XOXO, Puppet Girl #4
Farscape 1x07 & 1x08
I, E.T.
I have a historic beef with this episode. Once I watched it with headphones on and I didn’t hear my apartment building’s fire alarm, because I thought it was the alarm in Moya. I was fifteen minutes late to the evacuation. There was no fire, though. I survived.
Otherwise, this episode is relatively harmless. The crew discover a Peacekeeper tracker wired into Moya’s neurons, blasting out an alarm sure to attract Crais. Desperate to smother the sound, John suggests they land on a nearby garden planet with large bodies of water. Moya submerges herself in a swamp, the water muffling the alarm signal. Leviathan ships cannot safely leave zero-g because of their enormous size, so Moya will die if she spends too long in the gravity well. But the alarm cannot be removed without anaesthetic, since it’s wired directly into her nervous system.
John, Aeryn, and D’Argo leave the ship to search for chlorium, which is a stoner solution for Leviathans. Zhaan and Rygel remain, as Rygel must prepare to perform the neural surgery on Moya, since only he can fit into the crawlspace where the alarm is hidden.
As the away team explores, we discover that this planet is extremely ‘60s-Earth-coded, and its inhabitants appear human except for their funny ears. John encounters a cute child and his cute scientist mom, and despite misunderstandings, both are eventually won over by John “E.T.” Crichton. When D’Argo is captured by the local military, John and the sympathetic scientist team up to rescue him and secure the chlorium, which people here use as table salt.
Fearful of the away team’s extended absence, Zhaan and Rygel decide to go ahead with the surgery, Zhaan using her empathic powers to absorb Moya’s pain. Aeryn, who has just returned to the ship, supports Zhaan through the ordeal. Though Rygel’s confidence is shaky, Zhaan gives him a heartening pep talk before they begin, and he pulls off the surgery. John and D’Argo return in time to provide Moya with post-surgical pain relief, and soon she is well enough to take off. The scientist and her son watch the take-off wistfully, and John looks back at the planet wistfully, thinking of its Earth-like qualities.
While no plot points from this episode recur in future seasons, it surfaces some crucial motifs. Rygel’s shaky self-esteem hidden behind his slugman bravado, Zhaan’s exceptionally self-sacrificing tendency, and Aeryn’s deeply buried compassion make early appearances here. The scientist raises a concern that landing on a provincial, non-space-faring world will result in the alien visitor’s vivisection, no matter how innocent the alien. Perhaps we should not be so wistful about Earth after all…
Most importantly, John begins to see that, for all his “defaultness” in various demographic categories, he is the stranger. He’s the indigestible, unimaginable thing now, and having realized this, he’ll never be normal again.
That Old Black Magic
We must let them cook, or they’ll never deliver the sauce. This episode possesses the sauce, belonging to a class of Farscape episode I call “German Expressionism-Like”. Imagine Caligari with colors and puppets (and Australians), and you’re not far off.
Magic is real in Farscape. Not Clarke’s Law science, but wizard powers. Zhaan is a type of wizard and unfortunately for our friends so is this episode’s villain.
Our heroes (minus an ill Rygel) touch down on a new planet. There Zhaan encounters a hot RED guy dressed like Slutty Aladdin, so she obviously goes off to pursue this lead. A weird jester lures John into a wizard’s den. The wizard offers to use his powers to help John talk to Captain Crais, the Peacekeeper chasing him. John, overly Star Trek-pilled, believes this will solve all his problems. So the wizard summons Crais all the way from his Command Carrier, tossing the two men into a grand labyrinth to pursue each other. The wizard is not merely a wizard--he’s an evil wizard named Maldis, and he feeds on death.
Outside, D’Argo and Aeryn find John’s unconscious body, and on the Command Carrier Crais’ loyal subordinate finds his. Both groups administer medical care. The Moya crew bring John up to Moya, where sneezy Rygel can watch over him. Then they confront Zhaan’s hot RED contact. The RED guy explains that Maldis has enslaved the entire planet and he lives to torture people. No one, not even the RED guy, has been able to challenge Maldis’ psychic powers. But perhaps…Zhaan could, if she reengages her evil side.
Yes, Zhaan has an evil side.
Inside the labyrinth, Crais chases John around, trying to murder him for revenge. John tries to talk Crais down and fails. Maldis uses his wizard powers to show us poignant and disturbing images from Crais’ past: he and his brother were forcibly enlisted into the Peacekeepers. Crais’ father commanded him to watch over his younger brother while they served. Maldis even summons a shade of Crais’ brother, and then burns him into a charred skeleton, just to rub the trauma in.
John’s heart breaks for Crais, and Crais still wants to kill him.
Outside, D’Argo and Aeryn try to blast their way into Maldis’ compound and Zhaan relearns how to be evil. Her first lessons are on sadism. She tortures a weird little creature, then she tortures Rygel, and she enjoys it.
John meets Crais in a room with an indescribable item in the middle of it. Maybe I could call it a mobile that’s also an aluminum Christmas tree, or a spiral staircase? A large modern art installation? It has a lot of chains hanging off it. John proposes a truce so they can take down Maldis, and Crais agrees--except no he doesn’t, it’s a false surrender. Obviously Crais doesn’t care about war crimes. He brutally dislocates John’s arm by entangling him with one of the modern art chains, and John flees. He wanders the halls, bashing himself into walls to knock his shoulder back into place. Maldis appears, taunting him about his failed pacificism. John cracks, and sets out to find and kill Crais.
Zhaan and her RED associate vibe together, trying to access Maldis’ labyrinth. But John and Crais are already duking it out. Just as John’s about to choke Crais out, Maldis whisks Crais back to the Command Carrier. He mocks John further, revealing that this was all a ruse: Maldis wants to tempt Crais closer to this planet so he can take over Crais’ ship and carry out an interplanetary killing spree to feed his lust for death. John was just the bait, and now it’s time for him to die. Maldis blasts John with RED energy, but Zhaan breaks through and blasts Maldis with BLUE energy. She condenses him into a corporeal being, giving John the opportunity to knock him silly. Maldis dissolves.
John returns to his body, Zhaan returns to hers. Relieved by his own resuscitation, John gives his caretaker, Rygel, a big smooch, showcasing the value of having physical characters. You can’t give Rocket Raccoon that kind of visceral smackeroo. Zhaan discovers that her RED associate is dying of end-of-episode. His only regret is that they did not have time to bust it down sexual-style.
Crais, more deranged and obsessed than ever, kills his most loyal subordinate to hide the fact that the Peacekeeper Council has ordered him to give up the chase. Zhaan threatens John’s life when he tries to comfort her about her resurgent evil side. Someday Maldis may reconstitute himself and threaten them anew.
I like this episode quite a bit. It’s getting harder and harder to be the John Crichton John Crichton thinks he is. What will the new John Crichton be like?
Unfolding the cipher of Crais will take us a long time, and it begins here. If you think you know where his storyline is going, you don’t.
---
Compared to the pacing of streaming shows, this feels like a snail crawl through a weaker season. And yet snails have a reason to be. We learn to love the characters by spending time with them. So let’s enjoy the ride, before the light begins to dim.
---
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: 6
Doubles Episodes So Far: 1
Weird Sex Things So Far: 8
Tears Shed So Far: 1
