After watching Farscape for nearly four years, I’ve gotten to the point where I expect the acting to be outstanding. It’s like housework, most of the time you don’t notice it unless it isn’t done. While I was watching “Prayer” for the second time, I suddenly noticed once again that these guys are really good! They make it seem so easy that often their performances go unnoticed within the story. Before I start on the review, I just want to say how much I appreciate the huge amount of work that goes into their characters even though I don’t often mention it.  

Crichton and Scorpius have formed an alliance of sorts. John wants Aeryn back and Scorpy wants wormhole information. John’s hidden this technology from Scorpius and every other UT psycho for as long as he’s had the information, but as soon as it becomes the only way to save Aeryn, he’s ready to cough it up to his new blood brother. Speaking of which…that blood-bonding scene has an extremely high gag factor if you ask me. Scorpius gets more disgusting by the episode. (That’s a good thing.) How someone as cool and clean and good looking as Wayne Pygram can play such a gross character is one more tribute to the quality of performance that goes into Farscape. 

Aeryn is being tortured, not on Katratzi but on a Scarran ship on its way to Katratzi. (The Scarran, Jenek, is sort of like a kid who gets a new toy and can’t wait to get home to play with it.) Aeryn tries everything she knows to hold secret the information about her child. She lies, she prays, she thinks of her former lover, Velorek. She even invents an imaginary lover who soon becomes Crichton in her mind. But even with all the torture, Aeryn doesn’t loose her senses. For example, she knows that her fellow prisoner, Morrok, is actually spying for the nurse, so Aeryn snaps her neck. If it were all only about intelligence, Aeryn would have beaten the system, but unfortunately, Jenek and his minion Vreena have a little edge – drugs and torture, handed out in some of the most uncomfortable-looking furniture I’ve ever seen. By the end of the episode, Aeryn is begging anyone who’ll listen to help her. John can’t hear her, but is Stark out there somewhere? Zhaan maybe? 

The story flips back and forth between John’s efforts to save Aeryn and Aeryn’s efforts to believe that John will save her. If Aeryn can hold out long enough, John will come for her but he has a few obstacles to overcome first. 

Crichton and Scorpius go hot-rodding through a wormhole to find “Bizarro Moya,” the alternate reality version of the ship where John first heard the name “Katratzi.” On their second try, they exit the wormhole right next to Moya. John hopes that Sikozu/Stark will just hand them the location of the Scarran base, but of course that’s too easy. People must die first. Crichton was unable to pull the trigger on Aeryn/Chiana but that doesn’t save her life. Nope, Scorpius is on hand to do the dirty deed and Sikozu/Stark crosses A/C’s soul to the other side, in the process remembering the necessary information about Katratzi. It was quite a slaughter-fest on Bizarro Moya. The killing was actually done by Scorpy, but Crichton was pleased enough to get the information. He’s come a long way since Season One. 

Back on the real Moya, people are taking sides. Surprisingly, Sikozu and Rygel are aligned against D'Argo and Chiana. Sikozu’s alliance with Scorpius can’t mean too much to her if she’d be willing to abandon him to save her own ema. Rygel is no surprise, but Chiana has grown away from her “me first” attitude, which is nice to see. D'Argo’s loyalty to John is rather expected even though he totally disagrees with the alliance between John and Scorpy. Thank you Moya and Pilot! Your votes were the deciding ones, and even though Moya’s terrified of wormholes, they voted to stick by John.  

I should have liked this episode better than I did, but it just didn’t quite hit me the right way. With such a little bit of time left for the series, I wish the story had advanced further. We learned some bits about Aeryn’s time away from Moya – unless it was all an illusion she made up for Jenek – and we saw some fantastic performances. But it left me wanting more.