This episode and the hearken back to good old, bad old Season Three, in that they follow the same timeframe with two split teams. I really, really like the other one. But this one's fine too. All the boys -- John, D'Argo, Scorpius, and Rygel -- are going to Man Camp, and the girls -- Aeryn, Chiana, Sikozu, and Noranti -- are going...shopping. Before those red flags go up, though, remember this is Farscape, which means that this week all the boys will go on and on about their feelings, and week the girls will blow hell out of all kinds of things. Everybody else is already on Lo'La and a transport pod, waiting for John and Aeryn.
There's Pilot in his usual place, and at the base of his station there's John, and sitting between his legs there's Aeryn. The Lovers. Finally. Aeryn gives John a gift -- Christmas was frelled, remember -- and looks back sweetly to see his reaction as he opens it. It's a remote control. Her smile is bigger than her face. "Merry Christmas," she says ironically, and they laugh. "Is there something that comes with this?" She tells him there is, and it's huge -- taking over his room, in fact -- and John loudly tells Pilot he's changed his mind: "Tell them we're not coming." He tells Aeryn his plan, to stay in bed and watch TV, eat popcorn and "act like normal people." Evil eye! Evil eye! Stop being happy! John fiddles with the remote control, about half as in love with it as he is with her.
Pilot calls them back to reality, name-dropping "Captain D'Argo" as an aid to his point, and John sighs. "Gotta go. I gotta go look after Scorpius." She leans back into him, saying they should do it together, and he reminds her that's the one thing they can't do together, or else the jig would be up. "Besides," he says to her exasperated sigh, "you've got to look after the girls." They argue over which is suckier, girl time or "Mental Arts Training Camp," and Aeryn niggles him that he could really use some mental discipline, but he exposits that this is going to be coming from a friend of Scorpy's. "You got the better job," he whines. We'll see about that. She's not sold either: "Rummaging around on a dead Leviathan settlement, looking for a Moya part? Oh, that's infinitely more thrilling." Hee, I love that. "A Moya part." Never let it be said that the technobabble overwhelmed us. Pilot tells them that Chiana's bugging him for Aeryn now, which is ten times more serious than D'Argo, because Chiana is annoying. John and Aeryn kiss and say goodbye, and wish each other a Merry Christmas. They're so cute they'll probably both die at this point. Like right there in Pilot's den. Boom.
Lo'La heads across a planet's surface toward a geodesic dome, glowing, with fences and search lights all around. "You have all come to my dwelling to learn. Your objective is mental discipline," says Scorpius's friend, who is wearing a gray robe and the bridge of his nose goes all the way up his face. There are other men besides our guys, all wearing blue robes and listening to him on benches; Scorpius, as the fashion plate of Tormented Space, is not wearing the uniform. "To focus your whole mind on a single task is a skill few ever achieve." Especially with the Moya crew's chronic ADD. D'Argo cracks a joke to John and you can see their temples have been tinily Bedazzled.
"The taskchairs provide access to a mindscape, where you'll compete with an opponent. To the point of great pain." Rygel sighs, though it's not clear whether he's more irritated by the pain part or the smurfiness of a grown man saying the word "mindscape" in all seriousness. "Embrace the pain, and you shall succeed." Scorpius nods, like, "Word." This episode is like a forty-five-minute music video for the song "Scorpius Is Pretty Awesome (Y'all Are All Haters)." The dude warns them that retreat will earn them some "consequences." Welcome to every awful memory of P.E. you ever tried to forget. There's a fuckin' "mindscape" for you. The man shows them an open icosahedron, all lit up. Also the room is covered in lights that made the actors sick because they are everywhere, and basically the whole room is lights and wires and some benches. Inside the apparatus are the two taskchairs. "If you have any self-doubt, you have eighty microts to exit, after which your Juxtowi crystal will be activated." John touches his Bedazzling for our benefit. "Any attempt to leave and the crystal will bore through your brain." Emphasis on bore.
D'Argo whispers: "Do you think it's worth going through with this?" John -- again, for our benefit -- says it's worth it because the dude (Katoya) might be able to tell them something about the Skreeth, which killed DK and attacked the Crichtons and stole Christmas. "The creature you described is neither Peacekeeper nor Scarran in origin," Scorpius exposits, under his breath. "If it is from Tormented Space, Katoya will know about it." A mysterious dude in a gray robe enters with the hood around his face. Rygel asks why the frell Katoya won't just tell them, considering they paid the full fee for Man Camp; Katoya fully listens to them talking. Scorpius, also Bedazzled, explains that the price for this info is completion of the course itself. Which sounds stupid, but looking back, isn't even necessarily true, because it's Scorpius and he's got like five games he's running here, as usual.
John points one finger in the air: "Excuse me. Question. Before we commit to your class..." Katoya interrupts and asks if John's afraid of the pain he's been talking about nonstop throughout the scene. "Look, I can put up with the fairy crystal and the jammies, but I need to know what else we get with the gym membership." While this question -- which never gets answered, because it's not a real question -- is being asked, D'Argo is having a major flip-out. He smells a smell, which it would seem he began to smell when the mysterious dude entered the room, and then inside his head there's a man's face, and then a flash of Lo'Laan, his wife, and then the face again, with a fist in the air. "What the blitz is that smell?" he asks, and Rygel offers that it's "the stench of that frelling Charrid." Charrids look like if Predator had a face.
"No," D'Argo shakes his head. "I know that odor." John sees the dude take off his hood, and D'Argo freaks out and jumps up, screaming, "Macton!" Dude, Macton is hot! I wasn't expecting that at all; he looks like Heath Ledger's older, more financially stable brother. John tries to grab D as Katoya watches from the sidelines. D'Argo smacks Macton about the face, all, "You killed my wife!" and then picks him up off the floor. John tries to rush D'Argo, but Katoya grabs him: "This is not your fight." Macton's like, "My sister that you killed? That wife?" D'Argo accuses him of framing him and sending him to prison, but Macton's like, "Please. You didn't want the truth then, and you're not interested in it now." I promise to remember how this actually goes this time. The last part of this episode is always like a blur for some reason. I spent most of Season One afraid that D'Argo actually killed her. Which maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but we'll know by the end of the episode, and then I'll probably forget again.
John pushes past Katoya and runs to D'Argo, pulling him back and begging him to chill. John hanging from his arm like a tiny little girlfriend, D'Argo continues to front on Macton, who's all, "Ahh, let him hit me! Like he hit Lo'Laan! Beat his own wife to death!" How come the storied hyper-rage, about which this episode is, doesn't kick in at any point in this episode? I mean, how come it doesn't take? This is totally the dude who ruined his whole life and got his son put into slavery. Come on. D'Argo tosses John away and rushes Macton, who easily flips him onto the floor. Even Rygel is like, "Snap!" D'Argo gets back up once again and comes at Macton. They do some fighting stuff for awhile, and then Katoya Jedis them across the floor in different directions. "That ends this," he says. THE END!
Wait, nope. THE CREDITS.
John, D'Argo, and Rygel sit alone at dinner, having made their usual amount of friends. John sits on the table, D'Argo sits on a bench beside it; John asks if he's okay, "Bro." D'Argo snits about how Macton's a frelling liar. And Rygel's like, "First of all, duh. He's a frelling Peacekeeper; but also secondly, he's a frelling Peacekeeper, here, now, so we need to get the fuck out." Scorpius appears at the top of the stairs that lead down into the refectory and tells them they aren't permitted to "leave the compound prematurely." Rygel isn't feeling this, because why would Katoya care when he's got their money, because that's how Rygel rolls. Scorpius comes all the way down and says they're in for the long haul, bound by the rules. John says frell the rules, they're not about to "stick around 'til a Marauder lands," but Scorpius gets all intimate with him, whispering, "This sector of Tormented Space is forbidden to Peacekeepers, unless they have received express orders from First Command." Meaning Macton's there unofficially, dealing with his own shit, I assume. Or else somehow he's there for them, which is John's worry, and D'Argo's like, "I'll ask how he found us right before I totally kill him." Scorpius hisses directly into D'Argo's grill and says Katoya won't let them kill each other. "To Hezmana with Katoya! Macton deserves to die!" He takes a breath and then tears up and reminds us why. Again. Even though we just covered that.
Then: Lo'Laan tries to reason with Macton: "He loves me! You mustn't do anything, D'Argo's done nothing to me." Macton's not buying. Their house was beautiful. "You refuse to see him for what he really is." A Luxan warrior, she says proudly. "...And he cannot help but hurt you." Lo'Laan promises that they could never hurt each other; D'Argo listens outside the room with his arms crossed. Macton gives up and leaves, walking past D'Argo in the shadows. "Good to see you, brother." Macton walks off without a word, and D'Argo goes in to his wife.
Now D'Argo takes a deep breath and explains again about how Macton is going to be dying. John promises D he's got his back, but he figures Scorpius is telling the truth. "Katoya won't let us disrupt his class. You'll deal with Macton when school is out." He has changed so, so much since the beginning. I can't mourn it, but it's sad nonetheless. Katoya buzzes the compound and orders them back to the arena. John pats D'Argo's shoulder in support. "Recess is over."
Katoya, only a tad snippy: "Now that calmer minds prevail... A demonstration." He leans into John's face: "Join me." John says he's just there to watch and Katoya tells him everyone's going to be participating. My mom used to drag me to this shit all the time. I hate camp. I hate nature. I mean, it wasn't just like this, there was always nature. Horrible plus. No Tron bullshit. That wouldn't have been so bad. The phrase "everyone must participate" sends a shock down my spine to this day. But John's got a way better excuse than asthma: "After the probes, land mines, corkscrews I've had in my head? I ain't offering up a chunk for your mind games." Totally should have gone for the neurochip excuse. So much less Story Circle after you drop that bomb, I bet. "It is not a game," says Katoya. It's a state of mind! "Ain't gonna happen, Miss Krabapple. Fail me, give me an F on my report card, but I ain't goin' in your icosahedron." Katoya looks over at Scorpius sharply, like, "Who's your sister here?" And Scorpius stands, volunteering. "Yes, of course." John claims that this proves nothing, Grasshopper, but nobody entirely believes that, including us.
Scorpius and Katoya sit in the taskchairs, arms held out by their frames, which suddenly clank inward like the scary carnival on the bad side of town, and there's buzzing, and then: mindscape! They're standing in a small arena, visible on the wall outside as well, surrounded by yet more lights. A ball forms of light and hangs in the air between them, glowing orangey red and looking like BS. Katoya and Scorpius do mysterious movements of willpower and the ball moves around, and apparently it hurts, and it goes on forever. "Pain," says John. "See, that's what I'm talkin' about: pain." You have no idea what you are in for. The glow-thing comes toward Scorpius's face and he pulls back, like it's hot, and then he does mysterious movements of willpower and it flies across the arena to Katoya, who stops it. This is like one of those horrible "Ungames" therapists and Wiccans play with their own defenseless kids: "Feel the energy. Do you feel it?" My flashbacks are having flashbacks. If they start with the cones I am outta here.
Anna: "There are like two people who are going to get that joke."
Jacob: "But they'll be so grateful."
Anna: "I don't even get that joke."
Jacob: "One, you've met my mom, so yes you do. And two, it's no joke."
More Tronball, Katoya tells Scorpius to try again, I guess he does, I don't know what they're up to exactly. "Do not withhold your efforts." Scorpius glares and hisses and spits. "Nor is anger a substitute for clarity. The task may be completed with a minimum of physical harm." More Tronball. Scorpius ends up face to face with the icosahedron, which is saying in a tiny red voice, nononononononononono. Ben Browder is officially hotter than Bruce Boxleitner, but that's like saying infinity is officially larger than the biggest number you can think of. Katoya finally offers to end the demonstration, what with all the creepy grunting of Scorpius, but he's all, "I was just starting to enjoy the pain," which makes Katoya laugh. He earths the energy or whatever and everybody stares at everybody else. "Well, that was instructive," John says to Scorpius, who has rejoined them. "Kinda lead with your chin there." Heh. Scorpius assures him it's not meant to be painless, and that means it is meant to suck. I mean, I love the whole concept and this episode doesn't bug me in that way -- mostly it just drags -- but how the fuck are you gonna try and give John Crichton the Hard Knocks speech? He's been driven absolutely crazy about fifteen times. He knows from Hard Knocks. On the other hand, a poetic reminder never hurt: "It never will be painless, John." John bounces with a "Huh."
John finds Macton standing in the refectory, and decides to ask what the hell he's doing there. Macton's like, "D'Argo said I was supposed to die horribly, so..." John's not interested: "Oh. See, I was just wonderin' why you followed me to the bathroom." Point: Crichton. Macton, not getting the subtleties, continues the convo: "I don't want to kill D'Argo, but I won't allow him to kill me to conceal what he did. He killed his wife." John demurs, but Macton pushes: "Do you know what Luxan hyper-rage is?" Oh boy does he. Weirdly, it's more homoerotic than Macton following you into the head. "You know what a 'crock' is? D'Argo says he didn't do it, that's good enough for me." Macton tries to explain: "He may not know what he did." (Don't we already know that there are accompanying blackouts? The episode seems to think we don't.) "Right," snits John. "Eight cycles and change, just...zoop! Slips his mind." Macton notifies John about the blackouts, and his exit line is all, "Any honest Luxan can tell you that." Well, well! Guess that solves that.
Katoya watches the students return to their benches, and nods to the Charrid behind Macton. "Please." The Charrid grunts and approaches the taskchairs. Rygel grumbles that he'd love to take the Charrid on -- I guess I forget why that's such a big deal -- and gets very big for his froggy little Sparky britches: "I'd show him some real pain." Boys, I don't know what to do about them. John sits down to D'Argo and refuses to tell him about the conversation with Macton, because it'll just piss off D'Argo. D'Argo shouts a little bit, causing Katoya to offer the opportunity to "spend some of that energy." Rygel totally volunteers: "Not him. Me." D'Argo waves the little guy off honorably, having been chosen, but Rygel explains that "these Charrid fracks" killed billions of his people, so there you go. Katoya tells him it's not "a safe place to settle grudges" and that it's not a game. Rygel replies in an incredibly Rygel way: "It's a war of wills. Where else will I get a chance at a fair fight where I have the advantage?" Heh. Katoya smiles and lets him in. D'Argo continues to bully Crichton about the Macton talk, and John finally just says that Macton said D'Argo was being threatening. Which D'Argo admits is quite true.
As Rygel and the Charrid settle and start with the movements, D'Argo continues to needle John. Finally John admits that Macton mentioned the hyper-rage blackouts, and that all Luxans get them.
Then: D'Argo storms through the house, yelling that Macton's not allowed in the house. He slams the kitchen table around a bit as Lo'Laan begs: "You're upsetting yourself over nothing!" The action grows repetitive as he raises the table and slams it down, again, and again, and again. "D'Argo, can you hear me?" He begins to scream. "D'Argo, can you hear me?" He shakes his head. He's gone. Lo'Laan watches, hands at her mouth, and begins to weep. "D'Argo..."
Now: D'Argo admits blackouts do happen, but protests that he "learned to control all that." Even John's like, "So you got the problem licked?" D'Argo explains that young Luxans are genetically violent: "Their impulses, chemistry, biology...it takes cycles to master. It's why Luxans aren't allowed to marry young." So of course D'Argo did. "She said she knew I could never hurt her. Even more than that, I gave her my solemn vow...if I did ever hurt her, I would leave immediately, no questions." John's like, "So that worked out really well for you, huh?" "Lo'Laan was always there for me." Which is kind of the rub, because, given the blackouts, that puts the entire Tronball in her court: if he can't remember whether or not he hurt her, but he's threatened to leave if he does, then it's completely in her best interest to lie.
Rygel is gasping and groaning and drooling; in the arena, the ball's right in his face. "Excuse me, Master Jedi? Looks like Sparky's losin' more than a few brain cells in there." Katoya's like, "Indeed." John asks if there's real danger just as Rygel screams and goes into some kind of seizure. John orders Katoya to stop the game, Katoya's like, "It's Rygel's call," which I appreciate, but that's not good enough for Johnny: he turns to D'Argo all, "Okay, let's get him out." Katoya Jedi's them across the room again, and inside the arena, the Charrid's got the ball right up in Rygel's face for a good long time, causing all kinds of pain and foam, but Rygel finally spikes it right into his forehead, ending the game.
D'Argo carries Rygel into the refectory like a tiny little farting baby: "He's like ice." John advises D'Argo to keep him covered, and turns up the stairs to bitch at Katoya for not "stepping in before somebody got hurt." John's being really horribly American right now. Katoya tries, once again, to explain about adults and how adults make choices and how you let them because they are adults, but John's not hearing it, and he starts talking about leaving again. "Your training isn't over," Katoya tells him, and John's all, "Oh, yes it is," so Katoya Jedis him down the stairs hardcore and he passes out on his stupid face. "It's just begun." Dude, I hope they fuck him up. John's being unbearable in this episode.
Macton bows to Katoya -- "Master" -- and the class sits. Scorpius and D'Argo come in last, D'Argo giving Katoya the hairy eyeball, and Scorpius explains that John's fine: "He's been moved to remedial training." D'Argo turns his stink-eye to Macton as Scorpius comments that Rygel's recovering. D'Argo: "Yeah, I wasn't thinking about that, either." Um, cool? Scorpius nods at Macton and says he's quite aware, but maybe he should be like the other grown men in the room and stop acting like Crichton: "Attempt to remain focused on your more immediate tasks first." Doesn't seem like he's asking a lot, does it? D'Argo growls at Scorpius and Katoya asks, once again, for him to get classy. D'Argo glares at Scorpius and stalks off; Scorpius begs him to stay focused.
Then: Lo'Laan calling D'Argo's name, trying to wake him up. "D'Argo, can you hear me?" she says, again. He sits up, and his first question is this: "Did I hurt you?" She kneels before him and shakes her head. "I know this upsets you." He reaches out to touch her face. "It upsets you too." She smiles and promises they'll get through this. "If I did hurt you, you'd tell me. Wouldn't you? You promised." She says the following: "You never hurt me, D'Argo." Which isn't an answer, at all. "But you'd tell me if I did." She smiles again, with something behind it. Something broken, and secret. And she strokes his face. "Absolutely. I promise I'd tell you." Now I remember why I can't ever remember the resolution of this major character arc! It's bullshit, that's why. There's no way to believe, against the evidence of the episode and the Luxan facts, that he didn't hurt her, but the episode goes off at the last second and asks you to believe just that. In an early draft, it turned out that he did kill her, and you know what, frankly -- given all the resonances and fears that we're setting up now -- that would be more satisfying, albeit even more racist than what we're looking at now.
Now: D'Argo sits in a taskchair; his current task involves stupid laser light show that hurts when he touches it, so it moves around and he has to compensate, except it's all these two-dimensional sheets that come out of a central point, so it's less a maze and more some ugly stupid effects. "Avoid pain and find a way out." Katoya tries really hard to get the concept of "anger will not serve you" across, and whatever, he keeps burning himself, because he's getting more and more angry, and keeps falling on his face in the "mindscape" and Macton's getting off, and D'Argo eventually starts to wig out: Macton stands over Lo'Laan's body in D'Argo's beautiful house. D'Argo screams and pounds his fist on the mindscape floor: "I'll kill you!" Lo'Laan stands in the kitchen. D'Argo begins to howl. Macton pulls back his fist, punching something. D'Argo screams. Lo'Laan lies on the floor, a knife sticking out of her side. D'Argo screams. The collage effect is so of the moment, don't you find. Katoya lets him out of the task and bitches: "To exert even a microt of self-control over your personal impulses is the point of the exercise." Seriously. I am so on the side of the bad guys this week. Our boys are making a really fucking poor show of it. How hard is this? D'Argo slams himself out of the taskchair and flounces around and jumps to his feet, giving Macton exactly what he wants, all the way down the line, forever and ever, amen.
D'Argo prances downstairs and starts packing a bag; Katoya once again tries to talk him into being a fucking man instead of a pissy little boy. "[Leaving] won't provide you with the answers you seek." What answers, he asks. "What questions?" is the reply. (Katoya is also kind of a douchebag, but this is his rodeo, and it's his house, and D'Argo's being a little bitch.) "Look! I'm not playing any more of your stupid games and I do not need to be reminded of my mental limitations. If I stay here, I will kill Macton!" Get this drama: "I! Will! Kill! This! Man!" The drama takes so much out of him that he has to take a breath. Katoya's like, "Um, see? You can control your anger. You have no limitations." They stare at each other for a million years and Katoya leaves and D'Argo sits down heavily. On his tuffet.
(Here's the deal. I like this show. A lot. You may or may not know that. However, there is a poisonous thread running through it from start to finish that says this behavior is acceptable, when the truth is, it's not. How many times does John say this: "I'm just a guy!" How many times does John say that shit, without paying for it. "I'm just a guy! Guys are just like this! They occasionally play dumb! They deserve no accountability! Must have been something I said!" "Dur dur d'être un bébé!" "The rules are stupid! I hate the rules! This place -- which everyone else is managing to deal with like adults -- is so mean! I hate it! And the rules!" "Isn't it soooo sad how I totally beat my wife?" Even fucking Rygel is able to get with the program here, but John and D'Argo? Spend the entire episode pissing and moaning, and it's not the first time either. The entitlement of the American male. "If you don't keep lying to me about the abuse I'm going to leave you! Because I love you! There's no power differential here at all!" It's not that I demand perfection of the characters -- I love them as they are -- but I'm afraid I do demand perfection of the show, and it's the show's lack of concern about this behavior that pisses me off. Rygel and Scorpius spend the entire episode begging them to get their shit together and act like adults, and they simply cannot do it. Can you imagine any other situation where Rygel is the man of the group? And D'Argo and John are the pants-pissing little boys? How is that enjoyable to watch? That, and the fact that such an ugly, manhood-limiting episode is the ultimate endpoint of the Lo'Laan storyline, which has been part of the show since the beginning. Now, it just so happens that the episode earns it, just barely, and with a whole lot of tell and not show, so this is mostly an overall issue I have, which happens to get a lot of play in this episode, which is actually kind of brilliant in a lot of ways. End of rant.)
John wakes up alone in a metal box surrounded by grates, with glowing coals beneath him. He tries to sit up, resting a hand on the fire grate, burning his hand and sending up sparks. "Damn," he says, and looks around and out the top grill: "Hey! D'Argo? Anybody hear me? ...This must be detention, then." He hits the top grill with the heel of his hand a couple of times, calling out again.
Rygel explains to D'Argo that Macton is lying. They're sitting at the refectory table. How does he know this? "Because he's a Peacekeeper? Because he has to be. Look, he's trying to get to you. And it's working." How well? "Lo'Laan and I were happy together. He can't change that. I won't let him." Too late. You're shitting all over it. Rygel calls this Exhibit A that Macton's getting to him. "I should have killed him." Rygel reminds him that was supposed to be basically the post-S3 hiatus, right? While Pilot and Noranti and Moya and Chiana were all off getting raped, and John was nursing his own self-pity on a dying Leviathan, D'Argo was going to go kill Macton? So how come we're revisiting it now? Let's ask the screenwriters. "Part of me knew that wouldn't bring Lo'Laan back -- and another part couldn't resist letting him know that I knew exactly where he was." Ah. Well, that explains that. "Pay attention to the part that wants to kill him," says awesome Rygel. "He's given you a second chance to take your revenge." D'Argo waffles -- "I'm not sure I want to," so, you'd really just run around bitching and asking everybody else to cosign your drama, but God forbid you actually take care of business. Got it -- and Rygel's fed up: "For yotz sake! Kill him and be done with it!"
John sits in his cage -- this and Rygel are the only things I like about this episode -- whistling the obligatory Bridge On The River Kwai joke. Katoya looks down at John, where his hands are saying zero-four. "Are you real?" asks John. "Are you?" Katoya responds all "pain is inside the box"-style. (Katoya's a douchebag, but this is his rodeo and his house.) John bitches gibberish at him and asks to be let out; Katoya drops a key through the grill and it lands in the coals below him, and begins to melt. "You weren't quick enough. Get a key and you may come out." He stands up and walks away, and John whistles, like a bratty like kid, until he's gone -- then looks down, at the coals, and up, out of the cage. I like the cage because it says: will you or no, you will get better and you will grow. Keep screaming, but you're not going anywhere until you learn. So that John's whining and screaming stops looking like bathos and starts looking like an intervention happening.
D'Argo and Macton enter the refectory from opposite ends. Awkward! D'Argo keeps the long table between them and gets dramatic: "I'll say this just once: stay away from me, stay away from my friends, and stop spreading your lies." Macton offers that he's not the one lying, and D'Argo accuses him of being full of dren. (And full of sexy!) "You've always hated me -- you'd have hated any non-Sebacean who married your sister." (Also known as "being a Sebacean." Not that you should knuckle under to racism at any point, but stop being so wide-eyed surprised by it. It's really unattractive.) Macton suggests the total lie that he might have accepted their marriage eventually, if D'Argo hadn't started beating her. Macton nods at D'Argo as he takes a long, deep breath in through the mouth and out through the nose. Out with anger, in with love! "I'm violent...when I choose to be. And right now, I choose not to kill you. But that could change." But I won't have a compelling or flattering reason, because this episode has some frelled-up beliefs about what honor really means. Macton invades D'Argo's personal space a little bit. "Really? Well, if I chose to kill you, you'd never see me coming." He spills that he's there -- the whole purpose of him being there all of a sudden -- to tell him the truth: that Lo'Laan kept the truth from him. Not even Macton knows that D'Argo blackmailed her into it. This episode is retarded. "Even a stupid Luxan should be able to see the truth," Macton says, so of course D'Argo loses all composure and attacks.
I love that movie The Cell, because it is beautiful to look at, and because Vincent D'Onofrio was well sexy back in the day. But I also love it because it is hilarious and stupid. Any time you write about this kind of stuff, you run the risk of universalizing your own particular creepy surprise parties: a statement about one man's mind becomes a really unflattering window on the way you see the world. And I really do think that this episode has fallen into that trap. It's not the usual, with this show, where it's just that you don't want to know these things about men. The show excels in the secret So-Called Life of men, and women, and soldiers, and scientists. The problem with this episode is specific to this episode, and it's not that I don't want to know these things about men, it's that I don't want to know these things about the show, this week. It's got its shirt tucked into its boxer-briefs and it's doing a Charlie Gordon dance.
See: Down on the table, Macton becomes Lo'Laan, begging him to stop. D'Argo wows. Macton comes back and points out that D'Argo is acting like an idiot: "Look at you. Your uncontrollable rage." Everything he says, about D'Argo anyway, is true, but we don't have to believe it, because in the final analysis D'Argo's right and he's wrong, which invalidates anything we learn during the episode. D'Argo raises a fist, just like Macton in the vision . "You're violent," Macton concludes, and D'Argo calms down. "You really think you'd be able to protect Lo'Laan from that? No." He's right, the whole time, and then it gets erased in the weird lazy Frankensteining of the plot points. "You must have known the truth. You've always known." Macton leaves, once again completely justified by D'Argo, forever and ever amen, and D'Argo watches him go and wonders if he's right.
Another key drops past John in his cage, and John grabs for it again, screaming in pain. He looks up, and this time it was Scorpius. John glares up, licking his burnt fingers. "You'd better have a key." Pretending they're all adults here, Scorpius mentions that Katoya's told him John's "been experiencing some setbacks." John asks if Katoya's spilled yet about the Skreeth, and Scorpius shrugs: "That is relatively unimportant." John protests that it's important to him, but Scorpius points out the not-entirely-true fact that it was "unsuccessful." I see where he's going with it, but DK might differ in opinion about that. "That's okay, then. I don't need to be in here...Earth is safe, everything's fine." Which is entirely the point, and Scorpius finally lets him in on it: "No, Earth is not safe, and neither are you. The Scarrans know you exist. They are already coming for you, John. You cannot run away for your whole life, and I...cannot protect you from them." I'm with John on his inability to understand, still, the lengths that Scorpius would go to, to keep him safe. As a man. But as a viewer, we know. We've seen things John hasn't. "Little Cat A: I don't want you to protect me, because -- Little Cat B -- you haven't been doing such a bang-up job of that in the first place, which brings us to Little Cat C: get me the hell out of this hole!" John ends in a scream. I'm feeling that. Except for Little Cat D, which is that Scorpius is always right, even when he's wrong. He loses control precisely once, in a field of flowers. Everything else is part of the chess game.
Scorpius lies down on the grate, looking down at John. "You are undergoing a very specific training. Anti-Scarran training." John blusters that he already figured that out: "It's not the heat, it's the humidity," he says, holding up his hand with the BK grill-marks across the palm. "The heat mechanism the Scarran employs is just the beginning, John. If that heat succeeds in disabling your mind's defenses, there is no fact, no fear, no deep secret, that they will be unable to extract." John, stupidly: "I'll take my chances on my own, thank you." He's in an extremity currently, and like I said, I like this plot thread a lot, so I'm okay with John from here on out. "You misunderstand my objectives, John. Without Katoya's training, when the Scarrans find you...they will take your wormhole knowledge, and then they will kill you. I would never allow that." John calls him Scorpy-Sue: "After all we've meant to each other, you'd kill me first." Scorpius snorts, but I think he's actually a little hurt. He pulls himself further over John's head. "You have such a limited mental capacity, John! But apparently...an abundant will to prevail. Well, my advice to you is to use that will right here, right now. Katoya is the only one that can give you the tools to resist the Scarrans." He slams his hand on the grate in frustration and takes off. John resumes whistling, like he's won this round. Which is exactly what he would think, isn't it?
Katoya and Scorpius have a little chat. "Your Crichton may not survive the training." Scorpius has no doubt whatsoever that John will be fine, and there's pride in this: "He is like me in that respect: he'll survive." Scorpius has never been under any illusions about his role on the show, and I like that about him: he's just something to resist, something to push up against. "For you to have survived so long, my teachings must have been helpful," says Katoya, and Scorpius admits they've saved his life "on countless occasions." Katoya mentions that he's tried, in the past, to get Scorpius over the coolant suit -- "And yet, you still have use of one." Which is interesting, because the coldsuit has always been primarily a symbol of his difference, his internal division, and it's interesting that now, after last week specifically, we're learning that Scorpius has places he still could go. People he still aspires to be. If Zhaan was above John, pulling him up, once she died there was Scorpius, below, pushing John higher. Trying to get higher himself: "One can always learn more." Katoya nods slightly, and looks away. Scorpius asks for three favors. It's a fairytale, still.
"Do I owe so many?" Scorpius -- as though this is a selling point -- reminds Katoya that he spared him not only from Peacekeeper captivity, but also the Aurora Chair. The latter of which Katoya's confident he could have survived. I believe him. Scorpius breathes in and doesn't speak. "Proceed," says Katoya, getting them out of this particular conversational impasse. "Firstly, intensify Crichton's training." Even if it kills him? It won't, but anyway, "without the training he'll die anyway." The second favor is to remove Macton from the equation, because he's become a distraction -- "maybe a dangerous one." Katoya protests that he's done nothing wrong, and Scorpius suggests that no matter what he says, he's going to try to kill D'Argo. Katoya shrugs and admits it could go either way, but he's not letting either thing happen on his watch. "Still, some preemptive action could be called for." And the third favor? The third favor is about love. The show jumps back and forth through so many required hoops in order to keep John and Scorpius tied together, because you can't just call it love, but love is what it is, and Scorpius gets that. They're the only unique creatures in the galaxy -- the only ones who can survive the Peacekeepers and the Sebaceans. John is neither; Scorpius is both, and in both becomes neither. They are brothers. John will never hear him say this. It's not about the things John sees him do: "Information about a species I have no knowledge of. This species has recently attacked Crichton. May I describe it for you?" Relatively unimportant my ass, you old softie.
John sits cross-legged in his cage, hands on his knees, as the walls themselves turn on like a giant toaster, glowing orange. Another key drops, he burns himself again. D'Argo appears, asking if he's okay, and John -- still thinking he's in detention -- asks D'Argo to help him out of the cage. They push and pull and nothing happens. "It's gonna need at least a Qualta, or a pulse grenade," D'Argo says, and offers John a drink, pouring it through the grate and into his mouth. That's cool. I like that: the drips hit the grate below and hiss, sizzle and steam and pop. D'Argo then immediately begins to bitch about his psychodrama for a million years, and the whole time John is like, "That sucks, but I'm in a room and the room that I'm in is on fire, so can we put this on hold and help me?" But D'Argo can't eve hear him, just goes on and on about maybe he hit her, maybe he didn't, and John tells him not to even go there. "I am there, John." Because if it's possible, then there's more that could be true. "D'Argo, many things are possible: Macton is just filling you with possibilities." I like that a lot, even as John's succinctly giving himself and D'Argo both the pass, it's still a good line. "What Lo'Laan did...that's what matters. Whatever she did, she did for you. That's what's important. And that means something." Which is where I can't follow, because of the blackmail aspect. The unexplored horror of this, which we never really approach: if she stayed, it was because she was asking for it. That's the only place this line goes, I'm sorry. And as strongly as I feel she should have packed a bag and tucked Jothee under her arm and written the whole thing off as a childhood mistake, and waited for D'Argo to become a man, that doesn't mean she was asking for it. It means D'Argo asked her to leverage it against loneliness, and that's uncool, and D'Argo never gets called on it. "That means that it's possible I killed the woman who loved me more than life." IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. But thank God the show loves you enough, and wants so strongly to avoid alienating the audience, that you can wake up at the end of the episode fresh as a daisy and say, "It was all a dream!"
Katoya brings D'Argo some tea or something in the refectory, and waits for him to speak. "Um," D'Argo fidgets, "probably won't be apparent from my actions, but I really do have a great deal of respect for your work here. I'm sure many warriors have been made great from your teachings, I just won't be one of them." This is a moment he can be proud of; Katoya tells him not to sell himself short. "Mental strength is, uh...well, it's not my strength. I know that." I'm just a guy! "...It's why I've come to you." Katoya asks him who the hell hasn't experienced turmoil and emotional upheaval. What makes him so fucking special. "Can you help me...find an answer?" Katoya asks him what he wants to know. "What kind of monster I really am." No kind! Everything's okay! Go back to sleep!
Katoya and D'Argo sit in taskchairs, arms outspread. "This need not be difficult," Katoya tells him, again, but D'Argo's just sure it will be. They enter the mindscape. "Where do we start?" Katoya asks what he wants to see first, and walks toward him. D'Argo breathes out loudly; he's being brave. I give him this. On the floor of the arena, Lo'Laan's body lies, knife in her back. D'Argo stutters: "I don't want to see that." Katoya orders him, once again, to stay focused. "I realize this is difficult," he says, and we're back in the kitchen. "I know this upsets you," Lo'Laan says. "I know this upsets you too," D'Argo says. She promises they'll get through it: "You're upsetting yourself over nothing." D'Argo grimaces and hisses, locked in it, and begins to wig. "D'Argo? D'Argo?" She begins to back away, afraid. "Can you hear me?" Her back to the table. Katoya murmurs, "Hyper-rage is a natural function of Luxan physiology." But, D'Argo insists, "it's a function to be controlled, not flaunted -- not to be used against someone you love." She asks if he can hear her, again. Katoya asks if he did; he says he doesn't know. "But you want to know." She asks if he can hear her. D'Argo protests that he doesn't want to know. "But you came here to know," Katoya pushes. She asks again if he can hear her. He smashes her and she goes quiet. He turns to Katoya: "I hit her."
"Did I hurt you?" She shakes her head, something behind the smile. "No." But she'd tell him? Can she promise? "You never hurt me, D'Argo." Which isn't an answer. "You promised you'd tell me! Why didn't you tell me?" he asks. Even though he already knows. He reaches out to caress her face: "Don't you know how much I loved you?" She smiles sadly and nods. "Yes." Oops, too close to the truth, and we can't have that. Katoya cries out and disappears in shards of light; outside in the arena Katoya lies, unconscious, on the floor. Macton sits in his Master's chair and apologizes for the intrusion; he locks himself in.
John crouches in his sizzling cage, collapsing onto his knee. He stands, looks up, and sits again, staring at his burnt palm, and finally falls onto his face. Parallel structure, such as it is: the world will have its flesh. They're both in it. John in his cage is D'Argo in his fear and rage; D'Argo facing Macton is John facing the level in the game: subjugation to the Scarran.
D'Argo kneels beside Lo'Laan as Macton approaches: "Ka D'Argo. Time to revisit your memories." D'Argo asks what happened to Katoya, and I admit I laughed at Macton's response: "I refocused his energies." Lo'Laan looks up at D'Argo. Macton says hello to his sister. D'Argo hisses and attacks; Macton easily knocks him down. Macton stands in D'Argo's kitchen, over Lo'Laan's body. "Welcome home: the scene of the crime." D'Argo hisses. "The scene of your many crimes," Macton taunts him, and D'Argo gives him exactly what he wants, punching him in the face. Macton becomes Lo'Laan as D'Argo rears back to hit her again. She cries out, and he stops, to touch her hair. It's not Lo'Laan he was hitting, it was his own rage. Macton becomes Lo'Laan becomes Macton, but it's really just D'Argo, now and forever: fear and hate and self-denial. "Just like before," Macton says, and D'Argo protests that it never happened. Macton hits D'Argo, dropping him to the floor of the arena. "Go ahead, hit her," says Lo'Laan, arms akimbo, and approaches him. He pulls himself up. Her voice becomes Macton's: "Never a problem for you when she was alive." D'Argo says he never meant to, and Macton, who is Lo'Laan, who is Macton, who is D'Argo: "Aww." Lo'Laan exposes her bruised leg, her bruised arm, her wounded neck. "Never meant to do this?" D'Argo pants, giving himself the excuse of hyper-rage. Lo'Laan speaks in Macton's voice: "It was you." It was Harvey, it was Harvey's Lovely Assassin. It was Zhaan with eyes gone red. "Because you couldn't control yourself. Because you were weak!" Macton hits D'Argo heavily in the face again; what I wouldn't give for some fucking spider soup right now.
D'Argo cries out and falls backwards against a wall hung with chains: his cell on Moya. Macton circles him, and D'Argo begs: "Not here. Not now. Not like this." Where he fought wildly, savagely, against nothing at all, for nine years. "Where else? This is where you belong. You're a wild beast. A mad dog." D'Argo hisses and tries to get up and forward, but is now chained. Macton kicks him: "You've earned these chains. And worse."
John stands in the cage as another key drops. Every key a clue, for him and for D'Argo. Every key another answer unheeded; they stay in their cages. He reaches for it again, having learned nothing, burning his fingers, reaching down through the grate and past the pain. His fingers don't fit. He yelps and pulls his hand back; another key falls. He reaches down again, and burns himself again, and almost weeps with pain and rage.
Macton slams his fist into D'Argo's face, where he stands still chained. "How does it feel to be helpless?" he shouts, punching him over and over; in the arena taskchair, D'Argo jerks. "Defenseless?" This isn't a conversation, it's a monologue: it's not a two-person game but a game for all three of them. Macton's got expiations of his own. That means there's a chance all three of them can get out of this alive. He grabs D'Argo by the waist, steadying him, and then gives him a swift kick to the mivonks. D'Argo screams and Macton says, "This is what you did to Lo'Laan," but he's not talking about D'Argo; he punches D'Argo in the gut, in the face, in the nuts; D'Argo screams. Out in the arena he jerks and gags. "This is what your rage felt like," Macton says, backhanding D'Argo's face. D'Argo sways in his chains, at Macton's mercy. "Rage that destroyed a beautiful girl," he shouts, slamming D'Argo in the face. We've left D'Argo behind and traded him for Macton.
John sits on his knees, swaying in his chains. He holds his arms outstretched, waiting for another key to drop. Waiting for somebody to save him. "Come on," he whispers. Time and patience, still. A key drops the second he looks away, falling past him into the coals. John bends to remove the grate with his hands now, driven past pain and into clarity; his palms sizzle as he removes it, his breath in broken gasps, and he reaches into the fire. He screams as he pulls out the key, molten in his hand. This is the truth about men.
D'Argo is still, in the taskchair; D'Argo stands in his chains: "I didn't kill Lo'Laan." Macton reverses tack: "No, you did much worse: your violence drove her to her death." Lo'Laan enters the cell with a knife in hand, which she slowly raises as D'Argo cries out. Macton nods again and again. Subject and object keep shifting, changing: we're with D'Argo again, watching this possibility play out. She drives the knife into her own side, eyes wide open with a sigh of pain. "You beat her beyond her capacity to endure any more." She drops and D'Argo sobs. "But I got there first, I doctored the scene." Macton steps to Lo'Laan in Peacekeeper leathers and looks around. "Provided the evidence that put you in prison. To rot forever." D'Argo breaks down and weeps uncontrollably: driven almost past pain and into clarity.
"Don't try to resist. It's my gift to you, D'Argo." It's the truest statement in the episode, but only because Macton's subjectivity is only half-real -- the episode's got D'Argo in the hot box. D'Argo, through his tears, strikes out again and again. "Your own hyper-rage, in a place where you can rot in it forever. Just you and your hyper-rage, for eternity." These actually are the choices. He's not wrong. D'Argo begins to wig, turns into rage, screaming and howling, swinging at nothing at all. In the taskchair, D'Argo begs himself to focus. Somewhere on the other side of pain, he calls back to himself, begging himself to focus. In the cell of his rage, he continues to scream, hair and tentacles a blur of rage. Focus. "No!" And he burns. Focus. Slowly his screams die into breathing. Lo'Laan rises in reverse, pulling the blade from herself, looking at him with infinite love and caring. And Macton watches. D'Argo's breathing goes quiet and calm, and he glares at Macton; with a simple jerk his chains fall away. "You're lying. Every word you've said is a lie." Macton protests, but D'Argo's on the other side of it now. "You never knew Lo'Laan. And you knew nothing about love." He hits Macton; it's a monologue. Macton drops to the floor of D'Argo's house; D'Argo stands over him, holding a key, molten in his hand. "I know what Lo'Laan went through for our love -- I wish I could have loved her half as well." Macton tries to rise, gritting out that D'Argo loved her to death. He tries to strike D'Argo but is easily deflected. D'Argo pushes him back down with that fist. Macton's bewildered: "You do not have this power!" But that's not true either. "Lo'Laan told me I do have power. Over my hyper-rage. It's more than enough to control you in here." Things go very I know kung fu, but I don't mind. It's the truest story in the world. Macton, speaking from his Peacekeeper self: "You cannot kill me. Not in here." D'Argo just shakes his head, finally full of grace: "I have no intention of killing you. I loved my wife...but you wouldn't know that, you didn't know Lo'Laan. I did. She could have left me for my failings -- maybe she should have -- but I know this. She would never have left her son without a mother." Ergo, we're still not at the truth. (And I think maybe that was the out clause for the blackmail stuff as well, that "maybe she should have." Maybe I've been too harsh.) "Show me your memories. Tell me why you killed Lo'Laan."
Macton gives: "Trying to save her from you." Macton stands with Lo'Laan in the kitchen, voice raised. "D'Argo will be dishonorably discharged, jailed for as long as you need." Lo'Laan protests that he's done nothing wrong; Macton says he's done everything wrong. He's not talking about abuse; he's talking about buffalo soldiers. Of the inherent arrogance of a Luxan thinking he's a person. Peacekeepers are so gross. "You'll thank me for this, sister." He turns and starts to walk away; Lo'Laan grabs a knife and rushes Macton. In the struggle, she is stabbed, and falls to the floor. Rage. Hers, now. And Macton's to come: "It was your fault. She attacked me. My reflexes took control." Which is no more, and no less, an excuse than the hyper-rage: "My Peacekeeper training. It was over before I realized." I buy it. It's kind of a trip to the dentist, but I buy it. Macton catches her and lowers her to the floor, blood puddling out. "It's not the whole truth," D'Argo pushes. "She was beaten." This is gross: "It was your fault she died: you had to pay. I had to make you pay." D'Argo's horrified; we watch as Macton -- eyes averted at first -- makes a fist, and begins to strike her body. Over and over and over. Macton shakes and cries, in the furnace; D'Argo releases him and walks away, leaving him there. On the arena floor, Macton kneels and punches air, over and over, sobbing. D'Argo breathes, and releases himself from the taskchair, and looks across at Macton, slumped in his chair, his Master lying on the floor, his head against a steel pillar. Things do not look good for Katoya.
D'Argo flies Lo'La toward Moya; John sits in the jump seat, covering his hands in burn gel. (I originally thought it was D'Argo's DNA, because I am apparently totally grody, and I only just now figured that out.) Scorpius sits, back straight, behind them. John asks if D'Argo's okay, and for once it's true: "Fine." John asks if he wants him to drive and he says no. Rygel says that, if he was "fine," he'd have just killed Macton, instead of leaving him there. D'Argo admits that trapping Macton in "a coma with his own nightmares" was far less merciful. "I'm not that enlightened." I like this episode, I guess. It's just that in context, there are too many weird notes and "boys will be boys" for them to get off this scot-free, or this much higher on the tree. "So tell me, John. Were you able to obtain the key?" John doesn't look at Scorpius; he starts whistling the song from River Kwai again. Scorpius, all In your face, bitch! I totally love you!, clears his throat. "Incidentally, that creature that attacked you on Earth. It might interest you to know it is called a Skreeth. Apparently it can communicate telepathically over vast distances." John doesn't look up, continuing to spread the clear gel on his hands. "Katoya give you that?" That's Crichton for "thanks." Scorpius points out that "if it did map Earth's location, it may well have passed on that information." To Grayza, almost certainly -- so the Peacekeepers know where Earth is. Schemes within schemes within lies within truths. Just because I love you doesn't mean I won't use you up like a Kleenex, bitch! But he relents: eventually Grayza might go for Earth, but really, Grayza doesn't want Earth, she wants John. "Why do I always attract the psychos?" John snits, hilariously. Chiana, Scorpius, Crais, Grazya, and Aeryn all simultaneously go, "...HEY!"
John asks again, as D'Argo's wondering if he can plausibly deny the fact that he also kind of takes offense, if D'Argo's really okay. Heavy hangs the head, and whatnot: "Yeah, I'll be fine." And he will. But he's got things on his mind. "Things I've done. Things I can't take back." Which is all very self-dramatizing and Zhaan of him, but it occurs to me that for somebody who deals with the problems in front of his face and then goes on to the one, there's nothing scarier than realizing sometimes the blood doesn't run clear. And you go on living anyway. And that's enough of a price that I guess I love this episode after all. I love you, Ka D'Argo. There's still time.