Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Human Reaction
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 08.19.1999
"Of course we didn't kill him," says Jack, like this wasn't cruel enough either way. "We created his corpse." John's hair is now totally fucked up, as Strega would want me to point out; he looks like a little kid. "Why? Why would you make me think that he was dead?" Jack stands: "We needed a human reaction, John. Your reaction." John grabs him by the shirt and throws him up against a pillar. "You made me think you were my father!" he screams. There it is. The last lie. A chunk of Jack comes off in John's hands, revealing some kind of gross alien shit. John drops the chunk, totally in shock, looking at his hands. This is where he loses Jack. We won't really see him again, unless we see him for real. "I'm sorry. For the trial to have value, you had to believe everything. Let me show you." Jack steps away, and John gives in to the craziness of all this. "Are we anywhere near Earth?" he asks. "Actually, we're not far from Moya. We brought you here to recreate your memory." John's all caught up. "Well, if you can make all this, why not just make a wormhole to take you to Earth?" Jack shakes his head: "That would use all our remaining power. We only have enough left to transport our race one last time. We had to be certain of how we would be received." Any other show, this wouldn't matter: aliens kidnap main character, fuck with him, lie to him, realize that Earth isn't ready for their jelly, let him go. But because this show is awesome, it's actually the beginning of the entire quest. Jack walks through yet another in a series of meaningful doorways, and John follows after. Have you ever seen The Truman Show? The ending always makes me cry. Something about that door, out into the world, and the man at the edge of the sky, stepping out, into the next level of the game, the one that matters. It's too big.
Jack and John enter a large room, the lights dimming and brightening. Several odd sacs hang from the ceiling. As John looks up, one of them opens its eyes. We cut and fade from lots of angles, this side and that side, one alien and then another, John upside down. Their lovely eyes. "Though space is without boundaries," Jack intones, "there are but a few planets where we can live." John assumes, given what he's seen in the last fifteen episodes, that they're looking to take over. "Not take over," says Jack. "Cohabitate. To replenish our hive. The Ancients have stories of a world that will welcome us. We can only hope they're true. You can move closer." John's fucking cool where he is, thanks. "We had to find out whether humans would welcome us, or fight us." Images of John's life float across the screen, the walls, his face. It's very wack. It's worth noting that Browder came to utter hotness fairly recently. "You stole my memories," he complains. "I'm sorry to have taken this form," says Jack. "But I thought the best spy would be a father, as seen through his son's eyes." And he's right, especially with this particular son. Throughout the rest of the series, John will always love this Ancient; not as a father, but as a thing that knows him, knows his heart. The only thing he really wants. "You stole my memories," he says again, and Jack protests that they had no choice.
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