Here we go.
Moya and Talyn orbit Hoth; on Moya, Zhaan sits and surveys her burnt-out quarters. Rygel Jazzies in, interrupting Zhaan's brooding. "We're dividing spoils from the Depository!" He starts laying out Zhaan's choice of booty, very cute and excited, oblivious to Zhaan's pain. For just a second, before she grabs the shit out of him. "She is burnt. She's badly crippled because of our desires. Was all this wealth worth it?" Ask a stupid question. She lets him go and some trinkets shake out of his robes. "Of course not, you blue bitch. But what's done is done!" As long as we're wealthy, she sniffs. "May as well put it to good use," Rygel says, hurt. "Crais and Talyn have located some kind of surgeon, a healer species. We're almost there. We're all choosing one or two items we want, and the rest is to pay any fee for Moya's remedy." She apologizes. "I misjudged you," she says kindly, and he laughs. "It's becoming your career." It always was. It's so dark here, on burnt Moya. Every room and every scene.
Freaked, Crichton paces in his quarters, stopping to look into the mirror as Harvey speaks. "Now listen, John, be smart. See the situation for what it is." John tells Harvey to fuck off and smashes a fist into the mirror where Harvey sits. Even when the shattered pieces fall, Harvey still stares back. Destruction of one's own image is a form of suicidal ideation: die me, dichotomy. He's backed into a corner. "No, John. Not this time. We've reached the end of the old. The beginning of the new." John says, begging: "I am in control. I am in control of me!" He smashes the mirror, John and Scorpius at once, and again it reflects the smirk. "No more, John." Once more: "Screw you!" And Harvey smiles. "The reverse is more likely." It already happened, it's already happening. John screams wordlessly, and continues to attack his mirror image. Like a bird gone crazy in its cage.
Aeryn enters and grabs him, frightened. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" He falls forward onto the bed, Aeryn holding him from behind. Keeping him steady. He struggles against her; she holds him still. He struggles; Aeryn and Harvey hold him tight. And he screams: "I can't! Scorpius!" She begs him to believe there's nobody there; notes that he's bleeding. "Scorpius! Scorpius! Scorpius!" She begs him to listen: "Yes. Listen! He put a neural tracer chip in your brain. You know this. You know he isn't really here." But John can see him. He pushes himself off the bed and turns to her, anchoring himself in her arms. She holds his head in her hands; he's a shapeshifter too.
"Well, fight it! Listen to me: we've reached the surgical facility. We're going to see if they can remove the chip." He's gone, no thoughts. Like a terrified beast. He holds her face in his hands, staring deep. Their eyes lock, and he rests there for a moment before throwing himself back across the room: "I have to smash him!" It's hard having to watch this, and we're not Aeryn. He stands before the broken mirror, Aeryn pleading behind him. "Scorpius isn't really there, John. I need you to face reality as it is!" He breathes and looks at Harvey, breathing. "It's ridiculous, I know. She cannot see us, John!" Harvey chuckles. "What's happening to me?" John whispers.
"You know what's happening to you," begs Aeryn. "Scorpius put that frelling chip in your brain." John closes his eyes, opens them again. "Aeryn. What do you see in the mirror? What do you see?" The same, but it looks different to everybody. Everything you're not supposed to want, every ugly action and greedy snatch; every awful thought and every time you've thought of dying. Every time in your idleness you've thought about how much easier it would be if things were just a little less complicated: every time you thought it would be easier if she died. If life is a choice between her and Harvey, and Harvey's winning... All this and more is what Harvey looks like, the things you can't imagine yourself feeling even as you're feeling them, and pushing them down again, and talking so fast so you don't remember what you've just done. And she sees none of this; right now all she feels is fear. All she can see is John, our John, looking at the broken shards. "There is no mirror. There is no Scorpius. Look! You must confront your fears with strength." Who taught her that? Harvey returns his gaze, impassive. "You're right, Aeryn," says John, and he becomes something else. John, and Harvey. John as Harvey; skin like a corpse, eyes like wounds. Ben Browder in a coldsuit. It's sickening to look at. Perversion and sickness like blood across the moon, like black marks on the sun. "...There's no Scorpius here," he murmurs. "There's only me." John, and Harvey. John as Harvey. There is no mirror. "...Yes." Credits.
A tall alien, all in red, with shields over his face, and shades, and muscled arms, speaks to someone gross, someone humanoid. "If it wasn't serious," the alien's companion says, "They wouldn't have called us, would they? Now, when you're done: the big picture." Aeryn and D'Argo watch them speak, as Chiana appears with them. "I don't like him," says Aeryn. D'Argo explains the alien is "rumored to be one of the best healers in the Uncharted Territories," but that's not who's bothering Aeryn: it's the humanoid. "His sleazy confederate. Gonesick." The dirty bastard, Furlow's male twin, turns to them. "Grunchlk. Splendid hearing. Doc Fix, there." Aeryn blushes; D'Argo asks if the doctor alien can save Moya. "Oh, looks good! He's splendid with infections." The alien Diagnosian, Tocot, speaks. "He'll make up a mixture, it'll be absorbed through these scarred areas. And then a couple of applications, keep the patient sedated...you're laughing!" How much, Aeryn asks, and the answer is around $12,000. D'Argo screams, Tocot speaks its whispering, bleeping language and Grunchlk excuses himself for a quick confab, leaving our guys to discuss things among themselves.
Chiana's not sold, but Aeryn doesn't see any choices; Aeryn doesn't see any options, we go into free-fall. "She's gotta get fixed, but this is crazy," says Chiana. Aeryn shushes her as Grunchlk returns to them, whispering creepily: "He always thinks I undercharge. He's a greedy bastard, it's a species trait." Grunchlk ups the price to $15,000. D'Argo scoffs that he could by a whole new ship for that, and Grunchlk clucks in sympathy: "I had to let an aunt die once, because we couldn't afford a fixer." D'Argo and Aeryn sign, and turn as one away from his nasty ass. He's like that albino bloke in Princess Bride but less attractive. Aeryn offers quietly to return to Moya to assess their funds, and both Chiana and Grunchlk drift toward Tocot as she leaves. "If you don't make her better, we are gonna get you," hisses Chiana. D'Argo turns to see Chiana staring up at Tocot, and harshly calls her to heel. "Leave him alone." She ignores D'Argo and stares into Tocot's face. "Why do you wear that mask?" Grunchlk explains the admittedly complex and bizarre fact that if he inhales any bacteria through his mouth and nose at the same time, he'll die. Why would that be true? Is it about tasting? Nose and tongue together? And more importantly, how gross is Grunchlk? While he's giving this speech he fully flicks the mask open and wiggles his fingers around on the obscene nose area of Tocot, then -- after Tocot sneezes -- flips it closed again and licks those fingers, okay, and then caresses Chiana's hair. "Even the Siljot bacteria in your lovely hair would kill him." I've spent five minutes in Grunchlk's company and already I'd like to inhale an entire bottle of bleach through any part of my face at all.
Crichton's body. His face. His voice. All those things that make him wonderful. The swagger. Those are all different now. John enters one blackened Moya tunnel, cocking his head like Scorpius, and walks ahead, eventually reaching Rygel, who asks for a word. He wants to talk about dividing up the trinkets and baubles from the Depository; he gets a face full of fist and a bauble down his throat. John smirks and continues down the corridor, leaving Rygel choking behind him.
You never see John do these things. It's always Harvey. I don't know who that benefits, if it's the network or the actor or the show or what, but I'm glad of it. In the Uncharted Territories there's a rule that says whatever you love most, that's what's taken away from you. That's what the show requires, the sacrifice God requires: your heart. The lamb of God is whatever you love most. We know what that is for John; we've always known. And the name it carries, now, and the hateful face it wears. And it's John's.
D'Argo and Jothee rush down another burned corridor, D'Argo all in a tizz about taking Jothee down to have his facial tentacles restored by Tocot. Which Jothee is not interested in doing, but D'Argo won't hear of it. We were talking yesterday about John, about why boys watch this show: it's because John's the only human man in history who got to respond honestly to things, without other men watching. D'Argo's the same, now, for years he's not had to look anybody in the eye that he didn't want to, at least not if their opinions mattered. There's no way he's going to understand that Jothee still hates his difference, his heritage, his irreconcilable division. Luxan pride is a constant; D'Argo will never understand his son.
They pass Rygel complaining about the choking incident to Aeryn; the exhaustion in her voice is heartbreaking. We don't see John doing these things, and we don't have to be Aeryn. She has neither luxury; she's watching the man she loves go more horribly around the bend than any of them have, or will, and doing her best to compensate, for his sake and for everyone's. The thought you didn't think: what if this is it? The whole family in denial and you're looking down the barrel of a life with Crichton endangering himself, terrified and hallucinating. And wouldn't it be better if things were a bit less complicated? She's doing the best she can. "All right, Rygel. I'll take care of it." Rygel continues to bitch. "What did I just say?" She stalks away, the weight of it in her back, her legs, her eyes.
D'Argo and Jothee continue. "I can't see why you wouldn't want your tenkas restored! I mean, as a Luxan..." Which, Jothee reminds him, is only half true. "And for many cycles, I didn't even want to be that." D'Argo realizes the scars on Jothee's face, his destroyed tenkas, that mutilation, was self-inflicted. "You hate me that much?" Jothee tries: "It's okay...it doesn't hurt anymore, Father." He steps back even as Chiana approaches: "Hey, D'Argo..." He snaps at her, then immediately turns to her, apologetic, but doesn't have time to apologize. He turns and follows his son down the corridor; her mouth stands open and hurt, ashamed and afraid and confused. And she thinks the thought you just don't think.
Chiana waits for Zhaan and Stark to finish their negotiations with Grunchlk, Tocot standing behind her. "A moment ago you said seventeen five," whines Stark. Now it's $20,000. Look at Stark! I always forget how beautiful Stark is, because the character's so difficult to deal with. Stark gets hard with him, saying he'll pay eighteen, bottom line, and Grunchlk lifts him off the floor by his shirt. "I hate to negotiate like this, but I do find that it cuts through the shit." Zhaan's grossed out by all this, and scared and worried for Moya, and orders "Greenchalk" to put Stark down. He corrects her, and then explains: "This is business. I have the supply. I make the demand." Tocot speaks, and Grunchlk reassures him: "It's all right, Doctor. The family are in denial. I won't let them hurt each other." He suggests they take the twenty before it goes up again. Stark and Zhaan nod grimly at each other over Grunchlk's head, and Grunchlk drops him.
Aeryn enters Moya's Neural Cluster, where apparently John's reconfiguring a comm signal outside Pilot's control, so that he can -- John explains -- eavesdrop on Crais's radio traffic secretly. "I still don't trust him here." Harvey brings hate and fear and division into the Neural Cluster; into the mind of God. This is abomination. The Neural Cluster is used very specifically in the show: even when scary things happen there, you leave touched by grace. Harvey breaks the rules of love. Aeryn reminds him that Crais and Talyn have saved everybody's bacon a few times by now. "Look, Aeryn, if you're worried about that..." -- Harvey whistles -- "...inside my head, don't. He's under house arrest. Remember what you said? Strength." Which is awesome, Aeryn admits, but still, he needs to stop with the creepy black ops on the comms. "Aeryn, as long as I stay busy, he leaves me alone. Sometimes if I sing, he leaves me alone." John sits on a low wall and hums "The Ride of the Valkyries," regretfully. Aeryn sits on the wall to him. "Look. Once the Diagnosian's finished with Moya, he's going to take a look at you." John shakes his head. "Won't help." She closes her eyes, rests her forehead on John's shoulder. "I am reminded at this point of a word that you brought to this vessel." She looks at his face, so far away. "Hope."
The scariest word in the Uncharted Territories: the word that takes one star and draws a thousand charts around it. The word that creates in its utterance, in the wake it leaves behind, a cartography for the unchartable. The word that creates in its utterance its opposite: a dichotomy, the word imputing fear and loss into that unchartable equation forever. Where before there was chaos, take zero and add two, and now there is certainty: now they have a way to get you. Now they know your heart. Another word for "hope" is "choices," the one thing she didn't have before she met him. That's how she found hope.
We see Harvey now; Aeryn sees only John. "I would be lost without you," John murmurs. And she responds: "Then you'll never be lost." The head on the shoulder, from "A Human Reaction," when they found each other; foreheads touching, more intimate than a kiss. The litany of their love, every signal they've ever given, and he turns it into something sour and ugly. She smiles slightly and looks up at his mouth; he rests his forehead on hers. "No matter what happens, you have...worked your way into my heart." And she looks up at him, so full of light and love. So much more. "You've shown me that I have one." He takes her face in his hands, voice ever softer, his cheek against hers, his nose and her brow. "I love you." And she leans in for the kiss: "I love you, too."
John slams her head against the wall behind her and pulls her in, unconscious now. John smells her. "Mmm. You are so my girl." He licks her sleeping face from her nose to her forehead, slowly. I don't know how to do this.
Crais stands in Talyn's command, intensely carrying on a conversation with him although we can only understand half of it. "Officer Sun cannot be blackmailed or enticed. If she is to join us, it would have to be of her own volition. If she joins us freely, we will tell her the truth." A strange signal begins to play; Crais demands Talyn find the source, and "play it loud!" We head up into the overhead lights of Talyn's command, the screen bursting with white.
And into Moya's burnt-out blackness. D'Argo and Jothee march down the corridor. "It's a Peacekeeper signal," D'Argo growls, and Pilot identifies it on comms: "Crais says it's a special pulse code, known only to Captain's rank and above." Jothee shouts, confused, that John's never been a Peacekeeper; D'Argo realizes it's the chip. Jothee wonders what they're supposed to do once they find him, and D'Argo tells him: nothing. "It's too dangerous." Jothee begins to whine, and D'Argo turns on him, shouting again: "No!" Jothee watches his father walking away.
Aeryn's body lies on the floor near John, who's still working on his signal in the Cluster. Jothee orders him to stop; John tells him to relax. "Scorpius only wants me." Jothee: "My father says you're in no condition to make that decision." But, says John, Jothee's in no condition to stop him. "You really should have brought a pulse rifle," sighs John, and then grabs Jothee by the tonguelash, knocking him out. John drops the kid to Aeryn and almost chuckles. "Like father, like son." Too true: D'Argo lashes him from behind, and Harvey goes down. It would be easier if Harvey were just Scorpius, plain and simple, just a tiny robot in the brain; the truth is so much scarier.
John is immobile, strapped to a table on the planet that's too short for him. Stark leans over, sweet and concerned and wearing that ridiculous coat. "How do you feel?" Stark would have to be here, wouldn't he? He's always been John's madness. He's always loved Aeryn, and Zhaan. And Scorpius. He's the only one who will ever understand that part: how the devil gets in; how you can love him. "Like a Popsicle," John mutters. "Gotta love this sphincter end of the universe." Tocot stands near John's head at one end of the platform, Grunchlk's off to the side, opposite Stark, who reassures him: "They're just going to have a look. An examination." John's head is held in place with a plastic band. "Make sure he puts the K-Y on the glove," says John, rolling his eyes. Stark's literally the only person he could make that joke with, I think.
Crais enters the Diagnosan's chambers, to John's irritation, but he calls his attendance a "meager gesture of support," with just a hint of passive-aggression: "...While the others attend to Aeryn and Jothee." Crais circles around to look at him. John asks if he did any "permanent damage," and Crais says it's only their pride. "You seem remarkably lucid." Grunchlk hides behind Stark, circling back away from Crais. "Don't get too close," says John grimly. "I could turn any second." Stark lovingly promises that they'll fix it. "Everyone's pledged to give whatever it takes." Tocot bleeps at Stark, and getting no response, pokes him in the tummy. Stark steps off the platform accommodatingly. I don't like that; I need him so much closer. John needs him closer. Tocot turns the lights out in the chamber, and the platform is illuminated green. Tocot slowly removes his face mask; the chamber doors are still wide open. Stark's confused: "I thought he couldn't inhale our contaminants?" Grunchlk points up at the green light. "Biological neutralizer...you could have the Karatonga Plague in here, wouldn't touch him. Outside, pick your nose and he's dead." Grunchlk's gotta lot of fucking rules for somebody that looks like rotten seafood on meth.
"No pain. Relax," Tocot sighs, stroking John's head gently. Another flash, and the skin and skull disappear, revealing John's brain: covered in a seething net of black tendrils. Tocot looks closer, nose flexing; Crais steps onto the platform, his usual face thawing into concern and fear. Grunchlk gets profane, Tocot bleeps, nobody's saying anything we can understand. Language is the greatest tool we ever had, because it makes other people comprehensible. Language takes two lonely black holes and joins them, gap to gap. Language charts the souls of people around us; without it you're alone. Translator microbes don't come from just anywhere, do they? They come from Moya. Without language you can't have love; you can't even prove you exist. "You're gonna tell me my health plan doesn't cover this, right?" Tocot whistles and clinks. Even Grunchlk's horrified: "Doctor doesn't often say this... There's nothing he can do. That thing in his head: he can't get it out without killing him." John relaxes and laughs, ironically; Harvey laughs too. They laugh together, both of them.
Chiana follows D'Argo down a corridor, babbling. "D'Argo, the surgeon said it's a numbing anesthetic, okay, so don't breath too much and...all right? And shake the canister every couple of..." He snaps at her again, almost striking her as he turns: "I remember!" I don't take Chiana and D'Argo that seriously, but like, I'm not a Luxan: I only have one heart. I couldn't care about them this week if I tried. Chiana asks him, with innocent offense, what the hell his problem is. "What's the matter with you?" he asks in return. "I'm just trying to have a relationship," she stammers, and he chills out a bit. "Listen, Chiana. You have to understand, it has been so long since I've seen my son." He knows. "D'Argo, I know how long it is. There is no one -- no one -- who has lived this dream of finding your son more than me," she says weakly. And they look. Stark breaks into the silence: "You going to help, D'Argo?" D'Argo wheels on Stark, telling him to wait a fucking second, but when he turns around she's gone. Stark is clearly somewhat looped by Tocot's mixture, but tries to explain how they'll be applying it to Moya's burned flesh; D'Argo notes that Stark can apparently understand the Diagnosian. Of course he can: they're both high-pitched, slightly freaky, and save things beyond saving.
The cold storage vault is so, so big. Echoey and full of corpses. Remember when you didn't even know what stem cells were? John's got his hands cuffed, in front, and his legs are manacled. "How many bodies did he say were in here?" asks John, and Aeryn -- surprising him with her tone, which is only slightly lower in temperature than the ambient -- says, "I believe he said 'frelling millions'." Dragging chains toward her, he asks what he's done wrong, "other than caving in the side of your head," and she wows at him. "Do you not remember?" That's not the question: the question he's asking is, how can she afford to remember it? The most painful part of that scene was that it made her look stupid. Declaring love and hope while Harvey watched, and smiled, at her expense. Declaring love like a stupid girl, kissing the devil, while Harvey watched and thought her weak. Not even Chiana could shame herself so badly. Watching her get fooled; watching the gift of vulnerability -- the only gift she could give that means anything, her absolute trust, so much further down, and further in, every time like the first, so much further away from where she started, so much more, and so effortlessly -- made a mockery and a joke and a perversion; that's the worst part.
Thankfully, Grunchlk and Zhaan enter, Grunchlk claiming he's found a biological match for John -- "splendid news," he says. Human? No, Interion (Jool! Fuck yeah!): "Bipedal. Central spine. Organs internal...single heart circulation and a small head." There are three Interions in storage. "Over 5,000 different species frozen here," says Zhaan from her high horse; for once I don't mind. "This is an abomination against nature." Grunchlk calls Blue "luv" and points out they're not really suffering. Aeryn points out that they're dead, so there's no problem because the afterlife is for jerkfaces, and Zhaan corrects her: "No, Aeryn, they're still alive." Which Grunchlk would call a technicality: "All accident victims and the like. Hey, I mean we freeze 'em a microt before their death, 'cause the parts last longer that way." John is troubled by this totally creepy fact, and Zhaan speaks out on behalf of the course of nature. For Zhaan, and for Stark, the laying to rest of the dead is a sacred act; a demonstration of love and respect that extends beyond our bodies. It's a demonstration of respect for the Goddess, for the fact that everything dies and everything ends. And Zhaan will bend the rules, again and again, because what she's called upon to sacrifice is nothing but her own righteousness, her faith in the will of the Goddess. Grunchlk says the Doc's policy for "donors" is that none of them would survive restoration. "Probably a species offshoot from the same stock," says Grunchlk, and John wonders if that means they're close to earth. He's forgotten himself and the doghouse that his crazy has earned him; Aeryn reminds him simply and coldly: "I don't know." John wants the chip out, and Grunchlk is pleased: "If it don't work, we get to keep your body."
Stark and D'Argo finish up painting Moya's blackened walls, totally high off the dannlandium. They are very cute and I love them both very much, but the scene's mostly nonverbal. A lot of "I can't feel my tongue" and "Frell you" and whatnot, eventually falling into gibberish. Eventually losing language. Because they both embody different parts of the relationship between John and Aeryn -- the spiritual union and the physical partnership -- and because they'd both throw themselves out the bay and into vacuum, they can't be there for this. It's the perfect length of funny-scene to divide up the total horror slowly encroaching on all sides. I like it in movies or video games when the awful thing comes and the lights get dim and stuff starts crawling and dripping down the walls. I don't like this though.
Chiana and Jothee sit together on Pilot's desk, watching him get trippy and wild and woolly and weird. Jothee tells Chiana that "his dad" wants to buy a farm with his share of the Shadow cash. "He wants to grow Prowsa fruit and make wine," he spits, and whines that he doesn't want to live on a farm. "I've been a slave. Chained in a mine. He wants to live the quiet life, I want to live loudly." Chiana's like, (a) You're even better at this game than you think, and (b) When you put it that way...but then realizes she's the odd man out. "I guess it was gonna be just you two." Pilot disagrees, and Chiana explains to him that he's high. "I am no higher than I've ever been. My position is fixed!" the bitchy tone is adorable; even Jothee smiles. "No, no, no, I mean the drug in Moya, it's messing with your brain," she clarifies. "He's been using my DRDs to practice. Wanna see? It's a secret," says Pilot kindly. And one of the DRDs projects a hologram.
"Chiana. You know that I have to spend a lot more time with Jothee, so...I was hoping we could all find a quiet place and...settle down together. I was hoping you would consent to be my wife." Holo-D'Argo breathes out, terrified; Chiana and Jothee both WTF. She gets ten years younger in this moment.
Rygel sits on Moya with Grunchlk, watching him suck down pink slime with a big spoon. He is so goddamn gross. "What a surprise to find you eating," says Aeryn, upon entering. "So, Gunshock. How long will it be before the surgeon can operate on Crichton?" Grunchlk doesn't even bother to correct her. Maybe it's because she's getting closer every time to the truth. Seven or eight hours; the Doctor wants to focus on Moya's treatment. "He's...uh...splendidly conscientious." Aeryn reports that she'll keep "Crichton" restrained until he's ready; Rygel just wants her to leave. Finally, she cocks an eyebrow at him: "Higher-level reasoning, Aeryn. If a simple thought occurs, I'll call you." She almost gives him a grin -- on a day like today, people merely acting in character makes you love them more -- and leaves.
"As I was saying," Rygel continues, "You must know your way around this backwater part of the galaxy..." he tosses a small blue gem onto the table. "I know who I need to know," says Grunchlk. "That's a very small stone." Rygel notes that Moya won't be able to starburst for awhile, so he's looking for other passage -- he tosses a clear crystal across the table, to the blue gem. "There are some excellent choices available. It depends whether you require speed, stealth, or strength. That's another very small stone." All three, actually, and a small red stone joins the others. "Not impossible. That's three very small stones." Are these the storied negotiating tactics of the Hynerian Dominar? Because...this is bocce ball. Rygel drops a huge lead crystal like the one your mom hung from her rearview into the pink crap. Grunchlk fishes it out with the spoon, pops it into his disgusting mouth, and sucks on it. He then spits it into his hand, admiring it briefly: "Oh! Splendid." He needs to fucking stop putting things in his mouth and sucking them clean. That's like the last thing I need in a medical worker, even a zombie-keeping one. I bet they cover that on Day One at Grunchlk School. The fact that Tocot even deigns to speak to this freak says really unflattering things about his professionalism. On the other hand, his face is labia, so I understand that he's playing with a different deck of industry issues.
Zhaan visits John in her apothecary on Moya. His hands and feet are tied. "They're treating one more tier, then the Diagnosian wants you." John beckons her closer: "Odds are that I'm not going to make it..." Zhaan blah-blah: "Positive spirits. I pray to the Goddess." John entreats her also about how there's reality, though. "Your soul is troubled." Harvey, now. "When the chip's not controlling me, my thoughts are lucid. There are so many things that I want to say to my family and friends. If you could absorb these thoughts, you could find a way to get a message back to Earth." So he's asking her to join his demonstrably crazy ass in Unity? Now is so not the time. "I just want my dad to know," says Harvey. And Zhaan kneels; they have fathers in common. "Concentrate on me." The purest expression for the love that exists between John and Zhaan; between John and his highest self. Something that exists only between the two of them; something that redeems them both, unutterably meaningful and beautiful. Forehead on forehead, more intimate than sex. (And see, here, how Harvey turns her history upon her: the sin she can't escape, both in her life as an anarchist -- murdering in the middle of a holy act of love -- and in her life as a tainted mutant -- the only Delvian capable of destruction.) Twice now, before with John's spirit and now with his soul: forehead on forehead, warped and made ugly. The greatest possible violation.
"Hello, Delvian," says John, as her face twists in agony. "Tenth Level Pa'u? Pity. A Twelfth could break this bond." She struggles, but can't get away. "Time to pray." John tortures her in Unity, growls, throws her backward. Scorpius was never the enemy, he's just something to push up against, something to resist: only Harvey could destroy everything this way. Only John knows the sickening places each of them can go.
"Unlike your institutional upbringing, my parents were compassionate, moral, emotional. I value those traits. They are beginning to emerge in you. Crichton may not survive. Moya may be permanently crippled. The others are contemplating their move. You're an officer and a strategist. Have you not planned yours?" Dear Crais: Never, ever give anybody the "broken home" talk, because the first question is always going to be "then why aren't you happy?" I hate that shit so much. Anyway, Crais tells Aeryn that Talyn -- "this emotional ship" -- needs guidance, and has chosen Aeryn. Nice accountability elision there, Ponytail. "This emotional and volatile ship with which only I can communicate also said that you should just wear like, panties and a bra from now on. The black ones." Crais allows as how, completely without guile, he can see this as a good idea. "There is much that you can learn that will surprise you." Yeah, Talyn's a fucking learning experience all right. Like how season on Talyn, you might just learn that the pain of managing John Crichton as he goes bugshit crazy right in front of you is actually a fucking cakewalk, for example. Surprise!
Talyn beeps, it's John; Crais is only a little irritated. Aeryn and Crais head up to Talyn's Command, where Aeryn suddenly can't raise John on comms, and things start moving very fast.
On the Farscape module, the now-freed John begs Aeryn not to follow him, breaking up on comms, breaking up as Harvey takes control for good. Language is how you chart the mysteries of another person: if they can't hear you properly, they can't know what you're planning. Crais orders Talyn not to shoot him down, even as they're realizing that John's broadcasting their position to Scorpius. Again. Aeryn heads for the exit: "Track me. And Crais...thank you." And Harvey, with a Yee-haw, with a smile like a stolen car, takes off into the sky. Commercial.
The Farscape glides through icy Hoth's atmosphere: "Shielded message for Scorpius, coordinates on specified frequency, request immediate extraction." That's where the devil gets in. Identification with the shadow. Saying to the black, "Come and take me." When Aeryn does this, it won't be in a starship, it'll be in a city of ghosts. When Zhaan does this, it's in the service of the Goddess. But when John does this, he destroys everything. Crais tells Talyn to "block and fragment" the transmission, to buy Aeryn some time. Up in the sky, Aeryn's Prowler follows Harvey close behind. "John Crichton to Scorpius. Limited flight capabilities due to the nature of this craft. Repeat. Request immediately extraction." Aeryn asks if he's even really John anymore; he rasps a laugh and asks after her skull fracture. Would this be better or worse if Browder weren't so freaking good at being Scorpius? I didn't remember him being this good at it. I didn't remember it hurting this much, that's for fucking sure. "If I'm not addressing Crichton, then I address the neurochip in his head. You're in an unarmed vessel. I believe Scorpius's mandate is for Crichton to remain alive." And, Harvey says, he will. "Given no other choices, I will shoot you down." Which Harvey doubts. "Make no mistake," she says, this girl who you'd believe anything she said. Until now. Ask D'Argo; I don't believe she'd shoot him down even if she could see him the way we do. "I believe you'll pull the trigger. I just don't believe you'll hit anything," Harvey snarks, and dives toward the surface. The thoughts you can't think; the sickening places John can't admit they'll go.
Stark attends Zhaan, all out of it still. Seeing him do these things... I can't get away from the idea that if you saw John doing these things, as John, you might actually just fall apart. Like The Ring or something. The whole Harvey's Lovely Daughter thing that happens later on is so, so much more frightening, though, because of having to watch John do all these things in a coldsuit. Guys are just like this: you have to see the devil in yourself before you can see the devil in your beloved. John now, Aeryn later. And then, so much later: hell and back before you can see the love in your devil. Before you can Yensch, before you're big enough. And none of them have the option of putting Harvey's face on it, great acting job notwithstanding. It's still John, who never hurt anybody, who stayed strong even when the world was falling apart and he was acting like a fruit loop, who never moves to violence except by forces stronger than all the Peacekeepers put together. John, who weekly hands them some gonzo plan where nobody gets hurt, as though by coincidence. John, whose only useful skill is the ability to love completely.
This episode would be just as horrible if there were no dialogue at all, is how much we're privileging the visual this week; it's not a story you can tell in words. First there was light, and then there was darkness, and the light got confused and bent back against itself. Zhaan in an eyepatch. And the light burnt out the mother, burnt her to a crisp, for its selfishness. And the darkness won. Stark begs Zhaan to focus, to "purge the memory," but Zhaan's raving: "No! Crichton! Stark, he is no more! His body shelters some horrific evil! Crichton...Crichton's gone," she screams. And, being a consummate actor, Hey pulls off the line gorgeously; it's coming from her whole body. (And it's a story she already knows: it's every nightmare, coming true. What if your Harvey got control? What if that meant you were gone forever, blotted out -- or worse, screaming in some corner of your mind, watching your body act out savagery and thoughts you can't allow yourself to think? What if there was no difference?)
The Prowler tracks the module through the canyons of Hoth. Harvey rejoices in a barrel roll. "How's the ride back there, hmm? A little bumpy?" Aeryn says she's on his six, weapons locked. "Ah, the radiant Miss Officious. So sure. So confident in the void of space." That's all she's ever been allowed to be. In space, there are infinite options. "Crichton was trained to fly in atmosphere...against gravity. Welcome to our world, baby." If you allow yourself to hope, if you allow yourself to love, you lose options; you come down into gravity. She scrapes a wing; D'Argo calls her on comms. "Aeryn, Crichton has often said he'd rather die than fall to Scorpius." Tell me the difference. "If you get the opportunity, don't hesitate." She asks why the hell he would even think she'd do that. "Because if our positions were reversed, I would." I don't know what to say to that. I'm just glad D'Argo had his own shit to deal with this week, just two tonguelashes in a five-second scene and it was over. He could never come back from Harvey the way Rygel and Zhaan, even Aeryn, did. He's great in a lot of ways, but he couldn't come back from that.
Harvey gives another Yee-haw and abruptly climbs; Aeryn takes a pissed-off second to get back, cursing, looking for the module. It's above her, and slowly dropping. Aeryn warns John he doesn't have the fuel to fly around until Scorpius arrives; he replies that it all depends on how close Scorpius currently is. "Look, John. If you're even in there anymore, look at what you're doing." Listen to her play both sides; listen to the pain in admitting that this still might not be Harvey. Even still. Her Waterloo is trust, is seeing the open hand instead of the enemy; every time they fuck with her, it's through her desire to trust. How many times does she get burned on Earth? By John? Every season? Every time she hopes, that's all. Every single time she dares to hope. And what's John's Waterloo? Every time they fuck with him, it's by putting him in the hero role: by putting Aeryn in danger. From the beginning, it was clear that the only thing the show was interested in taking away was what they loved the most.
"You fail to understand the extent of your friend's misery! He wants Scorpius to find us. He wants to end his pain." Aeryn calls bullshit. "Whatever you are, recognize -- atmosphere included -- I am the superior combat pilot." He laughs, calls her "Darling." Doesn't contest this. "So land your craft now, or I shall be forced to demonstrate that skill." John wonders if she'd really shoot him down. "You know the answer." John complies, and lowers his landing gear -- as Crais begs her to be careful, to "trust nothing," in fact -- right into the roof and cockpit of the Prowler. I hope Crais didn't have to watch that part.
"Terribly sorry," John laughs. "Didn't see you there!" He pulls up and out, Aeryn screaming over and over into comms: "I am under attack! I repeat! I am under attack!" D'Argo shouts for her, terrified, as she reports her every move to Moya and Talyn: "Attempting to gain ejection altitude! All options depleted. Requesting position track. Requesting position track!" Crais tells her to climb, to eject. All her options are depleted; she's in free-fall. Gravity around her like a fist, like a singularity. She punches out, locked in her pilot's chair, launching high. No options, no guns, nothing solid beneath her. No John. All alone in the sky. This isn't just about John: this is every nightmare coming true at once. At the very point she gave in, he disappeared, and she couldn't hold him tight enough.
"Well done, Officer Sun!" John laughs. "Are you still conscious?" She tells him to go fuck himself, and the chair reaches the top of its trajectory; it begins to descend. You can see the Prowler smashing into a mountain; you can see John clapping wildly. "Fireworks!" And D'Argo still screams for her. Jets ignite beneath the chair, slowing her fall. "It's all right, D'Argo. The descent brakes auto-ignited. I'm all right!" John -- "in deference to that part of Crichton which still cares" -- feels duty-bound to inform her that she's descending not over solid ground, but into a frozen lake. She spares a look down, and rolls her eyes. "He's right. D'Argo, Crais, do you have my position?" They do. Three warriors. D'Argo asks if she can maneuver at all; her options are gone. Crais tells her to let the jets weaken the ice, but to release herself from the chair before touchdown. "I repeat, separate before touchdown!" Harvey giggles.
John and Harvey struggle for control of the body. Finally, Harvey screams. "Aeryn? Aeryn! Can you comply?" asks John, panicked and wild. "Negative. The harness is jammed. Your frelling tire must have damaged the mechanism." John begs her to listen, to believe it's him speaking for the moment. "Listen to me. You do not want to be in that chair when you set down." She almost weeps in frustration. "Well. This harness won't release. I don't have anything to break it..." She tugs, wildly, at the straps, anger in every line and angle. He begs her to get out of the chair. It wasn't Tocot's lab that was the aurora of our destruction. Right pain, wrong chair. John circles her impotently in the module. Watching. "Come on, please. Do something, do something." He begs, weeping, shaking, and the heart that loves saying: Just live, just live, just live. "I don't have any choice! I don't have any options."
He can see her. In the chair, through the module's side portal. He can see her dropping. It's slow, and fast. "Baby, you're not going to die like this. You are not going to die like this." Chattering -- It wouldn't be heat, would it? It was going to be the cold, always -- appalled, scared, heartbroken: "I hope you meant what you said in the Neural Cluster," she says, hard and soft and full of grace. "I did." She tucks her arms, head down, crash position, and he can still see her. She breaks the ice and continues down, into the water. Deep, and deeper, into the dark, and the cold.
John screams. Crais screams, and throws his hands to his head: he's the only one who can feel Talyn screaming too. D'Argo screams. Aeryn kicks and punches at the water; her head breaks free for a moment; her hands slap the surface. When she goes down the third time and doesn't resurface, breath going out in gouts and bubbles, deeper into cold, John weeps for what he's done. But she's screaming his name, as she goes down.
Officer Aeryn Sun, Special Commando, Icarian Company, Pleisar Regiment. Talyn's daughter; D'Argo's sister. Absent without leave. Irreversibly contaminated. More.
In Tocot's body vault, Zhaan stands at the head of Aeryn's open casket. Always beautiful, never more than now. There's a peace in her we never got to see. The Agnus Dei begins to play. The Lamb of God.
"The Goddess graciously receives to her bosom all those who pass from this existence, regardless of faith or belief."
Crais -- the other godless Peacekeeper in attendance -- looks down at Aeryn, impassive, breaking. Praying Zhaan's right, in this extremity.
"She holds, however, a special place for those who travel this life as a journey."
Chiana -- the quintessential vagabond she's talking about -- places her lips against Aeryn's cold skin and stares up into infinity. One crystal tear on gray skin; eyes almost shut tight, almost black. Accusing the sky from inside a pain so immediate and strong it has a physical presence but no sound, no movement. There's a downside to innocence.
"Aeryn Sun will surely harvest that favor. Her life was a series of strides toward enlightenment. Casting off the chains of prejudice and hatred."
John -- her companion in those strides -- stands very still. Chiana returns to Jothee's side; D'Argo -- living proof of those chains, cast aside -- weeps and unsheathes his Qualta Blade.
"Reaching beyond violence and bigotry. She sought a balance of lasting inner peace."
D'Argo places his Qualta Blade in the pod, wrapping Aeryn's hand across the hilt. The only sacrifice big enough, for all her honor, and strength. For the love and acceptance and wonder she was able to show him, warrior to warrior. Beyond violence and bigotry; toward balance, toward peace. It's a language only the two of them ever understood.
"In her name."
Jothee gently takes Chiana's hand in his, the two of them children here. Rygel hovers to Aeryn's side: "You are more worthy of this." He removes a royal sash with a golden seal, places it over her crossed hands. "Be at peace, Aeryn." He calls her by her name. He calls her Aeryn.
Pilot sits with his head bowed and a single claw raised, one hand up and one hand down, touching mourning Moya, saying a prayer. One only Aeryn, among them, could ever hope to understand. If she were there to hear it, in the silence.
Zhaan passes a censer over Aeryn's casket. "May the Goddess receive you with charity." Stark, the very spirit of charity, gives an "Ahmet."
"May the Goddess sanctify your spirit." D'Argo joins Stark, sanctified by knowing her, and loving her, both of them: "Ahmet."
"May the Goddess purify your soul." Chiana, most innocent among them, joins the mourners in the purity of their chorus, promising never to forget: "Ahmet."
"May the Goddess recite your name on the whispers of the wind."
"Amen," says John, barely a whisper. His hands still shackled to the waist, dragging chains by his ankles, he walks so slowly to her side. He is in shock, full of anger and confusion, nearly a zombie. He stares down at her silently.
"D'Argo, give me your knife."
He has to look at D'Argo, in the eye, before D'Argo will obey. "Give me. Your knife."
D'Argo unsheathes the blade and hands it over hilt first. It's silver, but it should have been red: John turns to the casket and reverses it, point toward his heart, and bends down. His face so close to hers, memorizing every detail.
"Aeryn, forgive me. I love you."
And he leans in, and he kisses her, and takes a lock of her hair. He stands, wraps the hair around his fingers. He thinks the thought you don't think, he stares at the blade's edge. He turns to his family. Cold and dead and quiet and still. "I'm ready."
John's strapped to Tocot's table, at the aurora of nothing at all. Waiting for the surgery to kill him. The lights go out, and the green lights come on; Tocot removes his headgear. Grunchlk steps onto the platform: "Are you sure you don't want your friends here?" He's sure. "Doc says because of that thing in your brain, there's no way you were responsible for what happened to that Sebacean." He looks up at Grunchlk coldly, not interested in forgiveness. "Yes, I am."
"After the Doc's cut the tendrils that have hijacked your brain, he's gonna try and take out the neurochip completely. But he needs your help. Because there is no template of your brain pattern on our database, he doesn't know what bits of gray do what. So when he probes, you tell him." It's always memory, isn't it, in stories like this. Once they've taken away everything you had, they start in on the things that make you up.
I don't actually know the reference for the title. "Die Me, Dichotomy." It's always struck me as weird. I know he wants to die; I know he's split in half. I know one side of him burns like the sun and the other is cramped and bound by darkness. I know he dies three times, in three different ways, and they all have to do with the other side of himself: he becomes Harvey; he loses Aeryn; he loses wormholes, the ability to beg for forgiveness, or pity, or death. I know that the only thing worse than losing speech is losing the desire to speak. I know he begs for death in every way he can throughout the episode. I know that the only thing that keeps him alive is hate, which is a kind of death. I know Aeryn didn't even consider the possibility, because she believes in him so strongly. I know watching it kind of makes you want to die. It's a two-part process, a dichotomy of soul and spirit. If he would lay down his life for her, then the one you mourn is the one that lived.
Crais and Talyn mourn, Crais holding a PK data chip. "Yes, Talyn. I too would have like to have shown Aeryn what we learned from this chip. I think it would have made her the happiest soul among us." Um, we'll see about that. I do love how the Peacekeepers in the family mourn her through this: redemption of the Peacekeepers, absolution for all three of them. The sins of history and accident of birth. But because I don't exactly remember the details of that chip, let's instead take a moment to imagine Aeryn Sun as the happiest soul among them. Nothing heavy on her shoulders, blood washed from her hands, nothing but light in her eyes. No rifle, soldier's readiness just a memory. Arms wide open; standing in a field maybe. Somewhere green. Somewhere the land curves up around you to the horizon, so far away you can barely see where the sky ends, and the gravity holds you in its palm; somewhere without any walls at all. Somewhere it can rain.
Zhaan strokes Pilot's face silently. "Everyone else is preparing to move on," says Stark. Quiet. Not twitching at all. Nothing but love, and sadness. "Tragedy often heralds flight," says Zhaan. Also season finales on this show. "What are you going to do, Zhaan?" Not thinking about it: "My concern now is for Moya and Pilot." Not service but stewardship. She's found the Goddess, and She was all around her. There are so few opportunities to be proud of Zhaan, but I'll give her this: she's finally all the more she could have been. And so beautiful: "If you are in agreement, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan, it would be an honor, and a pleasure, to share the future with you." Zhaan seems about to agree, but she doesn't answer just yet. She's thinking the thought you don't think. Even at his craziest, Stark saying that shit to me would make my knees melt permanently.
Tocot teases out one tendril: "This is what?" Aliens, all of them: enemies and friends, allies and mysteries. All the wonders he has seen. "Critters. More close encounters." And this one? "American politics, Nixon to Clinton. Lose it." Heh. "Here?" All the dogs John's ever loved. "Necessary?" No, but keep it if you can, he says. Love's no longer necessary; home's no longer a possibility. This whole show is a series of goodbyes: if not immediate, then deferred. Family is fragile.
Even Grunchlk and Rygel sit quietly, razed. "The ship you wanted will be on its way here shortly," Grunchlk offers, and Rygel thanks him. "Service paid, service rendered, I guess. Too bad, ay?" Yes. "But that's life," Rygel hums, dejectedly. "Yeah."
"This section?" Aeryn in love, Aeryn and John; Aeryn knocking him to the ground in Moya's cells, helmet gone; Aeryn kissing him, Aeryn triumphant, Aeryn smiling. Radiant. John's eyes snap open like a blade going through. "Keep this?" John closes his eyes again.
Jothee attempts to console Chiana; he's well hot, but there's nothing you can do. "It's too bad we don't get to spend more time together," says Jothee. "My whole life I never stayed in one place long enough to...build any real relationships." And Chiana? "I always stay too long." Think about that for a second; to be unwelcome everywhere you go, just for being yourself. Literally, among her people, but then everywhere else too. Continually fucking up, hurting the people that you love, and never quite understanding how it happens. How it's happening, right now, under D'Argo's eyes. There's a downside to innocence. "I always stay too long." The things she does to herself without admitting she has any agency at all. Their heads are bowed; Chiana leans against him, forehead to forehead. Jothee leans in to kiss her, and Chiana pulls back at the last second -- is she psychic? -- as D'Argo enters. "Jothee? Chiana? Let's stay close. Once we find out about John, we should discuss our future." They agree.
Tocot pulls a memory: a swirling blue-white vortex, Farscape 1 disappearing at the wave, disappearing into wonder. "Whoa! Wormholes! That's it!" Tocot whistles and bleeps: "Good job...from you?" John laughs, manic now, broken. Tocot's confused: "I should desist?" There's no way for him to know what he's asking, how many things he just said. A failure of language. John nearly grins: "No frellin' way."
Grunchlk runs through a corridor in the facility, in a deadly hurry. You get to think for a second it's good news. It's that second that starts up all the crying again. A Peacekeeper cadre follows, in full gear. Braca leads them to him.
Tocot draws a tendril out; John abruptly begins speaking gibberish. It's shocking, scary, bizarre. His eyes go wide and after a moment, it subsides. "What the frell was that?"
Four Commandos rush into the vault, flanking Braca: "Return to the Marauder. Inform Scorpius we've successfully maintained our zero presence profile. Now!"
"Very...bad. Speech close to...neural implant." John begins to worry, finally. Finally a spark. It's like Aeryn going blind, this. John's verbal, there's never been a moment or a pain that he didn't turn into words, or a joke, or a story. If Pilot's arms are the way he talks to Moya, and Aeryn's eyes are the way she deals with the world, then John's only connection to this alien environment is speech. Without God's translator microbes and that smooth-talkin' Crichton charm, he's nothing. After memories there's very little they can take from you without killing you. "You're gonna take my memories, and I'm gonna talk gibberish? Why not just take my mojo while you're at it?" Why not chop a wormhole in half again? Tocot assures him that everything will get put back where it goes once the chip is gone. "What the hell ...there's no one I really want to talk to." If John's connection to the world is his constant talking, then there's no point now. There's no world now. "Not much worth remembering." Hugin and Munin. Thought and Memory. Telling and Remembering. The future and the past, everything: gone. Without love, without connection, those things are just ones and zeroes, garbage, gibberish. It's other people that make language worthwhile; you need someone to tell those stories and memories to, for them to have any weight at all. And that's what Harvey takes. Tocot pulls out a monster huge drill. "Take the damn thing out." And the drill begins to spin.
Commercial. Tocot drops a knot of black tendrils, some red lights, a little bit of brain, into a little jar. John watches, not talking, unmoving. Tocot shows him the jar, and John erupts into triumph and joy, for this final small victory. But it's wordless, and meaningless. His cheers of joy are gibberish; the victory means nothing anyway. Tocot promises to restore John's brain and John stops raving long enough to laugh. Life without Aeryn Sun.
Braca casually searches the body vault, not recognizing Aeryn in her casket. He notices a food wrapper at the floor before one of the cryopods, and spots Grunchlk standing in one, his hand over his face. Grunchlk stares out at Braca through his fingers.
There's a golf ball-sized piece of John's brain missing, where the chip used to be. Tocot makes ready to replace it.
Black leather grasshopper wings, black leather boots, coming down the corridor, as Scorpius hums "The Star-Spangled Banner," coming closer and closer.
The doors of the surgery burst open; Scorpius greets the Doctor under the green light. "So good to see you again." John's eyes grow wider; he begins to scream in gibberish. The Doctor squeals, grabbing at his mask. The horrified Doctor comes down off the platform and asks politely after Scorpius's cooling apparatus. "Just as functional as the day you installed it! Eternal thanks." The Doctor reaches out to close the door, quietly chiding Scorpius for disturbing the clean room. "I am so sorry to disturb the...sterility of your theatre, but...you no longer serve a purpose." John stares as Scorpius lifts the Doctor's mask and breathes a hiss into his nose and mouth; Tocot drops, another clean, kind story perverted. John watches, tied to the bed, silent, terrified.
"What irony. Sensitivity to heal anything but oneself," Scorpius chuckles. He tosses Tocot's mask to one side and circles the surgical platform. John screams wordless threats and curses, gibberish; embarrassed but unable to stop screaming. "Well, Crichton. So much to say...and yet, such little capacity." Scorpius steps up on the platform, past Crichton's right side, to the head of the table. John mutters gibberish, clear as hate, as he passes. Scorpius retrieves the jar with the chip, holding it up to his eye. "I only hope the wormhole technology I've waited so patiently for makes more sense." John rages against him, senseless and wild. "Don't need a translator microbe for that one, do we?" Scorpius says archly, and sighs. He leans over John's beautiful, twisted face. The things he would do, if he could move; the things he would say, if he could speak. "You've cost me much. And I do not suffer disappointment well." The rubber band holding John's forehead down: Scorpius places the tiny jar on this band. John stares at him, unable to move, unable to even speak. That rage, and hate, and fear; he shakes without moving.
"I condemn you, John Crichton...to live!" Scorpius smiles. "...That your thirst for unfulfilled revenge will consume you." He lifts the chip and grins as John glares up at him. Scorpius looks down, into his eyes. "Goodbye."
Scorpius turns and leaves, with his regiment and his leather and his Braca and his neurochip and his wormhole knowledge and his victory and his revenge and his plan. And John Crichton screams, unmoving. With nothing at all.