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Greetings Scapers!
Knowing full well that they could never top the dramatic tragedy of last week's Icarus Abides, the writers wisely went as far in the other direction as humanly possible. The result is a genius foray into comedy that only Farscape could pull off as the action shifts back to Moya and her crew.
Revenging Angel
Season III, Episode XVI
Directed by Andrew Prowse
Written by David Kemper
At the end of Scratch n' Sniff, Pilot kicked Crichton and D'Argo off Moya for eight solar days due to their constant bickering and fighting. Well, their stay on the industrial planet was apparently incident-free, but didn't do a whole lot for their struggling relationship.
To pass the time, D'Argo has been attempting to learn how to fly the alien craft they obtained from the commerce station in Suns and Lovers. He's been making some headway, but when Crichton comes in to take a look, something goes dramatically wrong. Never being the biggest proponent of rational thinking, D'Argo immediately blames Crichton for the malfunction, attacks him in a fit of rage, and inadvertently sends him into a coma.
As if that's not bad enough, the self-destruct mechanism aboard the alien vessel has somehow been initiated, and as luck would have it, the ship sent out an electromagnetic pulse that fried all systems that were on at the time. What that means is that Moya cannot expel the craft, and when it blows, she and Pilot are done for. With no one having any idea how to shut it down, Pilot instructs the crew to make their way toward the tier 16 escape pod, where they can survive a few days waiting for a rescue.
Meanwhile -- and this is the part of the episode that makes it truly unique --John keeps interacting with the crew in his dreams, seeking advice on how to deal with the increasingly volatile D'Argo. Even Harvey drops in to tell John that the only answer is revenge - the strongest emotion he says. Harvey knows that if John doesn't awaken soon his vitals will flatline, and it'll be goodnight for him as well. But John refuses to give in to such tactics, and keeps retreating to his fantasy land of...Looney Toons! Yes, you read that correctly -- John's dreams turn animated, and we see D'Argo and John do their best Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner impressions. The animated sequences are seamless with the live action parts, and are simply hysterical, complete with things like cannons made by OZME, explosives called froonium, and painted wormholes on rock faces that John can fly through, but predictably, D'Argo cannot. Farscape has always had its own unique sense of humor, but this was something that anybody could appreciate -- it was simply laugh-out-loud funny.
Perhaps the funniest segment of the entire dream sequences was the live action bit at the end, where D'Argo tries to sneak up on a reading Crichton, and keeps running into booby traps like rakes, buckets of cement, and dynamite. It certainly had a real-life cartoonish quality about it that reminded me fondly of Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2.
But back in the real world, the problem of the self-destructing ship needed to be addressed, and with John unconscious and time running out, Moya's prospects looked grim indeed...
Ever since the crews split at the end of Thanks for Sharing, we've certainly gotten more attached to the Talyn crew, as they've had all the best episodes. (GEM, Relativity, Daedalus Demands and Icarus Abides) On the other hand, the Moya episodes (Losing Time and Scratch n' Sniff) have been mediocre at best. (Incubator was really just a Scorpy episode) So this was certainly a welcome change to that trend. While it's merely a stand-alone episode, it furthers the relationships of D'Argo, Jool, Chiana and John, and alludes to some interesting possibilities. D'Argo and Jool are getting along better, as are John and D'Argo by the end. Despite Harvey's best efforts, Crichton tells D'Argo that he would never take revenge against him. And as for Chiana, she had yet another clairvoyant incident. Since the energy rider inhabited her body in Losing Time, this is the third such time she's known something in advance.
All in all, a very satisfying episode from the utterly dependable DK. Despite being titled "Revenging Angel", fans will no doubt be calling this one the "Looney Toons episode" from now on.
"Eh...what's up D'Argo?"
Episode Rating: 8 out of 10
Next week -- Aeryn deals with the loss of Crichton in The Choice.
- your resident Farscape guru, Ultra Magnus
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