The Choice

Hey gang!

Welcome to this week’s roast of "The Choice", the second episode last night that was all about dead people. Between the Invisible Man eppy and this I was convinced my dearly departed grandfather was gonna walk into my apartment! Anyway this review contains HUGE HONKIN’ spoilers, and all ideas are my own. I didn’t steal from anyone else, nor contact the dead for ideas.

Overall:

• Grief, like everything else on Farscape, isn’t easy. And the dead in Farscape are never really dead. Poor Aeryn finds this out the hard way, as the Season of Death continues to take from her piece by piece anyone she ever cared for. I fear that Aeryn may have re-found her resolve to live, yet lost the parts of her that have learned to care for others, as her last actions to the vision of Crichton indicate. In her grief she thinks she has lost herself as well as her lover, her mother, and her father...and the walls are now up to prevent anyone else from coming close enough to do it again. Including the living John Crichton.
  It’s a beautiful episode, and shows perfectly Aeryn responding to Crichton’s death.

And Crichton:

• I mulled over this eppy for a while, since Crichton isn’t really in it. Finally I decided that wasn’t an excuse. He’s not hurt, so this is a SACCer episode. This eppy get’s an I See Dead People rating.

At least he didn’t die...again...

The Good:

• This is clearly a vehicle for Claudia Black, and she takes the wheel and drives us through gutwrenching turns the entire way! Drunk, grief-stricken, lonely, regretful, sad Aeryn...who comes out the other end of this episode changed. Only next week will tell if it’s good or bad. But a standing ovation to Claudia!

• I love how Rygel is the voice of reason in this episode, right from the very beginning when he’s bluntly telling Crais and Stark that Aeryn doesn’t want either of them. But no one ever listens to Rygel, and it takes Aeryn herself announcing it for them to believe.

• "It’s filled with mystics and criminals."
  "Then it’s just like here...you’re a mystic and we’re criminals!"

• In the Puppets Who Can Emote category: check out the look of shock on Rygel’s face when Bloody Eyes talks about his lost love.

• Pook Stark is so hopelessly in love with Aeryn...just look at the gleam in his eye as he longingly talks about Aeryn’s hair and how she wears it.

• Aeryn can still be a tough chick when she wants to be, even grief-stricken and intoxicated. I love how she only puts up with the hotel owner for so long before she’s ready to just smack him.

• "If someone starts shooting you’ll make a very good shield."

• Great Scene 1: Aeryn confronts Crais and Stark about their lust for her, and then blows them all off with cruel words. Crais admits he didn’t kill Xhalax, and Stark gets his heart ripped out. This scene not only is breathtaking as Aeryn shoots both men down, but sets up Stark leaving at the end. With no hope of being with Aeryn, Stark would decide to stay and try to be with his first love, Zhaan.

• There are some amazing FX shots of this planet, especially the one’s of Aeryn standing on the ledge looking out at the city!

• Great Scene 2: Rygel tries to gently talk some sense into Aeryn on the ledge. You could say it was just his attempts to get Aeryn to return to Talyn so they’d have someone else to pilot the ship...but I think he’s truly concerned for her. Perhaps feeling sympathetic with his own painful loss, or an obligation to Crichton, or simply his respect for Aeryn, he tries to do the right thing.

• "Crazy planet, Ryg." I think this is the first time someone other then Crichton called him "Ryg." Must be more of Crichton’s influence on Aeryn...

• Who knows if the Crichton Aeryn keeps seeing is just a figment of her imagination fueled by the felip nectar, or truly Crichton’s spirit come to try and offer comfort. Either way the visions speak mostly good advice, telling her that she can’t bring him back, talking about how he didn’t expect to die, and almost gently urging her to move on.

• The last confrontation between Aeryn and Xhalax is an amazing scene to watch! Two wounded women who blame each other for their problems, both not sure if they want to continue to live and yet both knowing they really can’t kill the other. In the end they redeem each other...Aeryn by convincing Xhalax not to kill her, and Xhalax by urging Aeryn to "Let me go" and "You live for me." Xhalax may have come to destroy Aeryn, but in the end with her last words she saves her.

• Aeryn finally turning her back on the dead Crichton is a healing closure, and yet a worrying development. Is she now going to return to her former self, avoiding close relationships, or will she take what she learned from Crichton and continue to try and grow?

The Bad:

• Aeryn should have known right after the blood spectrographs were done that she was getting scammed. It would be impossible for even her father to match her because of the altered Pilot DNA she has!

The Nitpicky:

• When Aeryn first enters in that cloak, did anyone else think it was Zhaan?

• As Aeryn looks back on the plaza at the beginning, where Crichton was standing, there’s a large star on the floor. They’re at the Hollywood Walk of Fame!

• The planet looks like a cross between "Bladerunner" and "Road Warrior", with Aeryn’s sexy, stylish, and yet ripped and old dress perfectly matching the set and her mood.

• So does Aeryn now remember everything that happened in "The Locket"?

• How did Aeryn find out Talyn’s last name?

• Anyone else think that the hotel owner looked like Riff-Raff from "Rocky Horror"?

• ...or the Seer looked like that creature from "Total Recall"?

"If you’ve got a deity, you’d better make your peace with it now. Because I’m going to lead you to the other side real quick!"
-Stark

Lauren (OboeCrazy)
SACCer #1: The Most Vocal Defender