Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Everybody Must Get Stoned
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 03.30.2000
On Moya, Rygel huddles in a corner and tries to reassure himself that Zhaan and D'Argo are just trying to scare him into getting a piece of his haul. "Well, they can forget about that -- it's not going to work!" There's a metallic plong somewhere in his room. Rygel attempts a nervous laugh and then yells that he's Rygel the Sixteenth: "You can't scare me!" The box of very pointed jeweled objects in front of him jitters, and the very pointed jeweled objects -- they look like hatpins -- fall out. "All right, I'll take it back -- all of it, I promise! Just make it stop!" The hatpins fling themselves at Rygel, stabbing themselves into the wall behind Rygel's head. "Pilot? Is the transport fueled?" he gasps hoarsely.
Back on the planet of the dead, Crichton waylays Molnon to ask how the vote went down. Molnon triumphantly tells him the clans all voted to stay in the caves and keep jumping. Crichton is astounded that they didn't believe the radiation is killing them. "No, they don't believe they know what's killing them. I'm Rechanting the Gathering. They want the Stone -- I've already told Chiana," Molnon says. "I've given her a head start -- it's gonna be drad," he muses, and slips off. Crichton calls him to stop and says, "Please, just wait --" He punches him. Hard. Very hard. So hard the Stoner drops like a stone. (See what I did there?) Crichton shakes off his fist in pain and winces, "Why does it always end in tears?"
Finding Chiana poised once again on the edge of the cliffs, which are empty this time, Crichton tells her the clans voted to keep jumping. "They want to die. I just can't believe you want to die," he adds. Chiana muses that she never had any courage. "As a kid, Nerri gave me everything. I just followed him." Crichton insists that Chiana has shown him courage many times. Chiana half-sobs that she has to see if she can do the jump. "And if you die?" he asks. Instead of answering, Chiana turns her back to the pit and carefully holds out her arms. Crichton stares at her. The music gets all kicky and techno as Chiana hums out a single note. She leans back and falls. Crichton surges to the edge of the cliffs. Chiana falls and falls. Finally, the harness catches, and she bounces on the sonic net. Do you remember those annoying commercials for Sonic Net Dot Com? One of them had the alive half of Milli-Vanilli saying "Sonic Net dot com" over and over and over. No one ever talks about it, but that's why the dot-coms went boom -- it's all Fab's fault. Lightning flashes and, affecting what can only be described as a Sandy Duncan as Peter Pan pose, Chiana bends one knee in, thigh out, and comes to gently rest on her tip toes. "CHIANAAAAAAAAA!" Crichton yells down the pit, "YOU DID IT! WOO HOO!" Oh. Oh, Crichton, please don't do that EVER again. Chiana looks up at him: "I did it?" Well, you aren't dead, are you? Crichton keeps with the woo-hoo-ing and finally drops his head on the cliff edge, all tuckered out. Chiana cheers for herself and jerks into a particularly elaborate Peter Cotton-Tail. JUST STOP THAT! You know, if it weren't for that, I think I could have handled this episode much better. But the pose, the FUCKING POSE, is so twee, so Cirque du Soleil, so something you see onstage at a Gilbert and Sullivan production where you have to avert your eyes because you're sort of embarrassed for the performers and how ridiculous they look.