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
"Show me," says John. The first and last question. "What you really look like." Jack nods, and crosses to the side -- John walks away, around, keeping the chrysalises between him and the real deal. A bright light shines down from above as John blinks. The most important thing in the entire series happens right this second, but we don't know it yet, and we won't know it for a long time. A veil has been broken. Once you've taken the plunge, jumped into wormholes, you have knowledge of wormholes. Maybe not in a place you can put into words, maybe not in a way you can explain to Steve Carell, or even Steve Dedalus, but it's there. And you can't know what your father really looks like, underneath all the memories and lies and disappointments, until that day. Just because it happens every day, to every person, doesn't make the jump any less momentous, or any less terrifying. Other people's bodies are the scariest thing in the world until you've done it before. A sillier man than John might think of it as "conquering," as "exploring," but either way it's learning territory. It's moving out into the mystery, it's crossing the boundary from what's known to what isn't. Which is what astronauts do, as like, their whole job. This is a boy story; this is a boy's fairy tale, so it's about astronauts and wormholes and guns and the whole bag of boy bullshit. But it's still true, no matter your circumstance.
The light fades, and the Ancient is revealed. Doesn't really matter what it looks like, because this is a crappy, scrappy sci-fi show, but it's about the same height as a man, kind of like a bug, kind of like a rabbit. Kind of like a lowly crustacean. "Many of us hope that Earth might be our welcoming place. If all people were like you, maybe it could be. But they're not. In your memory, we saw millions of Wilsons, and Cobbs. It also lead us to a familiar conclusion. The highest life form on the planet is also the most destructive. And your humans would kill us." John looks up a moment into an Ancient's eyes, into the fading light there. "So what will you do now?" he asks. "What we've done since before I was hatched," says the Ancient. "We continue searching for a home." John turns to leave, still smarting: "So will I." The Ancient calls him back, offering the ring and chain, already a fetish to the father, now a symbol of so much more. Of the puzzle of everything. "Thanks," says John, and takes it. He opens the door, the ocean roars. "Maybe we'll meet again one day, John," says Ancient Jack, and we freeze, right back at The Truman Show, a boy who has become a man, caught on the edge of whatever the hell comes next, John limned by ocean, standing in the shadow of that last doorway into the real story, which is just now beginning. "Maybe." But you and I both know this shit was a cakewalk compared to what will happen then.
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