Writer	Director	Tour Date	Production Number
Mark Saraceni	Geoff Bennett	January 31, 2003	4.15
Synopsis
The guys leave Moya for "Mental Arts Training Camp" at Scorpius' insistance; obviously, this can't be good. John gets tortured, Rygel has some fun, and D'Argo finally faces off against his oldest enemy -- his wife's killer, Macton Tal.
Best Lines
Coming as sson as one of us can stand to watch the episode again.
Kiki Says
Perri Says
I fell a week behind in watching Farscape (Horrors!), so had almost forgotten the wonderfully warm and fuzzy way in which we ended Twice Shy -- John and Aeryn kissing, happy, together, whee! And how much do I love that they're apparently hiding out in Pilot's den, so that he can keep their secret? Ooh, I love it just too, too much! Really hating Scory for making the whole hiding thing necessary, but I'm getting my vicarious smoochies, so what the the hell.... Of course, that opening scene is just about the only happy thing we get for the rest of the ep, which is probably why I'm choosing to dwell on it. I find the entire set-up of "we have to take his class before he'll give us the information" to be incredibly hard to swallow -- I never yet met a professor who wouldn't happily take the money and run to avoid having to deal with students. Okay, maybe that's a little unfair, but I wasn't particularly impressed with Katoya or his methods. Sure, Rygel had some fun (and almost fried his obnoxious little brain), but D'Argo and John were doing some serious suffering, and I'm just not into that. Plus, the whole "more mentally strong than thou" thing really got on my nerves. And what the hell was Scorpy hoping John would get out of this, anyway? Okay, the whole "withstanding mental torture" routine in the "arena" might -- just might -- have been useful at some point. But when it degenerated into "Shove hand into hot coals for key"? Please. John's been tortured physically before -- by Scorpy, if I recall the occasion correctly - and he's no stranger to mental torture, either. And he always survives, usually more or less intact. He gets worse than Katoya could hand out with his breakfast cereal from his enemies -- so his so-called "protector" decides to put him through it again? Sorry, not buying it, highly annoyed by it. Then we hit the really horrible part -- Macton Tal screwing around with D'Argo. After three years of waiting for this confrontation, we finally get it... and it just wasn't worth the wait. Macton seems to be the kind of psychopath who isn't content with hurting people; he not only has to convince himself it wasn't his fault, he has to convince everyone else, too -- even the ones who know better. D'Argo absolutely chose the perfect revenge -- I can't think of anything more appropriate for a man who would not only kill his own sister, but desecrate her body to blame someone else, than to be stuck doing just that forever. But it was still actively painful to sit through all of Macton's manipulations, trying to believe in D'Argo but not entirely certain if there might not be some truth in it all.... Which I suppose was what the writers were after, and what they achieved. And poor D'Argo. I respect the hell out of Lo'Laan for sticking it out, even when I know that wasn't best of decisions, but maybe she was right. We've seen D'Argo lose it three, maybe four times in the last nearly-four years; he's obviously learned a lot of control from the days of his marriage. Maybe that was due to being imprisoned, but maybe he would have gotten there all on his own. Who knows? I do refuse to be pissed at him for whatever happened with Lo'Laan -- it's like marrying a guy with PTSD. You know the risks when you go in, and you either live with them, or you don't. D'Argo obviously was working on controlling his hyper-rage, but Lo'Laan didn't tell him when he screwed up, so he didn't know. Not telling him was probably Lo'Laan's big mistake; marrying Lo'Laan when he wasn't sure of his control was definitely D'Argo's. Neither of them deserved what they got. All in all, a very dark episode, more so than strictly necessary, as far as I'm concerned; Farscape is known for torturing its characters, but usually there's a bit more pointiness to it all. The backstory with Lo'Laan was very cool (loved both Rachel Gordon and Blair Venn, who turned in solid performances), but I hate seeing D'Argo suffer, so that took a lot of the coolness out. And the whole confrontation with Macton seemed very... anticlimactic. Boom, here he is -- oh, now he's gone. If we'd had knowledge that D'Argo was actively looking for him again, it might have worked better; if we'd gotten any form of story arc leading to a final confrontation, it would have been even better. As it is, it just felt like the writers were trying to tie up a dangling thread with as little fuss as possible (D'Argo torture aside). And I'm grateful it's tied up, but I am never going to enjoy watching this episode. Uh-uh.

Writer	Director	Tour Date	Production Number
Carleton Eastlake	Rowan Woods	February 7, 2003	4.16
Synopsis
The girls go shopping, but an innocent trip turns into a plot of galactic consequences, when Grayza and her Scarren counterpart show up on the same dead Leviathan mall for 'peace talks'. Naturally, shooting ensues.
Best Lines
Coming when we're a lot closer to caught up on the reviews
Kiki Says
Perri Says
Thank god the girls had considerably more fun than the guys did on their little shopping trip; I had considerably more fun watching it. The opening credits alone brought at least one solid "Oh, dren!" when Rowan's name flashed up, and some cheering for the always-entertaining Francesca Buller, once again playing a heavily made-up psychopath. Yay! And watching the gang o' four take on the hi-tech car mechanics (complete with "don't worry your pretty little heads about it" attitudes) was just lovely. So, more of the Scarrens, and confirmation that they have some very interesting sexual dimorphism happening. (No, I didn't have to look up "sexual dimorphism" to remember the phrase, but I did double-check it.) Much less with the long-head and sticky-out neck, much less with the Halitosis from Hell, but they do seem (from the two examples we've seen) to be more with the smarts, and less with the brute force than their male counterparts. We only got a taste of Scarren society (her father was deposed? Miltarily or as a ruler?), and I'm interested to see more. Ms. Buller gives her usual awesome performance; Akhna is nicely ambiguous throughout the entire peace process, so it's almost (almost) a surprise when she turns on Grayza. No much of a surprise, since I waspretty much expect anyone in this universe to betray anyone else, but still... And did anyone miss the huge cosmic irony in Aeryn and Sikozu having to save Grayze and Braca? I mean, really. I like Aeryn's approach to the situation -- "I have a gun." -- but she had at least two good shots to take out Grayza, and she didn't do it. (I'm also a little curious as to why Braca reflexively called her "Aeryn" instead "Officer Sun", but that's a little thing.) Now, Aeryn had good reasons for not killing Grayza both times, but wow, it's going to come back to haunt them in big, big ways. And how much is Grayza hating life? Total coincidence lands four of her least-favorite people at the point of her Big Rendezvous, her stepping stone to glory betrays her, and she has to rely on said least-favorite people to save her highly-exposed ass. I did like her comment about using all the weapons in one's arsenal; at least she's not trying to justify it. And you have to admire the way she took Sikozu out without breaking an oily sweat. But I also have to wonder about anyone who can calmly trade away an ally's territory to a hostile nation in the hopes that it will cause whatever kind of peace she's after. Apparently she's never been to Poland.... Poor Sikozu -- all that knowledge, and she's still working on that ability to cope with practical situations. She got way too close to Grayza and Braca, then proceeded to let them psych her out. I'll give her props for helping take down the Charrids, then crawling into their armor, though. She and Aeryn work surprisingly well together, Aeryn adding the experienced edge to Sikozu's raw knowledge, and that's something I'd actually like to see more of, especially since Sikozu seems to respect Aeryn's abilities, which ism ore than she dose anyone else but Scorpius. (And she has no faith in Pilot, but she can get stuffed as long as Aeryn does.) Chiana and Noranti continue to be far too much fun when set on the loose together -- what was Aeryn thinking, sending Noranti after Chiana? And, as usual, Chiana has problems with the subtle ("Hey, did you see the guys I'm surreptitiously following?"), but come through in the crunch -- seeing her and Noranti in the 'genetically modified' disguises was great fun. Although Chiana still looked so much like herself that I have problems believing no one recognized her... okay, I'm not surprised Braca didn't recognize her, but the two tech-scalpers? No excuse. A particularly nice job from the makeup department on Noranti, though -- and an equally nice performance from Melissa Jaffer, changing her voice and bearing to match the "new look". She still looks like a Muppet, though. And good job from makeup/costumes on the two "professionals"; the eyelashes alone were worth the price of admission. Aeryn rocks. She kept her cool, found out as much as possible, then dealt with the situation as best she could. I still think not shooting Grayza was a mistake, treaty or no, but it remains to be seen. What really kills me, of course, is that she's out there somewhere as a prisoner... but I should have known. She and John were happy there for a little while and, by the Farscape/Buffy rules of the universe, all happiness can only be a precursor to suckiness on a galactic level. Very annoyed. And how can John only be in an episode for, like, three scenes, and still get this much angst. Planet is serious danger, girlfriend kidnapped, have to kill the girlfriend's double... This is going past torture to Just Mean. Thank god he's got D'Argo there to take care of him. I love D'Argo so much. (And were he and Chiana too cute for words with the "Think I should change back?" routine, or what? I will forever hold out hope for those two.) So. Very solid, very entertaining, extremely tense episode of arc advancement. Aeryn missing. Grayza in possession of Earth's coordinates, and on the loose making dubious peace treaties. John teetering on the brink of sanity yet again. 6 episodes left. Whimpering may commence.... now.