In the sixth episode of the second season of Farscape, Chiara accepts a disastrous gift. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Farscape.Â
I definitely like the first half of this episode more than the second, though I got a serious The Prisoner vibe in Maldis’s world. RIGHT? That whole bit was one of the more surreal sequences in Farscape, but I’m not sure if the story quite matches the visuals. Still, this episode delivers some exceptionally shocking plot twists that are THANKFULLY reversed by the end because otherwise I would be furious.
This certainly feels like Farscape is trying to exist in the science fiction genre while twisting all the tropes and concepts that are familiar to it. A device that tells the future? That’s nothing new. A creepy item sold by a vendor out in the middle of nowhere? Normal territory! Combine the two and have it ACTUALLY KILL TWO MAIN CHARACTERS? Oh my god, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO ME, FARSCAPE.
Initially, we really are meant to think that the portrait that Chiana finds can see the future. But D’Argo is the first to suggest that it might actually be making the future happen. It’s only with the reveal of Maldis as the antagonist that the portrait finally made sense to me. Since Maldis is a being who feeds on fear, what’s creepier than seeing your death before it happens? That’s what Maldis creates here, but even though he gets some mileage out of the deaths of D’Argo, Chiana, and Crichton, that’s not his endgame. They’re just the appetizer. In hindsight, it’s now clear that as the crew struggled to resist their fates (and then succumbed to them anyway), Zhaan became more and more frightened that she couldn’t stop it. Maldis’s plan worked. As he drew more and more power from the same being who “defeated” him the last time, he got closer to getting his revenge.
In this context, I don’t really have a problem with how one-dimensional Maldis is. He serves a very specific purpose here, and it’s to cause terror. He’s irredeemable, he monologues a lot, he does his evil cackle super well, and that’s it. I’m okay with that! I loved that so much of the first half of the episode shocked and surprised me before setting up the big battle between Zhaan and Maldis. I mean, Y’ALL. Y’all. Chiana died. SHE DIED HORRIBLY. I refused to believe it was real, but I couldn’t help but worry that maybe this was the moment when Farscape would truly buck expectation and ruin my life. BUT COULD YOU NOT DO THAT WITH CHIANA? THAT’S NOT FAIR.
Thankfully, the illusion of her death doesn’t last all that long. Once D’Argo “dies,” we find out that they’ve all been transported to Maldis’s world inside the portrait. (Please tell me I’m not imagining that D’Argo is drastically different this season. Look how calmly he accepts his death!) It works, and it doesn’t. It’s deliberately surreal, and the whole mirror effect is a trip. But as cool and psychedelic as it appears, it does make a lot of the final scenes fairly flat in tone. It’s not until Zhaan shows up and kicks the living shit out of Maldis that I felt excited about what was happening. The whole episode, we’re teased with this “plan” that Zhaan has, and it’s only at the end that we find out that it’s…. shooting Kyvan. That’s it? Zhaan was so worried that her friends wouldn’t trust her and obey her, but I’m pretty sure that Aeryn would have taken great pleasure from shooting Kyvan anyway, especially since Kyvan was responsible for Chiana’s death.
Still, I understood that the act was a way to distract Maldis and take some of his power away from him, at least enough so that she could KICK HIS ASS. Which was great to see! The whole giant hand thing? Yeah, that was… weird. Really weird. I do like that the show is so consistently willing to do shit like this, but it just looked silly more than terrifying. (Though it was still unsettling. I WON’T DENY THAT.) This story was a venue to explore how Zhaan dealt with her own fear, but I think that by keeping her struggle a huge secret for most of the episode, we didn’t get to truly experience what this conflict was like. We had to imagine most of it.
Not my favorite episode, but holy shit, SO MUCH NOPE. I think I out-noped myself during this.
The video for “Picture If You Will” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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