All right, so that was a pretty dang spectacular season premiere. We got team effort, development on Carter and O’Neill’s relationship, Bra’tac, Teal’c being awesome, Hammond being very awesome (and amusing… yee-haw!), Bra’tac, more Bra’tac… Did I mention Bra’tac? ’Cause he was there.
Anyways, high hopes and expectations for this season. Let’s pray that episode numero dos is bra’tac!
We start on the base at nighttime, in the Gateroom. The iris slips open, and out walks…
…Jacob Carter!
(Hi Jacob! Mister AWESOME! How are you in your very amusing awesomeness? What brings you to Colorado? Buffaloes game? I don’t much care for them, myself, but they’re okay. How’s Selmak? You two getting along? She’s not keeping you up, is she? ’Course not. Well, I’ll let you get back to your important business. Nice chatting!)
Unfortunately, he’s not here on a social call. He needs SG-1’s help finding a Goa’uld: Setesh, or Seth.
(Hey, there’s this guy who I eat meals with in the campus dining hall whose name is Seth. He’s not very power-hungry or threatening, though, so I don’t think they’re after him. He’s kind of dorky in a lovable sort of way. Big D&D fan.)
He’s the god of chaos, evil, and all that. The Tok’ra have apparently lost track of him, but they think he’s still here – on Earth!
The reason we don’t know anything about this guy is because he tried to overthrow Ra. Needless to say, he’s on the System Lord Hit List. Jacob thinks he’s hiding out here. Jackson and Teal’c hypothesize that he’s leading a cult here, like most Goa’uld around.
You know one, you know them all… You think.
On the elevator, Carter and her dad chat. She thinks he has an ulterior motive for asking for this assignment. Selmak emerges and says she’s tired of the unmended relationship between Mark, Sam’s brother, and Jacob. He’s reluctant to take her advice, though.
They all go to talk with Jackson and he discovers that there’s been a Setesh cult around for the past 3000 years in some way, shape, or form.
And then we get the greatest scene ever.
Teal’c comments on the animal Seth is represented by, a rather canine-looking creature, and thus his guards’ helmets. It’s a bit of a joke among the Jaffa, actually. (Oh man, you know this is going to be good.) He tells them:
“A Serpent Guard, a Horus Guard, and a Setesh Guard meet on a neutral planet. It is a tense moment. The Serpent Guard’s eyes glow! The Horus guard’s beak glistens! The Setesh Guard’s… nose drips.”
He starts to crack up LAUGHING, and it’s so funny because obviously no one else gets it and they all just look around awkwardly. As Jackson finally yammers on again, Teal’c kind of turns around awkwardly and sulks for a moment. It’s just the funniest thing ever.
(It’s okay, Teal’c! I rewound the scene like three times! I liked your joke! It made me laugh, too! Don’t be sad!)
Anyways, Jackson has tracked down a cult with a leader named “Seth” just north of Seattle. Bingo!
ROAD TRIP TIME!
Nevermind, they just take a plane there. Bo-ring!
A sheriff tells them that the cult leader apparently targets kids. (Hm… I can see this hitting Teal’c pretty hard.) They also meet a man whose son was taken in by Seth. He presumes that Jacob’s got a kid in there, too. The man, Jason Levinson, agrees to tell them what he can about Seth’s territory.
But SG-1’s being watched from afar…
After staking out and determining that there is a Goa’uld there, they’re stopped by a group of ATF agents.
Back on the ATF camp, O’Neill responds to pretty much every question the leader, Special Agent Hamner, asks him with, “It’s classified.” Jacob, being the superior officer among them as a general, echoes that. Hamner plans to negotiate with Seth, but we all know how well that’s going to work.
Outside, SG-1 and Jacob discuss their predicament. Jacob thinks that Seth must be using nishta, the substance Apophis used on Rya’c. (Good god, what is with these Goa’uld and brainwashing kids?) However, that also means that one shot from a zat gun will take out the virus but spare the host. Sounds pretty easy, right? But we all know it’s not, because nothing in sci-fi, and I mean nothing, is ever “easy”.
Hamner has just gotten off the phone with the President, who’s put O’Neill in charge. Jack, of course, can’t help but add insult to injury:
“My first order of business: Get me one of those cool jackets. Extra large; double XL if you got it.”
Outside the compound, Teal’c finds a secret entrance. Outfitted with devices that’ll zap them if they get infected, Carter, O’Neill, and Jackson go in.
Transport rings take them into the compound, where they’re captured and taken to Seth. A green mist passes over them, and they collapse. They wake up… and the virus is there.
Back at the ATF tent, Teal’c and Jacob are working at the controls for the ear-zap devices the rest of SG-1 is using. Unfortunately, they can’t zap them for about an hour, or else the virus will spread again.
Well, that kind of stinks.
Levinson comes into the tent to get a cup of coffee. He yells when he burns himself, and Teal’c is immediately on his feet. (Wow, someone’s a little on edge today.) However, he sympathizes with Levinson’s issue – for obvious reasons.
There’s a very interesting conversation between the three. Prior to his seeming abduction, Levinson hadn’t spoken with his son for months. Jacob hadn’t talked to Mark for a long time, either. Teal’c doesn’t understand this notion of estrangement. As we’ve seen, family units are very tight among the Jaffa. Levinson excuses himself, and we get this great bit of dialogue between Teal’c and Jacob:
“Do human parents not love their children unconditionally?”
“Sometimes, things get complicated.”
“Many things are complicated, General Carter. In Jaffa society, loving one’s children is not one of them.”
“In human society, sometimes it is…”
Okay, everyone now! One, two, three, “AWWW…”
I find this really fascinating for a few reasons. We’ve got three fathers, completely different in pretty much every way… One’s blended with a Tok’ra, one’s a freaking alien, and the third’s just a guy with a son who was away at college. And yet, they are all connected through this notion of being away from their sons. Levinson’s suffering the consequences of having a son stolen away from him. Teal’c doesn’t really have much of a choice; his son and wife are off-planet for their own safety. Carter is simply not in contact with his son, but he has a choice; a chance to fix things. It’s an oddly touching scene, but I really enjoyed it.
Back in the compound, Carter and Jackson are largely brainwashed, but O’Neill seems more or less in his right mind. He looks too suspicious to be fully overtaken.
They’re zapped just in time, but they can’t keep up the façade. While they start to revert people back to normalcy, Seth sets up bombs. They work with Tom, Levinson’s boy, to transport people out after they’re zapped (zat’d?). The ATF agents help people away after they come out.
Seth’s not happy about all this, and knocks Jackson and O’Neill out with a ribbon device before planting a bomb near them and transporting away.
Teal’c and Jacob (who at this time lets Selmak through) go down after the two SG-1 guys to try and get rid of Seth. Selmak gets blasted away by the Goa’uld, but she and Jacob are fine. She hands Carter the ribbon device, insisting that she can use it to stop Seth.
She’s able to blast him into the surface and kill him, but her face is nothing short of horrified shock at her own abilities. Something tells me she won’t want to use that thing again.
Still! Four Goa’uld down, and a bunch to go. It’s another victory.
The episode ends with Jacob and Carter at Mark’s house. They all embrace, and maybe there’s healing in the future for all of them…
Final thoughts… I managed to get most of my thoughts in during the review, particularly on the conversation between Levinson, Jacob, and Teal’c. It was kind of an underlying story beneath the larger bad-guy-Goa’uld-better-go-stop-him we see quite a lot in this series.
Frankly, though, I wasn’t incredibly impressed here. Seth is pretty lame for a Goa’uld. Maybe he just got pompous and egotistical and lost like… ninety percent of his full power. For the god of chaos and all evil and the mortal enemy of RA I’d expect him to put up a better fight against a few Tau’ri with zat guns and a once-blended human with a ribbon device. Not that I’m saying anything bad about Carter. She’s a BAMF, but he IS kind of a Goa’uld.
I think his problem was that he got comfortable being unopposed for so long, he didn’t really know how to deal with a threat except to tell all his people to commit suicide. In the end, it was a Goa’uld device which destroyed him – something I’m sure the System Lords would be pretty proud of.
I liked the development of Jacob Carter, getting his second chance of sorts to work things out with his son. I think things will work out well between him and Selmak. Maybe he should listen to her more often!
REFLECTION/PREDICTION THINGY
(Selmak just can’t help but gloat that night.)
Selmak: I believe the saying is, ‘I told you so.’
Jacob: Yeah, okay, I admit, it was pretty great seeing Mark again.
Selmak: I’ve been hosted by mothers and fathers. I think I know what I’m doing.
Jacob: …Maybe.
Selmak: You’re a stubborn old coot.
Jacob: You’re not so bad, yourself.
Marie: HEY! HEY!! You should all watch this!! It's that super-funny scene with Teal'c's joke!
GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!
Teal'c's Joke
Teal'c's Joke
You wrote, "Seth is pretty lame for a Goa’uld ..."
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I actually like the idea that when it comes down to it, these arrogant beings are not nearly as mighty as they make themselves out to be -- it only takes a few humans in the end to defeat them.