A Human Reaction

[shipperx]

I can't believe that I'm pimping TWOP twice in one day, but... oh hell, I'm pimping TWOP.

The Farscape people bought a review of the ep "A Human Reaction" in the Tubey's Kids auction. (Same auction that did the Days recap last week, only this was a different recapper.)  I have to say, I DO wish that Jacob had done the Buffy recaps because, unlike the unreadable, vicious crap of the real Buffy recaps, this recap is actually thoughtful, insightful, and GOOD.  Heck, after reading it, I think I need to go rewatch the episode because I never really looked at it that way.

Anyway, for anyone who ever wondered exactly why the folks who love Farscape, deeply love Farscape, I suggest reading the TWOP recap.  It's descriptive, lyrical, and thought provoking (if only their Buffy recaps had been one-fifth as good) and because of reading it, I'm looking forward to this recapper's upcoming reviews of Doctor Who.

Anyway...A Human Reaction

Favorite quotes:

John looks across the bay at Aeryn, in the doorway. They stare at each other for a good long time, Aeryn's face hard and soft: "Dare me to cry, motherfucker." He says goodbye, and she nods sharply, looking anywhere else. He turns away, and she fights off her tears. D'Argo watches her fight with herself for a while -- they've always fought, and met in the middle, about being soldiers, and now they meet again in the new territory of love, loving John, and there's nothing he can do for her -- and then she takes off. Even in the just morning of their relationship, John's the only home Aeryn's got. And she's too weak to leave with him, and that's something she has to deal with, alone. Sucks to be Aeryn, a lot of the time, but she's pretty cool about it.

---

Pilot talks John through the navigations, and shouts when it's time for him to go. John is paralyzed, at the edge of the wormhole, too scared to go in, too scared to stay lost. (Buffy got the Hellmouth,Farscape's got the wormholes, which starting with this episode pretty much slowly take over the show, for good reason. Even Stargate has, you know, the Stargates. Even Dune's got those huge traveling birth canals that change reality and perception with their excretions. Didn't Deep Space Nine have something similar? On the other side was God. On the other side is always God, or something just as wonderful, and just as scary. You come out of them reborn, and if you go back in, you turn into something else every time. Most genre shows are created by men. Just a thought. If the Giant Space Vagina Theory of Science Fiction creeps you out, I don't know that this is the show for you, because the relatively sterile wormholes are only the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the Rabelaisian goings-on in which this show excels

---

"What happened on your tenth birthday?"
John's confused for a second, and Jack can't meet his eyes. John: "I don't know. I can't remember."
Jack leads him, reminding him that they were living in Annapolis.
"Annapolis? Right. You were late. Again."
Jack falls, because the guilt of his career choices, and the sight of seeing the continuing effect they have on his grown son, are two different sides of the same pain. "Why?" asks Jack. "You said," John says, sighing, remembering, "you said they held you at Houston for tests. You missed your flight. But you commandeered a jet and you came, anyway."
Jack smiles a little, and nods. "I woke you up at 4 o'clock in the morning." Jack took his son fishing, John remembers, and Jack nods again, nearly crying. "And you caught the biggest damn bass I'd ever seen."
John, stung: "It was a trout, Dad." (Note: if John and Jack ever meet again, this will be the question, because it sums up the sadder, scarred side of their history. It was a trout, not a bass, and even in remembering Jack can't help but screw it up, and that stays with John.)

---

In John's trip through the wormhole, this holy test of him, he's lost Zhaan and he's lost Chiana, and Moya and Pilot, due to the plot concerns. He enters without faith, without youth, without a home, without a compass. And now with Rygel dead, he's lost worldly concerns, body, all thoughts of pleasure. John has his anger (D'Argo), and he has love (Aeryn), and he has his father, and that's all he's got. It's a fairy tale. (I know I tend to get like this, but it's only with the stories that tell these truths: it's a fairy tale. Just be happy I never recapped Buffy.

---

John crouches in front of Aeryn, begging her to look; she finally meets his eyes, sickened: "You know, Crichton, Peacekeepers wouldn't even kill their prisoners to study them." She just doesn't know yet, she's clinging to the same pack of lies that John now is, but we don't know that yet. (How is it that every episode of this show is a fucking monster cryfest of emotional horror -- or a ridiculous display of adolescent fart humor -- and yet never really seems all that overwrought? It tells these truths; it's a fairy tale.)

---

But now that he's jumped in the wormhole -- the literal one, days ago, alone, and the metaphorical one last night, with Aeryn -- he can go there. He can open the door, and explore the wonders he hasn't yet seen. Talk about Rabelais, try "Women's Pissoir As Holy Grail." That's hot, and just as filthy as anything else that happens on this show. Sure, I feel like an idiot 'Scaper loving this show; it's got Muppets, who wouldn't? But the difference between forcing yourself to read Ulysses and watching this show is the difference between hitting yourself in the head with something heavy, and watching people who are entirely too hot blowing shit up and making out. No fucking contest, Joyce. Sorry. Point being: having lost everything, John can now look out at this fairy tale from the outside, and realize how well he's been tricked, by whatever force is guiding this particular quest. How his homesickness, now processed, now outside his heart, is something to be looked at, instead of something to be coveted and kissed and cried over. John has his life back. His bravery has earned him that.

---

The most important thing in the entire series happens right this second, but we don't know it yet, and we won't know it for a long time. A veil has been broken. Once you've taken the plunge, jumped into wormholes, you have knowledge of wormholes. Maybe not in a place you can put into words, maybe not in a way you can explain to Steve Carell, or even Steve Dedalus, but it's there. And you can't know what your father really looks like, underneath all the memories and lies and disappointments, until that day. Just because it happens every day, to every person, doesn't make the jump any less momentous, or any less terrifying. A sillier man than John might think of it as "conquering," as "exploring," but either way it's learning territory. It's moving out into the mystery, it's crossing the boundary from what's known to what isn't. Which is what astronauts do, as like, their whole job. This is a boy story; this is a boy's fairy tale, so it's about astronauts and wormholes and guns and the whole bag of boy bullshit. But it's still true, no matter your circumstance.

Comments

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a difference! This guy doesn't seem to mind giving credit where credit is due -- unlike the Buffy recaps, which I don't think were ALLOWED to have anything positive in them. I wonder why the TWoP reviewers hated BtVS and AtS so much?

[wisemack.livejournal.com]

Great rec, Lisa. I went and read this last night at TWOP, and like you, I was shocked - shocked, I tell you! - to find myself over there. I normally avoid that place like the plague! (helped by the fact that the library computer system doesn't allow access to the TWOP forums so I'm not even tempted.)

I'm also going to have to re-watch the episode. Heck, I may have to re-watch the whole series (and will have time, because damn, no House on Fox for three weeks. Grrrrr.)

I miss Farscape. A lot. *sigh*

(And just for the record, no, I don't watch SG1 because that cute guy who looks like Crichton and the gorgeous chick who resembles Aeryn? Those are not my characters. Sorry, not even interested. Blech.)