Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bass
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 17 | Aired on 02.13.2003
As John begs Olivia to change the subject -- and we wonder when this happened, if it was before or after Christmas Eve, and how retarded that means John actually is -- we cut to John on Moya. Watching quietly. All that drama, so recently solved, so lovingly. All that Christmas pain wiped away; Christmas in fact postponed and played again, the last day he saw her alive. The last time they were together, they were writing a better Christmas over the one they so effectively destroyed in that house, and this scene he's watching contains within it the seeds of his perfect happiness and he didn't even know it. How rogue would you go, if that were taken from you? Chiana joins him, where he leans on his chamber door, and silently puts her hand in his. He squeezes it gratefully, and weakly, and holds onto it for everything he's worth. Chiana's hand, saying he is not alone.
Sociology Hamilton, back on his personal shit: "I, for one, like the idea that we're not alone. So why not go all the way? Become part of the cultural fabric of the new world in which we'll live? If they're in love, they're in love." He spreads his arms out and shrugs; John caresses Chiana's hand as they watch the screen together.
There are ways in which Karen Shaw has accomplished what Namtar did for Pilot and Aeryn, I think. Or maybe it was always there and I'm just obsessed with Karen Shaw: if the latter, I think, it's just heartbreaking now because Chiana's spent the entire season refusing to be touched by anybody, including John. Shrinking back, never front and center in her fear, but it accumulates and you see a space around her, negative space around her like a force field. And to see her so sweetly touching him again, touching Rygel, grinning and laughing and teasing D'Argo; to see her with the old fight back, telling Sikozu to fuck off. Even though Sikozu's doing the best she can, well: you have to cheer a little, right? Thank God for Chiana. "You know this word Katratzi," he says, and she shakes her head. "Wasn't a question. You heard it with me." Only from Sikozu; he says again, emphatically, that it was with him. She won't lie to him. Not ever. "No."
Christmas; Olivia's telling Aeryn she didn't need to buy her a present. "Under the tree?" Aeryn asks, smelling her way in to family tradition, and Olivia smiles at her: "Yeah, absolutely." As Aeryn crosses in front of the camera she tells Bobby hello, dropping some gifts; he asks if there's one for him and Olivia chides him. "No, actually...um, yours is so big that it wouldn't fit under the tree," Aeryn says sweetly. She was already in, and still thought she had to push. It makes both episodes sadder, to see how welcomed she really was, and never entirely bought it: "Cool," grins Bobby behind the camera. "'Cause I got you one, too."
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