#ep. letter from pegasus

[dr-futbol-blog]

Allies, Pt. 12

We see an outside view of the city that shows us it is still dark outside, that it is the same night as in the previous scene and that it very much is nighttime. We join Sheppard as he is walking into the labs, being presumably the place where McKay usually works, his workplace and where his work station is, where he is the chief scientist and where the science corps of Atlantis are working under him. While we have not seen Sheppard here before this is clearly not the first time he has been there, seeming to be a familiar figure to the scientists apparently pulling an all-nighter. Sheppard comes in, bearing gifts in the form of coffee on a tray that he sets down on the table next to Zelenka.

Sheppard: I know you guys have been burning it at both ends, so... Zelenka: Doctor Vogel just went to get us some. Female scientist: Thank you. Sheppard: Yeah, caught him on the way in. How's it coming? Zelenka: Ah. Oh, it's-it's phenomenal.

Sheppard saunters in with a tray that has three cups of coffee on it. One gets snagged by a male scientist who is almost entirely obscured by Sheppard's body and whose claiming of the cup happens so far back that most people are going to miss it, whereas another cup is snagged by a woman closer to the camera and whose claiming of the cup is much more visible and obvious -- this seems symbolic of Sheppard and how his bisexuality has been woven into the narrative across two seasons.

With two cups gone Sheppard then takes the final cup for himself, and this tells us that he was bringing the coffee (assuming that it is coffee) to share it with someone, to have coffee with someone. This means that Sheppard was coming in to have coffee with someone, intentionally, with purpose. This is not the military commander of Atlantis moonlighting as a server or a waitress, he is not working as Lt. Col. Errand Boy but someone that is doing something nice for someone he knows is working hard. Let us also be clear: Sheppard is not bringing in coffee that Doctor Vogel had been about to bring in here, having intercepted him on the way. If these were the cups of coffee Doctor Vogel had been sent to fetch, he would have come in himself. No, Sheppard had been coming in with cups of coffee and had met Doctor Vogel as he was on his way out and Sheppard was on his way in, and presumably Doctor Vogel would come in shortly with many more cups of coffee to distribute all around.

The coffee that Sheppard brings in is actually a pretext to engage someone and because he is clearly bringing it to Zelenka, it is a pretext, an excuse, to come talk with him. There is a comedic beat to the start of the scene in how, as he is bringing in the tray of coffee, two of the cups get snatched by people he had not meant to bring the coffee for, showing us that the scientists are hankering for coffee as they burn the midnight oil. The coffee is intercepted first by a man and then by a beautiful blonde scientist that has her hair open and who wriggles around Sheppard in a way that indicates she wanted to make "accidental" body contact with him, and she says "thank you" to him in a sultry tone, seemingly hoping to entice him. He seems barely even aware of her existence.

This may or may not be the same scientist that had been with them on the Orion earlier, working on the drones and shaking her head at McKay -- whose hair had been in a bun at the time. And whether the free-flowing status of her hair now is due to her boss being off-world or having hoped the very good friend of his boss would make his clearly not infrequent appearance at the labs is anyone's guess. Because she manages to intercept one of the cups and Sheppard takes one for himself like had been his original intention, Zelenka is left grabbing empty air, the promise of coffee being denied to him by Sheppard taking the remaining cup for himself unthinkingly, having meant to have one of the cups himself the whole time. This is important because it shows us that he is used to bringing coffee for himself and another, that this is something he does routinely, it is in his muscle memory and does not require conscious effort on his part.

This whole (largely) non-verbal physical comedy bit is here for a reason, the beautiful blonde clearly making a play for Sheppard and offering the mainstream viewers the chance to interpret what is about to happen in a heteronormative context, the flimsiest cover of plausible deniability to the biggest, most obvious, clearest acknowledgement of the subtext that is about to be dropped in this scene. The beautiful blonde practically attempts to rub herself against Sheppard, reminding us of the fact that ladies love Sheppard, he is a ladies' man, he is space mack, Sheppard and the women, Sheppard is Kirk -- and it is an easy mental leap to make from ladies love Sheppard to Sheppard loves the ladies, Sheppard is always chasing women, is always macking on the babes, he sure does love space pussy that John Sheppard does.

But I invite you to look at Sheppard. Note how he does not pay any attention to her. He does not even notice that she exists beyond twisting his body away from her attempt to make contact with him, and he seems to do this with no conscious effort. His body does not want to make contact with her so he evades her attempt to brush up against him, doing it smoothly but decisively. She might as well not be there so far as he is concerned. This alone would be significant because there is a difference between the ladies liking Sheppard and Sheppard liking the ladies that is laid down here.

Sheppard is bringing the coffee to Zelenka but it is obvious to both of them that this is really about McKay. Sheppard is not bringing the coffee to McKay because he knows that he is not in the labs, knows he is not even on Atlantis right now, probably knows to the minute how long he has been away. Obviously he did not bring the coffee with the expectation that he would find McKay there -- this time. But the fact that his body seems to be doing this on autopilot speaks for itself, tells its own story.

Way back in Letters from Pegasus (S01E17), someone had brought McKay a sandwich to the labs containing cumin when he was working very hard to figure out some way to save all of them. Cumin is a spice used in Afghanistan and no one from McKay's science team at the time admitted to bringing the sandwich to this person who had told Sheppard personally that he was hypoglycemic and needed fuel for his brain to work in 38 Minutes (S01E04). A mystery. We further saw McKay with a pastry in Trinity (S02E06), after he had made a comment about Doctor Vogel's eyes lighting up at the sight of them that Sheppard had overheard.

In Condemned (S02E05), McKay had asked Sheppard flippantly if he wanted him to bring him a sandwich and Sheppard had responded sarcastically that if it was not too much trouble he would, in fact, like a sandwich. In Trinity McKay had further on seemingly wanted to hurt Sheppard by telling him to keep the coffee coming while he concentrated on the science, which seemed to be a very offensive thing to say, and which McKay had said because he was hurting -- and it is because it was meaningful to him that Sheppard had performed the loving service of bringing him coffee previously that he used it in lashing out at him. But his line, to keep the coffee coming is confirmation of the fact that Sheppard had brought him coffee before. It was something that Sheppard had chosen to do because he wants to take care of McKay even if McKay never says "please" or "thank you" to him because that is what you do to someone you love, it is a thoughtful thing to do.

We learn later on in Quarantine (S04E) that Sheppard likes to spend time in McKay's lab just hanging out with him, playing computer games with him while he works. From McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) we also learn that Sheppard had wanted to play golf with him but because that, along with getting McKay to wake up early, was something he had failed to do, we see that Sheppard had to compromise just to be able to spend time with McKay. We had further seen Sheppard enjoy a late night cup of coffee with Weir on the Daedalus in The Intruder (S02E02), and although Sheppard and McKay seemed to be having some trouble at the time, the fact that Sheppard's system seemed to crave coffee late at night shows that he has done it frequently, routinely -- not with Weir, but with someone else.

All of this is to say that it seems as though Sheppard bringing coffee to McKay in his lab while he is working, and drinking it with him while the other guy is immersed in work, is something that Sheppard is used to doing, it is something he has done often. And so he has come to do it with Zelenka now as a substitute because he misses McKay, misses their routines and is hoping that talking with Zelenka is going to assuage the fear gnawing at his insides about where McKay is and what he is doing, hoping for anything to distract him from it. He may have promised McKay to let him go, may have agreed to compromise on this, but that did not make it any easier to know that the man that he loves was currently up on a hive with only Ronon to keep him safe.

Zelenka: It's-it's like being handed a wraith encyclopaedia. It's hard to know where to start. Sheppard: When I was a kid and I got my first encyclopaedia, I started with the letter "S". Zelenka: Yes, well, while I'm sure that wraith sexuality is interesting, we've decided to split into two teams. Team A over here is trying to find the best place or places to plant the gas canister...

Sheppard tells him that the first letter he had looked up on his first encyclopedia as a kid had been S and Zelenka makes the assumption that it had been sex that had interested him. Sex often is interesting to children because they are trying to figure things out and it is a topic that adults will rarely talk about. As discussed before, Sheppard does have a healthy interest in the topic and he may have had reasons to be curious about the it beyond the usual, not just out of academic interest but having questions pertaining to sex that could not be answered through regular channels. But that does not mean that Zelenka was correct in his assumption even if Sheppard says nothing to set him straight. There are many other things starting with the letter S that Sheppard could have been interested in, that he might have meant here, starting with his own name but that could have entailed words such as "star," "space," "spaceship" of even "starfleet," given how he seems to have watched Star Trek as a kid.

There are many things under S that might interest a young boy and it may actually tell us more about Zelenka than about Sheppard that he makes this leap. Sheppard neither confirms nor denies that Zelenka had been correct in his assumption, giving the people who interpret Sheppard as asexual free reign to read him as appearing non-committal here. However, while wraith sexuality is an interesting topic since we know next to nothing about it, whether they even reproduce sexually, it is significant that Zelenka uses the word "sexuality" rather than "sex" here. He makes the supposition that it had been sexuality that had interested Sheppard, not just the sexual act. It does not mean that Zelenka is referring to sexual orientation but the writers seem to be inferring something here. It is also curious that they continue straight on to "A team and B team" here, since sexual orientation is often discussed in the form of teams -- there is "our team" and then there is "the other team," and everyone has to play for one of them apart from the bisexuals, who play for both.

Zelenka: ...and Team B over there is trying to come up with some fixes for the damage that the wraith hive sustained during its last battle. Sheppard: And you? Zelenka: Um, mostly I'm just skimming the index. Sheppard: Anything exciting? Zelenka: Oh, yes. Sheppard: Such as? Zelenka: Well, the ships are massive...

A team and B team are often used to refer to the rosters of sports teams, where the A team is the better group and the B team consists of players that are invited to play when the A team is unavailable. Here, both teams seem to be working on things that McKay had been tasked to do -- he was asked to come up with a delivery system for the retrovirus (and this seems to have been something he will later work out with Sheppard), and he was currently up on the hive doing fixes to undo the damage they had suffered during their skirmish with the other hive. Both teams, that is, were working on things to assist McKay in what he had to do, they were likely completing tasks that McKay had given for them to do.

Interesting with regards to the symbolism of Sheppard and his sexuality, for the way the subtext is constructed, is that we see Zelenka referring to the A team and point at them, the blonde woman belonging to this team, who we can see on screen. But then he gestures toward the B team who are off screen. We know that the team is there but we do not get to see them, we have to extrapolate on what we had seen of the A team that a similar but not the same team is working on something similar but not the same. Zelenka himself belongs to neither the A team nor the B team, just skimming the index for anything exciting, which sounds like an euphemism for being up for anything.

Zelenka: ...but because of their mainly organic design, they have a number of external weaknesses. Sheppard: I've got a weakness for external weaknesses. Zelenka: Any word from Rodney yet? Sheppard: I'm sure he's fine.

This is quite possibly the most significant moment in the entire show when it comes to confirming the subtext that had been very clearly and intentionally woven into the narrative. This is at the very least a tacit confirmation of Sheppard and McKay's relationship. This is not a question of fans reading into things or interpreting things through the lens of "queer reading" the show. This is something that they chose to do. The headwriter chose to do this. The actors chose to do this. The director chose to do this. They all knew what they were doing here. They basically spell it out. And unlike with many shows from this time period, they do not give it with one hand and take it away with the other, they do not "queer bait" and then slap a "but no homo!" on it at the end. Even though the scene is humorous, they are not treating it as a joke. No, they leave the scene to linger. Like they had done at the end of the previous season, they establish the two of them as lovers and then let that, the two of them being torn asunder by circumstance, carry us across the break between seasons.

The thing to note here is that what Zelenka says to Sheppard is not a non-sequitur. It is very clearly a sequitur, it follows directly from what Sheppard says.* Sheppard makes a comment ("I have a weakness for external weaknesses") that prompts Zelenka to ask him a question that was, in his mind, triggered by the comment (McKay has a lot of "external weaknesses"). Zelenka makes an association between what Sheppard says and interprets it as an invitation to ask him a personal question. We can tell by the way he looks at Sheppard, the studied casualness of his tone. The way he attempts to go for "Oh, by the way..." when, in fact, he is going "Speaking of which..." This is not by accident, this is superb acting.

To spell it out, Sheppard confesses to having a weakness for "external weaknesses" and McKay is someone who has a lot of external weaknesses, both in personality but also in his appearance. He has a very difficult personality and a receding hairline, softness in the middle. But these weaknesses are external, as we had been explicitly informed by the leader of the prisoners of Olesia in Condemned (S02E05) that McKay struck him "as the type of man who, despite being weak and cowardly on the outside, harbours a strength of character he doesn't even know he has." During this very same season we had been told that McKay has internal strength, ergo his weaknesses are external, they are on the surface. McKay has been established as a character with external weaknesses, and Sheppard says here that he has a weakness for external weaknesses.

But the important thing here is not what Sheppard says but how Zelenka responds to him, what he communicates to Sheppard through this comment that he is trying to make sound casual and off-hand. Zelenka is communicating to Sheppard that he knows (of course he knows; he had been there when Sheppard had despaired over getting to McKay at the bottom of the ocean, when Sheppard had insisted he come along for the ride. Zelenka is smart enough to have caught on to the fact that Sheppard had been ready and willing to kill both of them to get to McKay), and that it is OK by him. Himself and McKay may butt heads more often than regular colleagues but he still appreciates him, even considers him a friend, and he is glad he has found someone. He is glad that they have found each other.

What is more, McKay is easier to work with when he is getting laid -- and Zelenka himself had experienced the difference between McKay who was irritable and frustrated versus happy and content in Critical Mass (S02E13), preferring the latter in spite of his outrage at McKay's gleeful reaction to him returning from his mission in complete disarray at the time. Zelenka is, in a word, being an ally. That is the whole point of the scene, to show him as an ally, to establish the fact that there are more than a few people who know them that are supportive of their relationship, who know about it in spite of them doing their best to keep it a secret, who know both of them well enough not to be fooled by their masquerade.

Sheppard himself may not know that Zelenka knows, he may hope that he does not know, and he responds to him in a non-committal way, not confirming or denying anything. He is pretending like Zelenka had said nothing significant, that he had just been asking about McKay and whether he had heard anything as he is wont to do. Sheppard cannot talk about it, he is not allowed to talk about it, but he had come to Zelenka precisely because he is worried sick over McKay. Zelenka had accompanied him to the bottom of the ocean for McKay, he knows he can trust him to look out for him. He knows Zelenka cares about McKay. Both Zelenka and McKay's own teams here, who are working as extensions of McKay, are the tether connecting Sheppard to McKay in this moment. Sheppard tells Zelenka "I'm sure he's fine" but is unable to meet his eyes when he speaks this obvious lie. He hopes that McKay is fine. He hopes it with every fibre of his being. But he does not know, and it is killing him.

Continued in Pt. 13

-* Technically, as a literary device, what Zelenka says is very much a non sequitur in the sense that what he says appears to be unconnected to what had been said previously but at the same time it "reflects the idiosyncrasies, mental frames and alternative world of the particular person" through an inappropriate change in topic, because of its apparent lack of meaning relative to what preceded it, seems absurd to the point of being humorous or confusing. What he says "does not follow" except in the way that it does, it so very obviously does.

[sparktober]

Sparktober Watch Party!

Saturday, Oct 7th, 2023

Today's line-up is 1x15 "Before I Sleep" and 1x17 "Letters from Pegasus," scheduled for 4pm-6pm US Central Time (UTC-5).

Download ahead of time or stream along here: https://uofi.box.com/v/sgaS1-BeforeISleep https://uofi.box.com/v/sgaS1-Pegasus Pass is Sparktober

4pm-6pm - Chicago 5pm-7pm - New York (UTC-4) 2pm-4pm - Los Angeles (UTC-7) 10pm-midnight - London (UTC) 8am-10am Sunday 10/8 - Sydney (UTC+11)

We'll count down and discuss in #ep-discussion in Discord. See you there!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 24: Someone Actually Called the Cops.

So recently I was like, “I should do something different than my usual” and I decided to open up a little thread for critiquing ppl’s short stories, and I kid you not, the very first story I got was someone’s Seto Kaiba erotica. Which, even in erotica form, did not have very much romance in it. So, now that Yugioh will apparently haunt my every waking move forever until I die, lets get back to S4. Lets desperately get back to canon. I miss canon.

Last we left off, Kaiba lost KaibaCorp...again. Really feels like he loses this company once every couple of years (weeks if we count season 1-3). Except, this time, Dartz didn’t read the fine print in the legal files that says the company must be run by a member of the Kaiba family. While that was a huge plot point with Pegasus, turns out that Seto and Mokuba’s memories have been blended so thoroughly, like a very fine Shadow Realm smoothie, that they just...forgot.

And like I’m positive that Roland remembers, but Roland’s not gonna say something and accidentally reveal he’s the 4th Kaiba brother and have to get abducted all the time and actually work for a living. Anyways, they forgot why Pegasus abducted them in the first place in Season 1, and honestly, so did the writers of this season 4 years later. Not like it mattered, because if Seto and Mokuba did take Dartz to court, the world would end before their case would even start.

Which is how, after one talk with Roland, Seto and Mokuba just sort of laid prone on the metaphorical ground and let it wash over them that yes, KaibaCorp is gone.

I really like this extra-long helicopter, PS.

Both members of Kaiba’s Sunglasses Army decided to align themselves with Kaiba, although honestly, I don’t think anyone else in this company has realized that they’ve been bought. It happened...1 hour ago. Like what do you even do if your company randomly gets bought in the middle of a workday? Like no lead up, no indication, just BAM you’ve been bought?

And if Duke works for Pegasus who got bought out by Dartz and then Dartz bought Kaiba Corp-------What does that make Duke? Is he gonna have to start wearing sunglasses inside?

Anyway, Roland knows better than to tell Seto Kaiba he doesn’t work for him anymore while still in the same helicopter as Seto Kaiba, who already crashed one plane today and will crash yet another plane before this episode is through.

(read more under the cut)

Seto decides to align with Yugi since he needs to confront Dartz eventually. Which is when we find out that Seto always planned to align with Yugi and was just giving him a really hard time.

Because over the last several episodes, Seto has had an entire team at this random museum in Florida in order to take some pictures (that really should have already been on the internet but wtv, it was 2003 so maybe it wasn’t?)

It’s like most of the way through s4 and the biker ninjas still send me. How did he make SO MANY biker ninjas? At what point was Dartz like...and now...all my mooks...will be ninja bikers. Or orcs. Mostly Ninja bikers.

Did Alister or the others ever tell him “hey, Master Dartz, I get that your 10000 years old but like...do you not understand what a biker is?” and was Dartz like

“clearly bikers are the most evil thing in the world, obviously.” completely unaware that most bikers are just 45 year old accountants.

In these scenes we also get a gander at their laptops and, if you ever want to see high level life crippling OCD anxiety in picture form, it’s illustrated very clearly right here:

Not only did they draw this keyboard in 1 pt perspective, they used like a ruler to draw all those letters so they were the same size. Some artist put so much time getting this nice and crisp and smooth...and then this happened.

And I’m pretty sure they died after that. I’m pretty sure this scene killed an artist.

It’s at this point that Yami kinda puts two and two together and was like “WE BOUGHT PLANE TICKET’S, YOU ASSHOLES.”

(It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen Mokuba smile like this, and it’s because he’s been hiding the fact for So Many Episodes that he and his brother prepped like hours ago to get this huge dunk on the rest of the party. He just wants to dunk on them so bad. Look at him. His company was bought today. BUT he gets to spend time with his bro dunking.)

Serious question, will Delta refund your flight if the Great Leviathan appears in the sky and tries to eat your soul to reboot the world from the ground up?

Of course not. They will never refund your flight. Trick question.

We switch back over to Rebecca and Duke, who have been absent from this show for so long, I actually forgot what Duke’s name was and had to think for like...5 entire minutes until I remembered that his nickname sounds like a poop and I was like “oh man, what name of poop would it be???” and then I recalled “Dookie. Yes. His name is literally Dookie. Wow that took way too long!”

Then we start a story arc I’d to call “My Kingdom For a Sharpen Filter” where, much like King Lear, the Yugi crew splays themselves on a battle field just strewn with different ways to sharpen an image, but can’t for the life of them use any other one, but the one deep in the heart of what is now DartzCorp.

And so yes, we are going to fly to San Fransisco, hop into ye Olde KaibaCorp, and log into proto-Noah in order to read a language that Arthur Hawkins can already read.

This is nonsense, but they put it there because it’s something to do. And honestly, it’s not a card game, so I’m down for this change-up. Lets go visit a version of Noah’s brain. At least they won’t drop an orichalcos for the 12th episode in a row.

On the way, Seto decides to try and egg on Yugi.

This backfires as you expect it will because Yami doesn’t freakin care. Like he’s not Yugi, he doesn’t care who the King of Games is, he harnesses freakin Dark Magic. The Wizard never cares if he’s King Arthur or not, and in fact, he probably prefers it....

..................Except in that spinoff where they had Yugi as a reincarnation of King Henry VII.

...................................................never mind.

And then Seto Kaiba says this actual line and I just...

WH.

WHHH

WHAT?

This entire show is just watching Yugi desperately cling to his scary ass hobbies. The tagline of Yugioh is “1001 reasons to go back to school and get a real job.”

What does Kaiba think Yugi does when he’s not around? Does he actually think Yugi attends school or sleeps at night or works an actual job? Like...he thinks Yugi has...NO HOBBIES.

Very interesting insight into what Seto considers a hobby and not hobby.

Especially since this Yami, who spends most of his spare time farting around his scary ass brain castle and getting lost. Occasionally he is forced on a date with Tea and wipes minds. That’s it. That’s all the things Yami does outside of hobbies.

Anyway, what is Dartz doing during all of this?

After this, Dartz pulls back the literal curtains on this room to reveal these candles that each hold the soul of someone he’s murdered.

There are not NEARLY enough candles for this segment.

A very brave man to have candles littered on the floor when his hair is down to his ass and all of his mooks have floorduster coats.

I really want to know what the local arts and crafts store thought when Dartz strode in there and bought every single tiny styrafoam skull during the Halloween sale and was like “can I put souls in these? You sell the kind I can put souls in, right?” and then immediately pulled out like a dozen 50% off coupons like a complete asshole.

Anyway, using this candle hocus pocus, Dartz uses the Orichalcos powers to take advantage of something Yugi did in the first episode. We distantly recall there was a giant eyeball in the sky--turns out if you bust up the eyeball with, lets say, a card that has a dragon on it, the eyeball will explode into many tiny Orichalcos pieces that will fall all over planet Earth.

So apparently Yugi didn’t save anyone at all when he busted that eyeball, because he instead set in motion Dartz’ evil plan to eventually use these many tiny Orichalcos pieces like the one seen here, to kill the hell out of people.

Good job, Yugi. Too bad you missed the Actual Bakura.

In fact, actual Bakura is probably the only one who survived this incident because I guarantee that Ryou Bakura is too busy eating all the contents of his fridge out of stress. He’s probably opened his window at this point, seen the crazy lights in the sky and in the street and was like  “Blooooooody nope nopenopenopenopenope” and just locked the windows and doors, turned up Hercule Poirot to max volume, and stuffed his face with cookies.

(Or biscuits, I guess.)

WELL.

I don’t know how to tally that.

Yugioh not only broke the tally I was using to measure the distance they spent commuting this season, it also broke the tally on the amount of people who have died on this children’s show.

That’s a really big number.

We’ve had real duel monsters for a couple weeks but youknow...this time they’re extra, extra, extra real. More so than the last times. Also they’re all Orichalcos versions of their cards so their extra edge now. They’re the hot topic versions of what were already pretty hot-topic ass cards.

MMM. We come full circle, back at a dock, a warehouse, and some huge ass boat.

Right where we belong. Where all friends meet, where we can all finally be one.

Yugioh found one of the only cities that has a very famous and tourist heavy pier/warehouse district in it just so the Yugi gang could finally feel comfortable in their natural habitat. HOWEVER, there’s just one tiny problem in this scene, and it’s that it’s not overlaid with the actual soundscape of a SF pier, which is that of 100000 screaming seals

I don’t have a seal problem, you have a seal problem.

Anyway, the only healthy adults here attempt to follow the children into danger but someone on the animation team was like “we just lost the keyboard drawing guy to that capslock! We cannot lose any more interns to a crowd scene with 9 people in it and 2 dead bodies!” and they uh...

And we immediately eject Roland and whoever that weird sunglasses guy is out of the script. Mokuba gave them a longing glance as they helicoptered away. Maybe because he missed his Dad stand-ins that he went through such efforts to call in the first place. Or more likely, because Mokuba would have preferred to be on that helicopter and far away from whatever the hell is going to go down on this dock.

Honestly the rest of Joey’s storyline this episode is him going rogue because of Mai rage, and it both comes out of nowhere and also seems very on point for him.

Meanwhile, Rebecca’s unbridled rage towards Yami Muto is still low key hilarious to me.

Witness the only character here who thinks Yami should suffer actual consequences and witness Yami just appear to not give a single damn about it.

Nearly spat out my own drink watching this.

The...

...police...

...exist in this universe?

Anyway, while Tristan and Tea try to locate a payphone to dial 911, Seto and Yugi decide to invade Seto’s own company by going through an elevator that you have to reach through the sewers.

Straight up I don’t think SF even has sewers. At least, not in the sense that you can walk in em like New York or Paris or other cities that have sewers. Our sewer systems are very small cuz we got something called “liquefaction” which means our ground is so soft (and artificial--a lot of the land is fake), that when there is an earthquake, certain parts of the city will...liquefy. It’s Terrifying. We kind of...avoid going and building underground except in certain stable places. (like even BART gives me the heebies.)

I just have a very strong distrust of basements, caves and other underground places in general and it’s not because of spiders, or ghosts or whatever, I’m just afraid of faultlines. It’s like having an active volcano, but you just don’t see it, and we haven’t had a Big One since 1989 so...any day now (I mean, 2020 has been such redic content, that I think we’re finally ready)

Again, Japan has way more intense Earthquakes than we do, and yet they have a billion underground subways and very, very tall buildings, so like, this is mostly a big cultural difference between the two of us. And the bedrock. They probably have better bedrock than we do (honestly, I just have no idea).

MASTER HACKER SKILLS.

Almost as good as that time he hacked into Pegasus’ company by dropping a satellite on it. I’m starting to think Seto actually doesn’t know how to use a computer.

Anyway, Seto is faced with...real cards, real monsters, indisputable evidence, and he decides, it’s time. It’s time to finally face facts.

So, while these two are just flinging cards around willy nilly, Tea and Tristan are ...actually talking to police.

4 seasons. They’re actually doing it.

Although, TBH, they probably should have gone to the Japanese Embassy first? Just throwing that out there.

Ah Yugioh, the only kids show around that tells you point blank not to trust cops. Timeless.

U.S

In some weird underground earthquake hazard, Rebecca proves that she is smarter than Seto Kaiba. She’s maybe even the smartest person on this show. Nice that we gave her nothing to do this season but pine over Yugi who is already taken by Tea who he is also not even dating.

Not that I love Rebecca or anything, I actually have a hard time with her voice, but like...they really dropped the ball on Rebecca.

If she does end up joining Kaiba corp as their back up Felicity Smoak while Seto just runs around aimlessly punching stuff that really is just offbrand Arrow but with cards. And with slightly less resurrections.

So, lets get a gander at that computer.

We didn’t get to see Kaiba pull out 12 other discs to complete the installation process for these all these Hard Discs. Maybe the lure of throwing a very aerodynamic CD across the room like a paper card was so strong that his dev team forced him to switch to these defunct squares?

PS, I am a true millennial, OK? But, I don’t remember Hard Discs.

Hard Discs were SO long go. I stopped using these damn things in Elementary school. The last Hard Disc I ever touched was in college, when I had to put my art portfolio on a disc to submit it to my degree. I don't know even why. Everyone had a mac, so I knew no one’s computer in the department even...HAD a disc drive so it was like...whomst among you has this damn computer from 1997? Whomst among you is still using Windows 95? WHY would I put IMAGES on a floppy when I can just email them to you?

Anyway, I had to get a USB hard disc reader, and to get that reader, I had to call my Dad who had legacy software because he’s a computer engineer, and he had to mail it to me.

In that same portfolio review, PS, I also had to submit my portfolio as slides.

I didn’t even know where to produce slides so I had to ask all these old people and go to the last photo processing store on earth to get digital pictures turned into negatives and then turned into freakin slides.

SLIDES.

I honestly think they just did that to weed people out of the art degree.

Anyway, I tell you this story just to say that there is no way in hell that Kaiba was using a hard disc during the height of the CD era. We were CD or go home since 2000. We had pretty decent jump drives at this point. We had wifi. It was realllly bad wifi, but we had it. Your phone could connect to the internet. It would charge you 50 bucks, but it COULD connect.

Who on the Yugioh team DID this?

Anyway lets see these pictures that for which, we spent thousands of dollars in unused plane tickets, destroyed a Caltrain, killed 2 ancient Atlanteans (and their dog), killed 3 random mid-villains, walked across the entire Peninsula, crashed an international plane, and left both the plane and the train to rot gas fuel into the nearest lake which is right next to a ghost graveyard?

Yeaaaaaaaaaah!

Like he reads it and is all “They’re gonna resurrect Atlantis” and it’s like WE KNOW. Dartz and his hooligans have talked about starting their Utopia to reboot the world since Gurimo. Since Day 1.

Man.

Anyways, there was one plus to the pictures, and it was that Seto Kaiba recognized the Oricalchos logo.

just...

The Oricalchos logo is...

...This logo, Seto?

You...didn’t recognize...seriously? Not until just now? You have been inside of this logo, rearing to lose your soul to Alister 2 times, and he only recognized it...just now.

I mean Seto takes a while y’all. He’s a genius, but his memory is so, so bad, that he will Eventually get smart, but you have to wait until like episode 24. But he’ll get there. Just gotta be patient.

And, when he saw it, he wigged out in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Y’all I feel like I’ve seen to many weird zooms on Kaiba’s crotch in this show. Or just in life in general, especially after that surprise fic. That’s all.

I don’t know why everything exploded, but maybe the logo is cursed in the same way as God Cards? I dunno.

Anyway, this is when Dartz shows up with his brand new dog.

So they run outside onto the roof.

Now listen, does every Kaiba Corp building need the same weird ass roof? Is it like a McDonalds?

Because I’m just picturing this type of roof in SF and I’m having a time.

Forgive me if I made this lemming joke already. He’s just stood on a cliff’s edge so many times I can’t keep up.

RIP Dragon Jet, who took us from S3-S4, you’ll always live on in our memory, you glorious, wasteful, beautiful death trap.

Seto and Yugi are fine by the way, they just kinda jumped out, as you do when you’re an immortal god possessing a small boy and a...whatever the hell Seto is.

It’s at this point we reintroduce Valon because Joey went rogue and has decided to take on Dartz by himself. This is what happens when Tristan leaves the party. You always need Tristan to hold back Joey by his armpits to keep him from fighting random people.

So I guess Valon’s gonna die next episode. That’ll be nice.

What’s great about this show is each arc is just watching each villain die. You know they’ll die. But...how much?

Anyway, that’s all for today. I’m still drawing a hell ton of stuff so I don’t know when the next update will be...but just now I haven’t dropped off or something. I’ll...eventually get to it.

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all of these in chrono order.

Anyway, I mentioned Hercule Poirot, (because watching a hell ton of BBC was how I spent time with my family when I was a kid, and my very Southern Grandma freakin LOVED Hercule Poirot) So here is the best subplot of that show, which is David Suchet eating stuff.

And which doesn’t want to embed for some reason. Probs can’t embed more than one video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17antzzJrzQ

[reeltoreal-cl]

Black TV Shows & BGLOs

In 2020, the United States is finally confronting its issues with racism in society as well as the entertainment industry. With that, there has been a surge in black content on various streaming platforms.

Television shows with predominantly African-American casts often feature a glimpse at special pockets of black culture. One pocket often featured is the cultural experience of pledging historically black fraternities and sororities, otherwise known as Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs). The five fraternities and four sororities that comprise BGLOs, affectionately called “The Divine Nine,” are officially known as the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC).

Feature films tend to focus either on stepping, as with Stomp The Yard and Step Sisters, or the issue of pledging vs. hazing, as with School Daze and Burning Sands. Black sitcoms and other small screen productions, however, tend to explore BGLO issues with more nuance and humor.

A Different World - Ep. #216 - “It’s Greek to Me” - 1989 - NBC

Hillman College best friends Dwayne and Ron are in the midst of pledging fictional fraternity Kappa Lambda Nu. As time goes on, Dwayne becomes disillusioned with the process and argues with Ron over whether what they’re enduring is worth the benefits of the frat. Dwayne eventually drops line while Ron crosses into the brotherhood, and they see that their friendship can survive different paths. The matter is handled amicably and respectfully, and Ron is seen in future episodes as an active member.

Season 2 is when A Different World found its identity within the HBCU experience, as Debbie Allen took over the direction of the series after Denise’s character departed. Debbie and sister Phylicia Rashad are both Howard University alumnae, and Phylicia is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

A Different World - Ep. #421 - “Sister to Sister, Sister” - 1991 - NBC

Though no episodes depicted Whitley pledging, in this one Whitley oversees Kim’s pledge process for fictional sorority Alpha Delta Rho. Like its predecessor, the episode questions the pledge process itself, and further, the ethics of whether someone should pledge a friend. While Whitley defends her actions, Kim ultimately gets revenge when she over-seasons Whitley’s eggs with pepper. Whitley realizes she was being harder on Kim because they were friends, and learns how to be a better sister overall.

You can watch A Different World with a subscription to Amazon Prime Video.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - Ep. #408 - “Blood is Thicker Than Mud” - 1993 - NBC

Once Will and Carlton matriculate to University of Los Angeles, they decide to pledge fictional fraternity Phi Beta Gamma. However, things take a turn for the worst when Will finds out he made the cut, but Carlton didn’t because he doesn’t “fit their image.” When Carlton finds out the truth, he reads them for filth in an iconic speech that defends his authenticity. There is no mention of the fraternity in the rest of their college experience.

You can watch The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with a subscription to HBO Max.

Moesha - Ep. #224 - “Prom Fright” - 1997 - UPN

The episode begins with Frank reminiscing about Kappa Alpha Psi with his frat brother, complete with cane twirling and chanting, “I'm pretty on my left, I'm pretty on my right, I'm so damn pretty I can't sleep at night!” Frank believes his frat brother’s Harvard-bound son would be a good fit to date Moesha as an alternative to Q, but later finds out the boy isn’t interested in Kappa or anything Frank had hoped for. The boy even says he isn’t interested in organizations that perpetuate a “herd mentality,” a rarity in depictions of children with parents in BGLOs.

Moesha - Ep. #401 - “Moesha Meets Brandy” - 1998 - UPN

There is no discussion about Greek life in this episode, however, Moesha’s new college boyfriend Aaron and his frat brother show up wearing Kappa Alpha Psi shirts for their weekend trip to Big Bear.

Moesha - Ep. #407 - “A Terrible Thing Happened on My Tour of College” - 1998 - UPN

Moesha and her friends take a campus tour for prospective student weekend of Maynard University. Part of their introduction to campus is a step show featuring Omega Psi Phi, Kappa Alpha Psi (and Moesha’s ex Aaron from #401), and Delta Sigma Theta. This episode centers on Moesha grappling with the betrayal of a college student named Melvin drugging her drink at a college party, but thankfully Aaron comes to her rescue.

One of the writers on Moesha was Mara Brock Akil, who pledged Delta Sigma Theta at Northwestern University.

You can watch Moesha with a subscription to Netflix.

Sister, Sister - Ep. #608 - “Greek to Me” - 1998 - The WB

Like the transition from ABC to The WB, the show saw Tia and Tamera transition from high school to University of Michigan. As the twins are exposed to Greek life, Tamera finds her anniversary dinner plans interrupted when Jordan goes undercover for student newspaper to investigate hazing. Meanwhile, Ray tries to convince Tia to pledge Alpha Kappa Alpha, while Lisa tries to sway her towards Delta Sigma Theta.

Lead actor Tim Reid wore an Alpha Phi Alpha sweatshirt in this episode, as he pledged the fraternity at Norfolk Stage College.

You can watch Sister, Sister with a subscription to Netflix.

The Parkers - Ep. #101 - “Grape Nuts” - 1999 - UPN

As Nikki and Kim start Santa Monica Community College, they also decide to pledge the fictional Alpha Alpha Alpha, or “Triple A’s.” As they continue in the pledge process, however, Nikki becomes increasingly fed up, which leads her to tell off the sorority sisters. She drops the line while Kim goes on to cross.

This is a rare depiction of a mother and daughter on the same line, as well as an extreme age gap in pledges for a collegiate one.

The Parkers - Ep. #404 - “Meter Maids Need Love, Too” - 2002 - UPM

Kim and Stevie are troubled by three ex-cons pledging their same sorority. Meanwhile, a fictional fraternity pledge bothers Professor Oglevee and T. While some sororities have clauses against criminal records, this is a rare depiction of one in which women who’ve traded prison for college are able to participate.

You can watch The Parkers with subscriptions to Netflix and YouTube TV.

Girlfriends - Ep. #616 - “Game Over” - 2006 - UPN / The CW

The show’s transition from UPN to The CW coincided with Joan’s transition to “It Girl” with the success of her restaurant The J-Spot. In this episode she mentions that she will be honored at a gala for business women thrown by Delta Sigma Theta, and needs to ask one of her potential suitors to be her date.

With this show being set post-college, this reference is a reminder that sororities and fraternities continue to be involved in their communities well beyond the collegiate pledge process and for good causes.

Girlfriends creator Mara Brock Akil pledged Delta Sigma Theta at Northwestern University, and previously wrote on Moesha.

You can watch Girlfriends with a subscription to Netflix.

Luke Cage - Ep. #108 - “Blowin’ Up The Spot” - 2016 - Netflix

When the police bring in Mariah for questioning, Misty jokes with Priscilla, “Look, I was just about to compel her to make a statement before you let your little soror Skee-Wee on out of here.” This is a reference to Alpha Kappa Alpha, but Priscilla corrects Misty with, “Oo-Oop,” indicating that she and Mariah are members of Delta Sigma Theta instead.

Similar to Girlfriends, the show exists outside of the collegiate realm. Mariah is a politician and Prisicilla is an inspector, showing that women in these organizations go on to have prolific careers, in which they are often expected to have each other’s backs in various situations.

You can watch Luke Cage with a subscription to Netflix.

Dear White People - Ep. #104 - “Chapter IV” - 2017 - Netflix

With a blast from the past, this episode sheds light on Coco and Sam’s friendship as freshmen and how their different experiences affected it. Coco is eager to join fictional sorority Alpha Delta Rho, while Sam wants to join the Black Student Union. Alpha Delta Rho is more interested in Sam than Coco due to colorism, and when Coco finds out, she drops. When the sorority sisters later attempt to enter the Pegasus Party that Coco is in, she denies them access.

Colorism is a topic that many in the African-American community are finally beginning to have open conversations about. This is another rare depiction among portrayals of BGLOs, as it is a controversial part of the culture that speaks to issues of elitism.

Alpha Delta Rho may be a callback to A Different World, as it bears the same name and similar colors to Whitley’s fictional sorority. Early on in the episode, Sam even describes their historically black dorm “like a mini Hillman College.”

You can watch Dear White People with a subscription to Netflix.

Marlon - Ep. #208 - “Homecoming” - 2018 - Netflix

When Marlon and Stevie return to Howell University, Marlon is reunited with his frat brothers, with whom he founded a fictional fraternity for those rejected by the more popular ones on campus. Marlon looks forward to overseeing the latest line of pledges, until he realizes that Stevie is on line as an alumnus. It is later revealed that Marlon was the one who blocked Stevie from joining while they were in college, and Stevie becomes determined to prove his worth. Stevie ultimately completes the process, and the episode is punctuated by a step show.

You can watch Marlon with a subscription to Netflix.

While popular 90s sitcoms and TV shows in the late 2010s feature similar references to BGLO experiences, they often were able to host more complex conversations about them in the span of an episode, especially in regards to character values and relationship dynamics. Here’s hoping that as the new renaissance of black television takes place, we see even more diverse perspectives on these fraternities and sororities in relation to issues at large.

[callunavulgari]

Scrapbook 2017, Take 1

Scrapbook for 2017, because I actually kept up with it last year (for the most part) and it helped a lot. So, rules!

Italicized titles = enjoyed muchly, bold titles = love, titles with an asterisk* = OBSESSION and titles in (brackets) are re-watches/re-reads. And lastly, strikethough = DISLIKE.

Goals are: read thirty-five new books this year, finish four video games, finish writing and publish the Sabriel AU, and write something original. Even if it’s just a collection of short stories.

MOVIES

January:

(Flubber)

Arrival

(Spirited Away)

KH X

iBoy

February:

The Awakening

(Finding Dory)

(The X-Files)

(V For Vendetta)

La La Land

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

(Interstellar)

Ex. Machina

March:

No Country For Old Men

Beetlejuice

Pontypool

Logan

Get Out

Beauty and the Beast (remake)

It

April:

Tales From Earthsea

(The Secret World of Arriety)

(Inside Out)

(Kubo and the Two String)

May:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

(It)

The Secret Life of Pets

(Moana)

Stargate

Your Name

BOOKS

January:

Vicious | V.E. Schwab

Goldenhand | Garth Nix

Frankenstein | Mary Shelley

Illuminae | Amie Kaufman [Fin]

February:

Before the Fall | Noah Hawley

The Martian | Andy Weir

March:

Before the Fall | Noah Hawley 

The Martian | Andy Weir

Annihilation | Jeff Vandermeer

April:

Annihilation | Jeff Vandermeer [Fin]

Vicious  | V.E. Schwab [Fin]

A Conjuring of Light | V.E. Schwab [Fin]

Love for the Cold-Blooded: Or: The Part-Time Evil Minion’s Guide to Accidentally Dating a Superhero [Fin]

May:

(American Gods)

PODCASTS

May:

The Bright Sessions Eps 1-31

Alice Isn’t Dead Eps 1-2

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January:

Stargate Atlantis s5

Sherlock s4

Gate

Steven Universe

Travelers

Trollhunters

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Skam

Voltron

Konosuba

Stargate SG-1 (s1)

Taboo

February:

Stargate SG-1 s1, s2

Yamishibai

Frequency s1

(The X-Files)

Grey’s Anatomy s3

Taboo

Legion

The Flash

Black Mirror s1

March:

Legion

The Flash s3

Taboo

Supernatural

(Hannibal s1)

April:

Legion 

Rick and Morty s3

The Flash

Grey’s Anatomy s4, s5

(Hannibal s1)

The Expanse s1

Trollhunters s1

American Gods

May:

American Gods

Sense8 s2

The Flash

Grey’s Anatomy s5, s6

Wynnona Earp

Grace and Frankie

Riverdale

Steven Universe

VIDEO GAMES

January:

Pokemon Moon (7 hrs)

Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dwarf Rogue; 1 hr)

Final Fantasy X (2 hrs)

Dragon Age: Origins (Male Human Mage; 52 hrs)

KH 2.8 | BBS; A Fragmentary Passage (3hrs)

KH DDD Remake (1 hour)

February:

Pokemon Moon (15 hrs)

Dragon Age: Origins (Male Human Mage; 52 hrs)

Mass Effect 2 (Male Soldier Sheppard; 1 hr)

Assassin’s Creed 2 (8 hrs)

Silent Hill 3

March:

Fallout New Vegas

Horizon Zero Dawn (80 hrs) [Fin]

Mass Effect Andromeda (Female Ryder; 41 hrs)

April:

Mass Effect Andromeda (Female Ryder; 83 hours) [Fin]

Persona 5 (80 hrs)

May:

Persona 5 (96 hrs)

Nier: Automata (4 hrs)

LoZ: Breath of the Wild(40 hrs?)

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January:

Stargazers by Ruby_Wednesday (Captive Prince; Laurent/Damen;  Five years after the Truce of Marlas, Damen and Laurent meet again in Delpha. They're forced to work together to soothe the growing tension between their countries. But Laurent does not forgive easily and Damen's not that sorry.)

con·tra·dic·tion by caseyvalhalla (Yu Yu Hakusho; Kurama/Hiei;  Mukuro raised the paper until it was out of range, just to make Hiei lean up on tiptoe, just to see that curl of anger on his mouth again, and she smiled sweetly enough to bare all of her teeth. “Why are you exchanging love letters with the right hand of my political rival?”)

in another time in another castle by caseyvalhalla (KH; AkuRoku; No one grows up without regrets.But time moves in cycles, winds back on itself, and sooner or later that kid you used to play video games with is gonna reappear just in time to ruin your day.)

Hernandes & Jones by antistar_e (kaikamahine) (SU; Japis;  In Miami, it's a statuette. Jasper tells her, "Come on, I need your help," and Lapis says, "That's nice. What part of 'I'm not wearing a catsuit' do you not understand?")

i have my body (and you have yours) by astoryaboutwar (YoI; Yuuri/Victor;  Yuuri overflows with the weight of things that have been said, trembles with what remains.)

A Somaal Universe by antistar_e (kaikamahine) (SU; Japis; Connie flips over the next card. "'Most likely to -'" She reads out loud, and then dissolves into laughter and has to start over, propping the card up on her bump. "'Most likely to freak out when you go into labor and break the speed limit getting to the hospital?'" "Pearl," Amethyst and Jasper say in unison.)

Let's Give Ourselves Promises of Our Unending byaimmyarrowshigh, nichestars (SW; Shara/Kes/Cassian; Captain Cassian Andor tries to define what it means to live after he should have died. His second life is a softer one.)

Abstain by resonant (SGA; Mcshep;  Aliens force John and Rodney not to have sex.)

Advantage by resonant (SGA; Mcshep;  This slave-owner thing was a lot of responsibility.)

Streets In A World Underneath It All by ISMENETRUTH (SGA; Mcshep; "Puddlejumper One: An Exclusive Portrait of John Sheppard on Atlantis," John reads aloud, smirking. "Funny, I'm pretty sure I've never met the author.")

Faith healing by aesc (SGA; Mcshep; The signal had started a year and a half ago, maddening, popping up in Chicago, D.C., Charlotte, New York City, Santa Fe, Montgomery, Santa Cruz, Seattle, a town in Kansas with a name like Desperation and a place in North Dakota called, from what Rodney could remember, Sweaty Groin.)

The home front by aesc (SGA; Mcshep; “This had better be the Sheppard residence,” Rodney says, brilliant, agitated life and volume against a monotonous day and Dave’s subdued welcome, “because I’ve been driving around for hours and if I ever find the woman who did the voice on my GPS system I’m going to personally amputate her vocal cords.”)

Reality by Resonant (SGA; Mcshep; McKay was the perfect object for a crush you never intended to do anything about.)

Cultural Exchange by lamardeuse (SGA; Mcshep;  "What does he think we are, Fine Arts majors?" Rodney grumbled.)

Do You Know What I Know? by DevilDoll (SGA; Mcshep;  "You need to come here, "John said, crooking a finger, "so I can slap you in the head.")

Pegasus Non-Verbal by igrab (SGA; Mcshep;  John always gets a little thrill when he sees Rodney sign at him across the room, casually dissing people literally standing next to him and John is the only one who knows.)

Junk Cheap by DevilDoll (SGA; Mcshep;  If you were thinking you'd love to read an AU where Rodney is a college professor and John owns a junk shop, this is the story for you.)

Denial by DevilDoll (SGA; Mcshep;  "John talks about you all the time.")

All The Way To The Bone by respoftw (SGA; Mcshep;  John is ready for a new beginning and he wants the tattoo to commemorate it. )

February:

Calling Down the Lightning by dreamwaffles (SGA; Mcshep;  Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD PhD, is a wizard.)

Forget Me Not by maisierita (SGA; Mcshep; John the servant turns out not to be anything like Rodney would have imagined.)

Unidentified by fiercelydreamed (SGA; Mcshep; Fourteen years, eight months, and seven days after John and Rodney meet, the clock starts all over again.)

into that secret place where no one dares to go by verity (TW; Stiles/Lydia; 4k; The first time he felt Lydia's soul, it felt like a sneeze.) 

Black Helicopters at Dawn by whizzy (SGA; Mcshep; 240k;  Screw the bet. Rodney was going to prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Oh, and incidentally, he might just catch the United States Air Force with their pants around their ankles.)

Out in the Open by Xparrot (SGA; Mcshep;  It's Situation Normal for the team when they're caught in an avalanche, but digging themselves out uncovers more than they counted on.)

A Rational Universe by Xparrot (SGA; Mcshep;  "You're a lot more encouraging than my last friendly hallucination," Rodney says.)

Speech Deprived by Xparrot (SGA; Mcshep;  Rodney was released from the infirmary with painkillers, icepacks, and a strict injunction to limit all unnecessary speech for at least three days.)

Lord of the Sea (masterpost) by Multi (SGA; Mcshep; Among the Goa'uld, Mer'deth was something of an oddity.)

The Return to Normalcy by  Cypher (SGA; Mcshep;  The three month anniversary of the exile--as John thinks of it--falls on a three-day weekend.)

Still by murron (SGA; Mcshep;  On any other day, John might have shot Rodney a quick look, broadcasting his doubt and checking whether Rodney shared it. With a sinking heart, Rodney admitted it would be foolish to expect that kind of exchange right now.)

March:

Surrogate God by PepperPrints (The Flash; Reverb/Harry;  When Harrison Wells returns to Earth-2, someone is waiting for him. Reverb survived Zoom, but with the cost of losing his abilities. Convinced that Harry can return his powers to him, Reverb holds him captive, and he's asking for more than Harry can deliver.)

My Father Before Me by telleer (SGA; Mcshep;  Even after twenty years, Rodney still has no idea how to raise children.)

We Cannot Live Within by laureltreedaphne (SGA; Mcshep; John grinned. "So McKay's attractive to everyone?")

Before We Get Going, Here's Some Books I'd Like You to Read by Chash (The 100; Bellamy/Clarke;  Two months into her new job at the library, Clarke knows the following things about Bellamy Blake: they reserve a lot of books, they have good taste in said books, and they're really good at avoiding her.)

Livewire by marauders_groupie (The 100; Bellamy/Clarke;  Clarke Griffin finds 'Atlas' written on her wrist and Bellamy Blake sees flowers bloom on his skin.)

For Love of the Hunt by acidtonguejenny (Horizon Zero Dawn; Nil/Aloy;  If she’s hard on Nil, it’s because she understands more of him than she wants to.)

Heavy Weapons and How to Use Them by Armengard (Horizon Zero Dawn; Aloy/Petra;  The world ended, and then it didn't, and Aloy seeks a new purpose. In the meantime, visiting Free Heap and one Petra Forgewoman every so often is certainly worthwhile, as Aloy eventually finds out.)

Like a Lightning Strike by miss_aphelion (Hannibal; Will/Hannibal;  In a world where omegas are instant celebrities and treated like royalty, Will just wants to be left alone.)

babel by spqr (X-Men; Charles/Erik;  Two days ago Charles screamed loud enough that Erik heard him halfway around the world, but he didn’t listen.)

Under the Sea by astolat (SGA; Mcshep;  "Oh, thank you," Rodney yelled over the howls of do that conga!, "because what my night was missing was being groped next to the beer keg by a guy in a tiara.")

Lord, Save Me from Your Followers by anamatics (Supergirl; Lena/Kara; Kara, perhaps out of a want for thoroughness in her story, perhaps out of a Millennial-born urge to creep on a the social media of a woman she finds intriguing, discovers that Lena Luthor has a pretty active following on Instagram one afternoon not long after their first meeting.)

The God Machine by robotboy (Marvel; Loki/Tony; Tony goes undercover to spy on Loki. It's a fucking disaster.)

April:

Debt by Storynerd (Marvel; Tony/Loki;  Tony Stark shouldn't find Loki fascinating, but he does, because all he’s ever wanted to do is take things apart to see how they work. Besides, he’s never been any good at following the rules.)

in stasis by ilgaksu (Voltron; Keith/Lance; The story starts like this: with a story where you think you know the end, until it turns out you don’t, until it turns out you didn’t have a clue.)

Yuri!!! in Space by Fahye (YOI; Yuuri/Victor;  "No, see, we've all been trained a certain way. The training system is traditional; it's centuries old. Nobody taught you. You ballist like it's got nothing to do with war at all." A sleepy, extraordinary smile crawls over Victor's face. "Nobody else does it like that. That's why we're going to win.")

hood & glove by Fahye (YOI; Yuri/Otabek;  "I don't mess with the fae," Otabek says.)

between the motion and the act by Fahye (Captive Prince; Damen/Laurent; "They don't want it to be real," Laurent says. He touches lightly, with his fingertips, where he's written LOVE WINS. "They want us to sell them a fantasy, and they want just enough reality that they can pretend it might happen to them, one day.")

May:

A Perfect Commotion by Ruby_Wednesday (Captive Prince; Damen/Laurent;  Laurent needs this job. Not in the I need to put food on the table and a roof over my head kind of way. He's got a generous inheritance, thank you very much. No, he needs this job to prove he is a functioning adult who did not waste his late mother's money on an expensive education. He can be normal, whatever that is.)

Don't Turn Me Home Again by gyzym (Hawaii Five-O; Danny/Steve;  After a rough day of island living, Danny wakes up in New Jersey and learns the hard way to be careful what he wishes for.)

What We Pretend We Can't See by gyzym (HP; Harry/Draco; Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.)

Favor for Your Four-Chambered Heart by @kaikamahine (SU; Jaspis; Never Let Me Go AU)**

With Fire in Their Eyes by Asuka Kureru (Askerian) (YoI; Yuuri/Viktor; He lands butterfly-light in a swirl of hair and glittering gauze, and the ceiling crashes to the rink all around him.)

An Unpredictable Amount of Turtles by skoosiepants (TW; Sterek;  Stiles says, “I have a five year plan. A five year plan to popularity that will tank the minute I meet this guy.”)

Bring a Towel by verity (SGA; Mcshep;  It was just Rodney's luck that the guy with the strongest expression of the ATA gene on Earth was some lanky alpha who couldn't follow an order as basic as "don't touch anything.")

Crypsis by zoemathemata (SGA; Mcshep; Rodney McKay is the pissiest Alpha John Sheppard has ever met. And that’s saying something.)

Zen and the Art of Jumper Maintenance by Indybaggins (SGA; Mcshep; The one where Rodney gets sucked in and John… follows. Featuring a quirky John, Rodney in orange robes, crazy Ancient-worship, sheep milking and jumpers that aren't broken but need to be fixed anyway.)

Out of West by rageprufrock (SGA; Mcshep;  In 1991, Desert Storm began, Pete Rose got banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Rodney McKay was framed for academic fraud.)

A Slightly Different Quality of Light by rageprufrock (SGA; Mcshep;  John's very first memory, the one Rodney finds after he goes through six separate data terminals--all of which he has relocated to a roomy lab with lots of windows--is of the sky.)

Bell Curve, or, Ladies Night at the Boom Boom Room by rageprufrock (SGA; Mcshep;  In his rational mind, Rodney knew that following a girl who'd just dumped you into a strip club was really, really pathetic.)

Lock the Door by rageprufrock (SGA; Mcshep; "You can't possibly be this stupid," is what Rodney finally decides to start with.)

No Less Unthinkable by rageprufrock (Yuri On Ice; Yuuri/Viktor;  In which Katsuki Yuuri fights a losing battle with chronic anxiety, the quadruple Salchow, and his own judgment four drinks in — but wins the war.)

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January:

Glitter & Gold (Voltron)

► Multifandom | Saturn

Yuri On Love

A Sadness Runs Through Him - a Gravity Falls PMV

win | multifandom (2015 mashup)

hero | multifandom (2016 mashup)

Multifandom | Goodbye 2016

take it slow | multifandom

ruins | The x-files

McShep - Run Baby Run

McShep - Can't Pretend

February:

Superhero; SGA, Mckay/Sheppard (mcshep) 

Burning Desire (Peter/Roman)

►Purple Lamborghini

►MAD HATTER

Multipsychos | I got blood on my hands

Dean Winchester | Born to be wild (8k)

multifandom || The Apotheosis of War (TYS) 

star wars || timelines

Captain America • Symphony of Violence

March:

N/A

April:

As Much As If You Were A God 

►MultiFandom | Believer

"Lenny"/David [Legion] || give it a twist

►MultiFandom | Stay

May:

Kylo Ren || believer

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January:

Fassine | Feather Jesus 

DJ Earworm Mashup - United State of Pop 2016 (Into Pieces)

What’s The Use In Feeling Blue - Steven Universe\

Caravan Palace - Lone Digger

Yoga Session 08 - Music for Meditation and Relaxation

Utopia (Jana Hunter Remix)

Not Afraid Anymore

Susanne Sundfør - (LidoLido Remix) The Brothel

Run Baby Run - The Rigs

February:

The Man Who Sold the World - Midge Ure (2010 Remaster) 

Donna Burke - Sins of the Father

Liz Phair - Got My Own Thing

Seinabo Sey - Pistols At Dawn

Laura Marling - Rambling Man

Willy Moon - Railroad Track

March:

Undiscovered First - Feist

Kubo Soundtrack

Matt Maeson - "Cringe"

Tribe Society - Kings

Elephante - Black Ivory

BISHOP - River

BISHOP - Wild Horses

Lisa Hannigan Oh You Pretty Things

Nina Simone - Feeling Good (Bassnectar Remix)

MIX - MAURICE RAVEL Bolero

Rag-n-Bone Man - Human

April:

The Judge - Twenty One Pilots

Horizon Zero Dawn - Complete Soundtrack (OST)

Believer - Imagine Dragons

Kygo, Selena Gomez - It Ain't Me

K.Flay - Blood In The Cut

Stargate - Waterfall ft. P!nk, Sia

Portugal. The Man - "Feel It Still"

Doc Robinson - Golden Daze

Iko, Iko - the Dixie Cups

Brian Reitzell feat. Mark Lanegan - “In The Pines”

May:

Feist - Century 

Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - Rafferty

Evil Woman - Electric Light Orchestra

Guardians Inferno (feat. David Hasselhoff)

Moby - Memory Gospel

Above & Beyond - Good For Me

Jack Johnson - The Sharing Song

Lamb - Wise Enough

Otto Knows feat. Avicii - Back Where I Belong

Emmit Fenn - Painting Greys

Bon Iver - Holocene

Made In Heights - Murakami

DVBBS & Shaun Frank - La La Land

Totemo - Host

Years & Years - Worship

Klyne - Paralyzed

Embrace - Goldroom

MØ - Say You'll Be There

Zella Day - Sweet Ophelia

Every Other Freckle - Alt J

Angel Haze - Moonrise Kingdom

BANKS - Better

Marian Hill - Got It

Glass Animals - Holiest Feat. Tei-Shi 

WRITTEN FIC

January:

Piece From a Satyr Play (SW; Reylo; 141 words; Her hair is done up in white ribbons, three enormously lopsided buns trailing down the back of her neck.) 

Wasted Early Sunday Morning (SW; Reylo; 434 words;  Her skin is smoother than his, smoother than many of the people that he’s touched in his life, and he aches to touch it now, watching her stretch lazily in the early morning sunlight, spine arching like a cats.)

Cosmic Love (SGA; Mcshep; 786 words;  There’s solid matter under the palm of his hand, a beating pulse, and a heart to go with it. A living person that Rodney thought that they’d lost.)

can’t help but be wrong in the dark (The Flash; Barry/Julian; 2,942 words;  The day that Allen had snarled an insult back in response to one of Julian’s cutting remarks, he’d gone home and fisted his cock furiously, thinking about the slant of Allen’s mouth and how it would look smeared with come. How Allen’s hair would feel, knotted in Julian’s fingers as he fucked his mouth.

eat flowers, breathe light (SGA; Mcshep; 1585 words;  John gives Rodney a dreamy smile, swaying slightly towards him, and says, “You have really beautiful eyes, you know that?” )

February:

Bifurcation Theory (TW; Stiles/Derek/Lydia; 7208 words; Lydia sucks in another shaky breath, trying to think of a polite way to explain that she's sorry, that this was a mistake, and she didn’t mean to bother him. Just as she’s opening her mouth, Derek sighs gustily, the sound breaking apart with static in her ear. “What’s Stiles done now?” he asks, his tone resigned.

March:

Ain't At Home (Home's Where I'm Going) (Horizon Zero Dawn; Aloy/Vala, Aloy/Avad; 2 Chapters - WIP; 3420 words;  “Not all comforts are bad,” Vala whispers, and Aloy shudders apart.)

April:

Ain't At Home (Home's Where I'm Going) (Horizon Zero Dawn; Aloy/Nil; Aloy/Petra; 2 chapters - WIP; 1872 words;  She’s beautiful, deadly, her eyes gone sharp and flinty as she stares down each of her victims. Nil licks his lips, throat working when she turns to him afterwards, eyes soft again, now that the killing is done.)

love, can't protect you now (SGA; Mcshep; 1635 words;  “When they come,” Rodney tells him quietly, “I won’t kill you.”)

May:

Ain't At Home (Home's Where I'm Going) (Horizon Zero Dawn; Aloy/Erend; Final Chapter; 1539 words) 

Say You'll Be There (The Flash; Barry/Iris, Barry/Thawne; 1159 words;  Barry swallows, fingers tangling with hers, and says, “Storms make me think of him.”)

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January:

Keep Your Heart Inside: A mix for love, hazy and undefined, the kind that leaves you wanting.

February:

N/A

March:

you know the words: a mix for your inner weeaboo.

April:

Cotton Candy Skyline: music for picking at scabs.

May:

[uniformbravo]

since it seems to be steadily taking over my whole brain now im just gonna let myself ramble about yugioh for a bit

idk i just keep thinkin abt how it was my favorite show when i was a kid... like not just i liked it a lot, but u know how when ur a kid u pick ur Favorite things & it’s a big deal, like i had Declared this as my Favorite Show

i honestly don’t rly even remember my experience with it in terms of my Feelings like i dont remember having a favorite character or anything like that, i just have a lot of Evidence of me liking it lmao like. u know those school folders they sell at like walmart that are themed after different shows n stuff, i had a yugioh one & it was cool af (i still have it actually, i’d get it to take a pic but it’s in my brother’s room & its almost 1:30 am). i remember my best friend at the time (like. 3rd grade) said she hated yugioh so she would always scoff at my folder lmaooo but like i knew she was wrong so

o shit i found a pic of it online tho here it is

gangs all here...... dam when they droppin their latest single tho lol

i also got this yugioh play set for christmas once, it was like. a plastic dueling arena that u would set little monster figurines on and each player had a bunch of little orange plastic balls that they would take turns shooting at each other’s monsters until urs were the last standing, or something like that? all i have left of it are the little orange balls and a couple of the hologram projectors that went in each of the 4 corners of the arena. i wish i knew what happened to the monsters tho, bc they were actually pretty cool. there was like. a blue guy. and a gold one. i think one of them might have been the summoned skull? i think they were mostly monsters that became plot important later in the show & i’ll definitely recognize them when they show up but i haven’t gotten there yet.... im pretty sure they were basically exodia’s pals tho, like reputable monsters. the Big Boys

hwhgosFHOFJ I FOUND A PIC OF THIS ONE TOO

HELL YEA BOY THATS FUCKIN IT BRO AAAAAAAAAAAA

every bone in my body just liquefied and became nostalgia from looking at this image GHRGHGH I WANT IT SO BAD

ofc i also have a deck of actual cards w/ such iconic features as the dark magician (which is Shiny), summoned skull, change of heart, and this one rly beat up guy i found half buried in the sand on the playground at school one day named griggle, my prized possession

(imagine this but more fucked up looking)

oh and how could i forget, i fuckin. made my own deck of cards, it’s like a bunch of cut out pieces of scrap paper that are all different sizes & i made up a bunch of monsters and drew them & my favorite part (i looked thru it the other day) is there’s a couple cards in there with just numbers on them which i assume was either meant to be added to the monsters’ attack or ur own life points, but one of them is 500 and the other is 50,000,000,000 which is absurd i literally just wrote as many zeroes as i could fit on the paper & it shows, imagine drawing that fucking card my god. i imagine that in my mind it was like, meant to be really rare & hard to get but like. the whole deck is only like 30 cards? so i guess @ whoever faces me u better fuckinnn say ur prayers

that’s all the physical evidence i can think of, but i do have some memories..... fuck i remember watching all the new eps air on saturday mornings aaaa oh man there are a few Classique moments of the show im excited to get to, not by virtue of being particularly Good but because despite having been such a big fan of the show i like barely remember anything from it at all, so these little bits and pieces that i do have r like. exciting. im arranging them into a bullet point list

first of all, and i may be wrong, but i stg at one point pegasus drops someone thru a trap door in his castle or smth??? or someone gets thrown out a window or Something idk why this moment stands out so much but if it doesn’t happen then i will be Very disappointed (i think it was bandit keith. get fucked)

this one’s already happened a few times but for some reason a memory that stood out to me from this show is yami yugi being like “pegasus!” in his Deep Man Voice all like >:o so i was v happy to hear that. also while im here this is pretty obvious but the way he says “previously on yugioh” at the beginning of eps is great, love it, having a blast w/ that one

one saturday there was a big two-part hour long special called “joey’s betrayal” where like idk joey has to duel yugi for Evil Reasons or something and i was SO HYPE for that special bc i was like O Shit joey’s Evil now and like. this was around the time that my sister kinda stopped wanting to get up early for saturday morning cartoons lol so she was sleeping but i was So excited for the ep & i didnt want her to miss it so i left her a note on the desk in our room for her to see that had all the info abt the episode like the title & the time it would be on so u know she could like, wake up & See it & come out n watch it, but the whole thing went by & she never woke up so i had 2 go back in there & take the note down & throw it away looooooooool. but yea so im REALLY excited to get to that episode due to its Impact

eventually i kinda lost interest in yugioh & stopped keeping up with it but obvs the show kept going on w/o me & one day i turned on the tv & it was on & it was like, tristan was trapped in the body of a teddy bear or something? & i was like wow thats weird glad i stopped watching & i never looked back but now I Am Looking & i can’t wait to get to that episode, however-old-i-was me was a Fool

this one doesn’t count but i remember thinking the theme song was SO COOL (and i was right that shit slaps so hard )& being disappointed there were no lyrics i could sing along to..... except for when it was time to d-d-d-duel ofc

FUC I JUST REMEMBERED ANOTHER THING I OWNED HOW COULD I FORGET oh my godddd it was a yugioh poster that i had on my wall for so long & i am EXTREMELY sad that i don’t have it anymore, idk why i thought i could just Throw It Out like a CLOWN, but it was like. it had yugi and friends on it (tho i think one of them might have been missing, it was either tristan or tea, also i just learned how tea’s name is spelled fuckin HUH), & yugi is like, he’s little yugi & he’s got his hands & maybe part of his face? pressed up against the “glass” (the barrier separating his world from ours, keeping him Contained), i remember this detail clearly bc i looked at it a lot and learned how to draw that effect from that specific poster... anyway the best part of the whole thing is that it came from like a scholastic book fair or something so it said in big letters “it’s time to READ!” it was SO good & im DEVASTATED i don’t have it anymore........ to gaze upon its brilliance one last time....................

anyway i think thats all my yu-gi-oh related childhood memories woah why did i type out the whole ass title like that this time damn what the fuck lmaooo 

rly sad abt the poster actually the more i think abt it the cuter it sounds tbh i wanna see that art again..... how could this happen.... i tried looking it up like the other stuff but i couldn’t find anything at all u_u

ok it’s late af now i need to go to bed before i pass ou

[dr-futbol-blog]

No Man's Land, Pt. 12

The Daedalus had been fired at by the wraith and had been damaged to the extent that they had lost their life support, and were now drifting in the massive void between the two galaxies, the veritable no man's land where no one would be able to reach them in time. According to McKay they had approximately nine hours of air left for the entire crew, and it seems as though the entire ship had now gone into emergency mode, everyone scrambling to think of something that they might do that could make their dire situation better. We join McKay as he is doing a walk-and-talk with Zelenka about their options with the weapons' officer trailing them, probably awaiting orders or instructions from them given that McKay at least knows the ship well enough not to need an escort having worked there previously. For Zelenka, however, the ship is not as familiar given that the first time he had seen it was when they were beamed away from the Orion as it was being destroyed by the wraith.

Zelenka: As long as we don't have to worry about shields and weapons, we may be able to cannibalise parts from some of our other systems in order to create at the very least a CO2 filtration system. McKay: By the time we've got something like that up and running, the CO2 levels will overwhelm any makeshift scrubbers we'd be able to concoct. Zelenka: But it's worth a try.

We have seen that McKay and Zelenka work well together, albeit differently from how Sheppard and McKay work together. McKay has a degree in Mechanical Engineering so Zelenka probably has something that is different from this but complementary so that they at the very least speak the same language. We are never told what Zelenka's doctorate is in but Electrical Engineering is a good candidate. Regardless, he seems to be thinking about how they might be able to rig up a filtration system out of spare parts, and McKay makes it sound as though they might be able to do that but not in time, which is the same problem that McKay had been faced with during Inferno (S02E19). They needed more practical solutions, and as we have noted many times before, McKay is not an ideas person, he is much better at figuring out how to make something go, how to fix something. And as usual, he is able to tell immediately whether some solution is workable or not, and while he appreciates Zelenka trying to come up with ideas, they are not getting any closer to solving this currently.

McKay: Yes. Yeah, but regardless, we need more electricians and welders than are technically certified on this ship's roster. Anyone, and I mean anyone who took Shop needs to report to us. Kleinman: There are teams assembling on every deck. McKay: Good. Good. Ah, now we're talking. How many more of these do we have? Kleinman: Twenty in total. McKay: How many people on board? Kleinman: In and around the two hundred mark. McKay: Oh, so I guess buddy-breathing our way through this one's out of the question. Kleinman: I'm afraid so, sir, yes.

McKay does not shoot Zelenka's idea down but thinks that they need a contingency plan regardless. McKay is clearly taking charge of the operation but we may note that he says "report to us" here, trusting Zelenka as his second in command to know what he is doing. While McKay does not use "us" as often as Sheppard does in reference to the two of them in particular, we may note that he does want to keep Sheppard apprised of what they are doing and to keep him in the loop, so his "us" may well include Sheppard also.

They finally reach their destination, which seems to have been where some of the crew members were unloading oxygen masks, one of them a beautiful woman that McKay pays no attention to. Note that initially McKay rubs his hands together because he is pleased by this turn of events, with this tiny bit of good luck. However, the weapons' officer brings him back down to Earth by pointing out that there is a limited supply of them. Note that McKay's reference to buddy-breathing -- the idea to share the tanks between crew members -- hints at the fact that he is thinking about Sheppard here. He is concerned for himself and for everyone, yes, but he is especially concerned for Sheppard, as is demonstrated shortly. Also, McKay's line here seems to hint at the fact that Sheppard had never taken Shop and that McKay knows this about him. He has to think of another reason to get Sheppard to have more air.

McKay: OK, fine. They're reserved for people working on getting life support systems operational. We need those people as clear-headed as possible. Kleinman: And, by those people... McKay: Yes, I will be one of them. Zelenka: How many levels are inaccessible? Kleinman: Seven.

We may note that in spite of having poor self-esteem, when McKay is talking about science and fixing things he sounds self-assured and in control. It is easy to see how he had become the head of the science corps and the chief science officer of the expedition because he is displaying clear leadership qualities here, taking responsibility and distributing tasks, and we may recall that he had been musing about leadership back in Letters from Pegasus (S01E17), having put actual thought and effort into what kind of a leader he wanted to be.

McKay is called upon to make a tough decision here that may come at a price, may lead to loss of life further down the line, but because he is feeling responsible for all the lives onboard, he has to make it. This scene, McKay telling the captain that yes, he will be one of the people assigned an oxygen tank, is undoubtedly one of the scenes that make people view McKay as arrogant. The way that the weapons' officer says "And by those people [you mean you]...," it seems like he is very much one of the people who might think this about McKay. It is easy to interpret this as him feeling entitled to the tank over other people, like he thinks his own life is more important than the lives of other people, maybe even everyone else. It is easy to see McKay's assertive way of saying this as selfish, and it is also easy to think that he is being a yellow-belly scaredy-cat who makes sure that he gets to have one of the things that might help him survive this in front of the line because he is so afraid of dying, which is not even adjacent to why McKay lays claim to a tank immediately.

McKay mentions that the reason to distribute the tanks to the people doing the fixes -- the people who are working to save everyone else -- is that they need to stay clear-headed. McKay is not just the chief scientist, he is also very likely the most intelligent person on board and he knows that he is the one who is asked and has been tasked saving everyone else. Everyone is looking to him to save them, like they so often are. He needs to be able to think because the lives of everyone else on the ship are depending on him to come up with a solution. McKay making sure that one of the tanks goes to him is not a selfish act but a selfless one, he is thinking about everyone. Beating around the bush about it is not going to help their situation any, especially when they are under a severe time constraint.

Of course McKay could have created some elaborate theatre of how he would reluctantly accept one of the tanks for the greater good -- but that kind of false modesty would only have wasted time. McKay needs to have one of tanks, and he knows it. He knows that Zelenka needs to have one too. He also knows that he cannot come up with any reason or even an excuse for Sheppard to get one, and so he has to think of another way to get him some extra air. He would like to give Sheppard a tank but he knows that it is not justified and they are better spent on people who are trying to help all of them, and it is this that shows us how much McKay is thinking about everyone and not just himself.

Zelenka: OK, we need to find out if there's any pockets of breathable atmosphere in there. We may be able to squeeze another hour or so from the regions that have been sealed off. McKay: We can't exactly transfer the O2 where we need it. Zelenka: Yes, but we could be... McKay: ...be able to access key panels that have been closed off to us. Let's get Sheppard in a 302, he can eyeball it from the outside. I'll take this.

And so we are demonstrated that McKay's mind is not just working on saving everyone, his mind is feverishly working on how to take care of Sheppard. Earlier, when Sheppard had been sitting in the cockpit of the F-302 on the hull of the hive and he had been talking with Michael, he had told him that he had three hours of air left for himself after having spent what had likely been several hours already sitting there, waiting for the hive to emerge from hyperspace. Earlier in The Intruder (S02E02), McKay had asked Sheppard how much air the F-302s had and Sheppard had told him that they had "lots" of air. We know that McKay knows that F-302s have air in them and that he knows that they have lots of air in them.

And so, because McKay is unable to come up with any excuse for Sheppard to et to have one of the tanks he is doing the next best thing -- he is putting Sheppard inside one of the F-302s and because he is giving him a task to do, Sheppard won't even know to feel like he is taking up air that other people could be breathing, which is something that he probably would feel if he was just offered air that others did not get. We had seen how Sheppard snapped his mouth shut just as soon as McKay had told them that they were running out of air earlier, it is clear that he does not want to take up air that other people could be breathing. And it is not just because Sheppard is the love of his life that McKay needs him to keep breathing -- he also needs Sheppard to stay clear-headed because so many times before he has needed Sheppard to come up with ideas for him to implement. He needs Sheppard to work with him

Sheppard: These sections are completely open to space, Rodney. There aren't even pockets you could beam into. What about an EVA? McKay: The spacesuits were stored in those sections. Sheppard: Alright. I'm heading back. McKay: Copy that.

We then get a very important scene. McKay had told Captain Kleinman that he wanted Sheppard to look at possible pockets of atmosphere from the outside, from the cockpit of an F-302 that has lots of air in it, and we now find Sheppard floating outside the ship. He had looked well and truly freaked out the last time we had seen him when the reality of the situation had sunk in, the depleting air and the time running out clearly filling him with dread. But all of that dread seems to be gone now as he is in the cockpit of a fighter-interceptor. Even though he does not have good news to give McKay he looks almost happy here, he looks content and it is likely that this is caused by the feeling that he is able to do something to help McKay, he is able to pitch in somewhere, he is able to make a contribution. We have seen that Sheppard has a need to be included in McKay's work and it is obvious that McKay has noticed the same thing. What is more, it seems like Sheppard had not actually caught on to why McKay had wanted him outside in the cockpit of a vessel that has lots of air in it, and hence harbours no feelings of guilt about it.

But what is important to note here is the tone in which Sheppard is talking to McKay. This is a semi-private moment between them -- McKay is out in the open working where other people are coming and going behind him but Sheppard is out there alone, and where McKay can be overheard, the only one who can hear Sheppard currently is McKay. Sheppard, that is, is speaking to McKay as though it were just the two of them whereas McKay is responding to him as though they were not alone. And Sheppard's tone is soft. He is speaking in a soft and tender voice which we never hear him use with anyone else. Sheppard speaks like this only to McKay, and only when the two of them are alone. It is almost as though Sheppard is whole other person when the two of them are alone and not in danger of being overheard. Sheppard tells McKay that the sections he is looking at are completely open to space but it seems as though Sheppard himself is also being completely open -- to McKay. Sheppard looks almost childlike as he is talking to McKay, all of the sarcasm and jadedness he usually exhibits nowhere to be seen. It is important to get to see Sheppard like this. It is important that we get to see Sheppard the way McKay gets to see him.

Sheppard is trying to workshop the problem with McKay, and even though the idea he offers to McKay is one that he is able to tell would not work immediately, he is still coming up with ideas for McKay to consider. McKay removes his mask as he responds to Sheppard and it is obvious he is trying to conserve air by talking as little as possible -- which is also something that Sheppard had taught him back in The Intruder, even if at the time Sheppard's intention had merely been to annoy McKay enough to make him forget to be anxious, to get on his nerves enough to hold off a panic attack. He is not conserving air by not talking at all now, but he is saying as little as possible. But even so, it is important for them to get to have this moment together because when they had seen each other again, they had not been alone. What is more, we again joined them in medias res here, we catch up to the tail-end of their conversation but what ever had been said before this moment was known only to the two of them. We also do not know how long Sheppard had been out there, but we have every reason to suspect that McKay had wanted to stretch it out, possibly even requesting Sheppard to perform some tasks while he was outside so that he might stay out there in the cockpit for a while longer, breathing his lungs full of air. McKay was taking care of Sheppard but Sheppard was also taking care of McKay, the two of them caring for the other.

McKay is welding while he is speaking with Sheppard, and we have noted before how McKay needs to focus on doing something, needs to focus on the work to keep from falling to pieces. He is holding himself together by keeping busy, keeping himself occupied. While Sheppard sounds soft and tender, McKay's voice breaks slightly as he mentions that the space suits had been lost in the explosion because he is keenly aware of the time running out, and while he may not be the only person who truly comprehends how screwed they are, he is the one who understands it the best. But unlike he had back in 38 Minutes (S01E05), McKay is not reacting to "certain doom in a certain way" here but he is instead doing what Sheppard had told him to do then, which was to keep on trying to fix the problem. But it is likely that Sheppard can still hear it in his voice, and so he decides to head back inside because if these are going to be their final moments together, he wants to spend them by actually being with McKay. And McKay likely feels the same way, not trying to come up with reasons for Sheppard to stay out there. It is possible that later on, he would have come up with another excuse to send him back out, to make sure he kept on breathing.

Zelenka: Have you tried routing the power through the inertial... McKay: Yes. Yes. Yes. We have tried everything. Zelenka: Subspace communications? McKay: We are floating between two galaxies, Radek. Atlantis has no ship to send. Even if we were somehow able to repair the array and get a message back to Earth...

Zelenka walks in to resume some work on the crystals just as McKay and Sheppard are finishing up with their call -- and it is even possible that he had found something for himself to do back when the two of them had started their conversation just to give them some privacy, given how we had seen in the previous episode in Zelenka's conversation with Sheppard that he is well-aware of the two of them being in a relationship with each other. However, there was only so long that he could stall because the work he was doing really did need doing.

We may note that McKay's tone is completely different with Zelenka. If he was trying to keep the desperation from his tone when he was talking to Sheppard -- even if Sheppard might have been able to detect it there anyway -- with Zelenka, he is not bothering to hide that he is looking at the end of the rope. When Sheppard had made a suggestion, he had told him why they could not do it. When Zelenka makes a suggestion, McKay snaps in frustration. With Sheppard, McKay is grateful that he comes up with ideas but with Zelenka in this moment, he feels like he is just wasting his time coming up with things that are not going to work. What is more, McKay is not bothering to sugarcoat their situation to Zelenka. With Sheppard, McKay would like to spare him the anxiety. He does not like to see Sheppard afraid and hopeless, and so while he is not keeping the truth from Sheppard, it is clear that he is trying to be delicate about it, is trying to keep his spirits up. There is clear and obvious pain in McKay's voice as he speaks to Zelenka but nonetheless he keeps on working, he keeps on trying to think of something that might get them out of this.

McKay: ...it would still take them weeks to get a rescue here. Zelenka: I wasn't thinking of rescue. I was thinking simply of telling them that we've stopped the wraith, and perhaps letting someone know the sacrifice that we've done. McKay: Well, a noble sentiment, but I would prefer to dedicate my last breath of air to getting more air. Wait a second.

Zelenka seems to have given up and has started thinking not of ways to rescue them but of making sure that their sacrifice was not for nothing. McKay, however, very much does not want to die. He tells Zelenka that he would rather fight until the last moment to keep all of them alive and in this he is echoing what Michael had told Sheppard earlier: "I doubt I'll be allowed to live much longer, and yet I very much want to continue living." McKay has a reason to live, which has not always been the case for him, and now that he has found his reason for living he does not want to give it up.

What McKay says here "I would prefer to dedicate my last breath of air to getting more air" is again easy to read as him being selfish -- as McKay thinking about his own survival. But he is not actually saying that he would like to use his last breath of air getting more air to himself. McKay is intending to use his last breath of air getting more air to everyone -- but especially Sheppard. He had put Sheppard into the cockpit to breathe, and while he had taken the oxygen tank for himself, the first thing he had thought about had been buddy-breathing with someone. McKay was using up the air currently trying to figure out a way to get more air, and every choice that he has made here tells us that it was Sheppard he was thinking about most of all.

McKay cares about other people and we have seen him willing to sacrifice his life for others many, many times because he does not seem to truly comprehend the value of his own life. But he very much wants to continue living like Michael now that he has found love, has found a home in someone, has someone worth fighting to live for. McKay does not want to dedicate his last breath of air to getting more air for himself, he fully intends for his last breath of air to be spent on saving Sheppard. And just as soon as he formulates the problem in this framework rather than thinking about fixing their life support system, he has a Eureka! moment. The ship that he had sent Sheppard out in is not the only ship around them that has air in it.

Continued in Pt. 13

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Long Goodbye, Pt. 14

Phoebus has just ordered Teyla to kill Thalen and Sheppard with him, and because she now reiterates her "or else," this is when Sheppard finally discovers what is actually at stake here. For Thalen it makes no difference, he does not care about anyone or anything else but killing Phoebus -- or at the very least surviving her attempt at killing him, thus ending their war in a stalemate. But Sheppard cares, knowing many of the people personally and being responsible for all of them, their safety and security. If previously Thalen and Sheppard had both agreed when they had flippantly told Teyla to just ignore her, this is when Sheppard would start screaming inside his head in earnest. Even though we see no change on his face, Thalen in complete control of his body, Sheppard would definitely have a problem with this. And note that again, even though no one is speaking just then, we see McKay looking up into the distance as though he is listening to something.

Phoebus: Kill him now, or I vent halon fire suppressant into all the living spaces in Atlantis. Caldwell: McKay? McKay: I know, I know. I'm almost done here. Teyla: Colonel, can she do this? Chuck: Yes. She's created a shunt between the fire suppressant system and life support. Caldwell: I believe so. Teyla: How many people are at risk? Caldwell: Three-quarters of the expedition.

If Sheppard is screaming inside Thalen's head, trying to get heard, he would likely be trying to say something like TEYLA, YOU GOT TO DO IT, given that she is immediately involved with the situation, or RODNEY, STOP HER, given that we know Sheppard has absolute faith in McKay's abilities and this venting of halon fire suppressant into the living spaces sounds like something McKay should be able to keep her from doing. The latter seems more likely because although he would rather give up his life than have hundreds of people die for him, he may not be quite "there" yet with needing his friend and colleague to shoot him dead. It was only now that the full scope of the problem they were facing had even been revealed to him.

Now, we keep seeing McKay do this, stopping very obviously to listen. It is possible he is merely listening to the exchange as he can hear it from the security camera feed (even though, as pointed out, no one was talking when he had stopped to listen this time), and certainly the fact that it is the life of his lover that is on the line would grab his attention. They are discussing Sheppard, the woman who is holding the whole city hostage demanding that he be killed immediately. It is understandable that McKay would find this mighty distracting. And yet there must be some reason we were told that no one could hear Weir screaming inside Phoebus' head but it is left ambiguous whether Sheppard had the same experience as her.

Because whether it is inside his head or with his ears, McKay is attuned to Sheppard. His entire focus should be on cracking the system to save all the people in the city but for him, Sheppard is more important. Teyla asks how many lives are at stake like it is a rational calculus of how many lives can be exchanged for one where McKay would never need to ask that. Sheppard is the most important thing in his life bar none. Note also that McKay claims to be nearly done with something that was supposed to take him hours to accomplish. Either Phoebus using Weir's knowledge of the system had vastly underrated McKay's abilities, which seems unlikely, or McKay is getting some kind of help in cracking the system, and it is not necessary that he even realizes this is happening himself.

Teyla: Why are you doing this? Phoebus: I have spent my entire life at war with his world. Thousands have died with no hope for victory, both sides reduced to a mere handful of fighters. If he really is the last, then in the end my people will have won.

Whether she is doing this consciously to play for time, to give McKay time to hack his way into the system (and it is not entirely clear Teyla even knows what they are trying to do, having been out of the loop and only given instructions by Caldwell) or she just wants to know, Teyla does the thing that Beckett had suggested Caldwell try on for size earlier: she tries talking to her. And whether it is the intended consequence or not, this moment is important enough for Phoebus to start speechifying, hence running down the clock. It is a grandiose oration, worthy of the end of their long war. She is speaking for all of her people, all the lives that they had lost along the way. Note that Thalen does not say anything, merely looking up at Teyla with what he intends to be sincere eyes. If is difficult to know what he is thinking, what kind of strategy he is devising to use, but given that he is tied up, we have seen Sheppard use both manipulation and charm in such situations, to use his skills in psychological warfare.

It could be that he is not sure which one of them to start working over, which one would be easier to get to. Teyla with her gun is the immediate problem but Phoebus is the bigger problem and while Thalen does not care about the three quarters of the expedition she is holding hostage, he realizes that Teyla does. For Sheppard, the three quarters of the expedition are much more important and where Thalen is trying to devise a plan to save his own ass, Sheppard wants to save the people, not necessarily even knowing whether McKay is among those people or not. This is where Sheppard might start screaming inside his head for Teyla, who of course cannot hear him. Sheppard does not want to die but he cannot take all of those lives on his conscience either. Teyla is going to have to do the right thing. The hard thing. He does not envy her.

Thalen: Don't believe her! Phoebus: Believe me when I say I have absolutely nothing to lose. In a very short time, I will feel excruciating pain, this body will convulse, and I will cease to exist. That's what is ahead for me. All I can hope for now is to achieve victory for my people. Teyla: Phoebus, your people are long dead. Who lost or won a war so many years ago does not matter. Phoebus: It matters to me.

Thalen tells Teyla not to believe what Phoebus is saying and to be fair, she has been lying to them from the very beginning. This too is something that Thalen and Sheppard might both say to Teyla since, through Thalen, Sheppard now probably knows the truth about their war. We never learn the backstory beyond her version of their history. Whether her version matches the events or she is putting a spin on them, what is obvious is that she is using Weir's skills as a diplomat and a negotiator here, delivering this speech like she might once have delivered an address at the UN. Thalen likely does not care one whit what Teyla believes but it is important for him to destabilize the hold Phoebus seems to have on her, having convinced Teyla that she is in charge of the situation. Even though we are not watching Weir and Sheppard go against each other, the alien entities are making use of their respective gifts and giving us a taste of what it might be if the two actually were forced to work against each other.

It is obvious that Teyla does not want to do what Phoebus is demanding she do, and is trying her damnedest to talk her out of it using her own skills as a negotiator, as someone who has brokered many deals. in Trinity (S02E06) she had told Ronon: "A negotiation is a delicate process -- the words spoken are often meaningless." Here, Teyla is trying to make her feel seen and heard, to acknowledge her anguish in the hope that they might be able to find a peaceable solution to their conflict -- but she is far beyond reason. And yet Phoebus' line "It matters to me" is interesting here, especially if we recognize that it has been months since Sheppard and McKay had fallen apart. It has been such a long time that it should not matter who was right and who was wrong. They should let bygones be bygones. McKay seems to have forgiven Sheppard after the events of Trinity but it seems like Sheppard is still holding on to some hurt, perhaps McKay asking him for more time, some words that had been spoken. What ever it is, he is unable to let go.

Thalen: If you kill me, you'll kill him. He cares for you more than you know. Teyla: Please do not make me do this.

Many people have noted the fact that we get a close-up of McKay following Thalen's line to Teyla, his face in anguish. Even though he has been doing this, freezing in place to stop and listen, ever since Thalen had regained consciousness, it is especially noticeable here. Even the mainstream interpretation is that McKay is jealous but for them this jealousy is motivated by friendship. Whether or not one interprets the relationship between Sheppard and Teyla as having romantic undertones or just being friendly, the implication is that McKay is jealous of their connection. That McKay is somehow being slighted here.

In this episode, we have been given the opportunity to see the special connection Sheppard has with Ronon and now his special connection with Teyla and if one goes on only by the maintext, one has to come to the conclusion that he simply lacks this with McKay, that they do not have a special bond that is "deeper than words." There is very little indication in the episode that they even like each other, there is scoffing over television at the start, McKay whining about Weir's imprinting not being his fault and Sheppard telling him to quit his bellyaching, McKay throwing a sarcastic quip at Sheppard before he goes under and then shooting him with the gun that Sheppard had given to him for reasons that must be inexplicable for the mainstream viewer. And now McKay is upset that Sheppard cares about someone else more than him when he so yearns for that friendship.

Let us start with the fact that Thalen is saying this to Teyla because he is trying to manipulate her. He can tell, both by what he has been watching and what he knows through Sheppard, that Teyla is a very empathetic person. Teyla cares about him and does not want to kill him, and he can work with that. He is trying to make Teyla feel sympathy for him, trying to forge a bond between the two of them, between Thalen and Teyla, through the fact that they both care about Sheppard's well-being. They both want Sheppard to live, so they should work together. But even though it is Thalen saying this, it does not mean that what he says is untrue. This likely is what Sheppard thinks. He is not very expressive of his feelings so caring about her more than she knows is a low bar, but Sheppard cares about her a lot. Their conversation in Sateda (S03E04) is basically a confirmation of this. Sheppard tells Teyla that she is like family to him. We have no reason to think that what Thalen is saying that Sheppard feels here is a lie.

However, while many mainstream viewers will jump directly to romance (Do not pass go!) because it is a man and a woman, nowhere is it said that what Sheppard feels toward her has any romantic undertones. There are many ways to care about people, and Sheppard cares for her as a good friend, the first friend that he had made in this galaxy and probably the first friend he had made in a long time. But we also have no reason whatsoever to think that Sheppard was lying at the end of Conversion (S02E08) when he told her that he does not think of her like that, and she also seemed relieved to hear this. They are friends, nothing more, which is also how Teyla had also described her relationship with Ronon.

Their conversation in Sateda made it clear that while he considers Teyla, Ronon and McKay all his family, McKay is in a whole other category to the others. As McKay stops what he is doing to listen to this exchange, hearing Thalen speak words that he has longed to hear from Sheppard for a long time, he is not motivated by friendship. That is not why it looks like this hurts him to hear. Teyla and McKay have very similar expressions here, they are both in as much anguish and it is because Teyla is not the only one asked to make a tough choice here. While what Thalen says is true of what Sheppard feels for Teyla, it is also absolutely true of what he feels for McKay. He cares for McKay more than he will ever know, more than he can even understand. But he is also trying actively to keep McKay from knowing how much he cares.

As we have discussed during the several previous episodes, Sheppard is not very good at expressing his feelings. He is not good at verbalizing his emotions, and probably does not even know how to name them. Coming from a childhood home where caring was probably shown through cool detachment, having lost his mother when he was young, being cared for by nannies and shipped off to private schools, Sheppard is severely emotionally stunted. In Outcast (S04E15), his ex-wife makes a comment about knowing him, making it seem like it is unfortunate that she does know him as well as she does. Their main problem seems to have been the fact that Sheppard did not want to be in the marriage because he had only married her to please his father, but they probably had other problems as well. Later he tells Ronon that he was not very good at marriage. At least he is self-aware about all that.

Sheppard and McKay fell in love during the first season, and they both definitely had recognized what it was they felt by Letters from Pegasus (S01E17). But it seems like to this episode they have never neither of them spoken the "L-word". In fact, it is not until Tao of Rodney (S03E14) that the word is spoken between them and even there they need Weir to function as an intermediary, which we have seen her do before. We'll get back to that episode (and why Sheppard decides to make the moment as awkward as possible) later but just to reiterate something I've written previously, the conversation between Weir and McKay at the end of the episode seems to reflect something that had likewise taken place between Sheppard and McKay that we never got to see. And yet the episode confirms that the word was now out there, it had been spoken. McKay was not wrong in thinking that it took him nearly dying to get Sheppard to say it. McKay yearns for that verbal confirmation of meaning something to Sheppard, acknowledgement of his importance, of being chosen by him. And here, listening to him speak the words to Teyla that he has been longing to hear for months and months, it feels to him like he is again not being chosen. Someone else is being chosen in his stead.

But McKay hears him say these words. That much is obvious. And yet Sheppard probably does not want to say them. It has to be killing him to hear Thalen say something like that without his consent. What Sheppard is thinking inside his head we do not know but let us recall that McKay had said to him before he had gone under that he thought this might have been a way for "two survivors to say one last goodbye," for lovers to say farewell, and while Sheppard never wants to say goodbye, it is something that McKay very much desires. He is forced to keep quiet and listen to this when any moment could be the last, when any breath Sheppard takes could be his last, and he is unable to say anything to him. McKay is not allowed to say goodbye to him.

Also, let us recognize the fact that although Thalen could have outed Sheppard easily during this episode, he never does it because this is not about Sheppard, this is about him not getting killed by Phoebus. Even if Sheppard was thinking about McKay inside his head, of wanting to get some message to him, wanting to say anything to him, Thalen has no incentive to relay his messages. He is not speaking for Sheppard here, he is speaking for himself. He is driving his own agenda. Sheppard's big illicit gay love affair is of no concern to him. McKay had shot him. He wants to keep Sheppard as far away from McKay as possible and he is certainly not about to pass him a note with Sheppard's final words on it. That is not what this is about.

Although Thalen is speaking of what Sheppard feels for Teyla, inside his head Sheppard has to be thinking about McKay because he is always thinking about McKay. He is thinking about McKay's safety and his well-being, not wanting him to die suffocating on halon gas. He might also be holding on to hope that McKay will be able to save him because he has always come through for him. If Sheppard is screaming anything inside his head, it has to be a variation of what he is always telling McKay, RODNEY, WORK FASTER.

Thalen: You don't have to. Phoebus: Shoot him, or I release the gas and just hope it reaches the both of you. Caldwell: She has the capability of doing what she claims. Teyla... I'm not gonna tell you what to do. Phoebus: I am. Kill him.

Teyla is in a difficult situation, many people making demands on her at the same time. She is undoubtedly faced with a very difficult moral dilemma. She is kind of like the goat between the two bails of hay, Phoebus and Thalen both trying to tug at her, to get her do what they want. And as they both tell her what to do, Caldwell leaves the choice to her. This is not an act of kindness because if she was a member of the Earth military, it would be Caldwell's duty to give her the order to either comply or to stand down.

That is the very reason why the military as a chain of command, that soldiers are free to comply with orders without having to pontificate the moral implications of their choices. That is the totalizing nature of the military apparatus, it is meant to vanish the individual in service to the whole. This is not an act of kindness on Caldwell's part but an acknowledgement that he has no jurisdiction over her, especially when it comes to killing the actual commander of this operation. He cannot give the order to kill Sheppard, but he also cannot give an order that will lead to the death of three quarters of the expedition, so he opts not to play and takes the easy way out. If it had been one of his space marines that had caught Sheppard, he would not have this luxury. He would have to give the order, and he would have to bear the responsibility for it. Now he is able to relinquish this responsibility to a native woman of this galaxy who seems wholly unequipped in dealing with this dilemma, this moral choice.

But let us make note of the really interesting thing here, which is that what Caldwell and Phoebus (who is narrative mirror for Sheppard) say here parallels what Weir and Sheppard had told Zelenka in Grace Under Pressure (S02E14). Weir tells him "I'm not going to order you to go" and Sheppard says "I will!" The situation is the inverse of this, as they are discussing rescuing McKay where now they are discussing killing Thalen, narrative mirror to McKay, with Caldwell filling Weir's role. Again there is a conversion of what had taken place between Sheppard and McKay. And although Sheppard's intention was to rescue McKay, he seemed more than willing to sacrifice both his own and Zelenka's life to do it. Thalen is shown sitting down on the floor with his hands tied, not unlike McKay stuck in the rear compartment of the jumper unable to do anything but wait to be rescued. This exchange seems to more than confirm how Phoebus and Thalen have been used as narrative mirrors, and the roles that they bear.

Note again that as Phoebus gives the order, we see McKay stop what he is doing entirely. He now gives Caldwell a look that is part anger and part betrayal. He is pleading for Caldwell to do something when it is he that is meant to be doing something to remedy this situation. His face is saying how can you let her? If he had been able to focus on hacking the system, he might have been able to get in earlier but he seems very much distracted by what he hears is taking place in the camera feed.

There is also the possibility that McKay is channelling Sheppard here, that his expression is due to what Sheppard is thinking about Caldwell's decision not to give the order to Teyla, understanding the implications. If there is anyone that gets what Caldwell does here, shirking his responsibility because he is disinclined to make the tough call possibly due to his own recent experiences and because the whole purpose of his visit had been to make amends. But Sheppard gets that this is an insult to Teyla, this is the same thing Bates had been doing, which was to refuse to see her as a full member of this operation. She is a part of Sheppard's team and if he was in the same situation, he would give the order because that is his responsibility. By giving the order, he would make it easier for her. He would take the bigger portion or her burden to carry for himself. So the fact that McKay looks mad as he glances at Caldwell, this probably matches what Sheppard is feeling right now precisely.

Thalen: Sheppard doesn't believe you'll do it. Teyla: Forgive me, John.

Thalen is looking up at Teyla saying nothing, likely trying to feverishly think of something that might get him and with him Sheppard out of this predicament. For some reason, we keep getting shots of McKay as though his situation, McKay's hackathon, is just as intense as what is happening with Teyla. In the beginning of the episode they had spotted what they thought were two "ships," one in a lower orbit than the other, and this whole scene is a masterclass in using a relationship in the maintext, here a close friendship between a man and a woman, to run cover for the relationship in the subtext that could never be textualized. It is really not that subtle at all when you know to look for it. McKay is in this scene with them because that is his rightful place. What ever decision Teyla makes, it does not just affect her and Sheppard, it very much affects McKay.

Thalen tells Teyla that Sheppard does not think she will do it, and again it is possible he is telling the truth. It is possible that it is what Sheppard thinks, but the tone in which Sheppard thinks it is probably very different from Thalen. Thalen sounds almost gleeful, as though he has figured out something important. For Sheppard, thinking that Teyla will not be able to do it likely comes from a place of despair. We noted earlier that there is a difference between someone that is unable to shoot you because they love you and someone who is capable of shooting you when they know that not doing it would cost you your soul. Sheppard would never be able to live with three quarters of the expedition dying because of him on his conscience, and he has to be silently begging for Teyla to take the shot. But he does not think she has it in her, as tough as she is.

She cares about him very much but she does not know her as well as a lover would. He had given his gun to McKay before agreeing to go under because he wanted McKay to have something to protect himself with if things went South, and to shoot him if it ever came down to that. If the alien had been about to use his body to do something that Sheppard could not live with, he gave the gun to McKay so that he would take him out. We do not know what McKay would have done in this situation, but we did already see him shoot at Sheppard just like Sheppard had meant for him to do. Whether or not he did it because of some mental push from Sheppard is irrelevant because either way, he was doing what Sheppard wanted him to do. Even if it killed him -- and it probably would -- McKay would always try to do what Sheppard wanted him to do. Sheppard never needs to give him orders because fulfilling his wishes is what McKay desires. So Sheppard does not think that Teyla will do it but he wishes that she could. This is a state of affairs that makes Thalen gleeful and Sheppard anguished.

In calling Sheppard John, Teyla is again bringing the episode back to Conversion (S0208) where Teyla had been forced to shoot at Sheppard because in his bug form he had been advancing on her, having already assaulted her once. She told him, "Please do not make me do this" but even though he had been threatening her life, she had only been able to fire on the floor in front of him in an attempt at scaring him to back off. Even when Sheppard had been a threat to her own life, Teyla had been unable to shoot him even just to injure him. And it is possible that it is for that very reason that Sheppard now thinks that she won't be able to do it this time either. Earlier Thalen had told Ronon that he was the only one he could trust not to shoot him on sight, but it may actually be Teyla that he can trust not to shoot him, how ever much Sheppard would now like him to.

So, if we look at each member of Sheppard's team and what they likely would have done in this situation, Ronon probably would not only have not shot Sheppard, he would have let any number of people die to save his life. His loyalty is to Sheppard and he would not have felt any kind of way about sacrificing people to save him even if it would have destroyed Sheppard to know so many would have died for him. Ronon would have sacrificed the others. Teyla, as we see, is unable to make the choice. She cannot shoot him but she cannot sacrifice the others either, so she winds up in the same situation as Ronon but through inaction. She is unable to choose, so he is saved and the others die. If McKay was in the same situation, he would have faced the authentic "Trolley problem" because there would not have been anyone working to "Kobyashi Maru" the situation, like he is doing for Teyla now. He would have had to choose between actively killing Sheppard or letting hundreds of innocents die, knowing that Sheppard would not have wanted either one of them to have to live with their lives on their conscience. And McKay both knows Sheppard well enough and loves him deep enough that he would have made the decision he knows Sheppard would have wanted him to make, regardless of the personal cost to him. That is why Sheppard had given him his own gun.

We may recall that one of the first things Sheppard had been forced to do when he had come to this galaxy was to take the life of his own commanding officer as an act of mercy, convinced that it is what the man would have wanted him to do. Later, when describing the event to Colonel Everett, Colonel Sumner's close friend, they have the following exchange:

Sheppard: By the time I reached Colonel Sumner— Everett: Worse, you admit to firing the shot that killed him. Sheppard: Because I believe that's what he wanted me to do. Everett: You knew him that well, did you? Sheppard: You weren't there, sir. Everett: I wish, for his sake, I was.

The implication here is that because Everett knows that he knew Sumner better than Sheppard, he would have tried harder to save him and would not have taken his life, thinking that Everett would never have wanted to be shot even though Sheppard is correct that in the situation he had been in, beyond saving and in excruciating pain, he was with his eyes pleading for Sheppard to do the kind thing even knowing that he had not earned the man's kindness and was owed only his obedience. But Sumner was not in a position to make it an order and so Sheppard had to make a choice, and he was the one who had to bear the responsibility. It is a heavy burden to bear, and he tells Everett: "There isn't a night that doesn't go by where that moment doesn't play in my head…" Later on, after Everett has had a personal experience that had given him only a taste of what Sumner had suffered, they revisit the conversation:

Everett: I... owe you an apology. Sheppard: No, sir, you don't. Everett: I think I have a pretty good idea. I would have done the same thing as you did when you found Colonel Sumner. It's what I wanted to tell you. Sheppard: Well, none of that matters right now, sir. Everett: I'm trying to say... I wish you had been there for me.

Everett is basically telling him the same as Phoebus had just told Teyla, "It matters to me." It had never been that Everett was not prepared to do the same for his fiend, only that he had underestimated the wraith as an adversary. He had not understood what they were up against. But now that he understood, he knew that he would have done the same and he tells Sheppard, even though he survived, that he wishes someone had been there to do the same for him. The merciful thing. The kind thing. The thing you do when you really love someone is to let them go when it is better for them and not hold onto them selfishly because you cannot bear to let them go.

If there is anyone who knows how Sheppard feels about this, it is McKay. If there is anyone he has talked with about any of this, it is McKay. If there is anyone who knows his last will and testament, it is McKay. It is McKay who he considers his next of kin, who he considers the person who should be the one to make medical decisions for him when he is unable to do them for himself even when he has no official capacity to be this for him. He wants McKay to be this. And McKay had already shot him. Twice. McKay has always come through for him even if he now suddenly seems to have trouble even reading the code on his screen through the tears in his eyes.

Continued in Pt. 15

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Long Goodbye, Pt. 4

Lorne and his team have brought in the other pod and unsurprisingly, we find McKay working on it. And just as unsurprisingly we find Sheppard watching him work, and even Caldwell has chosen to join them instead of spending time with Weir hosting the alien consciousness, a soon to perish representative of a vanishing civilization. For sure, they might figure that Weir is able to learn as much about their culture as there is to learn but at least one of them might have stayed with her for security reasons. But alas, they have not and are now both listening to McKay explaining things about the pod technology in the way that he knows Sheppard likes him to explain things to him, simplified but not dumbed down to a condescending degree.

McKay: As I understand it, the beam that hit Elizabeth was part of a failsafe feature built into the pod system. As cellular failure progressed, the pod stored her consciousness in a sort of flash memory. Caldwell: Why? I mean, what good is the technology if the effects are temporary?

Sheppard is frowning as he looks down at the pod in front of him, apparently having agreed to host the consciousness of the man inside. He seems to be having second and even third doubts about it but we may note that even though his eyes are fixed on the pod, his head still seems to be turning when McKay is moving in the room, following the sound of his voice, which again show us how his body is like a compass needle to McKay's True North. We may also note that McKay has really tried to figure out how this alien technology works before allowing Sheppard anywhere near trying it on. He has tried to make sure it is going to be safe for him.

Sheppard: It's a Black Box! McKay: Well, that makes sense. Even if the body is incapable of being revived, the survivor can still report what happened to their ship. The rescue team could interrogate them even if they were incapable of regaining consciousness. Caldwell: You're talking about a human flight recorder. That's pretty dark.

Even though Sheppard has kept his eyes fixed on the pod, the way he looks up as he makes his suggestion tells us that he has been listening to everything McKay has been saying with a keen ear. And again he displays his understanding and his quick thinking in coming up with an explanation to Caldwell's why question. McKay can tell them how it works, he is the one who comes up with the why, the two of them working together. And we may note that McKay accepts his explanation immediately and fully, even elaborating on it, appreciating Sheppard's insight.

However, note the way Sheppard narrows his eyes as McKay comes up with a hypothetical scenario that seems to resemble something that Sheppard has actually lived through -- reminding him of something that we are only going to learn about him later, which is his failed rescue mission in Afghanistan that he himself had been freshly reminded of through his rescue of McKay in Grace Under Pressure (S02E14). Sheppard had been forced to relive his failure to rescue Captain Holland, and although we learn more about what had happened in Phantoms (S03E09), it is never made entirely clear whether Holland had already been dead by the time Sheppard had reached the chopper or if he had actually been able to have the conversation with Holland as he had while he had been hallucinating Teyla was him -- whether he got to unburden his heart with Teyla through having a conversation with Holland he never got to have in the real world, having been too late.

Whether or not Sheppard had been able to get a "report" or to "interrogate" Holland following the crash, McKay's words nonetheless seem to remind him of the event. This makes it seem as though he has not told McKay about that, at least not yet, and hence McKay does not know how tender the flesh is that he is inadvertently pinching here. If he had shared that with McKay, it might have resolved many issues between them, McKay better understanding where he is coming from. What ever had happened, Sheppard probably did collect the black box from the chopper and it had featured in his court martial. And what is more, none of this would be nearly as acutely in Sheppard's memory if he had not come so very close to losing McKay when his jumper had suddenly and without warning gone crashing down from the sky. He is now forced to imagine interrogating McKay after his death, and he does not like this thought at all.

Sheppard: Pretty useful thing in times of war. McKay: Well, it could also be the means for two survivors to say one last goodbye, hmm?

Not wanting to dwell on his memories, Sheppard makes a general and non-committal reply to Caldwell where McKay, possibly influenced by the romantic yarn Phoebus had purposefully been spinning to get them invested in this, makes a comment that is, we can only hope, unintentionally cruel towards Sheppard. If McKay knows about Sheppard's history, it would be hurtful but as it seems as though that part of Sheppard's personal history is still unknown to him, McKay may only intend a much lighter jab with his words, referring to the personal history between the two of them because he still has sore feelings about not getting to say goodbye to him when he decided to fly the jumper to the hive. Or his tone might simply come from him quoting Phoebus, this having been her excuse for why she wants to do this. But McKay definitely has some bitter feelings when it comes to Sheppard and saying goodbye, although he may not yet know why it is so difficult for Sheppard to say, and to especially say to him.

Like Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, Sheppard does not want to say goodbye, albeit for a different reason that I will return to by the end of the episode. Sheppard has those serious abandonment issues and he is looking for someone that will never leave him, who will stand by him until the end of the line. And although McKay very much is that guy (it will take Sheppard being transported 40,000 years into the future to finally realize this), McKay himself needs verbal affirmation that he is important, that he is cared for, that he is Sheppard's choice. To him, saying goodbye means letting someone you love know that you care about them where for Sheppard having to say goodbye, having to let someone go, is straight up torture -- and this is a point of fundamental disconnect between them.

There is backstory to why they feel the way they do, and it may not be a coincidence they have this exchange just as Weir is being wheeled into the room in a wheelchair. It seems as though both men had lost their mothers while they had been young, and we might venture a guess based on their respective pathologies that for Sheppard the loss had been sudden and dramatic (car crash, or even a private plane crash, where she had not died in the crash but of the injuries sustained soon after the crash) and for McKay it had been a protracted affair of watching his mother wither away from an illness. But in spite of this, Sheppard had been forced to say goodbye to his mother and McKay had been denied the opportunity to say goodbye to his because he had not been by her bedside when it had finally happened, he may have been off to college, working on some theorem or taking care of Jeannie, or what ever, depending on his age. He had not been there and never got the chance to say it. And it seems like he never gets the chance to say it to Sheppard either, and not for lack of having had the occasion.

For McKay, saying goodbye is what you do to someone you love, you stay at their bedside and suffer through the pain and then you get to say it. For Sheppard, if you never say goodbye to them it means that they are not really ever gone -- to a child's mind having said goodbye might even translate to having caused their death, having given them leave to die. Because Sheppard has such a strong ATA gene, it also indicates that probably both of his parents had it, and there is also the possibility that he had somehow been able to tap into his mother's pain the same way Beckett seemed to tap into McKay's pain during The Hive (S02E11), mother and son inadvertently creating some kind of a loop where he was forced to experience her death, which would have made the whole ordeal even more traumatic to him as a child. Sheppard does not want a repeat of that experience ever, and so he avoids having to say goodbye to a pathological degree, he will not even say goodbye on the phone. However, it is not that he does not appreciate the sentiment, since we find out in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) that Sheppard has kept a copy of the video message McKay had recorded in Letters from Pegasus (S01E17) that was essentially McKay recording his goodbyes, his final thoughts and messages to people.

But the way McKay says it here, both fond and challenging, makes it seem like this has been a topic of conversation between them -- perhaps even a point of contention between them following the events of The Siege (S01E20) where McKay had been truly hurt by Sheppard's choice to sacrifice his life for him without telling him, without giving him the chance to say goodbye. Even if he might appreciate where Sheppard is coming from, getting the chance to say goodbye is important to McKay. It is an acknowledgement of the bond between them. It is the chance to let the person he loves to know how he feels, to reaffirm what he should of course already know. McKay will keep trying to get his chance to say it to Sheppard just as hard as Sheppard keeps avoiding having to say it to McKay, and to him in particular.

Caldwell: Are you sure she's up for this? Beckett: Physically, she's perfectly fine. Besides, Elizabeth wouldn't take no for an answer. Phoebus: Love is a powerful thing, Carson. Sheppard: You're a hopeless romantic, you know that? Phoebus: Well, you're just as hopeless, otherwise you wouldn't have agreed.

We do not get to see Sheppard's reaction to McKay's words, we do not get to see how he understood and received them. Beckett wheels Phoebus in and tells them that Elizabeth had been quite insistent that they go through with this, further cementing the fact that it is Phoebus pretending to be Weir that is trying to get this to happen, who has a burning drive to see the man in the pod imprinted on a man of this civilization they have never before encountered, only to have one last word with him. As mentioned, although she tells them that this is her husband and they do seem to know each other very well, intimately even, they appear to be enemies intent on annihilating each other's cultures and while she could just have watched him die right here without ever being revived, her hatred is such that she seems to feel the need to see him suffer. It is not enough that he and his people are erased from history, she needs to see the defeat in his eyes and that kind of devotion, that kind of all-consuming obsession is not far from love.

She is pretending to be a woman missing her lover and her hatred for the man is passionate enough that she manages to fool all of them. She tells them here, by way of an excuse, that love is a powerful thing but she does not actually tell them that she loves the man in the pod. It is possible that Thalen had taken or killed something important to her and this is why she needs revenge. If Thalen had been responsible for killing her actual husband or her child -- possibly even their child (in mythology, Phoebe was one of the Amazons and we might be dealing with a similar civilization that had closed men off but still needed them to reproduce, while Thalen would have come from the Gargareans where the two peoples would have met once a year to repopulate both tribes, girls going to the Amazons and boys to the Gargareans) -- then her need for revenge might find an explanation but alas, we never learn of their motivations, how their two cultures had come to clash. But while she may in some fashion be motivated by love, the reason why she is giving them this excuse now seems to be because she is playing Sheppard and McKay. We already saw that McKay was feeling romantic what with his reference to lovers saying goodbye, given with a smile, but it seems as though he is far from alone in this.

Sheppard calls Weir a hopeless romantic, sounding jaded, needing that sarcastic distance to authentic feeling. This is not really an assessment of her character as much as just a jibe at her comment because Weir cannot precisely be described as such. She is not very expressive with feelings, and Sheppard seems well aware of this. Even when we saw her with her actual lover, Weir seemed outwardly cold and distant, and this may have been one of the reasons that had driven her lover to seek comfort in the arms of another. Weir is not unfeeling but she tries very hard to control her feelings and not to let them show, and this has likely served her well as a career diplomat if not in her personal relationships. Point is, while Sheppard says this, it is not true, and he does not even intend it as a description of her character, he is merely pointing out that she is being uncharacteristically schmoopy. But knowing everything that Weir knows about him, Phoebus pulls an Uno Reverse on Sheppard and calls him romantic, and this actually is an apt description of him even though he tries very hard to hide it.

Sheppard is the romantic hero, not unlike Philip Marlowe, in spite of his dark-clad and occasionally jaded exterior, in the sense of fulfilling the chivalric ideal of masculine military heroism emphasizing subjectivity and the primacy of the individual. But he is also romantic in the sense that he loves a lot and even though he has tried hard not to, love seems to motivate most of the things that he does. In the first season, we saw him read through War and Peace, which contains a famous love story and later on we learn that he has also read The Princess Bride (and he has read it, not just seen it, quoting from the book), meaning that Sheppard actually enjoys romantic literature and is a big schmoop underneath his gruff exterior. And it is not just that he consumes romance, Phoebus through Weir also knows that the man is hopelessly, helplessly in love and had just taken a jumper to the bottom of the ocean to fetch his man, she knows that Sheppard would pretty much do anything for the man that he loves. Using the idea of love to motivate Sheppard into doing this is ingenious, it shows us how well Weir knows him.

But because they have this exchange, a man calls a woman a hopeless romantic and she basically responds "it takes one to know one," implying that they are birds of a feather, it is so easy for the mainstream viewer to interpret this as indicating that they have romantic feelings toward each other, when that is not even adjacent to what is established here. Sheppard did not agree to do this because he has feelings for Weir but because he thinks that he knows what Phoebus, missing her husband, must be feeling -- he explicitly said as much. He is doing this so that Phoebus might be reunited with her husband one last time, and if he can give her her husband back for even a moment, he figures it is worth doing. Sheppard is a hopeless romantic but even more than that, he knows loss. He knows what it is like to yearn to be reunited with a lost lover. It is so easy to see Sheppard's motivation when one looks at all deeper into his character and yet the heteronormative assumption makes it easy to jump to conclusions. A boy, a girl and love has been mentioned so obviously they are sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. But actually Sheppard finds it easy to empathize with someone missing their husband because he knows himself what it is like to miss a man who is "close enough".

Beckett: I've gone over the respective EEG patterns and I can say with some degree of confidence that this... imprinting... that Doctor Weir's temporary occupant calls it won't last more than a few hours. Caldwell: You can guarantee that? Beckett: A day at most. McKay: Well! I'm sold! Shall we?

Sheppard does not answer Weir clearly teasing him because he seems to have no defense against these accusations, against the truth. He had indeed agreed to do this, and he had agreed to do this because he does empathize with the recently deceased alien. His entire motivation is to give her a chance to see her husband again, there is not even a veneer of any military or scientific reason he can spin on this. He does not enjoy her rubbing it in his face like that, with that almost mocking tone, but that does not make it untrue.

Now, it is likely that Sheppard had discussed this over with McKay before agreeing to it, if only to find out the technical details of what precisely would be happening to him. But McKay's chipper tone here seems almost too chipper. It is like he feels the need to project how fine he is with this and has no concerns whatsoever. And what is more, he seems anxious to get this show on the road because he also needs it to be over with. He has clearly bought into the romantic narrative just as much if not more than Sheppard -- but he is being asked kind of a lot here. Not just to lend the body of his lover for a few hours but to safeguard his psyche, his body and his life from alien technology. McKay is sounding far too confident to actually feel this confident about this, he is like the polar opposite of the adage "the lady doth protest to much," the dude is way too excited.

McKay: And... Beckett: He's still alive. Same as before. Life signs even fainter than the first one. If we're gonna do this, we should do it now Caldwell: I'd prefer if this alien consciousness weren't armed. Sheppard: Right. McKay: Oh! Beckett: Colonel Sheppard. You'll have to be in close proximity to the pod for the transfer to happen.

Just as soon as McKay springs the pod open, we may see that he takes a step back, not chancing that he is caught in its imprinting beam. Like he had made it known on the Ancient warship Aurora, it is better that he is on the outside to figure it out in case something goes wrong, and he knows that it is his job to look over Sheppard while he is under this alien consciousness. And Sheppard seems to agree. When Caldwell, who we may recall is a superior officer to Sheppard, turns toward him likely with his hand out based on the movement of his shoulder, expecting Sheppard to give him his gun for safe-keeping when he points out that it is better that they do not let Sheppard get possessed while he is armed, Sheppard takes his personal weapon and gives it to McKay. Not to his superior officer that requested it but to the man that he actually trusts with his gun. Never mind that guns are phallic symbols but this is his personal gun, it is basically like letting McKay use his toothbrush as far as intimacy goes.

This is not a small gesture. And it is not just that he trusts McKay to keep his gun, he is also giving McKay protection by the same gesture. If anything goes sideways, and of course it will (it always does), McKay has some protection on him. Given that even the guards outside are armed with stunners, McKay is now the only person with live ammo on him because Sheppard entrusted him with his own gun. Now, while this is not his first time holding a gun, McKay does not quite seem to know what to do with it likely because he is not wearing his holster and seems unsure if shoving Sheppard's gun into his pants is something he should be seen doing in public. Whether or not McKay himself recognizes what a huge gesture and display of trust this is from Sheppard, it is nonetheless significant.

Sheppard: Yeah, yeah, I know. Beckett: But you're not moving. Sheppard: You know, they were husband and wife. Anything could happen. Phoebus: I promise to be discreet, Colonel. Sheppard: Well... I guess I'll see you guys later. McKay: Have fun!

Now that he is actually called upon to do it, Sheppard seems to have a renewed round of doubts about this. He even goes so far as to speak some of them out loud: these two had been a married couple. The implication is that he means that there might be some intense passion, some public displays of affection, and that is how Phoebus at least chooses to interpret him. She gives him (false) assurance that it will be discreet, they will not abuse his body unduly. However, it is not necessary Sheppard meant that, as "anything" also entails getting violent since married couples could indeed behave any kind of way toward each other, everything being fair in love and war, and Sheppard would not be that off about his assessment either.

But even further than that -- Sheppard might actually be concerned about how his body could be used by the two of them, being that they are a married couple. We have seen Sheppard have some sexual encounters recently that did not leave him feeling very happy, and we have seen him suffer touches and attempted seductions from women that he did not welcome. I have written about his long history of sexual trauma at the hands of women, and his reluctance now to give his body over to this man, yes, but also to this woman who is occupying Weir's body is starting to give him doubts. When he was looking at an elderly couple, it probably had not occurred to any of them that they might want to have passionate sex. But when he thinks about what he might want to do if he was reunited with McKay for one last time, he suddenly understands that they might actually want to use his body in ways that he is not comfortable with.

But feeling like he is already in for a penny, Sheppard does finally take a step closer to the pod preparing to give these people their one moment together. At the same time, we see that Sheppard had been standing opposite McKay on the other sided of the pod the whole time, and only now moves to stand opposite Weir. And we may note that he naturally does not say goodbye as he sets to undertake this, he tells them that he will see them later which implies temporary absence and subsequent reconnection, which he is much more comfortable expressing. Now, Sheppard uses the plural here with "you guys," talking to everyone. But he holds McKay's gaze for a long moment between "well" and "I guess" because he is mainly taking his leave from McKay. And McKay's response -- and he knows Sheppard was talking to him like he always is -- is exactly the kind of thing that someone might tell their spouse before they leave for a night out, to hang out with their friends. McKay tells Sheppard to "Have fun!" like he is the one getting to have an experience while McKay is staying at home waiting for him. Like Sheppard is stepping out for a few hours and then coming back home to him. They may not be married but it takes effort not to see that these two men are a couple.

Continued in Pt. 5

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Long Goodbye, Pt. 7

While the others are regrouping, we get to witness a brief private exchange between Phoebus and Thalen. Phoebus contacts Thalen via the radio, knowing how to use the system through knowledge she has harvested from Weir, and for some reason she makes the initial contact from "Weir to Sheppard". We do not know how the headsets work precisely, so it could be that they need to speak someone's name to activate a private channel, and as we soon notice, the channel is not exactly private even then. What ever the case, the intention of Phoebus is to contact Thalen who is wearing Sheppard who is wearing Sheppard's ear piece. Although she might hate him, for some reason Phoebus also feels the need to talk to Thalen, the two of them all that is left of their entire civilization.

Phoebus: Weir to Sheppard. I'm assuming you can hear me? Thalen: Yeah, I can hear you, but if we keep using these radios, it'll only help them find us. Phoebus: We don't have much time, Thalen. The imprinting is temporary and these people are going to try to stop us. Thalen: We've got all the time in the world and there's only one of them I'm worried about.

It is not entirely clear where Phoebus is, it looks to be one of the lower levels. Sheppard, on the other hand, is clearly on one of the walkways above the city and we know that he knows these walkways well because we have seen him running on them with Ronon in Conversion (S02E08), another intentional callback to the episode, in which it was implied that they do this often. Both Weir and Sheppard know Atlantis very, very well although in different ways. Where Weir may know the day-to-day operations and the people, Sheppard knows the layout and the security of the place. While McKay may not have surveyed as much of the city physically as Sheppard has and may not know the personnel as well as Weir, only McKay may know Atlantis better than the two of them -- or at the very least just as well as they do. And it is because Thalen is using Sheppard's knowledge of the city that he has taken to the walkway and why he is telling Phoebus to stay off the radio now.

Although the two of them seem to be gunning for each other, their exchange here makes it seem like they also have a shared goal of not wanting to get caught by "these people". They are referring to "we" and "us," which is the way we have heard Sheppard and McKay talk about each other often, and that is precisely the point here -- these two characters are narrative mirrors not for Weir and Sheppard but for Sheppard and McKay. Their interactions are meant to let us in on things that have happened between Sheppard and McKay that were never explicitly shown on screen. What is more, and I will elaborate on this later, Thalen is narrative mirror for McKay and Phoebus for Sheppard, just to set the stage. But given the communication problems they have been having lately, it is notable that Phoebus is the one wanting to confirm that Thalen can hear her here, and Thalen is the one assuring her that he is listening ("You don't listen to people -- you don't trust them!").

What Thalen tells her here is important, possibly the most important thing in the entire episode. He mentions, basing this on what Sheppard knows, that there is "only one of them" that he is worried about, and based on what they had just said, his worry is that this "one of them" is able to both find them and stop them. The viewer is invited to wonder who this one person is since it is never explicitly confirmed. Is it Caldwell, who is a shrewd and seasoned warrior that has now taken over the operation? Is it Ronon, tracker and survivalist extraordinaire who Sheppard knows is a formidable warrior? Is it Teyla, who knows Sheppard well and can take him on in stick fighting and is perhaps able to tug on his heartstrings? We are meant to think that he might be referring to Teyla since she is the one who eventually captures him, even though she captures him entirely through luck and chance, and they have an intense and emotional scene toward the end of the episode.

But we are actually more or less confirmed that he is talking about McKay here. Thalen is most worried about McKay because he knows what Sheppard knows, and what Sheppard knows is not only that McKay is capable of destroying not just the city but the entire solar system in under 20 minutes if pushed, who he has seen harness the power of lightning and has told him he could build an atom bomb when he was in high school, who he knows can track them through the city using programmes he has set up personally, the city that he can navigate in the dark and by feeling his way around, who can switch on the stardrive and overload the ZPM, who most definitely knows Sheppard's security code, is the one who had figured out their technology in a matter of hours, whose abilities Sheppard has absolute faith in and who suspects McKay can do so much more than what he has already seen him do. McKay who, as we soon see, has already shot him twice and who is the first person Thalen tries to cripple by taking out the power as the first thing he does.

It is really not a mystery who Thalen is worried about based on everything that Sheppard knows. We will shortly see what Thalen is able to take out both Ronon and Teyla, no sweat. But without McKay, the rest of them are useless. And what really concerns him is that McKay seemed to be able to hear Sheppard earlier, meaning that he needs to make sure they do not meet, has to make sure McKay is occupied. And just like in Conversion, we get scenes where both Ronon and Teyla get to have their moments with Sheppard where they are trying to figure out who they are talking to, but there is a glaring omission of such a scene between Sheppard and McKay. And again it is not because such a scene would not be interesting to see but because it would give the game away.

Phoebus: We both want a shot at the same thing. Thalen: You mean each other. Phoebus: And neither one of us will get that chance if you keep running. Chuck: Sir, I'm picking up some chatter I think you'll want to hear. Caldwell: Put it on speaker.

Chuck picks up on the conversation that Phoebus and Thalen probably think is private, and because we now get the chance to view their conversation from the point of view of outsiders in addition to the two of them, it adds layers of interpretation to the exchange. Phoebus and Thalen seem to be talking about killing each other -- or at the very least that is how the people listening in on the conversation interpret it. They want "a shot" at something, and given that they are gunning for each other, the first level reading is that they literally want to shoot each other dead. But "wanting a shot" at something is also a metaphor for seizing the opportunity to do something and Thalen's clarification "You mean each other" invites an erotic or romantic interpretation. In what ever fashion, they do want each other.

The exchange could be interpreted either way, it is only the context that determines the reading. And this is where their use as narrative mirrors comes in. Between Phoebus and Thalen, the conflict seems to be martial. But between Sheppard and McKay, it is intimate. If they were able to communicate about it openly and using their words, they might agree that they want to same thing, they want each other. And neither will get the thing that they both want if the other keeps running from intimacy. It is implied here that Sheppard is the pursuant and McKay is the one that is running from it, refuses to give in. And looking at the broad arc of their relationship, it is possible that McKay does have reason to be cautious given that he was hurt by Sheppard's decision to fly the jumper into the hive, running roughshod over his feelings. Neither party is blameless and they have taken shots at each other, but that fundamental issue of trust still lingers between them -- McKay thinks that Sheppard does not trust him where in fact Sheppard does not trust himself and hence is incapable of making himself as vulnerable as McKay needs him to be to believe that he is loved and cared for.

Thalen: You're the one that likes to run. My ship ran out of fuel before I could even get a clean shot. Phoebus: That was my plan. Thalen: You didn't have a plan. You just wanted me dead. Phoebus: Still do. As a matter of fact, I can't wait to see that look of defeat on your face, just one last time.

McKay, Beckett and Caldwell gather around Chuck to listen to the conversation between the alien entities, obviously jumping in the middle of something. It is Sheppard's words they first hear, and just as Phoebus had just accused Thalen of running it is now McKay who gets to hear Sheppard's voice make the accusation, albeit not against him. Phoebus and Thalen both lay the blame on the other even though they seem to have been behaving in similar ways, and the same is true for Sheppard and McKay.

While Thalen thinks that Phoebus wants him dead, McKay obviously does not think that Sheppard wants him dead -- quite the opposite. Because they are mirrors we have to flip around what they are saying. Sheppard had been trying to save McKay's life when he had made the choice of flying the jumper into the hive, and McKay himself had made the observation that they had gotten into the habit of saving each other's lives in Aurora (S02E09). But McKay could similarly accuse Sheppard of not having had a plan, just needing to make sure that he lived. Thalen's line "My ship ran out of fuel before I could even get a clean shot" is also interesting in light of McKay having been running on fumes the last days before the wraith attacked, on literal stimulants to keep himself going, and he definitely seems to have been running out of fuel when it happened. If he had possessed more presence of mind then, maybe he could have told Sheppard not to do it, or would have volunteered to do it together, or that he could have figured something out -- but he had been spent. His mind had not been working right, and he blamed himself.

Phoebus may want Thalen dead where Sheppard obviously wants McKay to live, and hence we may interpret what she tells him here as the opposite of what Sheppard would want to tell McKay. He does not want to see a look of defeat on his face but of desire, and Sheppard most definitely does not want to see it for one last time because he never wants there to be a last time. He wants to never stop seeing it. But unlike Phoebus, Sheppard can wait. He has been trying to give McKay that time he had asked for after the siege. Note also the way Thalen is tending to the wounds caused by McKay when he is talking about this, using his mouth to tighten the compression bandage to stop the blood flow. While he is putting his mouth on McKay's handiwork, technically this is also another man putting his mouth on Sheppard. And the same time, it establishes that symbolically the wounds have been caused by words, by things coming out of the mouth.

Thalen: You mean the look on my face when you rammed my fighter, making sure neither one of us would win? That was hatred, not defeat, Phoebus. Phoebus: Is that any way to talk to your wife? Thalen? Run all you like. The moment I find you, you die.

This talk of winning and defeat, while also apt descriptors for war, are things that take place within most games and while they do seem to want each other dead, we cannot be entirely sure that there is not some kind of a game behind all of this, especially since it seems like Phoebus has seen the look of defeat on Thalen's face many times before without having taken his life. Essentially the two of them are already dead, this is their last game, and it is possible that it is the finality of the bout that has changed something about the game for them. And even though it is a retcon, we may point out that Sheppard and McKay were supposed to be engaged in playing "the game" during this time, their dialogue here extremely similar to how Sheppard and McKay talk to each other in The Game (S03E15). Even Phoebus's remark here, "is that any way to talk to your wife?" sounds like she is role-playing, like she is taunting him with the ruse she had used to get these people to spring him free from his pod.

Thalen's line about Phoebus ramming his fighter is more than a little erotic, and again if we look at the opposite of what he is saying we may discover something about Sheppard and McKay. If defeat translates to desire, then hate obviously translates to love and where the word has not been spoken between them -- and it will not be spoken until Tao of Rodney (S03E14), after a fashion -- there had been a moment when they had achieved something mutually, they had both won, arrived at the finish line together, and McKay had looked at Sheppard with love. As discussed previously, they had discovered what making love is like together, very much being a mutually satisfying experience, and it seems to have been the look in McKay's eyes that had caused Sheppard to "ram his fighter," had shaken him to his very core. Falling in love is often described as being like the disorientation from being whacked upside the head, as running headfirst into a wall or walking into lamp post. The experience is violent and life-altering.

Now, it is Thalen who speaks of being "rammed" here by Phoebus but as relates to sex, we have been given hints of Sheppard both preferring the role of the penetrated and his appreciation for well-endowed men. Taking fighter jet as standing for the body, if we flip this around we may recall that McKay had taught Sheppard how to slow down where Sheppard had made it more intense. The whole thing flips into "You mean the look on my face when I made love to you gently, making sure we would both come? That was love, not just desire, John." This is referring to events that had taken place some time before Letters from Pegasus (S02E17), where we get a symbolic representation of this making love that had happened between them, where they had connected on levels beyond the physical, where Sheppard had come to realize that he loved McKay in every way that it was possible to love.

Given this reference to seeing the look on the other's face and Sheppard's Pavlovian reaction to McKay speaking the word "Look," it is also possible that McKay had told him to look at him during this moment, to maintain eye-contact through consummation making Sheppard unable to not look at him when ever he now hears the word. This had actually been a transformative experience for him, and it may even have been augmented by the Ancient gene, the two of them connecting in a way that they never had with another because they had never had sex with another person with the gene and what ever mental tether it had formed between them.

Given also that the episode seems especially to be in conversation with Conversion, we should also look at "ramming" in the context that we saw Sheppard slam two people against the wall that had particular looks on their faces. He was able to see arousal on the faces of Teyla and Weir, this arousal very much based in fear and not desire. We also saw bruises on McKay's neck, suggesting that he had experienced something similar to the two women that we never got to see, we only saw the aftermath, and we saw it very subtly -- although the fact that we saw McKay wearing Sheppard's shirt and we saw McKay's clothes on Sheppard's bed definitely implies that something sexual had happened between the two of them. But it had been much rougher than usual, and it might still be eating Sheppard up, thinking that he had seen fear in McKay's eyes and remembering that look.

While there was an element of dubcon to his kissing of Teyla, what had taken place between the two of them had been at least more or less consensual or else McKay would not have been wearing his shirt afterward, would not have needed to have something of Sheppard's against his skin to comfort him when he was forced to keep a distance, was not allowed to visit him. We may also recall that unlike others, when McKay saw Sheppard half-way into an insect, he seemed to accept him just the way he was. If we convert the words spoken by Phoebus and Thalen to what Sheppard and McKay might have said, we arrive at something like "You mean the look on my face when you slammed me against a wall, making sure both of us would come? That was love, not fear, John."

Beckett: Well... they're heading straight for divorce. Caldwell: That whole thing was a ruse -- in fact, I doubt very much if we were ever speaking with Doctor Weir. McKay: It was a remarkable impression, I'll give you that. Caldwell: From the sound of it, we have two fighter pilots who don't know that their war is over.

While Phoebus and Thalen are having this conversation using their words, it seems like Sheppard and McKay have not been able to talk things over between them. During the time that they have been listening to this conversation, McKay has folded his arms defensively around himself and is even doing his self-soothing thumb thing. It might be the talk of death and fighters, obvious suicide missions, that is making him feel uneasy but it might even be just their tones of voices that make him uncomfortable because at least Phoebus is talking with an intense focus, her voice deeper than Weir's, that makes it sound erotic, like she really wants Sheppard.

McKay may have consented to something taking place between them in order to facilitate the last goodbye between elderly lovers, which is what he thought this was going to be, but he still did not want to be hearing this. He would not be able to scrub his brain from hearing Weir say these things to Sheppard, and he had obviously failed to consider that before agreeing to this. It is also notable that McKay essentially confesses that he had been fooled by Phoebus playing Weir, she had been able to convince him, who we noted has known Weir the longest, that they had been speaking with her. That is why it is even more of a glaring omission that we do not get a scene in which Thalen has to convince McKay that is speaking with Sheppard. And the reason we do not is because they know each other far, far too well.

Beckett quips that they are heading straight for divorce, still seeming to be caught up in the story that Phoebus had been telling them. While it seems clear that these two are not married, it is not entirely clear what they are. Caldwell's assessment may hit the mark but or may also be off in the sense that while they do seem to want to kill each other, there is also a strong sense of game play to what they are engaged in. They have have been engaged in a war on opposite sides, and there are cases of fighter pilots that failed to recognize that the war had ended, continuing executing their standing orders because there was no one to tell them otherwise. This episode seems to be borrowing from Mr and Mrs Smith, which had come out c. half a year before this episode and may have influenced the writer, which features two assassins who are married and are suddenly pitted against each other.

But it also seems to be drawing from the Harlan Ellison short story Soldier From Tomorrow, later turned into The Outer Limits episode Soldier (Sheppard's "We've got all the time in the world" is a direct quote from the episode, "Is there time for us? Time... all the time in the world. But is that enough?") that was famously cannibalized in the creation of The Terminator, which features two soldiers taken out of their time and poses the question of whether there is any point in continuing the war when everything they had been fighting for is stripped away from them. Are they fighting a war because they believe in the cause or because they do not know anything else but war? Every iteration of the story asks slightly different moral questions but this concept, plucking two warriors fighting on opposite sides out of their world, definitely seems to have influenced this episode. The set-up is fairly straightforward and making it an allegory for marriage or something "close enough" seems fitting.

McKay: It is much worse than that. They know everything about this city: the layout, defensive systems, how to access weapons. Caldwell: We just need to find a way to stop them without unduly harming the hosts. McKay: "Unduly". What does that mean? Caldwell: Well, obviously, some force may be necessary.

While Caldwell may have been able to figure out the motivation of the two soldiers, McKay on the other hand knows both Weir and Sheppard well enough that he is able to lay out the full scope of their current crisis for them: these soldiers waging a war against each other know everything that Weir and Sheppard know, both of them formidable in their own right. McKay knows that Weir and Sheppard know everything about this city because he knows everything about this city, including what each of them knows. This is why McKay is "the one" that Thalen is worried about. We may note that McKay is sweating here and because none of the others are shining like he is, it must be caused by the situation stressing him out rather than the temperature.

McKay seems to be anticipating that Caldwell is going to order him to do something that is going to harm Sheppard, just as he had been asked to do in Conversion, when he had to tell them where Sheppard was so that strike teams authorized to use lethal force might be able to find him. Caldwell may recognize by now that he would have real trouble getting McKay to comply with this and so he ameliorates the use of any force necessary to not "unduly" harming the hosts. McKay does not much like the sound of this either but at least he does not plan on killing them on sight -- yet. His reaction also confirms that he still has no idea why he shot at Sheppard earlier. He could have killed him! McKay exchanges a glance with Beckett, but it is brief and he seems to derive little comfort from it, and this is similar to Sheppard looking at Beckett in the previous episode clearly hoping he had been with McKay. Beckett may be his best friend, but McKay really wants to be exchanging both glances and thoughts with someone else entirely. He always does.

Continued in Pt. 8

[dr-futbol-blog]

Critical Mass, Pt. 2

Next we get to see one of those rare private moments between Sheppard and McKay, only this one is taking place out in the open so it shows us how they are when they are just the two of them doing every day things on Atlantis. This too we have never gotten to see before, only having joined them at the tail-end of them walking into places together. Now we catch them seemingly mid-walk, mid-conversation and while there are several scenes with plot exposition between the previous scene and this (the Goa'uld have hidden a bomb -- actually they have rigged the ZPM to explode taking the planet with it -- on Atlantis), the audience is led to connect this to their previous scene with Weir and Ronon, as though this was taking place just after the meeting with the two of them having left it together.

However, that is not what has happened because McKay is telling Sheppard something that he had learned from Weir that Sheppard had not been around to hear since the meeting, he is filling Sheppard in. Note also that they are shot from very far away, the lighting is dark, and we have to work to see them behind several obstacles, things blocking our view.

McKay: Elizabeth's including intel about the in-fighting amongst the wraith in today's status report. Sheppard: Let's hope that trend continues. If the wraith keep fighting like this, might be able to take the weekend off.

So, this is just another day at the office, two pals talking shop. McKay is giving us more exposition, Sheppard is making a quip, wisecracking about the enemy because he is cool like that. Because the lighting in the scene is so dark, it is difficult to see the fact that Sheppard is leaning against the stairway at the start of the scene, as though he had specifically been waiting for McKay to join him there. The fact that they had apparently planned to meet here in advance of this is also obscured by the way McKay launches into telling Sheppard about what he had learned from Weir without any preamble, continuing that never-ending conversation of theirs that had only been paused while they were away from each other. It seems like we are jumping in mid-conversation when we actually see them rejoin each other here at the top of the stairs, and then take off together like they had plans to go somewhere together. Sheppard is also wearing his tac vest, which he was not wearing previously at the meeting, but it is hanging open indicating that what ever reason he had put it on, he was now either finished or on a break from that. Off the clock, so to say.

Also note the extremely ambiguous way Sheppard delivers the line about the weekend here. Even if they were buddy pals, he might have said "We might be able" because they are team mates. They are on the same team. If the team leader decides it is time to take the weekend off, they are all going to take the weekend off. But they leave it purposefully ambiguous here whether he is saying "I might" or "we might." He is using the "we" form at the start of his response, so it would make sense for him to have meant "Let us hope that trend continues. If the wraith keep fighting like this, we might be able to take the weekend off." And by we, he means the two of them. The only reason to make this so ambiguous is that he meant the two of them, together. In the context of their relationship, Sheppard might have been ambiguous in character because is feeling insecure about it, not sure if McKay would want to spend the weekend with him. McKay's response to him is just a soft chuckle which suggests that he is not opposed to the idea.

For obvious reasons we never get to see them enjoy a weekend together. The only weekend we see on the series (Sunday, S03E17) takes place almost immediately following their break-up and it mainly deals with the aftermath of that. I will get into more detail later but it very much seems as though Sheppard is using Ronon to distract himself, and as he basically forces Ronon to do things with him that he usually does on a day off but that he is clearly doing for the first time with Ronon, we learn about his routines. Through this, we actually get some insight into what such weekends, of which there must have been many, had been like for him before that. Only, he had not been alone. Although he was with Ronon, this was the first time he was alone, and he could not bear it.

We get confirmation of this in The Shrine (S05E04), where Sheppard grabs a couple of beers from his fridge and, since McKay is losing his memories, reminds him about the fact that they have done that a lot together. They have had beers alone together many times. That is what they used to do on the weekends: beers, popcorn, tunes, lazing in bed arguing about movies and sharing thoughts, memories from their past lives, Sheppard thumbing through some magazine or comic book. It was not through playing "the game" that the two of them got to know each other so intimately as they clearly do, it was through things like this. And here they are, chatting about it seeming completely at ease in each other's presence, a glimpse into their private world that we get to see only in pieces over the seasons. That we only get to see if we are able to remove the obstacles purposefully put in front of our eyes, able to fill in the gaps between moments we see and moments obscured to us.

The thing is, the blue hues of the corridor (most Atlantis corridors are reddish in colour, there is more light) and the presence of Cadman, who they are about to run into here, who had been with McKay the previous time we had seen Sheppard and McKay together in this part of the city in Duet (S02E04), tells us that they are either coming from or going to McKay's quarters, and given that Sheppard seemed to be waiting for McKay and McKay seemed to be coming from a meeting with Weir, the latter is infinitely more likely. So they are going to McKay's quarters, the two of them together. We may recall that the last time that we had seen Sheppard here with McKay, his intention seemed to be to... come calling. To see whether McKay was alone or she was still with him. By his room. Late at night. Just checking, looking out for a friend in need.

Cadman's presence here contextualizes this scene as connected to that one. What is interesting is that we are given a time frame of 2 hours 46 minutes (those curious pockets of time) between this scene and when next we find McKay in the control room about to send in the data burst to Earth. It is doubtful it took him nearly three hours to compress the data, so this leaves them ample time for all kinds of activities, especially to pass short but intense energy bursts between them. What I am saying is that it is not an accident they run into Cadman here, and it is not random that they are in the blue-hued corridor. And they did not need to compose the scene like this. This is all intentional. Of course, although it is a very obvious retcon, you are free to interpret this as Sheppard and McKay as being on their way to play "the game," since this is definitely the kind of pocket of time that the game was meant to explain away. The whole point of "the game" was to give those parts of the audience that needs the subtext explained away a chance to see something else here. But really.

And so they come across Lt. Laura Cadman, bomb expert extraordinaire. The reason she is acting shifty is because this is a "Whodunnit" episode, everyone is suspect to build suspense. But the reason they have McKay and Sheppard run into her, and to run into her specifically here, and specifically as they are on their way to fool around for an hour (I mean, if you want to interpret them as going to lunch or to play "the game" or what ever, that's your prerogative, there is just about as much evidence for any of those activities; the facts are that Sheppard had been waiting for McKay by the stairs and that we will not see McKay again for 2h46) is to establish a connection between this episode and Duet, just as re-introducing the character of Kavanagh is meant to connect this episode to Letters from Pegasus (S02E17), and to lesser extent to 38 Minutes (S01E04). Although the charming smile Sheppard greets her with here is not unlike the smile he gave the nurse then, trying as he was his damnedest to push McKay away, as performative then as it is now. Sheppard even does the same head-tilt as then as they stop to engage Cadman. He is definitely trying to seem charming.

But even if Sheppard was not on his way to have sex with a man as he gives her this undeniably charming smile, let us just review the fact that she is not only rather young, she is a young woman under his command that he would never even think about in that context. This is to say that even though some people take scenes such as this as evidence that Sheppard is a ladies' man who is interested in every beautiful woman that comes in his line of sight (and how ironic is it that the actual reason for the smile here seems to be to try to disguise the fact that these two men are very much on their way to fuck), that is not actually even in the top 10 of the reasons why he uses his charming smile on women. He is being polite but noncommittal here, acting in a way that does not rouse any suspicion.

McKay: Cadman? What are you doing here? Cadman: Well, it's good to see you too, Rodney.

McKay seems unpleasantly surprised to not just find Cadman still on Atlantis, apparently having been under the impression she was shipping away, but actually near his own quarters where Cadman had first taken possession of his body. We do not know if Cadman was leaving for good or only having shore leave on Earth because we were told that she had a date with Beckett in the previous episode, which must have happened by now and, although we know that their relationship fizzles out before too long, we do still see them together at the end of the episode (and as an aside, Katie Brown is not even hinted at because McKay has given her literally not one thought since escaping the date from hell). The status of Cadman and Beckett's relationship at this time is uncertain, and this is possibly be design, leaving it as ambiguous as the other major relationship in the episode.

But note that although Cadman assumes McKay was asking what she is still doing on Atlantis, "What are you doing here?" might just as well have referred to the corridor near his quarters. That seems to be real busy. Forcing McKay and Sheppard to walk real close, bumping into each other as they try to avoid running into people. Not because they want to walk in each other's space. They just constantly seem to run into too little space for them to walk like straight dudes. It's a problem.

McKay: No, I thought you were leaving on the Daedalus. Cadman: Yeah, I was, but something came up. I asked Colonel Sheppard if I could stay around a little while longer. McKay: Oh, well, that's fine. Cadman: You OK with that? McKay: Yeah, course it is, why wouldn't it be?

McKay does not mince words, and although he is trying to be civil toward her, it is easy to see how displeased he is to see her. This is obvious not just to her but also to Sheppard who, apparently and perhaps to spare McKay's feelings, had left untold to him the fact that she was sticking around for a bit longer. It is obvious to him that McKay sees this lack of information as a betrayal, and hence while he does not say anything, we see Sheppard turn toward McKay and drawing his lips back as though he is smiling deeper when he is not really smiling at all. This is a fake smile, the kind that does not reach the eyes. And turning to McKay with this smile is one of two things: it is either an "Uh oh, I am in trouble now for not having told you, aren't I" smile or "I am totally messing with you but it is for your own good" smile. Regardless, Sheppard very obviously turns the smile to McKay.

What is interesting about this exchange is that McKay does not actually respond to her question. Cadman asks "Are you OK with that?" McKay responds "Yes, of course it is [OK], why wouldn't it be?" He is not saying whether he is OK or not, it is as though he is answering a completely different question to the tune of "Is it OK with you?" And this is not the first time this has happened, only in the previous episode we saw him answer a question neither Teyla nor Ronon had asked. And what is more curious is that he turns his head toward Sheppard as he starts responding, like he was speaking to him. Now, this could just be a syntax error either by the writer or the actor but let us presume it was said on purpose. It is more than peculiar that this keeps happening. And we know that when McKay's full genetic potential is unleashed later on in Tao of Rodney (S03E14), telepathy is one of his first and strongest gifts, he actually has to start blocking people out. That these two would occasionally respond to the other's thought rather than their words and never even notice they are doing it, having the "unsettling" ability to sense each other's thoughts by looking at the other's face, is really not the strangest thing on this show. It could also be that he is just so flustered and uncomfortable about the situation that he does not even know what he is saying but as mentioned, this is far from the only time we see this happen.

Cadman: Colonel. Sheppard: Lieutenant. I would think after all this time, you'd stop being creeped out by her. McKay: She just has a way of getting under my skin. Sheppard: Literally.

Cadman leaves and we may note that she boldly walks in between them which is not something that these men enjoy given how many people they avoid by pushing themselves closer to the other. We may note that Sheppard only says one word to her, basically acknowledging her salute which is something that he is supposed to do as a superior officer. But otherwise it very much seemed like he did not want to be in the discussion, he would rather they had not even stopped to talk to her. It is possible Sheppard had other, more pressing things in mind.

Now, Sheppard smiles politely at her and keeps eye contact with her almost the entire time they are with her, and she seems kind of flirty as she takes off, likely just to tease McKay for old time's sake. And it would be so easy to read something into it, like there was something there, an unspoken attraction when we know that she is presumably with Beckett, Sheppard clearly did not want to be in that conversation and was waiting for it to be over which we can tell by how he picks up their discussion just as soon as she is gone, and they both also start walking to where ever they were going, clearly having a shared destination because these two men are on the way to have sex with each other. That is the kind of misdirection that allowed them to do this. When there is a beautiful woman in the foreground, the audience is completely blinded to what happens in the background.

But let us just note that the face McKay pulls as she leaves and the wide breadth he gives to the woman that almost walks into him, clearly not wanting to brush up against her even by accident. McKay may get "all the women," but he sure does not seem to want any. Like, at all. Let us also note the fact that Sheppard expresses concern for McKay's well-being here, and it is not in the capacity of a team leader. He is concerned because he cares. It also shows us that Sheppard understands what McKay is feeling, knows him well enough to know what he is thinking, and he wants McKay to put it past him for his own sake. It also tells us that the two of them do talk about personal things with each other, they have intimate conversations. McKay's response also lets us know that they share things with each other, they do not keep secrets. They seem to know each other on a level that no one else even could know them. This is a wonderful scene, a masterclass in layered storytelling.

Continued in Pt. 3

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Tower, Pt. 4

Still in the forest taking readings, it seems like McKay is contacted by Teyla via radio the moment the Lord Protector's Chamberlain and the soldiers have left the village with Sheppard. Although it seems as though they had been forced to relinquish all their weapons, Teyla and Ronon seem to have otherwise been left alone to roam around freely. Presumably Sheppard had at least tried to communicate to Teyla to get a hold of McKay just as soon as she would be able, even if this is not precisely something that needed to be done as Teyla likely would have done it regardless. But let us note first the transition between the two scenes, the camera moving from Sheppard's upturned face where he is trying not to show his fear to the face of McKay's young, dark-haired companion clearly failing in keeping his fear under wraps. For some reason Sheppard and the young man are paralleled here and we are certainly invited to notice the resemblance in their looks. Possibly we are also meant to compare their emotional states here, the naked fear of the youth giving us insight into what Sheppard is concealing.

Baldric: We are not supposed to be here. If the soldiers come... McKay: Relax! I'm almost done. Teyla: Rodney, come in. McKay: Go ahead. Teyla: We have a problem. They took Colonel Sheppard. McKay: What? Who did?

It is not inconsequential that the young man is afraid here because the more he feels fear, the more his willingness to help McKay in spite of it actually means. There is some reason that we are never shown why the young man has decided to aid McKay not only as his guide but as his assistant. We know next to nothing about this youth beyond his social class as one of the less privileged villagers and that he seems to have some kind of undefined connection to Eldred; we do not know whether he has a sweetheart, what his motivation is, whether he is interested in men or women, or both. The only thing we know is that he seems willing to go above and beyond for McKay. Even now, as he is basically begging McKay to understand that they need to get out of here, he has made no move to just up and leave, to abandon the stranger into the forest, but he seems to keep a keen eye on any danger that might be coming their way, keeping watch for McKay.

McKay tells the youth to relax because he is almost done, and this is sandwiched between two separate mentions of coming, which may or may not contain innuendo. What ever the case, McKay seems to be so occupied with taking his readings that the fact that Sheppard has gotten himself into some kind of trouble while McKay has been otherwise engaged appears to be the only thing that gets him to give up on his studies, is the only thing able to pull his attention away from the science. And it is very effective in capturing his attention, as McKay drops what he is doing immediately and starts heading back since Sheppard and his safety obviously take precedence over everything else.

Teyla: Soldiers from the Tower. They confiscated our weapons. McKay: What, and you let them? Teyla: We didn't exactly have much of a choice. McKay: Alright -- I'm on my way back.

McKay is annoyed by Teyla's message but heads back right away regardless -- but we may note that Teyla likewise has a bit of attitude in her tone as she calls McKay back. It is entirely possible that she had been instructed to do so by Sheppard, and even if he did not get the chance to tell her, McKay is the next in command and should naturally be informed in the event that their commander has now been captured.

However, McKay does not quite seem to understand how this could even have happened with the three of them heavily armed in the village, seeming to think that the only way Sheppard even could be taken is if he had allowed himself to be captured, and that is more or less what happened. What McKay does not understand is his own role in this. Teyla exchanges an exasperated look with Ronon as he tells McKay that they did not have a lot of choice in the matter, seeming to roll her eyes at McKay berating them. The question remains whether Teyla and Ronon had known about McKay's whereabouts during the altercation in the village or not, since it certainly seems like Sheppard had not. McKay may have informed the the two of them of the fact that he was out there taking readings but it is entirely possible they never got the chance to inform Sheppard of this fact.

Once he has returned to the village, we see McKay stand by what appears to be the ruins of the house that had been blown up, this somewhat suggesting that it had indeed been the house we first saw them at. He raises the question of whether who ever had maneuvred the drone had intended to hit an empty house or whether it had hit an unoccupied house by chance, and this is an important point to raise. The first option means that they had only ever intended to intimidate the villagers and these newcomers that had been seeking audience with the Tower. The second option indicates a callous and casual disregard for human life, and given that they cannot tell the difference, McKay does not quite seem to know how worried he should be for Sheppard right now.

We see that McKay has lifted his leg and is resting his hand on his gun holster, seeming to pull it taut against his thigh, possibly intent on hiding his weapon from who ever may be looking. Here, he is currently the only one of them in possession of a weapon and even though he might be tempted to give up his gun to one of the others that might be able to make better use of it, we can be fairly certain Sheppard has drilled it into him that the gun is for his personal protection and he is not to part with it under any circumstances. What ever it is, something seems to be making McKay nervous and he is keeping his hand close to his gun.

Teyla: It was definitely a drone. McKay: Yeah. It's pretty good shooting -- I mean, if it was their intention to scare people and not actually kill anybody. Sheppard: This is Sheppard. Anyone reading me? Teyla: Colonel! Are you alright? Sheppard: I'm fine. Is McKay with you? McKay: I'm here.

Sheppard makes contact with them just as soon as he is able, seeming to have arrived at the Tower by this time. They have not taken his radio, probably not understanding the technology but although Sheppard seems to feel like he is now in a position to contact them, we may note that he is not alone but is, in fact, surrounded by the palace guards as he now speaks to them.

We may also note that Sheppard's second question -- really, the first question after establishing that he has a connection to them -- is to ask about McKay. It seems like this was the question most plaguing him, and it had been the question that he had been unable to ask Teyla back when they were being observed by the Chamberlain. Teyla asks him if he is alright. Sheppard does not ask her if they are alright, he wants to know where McKay is (and hence, whether McKay is alright). And we may note that there is a slight hesitation before McKay replies that he is with them, a subtle indication that when McKay had not been with them in the village when this had gone down, he had indeed been gone without Sheppard's explicit permission. If McKay had felt Teyla was blaming him for what had happened to Sheppard earlier, he might have been expecting similar recrimination to come from Sheppard now. Only, Sheppard seems to have figured out what McKay had been doing since, and the most important thing to him is just to hear that McKay is alive and unharmed. However, it is significant here that McKay's whereabouts are the most important thing for to Sheppard know. That is literally his first priority, and this has bearing for him throughout the episode.

Sheppard: Did you find anything with your scans? McKay: As a matter of fact, I did. There's definitely an active ZPM, but it's barely registering, so it's hard to say whether it's depleted or just not drawing much power right now. Sheppard: What else? McKay: The really interesting part is that it seems to be coming from under ground. Now, when I realised that, I started scanning for subterranean structures. The Tower is just the tip of the iceberg, and there is a massive structure buried beneath it. Now, it's hard to say without more detailed analysis...

Just as soon as they establish contact, we may note that McKay takes a few steps to get some distance to Teyla and Ronon, as though he could make his conversation with Sheppard more private or more intimate like this, even though they are sharing the same open channel. What it shows us is that he desires intimacy with Sheppard even if he is unable to get any at this time.

McKay seems relieved when Sheppard asks him about his scans because this indicates not only that Sheppard knows where he had been but also that he was not mad at him for having gone there on his own, jumping the gun. There is a hint of attitude to the questions Sheppard asks him here, but it may also result from the fact that he is being watched by the guards and is hence unable to speak entirely freely. We see McKay smile as Sheppard asks him "What else," and this may be because he is excited about the research he had just been doing and what he had been discovering, but he might also just be happy that Sheppard wants to share in it, wants to know what he had found out. But let us note that there is more than a hint of relief here in McKay's tone. Like he is relieved that Sheppard is glad and not mad that he had been taking these readings instead of staying put at the village. He had been worried that by leaving the village he had allowed this to happen to Sheppard but this, being able to talk about his discoveries with the man via radio tells him that Sheppard does not appear to be in any mortal peril.

McKay: ...but it could very well be comparable in size to Atlantis itself. Sheppard: Doesn't really surprise me. I'm in the Tower right now, and I gotta say... Yeah, it does kinda look familiar!

And again we see that Sheppard and McKay share one brain between them, as when we cut to the Tower we may note that Sheppard has discovered the same thing as what McKay had just been scanning for: what they have discovered here is basically the replica of Atlantis. We see that Sheppard is talking to his radio in the gate room that does not have a gate, perhaps suggesting that the planet indeed has a space gate, and the guards watching over him are not batting an eye at the fact that he appears to be talking to himself. Alas, they have to end their call when the local court starts filing into what seems to be their throne room.

Lord Protector: You there. Approach.

The local ruler, who we may note is called Lord Protector and not King -- relevant for the ending -- sits himself in the control chair that seems to respond to him. While this is obviously a man of some power that may for this reason remind Sheppard of his father, it does not seem like the man otherwise bears much resemblance to him (it is much more likely Sheppard's father outwardly resembled the Captain of the Ancient warship Aurora, S0209, or Teyla's "dear friend" in Letters from Pegasus, S01E17). This man is corpulent, opulent and obviously privileged, resembling a Medieval monarch. His courtiers file into the room after him, and where his children are stationed at either side of him, the Chamberlain seems to be physically closest to him, standing behind him. And both of the man's children certainly make note of Sheppard where his entire focus is on the old man (although we may note that before the court filed in, he had been facing the guards quite possibly just to not have his back turned on them in case he needed to protect himself).

Sheppard: I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard-- Lord Protector: I know who you are. I saw you in the village. Sheppard: You did? Lord Protector: I see all that I need to see within my domain.

While Sheppard is not entirely sure what he is dealing with here, this is far from his first rodeo. Both as a representative of his social class and as an officer of the United States Air Force and a representative of the Earth in this galaxy, he knows how to politely and respectfully approach new people. He does as he is told, trying to introduce himself and we may note that this is a very good example of Sheppard attempting to weaponize his charm, of trying to use his charming persona when he has no other means of protecting himself at his disposal. His trepidation here shows only in the way he worries his lip before walking up in front of the local ruler, because even if the local guards are only equipped with whips and batons, there are a few too many strapping men here for him to take on in hand to hand combat alone. He has to try talking his way out of this first.

Perhaps relevant for later is the fact that as he approaches the throne, he seems to look at Tavius, he turns his head toward Mara but does not actually look at her, and then takes a look at Otho before fixing his eyes on the ruler. Out of these men he likely finds Otho a threat and he does not know what to make of the Lord Protector. His look at Tavius, however, does not seem to have any particular strategic motivation, as the man seems to be the most harmless creature in the entire throne room, and hence him glancing at the man must have had some other reason.

Lord Protector: Your friends -- they are concerned about you.

The local ruler brings up a HUD that shows him a scene from the village that we are to understand is happening at the same time as this, Teyla, Ronon and McKay seeming to be engaged in conversation on the street, all out in the open. This is the first time Sheppard is able to see McKay since before he had left to contact Atlantis earlier.

Important for later is the fact that Otho observes Sheppard's behaviour here, notices that he seems familiar with the technology. But although Otho noted that Sheppard did not respond to the technology as though it were magic, he is far from unresponsive here. We may note that just as soon as he notices McKay, his hand comes out from behind his back, he is suddenly tense and alert with his whole body. This could be caused by the fact that this is clearly the targeting system they had used in launching the drone earlier, and he does not know what the ruler's intention here is. Just the possibility that McKay might be in danger is enough to put his whole body into high alert. And at the same time, Sheppard is standing in a way that has him facing McKay here and because McKay has his hands at his sides, by releasing his hand Sheppard is actually also mirroring McKay. His body is ridiculously responsive to McKay, even through different media, using different senses (sight with no sound, hearing with no visuals, touch when he can get it).

Sheppard: Well, I'm... to be perfectly honest, I'm a little concerned about me too. I mean, I'm a prisoner, right? Lord Protector: A show of force was necessary for the benefit of the villagers. It keeps them from getting ideas.

The Lord Protector points out that Sheppard's people seem worried for him, huddled together on the street. It seems like Sheppard is about to say that he is likewise worried for them but then decides not to share such information that might make him vulnerable but instead decides to turn it into a joke, another attempt at charming the old man, saying that he is likewise worried about himself. Although it might be true, it also conceals the truth that he is much, much more worried about his team than he is about himself, and he is worried about McKay most of all. And giving hostiles the information they might be able to use to really hurt him, letting them know the person he is most worried about, is something that he has no intention of doing here. He has turned up the charm all the way to eleven, seeming fully intent on talking his way out of the situation. And it seems as though the women of the court are certainly buying what he is selling. The heir presumptive, however, seems less impressed.

Lord Protector: But for the moment I would prefer it if you thought of yourself as a guest. Tavius: Father, I must object. This... man should be punished. He challenged one of our constables. Lord Protector: One of our constables?

Although both Sheppard and the Lord Protector seem to understand the nature of the game and the less than voluntary nature of Sheppard's visit, both also know how to play the polite fiction. Tavius, the hair presumptive who seems to understand the reason for Sheppard being there better than he does at the moment, seems less than pleased, however, and is not shy in making his opinion known.

The first thing we have to note is the physical resemblance Tavius bears to McKay. Taking into account facial features, colouring, body shape and receding hairline, although he is dressed in frilly pink blousy shirt, this man could be McKay's brother and this is probably not accidental. And given that brother bears resemblance to McKay, it means that sister must do so likewise. We may also note the way Tavius calls Sheppard a man, as though him being of the male persuasion is the thing most offending his sensibilities, where the implication is likely that it is the fact that he is just a man and not a nobleman that is at the root of his problem. How ever Tavius regards Sheppard, he certainly takes instant notice of the man. His desire to see Sheppard punished, which in their society seems to have implied whipping, should also be noted here. He certainly seems to be imagining this in his mind's eye as he watches Sheppard, in what ever state of dress or undress that this seems to have implied.

Tavius: Forgive me. One of your constables. Lord Protector: Lieutenant Colonel, it would be my pleasure that you dine with us this evening.

We may also note that Sheppard certainly makes notice of Tavius as well. As it is, he has paid his sister not one iota of attention so far but he has remarked this man, and although he certainly has no reason whatsoever to like him, liking someone and finding them interesting are not necessarily always concurrent phenomena. A single father of a brother and sister that do not exactly get along, concerned for his family background and heritage, and dismissive of his possibly queer son, there may be a subtle parallel being drawn here to McKay's (obviously much less privileged) childhood following the death of his mother, when ever that had occurred -- just like the people in Epiphany (S02E14) may have taught us things about Sheppard's past. Sheppard does not seem to know what to make of this very strange scene unfolding before him, seeming to decide just to play along as long as neither his own nor, more importantly, McKay's life is in any immediate danger. He does have Weir's mandate to talk to these people, after all.

Continued in Pt. 5

[dr-futbol-blog]

Critical Mass, Pt. 4

As mentioned, this is a "Whudunnit" episode and the audience is supposed to suspect everyone. Because the Goa'uld can hide in and take over anyone, everyone is a suspect. It is obvious that the only person who even genuinely entertains McKay as the culprit is Kavanagh, who has his own reasons to do that, but McKay is acting somewhat oddly throughout the episode. Here, we see him punch in the code using his right hand and while he is ambidextrous, the fact that we are shown him doing this in close up may be an attempt at misdirection. When McKay and Cadman had shared a body, Cadman used his right hand and McKay favoured his left.

McKay: Disconnecting ZPM power… now.

Also, because the city itself is kind of like a symbolic representation of Sheppard and the irregular beating of Charrin's heart is mentioned, we may note here that McKay has the keys to Sheppard's heart -- in fact, he may well be the only one that does -- but he is also capable of disconnecting it, of making Sheppard try to protect himself by cutting off his emotions, which we have seen him do before and will see again following the dramatic events of the next episode. This disconnection and subsequent reconnection of the ZPM may contain some foreshadowing of that.

After McKay has disconnected the ZPM, darkness has fallen and we find him on the control platform with Cadman. While it is obvious from his tone that he is not comfortable with this arrangement, he is trying to be at least somewhat cordial, even engaging her in conversation. And we may note that although Cadman is very likely fucking with him for old times' sake, she is being flirty while wearing her hair down and smiling cheekily at him. And this is enough to entirely hide Sheppard's motivation for putting them together. This is an iteration of what we saw Sheppard do during The Siege (S01E20) when we found him sweeping the city near where McKay was working and McKay had mysteriously been given a P-90 for personal protection by someone. Sheppard is sweeping the city here too, and Cadman herself essentially is now the P-90, only she is much more effective in this particular situation in protecting him.

McKay: Explosives expert, huh? Cadman: High temperature and energetic materials technology. McKay: Hmm. Cadman: And I can tap dance, too.

While her response is cute, McKay seems exasperated by her answer albeit he keeps his thoughts to himself. But we may note that the fact that McKay did not know this about Cadman even though Cadman had spent two days in his head means that they never had access to each other's thoughts and memories. This also shows us that McKay is entirely clueless when it comes to beautiful women flirting with him and even if she was not involved with his best friend, he would not know what to do with this even if it was something that he wanted. Which it is not. He is only entertaining this because Sheppard told him to. And although McKay does not understand why Sheppard insists he should entertain Cadman, he is willing to do it just on his say so.

Weir: Colonel Sheppard, how's it going? Sheppard: Checking the east pier power distribution centres. Still nothing. We're headed to the west pier now. Weir: Ronon? How about you? Dex: Checking the grounding stations. Also nothing. Sheppard: We've got eight other teams out there. It's a big city -- it's gonna take a while. Weir: Understood. Be advised: we got a second message relayed to us--

Sheppard sweeping the city with a team and a flashlight is reminiscent of the beginning of Before I Sleep (S01E15) where he was in contact with McKay on the control platform via radio, the two of them chatting because apparently they wanted to be in contact even when they had to be apart. And we may note that Sheppard calls Atlantis a "big city" here, confirming that what ever he had been calling "not that big" back then had not been the city itself. But now it is Weir that is the go-between, the intermediary between them and this too we have seen before (e.g., in The Intruder, S02E02), facilitating a connection between them when they cannot be in contact. Also, let us underscore the fact that Cadman really should have been out there with them sweeping the city. She should have been doing what Ronon is currently doing but in this case, Sheppard clearly thought that she is going to be able to protect McKay better than Ronon can, which is Ronon's regular job.

Chuck: Uh, DHD. McKay: It's dialling itself. That's Earth's address! Weir: I thought it couldn't dial Earth without the ZPM. McKay: Well, it can't!

The DHD suddenly starts dialing itself, prompting McKay to get up to look at it. He seems absolutely baffled as, having just disconnected the ZPM personally, it should not be able to do this. It goes against everything he knows about the nature of reality. We can hear his utter bewilderment in his voice that goes up an octave, and it is rare to hear him so freaked out. This seems to be something that Sheppard can hear even through Weir's radio.

Sheppard: Did I just hear right, the gate dialled by itself? Weir: Yes, it tried to dial Earth. McKay: Whoever planted the bomb must have devised a programme to upload itself and automatically dial the gate as backup in case the first dialling was halted. Weir: A very good thing you pulled the ZPM.

Having been able to hear McKay's distress Sheppard does not just want to know what is going on right now, he also seems to have picked up his pace suddenly and very likely started making his way toward the control tower. McKay's relief is palpable and can be seen in his smile. But note that just as soon as he hears Sheppard's voice -- and it is clear that he does -- McKay blinks, has a physical reaction to it. This tells us that Sheppard had immediately switched to a channel where he could be in direct contact with McKay. Although Weir is the one who responds, Sheppard was asking the question from McKay. And McKay's reaction to hearing Sheppard is interesting. It is not relief, the relief quickly washes over his face. Again, like he had on the Daedalus in The Hive (S02E11), he looks awestruck, almost dazed. He can barely control his face when Sheppard is involved.

Cadman: Rodney? McKay: What? Cadman: The transmitter. McKay: Oh, no! Weir: What is this? McKay: We just started broadcasting a distress beacon. The gate dialled itself in order to draw our attention away from the transmitter! Sheppard: Turn it off!

McKay manages to take only a short moment to feel good about having done something that pleases the people he is trying to impress and earn the approval of, getting actual praise from Weir for his actions. Cadman points out that they are swiftly veering from the frying pan into the fire when the emergency beacon switches on. Sheppard's urgent "Turn it off!" tells us two things: he had opened a channel to include McKay and he was talking specifically to him. When there is clearly a crisis brewing, he does not want intermediaries between himself and McKay if he can help it. He also does not need to tell McKay twice (or at all, as they again seem to be thinking as one), he is already on it.

McKay: I am. It's too late! The damage is already done. The two wraith cruisers I was monitoring, they've-they've-they've-they've picked up the beacon, they've altered their course, they're headed straight for Atlantis!

McKay manages to shut it off quickly but it is still too late. The two phallic objects in the sky that he has been keeping an eye on start advancing on them, and there might be a metaphor here for how little incentive it takes to discover something when it is being sought after. When we are looking for it, it is easy to pick up the signal no matter how briefly it is sounded, how minutely shown. When it is important, you pay attention. Also, let us just note that Weir already seems utterly adrift here. This is precisely the kind of situation where she should defer to Sheppard, to give the command over to him. She would have spared herself a lot of agony if she had. But neither of them wants to do that, she does not want to give up the command and he does not want to take it on. Just like during Letters from Pegasus (S01E17), the fact that Kavanagh is dislikeable does not mean that he is wrong in his assessment of the leadership of this expedition.

Continued in Pt. 5

[dr-futbol-blog]

Grace Under Pressure, Pt. 7

Meanwhile, McKay has managed to to get his creeping hypoxia problem under control, leaning back to breathe in and to take solace in this small victory. Although it has done little to change the over-all trajectory of his current predicament, he does look almost like blissed out for a moment. Here, he is also just describing his environment and not using any discernible person, seeming to just mechanistically make record of the data as it occurs to him.

McKay: CO2 scrubbers operating at... one hundred percent. Well, at least something is.

Allowing himself only the briefest of respites McKay gets right back to work trying to solve the problem and having had only a short moment to calm down, he seems to dissociate less, talking in the first person and talking out loud just to workshop the problem rather than to talk to himself for the sake of talking. Now, McKay complains that he can barely see the read-outs on his device and given that we have never seen him wear eye-glasses (other than the protective kind) or seem to suffer from myopia of any kind, it is possible that it is his head injury that is making it difficult for him to focus on reading the numbers and code.

This is also the only time that he seems to have this problem (the McKay from the alternate reality of The Road Not Taken that had been married to Carter had glasses but this is not our McKay from a different timeline, this is an alternate reality version who is, among other differences, interested in women; regardless, this may be a subtle reference to a different world where he had needed glasses, where he had loved a woman and where Gen. Landry had become a fascist dictator, and a nod to the fact that we need to remember the differences between these two men when "Carter" soon makes an appearance), and he seems to have designed the interface for integrating human and Ancient technology himself so while he may want to push the blame on "they" here, he really only has himself to blame.

Regardless, with the head injury, lack of light, and creeping hysteria, his focus on numbers may not be the sharpest it has ever been. Given that he looks at his hands, it may not even be a problem just with his eyes here but the cold making his hands too stiff to work the device. Not being able to work the device is nonetheless just another thing making this day for him.

McKay: Now, let's see if I can... Oh, why do they have to make these things so small? Look, I need to be the one on the surface saving the poor bastard stuck down here, not actually be the poor bastard stuck down here! By the time Zelenka comes up with a plan, I'll have died of old age!

McKay is clearly frustrated and we can hear the anguish in his tone. We may note that he once more uses the word "Look" when he is making his case, even though there is no one around to hear him (that he knows of), again reminding us of the fact that he has said this word to Sheppard so many times in so many intense situations that Sheppard having developed an observable Pavlovian reaction to the command makes sense. Although McKay looks heavenward as he says these things and one could easily come to the conclusion that he was talking to God, that he was praying here for any and every supernatural force that might hear his plea, and the situation certainly might call for it, McKay has never seemed like a religious man.

What is interesting, however, is that the title seems to be in reference (among other things) to two songs in particular, and one of them is the hymn Amazing Grace. There are several points of connection in the episode to the hymn (e.g., whose composer had been stationed on a ship called the Pegasus) but the fact that he says this ("I need to... not actually be the poor bastard") precisely the moment before he hears the sound of the sea creature that is going to save him for the first time seems more than a little convenient, given also his very recent complaint about not being able to see:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind, but now I see

Regardless, this is when McKay makes first contact with the adolescent giant sea creature native to the planet in possession of psychic powers and an impressively big dong that he later comes to call by the name Sam. Now, McKay himself thinks that it is the radio transmitter that calls the creature to his location but like we have noted in connection with the past several episodes, McKay himself seems to have some latent psychic powers (especially of the telepathic variety) compliment of his ATA gene that are only fully realized when his full genetic potential is unleashed in Tao of Rodney (S03E14). However, he seems to be in enough mental anguish as he thinks that he is rushing toward his untimely death here that it is entirely possible the teenage fish might have been drawn to him through some kind of psychic resonance rather than just the radio.

What ever the attraction, McKay falls suddenly quiet and his eyes dart quickly from side to side as he hears the sound of something huge outside of the jumper, very close by. The shift in his mood from anguish to terror is so immediate that it is easy to entirely brush past what he was saying just before, which is that he was expecting Zelenka to be the one coming up with the plan to save him. He was trusting Zelenka, with whom he had been in radio contact, to be the one working on saving him when in fact it seemed to be Sheppard who had the ideas on how to get him out.

And it is not that he lacks faith in Sheppard's abilities, ingenuity or his desire to save him. It is not faith in Sheppard that he lacks but belief that he is worth saving, that he actually means enough to Sheppard for him to make the effort to save him (in fact, up until Miller's Crossing (S04E09) McKay has no idea how much he means to Sheppard and that is because Sheppard purposefully keeps it from him, figuring that as long as McKay does not know how much he cares, his love maybe won't get him killed), and it is precisely for this reason that he needs to be thoroughly convinced otherwise so as not to let his poor self-esteem and belief that he is fundamentally unlovable let him get himself killed. That is the actual plot of the episode.

McKay: Hello? Are you angry, or are you hungry? 'Cause I am pretty sure that this thing is an instant case of indigestion, you know? It's the transmitter! It must be broadcasting at a, at a frequency you can hear!

And so McKay makes contact, and he immediately starts having a conversation with his new friend. He is freaked out enough that he puts his device away and stands up as though he might better be able to calm down this wild animal that way, and we see him do his own self-soothing movement with his thumb as he tries to calm himself down.

What we might note is that he immediately tries to empathize with the alien life form, tries to figure out what it might want or be in need of, and we see him arrive at the conclusion that it must be annoyed by the frequency emitted by the transmitter. Now, from everything we know, it had been the intention of the psychic fish to help him out from the get-go but it is a feature of McKay's poor self-esteem that the only conclusion he can arrive is that he must be annoying this creature somehow. That it has to be wanting to get rid of him. But let us just make note of the fact that even though McKay concludes that it has to be the transmitter that is drawing the creature to the jumper, that does not mean that he is correct about the motivations of the fish to come to him (and to him specifically, not just to the jumper). There is no reason for the viewer to take everything McKay says as the unfiltered truth.

McKay: Poor little fella. Poor little fella. I'm, I'm sorry if I'm bugging you but, but I kinda need to leave this thing on for a bit, you know? Maybe you could, tell my friends where I am? You could, could you do that, huh? Could you go for help, huh? Could you do that? What am I doing? Well, I'm treating an alien whale like Lassie!

Even though the creature outside sounds huge, McKay attempts to soothe it by calling it a poor little fella. He even admits himself that he is trying to deal with the creature as though it were a dog, calling it Lassie, every little boy's (at least, in his age group) dream dog with a Scottish name. We may recall that according to Letters from Pegasus (S01E17), McKay had a dog that he loved as a child that had run away (or something worse, as he did recall that his father had refused to pay for a license for it), and it is entirely within the realm of possibility that he too had given his own dog a Scottish name. Lassie would have been on the television when he was a child, and it is the kind of show that he might have taken solace in given the state of his own childhood environment. His heart had been broken by losing the dog and he had hence convinced himself that he preferred cats who love his company and wait him to come home. It is also not just the love of a boy for a dog that might have appealed to him watching the show but also the close friendship between Jeff and Porky, which is once more not unlike the dynamic we find between McKay and Sheppard. Note also that Lassie was a a Border Collie, a breed of Scottish or Welsh sheep dogs -- shepherds.

Relevant here is that McKay addresses the sea creature directly, he engages the thing in actual dialogue. And what is more, McKay asks it for help. McKay asks it to tell his friends where he is and that is precisely what the fish does. The psychic sea creature is what helps Sheppard find him. It is clearly sentient and it does not wish him ill.

The jumper shakes once as the alien fish first comes near it, and it could be that it is caused by the thing swimming too close by the jumper not realizing that just sweeping by so close would cause the jumper to rattle so badly, but this is the only time that the sea creature even remotely seems to present any kind of a danger to McKay. From everything we know, the fish tries to save him and from what we learn later on in Echoes (S03E12), these creatures had somewhat of a symbiotic relationship with the Ancients since the fish had needed the Ancients to save them from the sun and the Ancients had needed the fish to tell them when it was time to do that. There was mutual benefit to keeping the other species alive and around, and this fish seems to have made the same decision regarding McKay now -- and we may note that McKay does have the Ancient gene activated in him, something these fish have not encountered for 10,000 years and which may seem more than a little curious to them.

McKay: Look, OK, if you're not gonna help, then just swim on by!Swim... Maybe the jumper can swim! OK. Cockpit is inaccessible. But most of the control conduits run back here, so if you were really meant to be submersible, then your drive pods should function underwater too, hmm? Which means I can fly you from back here -- well, not fly, but I can surface. And even if I get close to the surface, then the emergency transmitter won't have to penetrate so much ocean. OK! Now we're getting somewhere!

Here we may note that the moment McKay has an idea, the moment he comes up with something to occupy his thoughts that he can focus working on, he no longer harbours any fear or trepidation. It is as though he completely forgets that he is even meant to be afraid and as long as his mind has this occupation, he does not have to acknowledge the terror, the anguish, or anything else that might distract him from doing what needs to be done, focusing only on the implementation of his plan. His ability to do this, to shut everything else out so that he can focus on completing a task very likely results from his childhood environment, and although it may make him very good to have around in a crisis, it has come at a price for him personally. We may also note that, although he now returns to talking to the jumper instead of the giant sea creature, McKay gives the fish an alternative here: if you are not going to help, swim on by. The fish does not swim on by because it does want to help, and hence sticks around.

Continued in Pt. 8

[dr-futbol-blog]

Grace Under Pressure, Pt. 3

Captain Hugh Griffin of the United States Air Force decides to give up his life so that McKay might get a fighting chance to live. For sure he is showing that selfless, self-sacrificing Atlantis spirit. But to take nothing away from his sacrifice, the way it happens, although very swiftly, is more than a little strange. For one, he calls McKay "Rodney" and he really has no business using this intimate address for him. There was nothing in their interaction to indicate that they were close like that. There is nothing to indicate that McKay had wanted him to call him anything but Dr McKay. But for some reason, as he decides to give up his life all out of the blue, he changes to this more intimate address. And what he tells McKay while making eye contact with him is even more interesting.

Griffin: Good luck, Rodney! McKay: No, what are you doing? Griffin! Griffin?

Griffin tells McKay "Good luck!" which seems to continue that streak of trying to make McKay feel better about what he is forced to do, to comfort McKay in an extremely dire situation. Now, what makes this interesting is that later on, we have the following exchange between Sheppard and Weir:

Sheppard: We're gonna lose you altogether when we get deeper, so now's a good time to wish us luck. Weir: Good luck, then.

In this same episode, we have Sheppard wanting someone to tell him good luck as he sets out to undertake a potentially very dangerous rescue mission. But what is worse, what is more tragic, is that the way Griffin does this cannot help reminding McKay of the worst moment of his life, of when Sheppard had made the snap decision to save his life without explaining anything to him, without asking him to come along, just walking away from him like what they had built together in the past few months had meant nothing. McKay had not even understood what Sheppard had done until much later but he had gone over this moment in his mind countless of times since then. This is something that featured in his nightmares, and in fact we do find an echo of this, of Sheppard behaving in a dismissive, uncaring way toward him in his actual nightmares in Doppelganger (S04E04).

Sheppard choosing death over him, Sheppard choosing to leave him behind to live while he had planned to give up his own life for him had been an act so cruel and selfish to McKay that he could scarcely reconcile this with the Sheppard he thought he had come to know. He had thought that they had an understanding, that they felt the same way about holding the line together, standing side by side until the end. McKay had discovered that end-of-the-line kind of guy in himself after meeting Sheppard, and he thought Sheppard felt the same way. He hadn't. Sheppard had broken his heart. And now this man who was nearly a perfect stranger to him for some unfathomable reason had decided to do the same thing.

It is not that McKay wants to die. He is grateful beyond words that the man decided to sacrifice himself so that he might live. The question here is, how much of it had taken place out of the volition of one Hugh Griffin? Is it possible for the jumpers to use the neural link to make the pilots -- ones that do not have the actual mental capacities of Ancients -- to do things?

McKay: Why did he do that? Why would you do that?

McKay listens to the forward compartment explode and fill with water, a dawning horror on his face. But he throws a lampshade on this whole situation by asking twice the question of why Griffin had done it. The first is in his high pitched tone that betrays his anguish but the second time is in definite and open anger, and there is so much anger in his response that it has to be spilling out from somewhere other than this current situation. And so what I am speculating in this: because Sheppard's final command to the jumper had been to save McKay by any means necessary even if it cost the others (including himself) their lives, it could well be that the jumper is still trying to accomplish that. And because the pilots are connected to the technology via neural interface, it might be that in this moment it had not been the pilot that controlled the jumper but the jumper that controlled the pilot. That is why Griffin essentially tells McKay what Sheppard would have told him. He is channeling Sheppard's will when they had taken fire on the Olesian prison colony. The way that Griffin does this here is precisely the way we know that Sheppard would have done it, quickly and giving McKay no time to stop him. The softly spoken "Rodney" with eye contact is just icing on the cake.

And now McKay finds himself all alone in a closed space in the dark with certain death bearing down on him by the minute. He starts talking to himself, which he will be doing for the remainder of the episode and although it is again partially for the benefit of the audience, for us to have some inkling of what is going on with him internally instead of just watching a dude tinker in silence for 40 minutes, it also does give us insight into his mental health. He may be doing this in order to keep his focus and to stay functional under extreme pressure but it is clear that what ever he is doing here, he is practiced in doing it. Let us recall that Griffin, although he dies under McKay's watch and is someone whose death now weighs on his conscience, is yet another person it had been his responsibility to save and he had been unable. Griffin was another one in a long list of people on Atlantis that had died because of him. He has had to use his skills at staying functional under duress too much for his own comfort lately.

McKay: Wide open fields. Wide open fields. Wide open fields. You're not stuck in a metal casket under thousands of feet of water. You're in a wide open field. There. Now. Zelenka. Radek? It's Rodney, come in please.

The first thing we may note is that the way he grasps onto the image of wide open fields, imagines them in his mind and repeats the phrase to calm himself down tells us of his long history of being in therapy. This is the kind of tool that is used in various kinds of trauma therapy and not only have we seen McKay use the services of Heightmeyer, seemingly on the regular (they are "seeing each other," after all), it is entirely possible he has been seeing a therapist ever since he was the age of the child in The Sixth Sense, being how he was suddenly reminded of his sister and of his childhood through the film in Letters from Pegasus (S01E17). And given that he has such tools at his perusal, the visualization of a wide open field is not that different from the swirling storm clearing into blue skies that Sheppard had been trying to teach him to meditate with in Tao of Rodney (E03E14), and it raises the question of how much he really needed Sheppard's help to do that and how much he just wanted an excuse to spend some time with him alone. And the visualization seems to work too, he gets his panic and anxiety under control enough that he is able to start thinking about the problem rationally. Cutting off his emotions to be able to do the work is something that McKay is very practiced in.

Second, we see McKay bring up his right hand to press the button on his ear piece and it seems as though the radios are meant to be used by the non-dominant hand. They do not have radios for left handed people to be worn on the right side but the fact that he he brings up his other arm to press the button may be yet another indication that he is a left-handed man in a right-handed world. Further, he starts by referring to Zelenka by his surname and then switches to Radek which just highlights what had happened. McKay has known Zelenka for a long time now and they work in each other's pockets and he still mostly uses his family name to refer to him. That Griffin, whom we heard both McKay and Zelenka only refer to as Griffin, called him Rodney as he gave up his own life for him is more than a little odd.

McKay: Radek? Now, of course the radio transmitter is in the forward section, which is now flooded with water, which means that you have no way to contact the surface, which means that they have no way to triangulate your position. OK, alright. You've been in worse situations... Just because you can't think of them right now doesn't make it any less true. But you're not dead yet.

Here we can see McKay beginning to dissociate. He is not talking to himself in the third person, like he had accused Ford of doing in Runner (S02E03), but instead he talks to himself in the second person. That is to say, he is literally talking to himself and it very much seems as though he has adopted a particular persona to engage himself with that might help him get out of this jam, and this other persona is especially striking in how he changes his tone as he tells himself "But you're not dead yet" with utter confidence. And we may commend him on being able to stay remarkably calm under the situation.

Now, McKay says that he is sure that he has been in a similarly tight or even worse situation before even if he cannot remember if, and it may be due to post-traumatic amnesia that he cannot remember the obvious parallel to this situation. Almost exactly a year ago (if we concede that 38 Minutes (S01E04) works better and makes thematically more sense after the mid-season finale), he had been in a similarly hopeless-seeming situation that he himself had even compared to being in a submarine:

McKay: Anyone else claustrophobic or is it just me? Ford: Why'd you close the door? McKay: So that when the stargate shuts down and the forward section is severed, we're not directly exposed to space. Ford: Will it hold? McKay: Like a screen door on a submarine. I just prefer hypoxia to explosive decompression. It's a, it's a personal thing. Ford: If the air's gonna get thin in here, you really do have to calm down. McKay: Oh yeah? Wait ‘til you see how thin it gets in twenty seven minutes-- Sheppard: McKay... McKay: Vacuum! That's thin. Sheppard: Knock it off. McKay: Oh, I apologise for being the only person who truly comprehends how screwed we are! Sheppard: Don't talk to me about screwed! And let's not give up on Markham and Stackhouse either. There's plenty of time to solve this thing, but you've got to stop using your mouth and start using your brain. McKay: I'm sorry. It's just I react to certain doom a certain way. It's a bad habit and… and… Maybe there's a way to manually retract the mechanism. Sheppard: Yeah, maybe there is.

And the parallels between the episodes also tell us who McKay is talking to himself as now, who he is (once more) using to try to get himself out of this trouble. He knows that Sheppard both has faith in his abilities and wants him to survive, so he is the most natural persona for McKay to adopt when he needs someone to talk to him, to calm him down and give him confidence, to help him keep it together. What McKay is telling himself here is essentially the same as what Sheppard had been telling him then: do not waste time panicking, think your way out of this situation.

McKay: Alright, you can fix this problem -- you just need to... work one step at a time. Now. Gotta find some light. So... Alright. Ha! Light! I have the light! Now...

McKay finds a flashlight and celebrates this small victory but as soon as he is able to see the rear compartment of the jumper in full, he realizes how alone he is in spite of the voice he has been using to talk to himself. Note that in saying "You can fix this problem" and "You just need to work one step at a time" he is telling himself exactly the kinds of things Sheppard would have and has said to him in the past. But upon getting this small victory, he then switches back to first person "I have the light!" In fact, this is the first thing he has said in the first person, as himself, the whole time that he has been here alone. And just as soon as he drops the pretense for a moment, the horror of the situation starts creeping in. Even if he does take this one step at a time, this is a real pickle that he finds himself in.

We may also note the similarity in the premise with the beginning of the previous episode and this. Sheppard was likewise alone in a dark, dank cave and although he tried to keep up his morale, he tried holding on to the thought that no man would get left behind because that is what he had told his people, he too struggled to believe the things he was telling himself. While Sheppard was not confined to the cave like McKay is confined to the closed space of the jumper, he had chosen to stay in the cave as long as possible -- even having lighted his way with fire eventually -- because getting left behind, being abandoned is his deepest fear. McKay is similarly in the dark, cold and dank here and cut off from everyone. But unlike Sheppard, McKay is unable to walk away. McKay is alone and unloved and although he is trying to use Sheppard's voice in talking to himself, somewhere at the back of his mind is the fear that it has all been a mistake. There is something so fundamentally wrong with him that he is undeserving of love, that if people knew who he really is, they would not bother with him. And that is the fear he has to battle during his isolation. The harrowing thought that everyone he knows would actually be better off without him because he is so unlovable.

Continued in Pt. 4

[dr-futbol-blog]

Critical Mass, Pt. 10

Sheppard keeps his weapon aimed at the Goa'uld and removes his eyes from his target only to give Weir the message that she should leave. Sheppard does not say anything but this does not appear to be an example of the same kind of wordless communication that we have seen between Sheppard and McKay, as Sheppard's look here is pretty grim and easy to read, and it still takes her a moment to get his meaning. And although we saw Weir take a few steps back, note that Sheppard's motivation here is not really to protect her, to keep her safe. He tells her to get out because now that they know who has the code and that their enemy is an alien entity to boot, they are going to get that code out of him by any means necessary. He only protects her in the sense that as long as she is not here to witness what happens, she does not have to know about it, does not have to report it or ever testify against them.

Caldwell: I will never give you that code. I warn you, as a Goa'uld I now possess the strength of many men. Dex: Won't be a fair fight, then.

We should keep in mind that although Caldwell is host to a Goa'uld, he is also Sheppard's superior officer and assaulting a superior officer is possibly the most egregious violation of Army regulations. What they are preparing to do here, he may well be in for a court martial about it later because the rules and regulations of the Air Force do not have a clause in place for slimy snake-like creatures that burrow into people's heads. But Sheppard keeps from assaulting Caldwell with his own hands here, which gives him only the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability since Ronon is under his command and he did very much authorize Ronon to do this (but being smart about it, he never committed it in words and only used gestures and facial expressions to tell Ronon what he needed him to do).

We see Ronon start roughing Caldwell up without needing to be told but what he says here is somewhat strange. One would think that Caldwell having the strength of many men instead of being an elderly man is what would make it a fair fight, and given that Ronon knows next to nothing about the Goa'uld or their physical prowess, that this line would be bravado indicating that he thinks he has the strength of many more men than the Goa'uld does makes little sense. Regardless, let us keep in mind that Sheppard is quite insistent on saving both the city and McKay here. McKay needs that code and it is going to come out of this man, and that is Sheppard's only concern. Everything else follows later.

Sheppard: Hold on!

We see Sheppard grimace as Ronon starts whaling on him because even though he thinks this is necessary, he does not take pleasure in this. We can contrast this to what we witnessed at the end of The Siege (S01E19) where Sheppard urgently needed information from another alien entity. We could see the change in him when he went from trying to get information out of their prisoner to taking his pain out on him. Thinking that McKay had died makes all the difference, and quite the opposite, here getting that information out of their prisoner is vital for McKay to live. Sheppard stops Ronon by putting his hand on the man's chest to calm him down, not unlike an attack dog, because he is starting to fear that if Ronon keeps this up, their prisoner is going to die before they get anything useful out of him. They have to be smart about this. And let us recall that we have seen Sheppard use his internal McKay, the question "What would McKay do?" in many tight situations and this may be yet another example of that, now that he decides to use a TASER to run an electric current through the man, delivering him intense pain without risking injury.

Sheppard: Colonel? Colonel? Caldwell: Sheppard. Sheppard: We don't have much time -- we need that access code.

Sheppard watches the man writhing on the ground at first with not a hint of emotion on his face. He then narrows his eyes, unsure of what he is seeing. Sheppard and Caldwell have had more than a few issues between them but at least for Sheppard it had never been personal. Caldwell was the brass, the kind of brass he has been dealing his entire career. He does not think Caldwell is a bad man and thinks that he is a good soldier and a good officer. It is not Caldwell's fault that Sheppard has issues with authority and that he had believed that marooned in another galaxy without hope of ever getting back to Earth had been a good occasion to abandon a few Air Force regulations that he did not think would actually harm anyone. Although Sheppard refuses to feel shame for having fallen in love, he also understands why the regulations had been put in place. And hence Sheppard gets no personal satisfaction from seeing Caldwell in agony. But he can also see Caldwell fighting, and he hopes that by fighting together with Caldwell they can overcome this enemy now.

McKay: ZPM levels are spiking. We need to go now! Sheppard: Access code!

And so, just as soon as everything seems lost, Sheppard and McKay literally save the city together. Sheppard runs up to the platform with the code, and do note how winded Ronon -- who usually runs a lot faster and better than Sheppard, being that he is a Runner -- is here, telling us just how fast Sheppard had made his way to McKay. McKay then punches in the code that Sheppard puts directly into his hand like they are re-enacting The Creation of Adam. But as intimate as brushing each other's fingers out in the open is, the look McKay gives Sheppard when disaster is finally averted is even more intimate. He is out of breath and panting, and although he does not say anything, the desperation, the yearning, the longing, the love that he feels for Sheppard can all be seen in his eyes.

And Sheppard holds McKay's gaze for what seems like a long time, only averting his eyes when he notices Weir watching him too. And this is a part of the problem. Overcoming a life or death situation should be cause for celebration but they cannot be seen making any gestures toward each other. If they were friends they could freely hug, just like we saw Ford hugging McKay when they were saved in Hot Zone (S01E13), and no one would think anything of it. It is a normal response following an intense situation, it is one of the few socially sanctioned situations for men to hug each other. But because they are not friends, they have to keep that distance in public. They had both come very close to losing each other and the home that they have found on Atlantis and that feeling of dread is not a simple thing to shake off. It stays with you. And as long as they are in public, they are not allowed any outlet for those feelings.

A new day dawns and we find the lovers Beckett and Cadman coming from somewhere together in matching t-shirts, laughing and seeming happy in each other's company. We have seen how the nearness of death can make people feel more amorous, to cling to their lovers with an increased libido. Now, let us make a point of the fact that it is not a coincidence that McKay runs into them here. Before, when Sheppard and McKay had been walking alone together on their way somewhere and laughing, they had come across Cadman. And now this is like an inversion of that, we find two people who have either recently been intimate or were on their way to do something together, and they now run into McKay. This just gives context to the previous scene with Sheppard and McKay. Beckett and Cadman too very obviously have a world of their own where they have discussions just between the two of them and laugh at things that are not for other people to understand.

McKay: Oh, Carson. Hermiod's just beginning initial calculations on the extraction. Cadman: Extraction? Beckett: Now? McKay: Mmm-hmm. Hermiod's gonna attempt to extract the Goa'uld from Colonel Caldwell using Asgard beaming technology. Beckett: Quite remarkable, actually. McKay: And complicated. The calculations are impossibly intricate.

McKay seems to be in a really good mood, and his mood is probably not merely caused by having survived almost certain death or having had a scintillating discussion with Hermiod. Let us also point out how McKay is not even a little bit jealous of Beckett's relationship with Cadman, and it is possible that he does not even notice anything going on. He does not pay that much attention as to be concerned with what Cadman does, and as long as his friend is happy, he is happy. But having worked together with Cadman on saving the city, he may be marginally less creeped out by her, which may also have been one of Sheppard's intentions in pairing them up together, in addition to her being the best person to protect him from any wayward bombs.

McKay: You don't wanna go beaming out a chunk of his brain. Beckett: Lovely, Rodney! McKay: Hmm. Hey! Look who's back! It's Mister Mom! How were the kids? Zelenka: Do not even speak to me!

McKay looks very much like the cat that got the cream, seeming pleased with his quip about beaming out a part of the brain and it seems like this is not the right audience for this humor. Now, we do not know where McKay has been but we do know where he is going because we find out in the next scene that Sheppard shared in McKay's mirth over the return of Zelenka from his mission on the planet of the children, the children seeming to have used him as a drawing board. McKay sounds extremely happy to see Zelenka, and this is even before he takes stock of what he looks like. Now, McKay's comments may not even be about what Zelenka looks like. He calls him Mr Mom because he has spent time with the children, and let us note again that it is entirely conjecture to think that McKay does not like the children. He even asks Zelenka how the children are here, and there is no need to interpret him as being sarcastic.

McKay had grown fond of the two young children he had spent time with, and he has many characteristics of Mr Mom himself. He cares about them and may genuinely want to know how they are doing because he had been unable to go there himself this time. Because Zelenka hates children and has had an awful time of it himself, he interprets McKay as making fun of him but that is just his reading of McKay's intention. Earlier, we heard Sheppard make a private comment to McKay about the children and it may be that they have discussed them privately before, just the two of them. They both connected with children on the planet. They both want children. They want a family. And like McKay had told his sister in his video message in Letters From Pegasus (S01E17), times like they had just had makes people re-evaluate what they see as important, and for McKay it had been the family that he had found here on Atlantis that had suddenly become so much more important than anything else.

There is also sorrow in McKay's eyes here, at the end, and it is not just because Zelenka tells him the thing that people are always telling him: they want him to not talk. It is possible that Zelenka's braided hair and painted face are reminding McKay of the thing that he is not allowed to have. Beckett and Cadman walking around in their t-shirts and being all over each other is something that he is not allowed to have. Holding the man that he loves when they had come seconds from annihilation is something that he cannot have. These recent events have made McKay so happy and it only serves to bring his sorrow into sharper focus now that things are winding down.

Continued in Pt. 11