East Coast Gazette

SCREAM. SCREAM. SCREAM. SCREAM. OH MY GOD SCREAM.

Spoilers (and a metric ton of images) under the jump.

1. If you think it might be kind of shallow to talk about clothing decisions in this episode — you’re probably be right. If you thought that might stop me, you’re obviously new. As my friend Serial Karma told me this morning, there was no reason for Ronon to be in this episode — but then she paused and said, “Well, other than to be hot in jeans,” and I agree: being hot in jeans is very important, and Ronon in jeans was very hot. On the other hand, we’ve established that Joe Flanigan in the black suit with the simple white shirt, no tie look is hot enough that if I saw him on the street I might swoon — and when I woke up I might have mauled him a little bit or something. You know. With my ladyparts. On the third, awkward hand, I’ve never seen Rodney dressed so, so, so appallingly. Seriously, it was like the rejects from this week’s Project Runway challenge for menswear gone horribly, horribly wrong kitted him up in some sort of team challenge from hell while Christian fucked with his flock’o’seagulls hair and said, “Canadians are for totes fierce. But did you see his hottie-for-hottie manpiece? Me-ow,” and Kevin (aka: the token straight one who looks like John Winchester) said stuff like, “I think striped pants are really modern — but McKay looked fucking twee in that outfit.” Jeannie looked fabulous and harried, which was apropos and perfect, and also, extra bonus points to Madison, who looked adorable.

Also, Zelenka and the rest of the scientists looking desperate and desperately-bored, telling Rodney he was sucking away their will to live — that, Christian, is what we truly call fierce. You know what’s also fierce? Running away as quickly as possible in the face of minor capitulation:

2. This episode was some sort of weird study in family dynamics, and I’m about to draw a lot of connections and make a lot of comments about traditionally gendered roles within a family unit that I’m sure a lot of people will get annoyed about. We have gate team one -1 (where the fuck was Teyla? Doesn’t she like Jeannie?):

I’ve said it a lot but John is totally a mom; I used to think it was Teyla, but then I realized Teyla doesn’t care about your hurt feelings or your bullshit. She’s interested in your spiritual quest but honest, she’d just as rather punch you in the mouth and move on than talk to you. Teyla is your older sister who ignored you when you cried outside her door but beat the living hell out of that guy who called you fat in third period. Ronon is obviously your stoner uncle who teaches you how to surf and sell shell necklaces on the beach while cruising for sorostitutes. But John’s totally the team mom, who loves you no matter what and will do anything for you, while Rodney is some kind of weird twist between your mom’s lesbian girlfriend and your dissociated bio-dad who ran off to Berkeley to be with his mistress, science.

And then we have the Millers:

Who, while super-cute, were almost vomit-worthy in their Rockwellian perfection. I want — once, just once — for the shot of a family to be of screaming chaos in the living room: kids throwing toys, somebody spattering food, hauling things around in a minivan. That’s why so many people are spawning, I swear to God, they all think it’s just going to be roses and Scientology and buying their oddly-named yet weirdly beautiful babies hand-made Christian Louboutin shoes. Anyway, but you have the same family format mirrored — especially after Jeannie’s been kidnapped.

Dad’s go to talk to one another, and the guy who plays Kaleb was just awesome in this scene. I felt every moment of frenetic fear and fury and that rolling nausea that comes with not knowing where someone is. Also, shouting at Rodney? A+. Absolutely awesome, go Kaleb:

Leaving John with Madison — someone mentioned that they could have at least had like a three-line scene of John with Madison, and I agree, but that’s kind of purely gratuitous, in reality, the fact that he was the one who stayed behind with the baby is pretty telling in and of itself — in the absence of her mother (also, check Madison’s cute jacket! Cute!):

Rodney vows they’ll find Jeannie and she’ll be fine and she’ll come back and be the heartbeat of the Miller family. John is quiet and supportive and digs through paperwork hotly — even though Rodney dismisses him to “break down the computer,” and thoroughly breaks team protocol by running out into the night with an NID agent who appeared only semi-competent. You know that on Monday he gets a message in his inbox reading:

To: NID guy
From: John Sheppard
Subject: WHO TRIES TO BREAK A HOSTAGE SITUATION OF THIS CALIBER WITH 1 MCKAY (HE CAN’T EVEN THROW A PUNCH!) 1 AGENT AND 1 FUCKING GUN? YOU’RE FIRED.

See above.

Third family in this story was obvs. Wallaces and I cared about them not at all. That’s not a bad thing, but they were a plot device to move along a larger character arc, which is absolutely fine.

3. I wasn’t at all bothered by Jeannie being the damsel in distress — in fact, I think it makes sense. It even made plot sense, which is more than I can say for a lot of the characterization decisions on this show. To go a step further, why doesn’t anybody get pissed off when Rodney’s the damsel in distress? It happens like 26 times an hour. I’ve read some mixed reviews on Jeannie’s role as a so-called “damsel” in this episode and I pretty much disagree on both points. Sure, she’s kidnapped, but I don’t ever see her acting in a passive way. She codes with McKay, they amp up the nanites, and even after she’s been injected she’s still working. Jeannie gets put into a chemically-induced coma (and uh, get’s her legs broken — NEVER TELL HER THAT, MCKAY) to make sure she lives, which I think is a pretty okay excuse to the Feminist Sisterhood United when they come calling asking why she wasn’t taking names and punching men in the balls the entire time at the SGC.

Highlight reel!

MCKAY: Marines! They’re coming any minute! And also, my wife is going to kick your ass.
JEANNIE: Yeah! Totally! His wife is. Bad. Ass.

JEANNIE: You should marry Katie. (highly paraphrased)
JEANNIE: Face it: You’re no John Sheppard.

MCKAY: …

I think there’s not much else you can add to the scene other than the noises of your hysterical laughter here — or Rodney’s mental dialogue thinking that he doesn’t care if his sister is infected with nanites. He’d like, totally die for her, but if she tries anything with John, he will kill her to death.

Meanwhile, as Rodney was worrying about whether he was about to save his sister only to need to knife her for trying to touch up on his man, this hotness was happening back at the SGC:

And John, while following the paper trail, left poor Ronon in the clutches of Walter in a scene that had me weeping in laughter, and not just because of the WRETCHED mosaic of motivational posters behind them in the cafeteria.

(But those posters are pretty fucking special: note how they’re all in the same font, not the same style at the traditional motivationals, and also, that they all end with a single exclamation mark, like it’s not enough to be the past perfect of dedicate, you have to be dedicated! and filled with pride! and also, love teamwork! Which is totally symbolized by two jets! John must hate this place so much. So so much.)

4. This episode was so gay my left eyeball fell out and rolled off to go hook up in a bathroom with another left eyeball. There was a lot of gay in this episode, to the point where I almost don’t know where to begin, but I do know where to end. This scene between Rodney and John was murderously painful, and it starts the period of the episode — like, three minutes of it — where all John does is talk in a whisper, which cuts me and kills me because he drawls everything, and this, he can barely raise his voice enough to talk about without wanting to throw up, I bet.

JOHN: I can’t.
ME: SCREAM.

And the following scenes were John convinces Wallace to “volunteer” for the Wraith are completely spellbindingly creepy.  I loved it, for the moral grayness and the total insanity of the situation, that John would bring pictures of Kaleb and Madison and do it so smoothly, without a single hitch in his voice as he’s going through the motions — I have no doubt if Wallace didn’t volunteer, John was going to volunteer him.  Doing it this way was a courtesy at best.  Hot and wrong and thoroughly thought-provoking, and I’d write more but I was up until 5 a.m. this morning literally puking my guts out and moaning, “Never — never again — God damn you, alcohol,” so I’ll be more articulate on this subject later.

5. Um, but I may be the minority voice here when I say: I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing.  I’m saying this as somebody who believes that John looked completely fucking wrecked at the end of the episode, like, helplessly wrecked.  He knew exactly what he’d done and how fucked up it was and that he’d make a decision like that again — and again — and again, and the knowledge that he would probably have to is probably killing him.  And I think that there is a point in a relationship where you take stock of the person that it has let you become and you either think, “This is amazing; I’m so glad to have known this person,” or you think, “Oh my God.  I’m going to be sick,” and this was not the former for John.  If he was taking stock, reading comic books, it was trying not to hurl at the same time, and I don’t think he’s going to escape unscathed from this one — it’s pretty obvious that the writers wanted you to think this fucked him up hardcore, as it should — and I can’t help but think this can’t mean good things for his relationship.  John will do a lot for Atlantis, but I don’t think he’s ever considered himself the type of person who would do this sort of thing for just another person, and why would you?  It was horrible.

6. In conclusion: OMG JOHN.

7. Also in conclusion: OMG SHOW.