FARSCAPE Revisited Mini-caps / Season 2, Episodes 18-21

Another round of Farscape minicaps for your soft little eyeholes…

Stewart here…and fair warning, some spoilers lie within…

Hey, fellow travelers of the Uncharted Territories, its time for another round of mini-caps on Farscape. Look, John Crichton hasn’t had the best of times since he ended up in a distant part of the universe, but at least things are looking up for him, which means something bad has to happen to screw that up. It appears big bad Scorpius, during his interrogation of Crichton back in season one, put a chip into Crichton’s head that is trying to extract all the wormhole data in his noggin. The chip’s also keeping him from telling anyone on Moya what is going on, and Crichton’s frequent hallucinations of Scorpius aren’t helping either. Oh, and D’Argo has a lead on his long-missing son, thanks to Stark, who got disintegrated or something. Don’t worry about that detail, as you’ll see further on here…

“A Clockwork Nebari”

Remember Chiana’s dead brother from “Taking The Stone”? Well, he’s not dead after all, which would be great news, if not for the Nebari hunter who is taking over Moya and mind cleansing the crew. The only people not affected by this cleansing are Rygel and Crichton, who have to retake the Leviathan. We finally get some more backstory into Chiana and the Nebari here, and some icky special effects involving the mind cleansing (hint: it involves pulling out the eyes). It’s a decent time killer before we get to the meat of this minicap roundup…

“Liars, Guns, & Money”

“Part 1: A Not So Simple Plan”

This three parter kicks off with Stark returning (see what I mean when not to worry about the whole “disintegrating” thing?) and hatching a plan to buy D’Argo’s son: by robbing a secret shadow depository. That plan goes bad with Scorpius appearing at the depository and Crichton finding a way to kill his enemy, if only “Harvey”, the Scorpius chip in his brain, will let him. The heist goes off with a few hitches (namely Scorpius being left for dead by Crichton), and the crew now rich…except for the fact their cargo has parasites popping out of it. Oops.

“Part 2: With Friends Like These”

Scorpius is very much alive, and has bought D’Argo’s son Jothee, who he will release in exchange for Crichton. The crew plan to attack the depository again to retrieve Jothee, but using the loot they already took to buy mercenaries (almost all adversaries they have fought over the last two seasons, which is not reassuring when those are your options for hired help), which hits a big snag. Apparently the loot was parasites that start to eat away at Moya, and after injuring her, leaves the crew with no money and angry mercenaries. Uh-oh. And Crichton then decides to get Harvey out of his head and gives himself up to Scorpius. Uh-oh again.

“Part 3: Plan B”

Looks like the promise of way more money gets the mercs interested in the crew’s plan, only now they have to retrieve Crichton. Crais and Talyn show up in all of this, and many explosions and death ensue. Seriously, a LOT of explosions and a LOT of laser blasts. Crichton gets saved, except he didn’t have the chip taken out of his head, and is begging to be killed. In retrospect, that doesn’t seem that disturbing of a request.

“Clockwork” was a pretty good episode, followed up by my personal favorite of the Farscape three parter epics. Hell, there’s some memorable stuff in the first episode alone (when I saw this on TV when it originally aired, I really did think Scorpius was going to kick the bucket), and who can go wrong with bringing down a giant shadow depository? This all leads in the season finale, which is still some great cliffhanger television, IMHO.

–When Aeryn smiles, you know things will end badly.

–Agh! Eyes being pulled out! AAAAA!!!

AAAAAAAAAA!!! And this is why I don’t like having laser surgery done to my eyes!

–Love that Crichton’s performance of being mind cleansed is that of a valley girl mixed with surfer dude.

–I think this is the first time I heard Crichton call his gun “Winona”.

–We’re continuing the theme of Crichton naming other Nebari after musicians: first Elvis, now Deborah Harry.

–Sad, repetent D’Argo is quite funny here, especially when contrasted to John having his eyeballs pulled out.

–I don’t remember if this whole “Nebari mind cleansing the galaxy” plot ever got completed or touched on in the series again. The comics, maybe, but I haven’t kept up with them regularly.

–“Kewl. ‘For the greater good’…”

–“I am nobody’s puppet!” A great meta line from Rygel.

–So Stark’s not a corporeal being, which does take the sting out of the climax of “The Ugly Truth”.

–Great makeup work for Natira, although now when I see it, I think of those Reaper changed Asari from Mass Effect 3.

–That whole Scorpius/Natira stuff is just creepy for some reason.

–Speaking of creepy, that whole Crichton struggling to not “insert the (cooling) rod” into Scorpius scene? Yeah, nothing bizarre about that.

No, nothing sexual at all about being forced to insert a cold rod into an alien to warm up. Nothing at all…

–Oh, Aeryn, you break my heart when you let Crichton know he doesn’t have to finish his sentence.

–“Ever hear of KFC? It is, to my knowledge, unique in the universe.”

–“If Scorpius captures me…” “I know. Shoot you.” “No, no, shoot him.”

–I’m not sure I like the whole “Jothee in D’Argo head” scene, especially considering the whole Crichton/Harvey stuff.

–Funny how Crichton’s plan to hire mercenaries all involves adversaries from season one who aren’t dead.

–Did I mention how creepy those intimate Scorpius/Natira scenes were?

–Rygel killing Durka and using his severed head was a nice touch to get the mercs attention.

–“I’ve seen bigger.”

–“You know, flossing would help you with that gingivitis.”

–Durka on a Stick probably exists in some alien mall in another corner of the universe.

–Peacekeeper night vision kill-cam. The Sheyang ka-boom. Talyn turning the shadow depository into rubble. Great stuff.

–I always wondered if Natira survived the depository bombing…

–Obviously Scorpius is dead after having that whole building fall on him. Yeah, I didn’t think so, either…

–“He’s an old enemy. I like it when they don’t talk back.”

–“I’m suspicious of good news.”

–“For someone who couldn’t see, you did okay.”

–“Farewell, my friends, and thank you for teaching me to kill again.”

–“Kill me.”

Tee hee hee. Big building go boom.

NEXT TIME: Crichton gets fully controlled by the chip and causes some serious tragedy in the dramatic season cliffhanger, “Die Me, Dichotomy”, and we end season two of the Farscape minicaps with some highlights of the season! Bring tissues…