Farscape live-ish blog: Season 3, Episodes 13-15

[primeideal]

Another in medias res start with not quite enough explanation for my tastes. Pilot has kicked John and D'Argo off Moya.
Alien women: are you two a couple? John and D'Argo: Uh...no. Nope. Definitely nope.
Post-intro: okay, the exile was only for 10 days. Important detail to mention.
The random flashback format is just "I'm so hungover I don't remember what happened last night," which to me does not justify the weird flashbacks or the glaring strobe lights.
The scammer woman has a very Australian accent.
Someone really just had "egregious Australian accents," "sex pollen," "human(oid) cattle," and "nonlinear narrative" on their bingo card and went for it, huh.
John and D'Argo's reputation precedes them. And they comment on it. How are these stories getting around?
"The room is ten steps across." "Ten of your steps, eight of mine!"
Adding "slave auction" to the bingo card.
Raxil takes the moment of triumph to infodump about her real motivation, surprise, there was another twist all along! But there's no IC reason for her to be doing this, it's just filling in to the viewers. Eh.


The "previously on Farscape" recap is stuff that makes sense to me, but I can see how it would be intimidating to newbies. (I've osmosed from tropes etc. that the increasingly convoluted canon was one reason it didn't get renewed for a fifth full season.)
The mechanic from the bounty hunter planet takes us way back! As I noted then, it felt like the big deal in that episode was John losing the recorder with all his recordings/messages to loved ones back home? The "also I have a copy of all your technology" didn't seem like it was going anywhere, but here we are.
The captions say "Bialar" instead of "Crais." I don't think this is relevant, just weird.
Talyn risks himself to help the team and Crais is blinded because of their sensory link. :(
Furlow was working with the Charrids until they betrayed her a couple of days ago. Convenient timing. Like I get that they need conflict for the storyline, but imagine if she'd been like "oh they're my allies, just exploring in space, it's all good" or "I absolutely sold out and went to work for the evil conquerors, leave me alone."
Aeryn to John: "I think we should tie her back up." "Don't tempt me." "I said tie her back up." Wink wink.
Rygel: I'm gonna do some torture for species revenge purposes. How are the writers so capable of writing interesting, well-rounded characters (Aeryn and John) and Rygel is just...Rygel.
Jack: We can't have this technology in the wrong hands. Furlow: *exaggerated eye rolls*
Rygel's "character development" is enjoying being a killer, sigh.
John quotes Ecclesiastes, can't say I saw that one coming.
Since we've had so many callbacks, maybe the kiss of life is a reference to the Flax?
That cliffhanger! Nice.


Full disclosure: I had misosmosed something from fanfic summaries/TVTropes because I mistakenly thought this episode was going to be about a parallel universe or universes where the characters had different backstories. So when I heard "wormholes," I was like, "they go through a wormhole and then there's a parallel universe on the other side." Maybe that's still to come, IDK. But, my expectations were subverted, because that's not what this episode is about.
"It's like being in pain your whole life and then it's gone." - John on having the Scorpius-clone out of his head. Parallel to Pilot?
Stark on Crais: "He's my slaver, kill him." Bluffing, but could also be plausible, he really hates Peacekeepers...
Furlow turns on Jack, nice! But he can't shapeshift back to avoid being hurt? For a super powerful alien race the Ancients don't seem that strong.
And then she double-crosses the Charrids!
John sees Jack dying and to him it looks like his father Jack, Aeryn gets choked up watching this because she's probably thinking of her mother. :( (And Jack does shapeshift back to Ancient when he dies, but that doesn't help.)
John and Furlow: "Is it all about money?" "Yeah, of course. I mean, how much sex can you have?"
Car chase for the outlaw desert planet.
"Always be the one to walk away while the hero dies, that's my motto." Furlow is genre savvy!
Stark when the wormhole eats the ship: "I have no prayer for that."
John telling Crais to "find your better self" in his sendoff, nice. (Crais being like "yeah we should go save them" felt like kind of unearned character development, like, why is he now protective of John and Rygel in addition to Aeryn? But I'll take it.)
And Rygel "no you can't have my stuff" hahaha how many times have we had this conversation.
Just when he got Scorpius out of his head, too. The mood whiplash. :(