Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Family Ties
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 22 | Aired on July 14, 1998
Dressed in a pretty sweet leather jacket, the underling from last episode and the earlier scene comes in and tells Scorpius that the search team is confident of finding Moya soon. I neglected to mention this in the last recap, but the underling is actually Braca -- last episode was his first appearance. Something I also didn't mention is that the actor playing Braca, David Franklin, will be recognizable to Xena: Warrior Princess watchers as Brutus. (Hey, what can I say? Even I'd switch teams for Lucy Lawless. Also, just to be thorough, the guy who played Br'nee in the last episode, Marton Csokas, was Xena's lover Borias, but I don't think the most diehard Xena/Gabrielle 'shipper could have recognized him in that getup.) Braca reports no word from Crais, and then asks for and is granted permission to speak freely: If Scorpius suspected Crais didn't intend to return, why did he let him go? Scorpius somewhat obliquely says that we all have "windows of usefulness," which I take to mean he expects Crais to be dying on this mission one way or another. He adds that he suspects Braca's career may well be on the rise, and pats him on the arm before leaving the room. For someone who just tacitly got told a Captain's rank is in his future, Braca sure looks like he just shit his pants. Maybe that's an involuntary reaction to being touched by Scorpius.
Crichton and Crais are both sitting now, and Crichton asks Crais how he's doing. Crais wonders why he would ask, but Crichton admits that he's homesick, and desperate for "human male-to-male conversation." Leaving aside the point that Crais isn't human, I think this shows Crichton truly thinks he's going to die, and as such has decided that there's no further need nor sufficient time for grudges and acrimony. Crais seems to have reached a similar state of mind, as he asks Crichton if he thinks it's an accident that their species are so much alike. They agree that they don't know the answer to that question, and Crais says that it's one of the mysteries he will miss solving. Crichton, who's actually in tears at this point, says that being in the cell must make Crais feel his mortality, and that's the feeling they all have, all the time, with Crais chasing them. With Crichton at his most emotionally vulnerable, Crais chooses similarly to lower himself, telling Crichton that he now realizes he didn't mean to kill his brother, and the intensity between these two as each refuses to break eye contact is startlingly affecting. Crichton, his voice breaking, asks if Crais has any idea what he put them all through.