Farscape — 3x19 — I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Synopsis
Rygel and D'Argo meet with Scorpius and Braca in order to negotiate Crichton's safe passage onto the Command Carrier. As a safeguard against double crosses, Scorpius suggests that Crichton and Lt. Braca should wear matching I-Yensch bracelets that will synchronize their nerve impulses so that they experience one another's pain. However, before the deal is completed, two heavily armed crazies burst in and hold up the diner. Meanwhile, Talyn himself is in an uncontrollable and dangerous mental state, and the only way to heal him is to shut him down and completely erase his personality.
Filler rating: not filler
Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.
Remarkable scenes
- D'Argo and Rygel attempting to negotiate with Scorpius only to be quickly double crossed.
- Talyn attacking the approaching Peacekeepers then turning on the medical ship and destroying it too.
- Scorpius demonstrating the synchronized nerve impulse bracelets to Rygel and D'Argo using Braca as a target.
- A surprise robbery of the restaurant during the negotiations with Scorpius.
- Talyn firing on Moya.
- The hired goons taking out the restaurant owner.
- Rygel shooting Scorpius.
- Crais shutting down Talyn.
- Rygel and Scorpius taking out the robber aliens.
- John: "Some things you die for." Aeryn: "I just can't watch that happen again. It was perfect. We were so perfect and you're just like him. I mean, you are him." John: "No, I'm me. I was here. I missed that dance."
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.