Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 155 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT A Kiss Before Dying
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 20 | Aired on 2000.01.14
...and we cut to her reaching down to open it. Her hand shakes, and she grabs it with the other and tells it to stop. Seriously, hand. That's a good way to lose...yourself. She opens it and rushes down many, many levels to the bottom. Warily, she exits the stairs and moves down an unpopulated corridor.
Cell. Crichton is happily, if on the verge of crazily, telling Stark, who's sitting right next to him, about Gilina's exploits. Stark tells him to rest. Crichton shakily says he's got to get the door open, but when he tries to move, he collapses into Stark's lap. Stark touches him tenderly, and then removes his mask to reveal a bright light shining out of the entire area that the mask covered. Crichton looks at it in wonder, and asks what Stark just showed him. Stark: "I'm able to give a few thoughts, that's all." Not to ruin the moment, but if you're a need-based donor, you've come to the right place. A tear streams down Crichton's cheek in some nice symmetry, and Stark strokes Crichton's hair in a way that just will break your heart. Crichton, calmer now, asks Stark how long he's been there, and the answer is two cycles. He goes on that the Peacekeepers killed most of his people, but they kept him alive because he interests them. "I'm able to hide thoughts that their chair can't touch. It's almost ironic -- what made me a slave now keeps me alive." Crichton asks for clarification, and Stark points to his mask as the thing that caused his slavery. "I'm of the Banik slave race. Outsiders think that we do not feel, but it's only that our feelings don't always show." So the WASPs have their own planet in this galaxy. He goes on that just as the mask can hide their feelings, they're able to cloud thoughts from their minds. "What I know deep inside, Peacekeepers will never see."
Nice cut to everything deep inside Crais being forcibly and painfully extracted. Scorpius focuses in on Crais's father, and asks who he is. Crais tells him the truth, and begs him to turn the machine off. That's not happening, as Niem reports that he's hiding something. Scorpius smiles at Crais's pain.
Aeryn makes her way into a populated hallway. A Peace-trooper salutes her deferentially, which pleases her. Not in the "Ooh, I remember that fondly" way that would squick you out, though.
Gilina packs up her case and heads out of the room she first led Crichton and Chiana to. As she walks out, though, a hand reaches out and presses her against the wall. The voice attached to the hand asks if there's surveillance in the cell, and when Gilina answers negatively, Aeryn reveals herself. She enters and takes a seat, undoubtedly exhausted from all the effort, and thanks Gilina for saving her life. Gilina, perhaps feeling strange about getting gratitude from her suspected romantic rival, asks Aeryn what she's doing there, as her recovery should have taken at least ten days. Aeryn duhs that she didn't have that time to spare, and quickly ascertains where Crichton is. She gets up to go, but Gilina sits her back down and tells her there's no way to get to him without a direct order from Scorpius. Gilina goes on to inform Aeryn about Crichton's memory games, and tells her that when Scorpius learns for sure that Crichton has no knowledge of wormholes, he'll kill him. I can only wonder how many times in the future Crichton will wish it had turned out that simply.