I don't know how this happened but Moya's got visitors, whom John and Aeryn -- mistakes two and three -- are on their way to welcome in the docking bay. Aeryn's complaining about how little they know about the Tavleks, their guests, but John mentions that they're going to pay for a cargo haul, and calls them "Tavloids," and Aeryn corrects him. "Tav-leks." It's one of those jokes that goes back around to being funny again, not just because it also doubles as "You are a fucking retard" every time she says it. Of course Aeryn's still in Running Man mode, so cross that with her suspicion of strangers and other races, and no wonder she's twitching so bad. He tells her the deal won't go through if she greets them doing her John Wayne impression, and there's a humorous interchange of the sort I don't care for, where Aeryn thinks John Wayne's a relative, and instead of explaining himself, John makes a list of movies that John Wayne was in, like that's going to help, and it's all very Attack of the Tarantino Virus (which: check out the airdate), and finally Aeryn just nods like she gets it, and interrupts. "Look, no. The point is, I'm not going to meet that shuttle unarmed. Simple as that." John screams about how "Kung Fu never carried a gun," and I get that it's funny, but it's not funny to me, because she doesn't know who Kung Fu is either, and I think Browder really enjoys this stuff so I can't be too mad about it, but: it's hard enough to communicate with Aeryn anyway, due to her total craziness, so why you gotta aim the pop-cultural salad shooter at her all the time when you know it's the one thing she's not going to understand? She's like Fuckin' Old Man Stephen King with that shit. Stick with what she knows, leave out the relevant-yet-not entertaining analogies, because you just lost the entire conversation for no reason. And the last thing you need to do is hand her yet another conversation, because she's got PK-inflated sense of self as it is.
D'Argo and Zhaan set the stage for Rygel's His Eminence act -- speaking of self-inflation rate approaching infinity -- as Rygel practices his speech. "We, Rygel the Sixteenth, Dominar of the Hynerian Empire, and beloved sovereign of over six hundred billion subjects! Welcome to our yacht!" (Heh: "What the yachts?" Hello? Is this thing on?") D'Argo worries about the whole pretense at having the Dominar on board, and Zhaan tells Rygel to cram it as he keeps begging that they build his parapet higher. "I need them to look up to me!" And D'Argo snorts. "Why? We don't." Word. I don't even look at the little bitch head-on. Rygel brings up other negotiations he's carried out, and D'Argo says on the last one, all he got was "stale food cubes," which Rygel in turn notes that D'Argo chowed down on. Aeryn and John come in, fighting about how John could even dare to tell her what to do. "Who are you to offer suggestions?" she says, and he starts to bitch at her, but Zhaan cuts in so everybody can remember that she's better than anybody ever: "Am I the only species in creation that doesn't thrive on conflict?" Shut up, dude. The fifteen different kinds of irony gleaming off every angle of that statement are blinding and my eyeballs just got fried by your hypocrisy, you asshole. You're the only member of your species fucked up enough to do the opposite, you mutant! Way to go! I hope you don't pay a horrible price! (I love you!) D'Argo tells everybody to shut up, and Rygel agrees and then continues to give some speech about something. D'Argo clarifies that "shut up" includes Sparky, and points out that the Tavlek cargo could be anything: contraband, vermin-infested, even toxic. Rygel gives that the thumbs-up, because they could charge more, and his scepter gets tumescent. John pushes it down again. Zhaan says all migraine-y that they've "had this discussion" already, and they out-voted him, note. He doesn't get a say -- the Luxan got outvoted by a Sebacean, and the rest of them -- but he keeps talking about it anyway. The neurosis of the oppressed.
Rygel: "Oh, argue later. They've docked. Positions, please! Come on, now! If you must address me, do so as Your Supreme Eminence" -- D'Argo stares at his weird wee ass -- "which you should be doing anyway." John smiles and they wait patiently for the cargo doors to open. Rygel is standing center, regal, with D'Argo and Aeryn on his right, and John and Zhaan on his left. Soldiers v. Scientists; Body v. Mind. The MacGuffin is purely the science of violence. The A Story -- Bekhesh -- is all about D'Argo and Aeryn, and their approaches to violence, but it's interesting to note they've already self-selected out this way: the two that don't want to deal with the Tavloids, and the two that don't mind. The B Stories -- Kyr and nameless ladies -- are about how John and Zhaan throw themselves physically between these people and their violence, because they don't know what else to do, because they both have a vested interest in avoiding violence: one because he's not strong enough for it, the other because she's...well. Not strong enough for it, actually. Interesting. This is, possibly, Zhaan's best episode in the first season (and, leaving out the Season Two trilogies, her best in the series -- not to mention no Stark cocking it up with his hot crazy ass).
It's lovely, because the Tavloids line up just as perfectly, in terms of the story. Bekhesh is on our right -- facing off against D'Argo and Aeryn -- while Kyr is on the left, with John and Zhaan. It's a chess game (wait for S3), with the pawns in the middle (Rygel and the nameless third Tavloid that grabs him). Everybody's facing their partners in the dance -- even though John ultimately takes out Bekhesh, it's because he's the opposite of Bekhesh, and because he rightfully belongs on the left, with Zhaan. (Not to mention that Kyr's relationship with Zhaan is an echo of his own -- and Zhaan's with John, to be frank, later on.) Bekhesh's head is a metal mask from the nose up, with little BB gunshots for seeing out of. He's the leader of their group of warriors, and totally intense. Kyr -- who is young and pretty fabulous, and who will be dealing with Zhaan this episode -- is wearing a ridiculous helmet. They're wearing their aggression on their sleeves, metaphorically and literally, all jumpy roid rage and shiny gauntlet weapons clearly armed and ready. Their bodies are maps of scars and scabs and war pride; adding them to the series in this episode is like adding real violence to the mixture. So far, it's only the PKs that engender violence, and they're the antagonists, so it makes sense, but now that a "lower" race is involved, a race that seems to be actually made, forged, of violence and rage...things get scarier than they have been, now that we have to look them in the eye. (And, of course, once we taste their anger for ourselves.) Dropped into the beaker, so to speak: Oh, this show is like that. Huh. "No movement!" they shout, and "Remain where you are!" The music does this cool thing like at the beginning of "Downloaded," where there's a beat of silence for yelling, before it comes back in -- really amps up the tension. The Tavloids charge their weapons, and Bekhesh dares Aeryn to move. Zhaan steps forward to apologize, sure that they've "misunderstood" something along the way...which is dumb, but I like it. Especially after watching her fall under the suspiciousness spell last week with the Drak, it's cool to see her back to assuming the best of people at all times. It's pretty transcendent, as well, especially since we get to watch her work it out for herself, and see where she stands. Which again: best place possible, and one she frankly should have kept her beautiful eye on.
The Tavloids fire on Zhaan and John cries out, jumping to push her out of the way. Meanwhile, one of them snags Rygel and puts him in a bag. Cool. Shortest episode ever, with the happiest ending. Later, dudes! But no, because Rygel's gotta bitch, and Aeryn's gotta shoot at Bekhesh, so we can see how they catch the little yellow bolts of war with their gauntlet weapons, which is admittedly kind of cool to see. D'Argo rushes the one that's got Rygel, who floats away, still wearing his kidnapping bag, "demanding" that somebody help him. Everybody's occupied with getting shot at, and Aeryn and D'Argo are of course totally on point, taking care of stuff, and Rygel's in the middle, floating around and getting knocked this way and that in his little Jazzy ("Someone put a stop to this!") before finally just knocking himself out by running directly into a wall. Kyr knocks D'Argo down and draws on him, all about to kill D, and John calls him "Butkis" and clonks him on the head. When he drops, the gauntlet releases and comes off. The Tavloids grab the bag of Rygel as everybody continues to shoot at everybody else. John calls to Pilot to shut the door, and Rygel -- this is interesting -- calls out to Aeryn for help. I like that. Meanwhile, D'Argo puts on Kyr's gauntlet, like an idiot, but can't get it to work in time to bring down Bekhesh and the other one, who exeunt with a quickness. This is the sound of D'Argo using technology: "Arrg! Arrg! [shake shake] How does it work?! Arrg! Arrrrrg! Junk! [smack] Juuunk!" As D'Argo heaves and acts all crazy and adrenal -- like, more than usual -- John tells Zhaan their "Supreme Eminence" has been "bagged." I don't understand the problem. Credits.
As John and Pilot argue John's obnoxious self-referring space terminology ("'Tractor beam'? What's that? ...You mean the docking web?"), Zhaan takes off Kyr's helmet. John tells Pilot to chase the Tavloids, and D'Argo tells Pilot to ignore John and get the hell out of there. "Rygel brought this on himself. I say we leave him there," growls D'Argo, and Zhaan tells him to let John finish, but he goes nuts some more, smacking a giant cargo bin so it goes flying, and informs everyone that they need to shut up and that they are leaving now. He and John both are somewhat surprised at D'Argo's new Hulk Smash powers, but not so intrigued that D'Argo can stop to think or do anything except yell and run around -- and you'd think that this episode was about learning about D'Argo and violence, but it's smarter than that. Aeryn stops him: "That is a very versatile and powerful weapon. We can work out how to use it." Aeryn and Zhaan check it out, and notice that it is -- disgustingly -- pumping shit into his arm, this golden liquid that I believe shrinks your nads. D'Argo's like, "What? It stuck some needles in my arm, so?" And John is like, "You must take that off immediately! Too scary!" D'Argo hisses and shakes off Zhaan's touch: "Let go of me! This ship needs a leader and none of you have what it takes! From now on I am in charge!" Whatever. He stomps off, and John, Aeryn, and Zhaan nod at each other, and attack. Love that! D'Argo knocks all three of their asses across the room in like one split second. Love that more! "Never! Lay your hands on me! Again!" John and Aeryn stare at each other, and Zhaan sends them after D'Argo, and cradles the young Tavloid on the floor.
John follows D'Argo down the corridor, begging to him to slow down, listen, whatever, and D'Argo finally just shoots at him. He only misses because of John and Aeryn's ability to shove each other into small areas with their entire bodies. Which happens in every episode, but I can't think of an episode where it happens more than this one. It's literally like every scene, and sometimes they don't even bother to explain why. Somebody's gotta have somebody else up against a wall at all times in this episode, as long as their names are John or Aeryn. Every time you get the Body Shove, drink. And drunkenly make out with your hand, all, "Oooh, I love you so much...but I cannot!" She stands against John, like she's protecting him, and they stare at D'Argo, where John notes that D's not "good at listening." Aeryn, of course, is like, "Listen to this, bitch," and fires at him -- he catches the bolt -- and John's like, "Would you listen?" D'Argo fires back; John gives Aeryn the Body Shove right back in a way that makes no sense in terms of physics, but is awesome nonetheless. Drink. I was going to say they should just have a show where they do this back and forth for forty-five minutes against a variety of surfaces and in different directions, because it's exciting every time, like maybe in different outfits or something, but then I realized they already have that show and that it is called Farscape. And you LOVE it!
Zhaan gives Kyr smelling salts, and he sits up all in a mess, blinking and shaking. "Take it easy, child," she whispers, and he takes offense, because he doesn't know that's just her way of saying, "Hello, I'm better than you but hello nonetheless." She promises the still-disoriented Kyr that he won't be injured, and Aeryn enters, begging to differ. She grabs him and body-shoves him into the wall, but not in the sexy way. "That weapon of yours, how do we get it off?" Kyr laughs that one of them was dumb enough to put it on, and without his helmet he does look very young, and covered in scars and lumps and grossness. "You're too weak to handle it," he says, explaining that it's pumping "stimulant" into D'Argo. John says that their friend just tried to kill them, and Kyr is wicked pleased by that. Aeryn asks how they get it off, again, and Kyr says they can't, but John's like, "Duh, it came off when I knocked you out." Aeryn says the hated "makes sense" sci-fi bullshit phrase about that: "If you're left unconscious in battle, you don't want the enemy cutting your arm off to get your weapon." Gross. Outside the story because you know I hate that shit, but also inside the story! Gross! Peacekeepers are so gross! The Uncharted Territories are so gross! I realize that I am somewhat sheltered, given what I do all day, but I'm guessing that even if I went back downtown, I wouldn't have to worry about that shit. "It can be disarmed without having to be disarmed." Boo! Hiss! Shut up! John tries to think of ways they can knock D'Argo out, and since they're short on more retarded puns, Zhaan offers to formulate a "sleep mist."
D'Argo is now kicking DRD's in command, pissing Pilot off no end. "It felt good! Give me navigation! Now!" I think that I like roid D'Argo more than regular D'Argo. By like a thousand. Him I love anyway, but do some drugs and we'll talk. "Do as I say or I'll rip off all your arms!" he says, which is funny, for now, but will be fucking horrible in a few episodes, because welcome to this show: no funny we can't stab through your soul like a knife made of ice and awfulness. "Enough of this stupid voting! From now on, I'll make the decisions!" See, and I like that, because you can't...I have a real problem with people who apologize by saying "I was just drunk," you know? Blaming your behavior on chemicals over choice is the short road to addiction, not to mention being an asshole. So I like how the way D'Argo acts out while hopped up on the 'loids connects both to something small -- the voting on Moya, which is always going to for whatever's stupidest and most dangerous -- and something large -- his oppression and that of his people, which is a story we only ever see pieces of, except through D'Argo and his family.
Zhaan concocts the sleep mist as Aeryn handcuffs Kyr and acts very Bad Cop with him. Pilot complains on clamshell about D'Argo's threats, which seem really unbelievable for the moment. John tells him to stall, that there's a systems malfunction or something, but Pilot's like, "Tried it." He's interrupted by a transmission from the planet; Aeryn shoves Kyr at the clamshell to speak with Bekhesh. "We've got your king. You can buy him back," growls Bekhesh. This is why you never let Rygel talk. And why you never use him and his royalty as a pawn. But do they learn? They do not. The only person who walks out of this episode with any kind of insight into how worthless being a deposed Dominar actually is, is Rygel, and he can't even admit that anyway. Aeryn points out that they have Kyr, and implies she is going to kill him posthaste because they are stupid aliens with a stupid planet and she doesn't even like Rygel anyway and she loves fucking shit up, but John offers an even swap. Bekhesh isn't feeling it: "He's part of the price, but he's not worth a king." He demands some kind of made-up chemical compound that of course Moya doesn't have, in addition, and Aeryn nods sarcastically throughout the rest of the scene, hilariously. "Yeah, fucking right. We'll get right on that. Psych! I am going to shoot all of your asses in a second!" John's like, "For real?" and Bekhesh has clearly drunk the Rygel Kool-Aid: "Divided among six hundred billion affluent subjects, it's not so much." Aeryn flat-out tells him that's not happening, with a billion deluxe fingers in the air, and I'm about to kiss her right on the mouth when Pilot interrupts: "D'Argo's getting angrier. Do something!" John tells the Tavloids that it's not a good time, and they'll call him back. Can you imagine trying to get John Crichton to break up with you? It's less work to just stay with him. Bekhesh serves him a plateload of Faye Dunaway about how they'll call you, in a day, and then they will kill Rygel, and then totally hangs up on them. Steroids do nothing for your phone etiquette, man. And without that, you're just a jerk.
Zhaan finishes up the sleep mist, in the form of a water balloon, which of course makes John very happy, because he's a kid. Aeryn immediately holds out her hand, because she has grave doubts -- albeit based in reality -- about his ability to aim anything or do anything worthwhile, ever, and John tells her to shove it, giving Zhaan a beaming thumbs-up. Aeryn shoves Kyr at Zhaan and tells her to lock him up; Zhaan pretends that this is a tragedy and she's only doing it because Aeryn told her to, still good-copping her way through the situation. Notice how well that goes, without even having to discuss it? John and D'Argo have the same easy operational relationship: as long as they don't talk, they work perfectly. They're each the more the other could be, and you can't talk that one out, because their utterly opposed worldviews corrode the signal.
D'Argo's still beating hell out of the controls on command, screaming at Pilot, and Pilot's still getting prissy about it. Aeryn and John walk up quietly behind D'Argo, and John tosses the water balloon just as D'Argo's screaming about how they're all conspiring to undermine his command. He goes down, and John gets all Shakespearean about it ("Goodnight, sweet prince"), but a bit too soon: the pump gets going and injects D'Argo with a second wind. He jumps up and looks scary at them, and they scatter. John drags Aeryn into a side room off the corridor, and Aeryn bitches about how his "suggestions" continue to do great things for their survival, and John comms to Pilot for "all the acceleration Moya's got." Pilot says, "No." Awesomely. He waits a beat -- and a very funny John face -- before continuing: "I can't activate propulsion. Moya has a systems malfunction." That's awesome. John says, aloud: "For real?" For real. Aeryn figures out some kind of Moya-talk about how there's "excess super-coolant" venting or something, whatever, and complains about how they're wasting time. I wish I knew what John's original plan was, though, because the new one is weird. He tells Pilot to close all the vents, and Pilot worries that this would cause some kind of pressure buildup. I am not following this at all, which is embarrassing, because John's giving all indication of knowing what's going on. "Naw, it won't. I've gotta plan," he tells Aeryn. The scariest words he ever orders. And then Moya does it.
Zhaan brings Kyr to a cell, where he yells at her: "I'm not afraid of you! You're soft and weak!" Pilot comms to Zhaan, and when she acknowledges, Kyr tries to rush her. Of course, because she's bad-ass, she totally sidesteps and then tosses him against a wall, and he slides down it really slowly. "Soft, yes. Weak, no." FUCK YEAH, girl! Who's your momma? Zhaan's your momma now! She turns politely to the air again: "What was that, Pilot?" He tells her to hold on for a sudden acceleration, because "...Crichton has an idea." She sighs and rolls her eyes and curses in Delvian, and then locks Kyr in the cell and takes off.
John and Aeryn hide from the rampaging D'Argo -- in the room where the pressure buildup will vent -- as D's screaming that they are cowards. This, of course, causes Aeryn to bolt for him, because she is still an eight-year-old boy, and John grabs her. They wait a second, and then Aeryn dashes out, launches a teasing shot, and runs back to the room. "Peacekeeper coward!" Somehow, Aeryn is now on the floor, with John on top of her the entire length of his body. Drink. D'Argo walks in with some scary growling, and John gives Pilot his mark. Nothing happens. D'Argo screams about "challenge my command" and "do it to my face" and "show me what a savage you are" and all this, and the whole time John is yelling at Pilot to do whatever the thing is, and finally the excess super-coolants jet out, knocking D'Argo down and sending him woozy. John falls on his back, Aeryn now on top of him. Lordy. Drink! Other than an excuse to show them in as many intimate positions as possible, I don't know what the "plan" actually was, except to note that Plan A was about sleep, the science of sleep, and Plan B was about thugging it up. Which, in this episode, was always going to work better, because this episode is Very Special and all about how 'loids are bad, but also awesome. "That was your plan?" Aeryn asks, and John congratulates himself. "That is the last time I go along with one of your plans!" she snorts, and he promises that she gets to make the plan time. John agrees. I fervently agree, because she's nuts but she gets shit done. John takes the gauntlet off D'Argo and they leave.
On Tavloidia, there's crazy electric grinder guitar that plays over an elegant shot that follows one Tavloid through a military camp, people talking and stuff, and then into a barracks-y jail, past the row of cells, and Rygel speaks as we get nearer to him, his voice echoing in the jail. He is half-buried in mud, in the middle of his cell, which I bet happens to Muppets more than other people. At least it's part of the story. He has said before that he hates getting stuck in mud, and I think there's a strength to the motif of getting his lower body stuck in stuff all the time beyond the obvious puppetry cheats, because he's a paradox of movement. He's the saddest one because he's the only one that never accepts his actual life: it's always deferred, unto the end of the show and beyond, to when he gets back his kingdom. Everybody else confronts these dreams -- over and over and over, heartbreakingly -- and comes to different kinds of terms with it, but Rygel is the only one who sits in pride of place no matter where he goes, because his imagination makes him a king. He's like Zhaan that way: they spent hundreds of years in jail, and they both built these amazing castles in the clouds of how powerful and strong and special they were, how God had chosen just them above all others, and it is both their strength and their tragedy. What makes you awesome is always, always the same thing that makes you suck. What keeps you alive in extremity can also warp you so far past normal that you'll never really be able to live regular life. It's great to say that John would turn down Earth because of the wonders that he's seen, but it's also true that he'll never be fit for Earth again, because of all the horrors the show visits upon him.
"I demand to speak to the [fucker] in charge! I will not be treated like this! How dare you bury me in mud! Are you listening? You're nothing but barbarians! Don't you know this is an act of war? When my council hears of this, the Hynerian Navy will scorch this hell-hole!" Buried in mud, yeah? His -door neighbor growls, frighteningly. That's Jotheb, a four-throated insectile beast that takes up almost his whole cell, and I think it's probably best that (puppetry cheat again) we never get a good look at him beyond his sinister glowing red eyes and his very scary voice. Rygel congratulates himself on his rhetoric, and Jotheb murmurs that his "sleep cycle has been disturbed." Rygel assures Jotheb that he doesn't give a fuck, and then they introduce themselves to each other politely. Jotheb (in succession over the Consortium of Trow) has never heard of the Hynerian Empire, and vice versa. So they're both kings of nothing, in jail. "The imperfection is yours," says Jotheb, on learning that Rygel's never heard of it, and brags that it's "ten thousand" in size. Rygel goes, "Shyeah! I have six hundred billion subjects!" and Jotheb clarifies that he meant ten thousand planets, or roughly four billion Trow. These are the two most boring people in the universe. This is like what if you had to sit with Trump and Vijay Singh, and on top of that pay attention. Rygel doesn't believe him, and Jotheb assures him again that the imperfection is his. They might actually be comparing dick size at this point, but they're aliens so we can't tell; either way I'm positive the imperfection is Rygel's, because that's how you end up like that.
Segue! "This malfunction is Rygel's fault?" Pilot says that Rygel borrowed "a vital component" of Moya's circuitry, "just for a while." Aeryn's like, "And you were...high?" but Pilot insists that he "flatly forbade it." Aeryn goes almost entirely nuts as Pilot explains that Moya's synaptic processors really are pretty, and John figures out that it's the thing on the end of Rygel's scepter that was all up in his face before. Aeryn offers to kill him, and John asks how long Moya can maintain orbit with part of her brain missing -- it's actually already deteriorating. I guess that explains the fake systems malfunction that wasn't so fake. "I'll torture him, then I'll kill him," Aeryn revises. She comms to Zhaan to check on D'Argo, but he's still out.
"I can't wait for him," gruffs Aeryn, and tells Pilot to get her Prowler ready. Pilot doesn't even ask. Aeryn tells John to head out with her: "We don't get that crystal back, we're gonna crash into the planet. I've gotta plan." I love how even the show can't justify saving Rygel, because he's such a piece of shit, so it's like "...but without him they'll all die this week, so we have to go get him." John starts stuttering because he knows a little something about Aeryn and her plans: "Jam down to the planet. Conduct a commando-style raid against what, a couple of dozen heavily armed Tavloids, and then haul ass back up to the ship." She corrects him ("Tav-leks") and takes off. He starts screaming that Wile E. Coyote could come up with a better plan, and -- not for nothing, but that's (a) the only plan she ever comes up with, and (b) the only plan that ever works -- asks how the hell she's going to pull this off herself. "No, of course not! You're coming with me," she says easily. He tells her to shove that egg back on up the chicken, but she storms back: "This is my turn. My plan. Now let's go." He tries desperately to come up with alternate plans, scrapes the barrel a bit -- "Try negotiating with the Tavloids?" -- and she full-on just walks up and punches him. "Tav-leks." It's one of those things, like I said, that comes back around to be funny again, which are few and depend on mostly acting chops. Two things here: one being that, again, in this episode you catch more flies with hitting than with talking, because we're in D'Argo/Aeryn world; and the other being that it's still about running, for Aeryn. Even now, she needs Moya moving, and that's the only reason she wants Rygel back, or D'Argo awake, or John around: so she can keep running.
Commercial. Aeryn's Prowler heads for Tavloidia, John passed out in the back. Aeryn is wearing crazy sexy netting stuff, for under the Tavlek armor, and looks like the hottest thing in all the Matrix. Zhaan tells her that Moya can't seem to scan for the shuttle the bad guys took back to the planet, because there are too many "chlorophoric compounds in the vegetation." I think that "chlorophoric compounds" means "shitty spray-paint," which is something that the flora on Tavlekistan are just covered in. Pilot's saying they can get a better fix once they reconfigure Moya's sensors, but Aeryn's all about the moving forward: "I'm following the same trajectory their shuttle did." John jolts awake, still yakking about negotiations, and then notices he's in the Prowler. She raises one adorable, innocent eyebrow. "You hit me!" he whines, and she just grins to herself. "No, no, a Pentak jab! You're more susceptible than most." He tells her to make sure he doesn't wake up time, the most adorable nonsense threat ever, and she just chuckles to herself and shakes her head. "Oh, don't 'tsk' me! This is not over with! And when it is, you and I are gonna sit down and have a serious talk!" She tells him that sounds great, but probably they're both going to die in a few minutes, and banks hard to the right, like a total bad-ass.
Kyr sits in his cell, wrapped in a blanket. Zhaan brings him Crichton's orange flight suit from the Farscape One, and that bugs me, because I bet Kyr doesn't smell that awesome, and I wouldn't want him wearing my clothes until after a good hot shower. She hands it to him and we get a good look. He looks a lot like a Scarran, actually, but we don't know what those are yet. I bet they're related. I love how on this show, there's a limited number of base races, and they all have a million different types and offshoots. It lends the show a lot of texture, even though the relationships between all of them are really confusing (like, I'm still not convinced I know what's going on with the Kalish, which is like the ultimate plot thread of the end of the show), which is also more realistic. I guess all the big sci-fi have things like that, like Star Wars has whole books about how the races dress and how they feel about each other, but since none of those characters have personalities or souls it's harder to care. Here, they will strip and show you their junk so you know! Zhaan offers him some food, and he offers for her to go fuck herself. "Are you in discomfort?" she asks calmly, and he gets really frustrated with Crichton's clothes, because they're too hard with all the straps and snaps. (I'm not making a joke about that, because I am sure you and I both could work it out with a quickness, if necessary. Aeryn, it takes a while to get those straps sorted.) Kyr demands his clothes back, and Zhaan says they "had to borrow them," for Aeryn's ridiculous plan. At a loss and feeling vulnerable, Kyr gets very aggressive and pathetic: "Had to? Or did you just wanna strip me? What's the matter? Too prim to sneak a peek? You afraid you might like what you saw? You ever looked at a male before, huh? Huh? Well, here you go!" She's not entirely impressed (I told you about the steroids!) but tells him sweetly that he's "quite respectable for [his] age." Crazy Zhaan music starts, as though to say, "I am Farscape: even with everybody going crazy, we still have time to crack jokes about your dick." He's thrown off. "Did you think you'd shock me?" she asks. "Is nudity a taboo in your culture? Are you ashamed of your bodies?" Her condescension is a weapon more powerful than wormholes. Kyr's like, "We would be, if we looked like you, Beavis!" And she tells him that it's doubtful. She stands before him, drops her gown, and looks him full-on, standing perfectly still. From here, she's got nothing to be worried about. You get more blue ass on this show, I swear. Kyr stutters and stares and is weirded out. She puts her robes back on, wonderfully and with a stately grace, and asks again if he's hungry, and leaves. His mind is kind of blown: she's beaten him twice, now. And he's not got a lot of options left to challenge her with. He's a kid; I love him.
John stands in a silly blue-sprayed jungle clearing. He's so very good at standing. Top marks in standing for John Crichton. Aeryn says she spotted a camp over the ridge as they were landing, and he starts bitching about how he just wants to stay put. She starts listing reasons that he should go with her: "Land mines, fire snakes, razor grass..." He grabs his stuff, all pissy. "Night-vision snipers, Morlean death spiders... " She smiles as he follows. Her humor is more inclusive as she begins to understand the texture of her shipmates. Their personalities, how they work. Eventually, she'll actually let them in on the joke, and stop being so deadpan and just admit that she's fucking with them most of the time. Hopefully. In any case, she becomes more and more charming as she incorporates this, because it makes her bigger and it makes her more, and she actually has the best sense of humor on Moya, but it's a muscle she's never flexed before.
Rygel struggles in his Tavloid mud as Jotheb growls at him. "That dreadful noise is what?" (It is my dream to be Jotheb all the time: "This mayonnaise is what? The imperfection is yours!") Rygel admits that his stomach is grumbling, and Jotheb asks if he isn't hungry. Two prisoners, and we're taking a short break right now for this: one of whom is in pain without his steroids, and the other who's playing a game about his steroids. Both of which prove what a man -- and what a spam-email hugeness your parts are packing; and yes, there's a difference, boys -- you really are. Who are you without your 'loids/political clout? They're both lies. They're both beside the point. And yet, because this episode is about dick, we've got two liars swinging it. Is Kyr hungry? Fuck yeah, for something he doesn't know the name of, and can't fathom. Is Rygel hungry? Listen: "They fed you first? Ugh. I don't want any food, anyway. I want out. There must be a way. There's always a way." Rygel 1, Kyr 0. Jotheb's like, try to get out, get the Tavloids angry, not good. Rygel calls him out and starts pulling with a good 24 pounds behind it on the bars of his cage, promising that when the fictitious army arrives, it'll be Everybody v. Bekhesh so don't puss out. Then a guard brings food. Which Rygel responds to positively, and then mid-sentence gets really deep and really creeped out, because the bowl he's been served is a skull. Girl, you've seen me in some positions but let me tell you that you can fill in the fucking blanks on that bullshit. No way, sir. Jotheb tells him to chill ("That can be no one you knew") in a very capitalism-is-its-own-sentence way, and Rygel tells the skull-bowl to fuck off. Jotheb reaches for it and Rygel tells him, grossed the fuck out or not, he can't have any. Heh. Fucking Rygel.
Zhaan helps the now-ungauntletted D'Argo to command, where Pilot bitchily but sweetly asks if he's okay. Have I told you about my theory that Pilot is not only gay but hugely gay? I have my reasons. (Dude, the "DNA Mad Scientist" recap is going to be 500 pages long. Fucking Maldis of all things? That's so messed up.) Zhaan smiles cutely about how D'Argo insists on helping, and then -- still feeling the 'loids -- he bitches about how they're going to fuck it up if he doesn't. Pilot suggests Pilot-ly that he get some rest, and D'Argo protests that he wants to help. Pilot gives good Carolyn Kepcher about "Your assistance... would be welcomed," clearly not meaning it, and D'Argo grimaces. Which is hard to do with fifteen pounds of prosthetic penis-tentacles flapping all over the place.
John swats a "jungle" "bug" in the "jungle" and Aeryn gives him shit, and John obligingly bitches, and she's about to tell him the only reason she brought him along is to make him look weak so she can continue to think he's a little bitch, but there's gunfire. They hit the "jungle" floor, and she takes the "oculars" from him, handing him a gun. NO! Dumb! She looks through the scope and spots three Tavloids milling around a fresh kill, and it's a thing about the non-violent science of the ocular v. the violent science of the gauntlet. One is science -- find it out! -- and the other is not -- beat it up! See which wins this week. Immediately Aeryn's like, "Clearly I need to beat the shit out of them to find out where Rygel is, until they are dead." John asks how the 3:1 ratio of Aeryns:Tavloids is supposed to work, and he's answered by the click of stupid-ass Officer Sun clapping the gauntlet on. Aeryn assures his hysterical (and clearly correct) response that he can just knock her out with Zhaan's sleepy juice after she's...I don't know. Ruined everything with roid rage, I guess. If she can't shoot it, she'll do some drugs and then shoot at it some more. She's so awesome. "Where's my rifle?" John promises her he'll trank her the second she gets back; the entire viewership laughs like hell. Even four episodes in, you already know his ass is getting knocked the fuck out before any of this happens.
Aeryn, wearing Kyr's Tavloid outfit, comes up to the kill-crazy hunting party and asks where she might find Bekhesh, and one of them (a female named Hontovek) tells her getting stupid and lost in the four feet of spray-painted "jungle" is her problem, and the Aeryn 'loids them all to the ground. She grabs Hontovek and asks again, as John whimpers and watches another Tavloid round the clearing. Hontovek starts to give Alpha Aeryn directions, and meanwhile John...blows up the rifle. For no reason other than that he's not good in fighter stories. "Eeeeeee-EEEEEEEEEEE" goes the gun, and then it goes blooey, distracting all the people who actually belong here. The Tavloids all think they're under attack -- it's a nice touch that Aeryn points her gauntlet toward the forest, already under the influence -- and Aeryn runs back to John.
Command. D'Argo, despite the fact that it's John and Aeryn down there, is confused by the explosions planetside, asking if the sensors are still working. Pilot's like, "God! Yes! Explosions! Duh!" And D'Argo shakes his head, because of course they are. He requests a transport. That should really make things better and not worse, right?
John heads uphill, Aeryn behind, demanding to know what happened with the rifle. "[It's] all over the place!" He's like, "Am I bleeding?" She asks him to confirm that he managed to blow it up, then realizes he "overloaded the pulse chamber." He politely asks her to drop it, and move on with him, and she's like, "It's all right. I'll take them all on!" Sleepy Juice Time is all the time with your ass! He shoves her up the path, still with the complaining and crazy Conan talk.
Bekhesh approaches Rygel and Jotheb, telling the latter his ransom will be there in two days and then he can go. Jotheb has big red eyes and a hunched back and he's green, but he doesn't have a face face. He's crappy-looking enough that you're kind of glad. Rygel whines and Jotheb tells him to hush, but too late: Bekhesh is like, "What about you?" Shit. Don't ask how Rygel's doin'. Rygel bitches that he's not being treated awesome and that his plateware is skulls and that he would like to see the manager, and Bekhesh takes the skull-bowl out of his cell, with apologies. Hell. Rygel and Jotheb compare dicks again about "oh, your subjects didn't come up with ransom?" and then Bekhesh comes back with "an extra helping" of...something, which he splashes all over the place, and tells him to shut up or else it'll be Rygel's skull "that serves as someone's bowl." Dude, I'd order those off 3 AM paid programming if you could assure me it was Rygel's actual fucking skull. A bargain at any price. "This soup is delicious! Shut up, Rygel! Yum!" I don't even like soup; I could work around it.
Story B. Kyr screams in his cell, nonsense really, crawling around all crazy; Zhaan comes in with a tiny glass and sets it on a coffee table. Kyr yells at her like a junkie and grabs her, digging in with a nail -- she watches, interested, as white fluid drains out of her punctured wrist. (SPOILER! Zhaan isn't a mammal! She's like this anyway!) After a sec she shoves him away and drops the white fluid into the glass, offering once more to help the kid. He protests and she tells him he's nicked either way, and then rubs some of the white blood on her lips. Tasty. "This should relieve the symptoms of withdrawal," she says, kissing him good and hard. She places her hands on his chest. "And this will remove the pain," she continues. She does the Shut Up Storm thing, but her eyes don't go white, just stare up. Kyr stops shaking and looks confused, because wouldn't you? All that pretentious talk and flashing her cooch, and then her solution is to first smear her gross white blood on her face, and then kiss you, and then do some kind of Vulcan mind-meld on you? I'd have questions. Number one being: "Exactly where do you get off?"
Meanwhile, Rygel is looking at what remains of the gruel, which I think is probably not "gruel" as much as it is total feces and Bekhesh was being poetic. "I can't eat this. I... couldn't eat this. I mustn't eat this." He then hums reflectively, and you think for a sec that he's just that gross, but he declares that maybe it has another use. Um, making your storyline as fucking sick as every week? Done. Jotheb's all, "In what way, friend Rygel?" and Rygel sandcastles his hands around in it: "Loosening up this soil." Gross me out, but points for thinking.
Aeryn and John jog through the "jungle" and then get in a 'loid fight about where to go that is usually the D'Argo fight about where to go. John offers that perhaps it's time to take the gauntlet off, and Aeryn says that it's not time to take it off, because the time to take it off is when Bekhesh is dead. At which point, one assumes, there will be a new designated time to take it off. And so on. John tells a very junkie-lookin' Aeryn that really it should come off, and she tells him that in fact she is going to go medieval on the collective asses of the Tavloids, Saint Patrick Genocide style, and once they are all gone, then they can talk about the arm accessory, and he pretends to put it away but stupidly tries to jump her. Um, it's Aeryn. PLUS DRUGS. This is the worst fucking plan. She totally pulls on him, and he's so stupid he deserves to get gauntleted, but D'Argo shows up whence nowhere and calls her out, so they go all d'Artagnan (Athos, Porthos, Aramis: two PKs and a fragrance) about how he called her a coward and she is a freak so can't she just drop the gauntlet and fight him fair and square? And I must admit that until just now I assumed it was because he was still ass-crazy, and that's why this is flimsy, but really, he just needs an excuse to call her a pussy and get her to drop the gauntlet. Which makes him vastly more awesome than I thought before right this second, because I was all, "What are they even fighting about? I'm going to cuddle with John over here until you work it out." Which is why you never doubt D'Argo, basically. She drops the gauntlet, D'Argo tongues her, and she falls...on D'Argo, unpredictably. They might as well have figured out a way where she'd trip onto John's crotch like in every other scene.
Rygel struggles in the shit-mud, talking to Jotheb. (Who's one letter away from somebody who's going to play this exact same penis-measurement game with D'Argo a few-score episodes from now, with far sicker consequences. Crazy, right?) Rygel asks Jotheb for help and Jotheb gives him some tentacle help getting out of the mud -- although it's around His Eminence's neck. Bekhesh enters quietly as Rygel gets himself out of the mud, and Jotheb's useless warning is not exactly helpful. Rygel has his neck under the door (he's so small they had to do the mud thing; I'm so dumb) and Bekhesh treads on it (Rygel's dumber than me) and then...Rygel dies. The fact that there's a commercial break means you're supposed to think it's actually happening. Here's my deal: why so many act-outs on Rygel dying supposedly, when he's the one person whose possible death is the...maybe it's so we'll keep tuning in? Anybody else you'd be on the edge of your chair; Rygel it's like, "I got time for popcorn now. Let's do this shit right!" That's brilliant.
Afterwards, Jotheb asks -- not unkindly but not exactly with a passionate interest -- why Bekhesh would kill the little shit, and Bekhesh is like, "Nobody's going to pay for him." Jotheb, having bought the lie, is like, "The Consortium of Trow will!" He promises to "prove" Rygel's value -- which: I dare a motherfucker -- and Jotheb resuscitates Sparky with a tentacle. So close, yet so far away. Audible screams of disappointment. He'll live to fart another day! Yeah! "The fame of Dominar Rygel has spread even to my worlds," says Jotheb. I don't even know if he's bluffing or what, but I do know I hate him for what he has wrought. "If the ransom is not paid by his people, it will be paid by mine." Bekhesh is like, "He's still got a throat for trodding if you don't, bitch," and takes off as Rygel hacks and coughs his way back to life, still face-down in actual shit. Poor little guy. Poor little non-dead rubber fuckface Muppet. Aww.
Oh, before I forget, somebody called me out a while back for calling Francesca Buller "Ben Browder's wife" in a Doctor Who recap. I'll mention her by name in a non-this show recap first chance I get, but I do want to apologize. She's awesome, and not just for her portrayal of one of my favorite characters ever (Akhna, the Scarran Minister of Ass-Kicking, whom we'll be talking about like eighty recaps from now). I am the asshole, dick move, proceeding on. Aeryn wakes up in a clearing as John's tying his boots and telling her to lie still. Which is akin, especially at this point, to telling John to "not freak out and act bizarre." D'Argo and Aeryn continue to fight, on the perpendicular, about how he called her a coward and she called him a barbarian. Which is funny because it takes the fight into real time, not crazy talk, but also because: exactly. It's an argument about the thing in front of your face: attack it, and you're a barbarian because there's always something worse coming; avoid it, and you're being a coward. The entire point of having both of them on board and in the story: warrior v. soldier. Cannon fodder v. infantry. John tries to get them to blame the whole thing, which in fact has been a plot point in every single episode and will continue to be that forever, on the drugs. (The behavior, as I've said, of an addict. Which...let's talk in a few seasons.) They refuse to validate this spurious assertion, because they are both huge racists, and he points out -- after they join forces to simultaneously look down on him some more ("Tav-leks!") -- that this means that they are both fucking nuts. "Whatever. If the gauntlet brings out the real you, both of you? Think long and hard about therapy."
Back to a couple of addicts in the here and now. (And no, I'm not diagnosing all of them like some kind of twelve-stepper on the loose: the throne she sits on is just as real and just as fake as the one Rygel's got zipping around; it's just in her head.) Zhaan sits with Kyr, tries to touch him; he shrugs her off. She asks if he's in pain, and then offers that the 'loids are probably pretty addictive. Come to think of it, "twelve-stepper on the loose" pretty much describes Zhaan to a T. The good and bad of that. "But once your body purifies..." She places her hands on his arm. "The hunger for the drug should pass." He shouts that he's not looking for some "damned sermon," even though she didn't actually give him one yet, and that he "didn't ask" for her help, so she should shove the speeches. It's like he knew what she was going to say before she said it. (Ditto me, because you gotta know I'm all over this shit.) Good on you, Kyr. The ugliest lie anybody ever believed was that you helped yourself by helping other people; all that does is make you more secure in your bullshit because they're worse off. That's vampiric. You help yourself by helping your fucking self and leaving the pedestal out of it, and anybody who tells you different is selling you (and more importantly, herself) something. Out of the mouths of steroid-addicted, murderous, lizardy, monstrous beasts of war. As they say. But he softens. "...About the gauntlet. It's not as if I ever had any choice." And having given it a rest for a good six seconds, she's off: "There are always choices." SLAP! You know what happens when you slap your TV upside the head? Nothing. Onscreen at least, although you might notice some tenderness in your palm afterwards. Never trust an anarchist, a psych major, or an atheist. At least, not if they won't shut up about it. Red flag. (But I am not advocating slapping them, because they are hair-pullers to a man, and you don't need that screwing up your day. Time and patience.) "Look, I told you, I don't need a sermon!" He stares at the wall, knowing there's Ayn Rand on the horizon and he's in no mood, and she gives, hilariously. Gorgeously. "...All right. No sermons. What do you need?" He admits, with some reserve but pretty adorable nonetheless, that he is "actually a bit hungry."
Aeryn lies below the sitting D'Argo in the clearing, and Aeryn bitches about not doing anything. His posture -- and he'd never admit it -- is very protective. Her posture -- and she'd never admit it -- is very recuperative. They are waiting for John. I cannot imagine a worse circumstance than waiting for John to get some shit done. I would finish the fingernails and start on the toes within the hour. Even if he were just going out for coffee. D'Argo "admits" that it took him "a few hours" to recover, but manages to turn this into a slam on Sebaceans, to which bait only an eight-year-old boy like Aeryn would rise, given that he outweighs her by like sixty billion tentacled pounds. She tries to stand up and he laughs all "don't be so childish," even though I'm convinced that was like 30% of what he was trying to do there. He relents. "Perhaps it took quite a few hours for me to recover." They talk about how -- as Aeryn props herself on her elbows -- probably John is in a heap of stupid trouble or dead or made a Tavloid whore or whatever hilarious war crime they're both cool with because they are assholes. "Somewhere out there, there's a whole world full of Crichtons," says Aeryn. "How useless that must be." Um, or how fucking fast you'd cash in your IRA to get your ass there so fast. Do we have an Ambassador to this mythical planet yet? Because I am not averse to throwing as many bows as necessary. It's like diplomacy is my calling or whatever. D'Argo marvels that simply making fun of John provides them with so much common ground, and Aeryn manages to fuck even that up: "Who would've thought there'd be a race more clumsy and pathetic than the Luxans?!" Ha ha, bitch. D'Argo yanks his arm out from under her and she yelps, and D'Argo apologizes. "You know how clumsy we Luxans can be." Your humble recapper immediately sends him five dollars in the space mail, SWAMFK.
Tavloid jail, where Rygel's back in the hated mud. Jotheb welcomes him to the figurative mud of being "welcomed into the Consortium of Trow," and Rygel tries to politely demonstrate his disinterest without being rude, but Jotheb fills him in on the bushido of it all: "It is not an invitation -- you were killed by Bekhesh, and revived by me. You are therefore owned by me...as are your subjects." Kings are more boring than investment bankers, and let me tell you I have had my fill of investment bankers. on the agenda: day-trading stats. The only thing gayer than sabermetrics. ["Hey! Sabermetrics is not gay! ... Okay, it totally is." -- Sars] Rygel's like, "Oh cool, listen, how about you pay my ransom?" Jotheb says no prob, since "billions of Hynerians" are now Trow as well. Rygel can't contain the mirth anymore, and lets Jotheb in on how he was deposed "over a hundred [years] ago," and duh, but it's good, because dig how Rygel thinks it's hilarious how worthless he is, in this context. In the context of the deal. When normally he would hit you or bite you or barf on you, or whatever nasty thing, if you suggested that his dominion were a pipe dream. Telling, right? And in the episode overall, the best thing -- realizing that the drug is not us. In Irish you say, "I have a sadness on me," or a "joy" or whatever. Rygel has a dominion up him, but it's not him, and if you get the situation right, he fucking loves that. Slipping out of the skin of a king, and into that of a wheeler-dealer, at will. Jotheb goes nuts and gets all smashy about it; you could almost believe that Rygel set this up so Jotheb would bust the cage for him, but Jotheb aims for the particular: "Then you will die here, so why are you laughing?" No answer, no laughter. Just a sad little Muppet with no happiness up him, limp in the mud.
John scouts out the Tavloid siesta and comes back to report on naptime, and Aeryn offers to beat their asses some more. If she could just, you know, get off the ground. John tells her to hang tough and that he and D'Argo can handle it, and she's like, "At least take the drug device that makes you fucking crazy, because you're simply too uncrazy," and he notes that this is a bad idea. "Thing's a menace." Since that's still one gauntlet against a camp of them anyway, he realizes that regardless, their only chance is to be sneaky. Aeryn wonders how she's supposed to cover their retreat, since John blew up the gun (and how? Overload of violence; too much power. Don't give his ass the gauntlet!), and D'Argo offers the Qualta blade...which Voltrons into a gun. (And never actually turns back into a sword, as far as I can remember, for the entire rest of the series. Which is hilarious.) Aeryn lowers herself to using a Luxan weapon, but doesn't bitch about it.
Kyr eats in the dining hall. We're visiting so many of the locations from the Premiere! And in the same order! Docking bay, command, holding cell, dining hall -- and aversive and rebellious and cuffed the whole time, at the hands of a self-professed anarchist! It's almost like there's a conscious parallel! Kyr calls bullshit on the chronically awful Moya food, and Zhaan is irritating and hilarious some more: "You're welcome! Thank you for being such a gracious guest!" He laughs, and asks what her whole deal is. What she is. Which somehow manages to be a plot point for like a million episodes, like her being a vegetable person is this huge spoiler. It's not. The fact that she's fucking Bunnicula, that's a spoiler. "Older. Wiser. Certainly not as hungry as you." She drops a plate for him, and Kyr asks him about the Delvian trick where she buffered his DTs. "When I kissed you?" He's like, "No? Yes? Um, shut up!" She explains how she's a Delvian Pa'u and calls herself "priest of the Ninth level."
Kyr draws a funny mirror about how a Pa'u learns to share pain, while Tavloids learn to inflict it. (What were we saying about how there's no funny so very funny that it won't eventually stab you in the lung with horrible emotion? Fuckin' Zhaan. Ouch.) She says he's impressive in action, and he gets proud, even though it's not actually a compliment, and he proclaims about how he was awesome when they boarded the ship and stole the "king." (Um, that's amazing! You totally said, "Knock knock!" and they were like, "Hey, come on in!" And so you did, and then you stole a two-foot puppet. Will you be my boyfriend?) Zhaan says that's who Kyr is when he wears the gauntlet, but nobody knows who Kyr actually is. Which is a good point, and she's not being so horrible, but Kyr hates that she's even bringing up his junk at all. Which is also kind of valid. "Have you ever been through anything like this before?" she asks. "Your body being freed of poison..." Kyr takes offense at this characterization and says that the Moya food is the only poison he's taking in, and she just smiles calmly. "Why would I want to be free? Our gauntlet is our food, our blood, our life! It makes us capable of anything!" He sighs loudly, like she's so thick, and she just asks again what he, "alone," is capable of. A real Ninth level doesn't end a sentence with a preposition, Zhaan. They stare, but neither of them knows the answer. Neither does Rygel, for that matter. Or Aeryn. The imperfection is yours.
John and D'Argo sneak through the Tavloid camp, quietly and for one hundred billion boring years. At the cells, John steps on Jotheb's tentacle and he shouts, and John gibbers and flibbers and mibbers because he apparently has never...seen an alien before? I don't get this part. He's like, "D'Argo! Check out the alien! There are aliens!" Jotheb and D'Argo are like, "Your point please?" John adorably waves goodbye to Jotheb, then finds the scepter on the ground -- sans neural crystal from a thousand pages ago. He also notices about how there's no Rygel, and they take off, but not before Jotheb tells them that "Dominar Rygel" was taken away. I don't get Jotheb's motivation at all. He's like, "I am a hard-ass and I will sell you out and cut off your airflow! But first, a lovely chocolate soufflé I made just for you!" Jotheb explains how the soufflé he cooked for Rygel was to make Bekhesh think he's not worthless, and how they took Rygel away, and none of this benefited him in any way. John offers to get Jotheb out of there, but Jotheb's happy waiting for his ransom -- and sad that the Consortium won't be paying Rygel's. "His presence has been decided to be too disruptive," Jotheb almost laughs. Are we supposed to love him, or think he's an idiot, or be scared of him? He is many things. Outside, John and D'Argo are stopped by some guards. John attempts to strike up a conversation about the ransom and the Tavloids (including, I think, Hontovek from before) are so not feeling up to a conversation, because they are high on drugs.
"...Because they are high on drugs" is the ending of 7% of all sentences referencing this show. Science told me! Aeryn fires from the forest a few feet behind them, and there are fisticuffs, in which even John gets to take part. Shooting, shooting, fighting, Qualta-ing, gauntleting, jumping. Spray-painted flora. Up the hill, Aeryn explains to John that she has just demonstrated a damn diversion, and congratulates D'Argo on his Qualta. He requests that she bury him with it, and then collapses. There's a giant wound in his back, and black nasty blood all over!
John somehow manages to carry D'Argo back further into the forest, Aeryn covering. John says some Pat The Bunny stuff meant to comfort, but D'Argo just wants to know what color his blood is. John says it's almost totally black, and Aeryn responds by...kneeling and punching D'Argo fiercely, directly on the wound. John grabs her and asks what the fuck, and she explains Luxans: "The wound isn't cleansed until the blood flows clear." D'Argo yells to get her punch on, and as John looks on, afraid and confused, I take the opportunity to ask: is there a better metaphor for the entire way this show works? You're not safe until the blood runs clear -- until you've bled the toxins out, and healed. And you have to keep bashing it, if you ever want to get your shit together and working properly. Welcome to Farscape. You now know everything you need to know.
Up on Moya, Kyr sets down his fork-object and yawns, and protests to Zhaan that he's not tired in any way. As she's offering to take him to his "quarters" (note), Pilot requests her presence on command. Kyr says he knows his way back, and for some reason, Zhaan's anarchism chooses this moment -- as she's been joyfully smothering him up to this point -- to reassert itself. "Total junkie with a hostile regiment with whom we're currently in a shooting battle which has perhaps fatally injured one of my crew? And he's got the shakes from withdrawal? And the drug of which he is a total junkie is rage itself? Have fun! No unscheduled detours, though, okay? Honor system!" Big blue idiot arrives on command, where they have a pointless conversation about how John needs to know where the shuttle went so they can find Rygel, which they could have had any fucking place, and this is a stupid way to get Kyr loose. Which complication also means nothing to the story whatsoever, making it doubly irritating. Down planetside, there's a cute callback to last week, as Aeryn draws out the coordinates Zhaan gave them in the dirt and explains what they mean. Kyr tries to bust into a lockbox in the maintenance bay, ripping a tool off a poor DRD, which causes Pilot to go all Butterfly McQueen, and Zhaan goes down to maintenance to get him.
Tavlekistan. Aeryn finishes up the directional vector lesson, which I imagine took not so long considering John is an astronaut and there are translator microbes and there's only so many ways to describe three-dimensional space. But it's cute with all the sharing of knowledge, so whatever. John says that between the comedown and the black blood, neither Aeryn nor D'Argo is up for a sprint, which is what it's going to take to get to the camp before the shuttle...takes off, or arrives, or something. Where there's Rygel and a small window to find him. I'm only here for Zhaan this week, I don't really care why this is happening, because the whole point is that John's going to have to put on the...yep. Here we go. He picks up the gauntlet and asks them how it works. D'Argo's noncommittal answer is translated by John's crazyness microbes as comparable to the Green Lantern's ring, meaning willpower and no yellow stuff, and the needles dig in and he grunts, and I gotta say that the only thing worse than giving it to D'Argo is giving it to Aeryn, right, but the only thing worse than that? Is happening. "That's funny. I don't feel anything. In fact, I feel pretty good. Feel real good..." Face goes crazy and kinda...never mind. You can tell it's working, is the point. So can he. He takes off.
Kyr is messing with a syringe in the lab, and Zhaan gets all scary tough love on him, snatching it away. "Is this the way you repay my help? How would you like your arm torn off?" That's your fucking theme song, asshole. He laughs and says she doesn't scare him (always a bad idea, girlfriend is scary as hell) and says she doesn't have the guts to fight him. Anybody with a brain looks away at this point, because what will happen is obviously going to be unlovely at best. She goes all Krav Maga on him and gets him in a hold, and explains some stuff very carefully. "Hear me. I could rip you apart. Right now. Kahalin help me, I'd enjoy it. But you know why I don't? Because we're not enemies!" She crumples the syringe before his eyes, and gives him some clichés to the solar plexus. "This is your enemy!" Her voice is still utterly terrifying and her manner is very Old Testament, so don't tell her I made fun of that part. "Contemplate that in solitude!" she rumbles. Um, I will. Ma'am.
John is a speed racer. Meanwhile, Aeryn and D'Argo hang out with blood all over the place. The blood's not going clear yet, and D'Argo just drops his head and moans. "Give it up!" Aeryn flips the script on him: "Oh, so you'd die without putting up a fight? Then you're the coward!" BOOM she hits the wound. "And you're the barbarian. You're gonna have to hit it a lot harder than that, to increase the bleeding." She makes this great face, like, "Fucking okay then!" and slams him again. He groans and asks for more. I don't know what to do with this show sometimes. She puts her fists together and volleyballs them into him a bunch of times.
This scene is a really long period of time for the not much that happens, so here's what happens: Bekhesh has Rygel in a sack. Where he belongs. John comes out with the gauntlet all brandishy, like a moron. After he takes down two Tavloids, one of them catches on, and shoots, but he snags the shot and returns it. Which is admittedly bad-ass every time. Rygel bitches in the sack; he is soundly ignored by everybody, because they are all high on drugs. And because Rygel sucks and does not contribute. John and Bekhesh move on from the gauntlets to a more accurate measure of manhood, and swinging those all over the place. Rygel continues to suck, inside a bag. John and Bekhesh start fighting again and it's very shooty. John runs out of juice, and then remembers that he's totally fucking John Crichton and he brought himself to a gun fight, so he switches over to "I'm so clever" John really fast. He says it should be a draw because he doesn't want Rygel anyway, because Rygel's not a king actually (both Rygel and Bekhesh are surprised to hear that), he's an escaped mental patient. Rygel gives an astute observation on the subject of "Let he who is without crazy," but Bekhesh kicks his rubber ass hard through the sack. John changes horses midstream and says that actually, Rygel has...chicken pox. I love this man John Crichton. John says that Rygel is, again, worthless, and has no ransom to speak of; Bekhesh touchés that the Consortium of Trow will, and John drops a 'fraid-not on that one. "The four-throated cat? They're not gonna do it. Well, you blame them? Rygel is an obnoxious gas-bag. Now, who's gonna shell out for that?" (It's not the truth, it's the crazy drugs that...oh, wait. Yeah, it's the truth.) Rygel shouts from the bag that it's all true, "I'm unloved, unwanted, unpopular," and Bekhesh's foot agrees, knocking him senseless again. "Unconscious..." John levels -- because John can only tell a lie for five minutes before it falls apart, which is like so cute -- that there's nothing to pay the ransom with, and that Rygel lied about all of it. Bekhesh begins to believe him.
Zhaan comes to Kyr and offers her comm badge, affixed to her wrist, through the bars of his cell: "Your leader wishes to speak with you." I love how she's just arbitrarily over Kyr ("Bored of feeding my ego with your junkie bullshit! !") Kyr reports to Bekhesh, who asks if they have any money or riches or, you know, food. Or anything cool. He looks at Zhaan, hard. "I won't lie for you." It's an interesting moment, because it's that potlatch reversal thing: we would all assume that he's supposed to say yes, so when Zhaan tells him to tell the truth, she's not being manipulative, she's actually being real. Tell the truth; they can deal. But it also means that when Kyr does tell the truth, he's making the choice. "It's pathetic. They have no riches and all I've had to eat is food cubes." Bekhesh asks if they're forcing this reply, and asks if they're mistreating Kyr, and offers to slaughter everybody if he's not being treated well. "No..." he says, looking into Zhaan's eyes. "In fact, they've been trying to help me." This does not compute with Bekhesh, and Kyr's like, "Yeah, I don't know either." Zhaan turns off her comm, and gives him one of her patented holy smiles. "Perhaps I like to offer choices." Especially when people validate my mystique!
Bekhesh stares at John, I guess -- it's hard to say with the eyeholes -- and John's like, "If you don't believe me, start shooting, because we're done here," and drops his gauntlet onto the grass. He twitches a little bit due to the withdrawal and the horrible needles. "It's been so long since anyone's told me the truth, I don't recognize it anymore." Oh, cry to me, you old bitch. He kicks the bag over to John, who opens up the sack and asks Rygel quietly about the crystal. Rygel takes umbrage because of course they wouldn't come down just for him. Rygel's really gross and dirty right now because of the mud. John investigates him and Rygel says, sneakily, "It's safe and sound." John calls Rygel "Fluffy" for the first time, but demonstrates he's seen enough of this show to know that bodily functions are about to come into play, so whatever, let's get back to the Adrenaline Twins, because obviously you swallowed the crystal, because you are gross.
"Well? Am I to live, or die?" asks D'Argo, and Aeryn "jokes" that he's going to die, "but not today," she smiles, leaning in and showing him her hand, with the clear blood on it. Ha ha! Rygel and John bitch at each other as they approach. I love how over one act basically took place with something in a sack, bitching in VO, which the actors all pretended was a person. Now he's just wrapped in John Crichton's intense arms. John arrives, and immediately his eyes roll back and he drops. On top of Rygel. DRINK!
Aeryn stands outside Rygel's quarters, listening to him shit. Now, I cannot believe that I have to tell you about a scene where this beautiful lady had to listen to a Muppet take a dump, and I am relatively removed from the scene as it takes place. I'm not even watching it, I'm writing this recap from my notes while listening to some bullshitty Strokes demo, and I still can't believe it. So I want you to imagine being that lady, because I cannot. D'Argo arrives and they yell at him, and then there's a joke that I won't recap, except to say that Aeryn does a great inner shudder move at the end of the joke I won't recap.
In command, Zhaan answers a transmission from Kyr, honestly curious about how he's doing. "Much better," he says, "now." And he holds up the gauntlet, of course, because this is the lesson she's got to learn, and we'll keep telling her until she arrives at the truth. There's a real grace in the way she calmly looks on him; a beauty that contains all the love in the world, unshakeable, caring and remote as the ocean. "My choice," he says, not exactly begging her to understand where he's coming from. She does. Not as much as she knows, but enough that her love outweighs the disappointment. They look at each other for some time, and he finally nods, and hangs up, and it's the only time I ever really love her, the way she deserves to be loved, at least: "No sermons," she says softly, and sadly, to herself.