Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Human Reaction
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 08.19.1999
"Are you okay, son?" John says he's okay, and archly indicates the woman with the dress and the gun. "Remember Aeryn Sun?" They stare. "We actually never met," says Jack. Aeryn orders John to search Jack, again in her alien language from our perspective, and John refuses her once, then again. Aeryn gets huffy and keeps her gun leveled at Jack. "Is she ever gonna put that down?" asks Jack. But remember, she can understand what he's saying -- the only one without translator microbes, including us, is Jack. That's important. She shakes her head, grinning like steel. John's like, "Uh, doubt it." Jack assures them, still staring at Aeryn, that Wilson has no idea any of them is there: "It's not gonna take them long to start searching places we've been before." John asks if Jack talked to any of his contacts, and Jack goes quiet: "Everybody. No one's gonna help us, son. It's too dangerous." John asks if Jack will help, himself, and Jack shrugs: "I don't matter in this. Official word is that these aliens never existed. D'Argo's on his way to a military base in Utah, and the warehouse has been swept clean." Aeryn advances, speaking angrily, and John grabs her wrist: "Aeryn! Back off. Please."
Jack is now kind of freaked. "Listen," he says, handing John a bunch of cash, "the two of you have to get out of town, and you've got to find someplace that's safe. I'll hold them off here as long as I can." John protests that his dad shouldn't have to cover for him, but Jack's convinced that this is the only play: "You're in this too deep. They're not going to just let you walk away. Look, at least this time I get to say goodbye." Aeryn looks down, away, with respect, but also perhaps remembering her own parents' goodbye. She has no idea how bad that particular storyline will get. John: "I will...um...we'll hole up somewhere and I'll...uh...I'll contact you." Jack demurs and says that they'll "make him tell" if he knows anything. John says goodbye, and Jack nods. As they exit, Aeryn stops before Jack. She speaks to him in an alien language that we can't understand, kindly, holding his gaze, and turns to leave. This is not the last time Aeryn and Jack will touch, without us getting to know the entire story, any more than we can ever hope to understand how much our parents influence the people we love, and the way that we love them. I could do ten pages here on the way that Aeryn continually disappoints and tempts John to hope the same way Jack always did, and vice versa with her piece-of-shit parents and John's constant leaving, but it's not germane except to note: Aeryn and Jack have more in common than either of them do with John, and we can't see it all, ever, because that's not the kind of thing you understand with your brain. Close-up on Aeryn's face as Jack speaks: "Thank you, Aeryn Sun." (Transcendent symbolic moment in the family drama, or yet another clue to the puzzle of the episode? You decide. Either way, they understand each other. Either way, John's completely fucking clueless as usual. He's such a Joxer, just all "yoo-be-doo-be-doo, la la la" all the time. I like The Simpsons, but I never really felt like I understood it -- or John -- until I realized how many men automatically understand that it's more about Homer than anybody else -- the "I'm just an ignorant shmoe" card men play without even thinking about it. And once you get the reality of that, you can have any boy. Any boy in the whole school.) Aeryn stops short, looks at Jack, and then steps up as he looks away. She stares at him a moment, and then exits, leaving Jack alone, scared for both of them. We won't see him again. All we have is love, now.
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