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Ho-hum,
another episode, another bunch of freaky aliens trying to kill
the good guys. Throw in lots of bathroom humor, a few gross-out
factors (this time in the form of vomit), Rygel getting caught
stealing someone’s treasure, and Crichton having a little too
much fondness for his pulse pistol. Sound familiar? It should,
it’s been around more than once. Change the alien makeup, give
it a new title and send it out there. Maybe the fans won’t
notice. Here’s something else to think about: Crichton’s
butt has had a bigger role than Aeryn in Season Four.
The
basic story goes this way: everyone is starving, not having
eaten in three solar days. It’s so bad that they eat something
Noranti spit out which cures the hunger problem but causes
cramps and vomiting (these guys have barfed more in the past
three years than I have in my whole life). Rygel goes off
looking for a men’s room in a lava cave but finds a treasure
cache instead and – Rygel being Rygel –
gets caught with a handful of the treasure.
Granny,
who has almost as many annoying personal habits as Rygel,
decides the bad guys are the good guys and pops out to say
“hi,” nearly getting everyone killed. To make amends, she
whips up a batch of her mind-frell powder and manages to enchant
two of the thieves and save the day. Temporarily.
Meanwhile,
the "squad of big hairy heavily armed guys" that
Crichton threatens to have as back up (a.k.a. Chi and
Sputnik) are outside the cave trying to activate D'Argo’s
ship. There’s
some great interaction between these two in this episode.
Although they’re opposite in many ways, their differences sort
of mesh and hopefully Chiana will find the true friend that
she’s been needing since Zhaan died. Anyway, Sikozu manages to
fire up the ship, shoot the cave door open and turn on the
cloaking device (or whatever it’s called). She did in 15
minutes what took D'Argo nearly a whole season to figure out.
Rygel
is paying for sins even he hasn’t committed yet. He’s
encased in some hardened amber-like goo waiting for his guts
to explode – lovely thought, that. One of the baddies drops
him into a pit full of lava; the baddy dies and Rygel sinks.
Great to see John look a bit worried over that, but I don’t
know if he was worried about Rygel or about burning his
aforementioned butt off trying to rescue him. In any case, in
one of my favorite scenes in the episode, he shoots himself to
prime the shield he inherited from one of the baddies and goes
lava-diving.
Instead
of Ryg, he discovers the chief baddie, Raa’Keel, skulking
around in the lava pit. Now this guy is cool. As far as mean
ugly critters go, he’s a winner. Not too bright, though,
because he manages to fall into the amber-spewing trap and ends
up stuck in the glop, leaving Crichton free to go bobbing for
Rygel.
Everyone
was pretty glad to hear Pilot’s voice, but not as glad as I
was. I can only hope that once we’re all back on Moya things
will settle down (or rise up) to the Farscape episodes that
leave you wanting more. Each season has had one ep that I’ve
really disliked. I hope that “Lava’s a Many Splendored
Thing” is Season
Four’s “Vitas Mortis” or “Eat Me.”
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