The Return Part 2 episode summary
Episode 3.11 The Return Part 2
Episode summary
O’Neill has just returned from a recon run to determine the best way in which he and Woolsey can get to the jumper bay. Jack informs Woolsey that central control is crawling with Replicators (from this point on called HFR in this summary). Woolsey believes that as long as the life signs detectors are not working in the damaged areas of the city, where he and Jack are holed up, that they should be fine until the rescue mission arrives. Jack takes this opportunity to inform him that he left standing orders with SGC that the city would be destroyed by the Daedalus in the event of a foothold situation. Woolsey is understandably shaken by this news.
At this point, the episodes picks up where Part 1 left off- the team, in a puddlejumper, activates the gate to Atlantis and makes into the gate room. Sheppard contacts O’Neill via radio, checks to make sure they’re nowhere near Stargate operations, and informs them they’ll check back in a couple of hours. Although the jumper is shielded, they are under fire from the HFR’s in the gateroom. McKay then delivers a ‘package’ into the gateroom, and the jumper reverses through the wall of SG operations into the outdoors, and the ‘package’ explodes, destroying the gateroom and the central spire of the city.
Back at Cheyenne Mountain, General Landry orders Walter to lock out Sheppard and Co.’s IDC’s and personal authentication codes for disobeying his order. Landry is determined to follow O’Neill’s standing orders despite Walter’s protestations. He then asks to speak to Dr. Lee.
Back in the jumper, the team discusses the time constraints of their plan to rescue their people. They head out and retrieve Niam, the HFR whose code they altered in ‘Progeny’. Dr. Beckett thinks that due to existing in the harsh environment of space, Niam is incapacitated and won’t be able to infect them with the nanovirus which attacked Dr. Weir in ‘The Real World’. They decide they have no choice to pick up Niam, as he’s part of their plan, but Dr. Weirs wants him destroyed if he shows signs of being a threat.
Once Niam is inside the jumper compartment, McKay must work quickly to load a program they’re planning to return to Atlantis and use as a weapon against the HFR’s.
On Atlantis, the HFR’s are working to repair the damage to the command center, but they’ve lost all main sensors. One of them decides to send search parties to damaged areas of the city to look for whomever the team communicated with, believing them to be hiding in the damaged areas in order to evade the city’s sensors. They also tell the audience that all the Ancients have been killed.
The team heads back to the city after Niam’s code has been altered. They plan to freeze the HFR’s to give them enough time to rescue O’Neill and Woolsey, but they must be closer to the city for the signal to reach. McKay must keep Niam incapacitated in order to keep him from ‘waking up’ and attacking them. The team is nervous about approaching the city, since in order to keep the jumper shielded, they must forego using the cloak.
In Landry’s office, Dr. Lee expresses his regrets about being duped, but Landry tells him to forget about it. He wants Lee to tell him the best way to disable the gate bridge. Lee tells him they could set off a bomb at the midway, and Landry tells him to supervise the preparation of the bomb for delivery.
At about one mile from the city, McKay begins transmitting the virus. The jumper is detected, and drones are sent to attack. Sheppard takes evasive action, flying the jumper through the city, but the virus isn’t working. The jumper’s shields are damaged and Sheppard plunges the jumper into the ocean, where the drones don’t follow. Underwater, they discover what they think may be a jumper bay beneath the city. They contact O’Neill, who seems annoyed that Sheppard is accompanied only by his team, Dr. Weir and Dr. Beckett. As Sheppard tells Jack they are ready to proceed with their plan, O’Neill tells him in the unlikely event their plan doesn’t fail, he was fired. Sheppard enters the bay and McKay attempts to close the outer bay. McKay is unable to close the door, and they notice the water isn’t draining. They also notice the jumper has some hull fractures, and water is seeping into the jumper. The jumper bay door is also jammed.
Dr. Weir suggests using the manual override to open the doors, but McKay notes that it’s in the control room. Teyla suggests asking Jack if he can reach it from his end. McKay instructs O’Neill and Woolsey to the hatch to the control room, and Jack swims into the control room to find the override. He makes it to the control room, but doesn’t find the override, as it’s not as obvious as McKay said it would be. As Jack makes a second attempt to find the right control, he accidentally seals himself in the underwater control room. He finds the correct lever, but it’s a control he must hold continually, and since he’s running out of breath, he resurfaces once again. On his third attempt, Jack is finally able to drain the bay. Meanwhile, some HFR’s have located Woolsey, and he hears them coming. When the radio sounds off, Woolsey is captured, as is Jack when he resurfaces.
When McKay cannot reach Woolsey, they realize something’s amiss and Sheppard leaves McKay to reprogram Niam while he takes the others to find Woolsey and O’Neill.
Woolsey and O’Neill are taken to the brig and are questioned by the HFRs. O’Neill attempts to stall them. The team finds their comrade’s hiding spot and realize they’ve been captured and will be questioned any minute. In the brig, O’Neill and Woolsey are probed by the HFRs. They find whatever they’re looking for and leave them in the brig.
Aboard the jumper, McKay attempts to reprogram Niam. He restores Niam’s power level, and turns his back on him. Niam stands up, and tells McKay he was warned about tampering with their base code. McKay is able to get an ARG and destroys Niam. In doing so, he’s ruined their plan to disable the HFRs.
In the jumper, the team regroups and tries to find a new plan. Ronon suggests using the ARGs to destroy the HFRs, but McKay points out that after a certain number of uses they will build a sort of immunity to the weapons. Rodney suggests using some C-4 and they spilt into groups.
Meanwhile, the HFRs have used materials from their ship to rebuild the command center and the central spire. They are waiting until the repairs are complete before looking for Sheppard’s team, and one Replicator says, “Once the repairs are completed, Atlantis will be the only ship we need.”
Sheppard and McKay make it to the brig and eliminate the guards. McKay attempts to free O’Neill and Woolsey, but says they’ve changed the coeds and stalls for time. During the wait, he tells them of their plan to use C-4 in the city’s shield generators, so that when the Deddy arrives and the shields are raised, the C-4 will detonate and render the shield useless, making it possible for the ship’s nukes to carry out O’Neill’s order to destroy Atlantis at all costs. Sheppard alerts them the HFRs are coming and they leave the two in the brig.
At Cheyenne Mountain, Landry receives word that the Daedalus has reached the midway, and he reiterates that Atlantis is to be destroyed.
At various points in the city, the various teams deposit the C-4 in critical sites. As they complete their tasks, they hear a sound, and McKay realizes the HFRs have brought their ZPMs to activate the city’s star drive. Realizing this would ruin their current plan, Sheppard orders Beckett to the chair room and tells him to concentrate on sending drones to destroy the star drive. Carson is successful, but as the HFRs realize what has happened, each team is captured and taken to the brig with Woolsey and O’Neill. In the cell, a Replicator tells them their plan has been discovered, and they realize Woolsey was not strong enough to resist the mind probe. They have removed all the C-4 from the shield generators, and he tells them they have failed.
Suddenly, the episode rewinds back to the jumper when McKay firsts asks how much C-4 they had. McKay suggests that since the HFRs will adapt to the ARGs fairly quickly, they need to use the weapons on them in a large group to kill as many as possible at one time. He wants to send one massive blast throughout the city. Using the crystals from the ARGs and interfacing them with the crystals in the shield emitters, they can send such a blast if the city’s shield are raised, as they would be when the Deddy arrives. The C-4 I a ruse, and McKay made sure to tell O’Neill and Woolsey of their fake plan knowing they would be probed and ensuring the HFRs would not know the real plan.
As the Daedalus approaches, the shield is indeed raised, and all the HFRs turn to metal shards. Woolsey is indignant to learn he was fed misinformation about the real plan, but O’Neill tells him he was part of the plan and therefore good for something.
The team makes it to the control room and hails the Deddy. A doubtful Caldwell opens a channel, and tells Sheppard his authentication code is invalid, and when Jack attempts to speak to Caldwell, the colonel tells him he may have been compromised and therefore not believable. However, upon hearing Dr. Weir’s voice, the colonel assembles a team of marines.
Dr. Weir asks O’Neill what the chances of her team being able to stay in Atlantis are, and Jack tells her they can stay. Elizabeth thanks him, and gives him a hug.
Fin.
Caps in a bit.