Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Last Tanga In The Paris Commune
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 04.22.1999
Up on Moya, Aeryn is having a panic attack about beginning the tests. And by "panic attack," I don't mean to imply that she's shaking or hyperventilating; she's Aeryn Sun and she's having an Aeryn Sun panic attack, which looks like when a mule digs into the dirt and tells you to go suck a tannot. Pilot's like, "You were doing great!" and Aeryn tells him that the problem is that science is very boring. "Sometimes science is," he says wonderfully, "but Dominar Rygel's life depends on our finding the cause of this phenomenon, and rectifying it if we can." Aeryn bitches and says that Pilot doesn't get it because "all this analysis dren" comes so easily to him, and Pilot fills her in on how it's actually really hard for him to do complex science stuff. "When a pilot is bonded to a leviathan -- as I am bonded to Moya -- it is as a navigator, a monitor of all the living ship's functions. The analysis of scientific data is not something I know or easily understand." Aeryn cocks her head, really not getting it: "Yeah, but...you're good at it." Pilot tries to explain that hard work on things that are difficult is its own reward, and she tries to understand this concept. Immediately, she's like, "Does everybody know that you have to study things?" And he asks her to keep that a secret. So awesome. Body and mind. There's not a pool hall shark that got good by learning physics, and they're both pool hall sharks trying to explain physics to themselves.
Without going into it in an irritating depth, the mind is built around the things you're conscious of and the things you aren't. Together, that's everything that there is; Jung calls it the Self but it's basic to most psychological systems, and here it's called Moya. And there are doors between where you're used to standing (ego, John), between the conscious and the unconscious mind (the id, Rygel; the shadow, D'Argo now, Scorpius later), and there are doors between where you're standing and the whole Self (the anima, Aeryn; dreams and the religious experience, Zhaan; and what's called the Ego-Self Axis, which is Pilot). Note how Zhaan and Aeryn's interactions are characterized by (a) not a lot of talking, and (b) talking completely over John's head in a language he doesn't understand. Note how Zhaan's connection to Moya is always sensual, not verbal. Note how Zhaan's true connection to Aeryn, when that connection matters most, takes place in the realm of dreams and the underworld. Point being, Aeryn and Pilot will always have this siblinghood because they comprise the two most powerful connections John has to the Self, which is literally everything -- and that this first break into their (emphatically central) relationship is made up of their shared inability to process John's verbal, scientific, logical, phallic skills. That's a big piece of tannot to swallow and I don't really have an excuse this week except for this scene; to say, watch how it moves and changes, as we proceed. In two episodes, and again next season with Talyn, Aeryn will come up against precisely this brick wall, turning the intuitive skills she has into the analytic "tech" skills that offend her most. In this way she becomes more like John, rising up to consciousness, and in this way she becomes more. War edging toward science, body toward mind. And if you reverse the flow, you're talking about John and wormholes: turning his science into magic and warrior's intuition, becoming more like her; in this way he becomes more. So much beautifully more.