Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mothers & Fathers and Brothers & Suns
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 10 | Aired on 06.24.1999
Rygel snorts at the understatement: "A few resources? She nearly suffocated us and starved you." But, I mean, it's not like she cut off his arm. Okay, I'm done. Pilot too: "That is all behind us. The fetus is alive and well." Zhaan wonders what the hell else they get to look forward to, as the baby grows. John trips out on his own train of thought that leads from What To Expect When You're Expecting A Baby Leviathan, to Dr. Spock to, inevitably, Mr. Spock. Pilot (and this is fishy, I don't know why you'd ask the question if you're going to answer it this way) says that Pilots aren't "privy to any special knowledge regarding the gestation cycle of Leviathans." Whatever. John points out the most salient factoid of all, although we won't know how hardcore for a good long time: "Whatever it is, we have to remember the Peacekeepers put up a shield to keep it from happening." But is this because it's just so awful it would scare even the PKs, or because it's wonderful, and they hate wonderful things? The answer is: Yes.
Aeryn approaches D'Argo in his chambers and asks how he is doing. He is hollow. "I never had the chance to thank you," he says, as she enters -- I'm guessing for the first time -- looking at his back. Stiff and so still. "Thank me?" she smiles. He reminds her how she came to get him in her Prowler. Without thinking. She didn't even remember doing it. Think about that. They're both speaking so quietly. "You're welcome. Your wife's brother, the one who...The Peacekeeper. Macton?" Macton Tal. "I don't know him," she says, relieved. She takes a long breath, and asks to see Lo'Laan again. He turns on the chip. "She's quite beautiful." He asks her, upfront, if it's a surprise that "such a Sebacean" would love him, and she tries to level. The evenhandedness and respect between them now, even if they still haven't looked at each other directly. Blood debts and all. "D'Argo, it's ingrained in Peacekeepers from birth that we must keep the bloodlines pure. Such unions are evil." Does that mean Jothee is evil, then? (Not like you think, anyway. More like "sucky.")
She crouches to look him in the face. "...No. Because in his eyes I see you." (Talyn is half Peacekeeper, half Leviathan. Jothee's half Sebacean, half Luxan. So what's Aeryn? They're not her sons, they're her brothers.) He's still not looking, because there are tears in his eyes that can't fall. Ever. But what he misses out on seeing is the love and respect, and care and worry, in hers. It's not something we've really seen from her. "D'Argo. No matter what happens to us, I will never tell anyone about your son." And she stands, and leaves. And he breathes through it, shaking, still not crying, breathing in the grace of that. This shilquin song she's played for him, after seeing him vulnerable and happy and in love. Ugly truth, but real, and full of care: she's taken on his son as her responsibility too, given him the Peacekeeper sanction that was always denied his family. All it takes, even after everything's lost, is one Sebacean in the Territories, to say she loved and will protect Jothee, no matter what. Because he's D'Argo's son, and family. And he still won't cry, but the blood runs clear.