6.09 Allegiance
Transcript is here
Allegiance, or, as I like call it, "The One where Bra'tac is awesome, a great many people are unreasonable, and Jonas had better things to do."
We open on the Alpha Site, in PANDEMONIUM! There are Tok'ra in ugly desert uniforms rushing through the Stargate, many are wounded. Janet (JANET! nope, still can't get over it) is performing triage, and Jaffa are rushing about helping her. O'Neill and Carter are watching the Tok'ra come through.
Two Tok'ra come through carrying a box, and one of them -- Ocker, the security chief -- drops his end of the big box. A Jaffa Artok tries to help and Ocker shoves him away from the box. They're both wearing invisible red shirts, by the way.
Teal'c and Rak'nor and a few other no-name Jaffa then point staff weapons at Ocker for the heinous crime of pushing their little buddy. Over-reaction much? But don't worry -- we'll see lots of reacting and not a lot of thinking in tonight's episode.
Jack wants to know what's in the box. Ocker tells him to shove it. Jack forces the issue because it's a plot point, so Ocker opens it up and reveals something we thought died in Divide and Conquer: the za'tarc detector is baaaaaack! (what I wouldn't give to see Martouf pop out of that box instead!)
Col Pierce comes through and reports it's been a bad day, and Jacob stayed behind to disable the DHD. Fortunately Jacob comes through exactly then, but unfortunately he gets pegged by a staff blast in the leg. Another Tok'ra, Malek, comes through with him, and the wormhole shuts. We do not, so far as I can tell, see a hint of the ashrak coming through at any point in this opening sequence (SPOILER!) , but if you do, leave a note in the comments -- I admit I'm distracted by the bare-chested Jaffa hotties lingering in the background.
(bonus trivia: Peter Stebbings who plays Malek was known to Peter DeLuise, because PDL worked on Stebbings' show Jeremiah. Which, if you've ever seen it, you'll note their Cheyenne Mountain has an uncanny resemblance to the SGC. I'm always a little sad we don't get to see Malek in the SGC.) Anyway.
So Jacob and Malek tell Jack about how much their day has sucked and imply that finding a lot of Jaffa at the base, even rebel ones, isn't exactly making their sucky day better. They also imply the Jaffa are going to have a problem with the Tok'ra being around (and Malek didn't even see the dust-up between Ocker and the Jaffa, so I'm thinking Malek has already read the script).
We come back from credits, to the Tok'ra funeral scene, where they get rid of their dead by putting them in the path of a kawoosh, which is kind of cool. Ocker and Artok get into a fight, and they glare at each other. Jack comes over to try to break it up and Ocker's starting to walk away when Artok mutters about how "they're no different from the Goa'uld." Teal'c verbally smacks him down for being a pouty teenager and Ocker stomps off.
The following conversation makes no sense whatsoever, but establishes that Malek thinks the Jaffa are all hot-heads, Teal'c and Rak'nor now know that Malek thinks the Jaffa are hot-heads, and that Jack thinks the Jaffa saved the Tok'ra (huh?), but mostly that Jack is still pissy about the whole Kanan thing. I mean, really, Jack, just after Malek buries three of his friends and many more on his own base (after many, many more were killed lasy year, and Jack was there, so he knows about the poison), he says that? Come on. Even Jack figures out he lashed out a little too far.
Jack and Jacob have a nice conversation, in which Jacob explains that the Tok'ra have really long memories of Jaffa attacking them a lot. He doesn't explain why the Jaffa are so pissy about the Tok'ra though. But everything seems like it might be okay. So of course, we know that it's all about to go horribly awry.
The next morning, Sam tells Jack and Tealc about how the naquadah reactor was tampered with overnight and was about an hour from TOTALLY BLOWING THE WHOLE CAMP UP. Jack assumes the tamperer is going to try to flee through the Gate (in lieu of blowing up with it), and then ... Jack opens a wormhole to Earth. Hopefully the iris stays shut. HI JONAS. No, you can't come play at the Alpha Site, you're not from Earth, you're not a Jaffa, and you're not a Tok'ra -- you would mess up all our neat boxes too much.
The Tok'ra wander up, wondering what's going on. Jack eventually explains about how it can't be a big coincidence that the reactor nearly went boom the day after the Tok'ra arrived at the SGC's Fortress of Solitude, so he wants to question the Tok'ra. Malek is annoyed, but Selmak agrees and volunteers the za'tarc detector for the process. Everyone looks thrilled.
Malek goes last of the able-bodied Tok'ra and passes. Jack watches Artok and Ocker get into it again before Teal'c and Malek break it up (and really? those two should've been sent to time-outs in opposite corners of the camp the day before). Bra'tac is eventually convinced that he has to persuade the Jaffa get questioned, now that the Tok'ra have already passed.
But then Malek finds Ocker's dead body (Ocker was walking around not thirty seconds ago, so that ashrak moves FAST). Malek accuses Artok, who denies it sorta-kinda, which gets Malek's and even Jack's ire up, and Malek demands he be questioned.
Once again, the za'tarc detector proves it is USELESS, when it uncovers Artok is deceiving them about something.
I paraphrase:
Malek: He's guilty, the detector says so.
Jack: The detector is a lying piece of inaccurate crap
Malek: Funny, when the Tok'ra were the guilty-looking ones, you thought it was awesome.
Jack: ....
Jack: okay, good point.
Bra'tac: *glares*
Jack: Dude, Bra'tac is twice my age and can still kick my ass. I can't piss him off.
Malek: You killed Ocker, you bastard!
Jacob: Malek, chill. Artok's not going anywhere. Janet's autopsying the body.
Malek: Fine.
Bra'tac: Fine.
Teal'c: Fine.
Jack: Fine.
Janet: Look, a Goa'uld knife to the neck killed Ocker.
Malek: A knife like the Jaffa carry? Imagine that.
Bra'tac: We Jaffa never, ever kill dishonorably.
Malek: *rolls eyes to infinity* OH NEVER.
Bra'tac: O noes! Now Artok has perished!
Teal'c: It must be a Tok'ra! *glares*
Malek: It was obviously a Jaffa! *glares*
Jack: I wonder -- what can possibly kill a Tok'ra and a Jaffa with one blow with a bladed weapon and nobody sees it?
Sam: Oh, I know! Maybe it's an ashrak, cloaked like Nurrti!
No, unfortunately, nobody thinks there might be a freelance Goa'uld under invisibility cloak around, having a good time playing everyone for idiots.
So then they carry Artok's body off to be autopsied, and Rak'nor, who is distraught, accuses Malek of killing Artok. Malek's like, 'suddenly I have a lot more sympathy for the Goa'uld if they have to put up with this crap all the time.' Rak'nor grabs his arm, and Malek backhands him in the face. The Jaffa pull out zats and other weapons and the Tok'ra all draw their zats, and they are all conveniently arranged in two lines to kill each other.
But Bra'tac, who is the only one who seems to be catching a clue that it has to be someone else, has found bootprints leading off into the forest, and acknowledges that the prints could belong to anyone. So then Tok'ra and Jaffa go off to count if anyone is missing, and of course nobody is, becaue it's a ashrak (spoiler!).
So Jack thinks that everyone's not a tactically poor enough situation and sends them all out into the forest in groups of threes. I think he's just trying to get the Tok'ra and Jaffa to kill each other and get out of his hair, because otherwise tramping through thick underbrush in search of a crazed killer sounds like something parodied in Scary Movie. But it is kind of hilarious that Jack uses his hand-signals to Bra'tac and Malek, because, yeah, they have the training to understand what you're doing, Jack.
Jack gets separated from them, and then Bra'tac and Malek get attacked. Bra'tac pushes Malek out of the way, and Malek watches in horror as an invisible ashrak kicks Bra'tac's ass and drag him off. And then he rushes away. He doesn't get very far before Teal'c tries to strangle him. I'm kind of convinced Malek is just waiting for Teal'c to get back to his senses, since he should be able to throw him off. Jacob isn't exactly in a panic either, but eventually Jack tells Teal'c sort of weakly to get off.
Finally, Malek tells them that their enemy has some sort of invisibility screen. And still nobody mentions an ashrak, though you can't tell me the Tok'ra aren't thinking it. Malek and Sam figure out they have a way to defeat the invisibility screen. Teal'c glares with great balefulness at Malek.
But finally, Teal'c gives the infodump on ashraks being dangerous assassins and sometimes they're even invisible! Like, thanks for remembering that earlier!
So they set up at the gate while Sam and Jacob and Malek start to work on the giant TER. The ashrak goes on a merry spree, not even bothering to kill anyone since they're doing such a good job on their own. Malek thinks holding the planet is stupid and they should just leave (which, while Jack is right that they could bring it with them, Malek should point out that if the ashrak has a teleball the planet's lost anyway.) They get the ashrak visible long enough to watch it kick everybody's ass some more.
Then, the move I thought was awesome the first time, and then it gets more ridiculous the more I watch: Jack takes out a big machine gun and fires in a big circle. I guess this is to make the ashrak know he MEANS BUSINESS? Next time, Jack, it would be much easier, if less melodramatic, to have Sam pull out the control crystal to keep the DHD from operating.
The ashrak then gets visible again, and is going for Jack, when he's suddenly hit by a staff blast!
Bra'tac is alive! And he kills the ashrak deader than dead! Bra'tac -- Crowning Moment of Awesome, y/y?
Malek offers his hand and his thanks, and Bra'tac shakes it, and everybody's friends! Yay!
The end.
Questions:
1. What is the Jaffa problem with the Tok'ra? Now, Teal'c, okay, he's pissed on Jack's behalf from Abyss, I suppose. But how did we get from "They're sort of mythical to us, but they're kind of cool" to "They're no different from the Goa'uld!" as a general attitude?
2. On the other hand, speaking of unreasonable, it might be nice if one Tok'ra host besides Jacob would talk during this episode, wouldn't it?
3. How much fun was that ashrak having up until Bra'tac blew it away? Was it just playing with its food, or did it have an actual PLAN?
4. Bra'tac: how awesome is he?
Allegiance, or, as I like call it, "The One where Bra'tac is awesome, a great many people are unreasonable, and Jonas had better things to do."
We open on the Alpha Site, in PANDEMONIUM! There are Tok'ra in ugly desert uniforms rushing through the Stargate, many are wounded. Janet (JANET! nope, still can't get over it) is performing triage, and Jaffa are rushing about helping her. O'Neill and Carter are watching the Tok'ra come through.
Two Tok'ra come through carrying a box, and one of them -- Ocker, the security chief -- drops his end of the big box. A Jaffa Artok tries to help and Ocker shoves him away from the box. They're both wearing invisible red shirts, by the way.
Teal'c and Rak'nor and a few other no-name Jaffa then point staff weapons at Ocker for the heinous crime of pushing their little buddy. Over-reaction much? But don't worry -- we'll see lots of reacting and not a lot of thinking in tonight's episode.
Jack wants to know what's in the box. Ocker tells him to shove it. Jack forces the issue because it's a plot point, so Ocker opens it up and reveals something we thought died in Divide and Conquer: the za'tarc detector is baaaaaack! (what I wouldn't give to see Martouf pop out of that box instead!)
Col Pierce comes through and reports it's been a bad day, and Jacob stayed behind to disable the DHD. Fortunately Jacob comes through exactly then, but unfortunately he gets pegged by a staff blast in the leg. Another Tok'ra, Malek, comes through with him, and the wormhole shuts. We do not, so far as I can tell, see a hint of the ashrak coming through at any point in this opening sequence (SPOILER!) , but if you do, leave a note in the comments -- I admit I'm distracted by the bare-chested Jaffa hotties lingering in the background.
(bonus trivia: Peter Stebbings who plays Malek was known to Peter DeLuise, because PDL worked on Stebbings' show Jeremiah. Which, if you've ever seen it, you'll note their Cheyenne Mountain has an uncanny resemblance to the SGC. I'm always a little sad we don't get to see Malek in the SGC.) Anyway.
So Jacob and Malek tell Jack about how much their day has sucked and imply that finding a lot of Jaffa at the base, even rebel ones, isn't exactly making their sucky day better. They also imply the Jaffa are going to have a problem with the Tok'ra being around (and Malek didn't even see the dust-up between Ocker and the Jaffa, so I'm thinking Malek has already read the script).
We come back from credits, to the Tok'ra funeral scene, where they get rid of their dead by putting them in the path of a kawoosh, which is kind of cool. Ocker and Artok get into a fight, and they glare at each other. Jack comes over to try to break it up and Ocker's starting to walk away when Artok mutters about how "they're no different from the Goa'uld." Teal'c verbally smacks him down for being a pouty teenager and Ocker stomps off.
The following conversation makes no sense whatsoever, but establishes that Malek thinks the Jaffa are all hot-heads, Teal'c and Rak'nor now know that Malek thinks the Jaffa are hot-heads, and that Jack thinks the Jaffa saved the Tok'ra (huh?), but mostly that Jack is still pissy about the whole Kanan thing. I mean, really, Jack, just after Malek buries three of his friends and many more on his own base (after many, many more were killed lasy year, and Jack was there, so he knows about the poison), he says that? Come on. Even Jack figures out he lashed out a little too far.
Jack and Jacob have a nice conversation, in which Jacob explains that the Tok'ra have really long memories of Jaffa attacking them a lot. He doesn't explain why the Jaffa are so pissy about the Tok'ra though. But everything seems like it might be okay. So of course, we know that it's all about to go horribly awry.
The next morning, Sam tells Jack and Tealc about how the naquadah reactor was tampered with overnight and was about an hour from TOTALLY BLOWING THE WHOLE CAMP UP. Jack assumes the tamperer is going to try to flee through the Gate (in lieu of blowing up with it), and then ... Jack opens a wormhole to Earth. Hopefully the iris stays shut. HI JONAS. No, you can't come play at the Alpha Site, you're not from Earth, you're not a Jaffa, and you're not a Tok'ra -- you would mess up all our neat boxes too much.
The Tok'ra wander up, wondering what's going on. Jack eventually explains about how it can't be a big coincidence that the reactor nearly went boom the day after the Tok'ra arrived at the SGC's Fortress of Solitude, so he wants to question the Tok'ra. Malek is annoyed, but Selmak agrees and volunteers the za'tarc detector for the process. Everyone looks thrilled.
Malek goes last of the able-bodied Tok'ra and passes. Jack watches Artok and Ocker get into it again before Teal'c and Malek break it up (and really? those two should've been sent to time-outs in opposite corners of the camp the day before). Bra'tac is eventually convinced that he has to persuade the Jaffa get questioned, now that the Tok'ra have already passed.
But then Malek finds Ocker's dead body (Ocker was walking around not thirty seconds ago, so that ashrak moves FAST). Malek accuses Artok, who denies it sorta-kinda, which gets Malek's and even Jack's ire up, and Malek demands he be questioned.
Once again, the za'tarc detector proves it is USELESS, when it uncovers Artok is deceiving them about something.
I paraphrase:
Malek: He's guilty, the detector says so.
Jack: The detector is a lying piece of inaccurate crap
Malek: Funny, when the Tok'ra were the guilty-looking ones, you thought it was awesome.
Jack: ....
Jack: okay, good point.
Bra'tac: *glares*
Jack: Dude, Bra'tac is twice my age and can still kick my ass. I can't piss him off.
Malek: You killed Ocker, you bastard!
Jacob: Malek, chill. Artok's not going anywhere. Janet's autopsying the body.
Malek: Fine.
Bra'tac: Fine.
Teal'c: Fine.
Jack: Fine.
Janet: Look, a Goa'uld knife to the neck killed Ocker.
Malek: A knife like the Jaffa carry? Imagine that.
Bra'tac: We Jaffa never, ever kill dishonorably.
Malek: *rolls eyes to infinity* OH NEVER.
Bra'tac: O noes! Now Artok has perished!
Teal'c: It must be a Tok'ra! *glares*
Malek: It was obviously a Jaffa! *glares*
Jack: I wonder -- what can possibly kill a Tok'ra and a Jaffa with one blow with a bladed weapon and nobody sees it?
Sam: Oh, I know! Maybe it's an ashrak, cloaked like Nurrti!
No, unfortunately, nobody thinks there might be a freelance Goa'uld under invisibility cloak around, having a good time playing everyone for idiots.
So then they carry Artok's body off to be autopsied, and Rak'nor, who is distraught, accuses Malek of killing Artok. Malek's like, 'suddenly I have a lot more sympathy for the Goa'uld if they have to put up with this crap all the time.' Rak'nor grabs his arm, and Malek backhands him in the face. The Jaffa pull out zats and other weapons and the Tok'ra all draw their zats, and they are all conveniently arranged in two lines to kill each other.
But Bra'tac, who is the only one who seems to be catching a clue that it has to be someone else, has found bootprints leading off into the forest, and acknowledges that the prints could belong to anyone. So then Tok'ra and Jaffa go off to count if anyone is missing, and of course nobody is, becaue it's a ashrak (spoiler!).
So Jack thinks that everyone's not a tactically poor enough situation and sends them all out into the forest in groups of threes. I think he's just trying to get the Tok'ra and Jaffa to kill each other and get out of his hair, because otherwise tramping through thick underbrush in search of a crazed killer sounds like something parodied in Scary Movie. But it is kind of hilarious that Jack uses his hand-signals to Bra'tac and Malek, because, yeah, they have the training to understand what you're doing, Jack.
Jack gets separated from them, and then Bra'tac and Malek get attacked. Bra'tac pushes Malek out of the way, and Malek watches in horror as an invisible ashrak kicks Bra'tac's ass and drag him off. And then he rushes away. He doesn't get very far before Teal'c tries to strangle him. I'm kind of convinced Malek is just waiting for Teal'c to get back to his senses, since he should be able to throw him off. Jacob isn't exactly in a panic either, but eventually Jack tells Teal'c sort of weakly to get off.
Finally, Malek tells them that their enemy has some sort of invisibility screen. And still nobody mentions an ashrak, though you can't tell me the Tok'ra aren't thinking it. Malek and Sam figure out they have a way to defeat the invisibility screen. Teal'c glares with great balefulness at Malek.
But finally, Teal'c gives the infodump on ashraks being dangerous assassins and sometimes they're even invisible! Like, thanks for remembering that earlier!
So they set up at the gate while Sam and Jacob and Malek start to work on the giant TER. The ashrak goes on a merry spree, not even bothering to kill anyone since they're doing such a good job on their own. Malek thinks holding the planet is stupid and they should just leave (which, while Jack is right that they could bring it with them, Malek should point out that if the ashrak has a teleball the planet's lost anyway.) They get the ashrak visible long enough to watch it kick everybody's ass some more.
Then, the move I thought was awesome the first time, and then it gets more ridiculous the more I watch: Jack takes out a big machine gun and fires in a big circle. I guess this is to make the ashrak know he MEANS BUSINESS? Next time, Jack, it would be much easier, if less melodramatic, to have Sam pull out the control crystal to keep the DHD from operating.
The ashrak then gets visible again, and is going for Jack, when he's suddenly hit by a staff blast!
Bra'tac is alive! And he kills the ashrak deader than dead! Bra'tac -- Crowning Moment of Awesome, y/y?
Malek offers his hand and his thanks, and Bra'tac shakes it, and everybody's friends! Yay!
The end.
Questions:
1. What is the Jaffa problem with the Tok'ra? Now, Teal'c, okay, he's pissed on Jack's behalf from Abyss, I suppose. But how did we get from "They're sort of mythical to us, but they're kind of cool" to "They're no different from the Goa'uld!" as a general attitude?
2. On the other hand, speaking of unreasonable, it might be nice if one Tok'ra host besides Jacob would talk during this episode, wouldn't it?
3. How much fun was that ashrak having up until Bra'tac blew it away? Was it just playing with its food, or did it have an actual PLAN?
4. Bra'tac: how awesome is he?