Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Live Through This With Me
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 04.15.1999
Just kidding, I adore this particular PK girl. Who doesn't? D'Argo and Aeryn, who open fire on her without even thinking. John jumps in front of her and yells at them, and they calm down...just in time for the woman to ask to get shot at some more: "Officer Sun. The escaped prisoners." Aeryn steps up in her face and stares her down. John's like, "How does she know this?" Why, because she's from Crais's ship. John takes a giant step back, like a Mother May I-size step, and then there are credits.
"You will remain in review stance until I dismiss, understood? Name. Division. Assignment." We haven't seen this Aeryn in a while. It's totally gross. There's a lid on it so you can't actually tell how much of this is fear and how much is just the kind of asshole Peacekeepers are. "Gilina Renais," says the girl, and Aeryn yells at her to speak up. "Tramco support, maintenance provost," Gilina says, and Aeryn Cool Hand Lukes all over her: "Chin up! Eyes locked!" It's hard. John tells her to give it a rest, "Miss Drill Sergeant," and check out how Gilina's about to pass out, and Aeryn attacks John. Keep the lid on, lady. John reminds Aeryn that he's not like Gilina, which is a somewhat weird thing to say unless he's trying to distract Aeryn, or actually thinks she's going to beat him up, and then Aeryn says something very telling: "Not remotely. She is a tech."
And John is a what? Out in the gray space, between the only white and black she ever knew. He's not a soldier, he's a scientist. But if it's John, that doesn't mean he's a tech, because then he would be beneath her, and he's not, exactly. So he's not "remotely" like Gilina. I wonder what he'd say about that.
"Not a soldier, right? No weapons, so why don't you lighten up?" Aeryn explains, again, how PKs work: it's Gilina's duty to notify Crais about the prisoners, and cheerfully lie to them about it. She gets right up in his face and it is not sexy even a little bit: "This is my world, John. Don't interfere." She's harder than she's ever been. Not more but less. It's terrifying.
Rygel fights Pilot on how there's somebody alive: "She can't be from the original..." Oh, man. Pilot prisses at him that (a) he doesn't know about any of that and (b) Rygel can bloody well go investigate the situation himself if he's going to get uppity. I don't know if he knows about Rygel's freakout, but I think he does, and that makes it even meaner and funnier. Rygel grumbles about the fuck he will, and Zhaan approaches him, and touches his shoulder, and asks how long they've known each other. "Long enough for me to see your blue backside meditating. But not long enough for you to touch me." His dignity comes and goes at the oddest times. I could kiss him right now. "Confront your demons, Rygel. Or they will chase you from the shadows to the pyre." One more week, Blue. Get it all out now, while I still love you.