Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Putting Out, With Dark Sunglasses
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 06.17.1999
"Thank you. You are finished."
"I said you are finished," says my Pilot, well-fucking-Aeryns my Pilot, and the DRDs scuttle away. And to John, jaw hanging open, sad and bewildered and out of his depth: "Don't concern yourself, Crichton. I will be fine. My species has superior regenerative abilities." And John wonders at his calm. "I didn't exactly let them: they have the opportunity to go home. The drive is very strong." John calls an outrageous amount of bullshit, as he should. "When one of my species is bonded to a leviathan, we give our lives to the service of others. Ship first -- then those who travel aboard her." No matter what those aboard do to you? That he would scream, and destroy. That he would fight back. That he would use his abilities on his own behalf. He is in charge of Moya; he is in charge of the world, everything in the world, and he does nothing. He's already home, and the fact that he's figured out that none of them have is that so are they. This is his purpose, and hers. He connects them to the universe; he is everything, the voice of Moya, and he does nothing. Heaven on a street corner. A simple man, everything golden, our connection to Moya which is everything, nailed to a cross of wood. The best of us, the best in us, done the ugliest disrespect. You don't have to be Christian for that to hurt, but can you doubt his grace? And this his response:
"My species is incapable of spaceflight on our own. If we wish to journey beyond our home planet, this is the tradeoff we make for the chance to see the galaxy. I consider it a perfectly equitable arrangement."
Elsewhere, Aeryn waits. For Zhaan and D'Argo, Aeryn waits. With a gun, not yet drawn. "Do you have something to say to us?" asks D'Argo. "The decision was a hard one," says Zhaan, but really she's asking. "Our actions, even harder. But it is done." She complains that Pilot -- her brother, her spirit -- was defenseless. And he is, just as is Moya. "Compassion? From a Peacekeeper?" D'Argo scoffs. (Straight to hell.) "For a comrade. You attacked one of your own. Would you do the same to the rest of us?" And I have to respect D'Argo here, as ugly as it is: "Of course." The only honesty there is, now that suddenly we can do these things to our brothers. "Well, you have your maps now. What makes you think you can just take this ship wherever you want to go?" Seriously. We went through this with the TARDIS. The best way to make the TARDIS suddenly stop working is to spit on God and on everything. "These maps are precisely what we've been longing for," whines Zhaan. "Our way home." Aeryn complains weakly that Pilot won't help, now that they've done this. To him; to her. To us. To Moya. "Pilot is a servicer," says young D'Argo. "He'll get over it, I'll see to it." And to be fair, he will. Pilot will forgive them well before I will. And Zhaan already so high up on my shit list: "I know what is troubling you, my dear. You'll never find your way home. But please, do not deny us all our chance to find our own." And Aeryn exits, because what do you say to that? What answer does brotherhood have for that? Only Crichton and the rain.