Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Kiss Of The Spider Woman
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 14 | Aired on 01.23.2003
D'Argo stands at a projected star-chart: "These maps look legitimate. Information about the dangerous sectors is accurate, it should be easy for us to evade them. Looks like the old witch actually did a good job." He turns it off, and of course Rygel's offended: "Don't I get any credit?" For what? Rygel throws him a coin, which he's actually altered to appear twelve times its worth. Which is to say, the reality, the real worth of the coin, has been leveraged against a counterfeited worth that it never had. The coin is pretending to be something it never was. "You cheated the traders?" Rygel laughs. "More for me!" If Rygel were being himself he wouldn't admit it; if D'Argo were being himself, he'd roll his eyes and fix it. Instead, they both get hyperactive: Rygel gives propaganda about how terribly greedy he is, how he's fucked them all once again and gotten away scot-free, and D'Argo simply screeches about how stupid and selfish Rygel is. John watches them play this out, like puppets before a screen; D'Argo attacks the Hynerian and John rushes in to break them up. "Sparky? What'd you wanna do that for? These are not the guys we wanta piss off. We have to be out here for a while and we need to be able to do business." D'Argo bitches further; Rygel tells him the forgeries would fool anyone. Any other week, perhaps. This week it doesn't actually matter. This week, forgery is all they have.
"Ryg, you can't do stuff like this," John sighs. "You're jamming us up." D'Argo screams and offers to give Rygel to the traders for their whore. Whoa! Noranti comes to watch the proceedings as D'Argo goes ever more nutso. John offers them a snack and Rygel immediately Jazzies over to claim the food; D'Argo explodes with rage and knocks it to the floor. Rygel gasps and steps back, D'Argo snarls at him, John steps in once more. "Chill. Chill, bra. It's under control, all right? We're gonna make it right." Noranti slips into the room. "We're gonna phone these guys, we're gonna tell 'em we made a mistake, and we're gonna make it right." Rygel asks if he's fahrbot, and D'Argo goes off on a thing about how he's the Captain. Rygel takes off all, "Keep your hands off my shit," and D'Argo goes after him again. D'Argo's strongest trait isn't rage, it's fear. It's rage he needs. John begs D'Argo not to follow; D'Argo slams past. "Pilot, can you get that trading ship on the phone?" Pilot offers to try, but notes that transmissions are unreliable in this part of Tormented Space. "You can do it, man. You're smart enough. You're good enough. Doggone it, people like you." Obnoxious clichés, now. Everything that bugs about John, this week, is turned around and made awesome. He can't even come up with his own platitudes this week: just his stupid pop culture refs nobody gets. Pilot asks if he's all right. But everything's fine!
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