Rygel approves) and he’s a strange beast…he flies into the view finder, Leviathan-shaped except for the weapons, but red and black like a Peacekeeper.
Elsewhere, John and Zhaan attend to Gilina on a bed. John’s trying to keep up good spirits—Zhaan’s medicine will work—but Gilina tells him to stop lying. She tells him why she came back—she realized Aeryn was right and she would’ve been found out, plus she loves John. Had to help him. John reaches out to her, but she’s having dying pains; there’s nothing more Zhaan can do. Stark enters with some new healing—he puts his hand over Gilina’s face and gives her the memory of the place he saw as a boy. “It’s beautiful,” Gilina says wonderingly, no longer in pain. Hold onto it, Stark advises before he leaves with Zhaan. Alone, and now only able to whisper, she asks John if things had been different, if he’d have been able to love her. John considers and says yeah. Gilina asks for a parting kiss, which John ultimately gives to inevitably sad music. Gilina exhales once, and then passes away. The camera switches to a wider shot of John holding her hand.
Moving ending. I liked Gilina…she’s definitely one of my favorite guest stars. On the excellent Scapecast review of this episode one of the commentators said something that I’ve been grappling with—she said that, unlike John and Aeryn, Gilina couldn’t transcend to “be more” when she had the chance to shoot Scorpius but didn’t. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair. What I mean to say is that we never got the chance to see Gilina’s full potential. John and Aeryn had to leave the worlds they knew in order to transcend into hardened warrior/free-thinking, emotionally-unstunted person, respectively. Who knows what we ultimately may have seen from Gilina a cycle after living on Moya with this crew. (Not to mention that she kicked technological ass in this episode…they all really do owe their lives to her.) Alas, it was not meant for her to join the crew (though think of the added J/A tension :P) and her death was believable.
All in all, a fantastic episode. We got to really meet Stark, and Moya’s strange baby. Scorpius is truly a villain now—for more than a brief stint, too. And wormholes are firmly established as a defining aspect of the show. A few iffy plot details, but over all those are just a few drops in the bucket. Great job!
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