Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Last Tanga In The Paris Commune
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 04.22.1999
Aeryn's all, "'Complicated' as in 'I am too stupid'?" Interesting how this would never have occurred to her until today. "No! You know what? I did not say that." He then whines at length about how he's been out in the sun all day, picking up "magic turnips," and he has a worm crawling around in his guts and he's very put out, in general, so could she just shut up and help? (a) Do not tell Aeryn Sun to shut up or you will get what you're asking for, but also (b) could you not just lay out a précis on this for her? Is it really important to play the obscurity angle again? I don't know why he's being dense about this, and I've been thinking about it for a while. "Help? What do you think I've been doing up there in the ship -- playing games with Rygel?" John scoffs that it's just soooo terrible up on Moya, where there is no destroyed planet with no sundown and no winter and magic turnips and no worms in the guts, and she goes off very wonderfully on him, taking a break halfway through to "smile," as a hippie walks by. The cool thing about the "smile" is that it is a rictus so hideous and terrifying in the middle of her lovely face that is the funniest thing in the whole episode. "Difficult? I had to stop him from blowing himself up into bits. I had to figure out what was causing the problem and I had to fix it." John pointlessly compares her to Madame Curie, and at least this time he explains the reference: "A scientist." Oops.
Aeryn's like, I'm totally different from Madame Curie? "What I had to do up there was like a field strategy exercise, only the enemy wasn't trying to kill me, the enemy was a puzzle, and there were lots of different pieces and independently, separately, they didn't make any sense, and I had to think it through really hard, and I had to work it out and try different combinations of putting things together and then finally I worked out what had happened, and I worked out what I had to do." That is like, top-ten one of my favorite things in this entire show. I always forget it because this episode is wedged between something horrible last week, and then next week starts the slide into the truly moving and painful. John laughs exactly as loudly, and as lovingly, as you did. She is just the most wonderful thing. "This is great. You're trading in your pulse rifle for the junior chemistry kit." She looks at him archly but answers pragmatically: "Well, my pulse rifle wasn't any use to me this time." He says that might not be true too much longer, and they head out.