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SGA 3x08: McKay & Mrs. Miller
I just realized that I never did an episode-reaction post for "Common Ground". Not that I didn't like the episode; I loved it, in fact. There was much squee-ing. I was just too darn lazy to write a reaction to it.
But there are no words for the squee factor in this week's episode. I've watched it straight through twice, and watched parts of it ... more times than I care to admit.
MEREDITH!!! OMG, Meredith! And everyone else's reaction to it. Especially Sheppard. "Whatever you say ... Meredith."
Kate Hewlett was wonderful. I love her and I love her character. I do hope they bring her back in the next season. She's just the perfect combination of sweet, sympathetic and snarky. Asking Rodney if he started the war -- ha! And her little annoyed "Meredith!" and whacking him whenever he'd do something Rodney-ish. And the fact that she hit it off with the Atlanteans ... and Rodney's reaction to Sheppard's greeting her: "I've seen that look before ... *Kirk*!" It was pure delight.
This episode walked a fine line with the pathos, and in my opinion, never fell off once. They kept enough humor in Rodney's jealousy of Rod and his feelings of isolation from the team to never once stray into eye-rolling territory for me. And the sheer perfection that it was Sheppard that he went to, with his frustration over the Rod situation -- in John's quarters, no less! -- and that Sheppard nailed the crux of the problem with one off-hand comment? He does know Rodney well. And then, as if that wasn't enough, he set out to FIX it! But in character, always in character. It just about killed me to realize that Sheppard has seen Rodney's "Letters from Pegasus" tape, where he talks about the Atlanteans being his surrogate family -- and not only that, but keeps a copy of it on his laptop! Which, honestly, I'm not 100% sure how much in character that is ... but, he's SEEN it! And he set out deliberately to show Jeannie a different side of Rodney, the side of him that makes his team love him so ... SQUEEEEEEE!
The hug just tipped me into a giant pool of warm fuzzies. Because it was still so much in character -- Rodney's so awkward about it, and you could see the exact same desperation in his face as he had at the end of Trinity: the look he gets when someone who's really important to him is about to walk out of his life forever. In fact, the scene in Jeannie's quarters did make me think a lot of that final scene in Trinity, as Rodney's desperation not to lose someone he cares about makes him break through his emotional barriers and strips him down to the genuinely sweet person underneath all the snarkiness and lousy people skills.
And as if that wasn't enough, then there was the little "making it right" scene at the end with the team -- the thing that "Pegasus Project" didn't have. I kinda sense the hand of Sheppard in this one, as well. But just the fact that they all went out of their way to let Rodney know that they prefer their flawed McKay to the "better" model, and without being so obvious about it that Rodney would realize they were doing it on purpose ... SQUEE! And I loved the teasing of Teyla, and Teyla hitting Sheppard ... you know, Teyla and Ronon have both lightened up a lot this season. In fact, it seems to me that whereas Season 2 seemed to focus more on the individual character relationships (especially John/Rodney, John/Elizabeth and Teyla/Ronon) Season 3 has been really heavily playing up the team dynamic, especially the "family" nature of the group. And yet they're doing it while still giving us the John/Rodney scenes.
This is another episode, like Sateda, that doesn't make me want to run out and write or read a bunch of tags, because it was so emotionally complete in and of itself.
Oh, and did anyone else think that they were trying to give Ace McKay -- er, excuse me, Rod, "Sheppard hair"? It took me awhile to really think about why his hair was fluffed up like that, but when he was talking about the personality of alt-John, it really sounds like Sheppard and McKay's personalities are inverted in the other reality. So maybe Rod also has the "rakish" hair ...
But there are no words for the squee factor in this week's episode. I've watched it straight through twice, and watched parts of it ... more times than I care to admit.
MEREDITH!!! OMG, Meredith! And everyone else's reaction to it. Especially Sheppard. "Whatever you say ... Meredith."
Kate Hewlett was wonderful. I love her and I love her character. I do hope they bring her back in the next season. She's just the perfect combination of sweet, sympathetic and snarky. Asking Rodney if he started the war -- ha! And her little annoyed "Meredith!" and whacking him whenever he'd do something Rodney-ish. And the fact that she hit it off with the Atlanteans ... and Rodney's reaction to Sheppard's greeting her: "I've seen that look before ... *Kirk*!" It was pure delight.
This episode walked a fine line with the pathos, and in my opinion, never fell off once. They kept enough humor in Rodney's jealousy of Rod and his feelings of isolation from the team to never once stray into eye-rolling territory for me. And the sheer perfection that it was Sheppard that he went to, with his frustration over the Rod situation -- in John's quarters, no less! -- and that Sheppard nailed the crux of the problem with one off-hand comment? He does know Rodney well. And then, as if that wasn't enough, he set out to FIX it! But in character, always in character. It just about killed me to realize that Sheppard has seen Rodney's "Letters from Pegasus" tape, where he talks about the Atlanteans being his surrogate family -- and not only that, but keeps a copy of it on his laptop! Which, honestly, I'm not 100% sure how much in character that is ... but, he's SEEN it! And he set out deliberately to show Jeannie a different side of Rodney, the side of him that makes his team love him so ... SQUEEEEEEE!
The hug just tipped me into a giant pool of warm fuzzies. Because it was still so much in character -- Rodney's so awkward about it, and you could see the exact same desperation in his face as he had at the end of Trinity: the look he gets when someone who's really important to him is about to walk out of his life forever. In fact, the scene in Jeannie's quarters did make me think a lot of that final scene in Trinity, as Rodney's desperation not to lose someone he cares about makes him break through his emotional barriers and strips him down to the genuinely sweet person underneath all the snarkiness and lousy people skills.
And as if that wasn't enough, then there was the little "making it right" scene at the end with the team -- the thing that "Pegasus Project" didn't have. I kinda sense the hand of Sheppard in this one, as well. But just the fact that they all went out of their way to let Rodney know that they prefer their flawed McKay to the "better" model, and without being so obvious about it that Rodney would realize they were doing it on purpose ... SQUEE! And I loved the teasing of Teyla, and Teyla hitting Sheppard ... you know, Teyla and Ronon have both lightened up a lot this season. In fact, it seems to me that whereas Season 2 seemed to focus more on the individual character relationships (especially John/Rodney, John/Elizabeth and Teyla/Ronon) Season 3 has been really heavily playing up the team dynamic, especially the "family" nature of the group. And yet they're doing it while still giving us the John/Rodney scenes.
This is another episode, like Sateda, that doesn't make me want to run out and write or read a bunch of tags, because it was so emotionally complete in and of itself.
Oh, and did anyone else think that they were trying to give Ace McKay -- er, excuse me, Rod, "Sheppard hair"? It took me awhile to really think about why his hair was fluffed up like that, but when he was talking about the personality of alt-John, it really sounds like Sheppard and McKay's personalities are inverted in the other reality. So maybe Rod also has the "rakish" hair ...
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(p.s. thanks for helping with my turtle adventure story. I have it posted now!)
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Oh, you posted the turtle story! ff.net has been acting up for me, so I haven't been able to read anything on there in a day or so.
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Is anyone else feeling warm fuzzy feelings for Martin Gero right now?
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I was trying to think of a coherent way to phrase something along these lines, but you've done it much better than I ever could! It's like the events of Trinity played out again, and this time Rodney did it *right*. Even though he failed, he didn't crash and burn; it was an unsuccessful science experiment, that's all, and in all the ways that count, he did the right thing. And his team and Elizabeth support him in it.
Is anyone else feeling warm fuzzy feelings for Martin Gero right now?
LOL! He just has the most wonderful touch with the characters, doesn't he? Especially Rodney. And I *love* that the characters, and their relationships to each other, grow and change over time. The season 3 character dynamic is not the same as that of season 1 or season 2. Season 3 Rodney does not react to things in the same way as season 1 Rodney. And yet it's all so subtle that you can just pick up and start watching at any point in the series. It's not generally huge things; it's little subtle things that make the difference, and I love the fact that the writers *give* us those subtleties. I've noticed lately that I even find it difficult to still enjoy Season 1 fics, at least not nearly as much as the more recent ones, because the character dynamic is so vastly different.
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Have to agree with you on the no-need-for-tag-fics thing. Not that they won't be fun to reaaaaad, but the need is not there!
Wasn't it just perfect? *sighs*
Oh, and the Letters tape on John's laptop...I just figured he stole it from somewhere, doesn't sound right that he'd have that :) He stole it from the Elizabeth, see, that makes sense. Elizabeth was in on it!
Oh yeah, Meredith! LOL Poor Rodney, he never got a break.
I'll go away now and pretend I didn't watch it over and over and over again (forget pretending, I'm watching it again!)
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Yeah, thinking about the Letters tape, it does seem much more likely that Sheppard got it from somewhere else especially to show Jeannie. But it still makes it likely that he was already aware of its existence and/or had seen it before. The whole idea of which is very, very adorable to me.
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***adores this show EVEN MORE, if that's possible***
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Excellent, excellent episode, I agree!
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So far, the only main characters who haven't had spotlight episodes are Teyla and Carson, I think. A Carson spotlight ep would be just GRAND -- not that I don't want to see Teyla highlighted, too, but we did have Teyla-centric episodes in the first season, and Carson has never really gotten a good one. I guess you could see "Misbegotten" as being kind of Carson-centric, but it didn't really delve into him as a character, the way that this episode did for McKay.
And yes, I did really like the fact that Jeannie had quit school to stay home with her kids and that the show didn't try to pontificate on whether or not it was a right or wrong decision, just that it was clearly HER choice to make and that she didn't regret having chosen that way.
I also got a kick out of the fact that Rodney's sister is basically a sort of latter-day hippie, what with the long skirts and vegetarian cuisine and her rant about intellectual freedom. A more different person from Rodney could hardly be imagined -- which makes it all the sweeter that they were able to ultimately come together in the end.
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I got all teary like they did when he hugged her. Our little Rodney is growing up!
And whilst I prefer Rodney to Rod - could he maybe copy the hair? That was hot!
I also want to say thanks to you Friendshipper, because most of my LJ contacts are slashers and are jumping all over the ep with gay (pun fully intended) whilst I sit here shrieking 'NO! That's so wrong.' and start wondering which parallel universe they are living in. Kudos for helping me keep my sanity.
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*smiles* You're welcome, glad to help! :D
I admit that this is one of the few fandoms in which I do occasionally read and enjoy slash. But I don't see it in canon, at all, and one of the reasons is because Sheppard and McKay have such a wonderful sibling dynamic that slashing them, to me, sort of borders on incest. Besides, I like them in canon just the way they are, that unique and endearing blend of prickliness and affection, emotional repressedness and physical comfort with each other. As my username implies, when it comes to getting a warm glow off of things, friendship is my be-all and end-all; my OTPs are nearly all platonic OTPs. I dunno why; I'm just wired that way, I guess.
And I do love that Kate Hewlett is proportioned like a normal woman, quite an attractive normal woman, but beautiful in more of an interesting way than a soap-opera-actress kind of way. In fact, for the most part all of the cast are physically appealing because they are interesting-looking rather than model-beautiful, and they represent a range of physical types. Kudos to the show's casting director for giving us a group of people who are nice to look at and have actual *character* to them!
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I haven't seen the preview for next week; I'll have to go take a gander at it tomorrow. Teyla got a few episodes, but I'd love to see an episode exploring more of her backstory. Carson, though, you're right, he hasn't had an episode all to himself yet. I'm really, really hoping he'll get one.
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It could be of course that he didn't just keep Rodney's video, but that he simply has a copy of the whole databurst, perhaps because he helped prepare the tactical information parts. Also I think having the personal notes of those under his command may be helpful when he has to write death notifications and such to the families, if he doesn't want to write just form letters. Or the databurst copy is simply on their server to which his own laptop can connect. It's still very cute though that he watched and remembered Rodney's personal message.