Review

A great story that serves as a good wrap up for the previous cliffhangers while delivering more good drama. As expected, Aeryn was saved and John's speech was restored. What it cost to save Aeryn though was an interesting and unexpected twist. Will they kill off Zhaan? Maybe, maybe not, but for once the writing has placed a character in danger of dying without it seeming insincere. Ending the episode on Zhaan revealing that she's dying was a strong choice. Even if Moya visits some mystic Delvian healing planet next week, at least this one ended on a strong note.

Similarly, they finally handled the fake death of Scorpius properly. I rolled my eyes the moment Talyn shot down Scorpius' marauder. Luckily, a minute later it was revealed to the audience that it was all a ruse to fake out our heroes to make them think Scorpius is dead so John and company wouldn't hunt him down. Indeed, it's a delightful irony and a lovely role reversal right down to parallels to previous episodes. In Mind the Baby, Scorpius hunted down Crais in his command carrier. In this episode, Crais hunted down Scorpius with Talyn.

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of this episode signaling the end of Harvey. I'd love to see Harvey kicking around in John's head some more. But I suppose with Harvey controlling John, then John wouldn't really be John. It's just sad because the plot seems to have rearranged itself so that we'll see less Scorpius, just like season two's long stretch of episodes without Scorpius. This is especially curious now that they've made him a main character. Maybe we'll see isolated Scorpius plots now separated from Moya. It might be fun to see what Scorpius' command carrier does when it's not hunting down Moya.

Another theme for the season appears to be the illicit relationship between Jothee and Chiana. It ain't gonna be pretty when D'Argo finds out about that. Finally, I'm not sure what to make of Talyn and Crais either. They offered Aeryn a chance to spend time guiding and molding Talyn, but everyone seems to have forgotten about that. Given that Zhaan's dying, I can understand why Aeryn might be distracted, but why isn't Crais bringing the issue back to the forefront?

Overall this episode does a fine job of setting the stage for season three, but it had to wade through some crusty exposition and cleanup to do it. If the last four episodes were stronger stories with fewer weaknesses, season three could have opened with a bigger bang, but what we got was still of course quite spectacular.

Review

An episode with a lame to mildly entertaining A plot concerning our alien of the week with a somewhat overwrought but mostly outstanding B plot concerning D'Argo's love triangle. There's little to say about our alien of the week other than she was shallow and annoying. Her whole purpose was to create manufactured danger to give us something to watch other than D'Argo's melodrama. We didn't necessarily need that, though Pilot's cackling scene almost makes it worth it.

D'Argo's melodramatic love triangle is really what makes this episode worth most of its points. I'm glad they didn't drag this out too long and aside from a few scenes where D'Argo's behavior was unnecessarily erratic such as the suicidal tendencies and threatening his son with violence, D'Argo's pain was mostly well played. As such, as the episode slowly shifted focus from the alien of the week to D'Argo's story it got far more enjoyable as it went along.

Unfortunately though with only a single plot thread that was terribly interesting, there's little else in this episode to praise. Maybe it's naive, but with Scorpius and Crais both now being credited as main characters, I'm at a loss to understand why Scorpius and Crais aren't making more regular appearances. Even a non sequitur C plot cutting to Scorpius' command carrier would have brightened up this episode better. Were it not for D'Argo's story this certainly would have been a below average episode.

Review

Despite having a lot of worthwhile potential, this episode is a jumbled mess. We've got nothing but tidbits of largely unexplored ideas here that each deserved more screen time than they got. John seems to learn how to navigate a wormhole safely, one of the frozen aliens allegedly closely related to humans wakes up and this time survives, John and Harvey seem to both conclude that Scorpius is still alive, and D'Argo unlocks the recovered alien ship.

Meanwhile, Zhaan's story seems to be put on the backburner and instead replaced with a silly non corporeal serpent monster action plot. Combine that with Jool's annoying screams and homicidal behavior along with the false danger presented in the cliffhanger about the lives of John, Moya, and Pilot being in danger and you've got the makings for a pretty lame story. There's little else to say other than hopefully part 2 delivers stronger stuff.

Review

Part 2 is less of a jumble and more pointed, but never fully recovers from the last episode's issues. Aside from the continuing annoyance of Jool's screams, a number of essential plot tidbits are left largely unexplored such as the implications of John discovering how to safely navigate wormholes, the discovery of a wormhole within range of Earth, the full extent to which Harvey can control John, and the full extent to which John and Harvey suspect Scorpius is still alive and what they plan to do about that. These unresolved issues make the story's conclusion somewhat unfulfilling.

But simultaneously, despite not enough important plot being adequately addressed, the story also drags at times. Like the prior episode, the biggest issue is the alien wormhole researcher plot. The aliens were unworthy as a plot device to create danger for the crew and even less worthy as a plot device for Zhaan's demise. It's touching that Zhaan's ultimate sacrifice was to save Moya, but I was far more moved when she originally ultimately sacrificed herself to save Aeryn. I think her death would have been stronger had she died the moment she saved Aeryn.

Review

A rather cliched time travel story not unlike what we've seen on Star Trek too many times now except the plot device used to get there is less interesting. Stark's mystic abilities + mystic goggles from the memorial = time travel! As a consequence of the rather deus ex machina plot device, the writers were able to invent as many nonsensical predestination paradoxes they liked to give those still on Moya something to do and of course to give the end of the story some semblance of meaning.

The basic point behind this story is to explore the idea that our heroes making contact with alien civilizations might adversely affect them sometimes so our heroes can learn a lesson about treading more carefully. This is not unlike a Prime Directive episode on Star Trek. The trouble though is that lesson comes through much more clearly in a single exchange of dialog in Suns and Lovers when Borlik had a mistaken impression of the legendary John Crichton's exploits. The simple act of John having to correct her is far more interesting than John accidentally rewriting history on some nameless planet we don't care about.

What does work well in this episode is the delightfully striking contrast between John's and Aeryn's approach toward surviving their peril. There's nothing particularly surprising about their chosen tactics, but it's very in character. One touch I greatly enjoyed was how easily Aeryn blended into the ranks of Peacekeepers from 500 cycles ago. That says a lot about the static nature of Peacekeeper culture. While there's been some advancement in, say, pulse weapons since then, there's little difference at a high level.

Review

This episode has some nice concepts but they're so poorly executed that it's difficult to sit through. I love the idea behind the leviathan they stumbled on in this episode. It's basically an alternate Moya; what could have happened to Moya if the prisoners she was housing were more like Kaarvok and less like our heroes. The trouble is, Kaarvok and his zombie army are terribly uninteresting antagonists. The entire thing is basically just an excuse to do a horror movie. Cannibals, zombies, creepy music, darkened sets with strobe lights flashing, everyone splitting up and getting offed one by one... but oh wait, not really!

Ironically, it's the annoying twinning plot device that reset buttons all the deaths in this episode that ultimately makes the story's implications fascinating. John got twinned and then left that way at the end of the story. This is not unlike the events of My Three Crichtons. Hopefully this time both Crichtons stick around instead of one of them being conveniently killed shortly. Likewise, hopefully Talyn and Crais stick around this time. But since none of these things are actually explored in this episode and the rest of the episode sucks, it's hard to award it many points.

Review

This is a great episode that finally addresses the dangling Talyn plot thread left over from the season premiere while properly exploring the implications of the previous episode's cliffhanger of duplicating John and introducing the stellar new antagonist of Aeryn's mother all at once. The royalty of the week on the planet of the week is fast becoming a Farscape cliche, but this time they were a lot more fun. I particularly enjoyed the two Johns playing Tolven like a fiddle. My favorite scene of the whole episode is watching the second, uninjured John waltz into their palace and pass the lie detector lobster with flying colors, baffling Tolven.

Indeed, much of this episode's plot is setup to establish a division between Moya's crew and separate the two Johns. Half the crew is on Talyn being hunted by Aeryn's mother and half are on Moya doing... well... not a whole hell of a lot. Hopefully future episodes give the Moya side of things something interesting to do because I can already tell the Talyn plots will be far more interesting than the Moya plots if episodes are going to be dividing time between the two isolated crews and keeping them separate for a long stretch of episodes.

I suspect one of the two Johns will have to die before the crew is reunited simply to avoid the logistical expense and audience confusion of having two Johns in the same place all the time, despite how much fun that was in this episode. However, being able to explore the idea of John simultaneously existing in two separate contexts is fascinating. I quite enjoy the idea of Moya and Talyn being separated for a long stretch of episodes just to see how different the two Johns are by the time they meet each other again. That is if they meet each other again. ;)

As for Aeryn's mother, I found her to be a delightful choice as an antagonist. The obvious feelings of mixed loyalties this creates for Aeryn are well played and the final line of the episode where Aeryn vows to kill her mother before letting Talyn be captured is packed with the fantastically dark, gritty, bold drama I've come to enjoy in Farscape's best episodes. This episode does much to recover from the gaffes of previous episodes and sets the stage quite nicely for potentially still better episodes to come.

Review

The first episode of Farscape not to feature Moya, Pilot, or D'Argo tells a much different sort of story, fitting for a story in which Talyn is finally a central character rather than merely a minor character at best or a MacGuffin at worst as he's been before. The green eyed monster, a clever Shakespeare reference, isn't just the Budong, it's the jealousy that plagues John, Crais, and even Talyn. It's fascinating how Crais' latent feelings for Aeryn seem to have been twisted into something completely different by Talyn when combined with his own perspective and Peacekeeper programming. Talyn, for better or worse, is his own personality and acts more radically than even Crais would prefer.

It's almost as if Talyn's perspective and demeanor represents what Crais would be with fewer inhibitions. The physical toll Talyn takes on Crais' body when the two of them are not of like mind is a marvelous development and helps to reassure the viewers that the two exist more frequently in a symbiotic and egalitarian fashion rather than the hierarchical fashion that was previously assumed with Crais commanding Talyn unilaterally. This theme is also consistent with Talyn's prior penchant for erratic behavior.

Another nicely done theme was the constant running gag of John trying to open doors aboard Talyn only to be denied entry. This running gag of course culminates into a life threatening situation when Talyn nearly kills John. The Stark and Rygel story was remarkably less satisfying as they were being used as the typical cliched Farscape bickering and panic comic relief. I also could have done without all the misdirection as to who was jealous and plotting against who, but despite these wrinkles this episode ends up being a very strong story.

Review

An episode with a much more interesting B plot than its A plot. We finally get a story where we cut away to Scorpius' command carrier to see how his wormhole research is progressing and the episode barely spends any time developing that plot thread at all. What little we do get is fantastic, but it's a damn shame the episode spends so much time focusing on the monster attacking Moya of the week rather than the much more interesting story of the Peacekeeper arms race.

The "energy rider" plot did have some interesting aspects though. It seems to have left Chiana with some kind of premonition ability which left us on a bit of a cliffhanger and the DRD Pike detail was a nice touch. I loved DRD Pike as a mechanism to communicate directly with Moya without Pilot. Otherwise though this episode is a fairly big flop. It gets a couple extra points for some nice tidbits and the Scorpius plot but there's little else of value here.

Review

The much anticipated reunion of and confrontation between Xhalax and Aeryn is mostly well executed except for a few details. Rygel and Stark's bickering was once again a less than stellar attempt at comic relief and John betraying Crais was almost unforgivably stupid. I don't understand what exactly they were fighting about or what exactly Crais wasn't up front about with John to begin with or why it should matter. They're both being hunted by the Peacekeepers for being outlaws. What else is there to know that's at all relevant? I tended to side with Crais on this one. John just seems to be grasping at straws to have a reason not to like Crais.

That said, there's much to love in this story. Despite Rygel's whining, I loved his pitiful attempt at being heroic. Granted, only profound desperation could motivate him to challenge Xhalax after she already took out Aeryn and Stark, but it was touching to see Rygel try as might and get himself possibly mortally wounded in the process. More importantly though, Aeryn having to confront her mother was quite well done. She was mostly unflinching in her conviction to have Xhalax killed if it were a choice between Xhalax or Talyn, which was admirable, if gut-wrenching.

The aesthetic choice to focus on Aeryn's face while Crais executed Xhalax was also a nice touch since the episode is basically a story about Aeryn's emotional journey in having to face the fact that her mother is an irredeemable liability to be dispensed with rather than someone she can bring into the fold like John did for her. Aeryn's sense of guilt over her inability to turn her mother is also well played. The acting makes it clear that Aeryn's rational mind knows it couldn't have gone down any other way but in her heart Aeryn may always believe she could have or should have done something different to save her mother and turn her against the Peacekeepers.

Review

This episode is like Losing Time except without most of its problems. Like that story we have a plot on Scorpius' command carrier and a plot aboard Moya. But this time, the focus was on the much more interesting story of Scorpius' wormhole research, which moves in an even more interesting direction now that Scorpius has enlisted neural clone John's assistance in his research.

The idea behind neural clone John was woefully poorly explored in Losing Time when he was first introduced, but this time he's used as a delightful pawn in Scorpius' obsession with wormhole research. Likewise, the Moya story is much better executed this time around with the theme of John on Moya being equally obsessed with wormholes being well played.

The subplot concerning Linfer's defection from Scorpius could have been better. In particular Pilot's unconditional trust of her struck me as uncharacteristically reckless and the story's inference that Pilot was right to trust her all along was bit too sanctimonious for my tastes. However, on the whole the Moya story worked pretty well for once and nicely complimented the Scorpius A plot.

As for Scorpius, devoting an episode to his backstory was a delightful idea. I enjoyed getting to see all the details of his horrific childhood along with why he ultimately sided with the Peacekeepers and how he rose through the ranks so well. I was impressed that even after the whole song and dance John was still unwilling to help Scorpius, though I enjoyed his clear moment of temptation and indecision. Overall this is the best episode of the season so far.

Review

Aside from the intriguing notion of Talyn developing a vestigial pilot's den and a few nice scenes, this episode an exercise in pointlessness. Annoying aliens of the week, manufactured danger plot, Stark's irrationality and panic artificially prolonging the relevance of said manufactured danger plot, and overkill sex appeal. What a flop.

Review

Another flop. This episode is basically a repeat of the last one's pointlessness except on Moya instead of Talyn. Annoying aliens of the week, weird directing, and manufactured danger. I'm all for some well executed whimsy, but this wasn't well executed at all.

Review

An exciting ride with amazing stakes and bold heroism from all our characters, even Rygel. This episode brilliantly ties together a number of plot threads by bringing back ancient-Jack and Furlow and combining their interests into a story about Scarran attempts to steal wormhole technology topped off with Harvey's struggle for survival. This plays out in an action packed story complete with even a Talyn strafing run.

The one weakness in the story is that it never makes clear why this John and not the other was summoned by Jack. It's easy to rationalize though. Perhaps Talyn just happened to be closer to the signal Jack was broadcasting. Whatever the reason, it's certainly nice to know the ancients found a new home after all and it's nice to catch up with Furlow again too as she was a lot of fun in her first appearance in season one.

The most remarkable story point though is the idea that Jack is both driving Harvey from John's mind and fully unlocking the secrets of wormholes from his mind so they can together build a wormhole weapon to destroy the Scarran dreadnought in order to prevent the Scarrans from acquiring wormhole technology. The impending arrival of the Scarrans, Jack's and John's apparent failure to eliminate Harvey, Rygel's wound, and Harvey taking over John's body again all make for a very exciting cliffhanger indeed.

Review

John's heroic death saving everyone (especially Aeryn) from the Scarrans couldn't have been more fitting. Just as the man finally masters wormholes and earns the ability to go home, he has to use the knowledge instead in a noble sacrifice, forever denied his prize and his life. A true tragedy. A nice bit of texture I enjoyed was that while Aeryn struggled with the idea, she was willing to let John sacrifice himself for the greater good more than once in this episode. She was willing to euthanize him rather than let Harvey take permanent control and she was willing to let him die in a noble sacrifice against the Scarrans.

Indeed, it's Aeryn's perspective that makes this episode as strong a piece as it is. The final scenes of the episode are some of the most moving so far watching Aeryn confront the loss of her lover, something which occurs not long after she confronted the loss of her mother. Obviously there's still the John on Moya out there, but the things Aeryn's shared with this John are now significantly more pronounced than the history she's had with the other John leading up to the divergence. Only awkwardness can ensue when the two are reunited. Another curiosity left over from this story is how much wormhole knowledge will survive John's death. Will Talyn's and/or Moya's crew be able to leverage this knowledge in the future, and if so to what do degree?

I think it's safe to say watching John destroy the dreadnought may be the single coolest scene ever depicted on Farscape so far. Aside from the outstanding visual effects it's a fascinating concept. The wormhole weapon appears to suck stellar matter from a star and then slam into a target disintegrating and imploding it with apparently enough force to implode a planet. A weapon of mass destruction so massive that it's on a cosmic scale. My oh my. This is the best episode of Farscape so far. Awesome science fiction and compelling drama. This episode's got it all.

Review

A bold humor episode that successfully channels Looney Toons to deliver a highly entertaining comedy juxtaposed with an equally effective ticking time bomb story concerning Jool's accidental triggering of the self destruct on D'Argo's new ship. I enjoyed the various bits of texture present in this episode. For example, D'Argo hyper-raged on John without cause and felt shame for it all episode. Jool was he real culprit, but only because she wanted to become closer to the ever more isolated D'Argo. This isn't Farscape's signature bickering, it's nuanced characterization.

As for John, his juvenile retreat whilst in the coma and struggle against Harvey's predilections for revenge ranged from amusing to at times profound. We learn a lot about John in this episode. He's a pacifist at heart. At the end he tells D'Argo that nothing D'Argo could ever do to him could make him want to take revenge on D'Argo. This seems a bit like an overstatement; I'm sure if D'Argo for some reason turned evil and started working for Scorpius or something, that might get John to be a bit revengey, especially considering his now deceased counterpart's treatment of Crais in Relativity.

However, John's statement need not be terribly honest for us to learn something about his character from it. What the statement does tell us is that John is highly reluctant to resort to that sort of behavior, even if he's not being terribly honest with himself about his reluctance being supposedly unmitigable. On the whole he sees good in everyone, perhaps even in Scorpius, and he's thus ultimately predisposed to turn the other cheek, a quality rarely exhibited in many of Farscape's other constantly bickering characters.

My only real complaint about this episode is the timing certainly could have been better. They should have aired this before Infinite Possibilities to avoid this silly farcical story directly following such a powerful dramatic piece. A silly farce can be fun, but only when timed properly. Airing this episode right after Infinite Possibilities is sort of like telling jokes at a funeral to lighten the mood. Not a terribly effective approach!

Review

This episode is overwrought. Unkilling Xhalax just to kill her again after Aeryn's already suffered the loss of Crichton was a lame attempt to prolong the drama that was better executed in Relativity, climaxing in Infinite Possibilities. As a consequence, this episode was largely redundant and spending an entire episode watching Aeryn grieve in this bizarre, brooding way adds little value to the overall story, arguably diminishing it. Combine that with the random clip show including clips from the erased timeline of The Locket of all episodes and we've got the makings of a real flop.

However the episode redeemed itself somewhat toward the end with a few interesting tidbits of plot such as the curious departure of Stark who goes on some kind of spiritual journey to reach Zhaan and especially the plot point of Talyn supposedly locating Moya. Xhalax' death was also about as well played as it could have been given the dismal premise of the episode. It's nice to see Crais finally do what he should have done in the first place and even better was seeing signs that Xhalax had finally started to see the error of her ways in the seconds just prior to her death. So for all that the premise was terrible, the episode did a halfway decent job of overcoming that.

Review

The reunion between Moya's and Talyn's crews could have been a better story. The plot concerning the Scarran, Nebari, Hynerian, and Peacekeeper escaped prisoners struck me as a big red herring designed solely to add some action to the episode. The much more interesting plot was the reunion and John deciding based on his counterpart's recording that he should attack Scorpius to prevent the Peacekeepers from acquiring wormhole technology.

That said, even the red herring of the escaped prisoners had some nice bits to it. I loved a number of small details about it. For one, it's good that they're using already known aliens. I also loved seeing a non-antagonist Scarran for once and it was a real treat getting to see another Hynerian. Chiana's budding premonition abilities make another appearance and we learn another interesting little tidbit of Nebari society: they're intolerant of hermaphrodites.

Aeryn's grieving in this episode was far better played than in the last episode. Her apathy is far more interesting and realistic than her brooding from the last episode. Her indifference to the other John is understandable because in order for her to connect with him she'd have to pretend all her time on Talyn never happened and reset herself all the way back to the time when the two Johns split. A tall order.

I enjoyed that she slipped up, referencing something she did with the other John in Green Eyed Monster to this John who of course had no idea what she was talking about. This small detail was representative of Aeryn's slow journey to accept this John, a journey she appears to have nearly completed by the end of the story when she becomes the first person to agree to his insane plan to attack Scorpius. Overall this was a strong story. Had the escaped prisoner plot been toned down or perhaps entirely omitted it could have been an even stronger story.

Review

A surprisingly entertaining episode. I groaned when negotiations with Scorpius were interrupted by aliens of the week, but the fact that the aliens of the week were highly amusing more than made up for the distraction. Their quirky behavior and yelping added a delightful physical comedy to their incompetency and their impromptu hostage plot made for quite a satisfying impromptu alliance between Rygel and Scorpius. On top of that, I truly felt bad for the waitress at the end of the story when her husband was killed for botching his secret insurance fraud plan, of which she had no prior knowledge.

Likewise, Talyn's freakout was also quite moving. I enjoyed Moya's more direct role in the story, even if it was accomplished by such simple things as shaking the camera a bit and having the actors look around a lot on set. The decision to invasively subdue Talyn is a nice revisit of the late season 2 plot to disarm Talyn for his prior erratic behavior. The cast's inability to address this throughout season 3 has finally caught up with them. Finally, while the negotiations with Scorpius ended up being prolonged perhaps longer than necessary, the result was fantastic. This episode was great setup for what's sure to be even better story to come.

Review

An absolutely fantastic episode that pays off on the prior setup quite well while delivering tantalizing buildup for an inevitable epic climax. The most remarkable aspect of this episode is the amount of depth we get about what life aboard a Peacekeeper command carrier is like. But not just any Peacekeeper command carrier, it's Crais' old ship and Aeryn's former home. The potential for an Aeryn and Crais homecoming is sufficiently well milked, showing us less than smooth reunions between them and their former comrades. Likewise, the addition of Grayza's character adds lovely texture to the nature of Scorpius' motives. His power is not absolute and Peacekeeper politics are far from unified.

Continuing with that theme, I enjoyed the parallel shade of gray that was John's slowly shifting moral center. As the episode went on and like the other John he started to slowly gain access to his wormhole knowledge, he started to sympathize more and more with Scorpius, perhaps with just cause. Scorpius was certainly right to suspect John might be stalling, but the delightful twist at the end of Scorpius telling John that he's located Earth, whether or not it's a bluff, is a great way to throw a wrench into John's loyalties. Finally, I loved the detail of John balking at Aeryn when she tried to appeal to him by pointing out what the other John would do, resenting the comparison.

Review

In one of the most spectacular episodes so far Scorpius sees everything he worked for crash down before his eyes in Talyn's and Crais' noble sacrifice. The episode even implies that Scorpius may have gone down with his ship. Season of death indeed. By the end it seemed clear that John felt bad for poor Scorpy even after all Scorpius had done to him, but I can see why. Scorpius' declaration in his final moments that he never had any intention of hunting down Earth was a nice touch and makes it clear that all Scorpius ever wanted was to loyally serve the Peacekeepers in their fight against the Scarrans. The degree of evil Scorpius was willing to wield to further that goal was considerable, but his goal wasn't necessarily wrong on the whole.

The moral dilemma of whether or not the Peacekeepers should possess such a weapon of mass destruction is also well played. John struggling to fight his temptation to continue researching this knowledge with the vast resources the Peacekeepers were offering him was fantastic and Scorpius' final statements about the consequences of John's decision were terrifying. Will the Scarrans invade the Peacekeepers now? Will John have to take some responsibility for putting the Peacekeepers on the losing side of this fight? Or will Grayza be able to pull it out of the fire by forming alliances as she claims? And will John be able to use his wormhole knowledge to get home? This episode does an awesome job wrapping up previous story arcs while setting up for some incredibly exciting new ones to come.

Review

John's final line: "You have got to be kidding me."

I couldn't agree more. This cliffhanger is so stupid and random that I have a hard time taking it seriously. They should have ended on the reveal that Aeryn was pregnant. That would have made for a stronger ending than this. Why? Because I can't suspend disbelief on these stakes. Some magic science fiction plot device created this cliffhanger and some magic science fiction plot device is going to mitigate it. I couldn't possibly care less what that will be, especially given its arbitrary nature.

What I do care about is the deep level of introspection this episode at times excels at, even though it also at times overdoses on it. Our old witchcrafty guest takes John's subconscious feelings and magnifies them for him with her bizarre drug cocktail, leading us to see all of John's deepest desires and deepest fears all mingled together. The fantasy flashes to Earth are sometimes highly effective and other times feel like non sequiturs, but they work as a whole. My favorite line of the episode was when John said that he wants to merge his alien friends with his prior life on Earth, but they're incompatible.

This is a reasonable fear because John's idealized image is, of course, ridiculous. Previous episodes such as A Human Reaction have more realistically explored the what if idea of John's friends returning to Earth with him and those scenarios were all fraught with unpleasant prospects. So now that John's freed himself from being hunted by baddies, reunited with Aeryn, and begun to master wormholes, he's contemplating the larger issue of whether or not his ultimate goal is one even worth striving for.

Meanwhile, Aeryn's got doubts of her own. I had a hard time understanding just what they were throughout most of the episode because she clearly wasn't acting rationally. It was clear she wanted to stay with John, but she kept pretending like she didn't and needed time away from him. Ultimately by the end she left, John none the wiser to Aeryn's pregnancy until it was too late. The pregnancy could explain Aeryn's less than logical behavior, but it seems like a cop out to blame it on that alone. I'm hoping it's more nuanced than that. Also you've got to wonder whether or not she's pregnant with the other John's child.

The subplot concerning Talyn's burial was well executed and the humor throughout the episode pertaining to nobody knowing who the old woman was or how she got on board Moya was highly amusing. I like that it was finally explained by the end of the episode that she was a prisoner freed when John destroyed Scorpius' command carrier, but they dragged out the humor of the mystery just long enough for it to be effective without it being annoying. It's also amusing that Aeryn has her own personal prowler again, the first since her original was shot down in Die Me, Dichotomy.

Overall though the episode comes off as a mixed bag, especially as a season finale. Some parts work pretty well like the rogue leviathan, some of the Earth fantasies, and the deep exploration of John's hopes and dreams, but other parts of the story drop the ball pretty hard, such as the less than coherent reasoning for Aeryn wanting to leave John and especially the cliffhanger. As a season though, this has been the best season so far. Season three as a whole was great and has raised the bar for what will come next.