Jelgate's Two Cents-Human
Human was and is a Rush episode. So as you might imagine I hated the episode. I kid of course. Human gave us what Stargate Universe is really good at. Massive characterization mixed in with action. And with the big question mark of who is Dr. Rush this was refreshing. I feel like I learned a lot about this character this week. And while I am no closer to sympathizing with Rush then I was a few weeks I am closer to understanding why he does what he does. But I am getting ahead of myself once again. Lets a enter a most dangerous place. I am of course talking about Rush’s subconscious.
If I wasn’t a spoiler man the opening teaser would have confused. They made the opening scene quite confusing because they showed Rush on Earth. But like the rest of the episode the beginning teaser points to what I think is a very important aspect we must consider about Rush. His own wife was dying and he buried himself in his work instead of being with the woman he married. Surely that is significant in to who Rush is. All those personal problems and he chooses to do work instead of being with his wife as she died. At first I thought it was just him reliving past events through dreams but when we learn that Rush is aware that this is just a retelling of his wife’s death it made me wonder was he just ignoring because he knew it wasn’t real. Then I think maybe both are true. Given what we know about Rush I can imagine that the first time Gloria died he did bury himself in his work to grieve. It makes sense really. He wouldn’t the first person to find a “hobby” as he grieves. But t the same time since Rush is complicit of the fantasy aspect he distance himself more then the original time. Because in reality of the present nothing is more important to Rush then breaking the code of the Destiny.
Let’s switch gears to reality. And by reality I mean the Destiny. Don’t worry you won’t hear what I had for breakfast. But I liked the opening scene with Eli and Chloe. Like I said in the Faith review I wanted to see Eli and Scott be on tough terms with Chloe given her “betrayal” in Divided. We saw that in Faith with Scott but those two had months to get on speaking terms. Eli did not have that luxury. So I really like how cold Eli is too Chloe. He is still friends with her but they defiantly not on the best speaking terms. Very interesting in my view. Speaking of Chloe I wonder how truthful that is she has been studying archeology notes. It defiantly would make her seem more useful but at the same time it looked like she was throwing words into there.
I admit I am having a hard time reviewing Rush’s hallucination since most of him is isolating himself in his work as Gloria dies. And as I have mentioned that above it seems pointless to continue mentioning my thoughts about Rush obsessing over his work as he watches Gloria die. So it seems wise next to mention Rush in the lecture hall with Daniel. And let me just say if a professor yelled at me like that for no reason I probably would have filled a complaint with the dean. Anyway the scene where Rush admits that Eli is smarter then him points to a few things. Well first it shows the limit to Rush’s arrogance but more importantly I think it points to guilt. Just look how Rush phrases unlocking the 9th chevron while his wife is dying. I think Rush generally guilty that he isolated himself from Gloria when she was dying. And not because he was unable to solve it but because of the pain he caused her on her deathbed. Not to mention how he was unable to spend the last hours with his loved one because he was so overshadowed by emotion. I think what happened to Gloria is a huge impact into why Rush is the sociopath we know in the present.
Now back to the ruins planet. I find it really hard to swallow that Eli lost the KINO. Yes I understand that it’s a maze down there but you would think those things left a flight plan or something. It’s just a little hard to digest as a reason to go down into the ruins. Speaking of the ruins I am rather curious what closed spaces have to make Greer so scared. It shall be an interesting dynamic to explore. Again speaking of Greer I love how he calmly tells Chloe to stop moving when he shoots the spider. It’s like he knows how it going down. But that most be some weak structure to cause a section of the ruins to collapse. Yes I know it was needed for the plot of the story but it was somewhat hard to swallow.
Young sending a rescue to team to rescue Scott’s team was predictable but I’ll excuse it since its standard military procedure. But that must have been one big cave in to have James and her team work for an hour and have to resort to C4. It was obvious that C4 was already not going to work given how weak the structure was in the first place. I am more then a little surprised that Scott didn’t say anything or the structure didn’t come crashing down. They might not be dating/sleeping anymore but you I think you can see caring between James and Scott when he ordered her to return to the gate. I can see sadness in both of them when the order was given. I thought it was a really good moment.
To Rush and his 46 observations, First of all I woke up the neighbors when I laughed at Daniel’s 42 joke. Second I quite liked how cryptic it was. We knew it had to be significant to the Destiny’s code but at the same time given how the code had stumped Rush I kind of think should have been cryptic for a little longer. But more on that later. Its time to talk about Gloria’s dying speech or more specifically Rush’s speech to himself. I am talking in particular how Gloria talks about how sadden she is that Rush has done some of the things he has done to get where is now in the present. That speaks to me that as this is Rush’s subconscious we are talking about. It shows that deep down even when Rush is doing those borderline immoral actions that deep down he knows its wrong That and many other things in this episode speak to me about Rush. While it doesn’t excuse his actions it makes me understand them a little bit more.
And now this review comes to an end. And it’s kind of bittersweet. On one end I like the part of Scott’s time being left behind and seeing how said event will unfold in Lost. On the other hand I am disappointed that the 46 clue in relation to DNA was discovered so quickly. It leaves a sore taste in the mouth that we were able to find to figure it out the clue. Yes given the size of DNA (and its big) it will take a long time to figure out the master code I was just disappointed that Rush found it out so easily