"Bane" ( 2 x 10 )

From my sources over at Gateworld, I’ve heard that this was (A) not a very good episode and (B) there are lots of gross things that occur which have to do with bugs. However, all this reminded me of was that track on the live RUSH album called, “Broon’s Bane”.

Something tells me I won’t be seeing Alex Lifeson here, though. But I do see Teal’c on the title screen. (Can’t be all bad.) So, bugs or no bugs, here goes!

We’re… uh… I’m not sure where we are. But it’s a really cool-looking city with a Stargate. It’s also a very abandoned city. O’Neill steps in some yellow gooey thing, and my senses are screaming at me GET THIS GUY INTO DE-CON but of course he can’t hear me. Regardless, ew, gross.

…Cool.

And then it gets freaky.

Something whizzes past O’Neill… and then he turns… and Carter and Jackson turn…

And there’s a HUGE BUG on Teal’c’s shoulder!

It’s actually kind of pretty, like a dragonfly with brighter colours and about the size of a bird. A really big bird. But just as O’Neill cocks his gun, the insect stings Teal’c! He starts to collapse, and my heart starts to weep.

(O’Neill’s probably thinking, “For once, I’m not the victim here!”)

A swarm comes after them as they hurry back through the ‘Gate with Teal’c in tow. They get through, and the iris closes before any mutant dragonfly/scorpion things can follow in.

Teal’c is taken to the infirmary, and Fraiser checks out the wound on his shoulderblade, which has swollen to, I’d say, the diameter of a baseball. It’s pretty gross. Not as gross as the guy who eats people’s livers on The X-Files, but it’s up there. What’s worse, his Goa’uld symbiote isn’t helping with the infection (presumably) nor the pain.

It’s getting worse.

(No!!)

He’ll be okay. He’ll pull through. I hope.

…Or, maybe not. Fraiser goes out to talk to Hammond and SG-1, and tells them that in addition to virus-infection symptoms, she’s found DNA that isn’t exactly Teal’c’s. She feels she’s out of her league here.

(That’s pretty bad. Fraiser’s pretty darn brilliant.)

Later, they bring in a doctor, a geneticist by the name of Timothy Harlow, and he’s a friend of Carter’s. Unfortunately, he’s the bearer of even more bad news: None of Teal’c’s original DNA remains.

…I don’t like where this is going. I have a feeling it will remind me of The Fly and other really freaky transformation movies.

Furthermore, the Goa’uld  is keeping the virus at bay… but that’s it.

Teal’c is lying in the infirmary, talking as best he can to O’Neill. I’d say he’s taking this whole ordeal pretty well. He seems to sense the change in his genetic structure; somehow. He also says this:

“O’Neill… you are my friend. Where there is no longer any hope… I would rather die.”

Oh man. Maybe this is worse than I thought.

O’Neill goes to see General Hammond, and who would be there but the King of the Jerkfaces himself, Maybourne. I wish that guy would just go away. Hammond hands Jack an order from the Big Wigs that I’m guessing has something to do with Teal’c. Maybourne is once again being completely heartless and thinking of Teal’c as less of a sentient being and more of a source of information. (He obviously never saw “Cor-AI” or “Bloodlines” or “Family” or any other number of episodes.) Seriously, what is his problem? Why does he always have to be such a slimeball? O’Neill makes my day when he asks this:

“General Hammond, request permission to beat the crap out of this man?”

Hammond gives him an incredulous sort of look, but you know it’s what he’s thinking, too.

Carter goes to Harlow, and it turns out that he’s part of this whole thing, too. However, he tries to console her with the knowledge that Teal’c’s best chance may very well be with him. I want to believe (..haha) him, I really do, but there are so many shady characters in this series, you never know who to trust. So I’m just hoping he really does have the best of intentions.

They’ve got Teal’c in handcuffs (WHAT THE FRAK) – no, shackles – and a hazmat suit. The latter I can understand. But the chains are just ridiculous.

Poor Teal’c.

They’re in a van headed presumably to a hospital, and it does seem to me Harlow truly wants to help Teal’c… but I can’t say the same for Maybourne, who’s right next to him. The doctor realizes in horror that Maybourne wants him to change.

Well, the Jerkface gets his wish.

Teal’c more or less starts to freak out (geez, first his son, now him? we’ve got a chain reaction) and breaks his handcuffs and tries to take out the driver.

The truck crashes (I hope you’re dead, Maybourne!) and Teal’c tears out his Goa’uld… and storms out of the truck. (No, Junior! Poor little guy… wait a second, did I just feel sad for a Goa’uld?) SG-1 finds the truck and the larvae… but no Teal’c.

Back on base, they report their findings to Harlow, who believes that Teal’c ripping out the larvae may have just doomed himself. He won’t die, likely, but it was probably the only thing holding back a full transformation.

Okay, no, no, NO, I do NOT want to see the hottest Jaffa ever turn into some giant, mutant dragonfly! Yes, I said they were quite pretty, but you can’t ruin Teal’c like that! You just can’t! That’s just not Bra’tac!

The Goa’uld is stable… but they’re not sure for how long.

Some military personnel are looking for Teal’c, and he himself radios in. He asks O’Neill not to let the men follow him, and that it’s too late. He drops the radio and runs off into the forest.

Harlow tells Carter that if they can get their hands on one of the insects and find Teal’c, they might be able to save him after all. So the team’s going back to the planet with their butterfly nets.

Won’t this be fun?

Teal’c has wandered into a city (Denver or something? Wow, he’s fast) and some teenagers try to stop him. I should mention he also doesn’t have a hat on, but he still seems to be coherent. He picks the one kid up by his throat and moves him, and then goes on.

…Well. That was kind of random.

At least they don’t know he’s an alien though.

He breaks into an abandoned, boarded-up apartment and stumbles into a room, where he collapses. Why would he go into a populated area if he knows he’ll be a danger? I think the insect’s instinct is already driving him. And I can see this going very badly.

SG-1 comes back from the planet and one dragonfly gets in. They manage to capture it and freeze it for study. SG-1 has also brought back video from the planet – one of the victims had several dragonflies come from his or her body.

Okay, ew. Now this is turning into the X-Files episode with the Flukeman. (You know, big, ugly, white, parasite, maggot guy? Lives in sewers?) We seriously need some Scully on this case. Don’t tell Mulder, though. He’d be all over Teal’c in a second.

A girl from the group of teenagers, a younger one named Ally, has followed Teal’c into the building he took refuge in. (Oh, I kind of like where this is going. But I also kind of hate it.) She speculates, “You’re not from around here, are you?”  But she’s not thinking aliens. She’s thinking he’s in some kind of trouble. Before she leaves, though, she agrees at his request to split a (really huge) chocolate bar with her. Oh my god, it looks so good. Now I’m craving chocolate. I think it’s like a giant Pay Day.

Ally says, “You owe me one,” and leaves to get another one. She asks him what he’s done, because the cops are after him, and he replies he’s done nothing.

Of course you haven’t, Teal’c! You just have rotten luck. And I feel sorry for you.

“You’ll never know love… or friendship… and I feel SORRY for you!”

Oh, wait, that’s Harry Potter. And Teal’c isn’t Voldemort. Moving on…

They chat for a little while (confirmation of a season: it’s Summer) and it’s funny because she keeps asking Teal’c, “What planet are you FROM?” whenever he asks a strangely worded question. If only you knew… She offers to show him a place to hide, and takes him up some stairs.

Back on base, the race is on to find Teal’c… Maybourne’s fellow jerkfaces versus the local authorities, who would turn him over to SGC. But time is running out, and the symbiote is dying.

Maybourne’s people have found the apartment complex. One of the guys finds Ally, and… oh man, this isn’t going to be good.

She scoffs just like a good little girl when she meets Maybourne, even as he tries to sweet-talk her (more or less) and just as she said she can smell when she knows a good guy, she says:

“I don’t like the way you smell!”

I love her sass. She makes me smile. And her dad was a cop before he died. Maybe she knows a way to help Teal’c!

She goes back up to his hiding spot, only to find that he’s encased in the same grossness that the other insect victims were. It looks like a web, and it’s really nasty.

Teal’c must have told her who to call, because she calls O’Neill and lets him know what’s going on. He makes it there on time, Jackson and Carter with him, and Teal’c is almost completely cocooned. He asks O’Neill to kill him, and Jack refuses, knowing that they can save him now. He peels off the webs and they bring him out on a stretcher.

Ally follows them  out, still concerned for her strange friend, but she can’t go back to the base with them. Obvious, yes, but it’s still pretty sweet how she cared about him.
But, come on, who could resist? He’s Teal’c.

They get him back on time and the Goa’uld reintegrates itself just fine.

The scene changes, and we’re back in the city with Ally… and Teal’c’s with Jackson! She’s delighted to see he’s better, and out of gratitude, he’s brought her a huge water gun (at the beginning of the episode she had one of those wimpy ones we all hated as kids). Just as Jackson’s about to get them out of there, she squirts Teal’c with the gun ( I love that girl, she’s so funny) and runs off. Then hilarity ensues further:

Jackson: “Guess we shouldn’t have loaded it, huh?”

Teal’c pulls out a water gun from behind his back.

Teal’c: “How else would she defend herself?”

He then squirts Jackson square in the chest and runs off after her.

And I die laughing.

Final thoughts… Okay, that was a pretty dumb episode. The whole bugs and Maybourne once again being a slimeball was kind of superfluous. We already know he’s a jerk. That’s been established. Nor did we really see a whole new level of jerk-iness. That, and like I said, it seemed a whole lot more like X-Files than Stargate, given the whole weird-disease-must-be-solved-but-it’s-going-to-be-NASTY-nonetheless concept.

Trust me, I know my X-Files. I’ve seen nearly seven whole seasons of it and counting.

However, I will say that Ally makes my day.

Yes, yes, I know I’m a total and complete sucker for kids on TV, I love them and I think it’s adorable when they become involved in shows where everyone’s at least 35. But even more than that, I loved how easily she and Teal’c connected. She helped him out in his greatest time of need, trusting only her intuition and his word. Ally wasn’t connected to SGC or the government or anything. She was just curious, and she ended up saving his life.

Not to mention her smart-aleck comments were a great source of humour in what could’ve been a pretty bleak episode.

And of course the ending just had me cracking up laughing to no end. Maybe Teal’c’s learning how to live a little on this planet. I know I keep bringing it up, but the guy’s a dad. Surely he can’t be serious business all the time.

All in all, no, this wasn’t a fantastic episode, but it had its moments. I didn’t think it was nearly as bad as some people had said. But maybe that’s just my inner Teal’c fangirl talking.

PREDICTION/REFLECTION THINGY

(Jackson and Teal’c chat on the way back to base. The latter seems unusually pleased with himself.)

Jackson: You know, you’re getting the car seat all wet.

Teal’c: …It will dry.

Jackson: You just had to get into a water-gun fight?

Teal’c: I owed Miss Ally a debt.

Jackson: You gave her the gun!

(Teal’c just smiles a little.)

Jackson: What are you thinking?

Teal’c: I was simply musing over the idea of what it would have been like to have had a daughter…