XOXO, Puppet Girl #11

Farscape 1x21 & 22

Bone to Be Wild

We have a light episode now. Moya and her baby hide together in an asteroid field, trying to avoid detection by Crais’ Command Carrier. Stark’s fucked off somewhere (though he’ll be back) so we’ve returned to Moya crew equilibrium. This episode has three plotlines, only two of them meaningful.

The core plotline concerns a throwaway adventure for John, Zhaan, and D’Argo, in which they go to an asteroid containing a hidden Australian botanical garden, which Zhaan loves. There they meet two creatures with conflicting stories about which of them is good and which of them is evil. One is a gross mushroom-headed botanist who becomes obsessed with Zhaan because she’s a plant-woman; the other is a jelly-crowned girl who compulsively eats bones. So far, so Star Trek. The non-Star Trek intervention, central to the Farscape project, is the discovery that neither of them is good: one is a manipulator and liar who enslaved another race to perpetrate a genocide so he could have the perfect botanical garden. The other compulsively eats bones. In the end, we like the bone-eater more by a hair.

The second plot concerns the relationship between Aeryn, Pilot, Moya, and Mr. Baby. Moya struggles to communicate with her son, so she enlists Aeryn, as someone also touched inappropriately by the Peacekeepers, to serve as an interlocutor. Aeryn becomes the first person to board Mr. Baby, discovering that inside he looks like a nightclub designed by Hilma af Klimt, though he is very RED because of the Peacekeepers’ EVIL influence. Aeryn ascertains that his weaponry is functional, but she refuses to use it. She won’t allow him to be made a child-soldier-ship. At the end of the episode, Moya and Pilot present Aeryn with the honor of naming Mr. Baby.

The third plotline takes place on Crais’ command carrier and concerns the rivalry of Crais and Scorpius. If you’ve heard anything I’ve said about Scorpius, you’ll know Crais could never have won this duel. Scorpius shows up unannounced in Crais’ bedroom, files paperwork cancelling him, undermines his authority, and at one point steals Crais’ breakfast out of his very hands. Scorpius beats Crais up and uses a very scary voice on him. In the end, Crais gives up.

When I started this episode, I thought it was a throwaway, but I forgot that it introduces my favorite secondary character: Miklo Braca, galaxy’s most baby-core Peacekeeper. Braca arrives as Crais’ personal assistant, but very quickly he makes himself Scorpius’ personal assistant instead. I'm not normally a yaoi person but the Scorpius/Braca yaoi is exquisite to me, the same way I don't drink but I like chartreuse of all things.

The most important change to note here besides the arrival of Braca and the imminent naming of Mr. Baby is that John has started wearing stolen Peacekeeper clothes as his default outfit instead of his Earth astronaut clothes. What Scorpius did to him in the Aurora Chair rendered him into a new man outfit-wise, one who can no longer sartorially rep Earth as his main influence.

Also, at the end of the episode, when Zhaan laments parting with all the beautiful plants on the botanical garden asteroid, it’s D’Argo who comforts her with wisdom and gentle words. He’s not Worf, you guys! Though he will find being a father equally hard.

But I digress! That’s a season two problem and we have another season one episode to discuss.

Family Ties

We are still in the asteroid field. Rygel betrayed our heroes: he stole a transport pod and now makes for the edge of the asteroid field, where the Peacekeepers are. His friends threaten his life over the phone. He rejects their appeals to violence, loyalty, rationality, and friendship. He wants to do something.

Crais and Scorpius are baffled to see the unarmed pod headed for their ship. They are both so kitted out in leather that you can hear their outfits creak as they walk. Scorpius reiterates his motivation: he wants John Crichton’s brain and its wormhole content. He wants John Crichton’s wormhole. He wants…hole…

Braca brings Rygel in to see Crais and Scorpius. Rygel offers to sell everyone on Moya out in exchange for personal freedom.

On Moya our heroes strategize. They can’t starburst because Mr. Baby is too young, and Mother Moya won’t leave her baby behind. John announces his intention to never be taken alive by Scorpius. D’Argo rejects suicide as unmanly, but John reframes it: “going down swinging”. Aeryn finds them both stupid, but helps them work out suicide bomber ideas using a transport pod. Zhaan begins brewing explosives.

John tries to record an audio log for his father, but how would you say “Dad, I have become a suicide bomber”? Aeryn finds John melting down and asks if his real dad is anything like the fake alien she met in “A Human Reaction”. Aeryn reveals that she is the rare Peacekeeper who is a product of love: the only time she met her mother, she was told she was born by her parents’ choice. John offers Aeryn his tape recorder to leave her long-lost parents a message.

Rygel uses Crais’ bathtub in a rather obscene sequence. Crais menaces Rygel, threatening to drown him, but also offering Rygel insider knowledge: Scorpius is OBVIOUSLY planning to kill Rygel as soon as he captures John. OBVIOUSLY! Crais will soon be cooked too, so he and Rygel team up.

Crais also indicates here that Scorpius looks so weird because he is a “Scarran half-breed”. What’s that? We’ll learn more later.

Rygel comes home to Moya, and he’s got a fellow passenger: Bialar Crais! Two bad tastes which taste bad together. Crais’ first words are “Clearly, an awkward situation”, which is so funny even John laughs. D’Argo takes this opportunity to kick the ever-loving shit out of Crais, who admits he always knew D’Argo was innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned. D’Argo’s wife, as we know, was killed by her racist brother. Crais dismisses this injustice: “There is much in life which is unfair. We are all proof of that.” 

John reeeeeeally wants to kill Crais. But he doesn’t. Instead, our heroes put Crais in jail. We’ve come full circle since episode one: the warden becomes the prisoner!

Rygel explains his thought process in recruiting Crais to Zhaan and Chiana, while Aeryn and D’Argo prep the explosives. Aeryn wishes they could have reunited with D’Argo’s son. D’Argo laments that he is getting much less life than he planned for. Aeryn says she’s already lived much longer than she expected. Both statements are really, really sad. This is what comes of a martial culture.

John hangs out with Crais as a mechanism of self-harm, wishing aloud for some guy time with a guy who looks human. Crais muses on the similarities between humans and Sebaceans. John muses on the misery of being fugitives and prisoners, which Crais now feels. Crais admits he was wrong to accuse John of killing his brother intentionally. It’s an awkward sort of bro non-apology, but John takes him seriously because John is a sweet boy inside.

Crais and the Moya crew meet to discuss their suicide mission plan. Crais suggests modifications: John and one other go together, because Scorpius won’t shoot down a ship with John’s wormhole knowledge in it. D’Argo suggests targeting the suicide pod at the Gammak Base, which holds all Scorpius’ existing wormhole knowledge and happens to float on top of an oil sea. An oil sea??

D’Argo insists on flying the suicide mission, which frustrates Aeryn. But D’Argo’s right: she needs to stay with Moya and Mr. Baby, as she’s the only one Mr. Baby respects. Aeryn demands Zhaan explain how she endures such a violent world as a pacifist priest. Zhaan explains all life she’s had since becoming a murderer has been bonus time: killers don’t deserve to live. So maybe Zhaan’s not a paragon of mental health after all.

Chiana offers to have sex with John as gratitude for his self-sacrifice, and for saving her life. John turns her down. He’s a football guy: “never before the big game.” This is yet another scene made by Ben Browder’s performance. It should come off as gratuitous or creepy, but John is so sweet in his refusal: he doesn’t want to take advantage of Chiana, even in his terrible loneliness, even though this is the only way she knows how to care. He suggests that a better way to pay him back is to save someone else’s life someday. They do kiss, but only out of love.

Braca comes into Scorpius’ office, announcing that Crais has been officially designated as irrevocably contaminated, like Aeryn. Scorpius now legally rules (as well as spiritually, aesthetically, and practically). He orders a surprise attack on Moya and Mr. Baby. Only John’s life has value.

Aeryn takes Crais aboard Mr. Baby. Crais admires the fusion, revealing it is the only successful Peacekeeper-Leviathan ever bred. Every other combo Leviathan died horribly at birth, killing mothership along with babyship. Aeryn observes that it was freedom which saved Moya’s life; she could ask for help and receive it. Crais identifies the finest innovation of Mr. Baby: no Pilot, just a commander. For the time being, though, Mr. Baby remains too young for war.

John offers Rygel all his possessions, since he’s planning to die. For once, Rygel resents the accusations of selfishness. John points out that Rygel literally tried to betray them less than forty-five minutes ago! When Rygel slumps in shame, though, John kisses his rubbery green head. You shall love your crooked puppet neighbor.

Chiana brings everyone together for one last meal, a way to say thanks that isn’t sexual in nature. She made everyone’s favorite foods, and even Crais gets to eat with them.

John records his final message, reflecting on his father’s advice to him: “Every man has the chance to be his own kind of hero.” John won’t get to be a hero astronaut, he won’t get to be a father and thus a hero to his kids, but he has a purpose now in his “strange life” in space. “It’s different, but it’s my own.” He takes his dad’s magic puzzle ring with him, to die.

Zhaan blesses John and D’Argo before they set out. John confronts Crais, who gets to live, one more time. Crais provides some useful tactical advice. D’Argo gives Zhaan the holo-image of his wife and son, instructing her to make sure Jothee remembers him.

Aeryn stops John as he leaves: she’s going to try and rescue him and D’Argo with her prowler, if they can hold out in vacuum for long enough. She and John decide not to say good-bye.

John and D’Argo fly their explosive pod toward the Gammak Base. Scorpius pursues as soon as scans reveal John’s presence inside, ordering his soldiers to preserve the lives of the pod passengers at any cost.

D’Argo wishes he’d gone pee before they left.

The remaining Moya crew members prepare to starburst away with Moya and Mr. Baby. But Crais is…acting funny.

Aeryn, waiting in her prowler to retrieve John and D’Argo, shares Mr. Baby’s name with Pilot: she has decided to call him Talyn, for her lost father.

Scorpius realizes the scope of John’s explosive design: the pod will blow up the Gammak Base and all of Scorp’s existing wormhole knowledge. He curses John in alien speak.

Preparing to bail out of the pod and risk explosive decompression, John puts on his spacesuit and gives D’Argo his dad’s magic ring. D’Argo gives it a little kiss. John compares them to Kirk and Spock, or maybe Abbott and Costello. The two of them go shooting into space, holding hands. Behind them, the transport hits the oil sea and blows up the base (also basically an entire moon???).

While Aeryn flies in to rescue John and D’Argo, Crais boards Mr. Baby Talyn and orders him to fly away. Zhaan tries to convince Crais to stay, but he won’t be dissuaded. He invites Aeryn to be friends next time they meet, but she is horrified by his theft of a baby from its mother. Crais brushes it aside: he and Aeryn were stolen from their mothers, and they turned out fine. He and Talyn disappear into the asteroid field.

Now the Command Carrier turns back towards Moya, Scorpius intent on revenge. John tells them to abandon him and D’Argo, but Rygel refuses. Moya also refuses, afraid to leave Talyn to Crais. John speaks directly to Moya, his voice echoing through her halls. He begs her to prioritize her survival so she can search for Talyn in the future. She takes off, leaving John and D’Argo floating, Aeryn in her prowler. Aeryn can’t approach the floating fellas with so many other Peacekeeper ships around.

D’Argo drops into unconsciousness, losing his hold on John’s dad’s ring. The season ends!

We have one more Farscape post lined up, our season one wrap-up. Then if you’re all very good you may not have to hear about Farscape again until February 2026.

Accounting for Farscape’s Crimes

Times I Have Said “What Is Happening” Out Loud to Myself So Far: 9

Times John Crichton Experiences a Sexual or Romantic Violation by a Villain: 2

Times John Crichton Threatens Suicide: 1

Doubles Episodes So Far: 4.5

Weird Sex Things So Far: 20

Tears Shed So Far: 5