Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Aeryn Wide Awake In the Garden
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 03.25.1999
Rygel's again being used as an itsy-bitsy spelunker, again against his will, just like last week. Off his bitching, John smacks the wall, and the bugs scatter. Rygel complains some more, and D'Argo finally just tosses him in. Rygel whines from behind the wall, "Luxan manners never fail to amaze me," and D'Argo laughs evilly. John snorts at him, cutely. If I had my wish, they'd do this bonding over a Rygel fricassee, but I can say that I love Rygel's smallness, because it makes for more of this intimacy with Moya, which makes total sense to me. Only Moya has enough largeness of spirit to love Rygel without even worrying about it -- of course he can crawl around inside her, while the rest of the cast can barely look at him sometimes.
Aeryn asks Pilot half a question: "If we can't turn the temperature down, isn't there at least some way to...stop it from..." Pilot's concerned. "I am a Peacekeeper," she says. "A Sebacean. Look." Her hand shakes mightily and she says a good, good line: "Can't hold a weapon. I can't hold a thought." Even now, at her extremity, it's still about the next attack. The just in case. Can you imagine if your whole life were constellated in terms of the next motherfucker to shoot at you? Seriously. Every line she's said in these episodes is like, "No way, we gotta run." And that's what being a Peacekeeper feels like. No wonder they're all such assholes. It's hard out here for a fascist! She starts breathing really heavily, and then Pilot cups one of his arms around her as she goes into a full-on seizure. It passes, and she pulls herself together, stands on her own. "It is strange to be...so close to a Peacekeeper I do not fear. That is a compliment," he clarifies, but doesn't point out that, for John at least, it's the point of the episode.
They've said that this is where he falls in love with her for real, but that goes to a funny place, feminism-wise, unless you go further with it, which is to say: this is where he realizes she can be loved. Not because she's a damsel, but because she's not an android. That the walls are capable of coming down. Or maybe John's just that kind of guy, which is fine I guess. Or maybe it's the same thing. Pilot floats the idea that, should he perform a full propulsion shutdown, he could vent the cargo doors to space. But Aeryn's still about running, like she always is, and rejects anything that involves stopping. "No! It's too dangerous, we leave ourselves open for attack." Pilot reminds her that they are, um, already under attack, and we see that the whole long-term/short-term thing isn't really D'Argo's problem at all: it's Aeryn's. It stops being ops v. tactics when the entire "tactic" is "keep running forever." Aeryn makes me so sad. She rests on the console as Pilot stops Moya and vents the cargo doors.
Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21Next