Liko: Are you afraid of Maldis? You can destroy him!
Zhaan: That's what terrifies me.

Crais: It changes nothing. Tauvo is dead. Struck down by a weak, pathetic, inferior being. It must be avenged! I swear in Tauvo's name, you will die in my hands.

Rygel: (to John's body) You certainly look dead to me. I don't know your customs for these situations, but I'll give it a shot. Ahem. John Crichton, valued friend --- now, wait a minute. That's a bit of a stretch. John Crichton, unwelcome shipmate, may you have safe journey to our hallowed realm.... Actually, not our hallowed realm, that's for Hynerians. Go find your own hallowed realm. With the ceremony of passage complete, I declare you officially dead, and claim all your possessions for myself.

John: It's not Kansas, and you're way too homely to be Auntie Em. C'mere, Toto!

And neither is there any gray to our guest villain. Major applause for this week's monster: Maldis is intensely, horribly predatory and creepy, just the kind of thing that skulks in your nightmares waiting to shout "boo!" and rip out your throat when you're looking in the wrong direction. Far scarier than any insectoid or fish-faced alien, as much for the chameleon changeability to him as the bloodthirstiness. I'm glad he's not completely dead--- another confrontation between him and John, or him and Zhaan, would be *wonderful* to watch. (Only with all the lights on, though.)

Pilot has next to nothing to do, Rygel gets one hysterical scene (I love him trying to steal the boots; it's evil, but it made me laugh), and Aeryn and D'Argo just provide befuddled and bull-headed back-up to Zhaan this time out. John has a few great moments confronting Maldis and Crais, being both smart and funny and most of the time staying in control of himself; and then he gets to lose his temper in fine heroic fashion near the end of the fight and hit the bad guy. Good stuff.

But it doesn't come close to matching all the changes we see in Zhaan in this episode. She goes from horrified fear of the no-win situation to sickened empathy and tears over the animal she's supposed to hurt; to grimly feral hunter stalking Maldis --- and then is left with the aftermath of instincts and emotions out of control. A nicely twisty turn by the high-priest/shopkeeper helps along the uncertainty: is he a bad guy? Is he doing this to help his people, or to undermine Zhaan? For a while there, you can't tell if he might be another one of Maldis's masks --- something resolved only when he dies. Watching him and Zhaan contact Maldis (and the bizarre slot-machine effect on her eyes!), you still can't be sure he's one of the good guys. (Some of our friends are still convinced he *was* Maldis, and that he's faking death again!) It all makes perfect sense without resolving any of it. Why should Zhaan be able to re-establish that peace with herself, if it took her years to master those impulses the first time? I'm not sure I agree that she was repressing all her emotions, or simply choking off those desires, but she clearly doesn't know which way is up, and is having to fight her way back from the edge again. I am *really* looking forward to seeing where they go with this. Much as I loved Zhaan's cool reserve, but it's even more fun now that we know it isn't effortless.

As far as Crais goes, though, I was actually feeling quite sympathetic for the man, right up until he snapped his second's neck. And, well, when he was beating up on Crichton because he couldn't handle his own guilt over his brother (who was deeply neat for the three or so seconds we got to see him). But he's definitively gone over the edge now, and has made himself a renegade from his own people, which is going to make the dynamics of any other meetings interesting.

Our good guys had very little to do -- John got to be reasonable and heroic and altogether cute, Rygel was obnoxious as hell even for Rygel (although the "Get your own hallowed realm" line is a classic!) and Zhaan... wow. Zhaan has spent about a century repressing most of her emotions, and is now being forced to pay the piper. Guess what -- repressing doesn't count, you have to deal with them. And it's going to be a struggle for her to do that. Makes her lots more interesting -- and even more wigsome.

Pilot: It appears your crystal is useless. Lucky for you, you didn't trade anything of real value to get it.

Aeryn: I wanted him to find me a place where I could belong. I didn't want to get left behind.... I'm so scared.

John: We don't have a lot of time, in fact, we have no time. We need your assistance.
Pilot: Without hesitation.

D'Argo: You understand why I did what I did?
Pilot: Your motivations were perfectly clear.
D'Argo: And you understand that, if faced with the same choice, my decision would be exactly the same.
Pilot: I have no doubt whatsoever. I also know that Luxans are not given to apologies.

Okay, more coherently: um, no, not that much more coherently. One of our buds pointed out that this is the first time that the crew of the Moya has to deal with a problem among themselves, not an outside threat, and let's say that not everyone passes the test, to the trauma of the audience and themselves. It made your Obnoxiously Cheerful Tour Guides extremely aghast the first time around.

NamTar is an ICK. Of the baddies they've faced so far, this one is the one Most Likely to Make You Feel Helpless and Revolted by both his attitude and the inability of those around him to stop him until it's almost too late. Appearance-wise, he's utterly alien (a *very* nice job of costuming, makeup and CGI here), and that soothing, superior voice just makes you want to kill him. It's the attitude that gave me the shakes, though. Having him de-evolve into a lab rat at the end was _intensely_ satisfying. A terribly scary take on DNA manipulation that you can completely ignore in favor of the bad guy plot. Kudos to the writers.

Especially considering that NamTar is *not* the biggest ick about this episode: the behavior of our heroic crew is. Shock after shock after *ick*. I couldn't believe they took Pilot's arm. They took his _arm_. Holy mother... ahem. Rygel we would expect this from (in fact, he's in fine form this week. I shouldn't laugh when he does bad things, but I do). D'Argo, we would *almost* expect it from --- he's a warrior, he has that caste system of worker-warrior-servitor stuck in his head, he's very young and his impulse control sucks. Given five minutes to think about it and another option, I don't think he wouldn't have done this (no matter what he says later). That musical instrument he made, by the way, now becomes another Luxan artifact I Must Have. (And I think the scene where he plays for Pilot, without apologizing, is one of his best yet.)

Zhaan, though... oh, Zhaan. She's stuck in a dark, dark place; having fallen off the wagon of non-violence last week, and then being offered the one thing she wants most in the universe --- to return home --- she's now operating with no brakes on her instincts at all. This. Is Bad. One word: earbrow touching. Eeeeuuuw! Although, it gives a whole new meaning to D'Argo's grabbing and twisting them a few episodes ago. Zhaan pretty much consigns anyone in her path to Hell during this ep. I am *hoping* that she can crawl back from this, and become the person who helped the young Tavlek kick his habit, the person who's been so kind and understanding with John for the last eight eps; but I don't think it's going to be easy. This ep only makes sense in the context of last week's, and I'm really glad they aired these in order.

The double-crosses and lies as D'Argo and Zhaan and Rygel stab each other in the back and fight over the crystal are hysterically funny (as good as the stuff in the forest in "Throne for a Loss") and upsetting at the same time. Anyone else have a pretty good idea where Rygel hid that crystal? Pilot's snarking in the background is terrific; he may be born to serve, but he never counted on being part of the "service", and he's not going to forgive and forget, no way, no how.

Aeryn and John storyline--- more cool than I can say. Utterly subtle, no explicit statements of emotion, just John supporting Aeryn while she goes through hell, and Aeryn being scared out of her mind and fighting every inch of the way. Their nearly-identical reactions of horror to what the others were willing to do to Pilot --- and the way they bond with him over it --- leave you with a safe place from which to watch the others lose their sanity. Aeryn's terror as she starts mutating is wonderfully played, some of Claudia Black's best work yet; and John is, as usual, the one stable person in sight. If these two don't get together in the series, I'm gonna *have* to write some serious fanfic about it just to resolve the emotional tension.

So, A+ for John, A- for Aeryn (for going back and getting herself zapped without telling anyone), A++ for Pilot, C-- for D'Argo (for the music), D- for Rygel (whose standards for achievement are lower), and F for ethics and A for scariness for Zhaan. Oh, and an A for the costuming and sets --- they've now mastered the art of creating new worlds.

Watch this ep with friends and the lights on.

No, seriously. Zhaan's been seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, how much fun is that? :P A crew of people that was just beginning to be able to work together has now been forcefully splintered through basic selfishness and serious impulse control problems. Fun for Pilot, huh -- the only people he can trust onboard are the weirdo Human and the Peacekeeper. Poor Pilot. < sniffle > Great job from all the performers on him, by the way -- he was wonderfully snarky just when he needed to be, and came through the second John and Aeryn needed him.

Awesome John and Aeryn stuff (both of these two just rock and rock) and Kiki is right about the outstanding job on sets and costumes -- you've come a long way, baby. And I formally withdraw my request to grow up and be Zhaan -- Virginia was quite terrifying enough to make me ill, thank you (helping D'Argo wrestle Pilot down while assuring him she'll take his pain was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, and I'm not easily creeped). I'm gonna have to smack D'Argo around a while for playing follow the leader, and Rygel was... well, Rygel. He's a little bastard, but at last he's upfront about it. And ya know... I'm starting to feel some sympathy for the Peacekeepers here (aside from planetary enslavement and shangai'd leviathans, I mean). We've been assuming all along that our jolly band didn't belong in prison (well, okay, maybe Rygel) -- now we're reminded that... oh, yeah, escaped prisoners. Maybe there was a reason they got sentenced, huh? :P