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
Cobb shows up and, for no reason except to further the plot/experiment/ritual, brings John to the medical unit. John sees something awful on the table, and comes closer. Lying on the table is Rygel's corpse, vivisected, his entire abdomen cut and stretched open. You know Inanna? Sumerian goddess, an Ishtar/Aphrodite type. Don't yell, I'm going somewhere with this. She went to see her sister Ereshkigal, or Death, and at each of seven gates she gave up her clothing, her jewels, everything that made her her, until she finally got to the bottom, naked, to be tested and reborn. In John's trip through the wormhole, this holy test of him, he's lost Zhaan and he's lost Chiana, and Moya and Pilot, due to the plot concerns. He enters without faith, without youth, without a home, without a compass. And now with Rygel dead, he's lost worldly concerns, body, all thoughts of pleasure. John has his anger, and he has love, and he has his father, and that's all he's got. It's a fairy tale. (I know I tend to get like this, but it's only with the stories that tell these truths: it's a fairy tale. Just be happy I never recapped Buffy. Or, speaking of stripped Inanna, Wonderfalls. My God.) John's face goes soft, and hard. You can see Rygel's organs, his body laid open to dissection, the gross matter of his body gone cold. He's a walking stomach, and that stomach is laid open. John's lips go all woggly and he sees Wilson, spying through the window.
John storms across the hangar, flinging papers and stuff left and right: "Wilson. We've spent our lives waiting for this moment! We sent Voyager, we left damn greeting cards on the moon, and as soon as they get here, look at what you're doing!" It's the human reaction. He stares. "They can help us. Just take a step back and you look at what you're doing. You think about it!" Wilson exits: "Don't worry. I've thought of everything, Commander." He's more right than John can comprehend. John mutters, hating the next thing: "You make me sick."