It’s halftime during the Oklahoma – Texas game (Go Sooners!... Yes, I can cheer for them, now that they are no longer in the same conference as Nebraska) and the game looks won by OU, so now I’ve got to do this before I run off to tailgates and the NU – OSU game at 7.
Hm… Prediction: Jackson’s going to touch a stone and something horrible is going to happen. Everything in sci-fi has an invisible “DO NOT TOUCH” sign attached to it, so what do the protagonists always do? They touch it. Because TV would not be entertaining if everyone played it safe.
The scene opens at the hangout, and SG-1 is reporting to Hammond about this planet, PX7-941, or Madrona, to its inhabitants. It turns out they can, quite literally, control nature, using some kind of device they call a “touchstone”. SG-1 wants to go back and figure out how this works.
(I still see you there in the background, Maybourne! Take off that Invisibility Cloak and show yourself!)
They go through the Stargate into a terrible storm… and the touchstone is gone!
The Madronans are of course blaming SG-1 for this… I’m thinking one of the other SG teams, since the natives are saying they saw people dressed in uniform. Without the touchstone, though, the weather will destroy them all. SG-1 agrees to help them figure out who took it. Once more, it’s up to SG-1 to save the day.
The team returns to Earth and reports to Hammond about the theft. He insists he doesn’t know anything about it, but O’Neill is still suspicious. I think that Hammond’s sincerely innocent, since he agrees to let Carter check the dial-out computer.
The touchstone’s definitely on Earth, because weird weather is happening all over the planet now. Carter checks the logs, and they find that the second Earth gate had to have been used – but by whom?
Even Hammond’s having issues getting a hold of the president, despite the fact that he’s on the emergency line. He thinks that someone is behind this, pulling strings, outside of the military, and outside of SGC.
Whoa. I don’t know if even Maybourne’s that bad.
They find out that the Antarctica Gate has been moved to Nevada, at Nellis. And guess who just got moved to that base.
Wait for it…
Wait for iiiiitt….
Oh, come on, you guys already know.
Maybourne.
(I knew it! I knew it!)
Nellis is Area 51 – where they send any tech’ that SGC finds. So what’s SG-1 to do with Madrona about 48-72 hours from weather annihilation? They’re going to take a little trip to “deliver some documents” to our friends at Nellis.
They’re greeted very warmly at Area 51 and taken to see Maybourne. We get this funny little piece too:
Maybourne: “Teal’c. It’s good to see you well.”
Teal’c: “In my culture, I would be well within my rights to dismember you.”
And he walks off very calmly. Gotta love that guy.
Maybourne denies everything but allows them to look. Teal’c has this great little smirk on his face as they follow Maybourne out to see the “dormant” ‘Gate.
It still looks packaged up and the like, but O’Neill’s not buying it. What’s more, the ‘Gate is plastic.
“IT’S A FAAAAAAAAAAKE!!”
For once, I think Maybourne seriously doesn’t know what happened. He sort of covertly reveals that there’s a higher power (in the scheme of things) behind all this, though – someone with higher clearance than either of the Colonels.
Presidential conspiracy? Oh man, this is crazy.
They head back to Colorado and still have no answers. The touchstone’s no longer being used as much, but Madrona’s still in horrid condition. They decide to overpower the ‘Gate (like what happened in “Solitudes”) to try and recreate the accident that sent Carter and O’Neill to the second Earth Stargate. They send the MALP through and it turns out in a dark facility… but someone shoots it before they can track its location.
Carter has it down to a general area: Southern Utah.
Hammond’s decided to call in a favour with an old acquaintance named Whitlow. Apparently he’s a guy with information… but he doesn’t know about the Stargate or the touchstone. But he has heard about a strange N.I.D.-sanctioned pickup in southern Utah.
Bingo!
Thanks, Whitlow!
Hammond sends SG-1 to Utah with orders to fire under no conditions except self-defense. It doesn’t fly with O’Neill, but I don’t think he’ll break orders.
They sneak onto the facility’s base and see a large plane land on the airstrip. They then enter a large hangar of sorts and see three guys at some crates. They hear the Stargate power up, and a guy jumps through, followed by the other three.
They missed where they went, but they do find the touchstone, and return it to the Madronans. It works, and the blizzard begins to wane. The Madronans and SG-1 make up, and it’s all good again.
They come back and things are returning back to normal. However, they still don’t know what happened to the four N.I.D. guys they found in Utah. The only plus side is that the second Stargate will be permanently welded shut – under SGC’s orders. Looks like this could turn out all right.
And Maybourne’s still a jerkface slimeball.
Yup, back to normal.
Final thoughts… Back to football! Oklahoma’s up 48 – 10 over Texas and it’s the start of the fourth quarter! And Landry Jones is still a BAMF! Oh, wait, I should probably finish up about Stargate first.
This was a pretty good episode, even though we didn’t get to see hardly any of the Madronans. Kind of a shame, but the bigger plot called for more Earth operations again. I liked the incorporation of the second Stargate, since you figure we can’t just have another ‘Gate lying around with no one really paying attention to it. Another little plot-hole-loose-end tied up. I like it.
Also more government conspiracy! It’s pretty great. I think that Maybourne has more power than he’s letting on – or at least more connections with the Big Wigs. Therefore, he is even more of an uncool person than I originally thought. Nonetheless, I think there’ll be a point when push comes to shove and he makes the right decision. Either that or he’s gonna get shot.
Or at least dismembered.
REFLECTION/PREDICTION THINGY
(Maybourne is having dinner with some Big Wigs. One of them is probably the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files and the other Charles Logan from 24.)
Maybourne: …And so the guy says he’s would dismember me! (He laughs.) What a buffoon. That Apophis guy would look like a pardon compared to what my people could do to him…
CSM: (Going through his second pack) You should not make such dangerous enemies, Harry. You need to take advantage of them.
Logan: No, I think you should try to gain his trust, and then stab him in the back! Or at least make him feel like the worst person in the world.
Maybourne: We make a great team.
CSM: We should collaborate more often.
Logan: If only they knew…
(The three clink fancy wine glasses and drink to their collective badassery.)
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