Episode Report Card Keckler: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Blazing Furrows
By Keckler | Season 3 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.11.2003
Gaol. Some dude -- and he really is a "dude" -- has his feet propped up on a table and his hat tipped over his eyes. Something outside makes him get up, go to the door, and yell, "Git along 'dere now!" Do you think he was talking to a li'l dowggie? The camera pans to show Homespun dabbing at Quantum's eye as they sit behind wooden bars. Quantum's worried about what will happen to Homespun now. She tells him it's not the first time she and Sheriff John Brown haven't seen eye to eye. Quantum wants her to finish the story of Once Upon a Skagaran that the school kids started. He asks about the wreck of the ship, and Homespun tells him that the Skags were forming colonies and needed workers to build them. "You mean slaves," Quantum says. Just so we're clear. Crystal. Homespun admits that it really was a terrible crime, and that Cooper Smith is known as the human's folk hero, but the Skagarans call him something in alien tongue which roughly translates to "Big Old Meanie." Or "Butcher," but it really depends on the dialect. Cooper Smith led a revolt where he burned the space vessel and murdered entire Skag families. "Have they told you that version?" Homespun asks. Quantum shakes his head. He hasn't heard any version. Homespun lists all the other "human" rights the Skags weren't allowed: getting married, owning property, and going to school. Quantum supposes it was so the Skags could never enslave the humans again. Homespun agrees and says that twunts (tm Sars) like Deputy Ass Hat are more than happy to carry on the tradition. The gaoler, accompanied by Deputy Ass Hat, opens the cell door and says that the sheriff wants to talk to him. Quantum leaves.
Sheriff John Brown is getting a close shave with a straight razor from Jesse Ventura. So that's what he's up to these days. You know, I wondered. But can I ask why all these Westerns inevitably have some sort of barbershop scene? I find it quite odd. Quantum walks in, and Sheriff John Brown offers him a shave. Quantum declines. But if he's passing out manis and pedis, I'm sure Quantum wants in on that. Screw Quantum, I want in on that! Although maybe not the manis, because they sorta hurt. "You sure? Dere's nothing like a barber shave to make a man feel civilized," Sheriff John Brown says. Quantum assures him that he's quite secure in his civility, so the sheriff dismisses Jesse and pulls a bottle out of a cabinet. He offers Quantum a slug of illegal Skagaran whisky that he allows the ex-governor of Minnesota to keep around for tooth pullin's. Sheriff John Brown wants to know why Quantum hasn't headed south to raise the bluehorns he mentioned earlier, and why he was caught in Skag town teachin' chilluns stuff they ain't supposed to know. Quantum comments that if he wanted to lynch a Skag, it wouldn't be the kind of thing that lands him in jail. Sheriff John Brown says they have laws to protect men like the two of them. "Protect us from what? Children?" Quantum asks. "You rilly want those chilrin to larn how to read, how to do their numbers [I think you need to learn how to do your numbers, bud], and maybe they can larn how they used to be in charge 'round here. How they had guns that could kill a man with a beam of light [Oh, does Quantum have bad news bears for you, my friend!] and that human beans were nuthin' but their layber force. Their property. Is that whut you want dose childrin to larn, Mr. Archer?" Quantum's all, "Let two hundred years' bygones be bygones." But Sheriff John Brown -- and Jesse, who has amusingly, and supposedly threateningly, appeared behind him -- tells Quantum he's there to make sure humans are never enslaved again. "I'm not sayin' it's fayre, it's jest the way it's always bean," Sheriff John Brown says. Well, not always, just for the last two hunnerd years, right? The sheriff tells Quantum to be outta town in an hour. Quantum asks about Homespun, and the sheriff tells him that she's been warned before and will now get a minimum sentence of ten years. Quantum leaves.