Farscape Rewatch: Mind the Baby (Part 2)

[selenak]

And we're off to season 2!


Wiki summary: Crichton, Aeryn and D'argo are stranded in an asteroid field while Scorpius searches for them. Their safety depends on Crais, who is nearby in Talyn. Aeryn teaches Crais how to control the young Leviathan—the only thing she can offer in return for the lives of her friends. When Moya returns to the asteroid field to look for her offspring, and Crichton decides to remove Crais from control of Talyn, Scorpius finally sees his chance to strike.



When I first watched this, I felt as disoriented as the characters, not least because I couldn't quite get the hang on how much or little time had passed since the s1 finale. With John and Crais, it felt like a day or two at most, with Crais, Aeryn and Talyn more like weeks, and Chiana, Rygel and Zhaan were on their own enough for Zhaan to have had the trial Chiana refers to and go seriously weird. Rewatching, I'm still a little thrown, but more willing to go with the flow.

Btw, I do like the detail of Aeryn having noticably not the chance to change her wardrobe in however long it was. Meanwhile, clearly Crais either brought alternate clothing with him when leaving the PKs or has already gotten Talyn to manufacture some for him, because this is the neatest, most cleaned up we've seen him arguably since the pilot. Crais and Aeryn doing their divorced parents thing for Talyn is something I dig as much as ever, and I appreciate the irony that Crais, who had some childhood experience of living in a family before being drafted, is actually worse at parenting than Aeryn, who has had exactly zilch experience in this regard.

Characteristic for post PK Crais: the triple cross: keeping his deal wlith Aeryn a secret is at her request, but reporting to Scorpius is his own idea, only he's not, as it turns out, actually intending to return to Scorpius but wanted to buy time and demonstrate to Talyn why Peacekeepers (other than Aeryn and himself) are not to be trusted, and at the end he and Talyn leave (without anyone having discovered the Scorpius bit), still a complete wild card. This time, Crais pulls this off, but it will badly turn against him when he tries something similar in s3.

John teaching D'Argo "rock, scissors, paper" (or trying to) sets up one of FS' long running gags. Family Ties had already Aeryn making a reference to A Human Reaction events, making it clear they happened for her as well as John, and she remembers them; in this episode, there's the second reference when she misunderstands John's "how many times have we been close?" question. What is striking, though, is how physicallly comfortable with each other she and John have grown in general; I could not see them having the final spoon-cuddling scene in s1 ("Human Reaction" aside.)

Aeryn breaking Zhaan out of her zen seeking by calling her selfish: this is one of those scenes which by themselves are well played, but because we the audience have no idea (yet) what made Zhaan go on a trip to Mount Seleya enlightenment to begin with, other than maybe because she thinks John & Co. have died (as indicated when she first speaks to John), it's too easy to agree with Aeryn. This is one of the things where I still think the time jump between seasons harms characterisation. (Of Zhaan, not Aeryn.)

Lastly: Talyn firing on Moya in order to free Crais is an early indication this is one troubled offspring, the James Dean of Leviathans, clearly.



The other episodes

Comments

[neuralclone]

For some reason I couldn't remember anything about this episode, so tonight's viewing was almost as if I was watching it for the first time. I got the sense that "Mind the Baby" was partly tying loose plot threads off from the end of the first season, and partly (re)setting things up for the second. Yes, we already knew by the end of the first season that Crais had been ousted from Peacekeepers and had stolen Talyn and that Scorpy had taken over as the new Big Bad. However to me it looked like this episode was restating these things for the benefit of those who had just started watching or those who had forgotten the details of "Family Ties".

Talking of the Big Bad... this is the first time we see Scorpius's cooling rod! Though its function isn't made clear here, and it comes off primarily as a neat, though somewhat gross, special effect. Braca is still settling into his Smithers role, and he appears at once fascinated and repulsed by Scorpius. I don't envy his leviathan expert, though!

For the rest, I see they were still continuing the theme of the Moyans as a "Jerry Springer kind of family", particularly as the crew were reunited. I loved Rygel's "slight case of the introns" when he saw Crichton and D'Argo again. It's hard to believe he was prepared to sell them out only a short time before.

When I first watched this, I felt as disoriented as the characters, not least because I couldn't quite get the hang on how much or little time had passed since the s1 finale.

That one does my head in too. How long was D'Argo unconscious? How long can a Luxan remain unconscious without suffering brain damage? It was clear from the intro that the crew on Moya had time to have a few adventures before they were reunited with their lost comrades (though we have to wait a while before we learn what they were). I thought the episode could have done with a throwaway line or two to indicate time passing. As it was, it looked like D'Argo woke up and things started happening within an arn or two afterwards.

[tree_and_leaf]

I felt as disoriented as the characters, not least because I couldn't quite get the hang on how much or little time had passed since the s1 finale.


I'm also very confused by this - I didn't even pick up that a fair amount of time had passed, though it makes sense given that Crais manages to establish a bond with Talyn.

[selenak]

Like I said - it felt as if Crais, Aeryn and Talyn along with the Moya crowd were in one timeline where weeks (at least) have passed, while D'Argo and John were in another (where D'Argo recovered from being unconscious within a day, max).

[selenak]

However to me it looked like this episode was restating these things for the benefit of those who had just started watching or those who had forgotten the details of "Family Ties".

Oh, good point. Yes, that might have been a reason for the odd plotting.

Cooling rod debut: yes, and I keep thinking hybrid Scarran brains must be differently constructed from human ones, because that thing is huuuuuge.

[jesuswasbatman]

The human brain is surprisingly resilient and adaptive - there is a famous case of a person with severe hydrocephalus, where the brain was only a layer a few milimetres thick on the inside of the skull, who was intellectually perfectly normal.

[jesuswasbatman]

Given later characterisation, my assumption is that Scorpius simply told the Leviathan expert that he was very disappointed, and reassigned him to a lesser post.

[jack]

Thank you for these recaps, I am still loving them. I only watched a bit of Farscape first time around, but I think with the last ep of S1 we reached episodes I started to think, maybe I should watch it :)

[selenak]

You're very welcome, and thank you for keeping on reading!

[jesuswasbatman]

Not a great deal to say, except that the relationship between Crais and Talyn is already well-established here despite John's and Aeryn's concern. It's an academic question as to whether Talyn might have ended up saner and happier without Crais, but it was clearly his choice here.

John is definitely far more unstable here than he was in most of S1, and one wonders if it was the torture of if the chip was already having an effect on him.

Zhaan calls D'Argo "sweet" again in this episode, for those of you who are keeping score about when D'Argo/Zhaan is replaced by D'Argo/Chiana as the official ship.