We open on a view of Moya, motionless, floating in the atmosphere of an extremely drab planet.
Crunches, slurps and the sounds of cutlery and dishes accompany the scene. Sikozu circles a buffet, snatching food from the selection, filling not a plate but a tray. Nearby, Aeryn, D'Argo, Rygel and Noranti have hunkered down with their own dishes. Sikozu is on her way to her own seat. Each of them is eating from a mollusk casing large enough to rival the biggest shells in restaurants that insist on having themes to go with their food.
D'Argo pauses briefly as he takes one more mouthful of a disgusting, slimy, stringy, purple oyster. His face flushes briefly a high crimson. Noranti, close by, also pauses as her face flushes similarly.
As Pilot speaks, we see that all his arms are occupied with one task or another. Tormented Space is keeping him very, very busy.
While D'Argo speaks, Aeryn drops a few strands of disgusting, slimy, stringy, green oyster into her mouth. Rygel, seated slightly forward of her, has a handful of the same green goo. For just an instant, both freeze and their faces flush a bilious green.
A stranger - the aforementioned doctor - stands in the room alone. He's clad in a pale gold suit about two sizes too small for his sagging paunch. The jacket may be patterned after a tailed tuxedo. His hair hangs in a shapeless, stringy, gray bob. In general, he looks like he takes hygiene lessons from Noranti. By far his most prominent feature is his nose - long, really long, angular and pointed. His nostrils are just exactly where we'd expect to find them, but they're huge. He's cleaning one of his instruments, perhaps a small speculum, by breathing on it and wiping it down with what looks to be a dingy cloth. On his head sits a … well, it's hard to know what's sitting on his head. It looks like a small, elaborate crane. We'll get a better look in a moment.
John enters, with Scorpius in tow. Reminded of the doc's appearance, John slows and lets Scorpius precede him.
In response to this embargo on his person, Scorpius scowls and offers a hissing growl.
And, Commander Crichton is left alone with the good doctor. John perches on the edge of something that's serving as an examining table and the doc approaches him. He's wielding a gigantic set of calipers and sets the two points on either side of John's head, as if to measure his dimension ear-to-ear. Yep, he has a head.
Having taken John's measure, the doctor proceeds to the next phase of the examination.
The crane strapped to Tumii's head swings into action. It's sort of reminiscent of those Transformer toys. It buzzes mechanically and goes through a few Rube Goldberg contortions before setting a large glass iris lens in front of his left eye. The iris opens and closes as he peers through the center of it. Despite its noise and action, we can't help but note a large teardrop of snot suspended threateningly from the doc's cavernous right nostril. John sees it too and can't take his eyes off it. As the doc's head sways, John's own movements echo him, trying to keep the snot at a safe distance.
And now he has a slender probe of some sort that he's bringing to bear on John's own nose.
Like hell. The probe, placed in John's nostril, lights up like an arc welder. It illuminates his skull with a red glow - and all the while John is screaming like a girl. The boy can defy the Aurora Chair and withstand the effects of wormholes, but he sure hates needing a Band-Aid.
The crew is still lamenting the quality of the repast. Chiana has joined them now and is checking out Sikozu's plate, much as Helen Keller did before she met The Miracle Worker.
John is back, cupping his nose in both hands.
As if he hadn't already been warned, John picks up one of the clam shells and digs in.
Sikozu has just swallowed some of the disgusting, slimy, stringy yellow oyster, and she briefly blushes a shade of gold. John, caught with the strings hanging down his chin, matches her blush - yet one more example of Ben Browder's apparently inexhaustible willingness to look damned silly. He seems barely able to hold the food down.
D'Argo shudders with a sneeze and an instant later Noranti answers with a "choo". Her third eye glows and extinguishes briefly with the sneeze.
John answers but it sounds as if he's holding the food in his mouth, unable to force a swallow.
John's face is sour. He shrugs with his eyebrows and shakes his hand to rid himself of the remaining slime.
Again with the tandem sneeze and the blinking eye.
He's only halfway through his warning when everyone senses that the news is not good. They're already looking at their plates dubiously. As he finishes the warning, they spit out whatever they've managed to choke down. In a single motion, John and Aeryn train their pulse pistols on the doctor and D'Argo retrieves a nearby pulse rifle. The doctor is unfazed.
John is still chewing sourly on the remnants of his mouthful.
We return to the standoff in progress.
They each eye him angrily, but impotently, in turn.
Behind Tumii, the bay doors begin to slide open. Lights in the landing pad announce that the mechanic's transport pod has arrived.
If looks could kill! Everyone is angry, but they also have that look we know well. Someone's gonna pay for this.
John rolls his tongue around in his cheek, chewing over both food and options. He lowers Winona. Aeryn and D'Argo follow suit. The mechanic will be there any microt.
Behind Tumii, the mechanic and a single military escort enter. The escort approaches the doctor while the mechanic hangs back, obscured in the bright lights coming from the transport pad. They look nothing like the doctor and everything like Humans and Sebaceans. The mechanic, Mujombre, is obscured by lights and smoke, but the general impression is of a young man in the universal tech's jumpsuit. The escort, Mekken, wears black leather without adornment or insignia. John sneers.
More tandem sneezing. Then, a new but familiar sound. Rygel groans as he passes helium. At the same moment, Aeryn, eyes and teeth clenched, tries to ease the discomfort in her abdomen. There's another zipping fart. John shifts his position as guts gurgle. Sikozu starts. She may be full, but John's stomach is also obviously reacting badly to that little bit of food that he consumed.
Chiana jumps into the gap between the escort and the rest of the crew, using her own slight body and great big smile to hide them.
There's even more auditory evidence of the crew's intestinal distress.
He glides off in his throne sled, doubled over, in obvious pain. Meanwhile, D'Argo has been on the move, too. He's behind Chiana, gripping her shoulder. <`h3>D'ARGO Chiana.
She and D'Argo retire a few feet away.
She returns to their guests.
John, now sitting, chokes back bile and shudders. He leans on the table and doubles up slightly.
Chiana, Mekken and Mujombre leave. John shifts his position at the table and chokes out his words.
Oh-ho. This is one kind of control that Aeryn isn't willing to surrender.
Once more Sikozu has come up against something for which she has no explanation.
Long, slow, high-pitched fart.
John, just across the table from her, hawks up a significant wad of spit and lets it dribble into the proffered bowl. (And we aren't even out of the first act yet, People!)
She still looks reluctant, but it's probably got more to do with standing up than with spitting up.
Chiana and Mujombre enter the cluster, Mujombre trailing a rolling tool chest. There's an unhealthy mechanical sound, the lights flash periodically and there's steam. All in all, it looks like Moya's in a lot of discomfort herself. The first order of business is to lay a protective cover down on the floor in front of the conduit.
Chiana takes a Chiana-like perch in a nearby alcove. She eyes the mechanic nakedly.
The mechanic looks a little like a very young Keanu Reeves, the very picture of callow youth. If there's been any flirting, it's all on Chiana's side.
Mujombre finishes the preliminaries.
Sikozu has crossed the console and stands at Pilot's side of the panel, blocking free movement of his left arms and holding one of his claws.
He manipulates controls on the right. The noise and steam around Chiana and Mujombre cease and the mechanic sets to work.
Crichton, Aeryn and D'Argo are crammed into a built-in sofa along one wall. The room is lined with cut stone and decorated with designs cut into the stone. The color of the receptionist's dress and the walls match. It's a sickening institutional pea green. The style of her robe and head-dress seems to be inspired by Elinor of Aquitaine. In fact, all the women look entirely displaced in an Erp timeline, like fugitive fashion-victims from Ivanhoe. The planet's men, however, have the look of low-rent Peacekeepers. Tumii obviously doesn't hail from this world.
Noranti is pouring liquids from one beaker to another, from one beaker to a cup, tasting as she goes. In its apparent randomness, it looks nothing at all like scientific method. But, she does seem to be having a good time. She samples one of the cups.
With a gesture, he invites the three patients into his clinic proper. D'Argo hiccups his way across the waiting room and through the wide door. Aeryn follows, a firm hold on her gut, as if to keep anything from tumbling out. John passes Tumii on the way in. The doc begins to shuffle in, taking his time. From out of shot, John reaches back through the door, grabs the doc by his belt, and hauls him into the examining room.
John and D'Argo manhandle Tumii to toss him onto one of his own examining tables. Once more, he finds two weapons trained on him. D'Argo stands ready.
Tumii ignores them. Instead, he wipes a large dollop of snot from his nose and flings it back over this shoulder. It seems to activate a holographic model of the mollusk's structure. The doctor narrates. The height to which the script takes this bit of technobabble business is inspired. Our three warriors are as uninterested as we are in the details, and still the doc drones on.
John realizes that Tumii is so much in love with the cleverness of his plan that they're going to have to hear all the gory details. He rolls his eyes and takes down Winona, stepping to the side.
The holographic blob throbs slightly, divides, tries to establish contact with the lost half.
And, here, in the next exchange, Anthony Simcoe is granted the driest, dead funniest line of the entire episode.
We know Rygel must be liberating some helium into the wild right now, because Aeryn leans back in despair as she releases yet one more high-pitched fart.
Tumii finds it far funnier than anyone else does.
John shakes his head, a mixture of disbelief and irritation. He really has more important things to do during those few arns than digest Sikozu's binge.
[Okay, we pretty much admit to being scarred for life from having to watch this part. No doubt John and Aeryn would be pleased to wipe it from memory, too.]
Noranti, thoroughly entertained by her research, dances around the room, accomplishing the various tasks in that research. Quietly, she mimics whatever instrument passes for maracas in the UT.
There's a reason that she's chosen this particular percussion instrument to accompany her dance. She places one of the beakers in a piece of equipment on a low table and switches the equipment on. It's a homogenizer/centrifuge of some sort. The torque from the mixer is stabilized by a large brass ball that sits against the edge of the table. The whole thing … vibrates. Noranti takes another swig from her cup.
As Noranti reaches across the table for something, her body makes contact with the vibrating ball. (Oh, frell, let's not be coy here. Melissa Jaffer certainly wasn't.) As Noranti reaches across the table for something, her mons veneris makes contact with the vibrating ball. Oooh! Her third eye lights at the revelation.
Noranti doesn't try to escape the sensation. Instead, she looks around briefly to be sure that she's alone and raises her hands to her face in pleasure. Her eye glows. She giggles slightly.
Back at his clinic, the doctor is laboring over his own set of beakers and explaining the qatal therapy.
Aeryn raises her gaze. She's paired with Rygel. Oh, she is so going to hurt Tumii when this is over.
Tumii nods. This is the way it's done, Big Guy.
He doesn't seem to know what to do with his arms. He flexes his shoulders and puts his hands back on his hips.
He releases a shuddering breath. John might recognize the experience now, because his hand goes to his forehead in a gesture that asks what more can happen.
Back on Moya, Noranti is pressed against the brass ball, lost in her ecstasy.
[Scarred for life, we tell you.]
[Well, duh.] The doc laughs unpleasantly, like a slimy Peeping Tom getting his quarter's worth. He nods in encouragement. Go on. Go on.
So, there are limits to what Crichton will do for a friend!
[She said 'come'. hehe]
Maybe Luxans find these particular items erotic because…
And this just goes on and on for a bit cutting back and forth between D'Argo and Noranti. Aeryn's brow is knit in alarm. John seems to be peeking out from under that hand that's gone again to his forehead. Tumii, instead, looks like he just got what they paid for. The gasping continues, way over the top, er… climaxing with a few sporadic gasps on either end.
[Scarred for life.]
D'Argo has had enough. He staggers over to a table and slams his head against it, coldcocking the absent Noranti, who drops like a sack of flour.
It's only a few microts later from the looks of things. John's still sitting to the side, but Aeryn has managed to cross the room to stand at the doc's research bench.
Aeryn looks alarmed. She glances toward John. Is she worried about her bare flesh against Rygel's? Or John's bare flesh against Sikozu's?
Well, Aeryn's alarm has passed, but she doesn't look appreciably happier.
D'Argo heads for the door as John joins Aeryn at the bench.
Scorpius has already made some deductions about Moya's visitors.
Scorpius stops in his tracks.
Scorpius gives Mekken a small male-bonding slap on the back, offering condolence and support. But, you can see his mind turning over all this information. No one ever accused Scorpius of being stupid.
A signal sounds, announcing that someone has arrived in Tumii's waiting room.
Tumii shambles across the lab and out into the waiting room. A figure swathed in black, a dark version of the receptionist's dress, stands in the outer doorway, pulse weapon raised. There's a shot and Tumii falls. A second shot perhaps misses him as he drops. John and Aeryn know pulse fire when they hear it, and they tear across the room, scooping pistols out of their holsters. John gets off a shot at the departing figure, little more than a blur. Aeryn gives chase.
Tumii lies on his back on the floor, not moving.
Tumii is still on the floor, John bending over a wound in the doc's left shoulder. Aeryn is dashing toward them from the lab, carrying a dressing pad.
Aeryn, kneeling, hands the dressing to John, who applies it to Tumii's wound. Tumii struggles slightly and begins to protest immediately.
The assassin in black is now the least of Tumii's worries. John and Aeryn both rise to their feet and point their weapons at the supine doctor's head.
Noranti's features display a faint satisfaction still and her third eye glows. Of course, this moment of satisfaction might just come from her current activity. She's crouched slightly over a large pot and we're treated to a thin but steady stream of steaming urine falling into the pot from between her legs and the folds of her skirt. Sikozu sits opposite, observing, impatient. Rygel is in the background. D'Argo eyes a small beaker uncertainly.
When she's done, Noranti steps over the pot, drops her skirt and scoops a little of the urine out of the pot in a glass cup. The liquid is purple. She crosses the short distance to D'Argo and offers the cup to him. He continues examining the glass in his own hand.
Noranti begins to unwrap her top. D'Argo no doubt recalls the last glimpse he had in the lava cave.
He whistles to punctuate the end of the debate. He gestures to her outer shirt, still hanging open.
Noranti pulls her outer shirt back onto her shoulders and sits across from him while he emits a heavy sigh of relief. They clasp left hands.
And both drink each others purple-tinged urine. D'Argo shudders. Oy. An interesting purple haze floats across their faces, then disappears.
D'Argo shrugs slightly, making a noise of uncertainty.
And he clocks Noranti, hard. Sikozu catches her before she can slide off the stool.
Recovering, Noranti scowls and makes a grab for a convenient bit of Luxan anatomy. D'Argo jumps, emitting a high-pitched squeal. Noranti jumps too.
John is leaning against the frame of the door to Tumii's examining room, keeping watch for a returning assassin. The doctor is reclining on an examining table, treating his own wound. Aeryn stands behind him. At the end of her fully extended arms is her pulse pistol, pointing straight at Tumii's head.
John responds also to the cramp, lips and brows tight. Over his shoulder, the doc continues with the good news.
Noranti and D'Argo are now trapped in each other's company, hands clasped. She looks up at him, her expression open and oblivious.
D'Argo's head drops in silent frustration.
John glances back at the doc over his shoulder and holds up his hand to object. The doc launches into his explanation and John shakes his head. Oh, God. There's more exposition!
Everything in John's body language says that it would be impossible for him to care less.
John raises his hand like an unclothed sock puppet and, head bobbing, mouthing nothing, he opens and closes his hand. Yada-yada-yada. Blah-blah-blah.
Aeryn's pulse pistol presses right to Tumii's head.
Across the room, John raises Winona in support of Aeryn's assertion.
And with that, Chiana grabs Mujombre from behind and throws them both against the nearby wall. Chiana reaches down to the tech's vest and tears it open, revealing an undershirt … and an unmistakable pair of breasts.
Chiana knees Mujombre in the gut, bringing her to her knees and then to the floor. Chiana traps the woman by straddling her.
She struggles, but she doesn't really want to hurt anyone.
Chiana pauses. She's already convinced that Mujombre had nothing to do with the clams. But, the question remains.
She casts Chiana off and moves to collect her tools.
Chiana has come to her now and they're kneeling together.
They've bonded already.
D'Argo and Noranti still sit across from each other. Noranti, however, has fallen into a blissful sleep, her head resting on the Luxan's chest. Meanwhile, D'Argo's thirsty. He's spied a glass of liquid just out of reach. His choice: Wake Noranti or remain thirsty. Thirst it is.
Aeryn is lying on a second examining table near Tumii. As she speaks, she gestures absently with her pulse pistol.
She savors the irony of the fact, but you can see a plan taking shape just behind her eyes.
John's guard is way down. He's seated, with his back to the door, and he's resting his temple on Winona's barrel. From this distance it's hard to tell with any certainty, but his posture suggests that his eyes have long since glazed over.
He also holsters Winona. Sikozu and Rygel enter immediately behind him. Sikozu is carrying a heavy leather pouch that she passes to Crichton.
Tumii brightens at the mention of currency.
It takes John an instant to process Aeryn's mangled English.
Left alone with Tumii, John's expression turns grim again. He tosses aside the bag of currency and retrieves Winona from her holster.
If John can't escape Tumii, he can at least shut him up. He presses Tumii back onto the table, stuffing a large wad of dressing into his mouth. He runs a long Ace bandage across the gag and secures Tumii's head to the table with the bandage. Tumii protests incoherently. John starts at the sound of a new voice.
In response to the approaching voice, John quickly draws the plastic privacy curtain around Tumii's table. He stands behind it, and the curtain falls across his face like Veronica Lake's peek-a-boo hair.
Another military type appears in the doorway to the waiting room. He's used to being in charge.
Partially concealed behind the curtain, cracking wise with private jokes. Oh, so coy!
Rygel enters from the opposite end of the curtain. Somewhere he's found a white jacket that more or less resembles a lab coat. (Actually, maybe he's turned his own jacket inside out, because there may be embroidery along the collar.) In his left hand he holds an itsy-bitsy rake, which he wields like a scepter. He's also donned the neural analyzer that Tumii wore in the opening, but it's too big on him and the head strap sits around his throat. He might also be wearing it backwards, but who can tell?
John withdraws behind the clear plastic of the curtain. Through it, we can see his cocked head and rueful expression. He seems to bang his head gently against the fabric. Rygel, meanwhile, is enjoying this opportunity to make someone else squirm.
And, at the BBQ, we wonder if it's the zergenbobs that make this species similar to or different from Humans and Sebaceans.
John has gathered enough nerve to peek around the curtain again. He looks no less incredulous, though. Ho'Ock, meanwhile, has considered Rygel's blood-letting therapy and wants no part of it. He looks a bit dazed by the whole encounter and turns to leave.
Rygel is having too much fun, though. He's tormenting Ho'Ock by opening and closing the iris of the analyzer with a quietly malevolent laugh. He's the essence of a mad doctor at work in his laboratory.
The deserted street leading to the revolutionaries' club looks as if it came straight out of Bladerunner.
And the club? The only way to make it look more sterile would be to turn it into a bomb shelter. Copper pillars support a low ceiling. The concrete walls are lit by exposed red and white neon or fluorescent tubes. The furniture is characterless black leather. Aeryn and Sikozu enter, greeted by a reject from the court of Henry II. Her headdress and the matching girdle of her gown look like grille work on a tin Rolls-Royce.
Four Stepford maidens enter from different corners of the club. Aeryn takes note of them.
Aeryn grasps her pistol in its holster.
Behind Sikozu, one of the women has raised a cudgel.
Rygel has shed his medical gear and once more sports his royal duds. John stands nearby. At the same instant that the cudgel falls, Rygel slumps suddenly in his throne sled. John just drops from sight.
An unseen force tosses Rygel about.
John tries to rise from the floor.
And with that, he's thrown back to the floor.
Aeryn and Sikozu are seated back to back on chairs, tied with their elbows linked. The room is otherwise empty of furniture or decor. A woman stands over them. The revolutionary women are dressed identically except for the washed out colors in their gowns.
It's not clear where Selva and Kiryah are. It might be a hallway or a corner of the club. In any case, they're conferring alone.
Kiryah is toying with a knife as she speaks.
The women have a plan, even if it's only to wait out the mollusks.
John lifts a plus-size purple padded bra by the straps and appraises it briefly before discarding it.
John picks up a folded purple jacquard dress.
The BBQ hears your pain, John. Believe the BBQ when we say again that the color of the dress is the least of its problems. Putting John into this dress can only improve it.
Couples and singles mingle in the noisy club. Among the new arrivals … Oh. My. God. It's Crichton. His only concessions to disguise seem to be the bra, the dress and a brunet wig, combed into the same peek-a-boo style that he adopted earlier with the privacy curtain. He seems to play lightly with his hands. Perhaps he thinks that a woman's identity arises from her hands? We can't be sure, but we suspect that to defeat the disguise - such as it is - even more, the costume people may have added some Dynasty-style padding to the shoulders.
Rygel's shopping expedition was kinder to the Dominar, providing him yet one more costume change in the episode. His mustache is shaved and he's decked out as a child's version of a princess, replete with tulle gown and veil with tiara, perhaps even a crinoline.
They work their way deeper into the club.
A nasty looking piece of work approaches John's peek-a-boo'd side. This is an example of their elite? Between the ordinariness of Mekken and Ho'Ock, and the reactionary revolutionaries, the BBQ thinks this planet has or will have the government it deserves.
Actual ass-grabbing takes place.
Scorpius trails Mekken as he continues his inspection of Moya. At one of the conduit ladders, they pause. The voices of Chiana and the Khurtanan mechanic drift up to them, allowing them to eavesdrop on the conversation. Through one of the conduits, they can even look down on the two women.
Ya see? The planet's men are frelling stupid!
Mekken moves to the ladder and peers through the floor at the pair as they work together below them. He listens for another moment.
Mekken glances up at Scorpius and moves to the ladder while Chiana continues speaking. Scorpius follows.
Unobserved, Mekken descends the ladder to the level with Chiana and Mujombre.
Mekken steps free of the ladder, frees his weapon and points it at the newly discovered conspirators.
Chiana and Mujombre turn toward him.
Mujombre puts down her tool and stands.
Chiana steps in front of her as Mekken takes a firmer hold on his weapon.
Abruptly Scorpius, having descended the ladder behind Mekken, swings his body around to the front of the ladder and leans down. He takes Mekken's neck in the crook of his arm and twists violently, snapping the man's neck. He drops the body to the floor as he steps down the last rung.
Chiana's expression is a wonder to behold. Not surprised, not shocked… perhaps interest veiled. Behind her Mujombre's equanimity isn't as steady. She gasps with surprise and some fear.
Scorpius, examining the scanning device Mekken had been using, deflects her concern with a mild directive.
Chiana continues to look at him only a microt longer, then returns to what she was doing. She's witnessed more than a few deaths now. The only reason this one really gives her pause is that Scorpius was its author. Mujombre needs a little more time.
The camera follows John's broad shoulders down a hallway, toward a lit doorway. A figure steps into the doorway. Uh-oh. It's Ho'Ock. Apparently inflamed zergenbobs don't get in the way of a little clubbing. John retreats to the safety of the shadows on the edges of the hallway, where he hugs the wall. It doesn't work.
John offers no response. He tries to slip away and toys with his hair, but Ho'Ock has acquired his target.
Well, that settles that. He leads a reluctant Crichton to the dance floor.
Scorpius paces - although calmly - in front of Pilot's console. The Sebaceans' best hope for victory in the coming war is missing in action.
Scorpius is the man with the plan.
Rygel is a vision in silk and tulle. He's surveying the club when he lets out a satisfied sigh, as if he might have found what he's looking for.
Aeryn and Sikozu are still secure in their chairs. Kiryah watches over them. Selva returns with a couple of her henchwomen.
Selva leaves. Kiryah is only too pleased to draw her knife and approach her captives.
John and Ho'Ock dance. John, a couple inches taller, rests his hands on Ho'Ock's shoulders. Neither one looks to be leading, but they spin a bit and we gotta know that wasn't John's idea.
Selva stations herself to observe the patrons when Kiryah makes her cut.
Rygel has arrived at an unlocked metal door. He opens it and checks over his shoulder before entering.
Cold air flows from the room. It seems to be a cold storage room or walk-in refrigerator. Qatal mollusks sit on ice in a cooler.
Kiryah seems to have settled on Aeryn as the finger donor. She points.
Aeryn and Sikozu manage to rise from their seats and Sikozu kicks the knife from Kiryah's hand. It clatters to the floor. As Kiryah retrieves it, one of the other women gives Sikozu a resounding backhand to the face.
On the dance floor, John feels and shows the effect of the assault to Sikozu's face. He collapses suddenly against Ho'Ock, wrapping his arms around his neck, using him for support.
John spies Selva surveying the room. The game's afoot. John spins slightly so that his back is to Selva.
Kiryah picks up the knife. Two women extend Aeryn's arm and stretch out her hand, presenting it for dismemberment. Aeryn gasps.
Rygel is lifting one of the clams as Aeryn's arm is seized. He's knocked back for an instant, clasping the shell.
He rests the mollusk on the edge of the cooler and regains his balance.
Both women's hands are below the screen. Sikozu cries out as a finger falls to the floor and Aeryn looks at the it with shock. Sikozu howls with pain.
Only just recovered from the blow, John is suddenly rocked by the pain from the loss of Sikozu's finger. He sways and wraps his arms tighter around Ho'Ock for support, choking back his own cry.
Oh, the BBQ's been there, Sister John!
With his chin resting on Ho'Ock's shoulder, John swallows the pain, strangling his own howl.
Despite her surveillance, Selva is none the wiser.
John and Ho'Ock are still on the dance floor. Crichton is sucking up the pain, but he needs a little help.
Aeryn's breathing has become shallow and sporadic. She's convulsing slightly. Sikozu's usually golden complexion is an alarming blue-gray. Both women seem to have sunk below consciousness. Kiryah regards her dying captives with detached amusement. Selva returns.
John and his date have made their way to a banquette near the bar. John relinquishes his hold on Ho'Ock and finds support in the wall.
John watches Ho'Ock walk to the bar.
Rygel is still by the cooling table, straightening his skirts over the edge of the throne sled. It looks as if that's where he's stashed the two stolen qatal mollusks.
More than being numb, he's also trembling.
Selva, Kiryah and their subordinates stand over Aeryn and Sikozu, who don't look well at all. The revolutionaries are considering their options for Plan B.
He turns to leave, the effects of the final stage apparent.
Scorpius enters carrying two clam shells, one yellow, the other green. (It may be a picky question, but we wonder why these shells couldn't have been used in the cure? Just sayin' here.) He places one each on narrow stands at about waist height, perhaps six feet apart.
He secures the door to his cell. In a moment, he's kneeling between the stands and has placed the shells on the floor in front of him.
Pilot surrenders with a sigh - and perhaps a frown of concern.
Noranti still rests, fast asleep, curled against D'Argo's chest. D'Argo still covets that beverage just out of his reach.
Sorry, D'Argo. No joy.
Mujombre holds a metal cylinder about the size of a child's backpack. Several slender blue hoses feed into it or out. She handles it easily.
She does little more than set the cylinder into the conduit before…
He presses one of the controls on his console - on his left side.
Mujombre looks genuinely pleased at a job well done.
She removes the short black wig that's been covering her medium-length brown hair. She smiles, seemingly happy with her life.
Ho'Ock has returned with the drinks and they've taken a seat in a banquette. John, who must be feeling the effects of the clam, needs to find the two missing women - and fast. He's turned as much from Ho'Ock as he can.
He rises and leaves, but Ho'Ock reaches out and pulls him back by the arm. John falls into an embrace with Ho'Ock, his hand on Ho'Ock's shoulder, Ho'Ock's hand on John's hip.
John's become so inured to things going wrong that he barely acknowledges being found out.
Aeryn and Sikozu appear to be in their death throes, teeth chattering.
John grunts once in response to Sikozu's agony, but he holds it together. And, you know what? Ho'Ock is still romancing John.
More death throes.
John's control is under assault and he's beginning to show signs of Sikozu's suffering. He tries negotiating his way out of the situation.
John glances around. Ho'Ock is going to have to do a lot better to break the man who kept secrets from the Aurora Chair.
Tumii, still strapped to the table, concocts his cure from the qatal mollusk shell resting on his paunch. Rygel hovers beside him at his shoulder.
Rygel holds a small cloth with which he's been wiping his brow. He's feeling mighty sick and he's in no mood for nonsense.
The date continues.
John's whimpers an interrogatory sound. He's becoming sicker by the second and he's trapped with yet another irritant who just won't shut up.
Uh-oh. It's the Bey from Lawrence of Arabia.
Scorpius is on his knees, hands clasped in front of him, bracing for the coming experience. He leans his head back and opens his mouth wide in a silent scream.
Aeryn and Sikozu are in full convulsions. Breathing in rapid and shallow. One of the convulsions topples their chairs, and they lie on their sides on the floor. Kiryah stands by, dispassionate.
John has collapsed to his side on the banquette and, still, Ho'Ock won't shut up. He leans invasively into John's space.
Scorpius holds the green clam and eats from the shell.
Kiryah circles Aeryn and Sikozu. They're in their death throes, convulsing and shuddering as the clams' poisons take final hold.
She brandishes her knife. Her wish to make their deaths quicker has nothing to do with mercy.
(And, the BBQ admires Emily Skopov for giving us such a subtly psychotic secondary character in Kiryah. Among all the characters on this planet, only the tech seems both intelligent and healthy — within the limits of masquerading as a man, of course. But, when we look back on the planet and psyches from "A Prefect Murder", we begin to wonder if this psychosis isn't only the latest evidence of the real cost of living in Tormented Space. Perhaps it isn't only Moya who needs zyntian filtration.)
On Moya, Scorpius, still on his knees, waits for the green mollusk's poison to take hold. The wait is short. He suffers a series of spasms, although overcomes them sufficiently to remain on his knees.
Sikozu has fallen with her face only inches from the pool of blood in which her severed finger lies. She's convulsing.
Rygel has also entered the last stages of the poisoning. Tumii recognizes the problem and picks up a hooked knife from the table beside him. He turns to Rygel.
Scorpius remains in control. He reaches for the yellow mollusks and begins scooping it into his mouth.
Tumii knows that all he needs is patience. Rygel will expire shortly.
New spasms wrack Scorpius' body.
Sikozu's convulsions seem to slow.
John, too, is suffering the last stages of mollusk poisoning and he's in no mood to be pawed by Ho'Ock.
The largest convulsions yet rock Scorpius, but he remains on his knees.
Sikozu goes suddenly quiet, her eyes closed. Aeryn's spasms stop, too, and she glances across the floor briefly.
Suddenly, Rygel shakes of his own throes only to find Tumii holding the knife. Confronted with a larger, armed opponent, Rygel resorts to the same defense we've seen him use before. He takes Tumii's nose firmly between his teeth and bites. When they tear away from each other, about half the length of Tumii's nose is missing, replaced by a large, greenish-black wound.
Green blood stains Rygel's lips. He doesn't bother to clean it away. In fact, he might actually be eating the nose.
Scorpius is breathing raggedly and rapidly. Spittle escapes between his teeth with each breath.
Aeryn and Sikozu remain motionless. Sikozu's eyes are still closed.
Ho'Ock's advances are really of no consequence to John now. Still seated at the banquette, turned away from Ho'Ock, he's feeling renewed. Ho'Ock is trespassing big time on John's personal space.
John turns up and slaps the man who's been bothering him. Ho'Ock recovers from the slap and almost seems ready to play the game - until John sends an elbow into his face. Then a fist.
On Moya, Scorpius has stilled, his will the victor.
Kiryah has noted the stillness in Aeryn and Sikozu. She approaches their bodies tentatively. Still holding her knife in her left hand, she reaches with her right to check the pulse in Aeryn's throat. Aeryn plays possum with the best of them. Only when she feels Kiryah's hand does she lash out with her boot, felling Kiryah with a single kick.
She's reaching with her sound hand to retrieve her finger.
Sikozu's eyes haven't left her severed finger since she opened them.
The crowd in the club continues to dance and drink, unaware of any commotion. Selva enters along its edged, trailed by three of her co-conspirators.
John has left Ho'Ock wherever he's left him and has returned to the main room of the club. He pauses to appraise the situation before he moves in. Across the way, Aeryn and Sikozu are looking for an exit. The women stay low and take cover in a cluster of chairs in the center of the room. He moves in behind them, and kneels behind them. Sikozu is holding Kiryah's knife.
Aeryn turns to John's voice. And gets more than she bargained for. She met John's first query about her pregnancy with more reserve than she can muster here. She actually starts at the sight of She-John. She runs her eyes briefly down the length of his dress. Even after the initial shock, she still looks as if she's been hit square in the forehead with a baseball bat.
John clambers backwards onto the nearest chair and stands.
Now that's what we call a diversion.
And, Aeryn and Sikozu head for the exit. Selva turns to one of her henchwomen to get a pistol.
John bends and begins to gather his skirt up from the hem. Incongruously, he's still wearing his Peacekeeper boots beneath the silk … not to mention the two pulse pistols strapped to the inside of his thighs like a bride's garters.
Selva has moved behind Aeryn and Sikozu is fast on her with the knife, shouting an alert.
Reaching to the right holster with his left hand and the left holster with his right hand, John extracts two pulse pistols from beneath his skirt. He begins firing both over the heads of the club's patrons. And, he keeps firing. The crowd scatters, heading for the exits. Aeryn administers a pantak jab to Selva in the mêlée.
John descends from the chair, aiming the pistols to his right and left at the extreme length of his wingspan. His shoulders seem especially broad in this pose and the padding in the bra looks particularly, um, generous. Man, if they'd only added propellers he'd have looked like a purple C-130 Hercules with those puppies.
Aeryn has a pulse pistol, but she's unchallenged as she scans the room.
Rygel and Doctor Tumii are partially obscured by a beaker at the doc's feet, but as the camera moves up, we see that Rygel, still in his princess dress, is feeding the still-bound Tumii by hand from the yellow clam. He continues forcing the goo into the doc's mouth as he speaks.
Tumii shakes his head in protest.
The scene opens close on the clasped hands of D'Argo and Noranti. D'Argo groans as they pry them apart. On their palms, there's a thick purple mucilage. Noranti is delighted.
Cups and glasses clatter on the table as the remaining four victims of Tumii's extortion set down the contains from which they've just drunk their respective cures.
Scorpius is on all fours where we last saw him. His body ripples and the epaulets that drape over the shoulders of his coolant suit flap with each heave like giant insect wings. The effect would be comic - except for the fact that it isn't. Wayne Pygram gives this moment real gravity. There's none of Tumii's cure for Scorpius. The convulsions wrack his body as he expels the poisons, apparently through sheer strength of will, forcing the green and yellow slime from his own stomach, vomiting it onto the floor in front of him.
Can the BBQ just add a note here in admiration of Terry Ryan's costume design for our resident evil genius? We'd never really looked thoroughly at purpose in the suit's structure before. But, we speculate now that the flourish in the caped shoulders and tuxedo tails would be just one more way to increase the surface area of the uniform, augmenting his Sebacean body's own paltry ability to dissipate the deadly heat that his Scarran half generates.
But, oh yeah, we get a bit of projectile vomiting to make it a completely well rounded ep.
Fade To Black.