Episode Report Card Jacob: A+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Agnus Dei
By Jacob | Season 2 | Episode 22 | Aired on 2001.01.26
"Very...bad. Speech close to...neural implant." John begins to worry, finally. Finally a spark. It's like Aeryn going blind, this. John's verbal, there's never been a moment or a pain that he didn't turn into words, or a joke, or a story. If Pilot's arms are the way he talks to Moya, and Aeryn's eyes are the way she deals with the world, then John's only connection to this alien environment is speech. Without God's translator microbes and that smooth-talkin' Crichton charm, he's nothing. After memories there's very little they can take from you without killing you. "You're gonna take my memories, and I'm gonna talk gibberish? Why not just take my mojo while you're at it?" Why not chop a wormhole in half again? Tocot assures him that everything will get put back where it goes once the chip is gone. "What the hell ...there's no one I really want to talk to." If John's connection to the world is his constant talking, then there's no point now. There's no world now. "Not much worth remembering." Hugin and Munin. Thought and Memory. Telling and Remembering. The future and the past, everything: gone. Without love, without connection, those things are just ones and zeroes, garbage, gibberish. It's other people that make language worthwhile; you need someone to tell those stories and memories to, for them to have any weight at all. And that's what Harvey takes. Tocot pulls out a monster huge drill. "Take the damn thing out." And the drill begins to spin.
Commercial. Tocot drops a knot of black tendrils, some red lights, a little bit of brain, into a little jar. John watches, not talking, unmoving. Tocot shows him the jar, and John erupts into triumph and joy, for this final small victory. But it's wordless, and meaningless. His cheers of joy are gibberish; the victory means nothing anyway. Tocot promises to restore John's brain and John stops raving long enough to laugh. Life without Aeryn Sun.
Braca casually searches the body vault, not recognizing Aeryn in her casket. He notices a food wrapper at the floor before one of the cryopods, and spots Grunchlk standing in one, his hand over his face. Grunchlk stares out at Braca through his fingers.
There's a golf ball-sized piece of John's brain missing, where the chip used to be. Tocot makes ready to replace it.
Black leather grasshopper wings, black leather boots, coming down the corridor, as Scorpius hums "The Star-Spangled Banner," coming closer and closer.