Farscape Rewatch: "Into the Lion's Den (Part 2): Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" (3.21)
Wiki summary: Driven to desperation by Scorpius's threat against Earth, Crichton concocts a plan to destroy the command carrier and all of the wormhole research. He takes Scorpius on a ride through a stable wormhole to provide a distraction while Crais slips aboard Talyn, who is docked inside the carrier. Crais convinces Talyn to starburst; in the confined space this causes an enormous explosion, killing them both and crippling the carrier. The crew of Moya battle their way to their craft and escape just before it explodes, effectively ending the Peacekeeper wormhole project.
Someone, I forgot who, once called this episode "Wagnerian", and I can see that, though the soundtrack seems to go more into a Carl Orff direction, what with the Dies Irae. In any event, I love it, despite the fact that John and Aeryn are essentially the sole Moyans with anything to do (with Rygel and Pilot each getting one poignant reaction/speech, but otherwise this very PK-centric finale has our regulars solely as Greek chorus and hostage plot devices. Still: impossible to mind, for me at least. I also love how layered it remains till the end. On the one hand, what Crais does is brave and heroic and selfless, and on another, utterly selfish (if it had been solely about saving the universe from Scorpius having wormhole tech for Crais, it wouldn't have needed that final speech), and let's not forget, the way he represents the situation to Talyn ("the others are captured and Moya will soon be enslaved unless we do something") in order to make him go along with the shared suicide is, while technically true, at the very least somewhat economic with the truth and quite manipulative. Also, let's hear it for Lani Tupu as an actor, one more time, because in the scene where Crichton tells the gang things have changed and he now wants to blow up the Command Carrier, you can practically hear Crais thinking and realising what has to be done, all by Tupu's expression. Speaking of facial expresssions conveying so very much: Aeryn both in the scene with Crichton and Crais where her face says so much more than if she'd protested at length that yes, she believes Crais, and of course in her goodbye scene with Crais. Which was, is and remains possibly my favourite "one character takes leave of another character" scene in Farscape. Her hand on his cheek and that expression. Their entire history, bad and good, is in that. So hail and farewell, Bialar Crais. Your character arc remains one of the best the show did, and you were fascinatingly shades of grey to the end. "Talyn, starburst!" remains gutwrenching.
Meanwhile: this episode's scenes with John and Scorpius are possibly the slashiest the show ever did, from the opening scene onwards to their last scene. "We were close" indeed. As I said in my last review, on the one hand, Scorpius ruined his shot at getting genuine cooperation from John Crichton with that threat to Earth, but on the other, he does deliver on the homoerotic tension front. Also, John's idea of distracting Scorpius (so Crais can get on board Talyn), the wormhole trip, is played like a seduction scene. Back to the beginning; John knocking his head to the ground at the end of the teaser scene to provide Scorpius with some pain in return is adorably petty. Yup, I still ship them. The one fly in the otherwise perfect ointment of an episode that wraps up the "hero and antagonist: check out their similarities!" seasonal arc remains the one scene in this entire episode that hasn't worked on me the first time I saw it, nor on any rewatch, including this one, and that's the scene with Crichton and Co-Kura culminating in Crichton putting Co-Kura in the Aurora Chair. I've said it before, I'll say it again: this scene stands out as a sore thumb as an example of the writers wanting to have their cake and eat it, i.e.: on the one hand, they want to show how far John is willing to go and how similar he has become to Scorpius by letting him use the Aurora Chair, the very device Scorpius tortured him with when they first met, on another being. On the other, they still want to keep him heroic and compassionate. So the solution is to have Co-Kura suggest it and volunteer for it...which he does within a minute of going from "yay wormhole data! we finally can do it!" to "no, Crichton, you're totally right, no one ever should!" It's the later that makes my suspension of disbelief snap. If the show had provided us with any previous scenes of Co-Kura having doubts, then yes, I might have bought it. But this instant 180% turnaround just because John yells "it's never just science!!" at him? No.
Back to praise: whereas what the writers do with the command carrier and its crew is paying the bills for the cake, and I admire it very much. This episode and the previous one has been careful to show us, repeatedly, the crew as human, well, Sebacean beings. By which I don't mean "as good people". A great many of the Peacekeepers we see in both parts are busy snarling racism at D'Argo, trying to kill Crichton and yell "traitor" at Aeryn and Crais. None of them is going to join any rebellion any time soon. But we also see them hang out and have affection for each other, and for all that Henta sticks to the party line, she's actually not saying anything Aeryn didn't say when all this started. There are reminders that Crais and Aeryn used to be just like this at every corner. And in this very episode, we're reminded that there are children on board since they are, like Aeryn was, raised in space. And then, when the "let's blow up the Command Carrier" plan is voiced, Aeryn points that there are thousands of people on board, and Crichton says they'll figure out a way that leaves time for evacuation. This isn't so completely unusual today as it was back in the day in that evacuating civilians so they're not killed by the big action climax with the villain is something that, say, most MCU superheroes try to do in the last decade. But evacuating the bad guys is still incredibly rare to my knowledge. Tv series and movies either get around any inherent ethical problem when the big climax means not just defeating/killing an individual villain but hundreds or thousands by making the villains robots. Or their deaths are just not shown or shown very briefly. (Not just in sci fi. I remember an article pointing out that for all the praised hardcore realism of the opening Normandy sequence in Saving Private Ryan, the gruesome deaths happen exclusively to Allied soldiers. The Germans killed by them die for the most part soundlessly and unbloodily.) There's a reason why "how many construction works on the Death Star?" is treated as a joke (thanks, Kevin Smith, for coming uip with it in the first place) rather than as an actual problem.
Now, Farscape. Which doesn't leave a doubt that the Peacekeepers are an Evil Empire, so to speak (with the Scarrans being the other, possibly even Eviler Empire), which should not have the atom bomb the current ultimate weapon of mass destruction at its disposal. At the same time, it also makes it clear said Evil Empire doesn't consist of faceless blobs but of individuals with their own lives. That our heroes do consider the time of evacuation as a necessity shows why they're still the good guys; that the show is honest and admits this still means the deaths of some, and lets this voiced towards John, is even better. John at the start of the show wouldn't have been ready to consider the death of "some" as acceptable; John now, three years and a great many horrors later, does, but he and the show are aware what this means.
Incidentally: Scorpius ordering the evacuation is also a great touch, because it's the kind of thing that distinguishes Scorpius from scorched-earth-type of megalomaniac type of villains. "Avenging myself on the Scarrans" might be more important for him than "protecting Sebaceans" if he's honest, but "protecting Sebaceans" is still a factor, and that he doesn't think "if I go down, everyone should die with me" makes him the three dimensional being he is. (Not to mention the long term game player; presumably he's aware in the short term, he'll be screwed because Grayza and this disaster, but in the long term, people he commanded might recall he tried to ensure their survival.)
Debate worthy: a question.
Given that in the end, Scorpius makes clear he had been bluffing when threatening Earth in the case of Crichton not delivering wormhole tech - was Harvey deliberately enigmatic when answering John's earlier question as to whether or not Scorpius was serious with "I'd never underestimate Scorpius' capacity for revenge"?
Trivia: I think the dvd version of this episode, which is the one I watched the last but one time, has a cut that avoids showing Henta's fate in its full gruesomeness. At least I don't recall seeing her burned body as detailed as I just did on Amazon Prime. Brrr.
The other episodes This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1443734.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Someone, I forgot who, once called this episode "Wagnerian", and I can see that, though the soundtrack seems to go more into a Carl Orff direction, what with the Dies Irae. In any event, I love it, despite the fact that John and Aeryn are essentially the sole Moyans with anything to do (with Rygel and Pilot each getting one poignant reaction/speech, but otherwise this very PK-centric finale has our regulars solely as Greek chorus and hostage plot devices. Still: impossible to mind, for me at least. I also love how layered it remains till the end. On the one hand, what Crais does is brave and heroic and selfless, and on another, utterly selfish (if it had been solely about saving the universe from Scorpius having wormhole tech for Crais, it wouldn't have needed that final speech), and let's not forget, the way he represents the situation to Talyn ("the others are captured and Moya will soon be enslaved unless we do something") in order to make him go along with the shared suicide is, while technically true, at the very least somewhat economic with the truth and quite manipulative. Also, let's hear it for Lani Tupu as an actor, one more time, because in the scene where Crichton tells the gang things have changed and he now wants to blow up the Command Carrier, you can practically hear Crais thinking and realising what has to be done, all by Tupu's expression. Speaking of facial expresssions conveying so very much: Aeryn both in the scene with Crichton and Crais where her face says so much more than if she'd protested at length that yes, she believes Crais, and of course in her goodbye scene with Crais. Which was, is and remains possibly my favourite "one character takes leave of another character" scene in Farscape. Her hand on his cheek and that expression. Their entire history, bad and good, is in that. So hail and farewell, Bialar Crais. Your character arc remains one of the best the show did, and you were fascinatingly shades of grey to the end. "Talyn, starburst!" remains gutwrenching.
Meanwhile: this episode's scenes with John and Scorpius are possibly the slashiest the show ever did, from the opening scene onwards to their last scene. "We were close" indeed. As I said in my last review, on the one hand, Scorpius ruined his shot at getting genuine cooperation from John Crichton with that threat to Earth, but on the other, he does deliver on the homoerotic tension front. Also, John's idea of distracting Scorpius (so Crais can get on board Talyn), the wormhole trip, is played like a seduction scene. Back to the beginning; John knocking his head to the ground at the end of the teaser scene to provide Scorpius with some pain in return is adorably petty. Yup, I still ship them. The one fly in the otherwise perfect ointment of an episode that wraps up the "hero and antagonist: check out their similarities!" seasonal arc remains the one scene in this entire episode that hasn't worked on me the first time I saw it, nor on any rewatch, including this one, and that's the scene with Crichton and Co-Kura culminating in Crichton putting Co-Kura in the Aurora Chair. I've said it before, I'll say it again: this scene stands out as a sore thumb as an example of the writers wanting to have their cake and eat it, i.e.: on the one hand, they want to show how far John is willing to go and how similar he has become to Scorpius by letting him use the Aurora Chair, the very device Scorpius tortured him with when they first met, on another being. On the other, they still want to keep him heroic and compassionate. So the solution is to have Co-Kura suggest it and volunteer for it...which he does within a minute of going from "yay wormhole data! we finally can do it!" to "no, Crichton, you're totally right, no one ever should!" It's the later that makes my suspension of disbelief snap. If the show had provided us with any previous scenes of Co-Kura having doubts, then yes, I might have bought it. But this instant 180% turnaround just because John yells "it's never just science!!" at him? No.
Back to praise: whereas what the writers do with the command carrier and its crew is paying the bills for the cake, and I admire it very much. This episode and the previous one has been careful to show us, repeatedly, the crew as human, well, Sebacean beings. By which I don't mean "as good people". A great many of the Peacekeepers we see in both parts are busy snarling racism at D'Argo, trying to kill Crichton and yell "traitor" at Aeryn and Crais. None of them is going to join any rebellion any time soon. But we also see them hang out and have affection for each other, and for all that Henta sticks to the party line, she's actually not saying anything Aeryn didn't say when all this started. There are reminders that Crais and Aeryn used to be just like this at every corner. And in this very episode, we're reminded that there are children on board since they are, like Aeryn was, raised in space. And then, when the "let's blow up the Command Carrier" plan is voiced, Aeryn points that there are thousands of people on board, and Crichton says they'll figure out a way that leaves time for evacuation. This isn't so completely unusual today as it was back in the day in that evacuating civilians so they're not killed by the big action climax with the villain is something that, say, most MCU superheroes try to do in the last decade. But evacuating the bad guys is still incredibly rare to my knowledge. Tv series and movies either get around any inherent ethical problem when the big climax means not just defeating/killing an individual villain but hundreds or thousands by making the villains robots. Or their deaths are just not shown or shown very briefly. (Not just in sci fi. I remember an article pointing out that for all the praised hardcore realism of the opening Normandy sequence in Saving Private Ryan, the gruesome deaths happen exclusively to Allied soldiers. The Germans killed by them die for the most part soundlessly and unbloodily.) There's a reason why "how many construction works on the Death Star?" is treated as a joke (thanks, Kevin Smith, for coming uip with it in the first place) rather than as an actual problem.
Now, Farscape. Which doesn't leave a doubt that the Peacekeepers are an Evil Empire, so to speak (with the Scarrans being the other, possibly even Eviler Empire), which should not have the atom bomb the current ultimate weapon of mass destruction at its disposal. At the same time, it also makes it clear said Evil Empire doesn't consist of faceless blobs but of individuals with their own lives. That our heroes do consider the time of evacuation as a necessity shows why they're still the good guys; that the show is honest and admits this still means the deaths of some, and lets this voiced towards John, is even better. John at the start of the show wouldn't have been ready to consider the death of "some" as acceptable; John now, three years and a great many horrors later, does, but he and the show are aware what this means.
Incidentally: Scorpius ordering the evacuation is also a great touch, because it's the kind of thing that distinguishes Scorpius from scorched-earth-type of megalomaniac type of villains. "Avenging myself on the Scarrans" might be more important for him than "protecting Sebaceans" if he's honest, but "protecting Sebaceans" is still a factor, and that he doesn't think "if I go down, everyone should die with me" makes him the three dimensional being he is. (Not to mention the long term game player; presumably he's aware in the short term, he'll be screwed because Grayza and this disaster, but in the long term, people he commanded might recall he tried to ensure their survival.)
Debate worthy: a question.
Given that in the end, Scorpius makes clear he had been bluffing when threatening Earth in the case of Crichton not delivering wormhole tech - was Harvey deliberately enigmatic when answering John's earlier question as to whether or not Scorpius was serious with "I'd never underestimate Scorpius' capacity for revenge"?
Trivia: I think the dvd version of this episode, which is the one I watched the last but one time, has a cut that avoids showing Henta's fate in its full gruesomeness. At least I don't recall seeing her burned body as detailed as I just did on Amazon Prime. Brrr.
The other episodes This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1443734.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.