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SGA 3x14 (or possibly 3x15): The Tao of McKay
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... yeah. Incoherent.
Now that I've managed to come back down to planet Earth ... this was weirdly like an SG-1 episode -- the whole feel of it, the weird changes happening to a team member (I never realized just how OFTEN that sort of thing happened to SG-1, compared to how often SGA has to deal with it, 'til we went back and rewatched SG-1 season 1 recently), and most particularly the team interactions. I ... guh. I mean, I NEVER thought we'd get anything like this in SGA. In a weird way, it kind of threw me a little bit. You know how it is, when you want something and then you get it and you're not absolutely sure that you wanted it after all ...? There were moments that felt a teeny bit out of character for Rodney. I know he's dying and all, but things like ... the scene in Teyla's quarters ... I just don't know if I could see him *doing* that. If it happened in a fanfic, I would have thought it was OOC.
On the other hand, maybe when you scrape away all the layers of sarcasm and defenses ... this is what you're left with. A genuinely nice person. I mean, yeah, we always knew Rodney was a decent guy deep down ... but this is the first episode where we see more than just glimpses -- where he's actually *been* nice and managed to keep it up for a significant part of the episode.
I have this wishlist for SGA. Things I'd love to see in an episode that I thought I never would. I ... think it's quite possible that very nearly everything on that list happened in this episode. There is exactly ONE item I can think of that wasn't in this episode. (In case you're curious ... Sheppard performing CPR on Rodney. Or vice versa. But I don't think we'll ever see that in this series. Everything ELSE, however ...)
The *one* thing in the whole episode that didn't make me DROP DEAD ON THE FLOOR was the not-so-subtle hints of McWeir. But you know what ... Rodney being Rodney, I can actually see the scene at the end as his attempt to make light (and make sense) of an utterly incomprehensible thing to him -- having a bunch of people tell him they love him. He has to rationalize it away as sexual desire, simultaneously feeding his ego *and* his insecurities. And in the end, they go to lunch as friends. Just like before.
There's really no point in listing everything I liked about the episode. Just start at the first scene and run through to the last. But there were two real standouts for me. When he's going through and doing his goodbyes and making amends ... there were two scenes in there that really made me ... well, stop and stare. And I think the timing of the whole sequence is entirely deliberate. Those two scenes are the bracketing ones, his goodbye to Zelenka and to Sheppard.
Zelenka's the very first one, because Zelenka is the person he has the most to make up for -- and while I kind of got the impression with some of the others that he was just trying to come up with something, ANYTHING that he could do for them, with Zelenka there really *was* something that needed to be done ... probably the hardest thing in the world to do: Apologize for being an ass for the last two and a half years. And he did it, and it was truly heartfelt.
The other scene was the one with Sheppard. Throughout all the rest of it, I kept thinking, "I can't WAIT to see what he does for Sheppard." But what made that scene stand out was that he didn't have to do anything at all. There was nothing between the two of them that needed to be said or done. Everything they needed had already *been* said or done. They were good. End of story.
I ... *still* can't quite get my mind around this episode. I think I will go die of squee now. see ya ...
no subject
My god. Did I just watch that?
I think McKay was very in character throughout, keeping in mind that he was, in fact, undergoing a change. He was still arrogant and snarky, and determined to do whatever it took to solve the problem, even if it meant *gasp* unleashing his burdens by talking to his friends. The scenes with Shep are pure magic.
Many aspects of this episode are very deep, and very eastern philo oriented, hence the episode name, but the depth that was touched startled me. I'm not sure even the writers knew what they tapped into.
Too many squee moments to count! McKay was getting on my nerves, as he should, because the character is meant to be an ass. I don't think he came across as too soft or friendly, in fact this McKay is very like the McKay we first saw on SG1. Arrogant to a fault but very human, not quite as defensive as he is on Atlantis. This, as he came across in this episode, is definitely his core being.
It's given me a lot to think about while writing Sea'scape Three, that's for sure.
This episode I can sink my teeth into, provided I can slap McKay around a bit. LOL! Ronon was classic, absolutely brilliant!
AWESOME EPISODE!!!!!!!!!
Kam :D :D :D
no subject
My god. Did I just watch that?
That was about my reaction. I swear they let the fanficcers write an episode! I know half the season has been that way, but this one ... I still haven't picked up my jaw off the floor.
And yes, I loved that all of the making-of-amends at the end was basically still Rodney in problem-solving mode -- if he'd just been dying of something relatively ordinary, he might not have reacted that way (although you never know, he still might've) but it really *was* a Rodney thing to do, approaching the whole thing analytically even when he's apologizing to his friends.