Farscape Rewind: Episode 2.16

[Rustydogz]

Farscape. The Locket


The episode opens with Aeryn returning from a recon mission. Moya is in some mist, hoping to hide from the Peacekeepers. This is a good idea, since Stark found them easily, using a transport pod. Aeryn has been off exploring for a day. When she returns, the ship looks worn out, a small plant has overgrown the interior, and Aeryn is very old.
Of course Crichton does not believe she has lived for many years, since she has only been gone a day. They fail to consider the age of the ship, and the forest inside the ship. In fact, they note these things once then ignore them as evidence.

This whole portion is a preamble to get Aeryn back on the planet with John. First, an interesting scene in which DArgo tells Chiana she doesn’t need to keep behaving as though she is not one of them, i.e. sneaking around looking for something to steal. She responds by saying he should know he cannot change who she is. She makes the classic error here of considering what she does as equivalent to who she is. Chiana the person is not every bad or good habit Chiana has. A person may be the sum of their actions, but they are not every single action they do. In other words, she could stop thieving and would remain Chiana. That is the basis of all ideas of self-improvement. Another bit of plot slipped in this scene has Chiana telling DArgo, “We are not going to make it, are we?” DArgo looks at her and can think of nothing to say. This is the second time, by my reckoning, that the end of their relationship has been forecast.
Another interesting scene is the development of Stark and Zhann’s relationship. The two actors work well together and do a good job of developing the relationship of the characters with very little screen time. Later they do a ‘joining’, a ritual with sexual overtones, and while ‘joining’ manage to stop time. Funny, and it helps solve the story problem. They learn that Aeryn did not age rapidly; it is the people on Moya who are not aging or even aware of the passage of time, because they are in the mist, while the rest of the universe ages normally.

The episode is constructed to put John and Aeryn in that forest for their talk. It shows them as an old couple, and in that odd way develops their relationship, or at least to the extent that Farscape ever develops their relationship. There is the bit about the locket containing the picture of the “only man [she] truly loved”. Of course it is John’s picture. One feels bad for the father of her children and grandchild she had during her many years on the planet. He remains an undeveloped character. He is used as a device, both to provide the granddaughter character, and the supposed uncertainty of who could be Aeryn’s one true love, which isn’t uncertain at all to anyone who has watched more than one episode of Farscape. Worse, we already know she had one love before Crichton: the guy she had arrested and executed for treason. Supposedly, she had some feeling for this unnamed dude with whom she had three children. Otherwise why bother? It is not to her credit if she had no feeling for him at all, though the episode acts as if it is a contest or a choice.
Once all are back on the Moya, they decide they might escape and return to a normal timeline by simply going backwards. Meanwhile, the mist is hardening, they risk being trapped forever. Pilot prepares to starburst. First, the story momentum is slowed right down, by John telling a boring story of his childhood to Aeryn’s corpse. She died, you see, on the return voyage to Moya. Pilot begins the Starburst, but everyone becomes frozen in time. Stark and Zhann ‘join’ once again, this time to unfreeze Crichton so he can go to the command and press the GO button. This is a simple but clever plot device to allow John to be the hero once again.

They burst backwards to outside the mist, and at a time just before Aeryn entered the mist on her recon mission. Only Stark and Zhann remember what happened, because they were ‘joined’ at the time, and presumably, because they are the two with psychic powers. Anyway, they warn the others to get the heck away from the mist. So maybe in the end it is Zhann and Stark who are the heroes. Stark explain that the others do not remember because they have gone to a point in time before any of those events happened. However, this would mean any time travellers would not remember their own journeys once they went to a time before their last journeys. Also, the writers seem to feel bad about Aeryn’s extended family being wiped out by the time travel, so Stark explains that the openings of these ‘clouds’, as the occur here and there in the universe, each leads to a possible new universe of infinite possibilities, or something like that. It is the theory of a universe for every possible action, attached here to the openings in these weird clouds.
Not a bad episode. But then it keeps going. There is a scene in which Stark tells DArgo some news of DArgo’s son. DArgo thanks Stark by almost strangling him. A Luxon custom I assume. With that future plot line planted, the episode keeps on ticking. John and Aeryn have the last scene – of course! – they open the locket, not knowing what is inside, and the picture has disintegrated. They look at each other. What? Are we supposed to think, ‘oh no, now Aeryn won’t know she loves John’. The absence of the photo means nothing. It is a pointless scene, trying to add mystery to J and A’s relationship. Jeez, they have already slept together, they know how they feel, and there is no mystery.