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
Outside the cell, everyone hears Rygel in his native tongue. He continues, and because we're outside now, there are subtitles. "But don't think for a minute we were going after you." Aeryn speaks, and it sounds like backwards dwarf talk, but I'm told that it's actually Claudia Black just doing her own little alien voice. She's so cool: "I just wanted to get a closer look, but the wormhole caught us and pulled us in. There was nothing I could do." Yeah, right. When in doubt, leave it up to fate. She's not earning it -- she didn't jump in the same way John did -- but she did jump in, and that's strong. John notices that Rygel is looking like hell, and it's a credit to the Jim Henson Creature Shop that you can even tell. "I'm frelling sick!" shouts Rygel, and again, Wilson's worried. John speaks without turning to the window: "They're scared, Wilson. That's what they're saying." Rygel gets all up on his uppity self: "I'm not scared! I'm sick! What the yotz did you give me?" D'Argo hisses and jumps at the glass. Jack calls into the room, asking if John's okay, and John rolls his eyes, because even with all the screaming and throwing of bodies at the windows, this is still calmer than most leisure times aboard Moya. D'Argo growls, and John explains to Rygel that it's the tranks: "It'll run off soon; you're gonna be okay." And Rygel, hating pain and loving pleasure as he does, whines, "Why are they treating me like this?" It's nominally pathetic, I guess.
I'll tell you right now, I have zero sympathy for Rygel. Not an episode goes by where I don't cross my fingers that he'll get airlocked. But that's the point of a lot of this show's ongoing themes: suck it up, because no matter how loathsome the little shit acts, he still depends on you, and in the end, while Zhaan's all very nice and good, you get closer to God by loving Rygel. Her spiritual ivory tower bullshit didn't do an ounce of good for her, when she got knocked down -- and her entire self-hating, scary story arc is precisely about her inability to recognize or acknowledge, let alone love, her inner Rygel, the beast that eats and fucks and shits and will hurt a friend in the blink of an eye for personal gratification. And maybe that's why Zhaan loves John, savage that he is, as much as she does, as much as we do: because on some level, he gets that. He's better in a personal crisis than she is, for sure -- she just doesn't have them as much. "They're freaking out," John comforts Rygel. "You're an alien, and they're freaking out." He's so sad and so tired and...the thing about John is that it was one thing to be stuck in here, it nearly drove him crazy after so much time lost in the black, but what really kills him is seeing his friends in the same situation. He is good. "I vowed I would never be taken prisoner again," says D'Argo, saying the same thing in warrior terms, and John tries to explain the difference: "You're not a prisoner. Trust me. I'm gonna take care of you guys." Rygel whines again, to the only person who ever shows him kindness -- even Zhaan barely does, and it's generally pretty condescending on those rare occasions -- "Crichton, I feel frelling terrible." (About the "yotz" and the "frelling" and so forth: it's the translator microbes; they may be small but they're as scared as anyone of the FCC. You get over it.) John goes to the door to ask for help for Rygel, looking at D'Argo, who breathes slowly, and there's an unavoidable stacking of the emotional deck here, because like it or not, these are John's people doing this, and there's no clearer sign of that awkwardness than the fact that John can come and go. Even if you know better, there's an inescapable feeling that John is somehow allied with them.
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