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dangermousieDie Me, Dichotomy is both one of my favorite episodes and one that turns me into a blubbery mess. Arguably, John at the end of the ep, thinking Aeryn is dead and it’s his fault, Scorpy victorious, not even able to speak but just to scream, is the lowest he gets (though I suppose you can make an argument for DWTB. FS’s end of seasoners were always brutal).
In fact, I can never watch DMD without popping in S3’s opener Season of Death (apt name, isn’t it? Three is even darker than two). I came to FS in Season 4, so I can only imagine how insane it must have been to wait over the hiatus for continuance.
But back to DMD…
You know what occurred to me on this rewatch? Why do Moyans simply not tie and sedate Crichton from the start? Fine, they don’t realize how truly dangerous he is and don’t realize he can sabotage the ship, kill any one of them etc etc…But he is clearly not only a loose cannon at that point, he is also in a horrendous amount of psychic pain (man is shaking and mumbling and falling apart even as Aeryn holds him), not to mention is self-harming all over the place: the scene where he looks at himself in the mirror and sees Scorpy so he smashes it through but mirror ‘reappears’ and he keeps smashing and smashing and smashing, and Aeryn comes and sees him basically breaking his hand on a brick wall because of course the mirror is long gone. Interesting parallel of course, to Aeryn in The Way We Weren’t, where she was the one ‘making hamburger’ out of her hands and John was her voice of sanity.
But that is the thing: Aeryn was upset, you can talk it out. Crichton is certifiably insane, and you can’t talk it out at all. Aeryn’s ‘walk it off’ approach where she tries to be the pep coach telling him he is strong and ‘I need you to face reality’ is not working because John is NOT in any way in control of himself. I feel for Aeryn tremendously there. John is not just the man she loves, but he is, for all the Moyans in a way, a little rationality check, and it’s gone completely (never to be reassembled fully again btw).
I suppose they don’t sedate him because they are just overwhelmed with everything else that is going on: burnt Moya, Jothee’s back etc etc. And also, because except for Zhaan (who has her own take and brand of insanity, but is also the most distracted) they are all much too pragmatic/practical to really get the danger of a mental collapse and foe because it’s not something physical to shoot at. At least not until it’s too late.
But if this is Crichton at his lowest, I have rarely loved Aeryn more than I do here. She has to be strong and together in some horrible circumstances, and the fact that she chooses to tell him she loves him at this juncture (where he is off the edge of despair) is mind bogglingly awesome. But this is Farscape, so we never get what we want even when we get it.
Aeryn telling John she loves him is something I wanted to hear for years and as she was saying it, I was cringing away and covering my eyes, because she doesn’t know it, but Crichton is already gone, and now it’s the chip in control so she is spilling her heart to the disgusting abomination of shadow Scorpius. She is so vulnerable there and you can tell how the chip is delighting in ‘playing along’ and toying and UGH.
And John telling Aeryn he loves her, in words? Even though neither we the audience, nor the Moyans, nor Aeryn herself, were in doubt for ages?
It comes during the scene where I cry so hard I can barely see: Aeryn’s funeral.
That whole sequence and the sequence leading to it, kill me.
Because Aeryn flying after John, who is completely taken over by the chip, and you know, that no matter the cost to herself, she will shoot him down because she knows John would rather be dead than in Scorpius’ hands. And the chip, wrecking her plane, and so she has to bale out, but she is descending not on solid ground but a frozen lake and her thrusters will melt it…
I start sobbing when the chip tells her of that fact ‘in deference to that part of Crichton which still cares.’ And then, nothing else could have made Crichton temporarily free of the hold of the chip but the sheer horror and loss and enormity make him break through and his desperate ‘baby, you are not going to die like this’ makes me sniffle no matter how many times I see it, just as Aeryn’s accepting calm does (she is always a pessimistic fatalist, isn’t she? And combat trained. We see it in Prayer in S4 very starkly, but it’s here as well). And he sits there, helpless, knowing that he had done this, he has caused the death of the person he loves more than anything, and for whom he is willing to sacrifice anything, his soul and Earth included. And OMG, when she tells him ‘I meant what I said in the neural cluster [ILY]. I hope you did’ and he has no idea what she is talking about, he doesn’t know she told him she loved him, he doesn’t understand her last words I…I…I…I…
And then she sinks through the ice but she fights to the surface a time or two and he is trapped there, unable to do anything but watch and there are tears in his eyes, and his stare is utterly blind and he whispers ‘What have I done’ and you can tell he is so numb he is beyond numbness.
I am going to hate Scorpius forever.
And then the funeral, with that beautiful music and his face…it’s utter self-loathing (though none of it is his fault. It is not his fault he was tortured and chipped, after all) and a frozen sort of grief.
And then OMG, he is cuffed and he asks D’Argo for his knife and he goes to the coffin and I seriously thought he was going to do a R&J thing, and he looks like he wants to, but that’s the thing, he can’t…the chip won’t let him. But also, being Crichton, he probably thinks it’s not punishment enough. And instead, he awkwardly cuts a lock of her hair, and tells her “Aeryn, forgive me. I love you.” For the first time.
OK, I am getting wet-eyed typing this.
And then (I love how Aeryn’s death snapped him so much the chip can’t get control any more), he goes for the surgery and when Doc tells him he has to temporarily cut his speech center (and Crichton, more than anyone else, is all about words) he says ‘go ahead, there isn’t anyone I want to talk to anyway.’
Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
And when he is asked (they can be removed) he keeps all memories of Aeryn.
And of course, then, he is left on the operating table, screaming, not able to talk, Scorpy walking off with the removed chip, leaving John to be destroyed by fruitless search for revenge. You know, I don’t think Scorpy gets John as yet (neither does Harvey, not for a long time). It’s not hate or revenge that moves Crichton, it’s love. Yes, he would kill Scorpy if he came across him, but if Aeryn wasn’t dead, he would never go looking for him. He is obsessive, true (a way to displace and deflect, IMO), and his obsession makes him a loose cannon without Aeryn as focus (see late S3) but revenge is not his default obsession. Is Scorpy thinking John is like himself and in a way it’s a twisted compliment?
Oh, and I realized something. In order for John to break through chip in DMD when Aeryn is dying, chip must have allowed John to watch all this while helpless. Yikes. (As contrasted with neural clauster when he seeems not to have remembered anything at all). Talk about sadistic.
Oh, and a final comment: I love that even in such an extremity as he is in DMD, John doesn’t want to be saved if it means killing the frozen Interons. It’s not pure goodness though, it is a deep sense of unworthiness of anyone’s death for him.
Oh, and Stark’s proposal to Zhaan? Melts my knees to butter.
ETA: I just found and read Jacob from TWOP's recap/analysis of DMD and I don't agree with all of it, but it's brilliant.
Especially this part, where he explains why it is so horrible that the chip has taken over John, that it is chipped Crichton who is doing all this horror:
“It's still John, who never hurt anybody, who stayed strong even when the world was falling apart and he was acting like a fruit loop, who never moves to violence except by forces stronger than all the Peacekeepers put together. John, who weekly hands them some gonzo plan where nobody gets hurt, as though by coincidence. John, whose only useful skill is the ability to love completely.”
And
“Her [Aeryn's] Waterloo is trust, is seeing the open hand instead of the enemy; every time they fuck with her, it's through her desire to trust. How many times does she get burned on Earth? By John? Every season? Every time she hopes, that's all. Every single time she dares to hope. And what's John's Waterloo? Every time they fuck with him, it's by putting him in the hero role: by putting Aeryn in danger. From the beginning, it was clear that the only thing the show was interested in taking away was what they loved the most.“
And re: title of the ep:
“I know he wants to die; I know he's split in half. I know one side of him burns like the sun and the other is cramped and bound by darkness. I know he dies three times, in three different ways, and they all have to do with the other side of himself: he becomes Harvey; he loses Aeryn; he loses wormholes, the ability to beg for forgiveness, or pity, or death. I know that the only thing worse than losing speech is losing the desire to speak. I know he begs for death in every way he can throughout the episode. I know that the only thing that keeps him alive is hate, which is a kind of death. I know Aeryn didn't even consider the possibility, because she believes in him so strongly. I know watching it kind of makes you want to die. It's a two-part process, a dichotomy of soul and spirit. If he would lay down his life for her, then the one you mourn is the one that lived.”
And re: ending:
“Scorpius turns and leaves, with his regiment and his leather and his Braca and his neurochip and his wormhole knowledge and his victory and his revenge and his plan. And John Crichton screams, unmoving. With nothing at all.”
Brilliant.
And on we go to Season of Death, my favorite season opener ever.
Oh John. His ‘want to die...Aeryn is gone’ *ok, I am crying again*
And Scorpy is still there, the bleeding over from removed neural chip. But this ‘Harvey’ Crichton does mentally defeat (love the scene with the dumpster, heeee).
Oh, and Zhaan and Stark (who can be very dark) are lovely here. And Scorpy is clever bastard. And WTF are Jothee and Chiana doing (more on Jothee’s side than Chiana’s. She is only a gf, Jothee is a son. I think she freaked out about commitment).
But that is not what I want to talk about!
Aeryn is back!!!! Brought back by Zhaan! And I love that the main motivation is because John loves her. Zhaan does owe Crichton a lot, including her own sanity, but I think it’s also guilt because it’s her actions in DMD that released the chip!Crichton to go wreak havoc and kill.
And she comes out shooting!
My favorite ever scene in Farscape, any season, any ep, is John seeing Aeryn again, in the snow, with D’Argo’s qualta blade. And his uncontrollable shaking and his disbelief, his desperate overload (which says miles of how many ways his head has been screwed with when his first reaction is that this is yet another mind trip, cruelest one of all) and then her explanation sinking through, and his touching her hair and seeing it shorter where he cut off the lock and realizing it’s indeed Aeryn, and it’s Aeryn and she is not dead…
UMMM.
*little break needed*
*am back after hyperventilating*
And the way he says ‘You are alive’ in a voice we never heard him use before, as if he is gulping and sobbing and laughing all at once, and he crushes her to him and holds as if he is drowning and will never let go.
And the wonderful scene at the end of the ep, where he is standing back on Moya and she comes in, and he tells her he loves her, in a very quiet voice and she says the same and they aren’t even looking at each other, but then he walks over to her and turns her about and they are kissing and the force of their love and need and desperation literally brings them to their knees but they are not breaking the kiss.
OMG.
And she breaks away and says they shouldn’t act on it and I love how through he little list of reasons why they shouldn’t, he is only 1/3 listening because he is too fixated on body contact and wanting to kiss her. And then he finds out about Zhaan, because yes, in Farscape, nothing is purely happy and free and Zhaan is dying now because of bringing her back. (Side note: Zhaan did this so you two can be happy, so get on with it!) I think for Aeryn, Zhaan is a reason, yes, but another is, she is terrified (and experience with chip didn’t help any): she had never loved before, never been emotionally involved…it’s terrifying to her.
I love the last scene with Stark and Zhaan, his holding her in the burnt out section of Moya, a dark peace.
OK, this is entirely too much fangirling and meta but I couldn’t help it.
In fact, I can never watch DMD without popping in S3’s opener Season of Death (apt name, isn’t it? Three is even darker than two). I came to FS in Season 4, so I can only imagine how insane it must have been to wait over the hiatus for continuance.
But back to DMD…
You know what occurred to me on this rewatch? Why do Moyans simply not tie and sedate Crichton from the start? Fine, they don’t realize how truly dangerous he is and don’t realize he can sabotage the ship, kill any one of them etc etc…But he is clearly not only a loose cannon at that point, he is also in a horrendous amount of psychic pain (man is shaking and mumbling and falling apart even as Aeryn holds him), not to mention is self-harming all over the place: the scene where he looks at himself in the mirror and sees Scorpy so he smashes it through but mirror ‘reappears’ and he keeps smashing and smashing and smashing, and Aeryn comes and sees him basically breaking his hand on a brick wall because of course the mirror is long gone. Interesting parallel of course, to Aeryn in The Way We Weren’t, where she was the one ‘making hamburger’ out of her hands and John was her voice of sanity.
But that is the thing: Aeryn was upset, you can talk it out. Crichton is certifiably insane, and you can’t talk it out at all. Aeryn’s ‘walk it off’ approach where she tries to be the pep coach telling him he is strong and ‘I need you to face reality’ is not working because John is NOT in any way in control of himself. I feel for Aeryn tremendously there. John is not just the man she loves, but he is, for all the Moyans in a way, a little rationality check, and it’s gone completely (never to be reassembled fully again btw).
I suppose they don’t sedate him because they are just overwhelmed with everything else that is going on: burnt Moya, Jothee’s back etc etc. And also, because except for Zhaan (who has her own take and brand of insanity, but is also the most distracted) they are all much too pragmatic/practical to really get the danger of a mental collapse and foe because it’s not something physical to shoot at. At least not until it’s too late.
But if this is Crichton at his lowest, I have rarely loved Aeryn more than I do here. She has to be strong and together in some horrible circumstances, and the fact that she chooses to tell him she loves him at this juncture (where he is off the edge of despair) is mind bogglingly awesome. But this is Farscape, so we never get what we want even when we get it.
Aeryn telling John she loves him is something I wanted to hear for years and as she was saying it, I was cringing away and covering my eyes, because she doesn’t know it, but Crichton is already gone, and now it’s the chip in control so she is spilling her heart to the disgusting abomination of shadow Scorpius. She is so vulnerable there and you can tell how the chip is delighting in ‘playing along’ and toying and UGH.
And John telling Aeryn he loves her, in words? Even though neither we the audience, nor the Moyans, nor Aeryn herself, were in doubt for ages?
It comes during the scene where I cry so hard I can barely see: Aeryn’s funeral.
That whole sequence and the sequence leading to it, kill me.
Because Aeryn flying after John, who is completely taken over by the chip, and you know, that no matter the cost to herself, she will shoot him down because she knows John would rather be dead than in Scorpius’ hands. And the chip, wrecking her plane, and so she has to bale out, but she is descending not on solid ground but a frozen lake and her thrusters will melt it…
I start sobbing when the chip tells her of that fact ‘in deference to that part of Crichton which still cares.’ And then, nothing else could have made Crichton temporarily free of the hold of the chip but the sheer horror and loss and enormity make him break through and his desperate ‘baby, you are not going to die like this’ makes me sniffle no matter how many times I see it, just as Aeryn’s accepting calm does (she is always a pessimistic fatalist, isn’t she? And combat trained. We see it in Prayer in S4 very starkly, but it’s here as well). And he sits there, helpless, knowing that he had done this, he has caused the death of the person he loves more than anything, and for whom he is willing to sacrifice anything, his soul and Earth included. And OMG, when she tells him ‘I meant what I said in the neural cluster [ILY]. I hope you did’ and he has no idea what she is talking about, he doesn’t know she told him she loved him, he doesn’t understand her last words I…I…I…I…
And then she sinks through the ice but she fights to the surface a time or two and he is trapped there, unable to do anything but watch and there are tears in his eyes, and his stare is utterly blind and he whispers ‘What have I done’ and you can tell he is so numb he is beyond numbness.
I am going to hate Scorpius forever.
And then the funeral, with that beautiful music and his face…it’s utter self-loathing (though none of it is his fault. It is not his fault he was tortured and chipped, after all) and a frozen sort of grief.
And then OMG, he is cuffed and he asks D’Argo for his knife and he goes to the coffin and I seriously thought he was going to do a R&J thing, and he looks like he wants to, but that’s the thing, he can’t…the chip won’t let him. But also, being Crichton, he probably thinks it’s not punishment enough. And instead, he awkwardly cuts a lock of her hair, and tells her “Aeryn, forgive me. I love you.” For the first time.
OK, I am getting wet-eyed typing this.
And then (I love how Aeryn’s death snapped him so much the chip can’t get control any more), he goes for the surgery and when Doc tells him he has to temporarily cut his speech center (and Crichton, more than anyone else, is all about words) he says ‘go ahead, there isn’t anyone I want to talk to anyway.’
Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
And when he is asked (they can be removed) he keeps all memories of Aeryn.
And of course, then, he is left on the operating table, screaming, not able to talk, Scorpy walking off with the removed chip, leaving John to be destroyed by fruitless search for revenge. You know, I don’t think Scorpy gets John as yet (neither does Harvey, not for a long time). It’s not hate or revenge that moves Crichton, it’s love. Yes, he would kill Scorpy if he came across him, but if Aeryn wasn’t dead, he would never go looking for him. He is obsessive, true (a way to displace and deflect, IMO), and his obsession makes him a loose cannon without Aeryn as focus (see late S3) but revenge is not his default obsession. Is Scorpy thinking John is like himself and in a way it’s a twisted compliment?
Oh, and I realized something. In order for John to break through chip in DMD when Aeryn is dying, chip must have allowed John to watch all this while helpless. Yikes. (As contrasted with neural clauster when he seeems not to have remembered anything at all). Talk about sadistic.
Oh, and a final comment: I love that even in such an extremity as he is in DMD, John doesn’t want to be saved if it means killing the frozen Interons. It’s not pure goodness though, it is a deep sense of unworthiness of anyone’s death for him.
Oh, and Stark’s proposal to Zhaan? Melts my knees to butter.
ETA: I just found and read Jacob from TWOP's recap/analysis of DMD and I don't agree with all of it, but it's brilliant.
Especially this part, where he explains why it is so horrible that the chip has taken over John, that it is chipped Crichton who is doing all this horror:
“It's still John, who never hurt anybody, who stayed strong even when the world was falling apart and he was acting like a fruit loop, who never moves to violence except by forces stronger than all the Peacekeepers put together. John, who weekly hands them some gonzo plan where nobody gets hurt, as though by coincidence. John, whose only useful skill is the ability to love completely.”
And
“Her [Aeryn's] Waterloo is trust, is seeing the open hand instead of the enemy; every time they fuck with her, it's through her desire to trust. How many times does she get burned on Earth? By John? Every season? Every time she hopes, that's all. Every single time she dares to hope. And what's John's Waterloo? Every time they fuck with him, it's by putting him in the hero role: by putting Aeryn in danger. From the beginning, it was clear that the only thing the show was interested in taking away was what they loved the most.“
And re: title of the ep:
“I know he wants to die; I know he's split in half. I know one side of him burns like the sun and the other is cramped and bound by darkness. I know he dies three times, in three different ways, and they all have to do with the other side of himself: he becomes Harvey; he loses Aeryn; he loses wormholes, the ability to beg for forgiveness, or pity, or death. I know that the only thing worse than losing speech is losing the desire to speak. I know he begs for death in every way he can throughout the episode. I know that the only thing that keeps him alive is hate, which is a kind of death. I know Aeryn didn't even consider the possibility, because she believes in him so strongly. I know watching it kind of makes you want to die. It's a two-part process, a dichotomy of soul and spirit. If he would lay down his life for her, then the one you mourn is the one that lived.”
And re: ending:
“Scorpius turns and leaves, with his regiment and his leather and his Braca and his neurochip and his wormhole knowledge and his victory and his revenge and his plan. And John Crichton screams, unmoving. With nothing at all.”
Brilliant.
And on we go to Season of Death, my favorite season opener ever.
Oh John. His ‘want to die...Aeryn is gone’ *ok, I am crying again*
And Scorpy is still there, the bleeding over from removed neural chip. But this ‘Harvey’ Crichton does mentally defeat (love the scene with the dumpster, heeee).
Oh, and Zhaan and Stark (who can be very dark) are lovely here. And Scorpy is clever bastard. And WTF are Jothee and Chiana doing (more on Jothee’s side than Chiana’s. She is only a gf, Jothee is a son. I think she freaked out about commitment).
But that is not what I want to talk about!
Aeryn is back!!!! Brought back by Zhaan! And I love that the main motivation is because John loves her. Zhaan does owe Crichton a lot, including her own sanity, but I think it’s also guilt because it’s her actions in DMD that released the chip!Crichton to go wreak havoc and kill.
And she comes out shooting!
My favorite ever scene in Farscape, any season, any ep, is John seeing Aeryn again, in the snow, with D’Argo’s qualta blade. And his uncontrollable shaking and his disbelief, his desperate overload (which says miles of how many ways his head has been screwed with when his first reaction is that this is yet another mind trip, cruelest one of all) and then her explanation sinking through, and his touching her hair and seeing it shorter where he cut off the lock and realizing it’s indeed Aeryn, and it’s Aeryn and she is not dead…
UMMM.
*little break needed*
*am back after hyperventilating*
And the way he says ‘You are alive’ in a voice we never heard him use before, as if he is gulping and sobbing and laughing all at once, and he crushes her to him and holds as if he is drowning and will never let go.
And the wonderful scene at the end of the ep, where he is standing back on Moya and she comes in, and he tells her he loves her, in a very quiet voice and she says the same and they aren’t even looking at each other, but then he walks over to her and turns her about and they are kissing and the force of their love and need and desperation literally brings them to their knees but they are not breaking the kiss.
OMG.
And she breaks away and says they shouldn’t act on it and I love how through he little list of reasons why they shouldn’t, he is only 1/3 listening because he is too fixated on body contact and wanting to kiss her. And then he finds out about Zhaan, because yes, in Farscape, nothing is purely happy and free and Zhaan is dying now because of bringing her back. (Side note: Zhaan did this so you two can be happy, so get on with it!) I think for Aeryn, Zhaan is a reason, yes, but another is, she is terrified (and experience with chip didn’t help any): she had never loved before, never been emotionally involved…it’s terrifying to her.
I love the last scene with Stark and Zhaan, his holding her in the burnt out section of Moya, a dark peace.
OK, this is entirely too much fangirling and meta but I couldn’t help it.
