“Chain Reaction” ( 4 x 15 )

By the looks of things, we got Jerkface Apophis last episode, and now we get Slimeball Maybourne. Well, this is just hunky-dory. Part of me hopes he’s going to get dismembered this episode, but I kind of doubt it. Oh well. Time to watch and see!

The scene opens up with SG-1 running through the ‘Gate, but they’re under heavy fire, and staff blasts are pretty much destroying the embarkation room. At the Hangout, Hammond expresses his displeasure with always having to risk his people out in the field… and that he’s stepping down as commander of the SGC.

Okay, no way, no way. This can’t be happening. It’s like “Shades of Grey” all over again, and I know this is all going to point back to Slimeball Maybourne.

We’re now in Hammond’s office, and O’Neill is trying to talk Hammond out of this. The general’s more or less avoiding Jack’s questions, merely saying that “this has been a long time coming”.

Smells like a conspiracy to me.

SG-1 says their goodbyes to him, and Teal’c’s is my favourite:

“On Chulak, when a great warrior retires from the field of battle, it is customary to sing a song of lament.” (Pause) “Fortunately, we are not on Chulak.”

Hahaha. Ah, I love you, T.

Later, the new General comes in: Major General Bauer. He’s an older guy, tall and skinny, and his introduction is… quite brief.

When Carter meets up with him personally later, he expresses interest in putting naquadah to more “practical” uses. (AKA, bombs.) Carter’s not exactly keen on this, and it gets worse: She’s beng removed from SG-1. So is Jackson:

“An archaeologist has no place on a front-line unit.”

(Okay, what was I just saying a couple episodes ago about how incredible useful he is to SG-1 and how he’s managed to save himself and others multiple times?)

And he’s not budging.

And then… O’Neill has a word with him. And you know that Jack’s not going to put up with this from the moment he knocks on the door. While he does maintain an air of respect, it’s very, very thinly masking his true dislike of the general primarily for the reason that he’s breaking up SG-1.

“The fact is, if it wasn’t for SG-1, right now, you’d be sitting there with a snake in your head instead of your head up your ass.”

…No, I don’t think he much cares for Bauer.

The general more or less orders him to take a vacation and “think things over”.

O’Neill goes to visit Hammond, whose very adorable granddaughters are also there. (Aww..!) He tells Hammond of the situation (by the way, Teal’c has been moved to SG-3) and eventually the former general admits that this “retirement” wasn’t entirely by choice: NID more or less threatened his grandchildren if he didn’t either buck up his policies (i.e. stealing cool things like technology) or leave the service.

Jack completely understands now. It’s a really kind of touching moment, but like I’ve said before, there’s this recurring theme: Kids are the most innocent of us out there. However, they’re also the strongest bargaining chip. Everyone in SG-1 has had some sort of connection to a child (O’Neill to his deceased son, Teal’c to Rya’c, Carter to Cassandra, and in some ways Daniel to the harcesis) and so they recognize that. However, this also just makes me really hate the NID.

Jack goes to a prison (wait what?) and he approaches…

…MAYBOURNE!

Hey! The slimeball really did get thrown behind bars!

…Why do I not like where this is going?

Meanwhile, Carter is working on the naquadah reactor, but she says they’d need more. When Bauer basically tells her, “Oh, we’ll just get more!” but the “more” is from a Goa’uld stronghold, he doesn’t really seem to get it. You don’t just march onto a Goa’uld planet and grab some naquadah and walk out fine.

Back at the jail, Maybourne has more or less been discredited, since he was convicted of treason. (Side note: The Russians were forced to bury their gate; “deep-six” it, though I’m not sure if that means it’s literally underwater or just buried somewhere.) However, O’Neill’s willing to try to lessen Maybourne’s sentence, and Maybourne agrees to help him out.

For the record, he’s still a slimeball. But remember what I said the first time we met him? That when push came to shove, he’d probably make the right decision? I think this is his moment of truth.

On Base, SG-3 comes back, and one of their guys is in bad shape… and another’s dead. They were, of course, ambushed. As Teal’c reports to Bauer that they were able to procure enough naquadah, he looks about like he had looked at Maybourne in “Touchstone”. He’s stoic as he always is around strangers, but he’s a man of great integrity, and I’m pretty sure he’d love to have Hammond back.

At least Hammond would’ve been more worried about casualties than naquadah.

Maybourne takes O’Neill to his house, which of course no one knows about. There is a bit of a funny when Maybourne opens the fridge and all that’s in there is beer and mustard.

“I see you’re on that famous beer and mustard diet. How’s that working out for you?”

But really he was just going into the fridge for a floppy disk. (Wow, that is so old-school.) He’s apparently pretty computer-savvy, so he’s going to try and get Jack the names he needs. Unfortunately, none of his passwords are working.

Soon, a van pulls out (hate when that happens) and the two just barely escape before NID comes in with their guns. Jack steals a van, and they’re off.

Carter talks to Bauer, who’s getting a little trigger-happy and wants to test the naquadah bomb very soon. She’s peeved because the planet they want to test it on supports life, but they send it through anyways.

After Daniel apprises Jack of the situation, the former runs down to the test site and tells Bauer they have to stop the test – there’s an old naquadah mining operation there. It’s abandoned now, but Carter was told there was nothing down there.

Oh, dicey, dicey!

He admits that he knew the planet could be destroyed… but we’re at risk too. Remember “A Matter of Time”? Yeah, Carter would rather not have to go through that again.

Maybourne and O’Neill go to see Senator Kinsey (never much liked him either… seems like the only decent politician on this show is the President!) and he takes them up to his study.

Back on base, they detonate the bomb on the planet, and of course, Carter was right. The other ‘Gate was not destroyed, and now radiation is leaking into the embarkation room.

Evacuation time!

Jack talks to Kinsey, but he’s not being forthcoming.

And then it gets crazy.

O’Neill pulls a gun on the Senator.

Kinsey: “How dare you come into my house waving a gun!”

O’Neill: “Not waving; pointing. Now sit down.”

That’s special ops training for ya. Looks like Jack O’Neill could give Jack Bauer a run for his money! (Kinda funny how there is a “Bauer” in this episode.) Kinsey threatens his entire team (DON’T YOU DARE THREATEN TEAL’C… give me that gun, Jack! Give it to me! Let me give this guy a piece of my mind for threatenin’ my man!). They manage to get into the system, though, and connect the Senator to all sorts of nasty things – including the threats to Hammond. There is a pretty interesting line from him, though:

“The only currency in this town is power. So if I have to shake hands with the devil in order to do the Lord’s work, then so be it.”

He then goes on to tell O’Neill that to take him down, they’d be compromising the SGC. But they’ve got the disk, and now they just need to get out of here. The black SUVs are downstairs.

The iris is about to lose integrity, and the wormhole has yet to disengage. The rest of SG-1 leaves the room, but Teal’c sticks around long enough to see that the wormhole does disengage, and the iris cools down. (Whew!) Bauer apologizes, but she’s hardly hearing it.

Maybourne and O’Neill set up a press conference so they can get out past NID (they wouldn’t dare attract attention), and they’re out of there.

Hammond’s back at the SGC (yay!!) and Jack goes to see him. SG-1’s back together. (Double yell!) While in Hammond’s office, O’Neill gets a call… from Maybourne.

Who’s on sandy beaches on the Caribbean.

Surrounded by women in bikinis.

Wearing a Hawaiian shirt that Teal’c would likely be quite jealous of.

Oh, what a slimeball!

Final thoughts… All right, so Maybourne did kind of sort of redeem himself in this one. Kind of. Not that I don’t think he should still be dismembered. I wouldn’t whine if that happened. He pulled through for Jack in his own backhanded sort of way, and ultimately evaded prison (and thus the death penalty), but he still did the right thing. I think.

If you ask me, though, it’s Senator Kinsey who needs a good clock in the mouth. Like pretty much everyone who’s not actually involved with the SGC, he doesn’t understand it.

Now while you could argue that someone like Hammond’s rarely out in the field (his “yee-ha” moment in that Death Glider was priceless last season though!!) he’s the guy in charge. He cares very deeply for the men and women under his command, and perhaps a little too personally… But you need that balance. You need someone who knows when to bend the rules a little in order to keep everyone safe. Bauer, as we saw, was not that person.

I’m sure that Bauer is a man of integrity and that he is a good person. I’m sure he only had the best interests overall in mind. The problem is, he lacked the faith and trust in the rest of the SGC, and especially SG-1, that Hammond had always held dear. He also seemed a little too impersonal to me, but I’m kind of a feelings kind of person. Typical teenage girl and all.

One striking aspect of this episode on a larger scale was the question of power. It’s not something I often go into but it really hit me this one. Here we have the wonderful chain of command, the balance of power, and it’s all supposed to keep one group or one individual from gaining too much of that power. Here we have a breakdown of that balance. When NID was allowed to work above the law, and perhaps not justifiably so, bad things happened. One man for certain, the major from SG-3, died, and another officer was seriously injured.

Once again we are dealing in the shades of grey. You might go so far as to say that things are even sketchier here on Earth than they are out in space, facing Apophis or whoever else decides we need to pay. The Goa’uld have power by brute force and advanced technology. We don’t need that. We can do some pretty despicable things and then just paint them with roses and pretend they don’t exist.

REFLECTION/PREDICTION THINGY

(Our loathsome trio is once again together… on the phone, though.

(Charles Logan is from 24, and the Cigarette Smoking Man (CSM) is from The X-Files.))

Maybourne: My friends! How are you today?

Charles Logan: Harry, why do I hear tropical music in the background?

Cigarette Smoking Man: I was about to ask the same. I thought you were on death row.

Maybourne: Well, you know me. I have friends of friends of the president…

CSM: I was not aware you and Colonel O’Neill were ‘friends’.

Logan: Have you been going behind our backs again?

Maybourne: Oh, of course not. You’re both welcome to visit. Where are you?

CSM: D.C.

Logan: D.C.

Maybourne: Haha, I see. I hear it’s cold there this time of year. Oh, well, my margarita is here, and I have a lovely lady keeping me company. Ta-ta, boys!

(He hangs up.)

Logan: Are you still in contact with those shapeshifting alien guys?

CSM: And deny the one known as ‘Teal’c’ the satisfaction?