Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Till The Suck Runs Out
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 11 | Aired on 07.08.1999
John dashes out, claps on his goggles and sees the dog people leading D'Argo into the square, wearing a really complicated, stupid harness. John murmurs "bonehead" to himself a couple of times, then goes back to Dog John. "Good! You didn't screw up. Hand him over and head after the other two." Rolf laughs and says they should all interrogate him together, rather than leaving him in John's hands. "He can lead us to the Hynerian and the Delvian," growls Rorg. "Who do you think is in charge here?!" shouts Dog John, and D'Argo threatens to kill him, from behind Boba Face. "Crichton? Your name is Crichton?" demands Rolf. "Yeah, Butch Crichton." For once.
D'Argo is unconscious, strapped to a metal frame no less ridiculously complex than the harness in the last scene, getting ready to get tortured. John stares around all shifty, trying to think of something. Rolf points an ugly little knife at John, while Rorg sniffs D'Argo. "Doesn't matter what you do to a Luxan," says Dog John. "He won't talk." As usual, Rolf picks up on John's total fakeness, and he's like, "No, actually we're going to cut him up anyway." They totally grab a tentacle and giggle. "I bet these are sensitive." John says they're useless, too, and Rolf slices into one of them. Damn. D'Argo's eyes roll back, and John can't keep the urgency out of his voice: "You're making him bleed!" Also known as the point of cutting people. He explains, enraged, about how the dark blood means that he'll die of blood shock unless you do the thing. Rolf argues that Crais doesn't necessarily need them alive, and John kind of wavers that the beacon he saw did. Come on, Dog John. The Vorcarians get all up in John's grill and he tries to Dog John them, a little too late. The dogs decide he's maybe in a secret alliance with D, and there's a lot of cockfight madness, but the upshot is that they talk him into torturing D'Argo to prove...something. I hate this episode. I'll just admit that now. The dialogue is clunky, very little happens that we didn't already know about, and like one thing happens at the end which is only important in hindsight because we haven't really talked about wormholes in a long time, until this episode. The whole obvious obliquity of the fight with Matalla is scrawled all over this episode. In crayon. Even the Aeryn stuff is retread.
If it's a waste of time, the dogs say, then why not waste a little time? John grabs the wounded tentacle and squeezes it super hard, flipping in and out of Dog John voice. "You listen to me. You listen to me, you tattooed freak." D'Argo twists and tries to clench a fist; the dogs giggle. "I don't care if you talk to me or not. You can die right now or you can...hold on as long as you can...but either way, unless you do what I tell you to do, it's over. You understand me?" He gives the tentacle one last twist, and then comes around in front: "Damn you anyway!" He punches D'Argo hard in the face, knocking him out as the dogs chuckle. John goes to a corner and wipes his hand: the blood is clear. "Waste of time," he murmurs, grossed out but relieved that he's once again beat the toxicity out of my man Ka D'Argo.