Farscape — 3x07 — Thanks for Sharing
Synopsis
Crichton has been duplicated into two identical Crichtons. Moya's crew, trying to buy a healing agent for the injured gunship Talyn, becomes embroiled in a planet's deadly politics. Meanwhile, Aeryn discovers that her own mother, Xhalax Sun, is leading the Peacekeeper Retrieval Squad sent to recapture Talyn.
Filler rating: not filler
Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.
Remarkable scenes
- The two Johns arguing over which one is the original.
- Crais revealing to Aeryn that he stumbled on her personnel file which included a recording showing Aeryn's mother revealing that she and Aeryn's father Talyn had conceived Aeryn out of love rather than duty.
- Crais revealing that the retrieval squad chasing after Talyn is under the command of Aeryn's mother.
- The people on the planet taking shots at Moya and Talyn and John getting them to stand down by threatening to level the city with Talyn.
- John being subjected to a lethal lie detector test.
- Crais, about Aeryn's mother: "She is nothing. A thug. A mindless assassin as you and I once were. But you can give her a chance to be something more than that."
- John giving blood to save his counterpart.
- John filling in for his injured counterpart, complete with divergent memories to fool the lie detector creature.
- Tolven lying to his father and getting killed by the lie detector lobster.
- John on Moya complaining that other Crichton ended up both with his pulse pistol Winona and on Talyn with Aeryn.
- Aeryn declaring that she would kill her mother to save Talyn.
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.