East Coast Gazette

If you don’t know where that quote comes from in the title — that just means you should be watching 30 Rock. That’s all I’m saying. Spoilers beneath the cut, also, lots of images.

Dear fandom,

How are you? I am fine. In fact, I am very fine. I am what you might call “post-coital,” because the folks up in Vancouver totally sent me the best marital aid ever — Travelers! You’ll never believe it! That thing had me off in firecracker ecstasy over and over again! Why, you ask? Let me tell you!

Also, just to get us started, because I thought it was totally adorable:

(Hott.) (Also, was that conversation between Rodney and John in the beginning over the jumper’s comm not the biggest, most gigantic married thing ever?  It was so, so, “Isn’t it odd you finally volunteered to take Emma to soccer practice,” and “I’m a busy man, honey,” and “So I’m sure all those hot tanorexic soccer moms who wear miniskirts and botox their asses have nothing to do with it,” and “Of course not,” of them.)

(1) This week, on What To Wear! Everybody looked hot like burning this week, folks: from John in his button-down I Stole These Pants From Cam When We Get Trashed Watching ACC Basketball And Totally Had Sex Like I’m Some Sort Of Co-Ed Slut Which I Am Totally Not uniform to Larin (spelling?) who’s many, many leather outfits made me salivate. Her hair was fabulous, just the right amount of tousled and sun-kissed so look like she and John got bored glaring at each other with simmering sexual tension for a while to like, make out in a closet. Also, although the team was fairly marginalized, they all looked passable–which sadly is more than I can say for Teyla or Ronon on a regular basis. Plus, did anybody else think that in that second scene where Rodney is appraising his team about John’s disappearance that his hair looked all pulled? Like after they lost contact he’d been shouting and trying not to freak out and tearing at his hair and worrying about his receeding hairline but even more worried about his husband? Uh. Me neither. MOVING ON.

As many people recognized, John all bloody shouldn’t be hot, but uncomfortably, was.  It’s the same way that Joe Flanigan acting like a psychopath and beating people is uncomfortably hot.  You know, in a hot way.

Also hot was this shot, I normally don’t give two shits about visual effects as long as they’re believable, but this was a very, very cool image:

And so was this:

This shot is going to be in here mostly because I like it when John shoots stuff and doesn’t even look at it:

That warship was spectacularly beautiful.  I also had a near-orgasmic sense of glee at all of John’s antics: no inertial dampeners (total n00bs) and also, him walking around lighting panels in the axillary control room–to the point where I think I nearly had a hand-related orgasm this episode, with all the close shots of him stroking technology and touching it and arousing the ship and uh anyway.  He does do a fantastic job of playing stupid (and sometimes, he’s not even trying!) but John is a responsible city leader, if nothing else, and he loves Atlantis, and loves the Ancient technology, and he really loves giant flying things–and I have no doubt in his mind that when Rodney was working on the warships, he was there, too.

(2) SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!!!! So like, I literally shrieked, “OH MY GOD!!!!!” with all the exclamation points audible when Ronon said: “Does it even make a difference? Even if it was a fleet of hive ships, would it stop us from trying to get him back?” GUYS. OH MY GOD GUYS!!!!! It’s like–okay, you’re going to have to bear with some incoherent raving here for a bit, but it’s the first time in my memory we’ve gotten canon acknowledgment that in one way or another, John is the heart of Atlantis, or at its heart–at least in the heart of its people. Some writers in the fandom have touched on this in various shades of depressing death fic, but we love John, the city loves John, the people of the city love John (and how much do I love that in this fandom there’s a distinction between the two?), and not at all in the least–his team loves John. They want him back. I seriously made the worst, “OMG BAMBI’S MOM!” noise when Ronon said that line. I nearly wept.

RONON: Who’s going to teach me that game with the tiny balls now?
RODNEY: BUT WE JUST SIGNED UP FOR A CERAMICS CLASS TOGETHER.
TEYLA: (not pictured, since her grief is so great) Who will do my hair?

And why wouldn’t they love him?  Just look at him–king of suave:

(3) I like to think that the writers are smart enough to effect a storyline where John comes face to face with himself on purpose–but multiple people have pointed out to me the answer to this is likely, “Um, no.” I’m sure bajillions of people hated Larin (in fact, when I did a cursory exam of lj after the episode aired last night, most people were lukewarm to it at best, which told me I would either be bored by it or love it to pieces), but I loved Larin as much as I love John Sheppard. Do you know why? Because Larin is John Sheppard.

NOTE THE SAME LEVEL OF MATURITY.

Larin is John with boobs and slightly-better fashion sense, the same reckless sense of childishness and faith in her people, the same willingness to do things that she probably hates in order to get what she needs for her own–the difference between them lies solely in philosophy: John is determined to fight, and Larin is cautious, but I think only because she doesn’t know she can, yet. The two of them absolutely sparked–hey burned off of each other like a catalytic conversion, and I watched every moment of this episode like I was tasting ambrosia on the tongue. People told me how John acted kind of like a dumbass in this episode and laughed about how Larin outwitted him–and it’s true, she did, but he got her back, multiple times. She may have seduced him and stunned him and punched him in the mouth a lot, but she also forgot that the ship had a hard-on for him and would do whatever he wanted, and let him run amok while she was trapped in the chair room, shocking herself by stabbing at the Ancient wall panel–guys, LARIN IS JOHN. LARIN IS SO MUCH JOHN, IN FACT, I realized they’d intentionally or not, CAST A WOMAN WHO SORT OF LOOKS LIKE WHAT SHEPPARD WOULD IF HE WAS A GIRL, OKAY? PHOTO COMPARISON:

Note his dark, messy hair, olive complexion, and bright hazel eyes, the full mouth (stop getting distracted, folks, I need your attention for just another minute), and now look at Larin:

SAME dark messy hair, bright hazel eyes, full mouth, even if in this picture, she got a very Rodney McKay look of John, You Ass look on her face!  She’s even sort of got the skin tone!  GOD THEIR CHILDREN WOULD BE SO BEAUTIFUL.

God, this episode–I just loved it so much. I loved John. I loved Larin. I loved them TOGETHER. That end scene, where Rodney is bitching because John always gets kidnapped by sexy aliens? And how he complains it’s not fair? And how John says, sounding vulnerable and sort of hurt and a little bit embarrassed at the same time but also very, “Baby, why you gotta be like that? I said I ain’t gonna do that no more!” with him, “She had me beat, Rodney. She threatened to kill me several times.”

RODNEY: You’re not telling me something.
JOHN: ..

RODNEY: YOU CHEATING SLUT.  I TRUSTED YOU!  I’M PUTTING YOU ON THE ATLANTIS HERPES ALERT PAGE YOU–YOU–YOU MAN!  YOU SLUT MAN!  YOU MAN SLUT!
JOHN: Baby, why you gotta be like that?
RONON: OH SNAP.

I was flapping my hands so hard, saying, “OH MY GOD. PLEASE LET RODNEY MEET LARIN. HE’LL EITHER FALL INSTANTLY IN LOVE WITH HER OR HISS AT HER LIKE A CAT–EITHER WAY: HILARITY.” (Also, oh my God: “It wasn’t like we were hanging out in the spa together,” because, JESUS WHO GOES ON A FUCKING DATE TO THE SPA? YOU KNOW WHAT YOU JUST IMPLIED, BIG GAY THROW-PILLOW JOHN? YOU JUST IMPLIED YOU TWO HAD A GIRLS’ DAY OUT, OKAY? WHERE ARE MY SMELLING SALTS? I AM GETTING THE VAPORS AGAIN.)

In conclusion, I motherfucking loved this episode. I cannot wait for Larin to show up again. And also, I don’t care: this was really hot.