XOXO, Puppet Girl #10
Farscape 1x19 & 1x20
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! It’s like Christmas, but better: Scorpius is finally here.
Nerve
Aeryn is training hardcore, and John points out that maybe she shouldn’t be training so hard with a recent abdominal wound. She aggros him, then she vomits blood. Then she collapses. John tries to take her to Zhaan, but Aeryn asks him to help her commit suicide instead. The knife wound from last episode has closed, but the knife struck one of her alien organs and now she will die. The only way to fix her is graft tissue from another Sebacean. John resolves that they will turn back towards the Peacekeeper Gammak Base and get. that. tissue.
Rygel accuses John of being “maghra-fahrbot”. The others agree. John points out that there’s no other way to save Aeryn. Remember when they all hated Aeryn?
But they do love her now. Even Rygel resolves to do everything in his power to save Aeryn’s life.
Ben Browder is so good at crying. You have never seen a white straight guy cry with such elegance and conviction. He is a princess to me.
Aeryn herself tries to dissuade John, but she can’t. She asks if humans have a ritual for such partings. They handshake on it.
Moya hides on the far side of the planet where the Gammak Base is, invisible to sensors. Chiana follows John to Aeryn’s Prowler and insists on coming with him. She gives him Larraq’s dog tags, which she nabbed last episode. John lets her come with, probationarily. John puts on his British accent and bullies his way into getting an airstrip at the Gammak Base. He passes himself off as Larraq and Chiana pretends to be his servant/sex slave. It’s troubling how little the Peacekeepers question this arrangement.
John meets with the base leadership and hams his way through. John, Chiana, and the leadership hang out at the base bar. Chiana hits on the commanders relentlessly.
And then…the man of the hour arrives. His name is Scorpius and he is the girly pop to John Crichton’s good ole boy. He looks like a waxen corpse wearing a gimp suit, if a gimp suit had a coat and tails. He affects a plummy British voice for no obvious reason. He summons the base commander away.
John bitches at Chiana for being so flamboyantly slutty, but she’s literally taking all the heat for him.
The second-in-command demands John submit to genetic verification, which he obviously won’t pass. He has no choice but to submit. He places his hands into glowing white portals and a weird blue cock-and-balls array lights up with the results. Somehow, he passes!
But how? In the halls, he sees a familiar face: Gilina, his brief Peacekeeper girlfriend from “PK Tech Girl”. Gilina lures him and Chiana into an empty room, where she’s startled by his paranoia and anger. He’s not the person she met before. Gilina hacked the gene-scanner and saved Crichton from being outed as Not-Larraq. John explains why he’s here and Gilina immediately rushes to help. She takes Aeryn’s DNA sample to the medical office so they can find a donor to save her life, while Chiana goes back to the bar to schmooze with the officers. The base commander offers to buy Chiana, tempting her with a cushy life on the Gammak Base.
On Moya, Aeryn is bedbound and ailing. D’Argo protects her from the irritant that is Rygel. Aeryn tells D’Argo she is preparing herself to die alone, as befits a warrior. He begs Zhaan to help him craft a makeshift dialysis machine from Moya’s systems.
Gilina returns to John with the cure for Aeryn, whipped up at top speed by the Peacekeeper docs. She tries to rekindle their relationship, but John makes up excuses to leave ASAP. John’s nearly to his ship when Scorpius clocks and arrests him. He has just enough time to hide Aeryn’s medicine in some weird scenery before he’s dragged away.
Scorpius places him into a crazy sex torture device called the Aurora Chair and finally introduces himself. He’s Scorpius! Scorpius’s mommy dom minion blasts John with maximum Aurora Chair, sucking out all John’s memories and playing them on Scorpius’ TV.
The dialysis machine requires Aeryn to maintain a constant Christ-pose, obviously. D’Argo stops Zhaan from revealing that the dialysis machine was primarily his idea. He feels uncomfortable interfering with Aeryn’s wish to die alone, as she is a fellow warrior.
Hiding out in John’s room, Gilina and Chiana try to figure where John’s being held prisoner and by whom. They decide to dress Chiana up as a Peacekeeper and see if she and Gilina can get in close to rescue John.
Scorpius is delving further and further into John’s memories, learning all about Captain Crais. Scorpius decides to call Crais in from the front, using John as a lure. John relives all of season one so far in the kind of grueling detail I’ve provided to you on this blog. He’s starting to go a bit quazy.
When Scorpius and his dommy attempt to probe John’s memories of “A Human Reaction”, they find a mental block. When John’s fake dad revealed himself to be a beef-jerky cockroach alien, he also blessed John with secret knowledge about wormholes. However, John can’t access that knowledge consciously. He must prove himself responsible enough to handle wormholes, with the buried secret knowledge providing unconscious signposts. In that way, his fake dad is very like a real dad, denying him his puppy until he proves he can take care of a betta fish.
Scorpius LOVES this news, revealing that the whole Gammak Base is devoted to developing wormhole weapons. He orders his dommy to dissect John’s mind until they can access the wormhole knowledge, but John’s brain can’t take any more. He is drooling.
The Peacekeepers haul John off to a prison cell, where he joins a prisoner who’s already way past crazy. This is Stark, as in “stark raving mad”. Half of Stark’s head is covered by a shiny metal mask because…we can talk about it next episode. He’s crazy and a bit aggressive. He does not like John infringing on his space. But when John follows his rules, he’s willing to talk: Stark explains that he’s crazy because of the number of times Scorpius has put him in the Aurora Chair. This information fails to comfort John.
Moya begins contractions, which interferes with Aeryn’s dialysis. They’re running out of time to save her.
Crais arrives at the Gammak Base, demanding Scorpius provide John to him. They stroll evilly together, but they don’t get along, arguing about the best way to extract the wormhole information from John.
Gilina and Undercover-Chiana manage to find out John’s location and they call him on the prison cell’s surveillance system. He tells them where he hid Aeryn’s medicine and asks Chiana to take it and go back to Moya. Then Crais and Scorpius arrive.
Chiana and Gilina discuss John’s predicament, Gilina wondering why John won’t save himself. Chiana lies to Gilina, promising her that John still loves her best of all. They hack an escape route for Chiana.
Crais pretends that he’s recaptured everyone on Moya, and that John can only save them from execution by, as Scorpius puts it, “allow[ing] us to probe freely”. John asks about the health of his crewmates, and when Crais tells him they’re all in perfect health, John realizes Crais is lying. He volunteers to go back into the Aurora Chair.
In the course of her escape attempt, Chiana is caught by the commander. She immolates him with some funny props and he is skeletonized. She makes it all the way back to Moya, saving Aeryn’s life. Aeryn immediately asks for John. Her friends lie: he’s in the shower or something. D’Argo sits by her bedside to comfort her.
Scorpius discerns that the reactor warning was a distraction put together by John’s accomplices. He turns up the torture, intent on forcing John to reveal Gilina’s identity.
To be continued!
The Hidden Memory
Moya drifts through space, unable to starburst. She’s gone into labor. Pilot informs the crew that something is strange about Moya’s labor: she fears the Peacekeepers interfered with her child. It will not be normal.
Aeryn recovers rapidly, now well enough to be told that John’s actually still a prisoner. She forces herself up and at’em to rescue him. Despite the danger, Zhaan and D’Argo join her.
In the Aurora Chair, John’s brain turns rapidly to jelly while Crais and Scorpius pace around him doing Evil Theater in the Evil Round. They demand access to his wormhole memories, but all they get is more clips from season 1 of Farscape. If you’re reading this, you know how they feel.
Catatonic John Crichton wakes up in his cell with Stark, who’s being weird. John accuses Stark of being Scorpius’ spy and they wrassle. In the tussle, John realizes Stark is playing up his insanity to lull the Peacekeepers into complacency. All along Stark’s been building a cyber lockpick from scraps. Stark warns John that he can’t resist the Aurora Chair forever.
Now is a good time to mention that Stark’s metal half-mask stays on by way of what is functionally a leather dog collar.
Aeryn, Zhaan, and D’Argo descend to the Gammak Base, Aeryn already weakening.
Gilina calls into John and Stark’s cell and John asks her to produce some kind of distraction so he can take a torture break. In her role as a tech she sabotages the Aurora Chair. Over the comms link, she instructs John to think of the things he’s trying to hide, such as her own identity and their kiss aboard the Zelbinion.
We realize now, returning to Moya, that this mission arrangement means that Chiana and Moya will serve as Moya’s birth attendants. Rygel admits he did not attend the birth of even one of his numerous spawn.
Scorpius returns, looking waxier than ever. He threatens to roast John until he turns into another Stark while Crais goes “heheheh we hate him” in the background. John follows Gilina’s instructions to think of their romance and it activates a false memory implanted in the Aurora Chair by Gilina. The false memory shows Crais and John meeting aboard Crais’ command carrier, where John gives Crais the wormhole information and they discuss Crais’ forced conscription and resentment of the Peacekeepers. Crais freaks out upon seeing this, but John heroically plays along. Scorpius grows suspicious of Crais and suggests Crais take a turn in the Chair. Scorpius easily intimidates Crais’ followers and John gains a short reprieve.
Aeryn manages to land on the exterior of the Gammak Base unseen and while D’Argo and Zhaan prepare some explosives, she descends into the tunnels to find John, who is currently sitting beside Stark in their cell, engaging in some parallel mental illness. Stark, seeing John’s profound distress, removes his BDSM mask to reveal a large glowing hole in the side of his face. The light from his missing half shines down on John and relieves his torment by conveying good thoughts into John’s mind. Stark pets John’s head like he’s kitty and explains a bit of his backstory: his people, the Bannaks, were destroyed by the Peacekeepers, but he endures because of the Peacekeepers’ interest in his psychic powers. The Bannaks were made slaves because many believe they have no feelings and no inner life. But as Stark says, “it’s only that our feelings don’t always show.” This stoic set of mind allows him to hide secrets from the Aurora Chair indefinitely. “What I know deep inside, the Peacekeepers will never see.”
A lot of fans don’t like Stark, I think, but I have always loved him. He’s very important to John: Stark is someone who has already been lonely, forever.
Anyway, Crais is getting mcfucking Chaired. Scorpius does a little impromptu Freudian psycho-therapy on him as well, to add insult to severe injury.
Aeryn creeps around the base, looking for Gilina. They meet up and Aeryn thanks her for helping to save her life. Gilina explains how bad the situation is, thanks to Scorpius. How will they ever reach John in time?
D’Argo and Zhaan finish covering the top of the Gammak Base in explosives. You’d think the Peacekeepers would put some external cameras up there or something. Zhaan asks D’Argo why he has a sword-gun instead of a useful weapon. D’Argo explains that the Qualta Blade was the weapon of last resort during a war in which the Luxans nearly lost everything. The prophecies tell us the Qualta Blade will lead the Luxan people to freedom in the last days, which may in fact be right now. D’Argo also points out that a sword-gun can cut stones, which Zhaan needs for her shrapnel-based bombs.
Aeryn tricks the base’s second-in-command into going with her to John’s cell. After knocking the commander out, Aeryn frees John and Stark, and they all flee together.
Scorpius isn’t paying any attention, because he’s busy tormenting Crais. Scorpius unearths that funny old time when Crais killed his girlfriend/lieutenant in order to go rogue and with that he realizes that Crais really does know nothing about wormholes. That’s when Scorpius gets the call about the prison break.
The Peacekeepers are close on the trail of our escape party. Stark makes it up the stairs, but John, Gilina, and Aeryn have to hide in a tiny compartment in the floor while Scorpius’ dommy stomps around above them.
And Moya is still giving birth! Pilot realizes she’s about to vent all her atmosphere to equalize pressure and shoot the baby out. Chiana and Rygel nearly get shot out into space (which was fine for D’Argo that one time, but I guess is bad for hot girls and puppets). They find shelter in what is functionally a propane tank. Rygel uses the close quarters to cop a feel. Then he farts a bunch. He is the worst puppet who ever lived.
Down in the tiny compartment, the team determine they need a senior officer’s ident chip to swipe their way through the base’s now locked doors. Aeryn leaves to hunt for a victim. She finds a defenseless Crais still strapped into the Aurora Chair. He doesn’t even recognize Aeryn until she reminds him how he ruined her life by declaring her contaminated by aliens. She formally renounces her Peacekeeper oath, telling him that she doesn’t want her old life back anymore. Crais vows to track her down and kill her, but she does him one better: she blasts him with the Aurora Chair, not killing him but forcing him to witness his whole miserable life. Aeryn takes Crais’ ident chip and leaves while Crais shrieks in torment.
Gilina and John, still in the hole, have an uncomfortable talk about whether he likes Gilina or Aeryn better. Gilina can’t be put off the topic because she’s about to ruin her own life over John Crichton. But John doesn’t come up with an answer before Aeryn returns and instead he stumbles off to look for an exit. Gilina demands an answer from Aeryn: does she want to date Crichton? Aeryn points out that this is a stupid question because none of them can stay on the Gammak Base with Scorpius around cooking people’s brains and stealing their secrets. But Gilina runs away, so Aeryn follows John.
Scorpius finds the melted Crais and decides to ascend to cut John off at the surface. Aeryn finds John at the stairwell and they fight about whether they should force Gilina to come with them. In the end, the two of them leave together, without Gilina.
Gilina sees all Scorpius’ soldiers heading upstairs to cook John.
Moya repressurizes, allowing Chiana and Rygel to exit their fart chamber. Pilot reports that the Baby Leviathan is trapped in the birth canal because of its unusual shape. Pulling up a hologram, they realize that the baby is covered in weapons, mutated by the Peacekeepers to become a killer warship. Panicked, the baby prepares to blast its way out of Moya, which will kill her. Chiana decides to climb down a nearby vent and free the baby herself.
On the surface of the Gammak Base, Scorpius’ Peacekeepers confront our heroes in a laser gun battle. John and Stark make some light conversation about the memories they hid from Scorpius: John’s was of course kissing Gilina, and Stark’s, which he hid for years and years, was of a beautiful place he saw when he was a boy.
We cut back and forth between the two capital-S Situations. Chiana determines that the baby will have to use its blasters on a low setting to propel itself out of Moya. John and Stark blow up a lot of Peacekeepers, which provides some short-term catharsis. Moya and Baby survive.
But Scorpius captures John and holds him hostage!
But Gilina holds Scorpius at gunpoint!
But Scorpius shoots Gilina!
But the distraction allows John to escape with the injured Gilina!
Scorpius strolls angrily through the ruins of the Gammak Base. You know he’s plotting revenge.
With everyone finally back on Moya, Pilot gender-reveals the baby as a boy, probably due to the phallic weaponry.
Gilina is not gonna make it. She tells John that she loves him. Stark appears and gives Gilina his memory of the beautiful place he hid from Scorpius. Gilina, with her last breath, asks John if he could have loved her in another life and if he would kiss her one more time. He does, and then SHE DIES!!
For John, it will now never get any easier.
This is so exciting. Scorpius brings us to the next level of Farscape, guiding us below the waterline to confront the deeper layers of the icebergs of coercion and loneliness. With all the other pieces arranged, he ties the whole show together by sheer force of his slay.
I shall reserve my more detailed comments for the season 1 wrap-up post, because this post is already far too long. Meditate on the nature of Scorpius until I return.
Crew Roster Check-In: John, Aeryn, D’Argo, Zhaan, Rygel, Pilot, Moya, Chiana, Mr. Baby Leviathan, Stark
Accounting for Farscape’s Crimes
Times I Have Said “What Is Happening” Out Loud to Myself So Far: 10
Times John Crichton Experiences a Sexual or Romantic Violation by a Villain: 2
Doubles Episodes So Far: 4.5
Weird Sex Things So Far: 20
Tears Shed So Far (By Me, Not Ben Browder): 4
