Episode Report Card Jacob: A | 366 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT A Human Reaction
By Jacob | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 1999.08.20
The Moya transport pod flies down over Earth clouds. Those kids just cannot leave well enough alone. It's sweet, really. I hope they don't pay a horrible price. Cobb wigs and calls Wilson over to the screen, saying that something's just come through the wormhole. Wilson summons John and tells him that F-16s are scrambling for a visual: "Are they here for you? Are they here to save you?" John's at a loss. Wilson shoves him in front of the screen. I hate Wilson, but I really like the plausible deniability: he hasn't done a single thing wrong. Yet. The only reason we hate him is that he's being mean to John, and we like John. As the F-16s lock onto the Moya transport pod, Wilson screams at John again and again. The image finally becomes clear enough for John to see properly: "Wait, that's Moya's transport pod. Tell them not to fire." Wilson's still worried. "They're not here to harm us, Wilson," John insists. "Just tell them not to fire!" Wilson kind of shrugs, still yelling about how that's not his call, and John gets terribly desperate: "Wilson, they don't have any weapons on board the transport! Tell them not to fire!" They stare at each other for several seconds, and Wilson gives in.
The transport pod comes in for a landing...
...and we fade to D'Argo on a gurney. Medical crew and soldiers bring in Rygel and Aeryn and D'Argo -- which explains why we had that random Chiana/Zhaan screentime scene up front, but I'm not questioning it, because they're both anarchists, and the whole quarantine thing would have gone even worse than it will, if you can even imagine that -- each lying on a stretcher, in a long, slow, white procession.
Fade to John and his three friends, back in the containment cell. Given that this whole episode amounts to a Bene Gesserit test of Crichton's level of human enlightenment, it's interesting that these three now accompany him. You've got the cold anger of Aeryn and the hot rage of D'Argo, both warriors, and you've got the uncensored id of Rygel. Neither the higher self, Zhaan, nor trickster Chiana, half Rygel and half John himself, has any place in this ritual. This is about harsh realities, the human reaction -- no prayer, no wild cards. Aeryn's wearing her kick-ass black Peacekeeper suit, a nice nod to the way she's turned her separation anxiety into warlike worry for John's safety. They're all such fucking hypocrites, I love it: "I didn't miss you or anything, fag. I just thought they were going to kill you. Stop hugging me." "After you left," says Aeryn -- and can we talk about the voice, for a second? You could bottle her voice and you would make a billion bucks but you still wouldn't have approached everything that makes her wonderful -- "your Earth disappeared through the wormhole." Rygel betrays her: "It was her idea to see what was going on."