Farscape 4.07 - John Quixote
Jan. 28th, 2012 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieOne of the pleasures of my rewatch is that Mr. Mousie is as much of a fan as I am, so we do it together :)
Now, on to the ep. JQ is one of my favorite episodes, because the 'John is in a made-up world, created to fuck with him' is a favorite thing of mine (I prefer both 'A Human Reaction' and the brilliantly insane 'Won't Get Fooled Again' but JQ is still wonderful).
This time around what struck me was that TPTB were both insane and brave and take huge risks - this episode is entirely off-kilter and would make no sense to anyone who is not a long-time FS watcher (I actually remember seeing the scene with Chiana and John in the parking lot before I ever watched FS and thinking that whatever this was, was done under influence of drugs and I didn't want to watch it. Now I love it).
The candy-colored 'game' world is fascinating and funny as hell (but with a cruel, cruel bite as anything in FS. It's probably the darkest show I've watched), but the sequences that always get me are when Crichton thinks he's back on Moya and the end.
The sequence on Moya just showcases how full of nightmares John's world is, how his imagination is truly a funhouse of horrors - this is really his worst fear made flesh, isn't it? All his friends captured and enslaved because of him, Aeryn working with Scorpius and mentally enslaved by him and betraying Crichton, and he in a cell, writing wormhole equations in his own blood.
I think that this is the episode that finally pushed Crichton into trying to distance himself from Aeryn by any means possible (and being Crichton, he can only control his feelings and his longing through the emotion-numbing lakka drug, and as we see later, even that fails). Because that game shows him in sharp relief how Aeryn is his one fatal vulnerability - he automatically assumes she is the princess he needs to kiss to escape the game so she clouds his head, but it's not even that. It makes him realize unequivocally that his being who he is put Aeryn and her unborn child in danger, how easily Scorpius can use them if he ever realize just how 'beyond hope' for her he is. That nightmare scenario sets in sharp relief what can happen if he doesn't let go. She is his greatest weakness, but he is her greatest threat. (And how right he is proven to be - he offers wormholes to Scorpius to save her in Constellation of Doubt in probably the darkest he's ever been, in my favorite scene. And she gets tortured because of him in Prayer).
Oh, and how I miss Zhaan. Seeing her here briefly brings it all back...
Have an appropriate MV...
ETA: Thinking more about this ep, two more things come to mind - John's fuck-you impatience with yet another mindfuck and his recklessness about his own life are very present - he just jumps off the top of the tower without knowing it would reset everything. And Zhaan's question as to whether he wasted her sacrifice and he should find out what he's doing with his life 'before more innocents die for the love of you' hits square in his guilt-ridden/self-loathing psyche and I am sure is part of what drives him to try to distance himself from Aeryn (though a small part of it must be a desperate desire to just stop feeling, stop hurting).
Now, on to the ep. JQ is one of my favorite episodes, because the 'John is in a made-up world, created to fuck with him' is a favorite thing of mine (I prefer both 'A Human Reaction' and the brilliantly insane 'Won't Get Fooled Again' but JQ is still wonderful).
This time around what struck me was that TPTB were both insane and brave and take huge risks - this episode is entirely off-kilter and would make no sense to anyone who is not a long-time FS watcher (I actually remember seeing the scene with Chiana and John in the parking lot before I ever watched FS and thinking that whatever this was, was done under influence of drugs and I didn't want to watch it. Now I love it).
The candy-colored 'game' world is fascinating and funny as hell (but with a cruel, cruel bite as anything in FS. It's probably the darkest show I've watched), but the sequences that always get me are when Crichton thinks he's back on Moya and the end.
The sequence on Moya just showcases how full of nightmares John's world is, how his imagination is truly a funhouse of horrors - this is really his worst fear made flesh, isn't it? All his friends captured and enslaved because of him, Aeryn working with Scorpius and mentally enslaved by him and betraying Crichton, and he in a cell, writing wormhole equations in his own blood.
I think that this is the episode that finally pushed Crichton into trying to distance himself from Aeryn by any means possible (and being Crichton, he can only control his feelings and his longing through the emotion-numbing lakka drug, and as we see later, even that fails). Because that game shows him in sharp relief how Aeryn is his one fatal vulnerability - he automatically assumes she is the princess he needs to kiss to escape the game so she clouds his head, but it's not even that. It makes him realize unequivocally that his being who he is put Aeryn and her unborn child in danger, how easily Scorpius can use them if he ever realize just how 'beyond hope' for her he is. That nightmare scenario sets in sharp relief what can happen if he doesn't let go. She is his greatest weakness, but he is her greatest threat. (And how right he is proven to be - he offers wormholes to Scorpius to save her in Constellation of Doubt in probably the darkest he's ever been, in my favorite scene. And she gets tortured because of him in Prayer).
Oh, and how I miss Zhaan. Seeing her here briefly brings it all back...
Have an appropriate MV...
ETA: Thinking more about this ep, two more things come to mind - John's fuck-you impatience with yet another mindfuck and his recklessness about his own life are very present - he just jumps off the top of the tower without knowing it would reset everything. And Zhaan's question as to whether he wasted her sacrifice and he should find out what he's doing with his life 'before more innocents die for the love of you' hits square in his guilt-ridden/self-loathing psyche and I am sure is part of what drives him to try to distance himself from Aeryn (though a small part of it must be a desperate desire to just stop feeling, stop hurting).
