Farscape Rewind: Episode 2.02

[Mr. Infamous]

Ok it's been a while again but I'm finally back with 2.02 Vitas Mortis. This review, and likely all that come after it, are going to work a bit differently than those in season 1. I'm not going to be editorializing every scene in the episode anymore and will instead be focussing on what I feel to be the pertinent points of the episode, what I felt the episode was trying to accomplish, and whether or not it succeeded. It's my hope that with this new more to the point format that not only will I be able to turn these out more quickly than I've been managing lately as demands on my time increase, but also that anyone reading them will no longer have to face down a daunting wall of text just to participate in the threads. They won't all be quite as short as the one that follows though, Vitas Mortis is a pretty empty episode in terms of things actually worth talking about.

With that said tonight's episode is Vitas Mortis, an episode about and old lady, who's actually a witch who becomes a young lady, and puts Moya in perial again while teaching us a bit more about Dargo's past.

The episode starts of on that last note, with Dargo John and Zhaan heading down to the unknown planet of the week in search of a Luxon they heard lived there. They find an old woman, who's a Luxan Oracan, apparently some kind of witch, and she reaches into Dargo's guts with her magic to find out that he's not a real general. Apparently this lady's sense of the truth is about a reliable as a polygraph machine's though because while she's able to find out that Dargo isn't a real general she doesn't find out that the only reason he's got general's Tattoos is because he had them put on in some battle in the past so he would be captured and interrogated instead of the real general. In other words he saved this other guy by getting tortured in his place. He also never actually claimed to be a general, he's just stuck with that tattoos of one, laser removal surgery being unheard of amongst Farscapeland's various other wonders.

Of course when Dargo goes back in and attempts to explain his situation to her she acts like she knew all along and says that she "knew he had strength but needed to know if he had fire" so we can take away from this that she'd also make a lousy smoke detector.

We then progress into the main story of this episode, which is that Dargo needs to help the Oracan die, only of course it goes to shit and instead of dying she gets young instead. All is not as well as it sounds though because this magic ritual between two Luxons will somehow drag Moya into it, making this another "Moya in peril" episode with a "evil alien in disguise" as well in the form of the Oracan. You see she was supposed to die but decided she'd rather start draining life from Moya instead. Well she didn't specifically intend to start draining Moya but got confused because the "massive strength" she felt during the ritual that she thought was Dargo's turned out to be Moya's instead. The longer she keeps the youth the more she gets attached to it as the episode progresses, and just as you start to think that she might become resistant to the idea of giving it back, she does see the wrong in her actions and agrees to let Dargo kill her in a new ritual.

All in all Vitas Mortis is a pretty dull episode. It's got some decent backstory and character development for Dargo but beyond that it's not particularly interesting in either the A or B plots and serves to introduce yet more mysterious soon to be forgotten superpowers into the series, this time for the Luxon species. This is arguably even worse than with Zhaan or Maldis as well becasue while you could perhaps rationalize their powers as being a result of their strange alien biology this here is just straight up magic. No other Luxon has ever had powers like this woman had, or even been hinted at having them, and she's doing things far beyond the sort of psychic manipulation of another person's mind that the Delvians in RIB did. She's basically a mini Maldis, casting what can only be described as spells that slow down time, seal people into Crystals, drain "lifeforces" and split incoming pulse blasts in two. Up until this point we had this picture of Luxons as this basically classic cliched "Sci-fi warrior race" and while I suppose this does serve to at least undermine that cliche "witches and magic out of nowhere" wouldn't exactly be my choice on how to go about doing so. Thankfully though the oracan in this episode is I believe the first and last magical Luxon to appear in the series.

On the upside though, the episode doesn't really have any terminally stupid scenes, aside from perhaps the brief interlude where Rygel gets his ass stuck to a hull breech, and it's not nearly as bad as the next one.

Final Verdict: Your classic 1 watch episode. You're not going to get through a rerun of this one.

[Rustydogz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Infamous

It's my hope that with this new more to the point format that not only will I be able to turn these out more quickly than I've been managing lately as demands on my time increase, but also that anyone reading them will no longer have to face down a daunting wall of text just to participate in the threads.

I assumed the problem was a lot of unconditional love for Farscape, and so they did not want to post in a sometimes critical thread.

Anyway, lets have some fun with symbols. This episode concerns the state of the Luxon species. The aged Luxon woman is a witch. As a witch she is a a supernatural being, something beyond a mere mortal Luxon. In this way she is representative of the female principle of the Luxon people. The concept of male and female principles is found through all mythologies and religious beliefs. The male principle here is of course DArgo. Tatoos are powerful magical symblols. Dargo's tatoos therefore mark him as a magical being. The story of the general is given to establish Dargo's right to bear these tatoos. He replaced the general literally and figuratively. DArgo is, effectively, the general, the bearer of the tatoos, and so the Luxon male principle.

That the female principle is aged tells us that the Luxon species is in decline. With the aged decline, even near death, of the female principle, the Luxon people decline. Think of it in a way as 'mother nature'. If mother nature withers, even dies, the planet dies. So we are being given the state of the Luxon people. DArgo, as the new male principle after the failure of the old one (the original general), is still young. But both principles are needed. The death ritual is more than her death, it is the final end of the Luxons, they might still exist for a time, but but with the death of their symbolic mother/womb/giver of life, the species withers.

So it happens that the ritual joining of the male and female principle brings renewal to the female principle. We learn that this energy comes from Moya. Now Moya, as a female Levithian, and as a literal mother-figure, is also symbolically a mother. She is mother of Talyn, and she harbors and more or less protects, and gives life and shelter to, the crew of the Moya. The Moya crew are symbolically her children. Energy is taken from Moya to revitalize the Luxon female principle in a kind of lesbionic transfer filtered through the male principle. In a way the Luxon female principle becomes the daughter of Moya, but one that takes too much from her mother.

As the Luxon female principle is revitalized, Moya suffers. Renewal brings death, food for one means death for something else, creation needs destruction.

The renewal of the Luxon female principle (as we see a very powerful magical being), combined with a young and vital male principle, suggests the possible renewal of the Luxon species. Think of Arthurian mythology. In some readings of that myth, Arthur is the male/earthly principle, and Gwenivere is the earth nature goddess/female principle. As the one film states, (from memory) "Arthur (the King, as DArgo is the 'General') is the land and the land is Arthur. As he thrives so will the land. if he fails the land will die. Some scholars think that the post-roman Britons mixed Christianity with old Celtic beliefs. And so at their marriage, Arthur was that earthly male principle, and the Queen was considered literally the avatar of the Celtic Earthgoddess/Earth mother. So it was not two people getting married, it was the magical union of the earth/warrior male principle with the avatar of the nature goddess/female principle. When that marriage failed both the land itself and the Celtic people were doomed. This is what Farscape was doing with the Luxon witch/priestess and Dargo. In fact, we have already been told that DArgo was a farmer before becoming a warrior, two facts which strengthen his connection to this sort of symbology.

We can only imagine what may have happened: the Luxons could have had a golden age, become more powerful and vibrant than ever before, perhaps become the newest great power in the universe. We don't know. In the end the choice is made to reverse the transfer, to give the energy, the life, back to Moya, and the Luxon accepts death. But it is not just her death, it is symbolically the death of the Luxon female principle, of their 'mother nature', and so the end of hope for the Luxon species.

This was done quickly off the top of my head, and of course needs work, but you can see the sort of analysis that can be done.

[Rustydogz]

It looks like my symbolism post has killed the Farscape Rewind. Oops!

[Mr. Infamous]

Nah, my new schedule has (temporarily) killed the Farscape rewind. I'll probably put the next one up next week sometime. I need to find out what my shifts are going to look like at the new job I've been training the last 2 weeks for.

You post was more interesting than the actual episode.