“Cold Lazarus” ( 1 x 08 )

I literally have no idea what this could possibly be about. Another disease episode, perhaps? It would be a safe assumption, given the title. So let’s watch and see.

The SG-1 team exits the Stargate (clearly their “coming into orbit”, usual way of starting an episode) onto this obnoxiously yellow planet with bright blue rocks. The rocks appear to be man-formed, and perhaps blasted apart. O’Neill looks into a particularly smooth crystal, and just as he reaches out to touch it, it blasts him away by some invisible force and knocks him out. But then, a second O’Neill appears! An impostor?! And they bring him back!

Oh, man. This can’t turn out well.

Back at the base, they report back to Hammond about the crystals. It turns out they were looking for evidence of Goa’uld mining, but obviously they didn’t find anything. (Faux?) O’Neill is silent through the entire debriefing, but he keeps flashing back to looking at the crystal… or was it the crystal looking at him…?

Something tells me there’s more going on than meets the eye. Perhaps the crystals hold the civilization that was once there, but they need host bodies. Maybe they’re relatively benign. Maybe they want to infiltrate Earth. So many possibilities!

Faux O’Neill seems to adjust to his new life and looks through photos, his locker, and other momentos of Jack’s life. He has a flashback of one photo, of him and his son. He seems to have somewhat retained some of Jack’s memories and the like.

Back in the lab, Jackson and Carter study a crystal they brought back. There’s some kind of a precise cut in it, though, and she says she recognizes it… but from where..?

O’Neill goes back to his separated wife’s, Sara, place. He starts asking about Charlie, their deceased son. He says it’s important to see him, but she just runs off upset.

Teal’c turns on a television and is fascinated by the various programs. It’s really quite an amusing scene; watching his face change with each program. Probably looks like doom and gloom to him, and as Carter and Jackson walk in on him, he comments, “Your world is a strange place.” He really is the observer in the series. It gives him a different perspective on things, which is nice for the audience.  Anyways, the two say say they need to all go do something, and they leave.

Back at O’Neill’s house, the “colonel” seems lost in the revelation that Jack’s son is gone. This scene works strangely well because we’re seeing O’Neill’s life, which he never speaks of, but through another man’s eyes… per se. We find that he was very much in love with his wife, that they were a very happy, loving family, and that it was all great. O’Neill is moved to tears by these memories, which seem to be triggered by touching certain objects. (A la Dead Zone?)

And we return to the base. Teal’c fires his weapon at the crystal brought back in order to break it apart. It turns out that the weapons which blasted apart the first crystals on the planet match the one Teal’c used to shatter the one in the lab.

O’Neill, once more at his house, seems to recognize his relationship and feelings with his son. However, it turns bad when he mentions the Stargate, obviously not knowing that it’s a freaking classified subject. He tries to describe it, but his wife just scoffs. She observes that he’s been acting weirdly before running off.

At the lab, they’re studying the crystal, and we get our Teal’c “Question of the Episode” when Carter mentions sending it off to study at Stanford:

“What is a Stanford?”

Oh, Teal’c. We love you.

Daniel notices an odd change in the crystal he’s looking at and realizes that it mirrors his face image. Then things get really freaky when the crystal speaks: “Help us.”

Freeeeeakyyyy!!

A klaxon blares when someone tries to get through the ‘Gate. It’s...

…O’Neill! The real one!

But they’re of course suspicious so they throw him in a holding cell.

Faux O’Neill is eating lunch with his wife. Er, Jack’s wife, rather. He at last brings up Charlie’s death and the fact that Jack walked out on Sara because he thought she was mad at him. It’s a very touching scene, but it’s even more heartbreaking because it’s not freaking O’Neill!!

He convulses on the ground, electricity surrounding him, and it appears he’s injured.

Here Jack finally finds out that there’s another one of him. Carter hypothesizes that the other O’Neill is merely energy; a mimicry of the real Jack. She tests it and speaks to the crystal. The crystal says that the Goa’uld touched one of its species and was destroyed. In retaliation, the Goa’uld destroyed the whole crystal species.

And now the hunt is on to find the fake O’Neill, because if he/it decays, it will be lethal radiation. They all head out (Teal’c with a nifty Chicago hat to cover up his tell-tale forehead marking) and they go in-cog-nito! Yeah!

Faux O’Neill is once more plagued by electronic sparks and they start to mess up all the lighting and equipment in the hospital. The real Jack goes to his wife and embraces her but he has to move out before they can speak further.

Teal’c and Jack go in with masks and flashlights to apprehend the fake O’Neill, since all the lights are out. Jack is blasted back – again – and the radiation levels have dropped. Jack speaks to his not-self in understanding and finds out that O’Neill came out of fear, since he saw Jack as a warrior. It tried to heal Jack, but in a very emotional moment says,
“Your deepest pain was not the physical injury I had caused. Your pain was from an empty place in your heart where Charlie once was. I thought if I could bring Charlie back to you, I could heal your pain.”

It’s a sadly ironic moment in the series. Here we have someone who knows Jack better than anyone else, and yet it was only through living Jack’s life and memories. Not even his comrades, not even his wife, knew about him as well. It’s a true sort of bridging between the alien and the earthly. Jack’s bizarre connection with this alien turns out to be one of the most intimate in the series thus far.

The alien transforms into a form of Charlie, and tries to get Jack to understand that he can’t change what happened to Charlie the day he died any more than the alien can change what happened to his people because of the Goa’ulds. It’s cliché, yes, but it works out so brilliantly and beautifully it’s perfect.

They don’t have much more time, but the alien has one more request. Still in Charlie’s form, he approaches Sara and takes her hand. It’s almost like giving her – and Jack – an odd sort of closure. He’s not even from this world, yet it’s such a deep act of compassion in that it also brings Jack and Sara together again.

They bid the alien farewell at the ‘Gate and Jack goes through with it.

Final thoughts… this was an incredible episode, for one that hardly went off-planet. It was O’Neill-focused, yes, but as a title character he needs good background information, too. I know this review went on and on but for such a great story it deserves every word. I love the whole idea of kindred spirits, so different in every way, but finding solace in each other nonetheless. Both Jack and the alien had suffered horrible losses, but they both had to accept that they had no control over their respective situations. It was amazing in its development of Jack as a character and as a person. It stripped down those old, sarcastic, wise-cracking walls and gave us a look at his mushy insides. How cute.

PREDICTION FOR NEXT EPISODE, “Thor’s Hammer”:

The crew encounters more powerful peoples.

Villainous, god-like alien force: FEAR ME, PUNY MORTALS! HOW DARE THEE COME THROUGH THE GATED PORTAL IN MY AWESOME PRESENCE?

O’Neill: Aww, come on! Can’t we just meet some normal, advanced, extra-terrestrial civilization once?

Teal’c: That is unlikely. There exist many hostile forces in the universe.

Jackson: Well, what’s their problem with us?

O’Neill: Maybe it’s you.

Jackson: Maybe it’s your faaace!

Carter: Maybe it’s the fact that you keep running into these worlds, guns blazing.

Teal’c: Maybe they discovered Jersey Shore and want to rid the universe of such a rancid form of entertainment.

O’Neill: What did I tell you guys about letting him watch cable?!