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
By the time it's full, the first one's empty again." Heh. Scorpius conversationally says that if he were to take Rygel back to the Gammak base and put him in the Aurora Chair, his hunger pangs would be the least of his problems. Well, that may be, Scorpy, but do you really want to sit through home movies of all the tail Rygel's scored over the years? Anyway, Rygel is unbowed, saying that his physiology won't tolerate the Chair, and Crais confirms that he'd die almost instantly. His delivery doesn't exactly suggest that he's advocating abandoning the idea, but he has been in quite a sour mood lately. Scorpius gets down to business: He'll give Rygel his freedom in exchange for Crichton, and despite Crais's protests, he deems Moya and everyone else on her irrelevant. However, in addition to his liberty, Rygel demands a ship, a qualified crew, money, a map to Hyneria, and a full pardon. We focus in on Scorpius's eyes, intense with concentration, and he realizes Rygel is lying. Interesting -- this implies that Rygel didn't plan to sell out his shipmates, but it's never mentioned what, then, his plan was, and it's kind of hard to figure. Did he intend to starve the enemy by single-handedly eating all their food supplies? Maybe Scorpius is reading into an unconscious conflict of which Rygel himself isn't aware. Scorpius orders Crais to imprison Rygel, but Rygel, in a serious tone, says that Crichton will not be taken alive. Now aware that Rygel has shifted into telling the truth, he asks if Rygel is willing to help him capture Crichton. Rygel takes a long moment……and then Chiana answers for him: "I will not!" Turns out D'Argo is trying to get Chiana to put some restraints on and lock herself in one of the prison cells; that way, when the Peacekeepers board, she can claim that she's not loyal to the escapees, and she only helped them on the Gammak base because they forced her to. It's a pretty lame idea, given that Chiana had numerous chances to safely betray her shipmates to the Peacekeepers if she'd been so inclined, but the point is to show D'Argo's strong concern for Chiana's welfare here. The scene gets thick with emotion as Chiana snarls, "Don't tell me how to lie. It's one of the best things I do!" I don't suppose it would be necessary for him to tell you how to have sex, either. D'Argo says she's a pain in the eema, but one he's grown to enjoy. I'm thinking Chiana can relate.
Crichton is watching Zhaan stir some lutra oil, which she says is stable until it's mixed with kronite shavings, at which point it becomes highly explosive.