SGA 4x9: Miller's Crossing

[zelempa]

So I liked it.

Lovers take note: "You're an invaluable member of my team" is the new "I love you."

We open on Rodney staring past the camera. A female scientist behind him points out he's been staring silently (!!) at the board for hours; maybe they should ask the Wraith for help? Rodney refuses. Zelenka says, "Just email her already." This Rodney also refuses, and Zelenka says, "Rodney. I cannot sit here waiting for you to have an epiphany. I am losing. The will. To live!" I laugh out loud and love Zelenka so hard.

The Miller house. Jeannie and Caleb are baking with Madison, and it's a very sweet scene. Jeannie gets the email from Rodney and starts taking down some calculations. That night, she and Caleb are in bed when their bedroom is ambushed by guys in big black armor and laser-sight pistols!

Rodney, John, and Ronon arrive on Earth to investigate the kidnapping. To help Ronon blend in, they dress him in jeans and a suit jacket and white shirt (identical to the ones John is wearing, although he's wearing slacks). The effect is hilarious and adorable, although I suppose that must be what Jason Momoa looks like.

Miller house. Caleb and Madison are fine. When Madison asks Rodney "Where's Mom?", for some reason, we get an emotional close-up on John. This could be a "John is sad because he has no family" moment, but I choose to interpret it as a "John feels for Rodney because of his lurrrrrrve" moment. Delightfully, when Caleb and Rodney go into the kitchen to talk, John naturally and without discussion or agreement steps up to entertain Madison.

Caleb (sensibly) blames Rodney for Jeannie's capture. Rodney promises to find her.

Rodney sits down at Jeannie's Dell (it's always a Dell), telling John and Ronon to go back to the hotel (it's a motel) as this will take awhile. John volunteers to stay. Rodney insists. Later, at the motel, when John's phone rings, he jumps up to get it. Man, the amount he cares for Rodney during his family crisis is so great.

Splitting up is always a bad idea; while John and Ronon are elsewhere, Rodney is attacked by black-armor-laser-gun-guys.

Rodney is led into the lab where Jeannie is being kept. She cries, "Meredith!" They bicker.

Exposition: Rodney and Jeannie were kidnapped by a medical R&D company with government contracts which manufactures SG tracking devices (they've turned Rodney's off to keep him from being found) and which is granted limited access to military technology to develop for Earth use. Boss Guy got suspicious with all the weird technology advances he was being granted, and did some digging. He has found out about the SGC and Atlantis. His latest project is developing nanites for medical use. He tried to use them experimentally on his daughter, who has leukemia, but they caused more problems than they solved. Desperately needing someone who understood nanite coding, he jumped at the opportunity when his surveillance of Rodney's email led him to Jeannie; Rodney takes offense at Jeannie's being the more desired coder. And now you're up to speed.

Lab. Jeannie and Rodney are alone. Jeannie, who looked sympathetic through Boss Guy's spiel, has an idea, but Rodney isn't listening. "Hey, idiot," she says to Rodney, who admits, "You lost me at nanites." He's busy trying to figure a way to break out. Jeannie wants to stay and help the girl, but Rodney insists once they do, their lives will be forfeit; the guy is not just going to let them go to report on him to the SGC. Also, what if they fail? Rodney! Failure has never been an option with you before.

Jeannie agrees to go with Rodney once he gets the door open, but they quickly get losts in the labyrinth. "I can't believe I'm betting my life on your sense of direction. Remember when we went to the West Edmonton Mall and Dad had to call the police to find you?" "That place is huge!" "There are maps every seven meters!" "Misleading ones!" The Canadian content of this show makes it that much more irritating that I can't get it on cable in Toronto.

Rodney and Jeannie are caught and brought back to their lab/cell where Boss Guy is all upset with them and doses Jeannie with nanites in order to give her and Rodney an incentive to work harder. I would think giving Rodney the drug would be more logical if Jeannie is the better coder and Rodney the more self-centered human being, but it works this way too as Rodney is touchingly attached to his sister.

John is on the case. He snaps at Ronon for leaving to get food. Ronon points out he's useless until they figure out who to point a gun at. John admits he's right. He just loves Rodney so.

While Rodney and Jeannie wait for an update on the sick girl's condition, having uploaded their new patch to Jeannie's nanites between cuts, they gossip! Transcription provided because I live on this stuff.

JEANNIE: So are you going to marry that Katie girl?
RODNEY: What?
JEANNIE: You heard me.
RODNEY: Where did that come from?
JEANNIE: I'm trying to take my mind off the fact that I have tiny robots running through my veins because you needed help with your homework. Or would you rather talk about that?
RODNEY: Not really...
JEANNIE: So are you going to marry her?
RODNEY (defeated): I don't know.
JEANNIE: You've been dating for over a year now.
RODNEY: I'm aware of that, thank you!
JEANNIE: You think you're going to find someone better?
RODNEY: No, it's not that. [Ed. note: it is that.]
JEANNIE: Cause you're not!
RODNEY: Wh...Hang on...
JEANNIE: The fact that you find a nice girl who's willing to put up with all your many... little... flaws is a miracle!
RODNEY: Look...
JEANNIE: Plus physically you're... well... how do I put this... you're no John Sheppard.
RODNEY (frowns): Okay... let's go back to talking about this is my fault, cause I think I like that better.

Story moves right along. The boss's daughter gets better, but then dies. Rodney wants to escape, but Jeannie is sympathetic and asks to leave to be treated. Suddenly the girl comes back to life, but she's still in a coma. The nanites have gone on to "fixing" other physical defaults, even at the expense of her consciousness, memories, etc. Rodney and Jeannie realize Jeannie is in danger as the nanites will go after her epilepsy. John and Ronon arrive with the cavalry and beam everyone to the Daedalus, where Rodney gets to make the logical-under-these-circumstances announcement, "I've put Jeannie in a coma, and I've broken her legs." Rodney needs help recoding the nanites, so they bring in...

"Sheppard's Wraith," as he is once called in this episode! Rodney finds himself in the strangely familiar position of having to convince the unmotivated supercoder to help him save his dying family member.

Coding montage, but the Wraith gets weary and weak and can't finish without feeding. Rodney brings the problem to John, telling him, "It needs to be me. I want him to feed on me." Yipe! (So slashy (...and yet, and yet...))

After the break Rodney drops the reveal that Jeannie is actually already dead (shouldn't we have gotten that before the break? I guess "I want him to feed on me" was pretty big, too. Still, I'd have stacked 'em both.) And we get our second "Rodney says 'John'" moment: "I can't lose my sister, John."

RODNEY: I can't lose my sister, John. How am I going to explain that to her husband, her kid?
JOHNL: The Wraith'll kill you.
RODNEY: It's my choice to make.
JOHN: No, it's not. --You are an invaluable member of my team and you report directly to me. [Unspoken: What about YOUR HUSBAND, HUH????!]
Their eyes are both sparkly with unshed tears. It's delightful.

"This was not an easy decision to make" says Rodney, and man, I bet it wasn't. The enormity of Rodney deciding to give up his life for someone else? Wow.

John goes behind everyone else's back to Boss of Medical Company Guy and tells him Jeannie's not going to make it and shows him photos of Caleb and Madison. "McKay's blaming himself, but I know better. You know better." Whoa. I like this episode from moment one of Jeannie McKay, but the punches keep on coming at the end here, bam bam bam.

Rodney gets into the lab just as the boss guy's body is being wheeled away. "I was showing him the labs. The Wraith got the upper hand. That's what the report's gonna say," says Sheppard easily. Rodney stares at him wide-eyed. "You..." Man. The sentence is so effective unfinished. Rodney goes to help the coding and John stares after him with what I can only describe as "grim tenderness."

Jeannie lives! There's a nice scene between them, and then Rodney comes back to John's room and there is a weird and dark and awesome scene between them. First, Rodney catches John up on his visit with the family, which I always love moments like that, and then Rodney brings up how John talked the guy into sacrificing himself. With a hard expression John insists on describing it as, "I presented a situation. And he volunteered." Rodney concedes and says "Thanks." Then there's sort of an uncomfortable pause, angsty, because you're not sure if Rodney is going to back away now, both grateful to John and afraid of him, of what he's capable of, which would certainly be justified; but instead he says, "Wanna get something to eat?" Phew. Still, I'm a little afraid of John.

Rodney and John walk off together with a minor bit of comedy as Rodney asks "You and I are about even, right? In terms of looks?" and John says, "Who's been lying to you?"

So. What do we think? Although this is largely a Rodney episode, I'm so interested in the way this episode suggests and complicates aspects of John; where he draws the line and what prompts him to push it, whether and to what extent this was a big-picture decision vs. a personal decision, his feelings about family, his marriedness to Rodney.