Episode Report Card Keckler: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The One Where Talyn And Crais Elope
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 03.16.2000
Back on the asteroid, Crichton teaches D'Argo Rock, Paper, Scissors. D'Argo laughs heartily and announces that he wins again. Crichton corrects him; his paper wraps D'Argo's rock. Dirty. D'Argo argues that paper can't possibly beat rock, "Rock rips through paper!" It's a sound argument. Crichton tries to explain, but D'Argo tells him it's "unrealistic," which just makes me giggle so hard. "Well, it's the RULES, and it's not supposed to be realistic it's supposed to be ENTERTAINING!" Crichton says, neatly summing up Farscape. D'Argo mutters that his coma was more entertaining as Aeryn stalks in, angry and incommunicative. Finally grabbing her by her sweat-slicked arm, Crichton spins Aeryn around and asks her quietly how many times they've saved each other lives. She's lost count but agrees it's more than once. "Right, and how many times have you and I been close?" Crichton asks. Aeryn darts a look at D'Argo and furrows up to John, whispering, "Just the once." BAMP! That's for the American audience who didn't get the originally cutting of "A Human Reaction" that clearly showed Crichton and Aeryn the Morning After. Crichton ducks his head away from D'Argo's interested gaze, pulls on his ear, and mutters, "Not that kind of close." "Oh, um, FRIEND CLOSE!" Aeryn says loudly, "Yes, um, more than once." Now come on, writers -- if that's what he meant, why did he say "how many times have we been close"? Because there's no other interpretation of that, really. It's a pretty awkward way of asking, "how many times have we been friends." Why not just, "how long have we been close"? I know he really meant the friend thing and they were trying make a funny out of it, but I think it was an unwieldy way to dialogue it. They could have found another way to make sure the U.S. audience knew about The Sex. Crichton points out that they should be at a stage where they can trust each other and he thinks Aeryn's holding something back. He wants her to look him in the eye and tell him he's wrong. She can't. She walks away, not facing them, and says they aren't going to like what she has to say. "In order to save your lives, I had to make a deal with Crais," she begins. "WHAT?!" D'Argo bellows. See, after Moya starbursted, Crais signaled Aeryn with coordinates of an asteroid with an oxygen atmosphere. She never would have found it on her own and Crichton and D'Argo were close to suffocating. So, they didn't have oxygen in the prowler? Or did she lasso them and tow them through space to the oxygenated asteroid? How did she retrieve them anyway? Does the prowler have a mouth-like opening that can scoop things inside? Oh, right: not realistic, entertaining. Aeryn says that when Moya left, Talyn got upset and stopped obeying Crais, so she helped calm him down and started coaching him to obey Crais. "Oh, well, that makes sense," Crichton says laughing mirthlessly, "You're helping Talyn obey the man who KIDNAPPED HIM!" Aeryn yells back that she didn't have another choice. D'Argo thinks she should have let them die. Aeryn disagrees quite loudly. D'Argo's most concerned that Talyn has weaponry and now the Peacekeepers are in possession of that weaponry. More yelling. Aeryn finally shouts, "I told you you wouldn't like what I had to say!" "Well, I don't!" Crichton agrees. "Neither do I!" D'Argo adds. Heh. "Yeah, well, it's all we have," Aeryn almost sneers at D'Argo. "No, it isn't," he says and tongue-lashes her into unconsciousness. That trick never fails to entertain. Can you imagine what the Klingons would do with a feature like that? They'd start Klingon Kamps for tongue strengthening and probably graft weighted spikes on the end of it to make it a more effective weapon. Of course, to tongue-smack someone would be without honor.