Look, it's Moya's belly! Yeah, it's that one. Biomechanoid spermatozoa. Abominations and horrible forthcoming progeny. Jothee, sure, but Talyn too. And yeah, I guess a conventional family needs a few of those. This is another light one, but at least it foregrounds D'Argo's stuff, which is rare, and leads nicely into week, when his butt-sniffing weirdness with John finally chills out for awhile. I forgot how much D'Argo you get in the first season. I was reading today about how SciFi originally decreed at the beginning that the episodes all had to be stand-alones, which is interesting considering it immediately turned into the most continuity-heavy show this side of the universe. But the other interesting thing O'Bannon said was that in the beginning it was hard working with new writers because they kept trying to put John in the center of everything, giving orders and stuff, because he's the human and the male.
I wonder if all these D'Argo episodes and all the weird mirroring that goes on between him and John (and Aeryn) isn't just the line of best fit for getting around that proclivity. Making D'Argo the unstable element in all these stories, even when he's actually the most solid character, makes the rest of them look fucking normal. Not to mention (see week) making John sensitive and out of his depth without being a pussy, which is maybe the trickiest thing about writing this show. Except it turns out this episode is actually about Aeryn and D'Argo, which is smart.
Aeryn is perched on John's shoulder doing tool things and sending shocks through them both as she works. There's a sex joke there but whatever, John's like, "You know, I could get you something to stand on," and Aeryn ignores that altogether, because who wouldn't? It's some kind of "Peacekeeper comms enhancer" she's dealing with, which was poorly installed: "Moya must have been called into service as prison transport before it was finished." Called into service, she says. Oh, Condi.
D'Argo's sweeping Moya's systems and bitching, but Pilot is insistent. I bet he's calling in favors left and right this week. Pilot tells him to keep working until they find all the PK junk on board, and tells D'Argo he's spared him two DRDs. Which is not much, D'Argo whines. "How much longer do you expect this to take?" Pilot deems this a less-than-legit question, "Considering I have just stated I have no data on how many Peacekeeper devices may still be concealed." Also I'm down an arm, dick. Don't question me. "It will take as long as it takes."
To John's complaint that they're in the middle of nowhere and this tech is pretty useless for the PKs, Aeryn snarxposits that Crais -- "You might have noticed" -- is determined to track them down no matter where they are. Okay, but you might also have noticed that he's, again, wicked crappy at it. It took an actual vampire sorcerer to provide him with even a tiny bit of a clue, and that's sad from every angle. Consider, instead, prolonged contact with the deltoids of Commander John Crichton; or, if you like, Aeryn Sun wrapped around your neck. Chills multiplying and whatnot. They're complaining but not really.
D'Argo finds some kind of Peacekeeper control panel, and he and Pilot do an extended remix of the scene from Lethal Weapon III that John was telling Gilina all about, with extra interference on comms to make it extra-irritating for everyone concerned. "Which wire?" Not that one. "So this one?" No. Et cetera. Guess what? He pulls the wrong one -- a direct link to the propulsion unit -- and D'Argo gets electrocuted and goes all Goonies around in the insides of Moya.
Everybody runs around wondering where D'Argo is, and nobody knows where he is, and the DRDs are looking everywhere, and he was last seen bitching and moaning on tier twenty-one. D'Argo's in and out on comms, having found a PK device. Which he then kicks really hard, sending out the prenominate biomechanoid spermatozoa, which gets all over everything, as you know, and sends D'Argo sliding down the shaft again. John's not phallic, he's a teenager reaching for manhood; meanwhile, tentacle-faced D'Argo's slip-sliding all around Moya's insides covered in spaceship semen. I didn't write the episode but that's what we've got on our hands right now, so to speak, and there have been no credits yet. I guess it had to be either D'Argo or Aeryn, and D'Argo's the less-weird option, especially considering the role Aeryn will take in Talyn's creepy little Freudian worldview. "Pilot," John winces, "What tier is D'Argo on?" No tier at all. Meaning? D'Argo's floating about in space. Credits.
Aeryn takes her Prowler out to retrieve frozen D'Argo from space, and she brings him into the bay. Zhaan suggests restarting his respiration, and our favorite Boy Scout starts pounding hell of D'Argo's chest, to everybody's horror. "Hasn't he suffered enough?" asks Aeryn. Zhaan goes into overdrive: "Turn him! Turn him quick! Pulse is faint. Deep space internethermia." She explains that Luxans can handle space vacuum for like 15 minutes (Aeryn: "Maybe.") and then Moya starts freaking out and dipping in space, on top of everything else. "Come on big guy, come on. Give me one of those big nasty smelly breaths," John begs. Zhaan tells him to chill, and D'Argo takes a breath. Unfortunately, he is also completely out of it, calling Zhaan "Lo'Laan" and gazing at her lovingly. They ask about the PK device he found, but he's really trippy and not getting it, and then he passes out again. Moya wigs some more and John asks what's going on. "Something is wrong?" asks Pilot, and Aeryn starts to realize that Pilot's out of it too. So if Moya, Pilot, and D'Argo are all simultaneously losing it, that means our fate is up to Aeryn and Zhaan, basically. Which is just so scary. Pilot vaguely says he's "Working on it," as far as Moya's freakout, and Zhaan picks some "debris" off D'Argo. John and Aeryn take off for tier twenty-one, leaving Zhaan to deal with D'Argo's recovery.
Aeryn and Crichton in the corridors, listening to Pilot fugue out, and now also the DRDs are freaking out and not responding to Pilot's requests to go help them. "Whatever is affecting Moya is bugging Pilot too," John finally realizes, and posits that something's going on with Pilot and Moya's "symbiotic fusion." "Pilot's tendrils run all through this ship." He thinks maybe they both got hit by something, and exposits awkwardly: "Man, I am never going to get used to walking around inside a living ship." Aeryn asks if they don't have similar things on Urp, and John mentions Jonah and the Whale (a story Rygel and Zhaan might find interesting) before comparing the situation to a horse and its rider. Horses? "Not as large as or as sophisticated as Moya here but kinda similar, loyal and intelligent." Which, Aeryn snorts hypocritically, "you capture and make work for you." John counters that we love our horses too, and Aeryn says: "You love what you enslave?" I don't even have time for you right now, Officer Sun. Zip it if that's the best you can do.
John smells a smell, stale air, and notices two DRDs busily filling up the hole D'Argo kicked in the wall. "I don't read any of the DRDs in that section," Pilot murmurs weirdly, and Aeryn reiterates that they actually are there. Then a DRD shoots some glue at her boot, which causes her to fall down, and then it glues her hand to the deck and prepares to shoot glue at her face. John deals with it. I don't know when you get over seeing DRDs get their antennae and nozzles and whatnot snapped off, but it's way less troubling when they're cocking back to shoot Aeryn in the face. So in addition to D'Argo completely losing it, you've got Pilot dropping all ability to deal, Moya randomly freaking out, and DRDs gone rogue. Last time this stuff happened, somebody was having a baby. If I have to watch Rygel crawl up another alien's ovipositor I will...I don't know. Something dreadful. Times twenty if Aeryn gets hit in the body yet again, so soon after last week.
Zhaan's in her apothecary, noting that her scanner is frelled, when John comes in with things stuck to him: Aeryn's boot, the poor DRD's nozzle part. Aeryn is wigging out because she's got DRD goo all over her, but Zhaan notices that they've also got "debris" on them. Zhaan reveals the not-yet-disgusting fact that D'Argo also ended up aspirating and ingesting some of the debris too. John wonders if maybe that's not part of D'Argo's current weirdness, but Zhaan dismisses this. "The particles are biomechanoid." Aeryn spends this entire scene screeching about getting the glue off her, it's awesome. She manages to make Zhaan and John look like scientists, which is what they are, which is the point here. John wonders aloud how the debris from an explosion could have such uniform makeup. Go back and watch this episode from the beginning, because the most innocuous conversations become hysterically disgusting.
John and Aeryn, getting washed up, posit that it's a virus left behind by the PKs, which...explains nothing, really, but makes sense because they've connected D'Argo's mental breakdown with Moya's. Aeryn wonders if it's not another passive weapon like the Paddac Beacon, and they agree that this makes the most sense. John and Aeryn are sweet as they finish up the cleaning job, and John reiterates what they just decided was the thing going on. "But you are saying this virus is biomechanoid," says Aeryn. "That means it shouldn't affect Pilot or D'Argo." But, John points out, something is messing with them, and also they're breathing it in right now, if it's a virus.
Zhaan notes the staleness of the air in D'Argo's quarters as she brings him there to recuperate, and wonders if she can't help make the recovery easier. He chuckles lovingly. "Lo'Laan, you must not worry about me. You work way too hard. You are so beautiful I can only dream that I make you happy as you make me." Ignoring the fact that he's clearly calling her by somebody else's name, Zhaan smiles sweetly. "I am glad I can make you happy, sweet D'Argo, but I also want to make you well." If they didn't run around talking and talking about everything and ignoring everything in front of their faces, this episode would be five minutes long. I'm not really bothered by it, but it's another one where the stuff that actually happens has a vastly smaller mass than the actual plot, and that always bugs me. "I'm never more alive or happy as when I'm with you," says D'Argo. Red flag! Even Zhaan's like, "Thatâs a fishy thing to say to Zhaan." She asks what it is that he's seeing, when he looks at her. "I see my future. No matter what the others say, I see you and me together." Yikes. She's like, "Cut the bullshit, who's Lo'Laan?"
Aeryn and John are hungry, and they lunch on rotten food cubes as the DRDs scoot around the commissary floor, fixing each other and worrying. Aeryn spits out her rotten food cutely, and John checks the fridge, which is bad news. "Pilot, we have another systems malfunction to report." Pilot gets it together long enough to tell them it's not a malfunction: "I'm seeing...signs of intent." His voice is all over the map; Aeryn gets worried. "Intentional sabotage," Pilot says, and passes out. Pilot! Unconscious! Not in charge! So scary!
Zhaan and John are on the bridge, worrying; Aeryn is trying to comfort Pilot. Zhaan notifies everybody that Moya's compensating for Pilot's blackout by getting systems control back. Which would normally be troubling but the best option, except she's wigging too. Aeryn panics about trying to revive Pilot, but confirms that he's still alive. "We'll do what we can for him," John assures her, "As soon as we get the ship stable. I'm getting a lot of peaks and valleys here." Zhaan points out that without Pilot, "Moya is out of control." She notes that Moya's showing major chemical surges, which plays nicely into John's whole incorrect "virus" theory. There's an elegant symmetry here to the fact of this assumption that it's death, not life, that she's harboring; that this assumption is being made by the people inside her; that they're all inside Moya for the duration as they grow and change. That even though she's the womb for all of them, hurtling through space, she's not allowed to be going through this herself. I like Talyn not for himself but for the fact that he allows Moya to make these calls: to pull in upon herself and protect Talyn above her adult children. From this episode on, Moya becomes as much a character as anyone else. It was always the case, but Talyn gives her the ability to define herself against the plot itself, which makes her much more awesome. Not to mention recalling all that symbiosis/invasion stuff from "Exodus" -- and radically recontextualizing the mother-as-goddess archetype we first saw in that episode -- and the way the story takes Pilot out of the picture, Moya's voice and messenger, so that she becomes strange and frightening both as a character and as our environment. Less "living ship" and more "living ship." More than most, this episode does a good job of telling the whole story in a way that makes it a mystery: you have to rewind through the whole episode to figure out how it all fit together.
Aeryn takes over for Pilot, acting on instinct of course, and for the first time is able to explain what she's doing, even as she's unable to explain how she knows how to do it. John and Zhaan wonder about how Aeryn and Pilot's DNA connection last week is still operating if, as Zhaan says, "That was all flushed out of her." Which, let's unpack that briefly, because (a) their connection isn't necessarily physical, and all the DNA stuff is just a way of making it biologically official, which is (b) pretty much sex, not to mention (c) of course Zhaan assumes that these kind of spiritual truths and infections can be "flushed" so easily, and (d) of course John sees the big picture: "Aeryn, whatever you're doing, just keep doing it." (Also, though, John understands that both Aeryn and Pilot, for him, are a way of interacting directly with the divine -- (b) again -- and that Aeryn and Pilot's connection is something you can't really parse out in words, because that's the opposite of what it is. And he has no business looking too closely at it.) But Zhaan exists in part to radicalize and problematize (and ultimately make transcendent) John's relationship with Aeryn, which means hauling these kinds of wordless truths back over the line to the science they share. Zhaan symbolizes John's ambivalence about Aeryn's (meaning his own, of course) warrior nature; when she's gone is when the love becomes real, without fear. Which is, admittedly, a lot to get out of like one sentence, but here's the thing: I'm terrified about recapping "Die Me, Dichotomy," so the more we get out of the way here, the less I'll have to talk about this stuff down the road.
Rygel "wanders" into D'Argo's chambers and starts going through his shit, because that's how Rygel goes. D'Argo wakes up and snorts at him, and Rygel starts lying immediately. "I know exactly what you're trying to do, Jothee. Come here, boy!" Rygel's like, "Boy?" but D'Argo won't be denied. "Now." Rygel tries to lie some more about his snurching, and D'Argo grabs him, beginning once again the Luxan Death Hug. I like how D'Argo's like this genie that they keep taking out of the bottle and then putting back, over and over again: "D'Argo's gone nuts! He's going to fuck you up! ...With hugs and giggles! Never mind!" It's a good description of the character, and of the horrors and wonders of the show, and I love that they do this over and over. D'Argo puts little Rygel down and kneels to smile in his face: "Now, what did I tell you about going through other people's things?" Rygel is more interested in what the hell D'Argo's doing, and D'Argo does the lint-flick trick where you point to the chest and then bop the chin. This is awesome because it's the Dominar. Li'l Imaginary Jothee is sooo cute, because he makes D'Argo sooo cute. I miss Imaginary Jothee! Rygel tells D'Argo to fuck off and D'Argo...tickles him. "Jothee! You are so big!" The line reading is so adorable. Rygel snits, with five times the gravity he should be able to muster right now, "Oh, my size is never a matter of discussion."
All that dignity, washed down the drain. Hysterical. D'Argo does what he can with this, from his side of the hallucination. "I think I know why you are so upset. You are old enough now to realize that we're outsiders here. You look different to the others, and they're treating you like a stranger." Heartbreaking -- but again, you don't know how much yet. Rygel agrees that D'Argo is "strange" right now, but D'Argo comforts him. "I know exactly how you feel. You know when your mother's family first saw me ["What about my mother?"] they despised me. So that's why we had to go away. ["Not far enough!"] We came to a place where no one could tell us what we thought or felt was wrong." The ignorance of Rygel in this scene is twice as awkwardly hammered in than it was with Zhaan, but I appreciate that he would be less likely to pick up on the way D'Argo's acting really off than she would. I don't know, it reads not entirely believable. Rygel shrieks that D'Argo is, in fact, "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" and D'Argo commences ticking him some more. "Ah, I love you, son." Rygel finally realizes what's going on, and gasps out something, but D'Argo just says, "Yes, son, no matter what happens I will always love you." Aww. That's rough in about sixteen different ways, and I'm only talking about the positions Chiana knows. Never mind how obnoxious Jothee is on his own.
John and Zhaan are still doing tests and looking at Moya's blueprints. "Pilot's tendrils run all through this ship. He could have picked up the virus anywhere, from any tier." Zhaan sneezes -- again supporting the virus hypothesis even though that's been disproven by the biomechanoid thing -- and she complains again that the air is getting staler. I kind of like how John's so stuck on this virus idea, because it illustrates how strange this world still is to him. He's the only one that keeps trying to tie it back to the things he knows. "Hey Zhaan, can this ship function without Pilot?" Theoretically. "Moya is an independent living being, Pilot and the DRDs are just merely services in aid of her operations." Pragmatic. John asks about environmentals, the lights and air -- the air and sun, the things he needs to live, and I can't help wondering if he's thinking back to the last time this happened too, and what happened to Aeryn Sun, and what she asked him to do.
"Those things are not here to keep Moya functioning, they're here for us. Pilot controlled those." John wonders, because clearly Psych 101 was not core curriculum, whether it's possible to communicate with Moya without going through Pilot. Other than psychosis, there's none. Aeryn notifies them that she's figured out that Pilot's blood is being nutrient-starved." Interesting. "It may not be the only reason why he's unconscious, but it's the only thing I can figure out for now." There's a good PK Tech Girl. Complete the thought: if Pilot's "tendrils" go all through the ship, and he's being starved, that stuff is going somewhere, right? And you've got a ground zero event on tier twenty-whatever. ...Nope. "The virus must be starving him, get him some nutrients." Except, Zhaan realizes, it's not a virus. "This test just confirmed that the particles are not a distinct organism, like a virus. They are actually make up of Moya's genetic material. They are a part of Moya, they must be fragments from the explosion." But again, they're uniform in size. "John, they are a part of Moya," Zhaan says. We're still talking about genetic material, folks.
The only thing better than John and Zhaan getting their science on is that Aeryn's a part of this conversation. You know who I don't hate at all? Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis. I don't think I get to write a single recap with her in it, so I should say that right now while the train of thought is leading there: in the show's ongoing exegesis on scientific ethics, Jool's "kid genius" role in opposition to John's applied, practical science is a great barometer of how the show feels about science at any given time -- no less the way she finally leaves the ship, and the show. Jool is so fucking key, I love her. If Aeryn and Pilot represent the abstraction of scientific truth to wordless intuition, Jool is the concretization of science to the point of flaccid overintellectualizing same. And I should know from overintellectualizing shit. She's heartless, but not cold: it's just book learnin'. You bring in Zhaan and John as the engineers (and the Ilanics and Scorpius, of course, on the PK side) and you've got the whole fucking platter of scientific philosophy.
John remembers that D'Argo "saw some Peacekeeper something" just before things went nuts and realizes that must be the answer. Aeryn sticks a needle in a Pilot tendril somewhere -- murmuring to Pilot as she does so -- and the lights come back on. John checks in on Rygel and D'Argo. "I'm not sleeping," says a very pissy Rygel, from D'Argo's bed. "D'Argo tucked me in and went for a walk. He thinks I'm someone called Jothee." So, Zhaan, confirms, D'Argo's not with Rygel? "He went for a walk and he's looking for Lo'Laan." Which is what he called Zhaan earlier, John remembers, and then takes off to find him. The task list is very methodical in this episode: got the lights back on? Good, now worry about D'Argo.
John finds D'Argo deep in thought. "I feel...unsteady," says D'Argo. "I know a little while ago, you were floating in deep space in your street clothes. I know you are going through some stuff, but we're in deep guano here, bro. We need your help." D'Argo's unimpressed: "You need me, Macton?" (The number of PKs on my shit list is rather large, I grant you, but that name actually just caused me to make a fist when he said it.) "D'Argo, I'm not Macton. What was that name you called Zhaan? Was it Lo'Laan? Who is Lo'Laan?" D'Argo's insulted: "You may despise your sister for marrying me, Macton, but do not mock her by feigning to forget her name." John realizes D'Argo's talking about real people: "You were married?" D'Argo calls John "Crichton," having been shocked back to reality by the question. John nods. "It's me, and you're here on Moya." He tries to get more info about the blast, and D'Argo remembers only a "Peacekeeper shield...holding something back." Before John can get deeper on this, D'Argo backflips again to the dream, and attacks John. "Macton, you dare deny your own sister's name? You dare to dishonor her, even though she is dead!" He tosses John around like a ragdoll.
D'Argo's doing the heavy lifting this week: his flipping back and forth between two realities describes the A and B plots in miniature. Two secrets coming to light, the annunciation of two unholy children, the miscegenation that hits the PKs in their greatest horror, the guilt and shame in the way both D'Argo and Moya have been misused by the Peacekeepers. How much of this show is about breeding? Things with things, Sebaceans with Scarrans, humans with Sebaceans, Leviathans with war tech, Luxans with Sebaceans, violence with science, love with fear, more with less. It's about coming up against your opposite and Other, and finding a synthesis, and it turns out okay if you can do that, which is about half the time. Either you find the balance between your good and evil sides, Zhaan, or you self-destruct -- have you ever thought of setting Zhaan down to Crais/Talyn and following their stories in tandem? Or Talyn and Aeryn? It really kind of makes everybody look better when you do that. One of the reasons I adore Scorpius so much, and why I can't really hate Talyn: every time somebody harnesses the energy and internal tension of their own impurity, no matter how badly or poorly it goes, it still takes something away from that Sebacean "purity" that has gone so rotten. Clean lies becoming dirty truth: the "more" that only looks scary from the BEFORE side. How much of this show is about physicalizing that internal synthesis? Ask Katralla. Ask Aeryn, whose entire story started with just this: irreconcilable contamination, becoming more and less at once. How much of this show is about breeding? Ask Mele-On Grayza.
Aeryn is in Pilot's den, second-guessing herself: "I can't be certain of what I'm reading, what I'm doing." Down in the corridors, John tries to reassure her, confirming that D'Argo's still out of it, "short circuited," even as his flashlight is going wack. "Aeryn, we gotta be getting close to the source, there's some kind of emergency lighting in this section." He spots four DRDs aiming to misbehave: "Uh oh. Eyes." Aeryn's like, "Eyes?" Aeryn directs him toward a possible detour she thinks might head off on parallel passageways. "You think?" he whines. "Look, do you want to come up here and try to handle all of these thousands of controls?" He shakes his head. "I'm vectoring, I'm vectoring." Heh. He comes upon a whole clutch of DRDs, glowing scarily, advancing on him. They begin to shoot; he tries to back out and finds himself surrounded.
"Aeryn, shut down the DRDs," John says, to which she of course replies that he's being ridiculous. "Do it!" And she does, immediately.
Bridge. Aeryn, Zhaan and John are sitting around the table, discussing Rygel and D'Argo. Zhaan: "D'Argo took his 'son' on an excursion." Aeryn frets about the DRDs -- "they're vital services, we need them operational" -- and John points out that "operational" is off the table for now. (That's the third time Moya and her immune system have been described as in "service," if you're counting. Which only bugs because of last week.) Zhaan, passive-aggressively to a certain extent, wonders aloud if the DRD weirdness is related to "what we've been calling" a virus, and John finally gives in. "No, you're right. It's not a virus, these guys are not biomechanoid. They're entirely mechanical; wires gears, servos. No way a virus would have any affect at all...they only do what someone tells them to do." Aeryn points out that Pilot's unconscious, but John says it's not Moya controlling them. "You're saying that Moya wanted these DRDs to try and kill you?" asks Aeryn, just as Zhaan realizes the DRDs are also the ones that shut down the environmentals. "Moya has an independent intellect, right?" says John. "Maybe the explosion that D'Argo was involved in short circuited that -- maybe she consciously cut off Pilot's resources in order to prevent him from keeping us alive." So maybe Moya's trying to kill them. If she were a poet, and not a spaceship, those DRDs would be chopping their arms off. No poetry today, though.
Lest you think that we've gained any kind of respect for Moya and the things she's going through right now, we cut to John and Zhaan looking at Moya's blueprints and wondering about how to bypass her intellect altogether. And they're being sneaky about it, avoiding using her viewscreens and stuff. This is creepy and disrespectful: that beautiful shot of the control collar coming off should tell you that at least. But we're on the trail of yet another red herring, and they're fighting for their lives, so I don't think the vulgarity really makes them look bad, it's just generally gross. Zhaan finds it hard to believe that Moya doesn't know what they're planning. "How do you know about the few bacteria inside of you? No, you don't know until you get a symptom." Love isn't invasion, it's symbiosis. "My body carries no bacteria," Zhaan overshadows, as Aeryn comes in with more blueprints and asks what exactly they're planning. She points out the grossness, and it's less hypocritical and more transcendent, that she's the only one getting this: "But that would be like...like when Moya was still wearing the Peacekeeper control collar." Exactly. Zhaan's more worried about getting Moya's brain working again. "It may be the only way to save her," says John, as Moya dips in space again, "And us. I think the most direct access point would be in Pilot's chamber." He invites Aeryn to head to Pilot's chamber; she nods and leaves. John comms to Rygel, who's "getting a piggy-back ride," and asks him to ride D'Argo back up to command.
D'Argo puts Rygel down softly: "You must hold still! We're up in the mountains and the air is very thin!" Rygel's like, "Mountains now. Crazy fucking freak." D'Argo chides him for "making things very difficult" for his "old man," and Zhaan and John enter Command. D'Argo only sees Lo'Laan. He kisses Zhaan: "The more I know you, the more I love you; the less I understand you. How could you give up everything to love someone like me?" What's not so fun is pretending that D'Argo's not crazy: he loves Rygel like a shitty little kid, he loves Zhaan like perfection. Like whatever Aeryn is to John. He distrusts John as the male in his cage. "Yes, sweet D'Argo. I do so love you too," smiles Zhaan. D'Argo pledges that he will never let her go, and she asks him, seriously, for help. "Anything! We are in no danger here. Not here, they aren't looking for us anymore. We're safe. You, me and Jothee." Even without knowing anything, you know enough to know that this is terribly sad. We've seen him angry and we've seen him horny and we've seen him sad. This love and joy and hope are so much harder to take. "We are not safe. Our ship..." D'Argo interrupts: "Our ship is gone. I destroyed it soon after we landed. There is no way they can trace us here." Which is where, Zhaan asks, but John interrupts: "D'Argo." It's a new voice. John pushes D'Argo harder than anybody else, because John understands D'Argo, in certain ways, better than anybody else onboard. He knows when to push, when to pound. When the blood's not running clear.
"What are you doing here? With her? You keep your hands off my sister!" Rygel's flummoxed by this new Crichton. I'm impressed and also quite sad. John spends way too much time trying on the Peacekeeper mask, especially in the first season. It's such an unhealthy way to get this job done, this becoming more that he's gotta do, turning into his opposite, but I think he knows it, which is why he only does it for love. "You have nothing to say on this, Macton!" says D'Argo. "I have everything to say on it. I reject you and I reject your marriage." Note, please, that Moya dips in space now. "No, you think yourself worthy of her when you cower from her memory." The cost of that, the love in that. It's not that John's less than masculine, it's that he has little opportunity to show it off, when all he does is love. Thank god for D'Argo, who he gets to push and pound. "Her memory burns in my very soul," says D'Argo, getting vaguer. To Zhaan: "You...you're dead." John begs him to remember; not sure whom it's hurting more. "I don't want to," D'Argo pleads. "You must," in that voice again, "You must remember. Everything." D'Argo tosses John around some more, scaring Zhaan. Even broken, John begs him to remember. "You killed her! To keep her from me, you killed her!" Zhaan starts to put it together: Her own brother killed her. Peacekeeper purity.
D'Argo turns to Rygel, firing heartbreak and exposition at a mighty and equal rate. "I never had the chance, you were so young I never had the chance to tell out why your mother and I went away from the world that we knew. Jothee, please understand, I had to send you away. I was charged with your mother's murder. Before they arrested me I got you to another planet, safely away to a place where I prayed Macton and others like him would never find you. I had no other choice, but I can't be sure you have remained safe until I see you again. I can't..." John says his name, once, and he responds: "Macton arrested me, he still had her dried blood on his hands." John realizes that Macton was, then, a Peacekeeper, and is horrified but not really surprised, and Zhaan finishes the puzzle: "If he was a Peacekeeper, then Lo'Laan was..."
Think of D'Argo and Aeryn, now. Perched on a tree, calling bullshit on each other. Running around in their roid rage gauntlets, calling each other cowards and worse. D'Argo always wanting to investigate, to attack, and Aeryn always wanting to run, both of them offended and irritated by turns. Think of D'Argo watching Aeryn die in the heat; D'Argo angrily explaining to the Ilanics that Aeryn is family. The work he's done that we didn't even see him do. D'Argo activates a chip and his family appears: a beautiful Sebacean woman holding a cute Luxan child. Lo'Laan and Jothee. "I remember it all." John asks again about the explosion. More knowledge, not less, and the blood runs clear.
Cut to Aeryn in Pilot's den, about to shut down Moya's higher functions: less knowledge, not more. This is vulgar. Zhaan hopes out loud that John can isolate the problem before they take this step. "Be careful, John. You may be going to right in where the particles are most concentrated." Not that they can do anything to him. Aeryn realizes she can't simply "shut down" Moya's intellect: "But I do have access, I can cut the connections." Permanently? She steps back from that. "This isn't my decision alone. If I do this, we all have to be a part of it." John gives the order, even as D'Argo's searching for the PK shield. Realizing the DRDs have already bricked over, he starts kicking holes in the wall. Aeryn starts to cut. John enters the shaft. D'Argo: "What do you see?" John sees infinity. "Then you're close either way." D'Argo talks him through it; John complains that he's running low on oxygen. Aeryn stops cutting: "I'm through the protective casing."
John locates the Peacekeeper shield but Zhaan cautions him he can't go much further down before he runs out of cable. "Okay, I'm cutting now," says Aeryn, and Zhaan warns John that Aeryn is beginning to cut the connections. Everybody talks over and over each other: D'Argo and Zhaan trying to figure out what's going on with John, John beginning to figure out the secret. "I'm not sure, Zhaan how much do you know of Leviathan physiology? Do you know how they reproduce?" Zhaan immediately hops on board: "That's why the particles are biomechanoid." It's the "catalyst" for her pregnancy; she wasn't trying to kill them at all. "No, she's been trying to protect her baby." They say "catalyst" about a hundred times, and then forgotten Aeryn comes over comms to call in her situation: "I've almost got it. The higher functions are almost severed." Everybody screams at her to stop, over comms, which are crappy this week just like everything else on Moya, and it's nail-biting freaky. John orders Aeryn to stop and she finally complies -- again, without asking why. Peacekeepers! Zhaan: "We'll explain later, just put down the saw." Heh.
"Moya," says John, "I wish there was some way I could communicate to you, to let you know that whatever you're doing to nurse your baby, it's killing Pilot. And us." He realizes why the DRDs are freaking out. "The baby needs the DRDs, we're killing the baby. Aeryn, you've got to turn on the DRDs." Aeryn, fed up, asks what the hell is going on down there. "Turn back on the DRDs now!" He shouts; she does. It's not about following orders, it's about trust. The DRDs advance on John. "Moya, I don't know if you can hear me through the DRDs...hell, I don't even know if you can understand me without Pilot translating, but we would never hurt you or your baby. We're happy that you're having a child. But do we have to die so that your baby can live?" The DRDs chill out, and Zhaan comms that the atmospherics are back on. The DRDs back off as John wonders at the baby: "How big is that thing gonna grow?" Especially in comparison to his britches?
Zhaan compliments Pilot on being "up and back on your feet," which colloquialism apparently translates, since John laughs about how Pilot doesn't really have feet to be back on, exactly. Pilot thanks her for her concern. "Here's what I don't understand," says John. "How could Moya do this without your permission?" Pilot shrugs it off, as always: "I'm here to serve her, she may do whatever she feels is necessary to for her survival ... now, I suppose, that extends to her offspring as well. To nourish the fetus through the very tenuous period right after conception, Moya needed to re-route a few resources." And the "service" issue comes back around: speaking as Aeryn or Zhaan, it's a beast-of-burden issue. "Droid work." Moya and Pilot in service of their crew. But as usual, only Pilot actually gets it: it's us that service them. The reason I love Look At The Princess, besides all the looove and angst and generally awesome story, is Zhaan's B-story: stewardship, not possession. In serving Moya, she realizes, she serves the Goddess; she sings back to the divine, in thanks and love. Not invasion or possession, but symbiosis.
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.