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dr-futbol-blog · 1 month ago

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Allies, Pt. 11

The Lanteans are on a conference call with the wraith queen who seems to be unsatisfied by the delivery system McKay had to cobble up in record time to distribute the virus -- a project with which he had been involved not at all previously. McKay, that is, had been asked to weaponize the virus that Beckett had originally intended for "curing" the wraith from what he had called "an unnatural state." The wraith queen is making demands on them and they in turn are all quite literally turning to McKay for a solution to the problem, are looking for McKay to come up with something that would keep their wraith "allies" from disclosing their location to all the other wraith. McKay sounds justifiably irked as he promises to come up with something, feeling like he has so many times before that saving them is falling on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.

McKay: OK, OK. I will figure something out. But no more holding back. I want to know everything there is to know about hive ships: schematics, power distribution, life support configurations, everything you've got. Wraith Queen: Then you shall have it. McKay: For real?

As mentioned, not holding back is something that McKay seems to be doing himself in this situation, not bottling up his emotions but letting them show, letting his frustration show instead of trying to hide it from Sheppard like he has for most of the season. But at the same time, McKay wishes that Sheppard would likewise not hold back from him but let him in on the things that are eating him up inside. If McKay had been bottling up the resentment he felt toward Sheppard's actions, Sheppard had been hiding the concern and worry he felt for McKay, had tried to keep McKay from seeing how hard he was working on keeping McKay safe. It seems like "no more holding back" was good advise for the both of them, and in this episode we do see both of them incrementally learn to let go of control, of trusting one another.

McKay demands to know everything while not actually expecting the wraith to share their secrets, and we may note that again when he is having to argue for his science, for his theories, for his place in the world, McKay comes across as competent and in control. He seems more surprised than anyone that the wraith actually agree to give him access to the data, and for a moment he looks like a lost child, not knowing where to go from here because he had been ready to argue his case for much longer.

Note also that we see the wraith queen give the command to one of her crewmembers by nodding her head, not saying anything in words. While it is of course possible for the other wraith to simply read her expression, we may recall that the wraith have a psychic network and seem to communicate with each other mentally, and the queen giving this command non-verbally is the same as McKay understanding what Sheppard had just been telling him without using his words. We may also note that we had started the episode with McKay whining that Sheppard wanted everything and now he is asking for everything himself, so it seems that at the end of the day they both do "like everything." It was never that he resented Sheppard wanting everything from him, providing Sheppard gives him life. It is just that complaining is a way of getting attention from Sheppard, which he also craves.

Chuck: Receiving transmission. Weir: Make sure it's secure. McKay: Yeah-yeah-yeah, we're completely firewalled. Let me see that. Oh! She actually did it! I mean, this is the motherlode Weir: What is, exactly?

The wraith queen sends in the data and we see McKay quickly move to the terminal to skim over what had been sent. Notable here is that McKay has to turn away from Sheppard instead of turning toward him, like we usually see them turn, because they are standing so close that having swivelled toward Sheppard would have put him right up against Sheppard's body. They are standing that close. There is more space between McKay and Weir for him to turn.

Weir advises caution like she had previously when the wraith had sent them data, and in his excitement to get his hands on the data McKay brushes past her concerns. The wraith manage to send in a virus with the data -- and we should recall that we had started the season with the wraith virus seeking to reveal their location to the wraith in The Intruder (S02E02). This had been the first time that we saw McKay and Hermiod working together and like in this scene, we had seen McKay tell an "Airperson" to get out of his way so that he could take a look at it. They had the following discussion about it then:

McKay: In all likelihood it was transmitted in a compressed format -- it took a while to unfold, to spread to the point where it could adversely affect our systems. I think it probably happened during your return flight to Earth. Since then, it's been dormant, waiting for some kind of a trigger. Sheppard: Like what? McKay: Possibly the fact that we're once again in proximity to wraith territory? I think it was ultimately designed to take control of the navigational system -- fly the ship right to them. Weir: If they get their hands on the Daedalus, they'll not only have access to the intergalactic hyperdrive technology but they'll have all the navigation data that'll lead them straight to Earth. McKay: That's what they wanted all along. A new feeding ground.

This brings the episode into conversation with the start of the season, creating a ring composition to the narrative. It is likely that they downloaded the virus to the Lantean systems here in a compressed format, and it took a while for it to unfold and affect their systems, and what the wraith had been looking for all along was access to intergalactic hyperdrive technology and navigation data to lead them straight to Earth.

However, even though the virus was downloaded here, it does not mean that it was here that the virus was released into their system or that it was McKay's fault, his over-excitement over the prospects, that ultimately doomed them. He says that they are firewalled here, and it is possible that the wraith would have been unable to make use of the virus if they had kept it on this terminal. But later on, they have the entire science corps working on the data, they have distributed it across several terminals and we even see Zelenka transfer data from one computer to another, so the virus infecting their systems is not McKay's fault -- at least not entirely (albeit, as the leader of the science corps, ultimately). But it is true that he seems excited here and that he is throwing caution to the wind because he is keen to start working with it, his fingers itching to go through all the data. But there is definitely an element of contrapasso here, of McKay winding up paying for his own mistakes by the end of the episode.

McKay pushes the Canadian gate technician out of his way and this action too has a comedic beat to it. It is McKay being McKay. And it is true that when he is under a time element that he is often impatient in getting people out of his way because there are times when all of their lives depend on him being able to execute some action in the nick of time -- as seen prominently e.g., at the end of Critical Mass (S02E13). As we had seen in the previous episode where Zelenka had put up the shield immediately upon getting the command from McKay, the people of Atlantis have learned to do as he says, to get out of his way when he nudges them, are not expecting him to be polite. Later on in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) Sheppard describes Rod as someone who says "please" and "thank you," implying that he is the opposite of McKay in this. McKay does not say please and thank you. And it is entirely possible that it is witnessing scenes such as this that makes Sheppard feel like it is true when in truth we frequently hear McKay say both "please" and "thank you." He seems to use them reflexively like the Canadian that he is -- much more frequently, in fact, than Sheppard himself.

McKay just seems to feel like there is a time and a place for being courteous and trying to save everyone's life is not that time. Often he also says the words "please" and "thank you" in a tone that may make the recipient feel like he does not actually mean what he says, which may also contribute to Sheppard feeling this way. The important thing here is that even though Sheppard has definitely made note of this, even though he is well aware that McKay is not perfect, this is not and never has been a deal-breaker to him. And, as noted previously, it is Sheppard himself who we hear say both words much more infrequently, and he has a known tendency to project his own faults on other people. Regardless, McKay sending the Canadian technician rolling away on his swivel chair is amusing and serves to distract the viewer from this being the moment that the wraith get one over them.

McKay's use of the term "motherlode" in reference to the data is somewhat curious, especially when we had just been told that the wraith had sent them "everything." A prospecting term, the motherlode refers to a large vein or principal supply of something but not to the totality of something or the sum of everything, which is what McKay is actually meaning. Given that McKay is not a prospector, it is possible that he uses the term with little regard to the connotations but it is a curious choice from the writers because, apart from being the name of a famous gay night club in San Francisco, Motherlode was also a Canadian rock band whose hit single When I Die seems appropriate to where Sheppard and McKay are in their relationship right now:

When I die I hope to be A better man than you thought I'd be It's been hard to make you see What kind of man I'm trying to be All I ask for you to try To understand what it means to me It's not hard to understand why you Get discouraged all the time I keep trying not to worry, but I Can't help feeling lost in you But I love you Love you And I need you Time goes by and you'll find That we'll achieve a love sublime

Connecting his mention of the motherlode to the lyrics might seem like a stretch if not for the fact that both McKay and Sheppard seem to quote songlyrics to each other later on. Regardless, it is fitting for the occasion. But then they hit us with a much more obvious reference:

McKay: Only everything you've ever wanted to know about wraith technology but were afraid to ask! Weir: Why are you doing this? Wraith Queen: We have suffered extensive damage. Weir: We could render assistance. Wraith Queen: You would do this?

McKay's response to Weir's question here is interesting, and this one is a clear and obvious reference. McKay is making an intentional reference but why he does it in character and what the writers are trying to communicate with the reference can be different things. The explicit reference is to the 1972 film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), one of Woody Allen's best-known features, and while there are questionable things connected to both him and the film, it belongs to the canon of North American popular culture. While McKay may have seen the film, and surely has heard the title that has been lampooned hundreds of times in different contexts, it is possible that he is not thinking about the film at all here. He is just feeling elated and hence came up with a funny way of answering Weir's question, probably intending nothing by it.

Of course he may have seen the film, and he may even have read the book of the same name it is based on (1969, by David Reuben) because even though it came out when he was still a baby, it was a popular sex manual and perused by people for a long time. The book is... problematic, and yet its popularity was a part of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, of liberating attitudes regarding sex. There are things written about homosexual people and gay sex in the book that are unfortunate but at the same time, it was the first contact many regular people had with homosexuality, where ordinary folks were made to think of gay people as people instead of as predators and reprobates.

It is by far not a progressive book by today's standards and the author himself even updated some of his views later, but it is a book that contains information on homosexuality, gay sex, gay culture and even gay slang and lingo at a time when this information was difficult to come by, when there was no internet a young boy could hop on to figure things out and even libraries did not hold volumes that would have answered their questions. It was many people's first contact to the concept of homosexuality, and while it is certainly not an endorsement of homosexuality, for many curious gay youth it would have been the first place where they got to read about gay sex, how it happened, what kinds of things you could do with another man, where you could meet other people who were like you, what the gay underground was like, what kind of language they used.

It is not accidental that they make the reference to this book because, as discussed in connection with Michael (S02E18), the writers of the show have flirted with the concept of conversion therapy in several episodes and have connected it with Sheppard in particular, weaving it into his tragic backstory. Given when Sheppard was born and the social class his family belonged to, it is entirely possible that he might have been forced to undertake conversion therapy in the early 1980s, during the Reagan administration and the height of the AIDS epidemic -- many young men were. Reuben wrote about conversion therapy:

Couldn’t homosexuals just be born that way? A lot of homosexuals would like to think so. They prefer to consider their problem the equivalent of a club foot or birthmark; just something to struggle through life with. This explanation is a little tragic. It implies that all homosexuals are condemned without appeal to a life some of them say they enjoy so much. Actually for those who want to change there is a chance. How? If a homosexual who wants to renounce homosexuality finds a psychiatrist who knows how to cure homosexuality, he has every chance of becoming a happy, well-adjusted, heterosexual.

This was a commonly held view when Sheppard and McKay were growing up, and it took a lot of time and effort to educate people to see gay people as people. As discussed previously, the therapy even seemed to have worked on Sheppard, at least for a time. He had tried "not being wraith," he had married a woman and joined the most homophobic branch of the US military, he had made every effort to live life on the straight and narrow. In Outcast (S04E15), Sheppard tells his ex-wife: "Well, in his mind, marrying you was probably the best thing I ever did," and if wealthy industrialist Patrick Sheppard had used a lot of his money, power and influence to make sure that his son was "cured," it is easy to see why he would have thought that Sheppard marrying a woman voluntarily had been the best thing he had ever done. But Sheppard was not happy. His ex-wife mentions him taking on the kinds of missions married men are not sent to during their marriage, which tells us that he was deeply unhappy.

It is interesting that the way McKay makes the reference is by replacing the word "sex" with "wraith technology" here, especially because in the very next scene we get an exchange between Sheppard and Zelenka where they talk about reading about sex as a kid in connection with the wraith data. Sheppard volunteers the information that when he had been a kid and got his first encyclopedia, he had started with the letter S, which Zelenka interprets as meaning Sex. Even more curious is that Zelenka actually uses the word "sexuality" instead of sex, as though it had been sexuality that Sheppard had been reading about when he was a kid and got his first book with information on sex. Sex is a taboo subject and so of enduring interest to boys and girls that are reaching maturity. They understandably want to know more about it, and the sex ed of boarding schools in the 1970s likely left a lot to be desired.

And it is especially if and when a boy had questions about sex and sexuality that could not be answered by traditional sources of information, that he could not ask his father about, that it would make sense for Sheppard to have wanted to read about it. Sex is a topic that interests Sheppard, he seems to think about it a lot. He may have thought about it a lot when he was growing up and because he would not have had many role models, would not have had neutral sources of information, it is easy to see how it would be confusing for a boy trying to figure out what sexuality means for him. Teenage years are confusing to everyone but adding to it the lack of information on non-normative sexual orientations and growing up in a social environment where it was condemned, figuring out who he was and what he liked must have been very difficult.* There would have been things about sex he had wanted to know and literally had been afraid to ask.

And for better or worse, Reuben's book was a source of information where many people, both straight and not straight, had their first contact with the topic. It is possible that McKay had read it. It is likely that Sheppard had read it, and it might even be something his conversion therapist would have made him read. And what we are reminded of here is not only that sex is a thing both Sheppard and McKay partake in, but that both of them may have strange ideas and hang-ups related to sex and same-sex relationships that would result from them being misinformed in their adolescence. For a variety of reasons, the two of them have to work much harder to make their relationship work than heterosexual couples, and there are bound to be misunderstandings. The wraith queen admits that they have suffered "extensive damage" here, and that is also true of Sheppard and McKay. They too have suffered extensive damage in their own ways, and this is why the importance of allies, of having people around them who know about their relationship and support them, is so important.

The film that McKay references is a comedy and there is once more a comedic beat to his line here, the happy look on his face disguising the darker implications of the reference.

Weir: We're supposed to have an alliance, aren't we? Sending information on wraith technology was a remarkable act of good faith on your part. Wraith Queen: Your assistance would be... acceptable. Weir: Alright, then. We have a deal.

McKay occupies himself skimming through the data they had been sent while Weir and Sheppard continue their chat with the wraith queen, albeit Sheppard is not saying anything, having said nothing at all after seeming to accidentally snap at the queen and then place himself between her and McKay. As Weir continues negotiating with her, we may note that Sheppard has not moved to stand one inch closer to Weir but instead occupies a space where he blocks the queen's view of the room behind him, of where McKay is bent over a laptop.

We see that Sheppard seems to be making some effort to keep himself calm by how he closes his eyes, how he lifts his chin and takes a deep breath, and it is possible he needs to do this because he seems to realize -- correctly -- that it will be McKay who is asked to make these repairs to the hive, on the hive, as their foremost expert on wraith technology. Three weeks ago Sheppard would not have even considered allowing McKay to go on an occupied hive, especially not without him, but it seems very much like the Lanteans and the wraith are not the only ones with an alliance, that Sheppard and McKay have formed an alliance of their own where they are making every effort of being supportive of each other. They too have made some kind of a deal that has required good faith to be acted on both of their parts. Sheppard may not be happy about it, but he is happy to see McKay happy. It had been a while since he had seen McKay happy like this.

Continued in Pt. 12

"When I was 13, I secretly read my parents’ old copy of Dr. David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, first published in 1969. Standing nervously at the bookshelf, I was poised to replace the volume quickly if I heard footsteps. The chapter on homosexuality explained, “The homosexual must constantly search for the one man, the one penis, the one experience, that will satisfy him. He is the sexual Diogenes, always looking for the penis that pleases. That is the reason he must change partners endlessly. [In gay marriages] the principals never stop cruising. They may set up housekeeping together, but the parade of penises usually continue [sic] unabated… Mercifully for both of them, the life expectancy of their relationship together is brief.” My face went hot with embarrassment.

I know now that the book was blithe and stupid, but I think many people, gay and straight, assume gay men are worse at maintaining relationships than straight people are." [x]

#john sheppard #sga #sheppard is bi #sga meta #rodney mckay #stargate atlantis #rodney is gay #mcshep #ep. allies #ep. the intruder #ep. mckay and mrs miller #ep. inferno

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