XOXO, Puppet Girl #2
Farscape 1x03 & 1x04
Back and Back and Back to the Future
This episode serves as a perfect introduction to the “Aged Poorly” class of Farscape Episodes. Like so many science fiction television episodes, the villain is a sexually indiscrete hot lady alien who makes false assault accusations. It’s 1999.
Sailing through space, Moya and her crew discover a ship that seems to be falling into a black hole. Zhaan wants to save them and D’Argo wants to abandon them, until he sees that the two passengers are Ilanics, a species long allied with D’Argo’s people, the Luxans. Moya rescues the passengers: one of them is an old guy scientist and the other is a super sexy lady named Matala. While exploring their wrecked escape pod, John gets zapped by green space energy and starts seeing the future.
While D’Argo falls into Matala’s orbit, John’s visions increase in intensity. He begins to see himself being sexually attacked by Matala, but when he tries to raise these concerns with D’Argo, D’Argo just gets jealous. This is only the first time John experiences sexual victimization, but at least later on his friends take him more seriously.
Matala keeps acting sexy yet suspicious, and she and Aeryn have a girlboss vs. girlboss sparring session. Aeryn wins, but Matala cheats at the last minute by doing a crazy viper strike which reveals she isn’t an Ilanic at all. She’s an enemy spy. None of this will ever be relevant again, so I’m not gonna summarize it in detail.
John finds that Zhaan is willing to believe him, and she helps him work through his crazy visions. Aeryn joins them, and after several failed timelines where everyone dies, they manage to craft a plan which brings D’Argo back to their side and results in Matala’s horrendous death. The old guy scientist also dies, but we don’t care.
There’s very little of import in this episode. It is eminently skippable.
I do find two emotional notes that resonate, however:
1) In one of his visions, John sees Matala seducing D’Argo, and during that encounter D’Argo admits that the crime for which he was imprisoned is not his true crime. We don’t hear what he really did, but John does. It troubles him.
2) In the final moments of the episode, D’Argo insists to John that he is normally impervious to feminine wiles, only…it has been a long time. John commiserates. Loneliness is the iceberg upon which Farscape floats. We will discuss this more later.
Throne for a Loss
God, the soundtrack in these early episodes is supremely goofy. The composers took a look at the aliens and the puppets, and said “Yeah, a mix of ‘90s butt rock and club music should work.”
They’re not wrong, but they’re not right either.
“Throne for a Loss” is yet another silly episode, but somewhat less discomforting than “BaBaBthF”.
Our heroes take a job from Tavlec mercenaries, but when they rendezvous for the cargo hand-off, the Tavlecs attack and abduct Rygel. They believe all Rygel’s baloney about being a great emperor and demand a massive ransom. Moya’s crew manage to capture a Tavlec in return, but he’s a junior member and the Tavlec leader won’t budge.
D’Argo suggests just not saving Rygel, but Pilot alerts them to the fact that Rygel stole a key component from Moya and without it she’ll crash. So whether or not we want Rygel back, we need him. D’Argo claims the blaster wristband from the Tavlec captive, and discovers it not only gives the wearer blaster powers, it also roids them out. D’Argo goes nuts, so John and Aeryn have to knock him out before they can even rescue Rygel. They head down to the planet with the captured Tavlec’s outlet and his wristband.
Meanwhile, Rygel’s in steroid mercenary jail, and his cellmate is Cthulhu’s nephew Jotheb. Rygel has swallowed the valuable Moya component to hide it from the Tavlecs. Bekhesh the Tavlec leader rages out and kills Rygel, but Jotheb resurrects him and claims him as a vassal. Somehow, this is all according to Ryg-kaku? I can’t explain further, that’s what happens.
Meanwhile, Zhaan tries to convince the Tavlec captive to get sober from the wrist roids. Her techniques are unorthodox and involve her getting nude, so you’ll be shocked to hear that the Tavlec is back on the sauce by the episode’s end. It’s not easy being a spiritual intervener in these times.
Anyway, down on the planet, Aeryn dons the wristband to fight the Tavlecs and predictably goes nuts. A now-sober D’Argo flies down to help subdue her. John and D’Argo go to rescue Rygel, but they find only mournful Jotheb, who reveals Rygel is being moved to a secondary location. D’Argo is injured in the fight and Luxans require special care to recover from bleeding wounds, so sobering-up Aeryn stays to care for him and now John puts on the wristband! I’m getting tired recounting this game of musical bracelets.
He chases Bekhesh and Rygel, and rather than start blasting, he drops the absolute truth on Bekhesh: the Moya crew is broke and Rygel’s nobody. There is no ransom, there is no reward. Bekhesh drops Rygel and John drops the wristband. Everybody goes home to wait for Rygel to poop out the Moya component he swallowed.
You may have discerned that this is a minor episode, but I still like it. The fun part of these long seasons is hanging out with the characters while they go on capers, and this episode offers a series of compounding capers.
Also, we’ll see Bekhesh again.
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Crew Roster Check-In: John, Aeryn, D’Argo, Zhaan, Rygel, Pilot, Moya
Accounting for Farscape’s Crimes
Times I Have Said “What Is Happening” Out Loud to Myself So Far: 2
Doubles Episodes So Far: 1
Weird Sex Things So Far: 7
Tears Shed So Far: 0
