sgareview - progeny, s3e5

VVC was so freaking amazing I still have no idea how to articulate. But wow. Met some of the most amazing people I have ever had the privilege to come across. Christ. There was also that thing with the guy and Ozzie and four of us standing outside realizing we were living a very strange sitcom for a second, but I need like, alcohol before I can ever recount that without falling into hysterical laughter.

Okay, limited ep thoughts. Very limited, because I am so burned out from flying and stnading around and sitting that I am useless. I've been talking with justabi about it, so this is some blended conclusions as well.



After last week and John showing a huge jump in emotional growth by admitting that he does, indeed, possess feelings, I thought I could not love him more. Then he blows himself up. In. His. Head.

Okay, in general.

1.) I'm fine with them blowing up the ship. I know I probably should be qualmed, but my nation is John Sheppard and his nation is Atlantis. I can and could give practical reasons why their actions, to me, were perfectly fine, but honestly, who really cares? Either people are okay with it or not. Blah blah ethical cakes. So not in that place.

2.) They don't feel Ancienty. To keep in mind, John's got the record for bagging Ancients. If anyone would know, he wouldd. This also lets my baseless theory that John gets it up for Ancients only--or at least, senses them on a different level--be really close to canonical. Not *Ancienty*. It reminds me, actually, of astolat's A Beautiful Lifetime Event, where Hyp could only be held by John at the beginning, due to matching brain wave patterns. To me, this made perfect sense when I read it and pretty much gets at least a possibility of confirmation here. John might not even be aware of why they felt off, but he was aware, and that's intersting.

3.) I guess I was supposed to sympathize with the replicator-thing-people's aggressive-omgpain? But during the explanation, I just got annoyed with them. OMG my deep aggressive evil nature, please help me not have it, I want you to reprogram me. Hey, welcome to being alive, buddy. Do what the rest of us do. Write emo porn and hit punching bags or play football or write long ass aggressive fic. Shortcuts never end well. If they've lived that long and still not managed something as simple as *learning to control themselves*, I'm sorry, no. If the rest of the universe has to live with unpleasant bitchiness in themselves, I don't see why they get a free pass. If they want to be counted as *self-aware*, as beings with free will, then their asses need to actually *do it*. This is why Teer's people annoyed me so much. The battles you fight in yourself are what *make* you. Opting out is cheating.

4.) Ronon. I have--hmm. Okay, never mind, Ronon is just there for me most of the time, though I always enjoyed watching him trailing after John as they revel in their vaguely not-very-straight mutual mancrush. But Allies, and since, Ronon's been acting as Rodney's bodyguard as well as Sheppard's, and it occurred to me that I could finally *place him*. He's their weapon. Teyla's their diplomat and Pegasus expert, Rodney's the scientist, John's the leader, and Ronon's their weapon, their defense. And I will always and forever wonder exactly what kind of orders John gave Ronon after he announced that Ronon was to go to the ship with Rodney in Allies. Because I'll be honest--I bet it came with a bit about yes, you are big and strong adn fast and could probably kill me, but Ronon my friend? I am a fucking *fantastic* shot and can control the city with my mind. Also, without Rodney, we will all die horribly. And then they had sex. Really nice sex, too.

Yes yes yes, I totally ship John/Ronon on the side. Leave me alone. I ship John/air.

Okay, now the part that made me all--huh.

John's got this mind that continually fascinates me. In Home, his fantasy was *interesting* in what he chose. He chose friends, a great home, *a party*, creating perfection so to speak. In Progeny, he does the exact freaking opposite. He chose a worse case scenario that killed him, and I keep going back over the scenes and thinking, huh.

In some ways, this satisfied my team-love need even more than Sateda. In John's head, they are totally a perfect well-oiled machine of closeness. Ronon protects Rodney from the food--heh, that will never, ever stop being funny as hell--and then after taking them off guard, attacks the bad replicatorish things. With a serious kind of porny violent beauty there. Rodney, who's been a soldier for a while, though I think he isn't aware of the memo, protects Elizabeth. John does love his friends. And it just--he really does think that they are amazing.

Seriously, I want to live in John's fantasy life sometimes. Good stuff.

Next thing, John and Teyla have weapons. They escape! Like it was scripted! Yes, laugh now, but you know what I mean. Then hiveships come! And the self-destruct doesn't work! Woe! But John will totally stay behind to save the day, because if there is one defining characteristic of John Sheppard, is that he will never value himself as much as he values his people. And the person to object to this is Rodney. RODNEY. Which goes to show that John's totally and completely over any lingering weirdness from Trinity (which frankly, I'm pretty sure he was over a hell of a long time ago, but this made me happy) and Rodney wants to stay behind. John thinks of all the people on Atlantis, Rodney would try and take his place on the suicide run. The only one that would make the offer. And of course, Rodney would know that John's a beautiful suicidal freak, but he'd offer and he'd mean it. And that is so totally true of Rodney that it hurts. And then Rodney utters the coin-flipping thing, and honestly, okay, that was like my *moment*.

Whether the writers intended this or not, it's a moot point. At some point, John told Rodney about how he decided to come to Atlantis. This is *John's head*. So he'd call this up as part of it, and they had this conversation. I love John more than coffee--yes, *coffee*--but my fictional boyfriend does not chat. This is not something he'd drop out on a dime. And I have no idea why that second hit me so hard, but it felt--intimate. I mean, above and beyond the slash that I cannot get away from, this was a, what, three seconds of an exchange that just made me shiver. John thinks that Rodney knows him. And I love this.

Yeah, I'm done with the drooling. I'm happy. I liked the ep for what it was, which was actiony and fun, and also for the things that were implied. For the undercurrents, it's a very good follow-up to John's confession in Sateda.



Happy.

ETA: I'll be updating the DVD Commentary Challenge tomorrow. Sorry about the delay on that. I should have thought to warn I would be gone, but--well. VIVIDCON. I've been in a constant state of fannish supersaturation, glowing in weird ways and trying not to make an idiot of myself talking to mindblowing people. I've caught up on the posts, so I'll update the community as soon as I can function enough to remember how to code properly. Thanks for your patience. I am in awe of the responses received so far, and I really want to thank everyone participating, because this was way beyond what my best-case scenario, which was possibly me doing like, twenty or so of them so there would be one for as many people as I could manage in a month. So very awesome.

Comments

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Okay, I'll go with that. And I agree.

But it seems part of Atlantis' theme has been more than just sacrifice. It's survival above all things. It's interesting that in *that*, they're fairly consistent. They're moving away from a straight line of ethics, but they're learning to make very iffy decisions very fast--and I'm wondering if the writers are deliberate with that. That wasting a second leads to disaster, so save the moral worries for *after* and just get what needs to be done done *now*.

But yes, that was fairly cold. They've become very cold in that, and I'm still thinking about that in them. It's intersting. Hmm.