On rewatching SG-1 episode 115, "Cor-ai"
So, Cor-ai, the episode in which Teal'c gets hold responsible for his past. Which isn't actually new, since Drey'auc also held Teal'c responsible for the past.
-- Teal'c has been here before. The Goa'uld visit here frequently.
-- Which means the locals split as soon as the Gate activated.
-- Ambush!
-- Jack, you don't look very friendly with the gun in his face.
-- But oh no Teal'c! You killed his father! (Prepare to die!) (Sorry, that's pretty much rote.)
-- Sam, telling people "You don't know him, he's peaceful--" it's just stupid and wrong. Teal'c is many things, but peaceful? At this point in the show? SO not true. He's no more peaceful than Jack is. Less, frankly.
-- And we actually get an argument about whether local law is better than immediate revenge.
-- "I always wanted to meet the Elders," says Jack. Heee.
-- And of course Teal'c remembers killing the man.
-- And Daniel gets in Jack's face and refuses to let him prevent Teal'c's arrest by violence. But then Teal'c refuses to be broken out of jail.
-- Oh, Teal'c. Really, this episode is interesting because while I get that Teal'c wants to acknowledge all the damage he's done as a Jaffa, wants to atone for it--it's also something of a cheat. Because it's the easy way out of a much harder struggle, the fight to free his people from the Goa'uld. And it's that fight, as much as his disaste for the blood he shed as a Jaffa, that gave rise to his revolt against Apophis. So Teal'c's decision to submit himself to the Cor'ai here is ignoring half of his entire reason for being. Which reminds me of that line from Buffy in "The Gift", that the hardest thing about this world is to live in it.
-- And Jack signs up to be Teal'c's defense attorney. ... or not. Co-counsel.
-- I love the way Jack so casually challenges the entire legal system here, and Daniel's all, "Well, this is rather common." We get a lot of Jack snapping at Daniel for being intellectually interested in the problem in this episode, actually.
-- Poor Jack: Teal'c is doing his own defense no good. And Hanno rests his prosecution, apparently.
-- And we get that marvelous argument in which Jack argues that chain-of-command places part of the guilt on Apophis and Teal'c refuses to do that. Presumably because Teal'c chose the victim? Also, Teal'c pretty much refuses to pass the buck, like, ever. It's just not something he does.
-- The audience is all horrified that Daniel works with Teal'c. He says, "It was a different Teal'c that chose Sha're," but really that's sophistry. It wasn't a different man. He is the same man; and frankly he is not actually much changed. He simply made, at last, a decision he had long been looking for a chance to make. In fact, it could be argued that Sha're's implantation was one of the final steps necessary for him to take that action.
-- You know, I have to say, it makes no sense. If the Goa'uld come through the gate frequently and steal slaves and kill people, WHY DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE ON TOP OF THE GATE? I mean, okay, they don't want to leave the planet for some reason (maybe they don't know where to go), but they could hike three days' journey in any direction and be far safer from the Jaffa than they are now! It's deeeeeply stupid!
-- Daniel gets a nice argument here (significantly better than any of the arguments he used in seasons 9 or 10 about the Ori). Pity it's wasted on Hanno, who is all about an eye for an eye.
-- I love Hammond's line about how the US doesn't interfere in other people's affairs, and Jack says "Since when, sir?"
-- Oh, and THIS is the episode where we get the "Damned distasteful things," line. Jack really gets into it with Hammond, not that it does him any good.
-- How nice of the Bursa to paint Teal'c before he dies. Pretty young women, too.
-- Oh, and Teal'c donates his body to science. Because he's just. that. awesome.
-- And Jack and Sam come back to see the Jaffa have arrived! How convenient!
-- Oh, look, Shak'l is here! And Hanno's son gives Teal'c a knife, because the boy is not stupid.
-- Teal'c takes down Shak'l and takes a bolt intended for some of the other Bursa. Because it's the sort of thing he does.
-- And Hanno of course has a change of heart: "that Jaffa is dead."
-- Jack offers to help the Bursa defend themselves, but really what they need is to relocate.
-- And then we get lots of meaningful looks.
-- This is definitely another episode for the Jack/Teal'c crowd, I gotta say, given the way Jack blows up at Teal'c and then again at Hammond when Hammond won't let him free Teal'c by force.
So that was more emotionally powerful than I remember, although marred by some fairly stupid logistics that made the plot weaker than it should have been. It would have worked better if the Bursa were living in the only inhabitable valley in the area, or had some other constraint that made them unable to move further from the Stargate.
What's up next? Oh, "Enigma". That's the Tollan and NID and Sam's cat, right? Pfeh.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.