primeideal

D'Argo has become really stir-crazy since we saw him last. If this is typical, I can see why Pilot would want to temporarily exile him.
Jool is much nicer now. Is she grateful to John for saving her life last time or is this just "we needed someone to be the medic for this plot"?
Harvey says John should try living for revenge. Isn't a better target of John's revenge...Scorpius? (Or does this version of John still not know that Scorpius is alive?)
And then it turns into an animation. See, now this is the kind of genre shift I am here for.
Loving this animation stuff so far. I'm not familiar with the Looney Tunes stuff they're riffing on but the absurdity of "now we're in a cartoon, deal with it" is great. Shades of Monty Python.
Seriously, what's the deal with Jool. This is like a reverse Rygel.
...or she feels guilty for accidentally breaking the ship.
"You prefer to be alone in here" Jool to D'Argo. Have we ever seen this ship before?
The animation version of Aeryn is creepily sexualized, do not want.
How is John supposed to get revenge if he's still in a coma? (Later Harvey says "well if only in your mind" but this feels contrived.)
Orican's amulet, callback to 2.2!
And now we have a Star Wars-esque trash compactor scene.
"Human, astronut, natural-born loser"--Scorpius' headstone for John. "Astronut" without the second A was also on one of D'Argo's signs in the cartoon world.
"Captain Kirk wouldn't get revenge." "Yeah, that's a TV show."
The tagline for this episode was like "a mysterious ship is bent on self-destruction, putting Moya in danger," and I was expecting more of an "alien vessel encounter," not "something that D'Argo has and people act like he's had it forever." Again, just a couple minutes more of exposition in the beginning would really help. I enjoyed the cartoon premise, but it didn't feel very well-integrated with the "real" plot.

Stark: "That planet is full of mystics and criminals." Rygel: "Yeah, so are we."
They think Aeryn wants to talk to John but she's actually looking for her father, nice fakeout.
And now we're flashing back to memories of the weird aging planet (that got erased by time travel). Aeryn's dream sequence? Mystic-induced vision?
Kellor: someone Rygel loved a long time ago but his parents didn't approve?
Okay, what are the odds that Aeryn and Xhalax and not-dead Talyn senior are all here at the same time? Fascinating but contrived.
Okay, so. Stark's description of Aeryn to the hotel clerk felt weirdly "...and she's hot!" at the time, but I was willing to let that slide. But this next scene is a lot.
-Aeryn either doesn't trust "Talyn" completely and/or all the good stuff happens off screen. What happened between "I know this is not what you wanted" and "I'll help you contact the dead guy who you changed your mind about looking for"?
-Aeryn is seeing (at least one, possibly two) visions of people who aren't there. If Crais hadn't admitted to sparing Xhalax he probably could have gotten away with it!
-Aeryn: "I don't want to talk to anyone. Oh, Crais is about to get murdered? I'm coming out."
-And then the whole weird love triangle scene, like...I would not expect to be asking Chiana and Jool to come back, but the sex ratio in this plotline is out of control.
Fake Talyn is Xhalax' minion, okay that's a little more interesting.
I hate the concept that Aeryn remembers fake Earth because they just...never talk about it! That should be an extremely relevant morning after! So I'm choosing to believe that this is like the locket planet and she's glimpsing John's memories of simulation-Aeryn on fake-Earth through the hallucination. Probably not what they meant but okay.
Fascinating Rygel appearance! Rygel as the selfish, pragmatic, "just move on" guy is more interesting in this episode alone than most of them combined.
The seer is incredibly creepy-looking. I was expecting more actual torture vibes from Xhalax' description but this works for psychological torture too, I guess.
"Twenty cycles ago" Aeryn seems older than that. And this is real Talyn as Xhalax' minion, and the Peacekeepers just...bought the disguise and never followed up? Seems contrived.
Okay, Aeryn says it's a fake...
Lots to unpack in the end as well.
-"Look, I'm not completely evil, I killed your father to save you. Now I'm going to kill you, but only after a long villain monologue so you can be emotionally tortured!" are we...trying to develop a sympathetic backstory for Xhalax? Because this isn't really working.
-Does Crais shoot her just as she stayed her hand re: Aeryn? That's going to mess with Crais' psyche if he finds out. :/
-Xhalax: "live for me, have the free, loving, well-rounded life I couldn't have." Aeryn: "I'm going to wear my hair in a ponytail like Crais and always have my gun on me like mama said." What??? It's not like the Peacekeepers are going to take her back?
-Crais: "I'll leave as soon as we can find someone else to pilot Talyn." Didn't you just say that a. Aeryn probably can and b. if she can't, there's probably nobody who can? Like...what does he expect is going to happen, at this point.

Another Hynerian! Now we get to find out how much of Rygel's weirdness is him being Hynerian or him being Rygel :P

And she was imprisoned for supporting Rygel's royal claim, haha/d'aww.

They expected to meet Talyn and clone-John but they're really meeting their own doppelgangers--another Nebari, another Hynerian.

The peacekeeper hostage is like "this ship is filled with escaped prisoners" and Aeryn's like...yeah tell me about it.

Someone broadcast a distress signal to the Peacekeepers. Either Stark's message (but why would he call them?) or the prisoner.

D'Argo comes to check on John. Where is the Scarran? you weren't supposed to let him out of your sight!

Orrhn: "the sex was good, but I'm not planning to make this a long-term thing. but hey, we have half an arn, let's have some more sex."

The Boolite: "traitor..." so another social deduction game?

Chiana heard the pulse a while before it happened. Is this like the 2.6 foreshadowing?

Orrhn: "yeah I was just faking about the sex, that was not post coital sleep." Easy way to Rygel's heart.

John and Aeryn are being commendably loyal in breaking into the pod from the outside to rescue Rygel, I would have just shot it down.

The secret message was dying-John recording a message for other-John!

"Give Aeryn time" while Aeryn's spying in the background, aww. (but I feel like Stark tech should be smart enough to know it's being spied on and shut down?)

The dead John wins rock paper scissors. [Edit: according to the tvtropes they tied, but to me it looked like hologram-John's rock beat alive-John's scissors.]

John: "I have to go destroy Scorpius" Everyone: this is stupid. Aeryn, who saw dying-John try to close the gap between her and live-John, silently walking over like *I'm with stupid* Crais joins them like *I, too, am with stupid.*