2x07 Instinct

[mylittleredgirl]

First of all, apologies to everyone for the delay in this recap. It seems there has been a bit of a civil war in the Red household, and when territories were divided, the Independent Republic of Little Red was left without a television. However, after a daring midmorning raid, the living room has been recaptured for the greater glory of zeropointsnark. Pardon me if the recap is a bit disjointed, it's just all the shelling going on in the walk-in closet down the hall.

Now, on Atlantis, where their wars are far more interesting and far less, er, figurative, we open on a pretty view of two moons and a Stargate in space orbiting a pretty blue planet. Those space 'gates never get old, I tell you, though I do hope they've come up with some system of retrieving those MALPs.

Down on the planet, it is dusk. Team Sheppard strolls into King Richard's Faire, where the lampposts are all lit, but no one's around. Shep bitches about having to go to Medieval England on vacation or something, the subtext of which is "it's not a vacation until I see Elizabeth in a bikini, dammit." Okay, I made that up, but it's not totally impossible. I'm just saying. Teyla, who still hasn't quite gotten used to the concept of buildings that can't be folded up and put in one's backpack in a hurry, can't imagine where the people are. Just like in "Condemned," Ronon points out smoke, indicating that the people are inside. She can sense Wraith, he can sense fire! And state the obvious. Power team! McKay bitches that there's nothing he hates more than "a damp cold." Wow, it kind of sucks for him that the Ancients decided to terraform every single planet they came to in the image of Vancouver, then, isn't it? Shep's magical spidey-sense is apparently for booze, and so they head for the local tavern.

Alien Tavern, Silent Film Era. The tavern is warmly lit and packed full of very silent people. It is unclear whether they are silent because Team Sheppard just walked in or simply because they lack SAG cards, but the general feeling is that this is one Sad And Depressed village of agoraphobes. Everyone turns to look at the newcomers, and this whole beginning -- inexplicably deserted and subdued town, strangers swaggering in with big guns -- has a very Western feel to it. It lacks only tumbleweed. And spurs. Shep comes to the same conclusion I did and slips right into the role: "Howdy, folks." He then introduces the team by their gunslinger names (which may or may not mean he's finally over his promotion), and explains that they ain't from around these here parts. The tavern boy whatevers and offers to read them the specials, because he's figured out that the way to Team Sheppard's heart is through McKay's stomach. All-Important Wardrobe Update: Ronon is still wearing his pimp coat, and has added to the ensemble of wtf by strapping a SWORD to his back. Even better: the sword has a tassle on the hilt. A tassle! In the Pegasus Galaxy, nothing says threatening like a manly, manly pom-pom. ["Maybe it matches his shirt." -- Pooh]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Ronon and the others take a seat, while tavern boy sloooooowly exposits that they don't tend to get visitors in these parts who travel near dark. ["You did not just bring in the Ninja Turtles. Now I need to figure out who's who." -- Pooh] Another guy, Goran, (who would probably be either the Town Mayor or the Sherriff if this were an actual Western) snits that Team Sheppard should just pack up their Turtle Fist Daggers and head on back out of town. Goran reminds me a bit of Jack Bristow from Alias in the vein of I'm-supposed-to-be-dangerous-and-threatening, but-look-totally-teddy-bear-cuddly. Staring. Staring. There's some blah blah very important foreshadowing and exposition between Goran and Tavern Boy about how "it's been three months" and "it" won't wait any longer, not safe outside, etc, but I am falling asleep, because about THIRTY SECONDS pass between each and every line of dialogue. This might be a deliberate homage to the slow-roasting style of old Westerns, but it really feels like the script just came in a few pages short and the director was all "er, well, we can solve this if everybody just counts to ten-mississippi before they say anything."

Just when I'm about to go make a sandwich and come back when the plot starts, McKay interrupts this totally emotionless exchange of theoretical mortal terror, all, "fill the new guys in, please?" There's something called a Daemos. Shep makes an unconcerned face and is all, "never heard of it," because he arrived on this planet five minutes ago and this makes him an expert on what does and doesn't live in the woods and eat people. Oh my God, everyone, TALK FASTER so we can get this very important information before the demon eats you, please. After a bit of life-sucking description for dramatic tension, Team Sheppard figures out that the Daemos is, of course, a Wraith. Duh-duh-DUUUH! Dramatic music swells us into the credits.

These credits still suck! Let's pretend that we totally had the Atlantis theme music done with banjos and fiddles instead, with clips of Team Sheppard all gunslinging around town and riding horses over the hills and dueling with Kolya from ten paces and stuff, and possibly Elizabeth running the local saloon. I think she'd be great at that. She'd totally call Shep "Sugar," too.

Back in our alien medieval town set in the wild wild west, Tavern Boy gives Our Heroes their ale in nicely crafted glasses instead of mugs. Hey! My sister totally has those exact same glasses! "So what?" you say. Trust me, that's far more interesting than what's actually going on in this scene, but, as it is my job, I shall tell you anyway: Ronon chugs his beer, all gearing up to rush Pegasus Alpha Chi. Ominous thunder crackles outside. Team Sheppard explains that Wraith exist. Goran says they have "old stories from the time of the cullings" about Wraith who came down from the sky and ate everyone, but the stories didn't include any mug shots, so no one knows what they look like. Given that the Stargate is in space, it does make sense that these people are really cut off from the latest Pegasus news, so I'll buy that, although it seems like no planet has really gone without mini-cullings in this galaxy even between the great Wraith awakenings. Perhaps this planet is too boring to eat. Nonetheless, a few clever folk on the planet figured the Daemos might be related to the Wraith, not so much because of the life-sucking, but because "it too fell from the sky."

Flashback to 10 years earlier. Villagers wander around being happy and simple, which basically means buxom women carry around trays of vegetables and look coy while fat men leer at them. Ah, the good old days. A bright light zooms out of the sky amid lots of smoke and, predictably, people freak out. It should be noted that this is the most emotion we will ever see out of these villagers. A mob of men armed with farm implements troop into the forest, where they find "a few wounded survivors," according to Goran's voice-over. One villager in the background is totally wearing a pirate hat. The hell? No parrot, though. I feel like someone in the genre homage department got a little confused while designing the look of this planet. "We didn't know what they were," Goran voice-overs dramatically, very excited to get to tell this story to someone who hasn't already heard it a billion times in the last ten years. "We decided to take no chances." There is slashing and burning. They chop the Wraith up with axes! Maybe next week Ronon can carry an axe! Tassle optional. Flashback!Goran looks guilty, as voiceover!Goran says "We slaughtered them. Burned the bodies." Flashback!Goran fades out of the picture all artistically for no reason that I can determine, since the rest of the flashback lingers for awhile. Perhaps they're trying to symbolize that the better parts of himself FADED AWAY when the Wraith fell out of the sky and he became a killer. Yes, that must be it, and if I'd met this character more than five minutes ago and he wasn't totally boring, I might care. Mmmm, art.

Back in the Inn Of Gloom, Ronon and I both go "Good call, dude, on the slashing and burning." (No, Ronon didn't actually say dude, but I swear it's only a matter of time.) Unfortunately for both the villagers and the viewers at home, they didn't "get them all." We flash back again to the village, this time to the sounds of what the closed-captioning calls [horrified screaming]. We get a close-up on a guy who looks like he has suffered a tragic paper-machier accident. The angry village mob went back into the woods looking for the Daemos, but couldn't find it. Then they gave up and figured it was better to hide indoors for ten years than keep looking for it or posting guards or anything. No, really. "It feeds three, four times a year," Goran explains. "Takes two or three people each time. Two years after the crash, it took my own son." Teyla looks sad. Shep makes a face like, 'yeah, I'll bet that'll come up again by the end of the episode.'

Ronon is unimpressed. "That's it? One Wraith in the forest?" He picks up Belle, his manly manly gun, and locks and loads. "I'll be done by morning." Ha! I do love me a man of action, I must say, although I'd probably object to him keeping his gun on top of the dinner table like that all the time. Shep's all, "but I'm supposed to be John Wayne this week!" and declares that they'll all go together and in daylight. Ronon gives a look like he really, really hates it when the teacher assigns group projects, but then he whatevers and sits back down because he's good like that about following orders. Tavern Boy, without a single drop of actual enthusiasm, is all "If you're really going to help us, drinks are on me." Oh, good job coming up with some alien expressions, script department! Shep: "Like the man said, it's just one Wraith. It'd be downright un-neighborly if we didn't." He's so totally delighted that he gets to be in a Western this week. It's really cute. He's going to be saying "pardner" for weeks! He's also probably wondering if he can somehow get himself some wenches out of the bargain, since he's the leading man and supposed to be the Sheph0r, but aside from all the sex he's having with Elizabeth in our recaps he's only had one canon kiss this whole damned series (and the whole Ancient mind-meldy thing), and McKay managed to both get a chick in his head and kiss two people all in the same episode, and that's just gotta smart Shep's ego a bit. McKay, who is quite happy with his harem of Scottish and Czech wenches back on Atlantis, just orders food. Hee.

King Richard's Wild West Faire. McKay's Under-10 Fan Club gains another member, as a cute little boy with an unfortunate Ramona Quimby haircut and equally unfortunate collared blouse hero-worships him a bit. ["Ramona Quimby! We're not dating ourselves with these recaps, are we?" -- Pooh] I love, love, love that kids love McKay, but I'm deeply afraid that in some future episode we're going to get McKay dressed up as Santa Claus. The kid babbles on a bit about how very scary and two-headed and Medusa-eyed the Daemos is, while McKay thinks about how, scientifically, to develop a child repellent with the simulated tropical aroma of cocoa butter. "My uncle says it'll come and take me if I don't do my chores!" explains Ramona, very seriously. AWWW! Damn, I'm easy. Actually, for all I know, on this planet they really do leave kids outside to be eaten when they don't do their chores, so I probably shouldn't find that cute. McKay's makes the kid's year when he says "So we'll kill it, and then you'll never have to do chores again!" Kid: "Gleee!" McKay then tells Ramona to buzz off, because he has clearly never watched a Western, or else he'd know that there's always a cute little boy who adores the out-of-town gunslinger who comes in to do away with the Evil Villain. The rest of Team Sheppard stares disapprovingly over McKay's people skills, probably wondering why little kids never want to fanboy them, since Shep has a skateboard and Ronon has a sword with a tassle and all. Teyla sighs and scratches McKay off of her list of potential baby daddies.

Goran shows up and exposits that no one was taken the night before, but dooms that it will strike soon. "We'll kill it before that happens," Ronon promises. "You must be great at parties," snarks Shep, because he has never watched Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding. Goran frowns, all, "those were nice folks. Too bad they're totally about to get served on toast. Oh, well."

Totally Alien Woods Of British Columbia. The Magnificent Four walk around, Ronon way in front and Teyla pulling up the rear, making a nice and frightening Sheppard/McKay sandwich of corned beef slash for us viewers at home. McKay bitches that the forest is ginormous and Ronon will never find the Wraith before it's time for lunch. Shep has faith in his new puppy, and reminds those of us who haven't been taking careful notes that Ronon has been fighting the Wraith one-on-one for seven years. Just to put that in perspective for you: when Ronon was captured by the Wraith, livejournal hadn't yet been invented, SG-1's big enemy was still Apophis, the entire world was aflutter about the American President getting head in the Oval Office, and it would be a full two years before we would even hear about the Big New Thing that was Reality Television. Ronon's life really sucks. Shep fanboys Ronon's mad ski11z, all: "If anyone can track this thing, it's him." McKay's all: "How exactly is he going to do that?" with a facial expression that makes me think that Cadman may have left a few of her mannerisms behind in his brain. From way the heck off ahead of them, Ronon calls back: "It helps to have good hearing." Heh. Rodney's all "er, right!" and Shep SLAPS HIM UPSIDE THE HEAD. OMG. Best moment of the episode. I died dead of laughing right here. A slash anvil turns around and slaps me upside the head with the following memo: "Their love is so randomly violent!" And incestuous, too, because I used to slap my sister exactly that same way. *cowers in a corner and repeats "they're like brothers! brothers!" over and over again* Rodney makes a face of 'I'm totally telling Elizabeth that you hit me, and then see if she lets you skateboard in the halls anymore, jerkface.' Oh, my God. Shep so needs to slap him more.

Woods Your Mother Told You Never To Play In Or Else You'd Get Eaten By Demons. Teyla is making her Spooky Psychic Face, so Shep asks if she's sensing anything. Wow! Okay, I realize I'm a season and a half behind the curve here, but I didn't connect until right now that Teyla's Wraith-spidey-sense is a total parallel of Sam's Goa'uld-spidey-sense, even with the same I Am Like The Enemy! angst. Errr. Yes. I am totally not qualified to be a recapper. They'll have to bond when Teyla visits Earth. Anyway, Teyla senses something, but it's "different. I cannot quite explain it." Ronon suddenly sniffs Wraith in the wind, whips out Belle, and is all "It's in there." A white shape dashes from behind some trees. Ronon takes off after it. Shep goes: "Ronon! Damn it." in exactly the same tone of voice I use whenever my German Shepherd slips her leash to take off after a bumblebee with great barking and ferocity.

Now for the required "running and chasing" part of the episode. We really should tally exactly how much time is spent just running through the forest every week, I think. Ronon makes tearing through a forest in an ankle-length pimp coat look both easy and practical, and he totally laps the rest of Team Sheppard. He doesn't manage to actually tree his prey, but he traps it in a cave. Teyla's spidey-sense confirms that it is, in fact, a Wraith. You know what? Teyla and Ronon would make a kickass Wraith-fighting sniper team. Seriously. Shep and McKay are totally slowing them down. Once Teyla and Ronon have their superior babies, they could make a whole family business out of it. Team Sheppard strolls into the cave, all flashlights a-blazing. Something peeks out from behind a cave wall. Teyla: "A female!" There is more running and chasing, and the Wraith bursts into a lit room full of bunsen burners and other things that cry "science!" and hides behind an older human man. This Wraith, for the record, is far less Marilyn Manson and far more Laura Ingalls Wilder than the female Wraith who ate Colonel Doggett. Team Sheppard follows at a run. Shep: "Get out of the way!" Thomas Edison: "Please, don't shoot! She's not what you think! She's my daughter." Aaaand, the greatest series of reaction shots ever! McKay: "Jigga wha?" Ronon: "Er... but I can still kill it, right?" Teyla: "What the fuck!?" Sheppard: "Huh. That's kinda weird. But when I narrow my eyes like this, the fangirls make icons."

Even better, though, is my sister's reaction: "EWWW! He had sex with a Wraith!"
Me: "Ew! Wouldn't he have gotten et?"
Her: "Not if the Wraith wasn't trying to feed on him at the time. I mean, it's like us. Just because we put it in our mouth doesn't mean we have to chew it and swallow it." ["And, like the Wraith, we do suck." -- Pooh]

Regardless, our consensus was still that Daddy Dearest is a brave, brave man. Or incredibly fucking stupid -- one or the other.

Poll
Den of Science. Daddy Dearest swears that Laura Ingalls Wraith is different. Actually, we're not going to call him Daddy Dearest. We're going to call him Pa, mostly in honor of Little House on the Prairie, but also because that makes him Pa Wraith, and I watched a lot of Deep Space Nine, so I find this funny. Oh, shut up. Shep's all "Let me guess, Wraith with a heart of gold?" Pa insists that that Laura Ingalls Wraith doesn't feed and "has never taken a human life." Teyla flails a bit. "How is that possible!?" Pa asks them to lower their weapons so he can explain. Ronon awesomely looks to Shep, and lowers his weapon when he does. Rock on, chain of command! Laura Ingalls Wraith calls Pa "father," and Pa claims to have raised her as his own. Shep watches this tender moment looking totally horrified. Teyla's all "You live here? Together?" with this horribly disturbed look on her face, like, Teyla, last season you were living in a tent, so I don't think you have the right to dis on other people's living accomodations. Pa Wraith defends his decision to live in an old mine shaft (from "before the last culling," which we assume was long, long ago given the villagers' lack of Wraith-knowledge), because the villagers "would not understand." Shep: "Gee. I wonder why." Yeah, no one likes it when their neighbor's kid starts sucking lives at all hours of the night. Teenagers today.

Teyla reminds those of us who fell asleep earlier that there's a Wraith in the forest that came in a Wraith ship crashed ten years ago. "Ellia was just a child," Pa says. "Do you really think that she could be responsible for the deaths that happened immediately after the crash?" Ooooh! This is totally going to be like the "I, Borg" episode of Star Trek: TNG, isn't it? Where they're all "look! This one is young and cute and has a NAME. Now you pansy humans won't have the heart to kill it, so there." Anyway, McKay's all "So you know about all the killing and the paper-machier?" Pa ominouses: "I was there."

Good lord! This whole planet suffers from Cameron Mitchell Flashback Syndrome. We flash back to the woods again, as Pa voice-overs that he found a young female, unconscious, and couldn't bring himself to hurt her. Baby Wraith? Not cute. Smiling, yes, but she looks like she's wearing a Friday The 13th Jason mask, so the whole effect is a bit creepy-clown-like. Daddy hid her in a cave, and the villagers never found her. Am I the only one who finds it just the littlest bit wrong that he kept a girl in a cave for ten years? I mean, I know she doesn't have a whole lot of options here, but it's still a bit weird.

End flashback. Everyone stands around playing exposition ball for ANOTHER HALF AN HOUR. Aaaaaughhh. Can something blow up soon, please? I swear all this exposition is here just to punish me because I made fun of mspooh having to recap all that science last week. Laura Ingalls Wraith is not responsible for "what's been happening." Ronon, who's totally pissed that he hasn't killed anyone yet, is all "So who is?" Pa thinks that an adult Wraith must also have survived the crash. Teyla's a little more worried about the Wraith in the hand than the Wraith in the bush: "If she does not feed, how does she live?" The answer: basically, when she was a kid, she was all about the food and water and not so much with the sucking of human life. Then she hit puberty, and instead of getting acne and dating inappropriate boys, she started hungering for humans. Parenting is tough, yo. Pa Edison started "experimenting" with various medicinal plants, hence the Implements Of Science. Pa asks McKay if he's "interested in science." McKay, ever the charmer: "I'm not sure that's what I would call this, but yes." Well, we can't all build nuclear bombs by the time we're 12, McKay, especially if we're living in a pre-industrial society. Pa all Alexander Flemings that "I couldn't do anything for her, but eventually I left a loaf of bread out overnight, and I came up with this." He holds up a beaker of what looks like blood, but which, for the purposes of this plot, I will assume is not. Off Shep's look of "oh my God, is that blood?" we end the scene.

'lantis. Infirmary. Shep is straddling. a. bed. What? Why? You know what? I'm not going to look gift pants in the... pants, here. ["It's like a shoutout to meeeeeeee!" -- Pooh] He's totally showing off for Lizzie. There really is no other explanation. Lizzie has to boggle a bit about science before she can jump him, though. "A drug that allows the Wraith to survive without feeding?" Shep's all "Well, maybe, but I'm straddling a bed." Beckett does not leave and allow them to commence sexing, because he's too busy geeking out. He doesn't know enough about Wraith phisiology to vouch for the serum, but it's "intriguing that this Dr. Zaddik (Pa Wraith) claims that the Wraith survived on normal food for a time." Shep asks "Why?" in a voice that clearly hints that this had better be good if it's keeping him from the other post-mission debriefing, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Beckett goes into Darwin mode: "Our best guess is that the Wraith evolved from the Iratus bug." Whoa, did the Ancients name it that, or did our guys? Because if we did, that's a stupid name! They should just call it, you know, something descriptive, like the Wraith Bug. Or, even better, they should name it after Shep the way that people get diseases named after them! That would've been awesome. FORD would've thought of that, if certain people ever let him name things. FOOOOOORRRD!! But I digress. Shep: "Like the one that attached itself to my neck a year ago?" And then he's all, "I hate those bugs," with the cutest look EVER. He totally still has nightmares about that, poor guy. Elizabeth is going to have to deal with any and all future cockroaches in the bathroom.

Now, pay attention, this is your science lesson for the day! The Wraith evolved from the Sheppard Bug by absorbing characteristics from the humans they fed on... you know what? We had this science lesson last season! I'm bored! Important note: Sheppard? Really hot when he's disturbed. OMG. Furrow your brow at me ANY TIME. Moving on. Beckett pimps the good parts of being human -- standing on two legs, opposable thumbs, and large brain capacity. The shot totally switches to Elizabeth for that last one. Hee. However, "the human reproductive system serves no purpose in an adult Wraith, so why have one at all?" [w0lfstar: "*giggles at clear typo* Wraith eat with their vaginas! That's just awesome" Pooh: "We really ARE obsessed with sex!" Little Red: "I meant digestive sytem, of course. And we're just testing you."] Dude, I have wisdom teeth that need to come out. Don't start with me about vestigial organs. "Because they eat normal food when they're young," Elizabeth guesses. Well, that and the occasional side trip to goth out and drink some wine with collaborators. In the background, Shep tries really hard to look like he's paying attention. Beckett proposes that at a certain age, the Wraith stop being able to sustain themselves on the USDA food pyramid alone. Shep: "So it's a teenage thing. Pimples, rebellion, life-sucking." Elizabeth stares at him like she's just realized he's straddling the bed, smirks as she probably thinks about how damned cute and dorky a teenage Shep would have been, and then has to shake herself out of it before turning back to Beckett. SQUEEE! Aww! She's amused by his wisecracks. IT MUST BE LOVE. Pardon me while I loop that for a moment. She totally wants to jump him.

Poll
Beckett either doesn't notice the hot and heavy flirting in front of him or has become immune. He compares the Wraith to diabetics, which should earn the studio a few nasty letters, but which also means there's an outside chance that Pa's drug actually works. Beckett really wants to go on a field trip to find out. He also unveils a "research" project that he and the extras have been studiously working on off-screen, to -- get this -- create a retrovirus to extract the Sheppard Bug parts of the Wraith and make them human. Ooookay. I know that Stargate loves to mess around with cultures and declare it's all okay so long as they end up more American in the end, but they're talking about genetically reworking an entire species! It's not quite the same thing as Captain Kirk dosing the water table of the Klingon homeworld and turn them all docile and nonviolent or something, because with the Wraith it's much more us-or-them in a literal food-chain way, but there's still something morally hingy about this. I'm also not sure it's really going to help their situation in the immediate: do they really think the Wraith are going to thank them for taking away their telepathic network and IMMORTALITY and all that other good stuff?

I am apparently alone in my concerns, although Shep continues to look generally disgusted by the entire conversations and by the fact that Elizabeth is no closer to being naked. Beckett begs to bring the retrovirus and testing equipment to the planet to spend time with a "cooperative test subject," and then says "Elizabeth," because she is weak and female and caves whenever her first name is invoked by any of the guys. Predictably, she does. "Is she dangerous?" she asks Shep. Shep's all "She's a Wraith!" but then admits that, yeah, she's a little more cross-stitching and a little less death than your garden-variety Wraith. And that's the end of Elizabeth for this episode. Off-screen, while waiting for Beckett to collect his medical toys, Shep jumps her in a storage closet. ["Shep must have sexed her up real good post-straddling if it took her the rest of the episode to recover." -- Pooh]

Cut back to the Little Mine Shaft in The Big Woods. Laura Ingalls Wraith is wearing what can only be described as the ugliest shirt ever, and coming from someone who has boggled at the Stargate costume department for nine seasons of SG-1 now, that's saying something. I can only assume that Pa dressed her like that to distract from her rather Wraithly facial features, like if he blinds people enough with her sense of fashion they won't even notice that she has eighty sharp, pointy teeth in her mouth. Laura Ingalls Wraith helps Pa with the family chemistry business by mortar-and-pestle-ing something, and Pa pop-quizzes her about some sort of fake science. Her voice sounds really familiar. Laura Ingalls Wraith babbles something about toxins and then grins when Pa gives her an A+ and AUGHHH!! OH MY GOD, IT IS KAYLEE FROM FIREFLY! My sister and I both start screaming and freaking out at this juncture, because there is just NO WAY to describe how FREAKY this is. It's Kaylee as a WRAITH! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Okay, I'll calm down now. No, I really won't. Thing is -- I've only seen a few episodes of Firefly, so it's not even my normal freak-out-ness about seeing familiar actors in different roles. It's the fact that she is Kaylee in Wraith makeup and a horrible shirt. Her mannerisms and speech patterns are identical. I have no idea if this means Jewel Staite just isn't much of a character actor, or if the director just went "okay, BE KAYLEE, but in the makeup of a species that eats human flesh, just to really fuck with the genre fans." Either way, it is FREAKING MY SHIT OUT.

Elsewhere in the Cavern Of Science, McKay and Teyla look slightly less horrified than me, but still seriously wigged out. McKay wonders if OMGWTFKAYLEE is just pretending to be a sweet and spunky pioneer girl, but Teyla insists that if she were like other Wraith, Pa would have been eaten long ago. Since Teyla and Rodney are currently sharing screen time and are thus at least at second base according to the Shipper's Guide To The Galaxy, I feel it is my recapper duty to point out that she totally calls him "Rodney," while Shep is still "Colonel Sheppard" nine times out of ten. Eat your heart out, TPTB-sanctioned het OTP. ["We will be getting hate mail over this." -- Pooh] Speaking of the devil, Shep radios in to announce that Beckett and Ronon are on their way and that he's going to go lie to the villagers a bit off-screen. There's some rather amusing exchange of luggage, mostly amusing because there's probably delicate equipment in these bags being tossed around willy-nilly.

Mine Shaft of Dude, You Totally Shouldn't Mix Toxic Chemicals On Your Dining Room Table. Beckett whips out his Dell and Pa boggles at it. OMGWTFKAYLEE wanders around offering tea and, Wraith or no Wraith, it's kind of remarkable that she's this comfortable and polite to strangers after spending ten years locked up in a cave. Of course, that's just about the least problematic thing in this episode, so we'll let that one go. She offers it to Ronon, he's all "no," and then she KAYLEES, "are you sure? *giggle* It's very good!" Ronon waves his tassle at her in a threatening way, so she leaves off with the tea and brings out the big guns in the form of baked goods. "How about some biscuits? I baked them myself!" [Pooh: "I can never watch Firefly again without thinking she's going to suck the life out of everyone in their sleep." Little Red: "Maybe that was planned for season 2?"] Ronon knocks the biscuits out of her hand and points Belle at her, and I'd tell him to chill out, but since Kaylee Ingalls Wraith is ridiculously saccharine and annoying, I totally sympathize. Kaylee Ingalls Wraith makes a sound like she has a screeching car and twenty angry cats stuck in her throat (my closed-captioning calls this [hissing]) and Teyla sticks out a traffic-cop hand to defend her, all, "Ronon! We've talked about the baked goods and the shooting people in the face." [Pooh: "Dude has got the learning curve of a stick. Or, in his case, maybe a tassle." Little Red: "I just realized that all this talk about Ronon's tassle could be misread as something... er... else."] Kaylee Ingalls Wraith stomps out the door. Ronon looks at Teyla all, "But I'm still getting sex later, right?"

Pa runs after Kaylee, who is sobbing elsewhere in the cave set. Kaylee Ingalls Wraith: "They hate me, don't they father?" Er, yes, well, that's usually the conclusion one would come to after getting a gun barrell shoved up one's nose, yes. Pa assures her that the aliens will totally love her after they get to know her, and that Ronon's just jealous of her shirt, really, so she shouldn't cry. Awww. Except totally not.

Chemistry Lab of Pegasus Relationship Counseling. Teyla: "Was that really necessary?" Ronon, realizing that he's already probably cut off from the athletic Teyla!sex for a few days, retorts, "You can dress her up in fugly clothes and teach her table manners, but that's not going to change who she is." He stomps out. Holy crap, he towers over Teyla by at least a head and a half. We're talking more of a height difference than Mulder and Scully here, and that scares me, because people are totally going to be writing a lot of anatomically impossible Rover/Spanky/Teynon/WHATEVER porn this season. There's Ominous Doom Music of Damn, I Guess No One's Getting Laid After This Episode, and then Shep radios in to ask after Kaylee's whereabouts. He's in the village, where the latest paper-machier victim is rolled by on a wheelbarrow as a villager yells "Bring out yer dead!" (tm Monty Python, by way of elvinborn) Then the villager bonks Shep over the head, throws him in the cart, and the episode is over. Well, that, or we cut to commercial off Shep's conclusion that Pa was right about there being a non-Kaylee Wraith responsible for eating the villagers.

I swear, every time I hear "fo shizzle" on a commercial, I die a little inside.

Mob of Angry Villagers. Goran offers to help Shep with the Wraith hunt. Shep declines. Tavern Boy and his pink vest flail a bit about how they're "sick of doing nothing! Of being afraid all the time!" Yeah, I can totally see how ten years of being picked off one by one wouldn't have gotten any of you off your asses, but the appearance of The Magnificent Four Plus Beckett would incite you to storm the forest with pitchforks. Shut up, Tavern Boy. "Just be patient. We'll take care of it," Shep assures them, while a couple of village girls giggle and check out his ass in the background, because they're just that consumed with fear for their lives. I'm not joking about this, by the way. I mean, I totally check Shep out all the time, but there's a time and a place for everything, girls.

House of Wraith. Pa I-told-you-sos. Beckett can't confirm whether or not the Wraith insulin works yet, because he's just now getting around to setting up his microscope, while Teyla and Ronon hang out in the background holding up the door. Shep reminds them all that there's another, less housetrained Wraith out there to deal with. Teyla thinks Kaylee can help them find the other Wraith.

Bedroom. Kaylee Ingalls Wraith sulks. Teyla sits next to her on the bed and has a girly bonding session about how they can both sense the Wraith. It's kind of ridiculous that Teyla is this nice and trusting around a Wraith, even if she is young and sweet and Teyla is All About Family. Her Wraith spidey-sense usually makes her incredibly edgy, and I'd think that sitting this close to a Wraith would be way down there on Teyla's list of ways to have a good time, but I suppose it's a bit different if the Wraith in question isn't planning to eat you as soon as possible. Pooh tells me that Rachel Luttrell gave an interview where she talked about how, in this episode, it's obvious how much Teyla hates Kaylee Ingalls Wraith and how much she has to struggle to overcome that, blah blah blah, but I think the hate must have happened on the cutting room floor, because she seemed to be defending Kaylee from Ronon right from the beginning. Whatever. "You are not like the other one," Teyla promises. Kaylee claims to avoid the Wraith Psychic Friends network, because she doesn't like what the other Wraith shows her. "I know," Teyla says, and I suspect this conversation might actually be one that Teyla has had with herself a few times since the Big Reveal in "The Gift" that she's actually part Wraith. Actually, maybe that's why she's so fond of Kaylee. Again, whatever, blah blah blah, girly bonding. Kaylee connects with the Wraith a few times, and I was so totally convinced here that she would flip and go on a KILLING RAMPAGE, but no, I have to wait through a whole lot more exposition before that can happen. Did I give something away? My bad. Anyway. "I saw River," says Kaylee. "Where!?" squeak all the Firefly fans in the audience.

Teyla heads back into the Den Of Science, and asks Pa whether there are any lunatic geniuses and/or bodies of water nearby... perhaps because Kaylee Ingalls Wraith was too shaken up by the whole experience to tell her herself? Who knows. Shep, Teyla, and Ronon head out. Shep orders McKay to stay behind and help Beckett, but McKay smarts at being left out of the cool club. "Medical research -- not really my thing." Shep: "And hunting Wraith?" McKay, who hadn't fully processed that being in the cool club might involve death and dismemberment, changes his mind. "I could... um... stay. And help Beckett." Shep slaps him again. Okay, he doesn't, but that would've been awesome. McKay bitches to Beckett about how much biology sucks. "One time when I was an undergrad, I diagnosed myself with half a dozen different medical conditions before I had to drop the class." But he's over his hypochondria now, apparently, so all the time he's been spending in the infirmary is totally just to snark at Carson. ["He's cheating on Zelenka!" -- Pooh] Carson's all, "This does require a certain amount of concentration," and McKay's leans over all 'not touching you, can't get mad!' and says "Oh, I'm sorry, am I bothering you?" OH MY GOD, THEY ARE HAVING SEX. Carson lifts his head from the microscope and makes the "I don't know whether to kill you or kiss you, but I'm going to do one or the other in the next ten seconds." McKay decides not to take his chances and heads out for some air. Beckett looks at Pa all, "Can you believe what I have to put up with?" Pa raises his eyebrows, all, "Yeah, but I suppose he's cute, in an annoying sort of way." Carson smiles all, "Well, I suppose so," and goes back to work. So. Having. Sex.

The less unbelievably slashy part of Team Sheppard find a river, of the body-of-water variety. Ronon spies fresh tracks, proving that there's either a Wraith in the vicinity or, you know, anyone else wearing size 10 boots, since that tread doesn't look particularly alien to me. Shep checks the time-clock on the episode and intuits that there must be at least one more plot twist before this thing is done. Thank God, too, because as much as you guys are really pretty to look at, I'm insanely bored. "Hey," says my sister, pointing at Ronon on-screen. "Didn't you promise me that guy would be shirtless?"

Den of Science. Pa asks Beckett if he thinks the villagers will ever accept Kaylee Ingalls Wraith. Beckett: *doutbful silence* "That's what I'm afraid of. No matter how hard we try to convince them, they'll always see her as a monster." There's a shot of Kaylee Ingalls Wraith hiding out of sight, looking sad. Pa says he's getting old. "Oh, you've got lots of time," Beckett bedside-manners. "Never have as much as we think we have," Pa argues, as the words THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER flash across the bottom of my TV. Beckett gives up on actually getting work done and settles into therapy mode. "I tried to teach her about love," Pa says with a sad smile. "And human companionship." And, okay, I'm REALLY trying not to go there with the whole we-have-been-living-alone-in-a-cave-for-ten-years thing, but EW! Eeeeeeeeeeew. Beckett, who wants to both avoid the topic of potential incest and the probability that Pa is trying to set his Wraith daughter up with a Nice Doctor, opens a giant suitcase with exactly four little vials of stuff in it and reveals the retrovirus that might be able to debug Kaylee and make her completely human. Hiding behind the wall, Kaylee's all, "Shiny!" Beckett continues on to say that it's experimental, failed in all laboratory trials, etc., blah, but is interrupted by McKay in flail-y emergency mode. Beckett's all "Why didn't you just radio me?" Where's the dramatic tension in that? Beckett and Pa take off after McKay, and Kaylee sneaks up and makes a pondering face at the vials of retrovirus.

Outside, Beckett, McKay and Pa look out at a mob of mildly irked villagers strolling through the woods with pitchforks. "If they find Ellia, they'll kill her!" Pa frets. Despite their one act of axe-murdering ten years ago, I've got to say that I'm really not at all afraid of these villagers. Also, I'm horribly annoyed that they didn't bother to name this planet, because I'm now I'm stuck calling them "the villagers" all the time. McKay radios Shep, who tells them to go hide in the cave set.

Cave set. Kaylee Ingalls Wraith is missing. Beckett sees the open giant suitcase of four tiny vials, and deduces that she took the retrovirus. "What'll it do to her?" Pa worries. Beckett: "To be honest, I have no idea," Ominous Strings of That Sweet Little Wraith Girl Is Totally Fucking Doomed sing us into commercial.

Woods. The Magnificent Three continue on their hunt for the Big Bad Wraith as Beckett fills them in about Kaylee Ingalls Retrovirus!Wraith. Shep doesn't want to call off the hunt, so Beckett volunteers himself and McKay to chase down Kaylee. Pa wants to come along, but Beckett tells him to stay there. Pa tells them that Kaylee likes to go off "for hours at a time, up into the hills," and The Original Dynamic Geek Slash Duo Of McKay And Beckett take off to find her. Way to go with leaving Pa a radio, idiots.

The Original Dynamic Geek Slash Duo. "You know," says McKay, "I though it was pretty nuts when Ronon was trying to track a Wraith through this forest." Beckett's all, and now that it's just us and our totally geeky man-love that fandom predicted way back in "Rising"? McKay: "Oh, yeah, supremely confident." Then they make out.

Kaylee walks into the Den Of Science. See? She was just in the shower all along. Idiots. No, really, now I have no idea why she left, if she was just going to come back two seconds later. Pa tsk-tsks her for taking the retrovirus, probably wishing that someone had left him a radio. Kaylee whines about how much she hates being a Wraith, and then says that she had no choice. "When they kill the other Wraith, I won't be able to pretend anymore." Maybe you shouldn't have told Teyla the truth about where to find the Big Bad Wraith, then, huh? Then, in this Very Special Episode, Kaylee comes out to her Pa as a life-sucker. The Wraith insulin doesn't work. Pa scoffs that that's impossible. "It's been two years since... since the last time. That wasn't your fault. It was my idea." Kaylee looks sad. "The hunger just got worse," she whimpers, and DAMMIT, they've succeeded in making me feel sympathy for this Wraith. Pa's all "What did you do, young lady!?" Kaylee used the Wraith Psychic Friends Network to sense when the other Wraith was feeding, and would "go out at the same time." I assume this means that she'd go attack the village at the same time. It's possible that the other Wraith would bring kill back for her, but I kind of doubt that the Big Bad Wraith would've let her keep playing house with the humans if he knew about her. Actually, why didn't the Big Bad Wraith come and take her away? He must know that she's there if she knows he's out there, right? Oh, whatever. I'm filing this one under "who the hell knows why the Wraith do anything?" Back in the Den of Science, Kaylee staggers back against the table and orders Pa to stay away. Then her skin gets all blue and moldy. EW!! She shrieks that scary Wraith!shriek again and shoves Pa aside before running out of the cave. The soundtrack is hilariously reminiscent of classic Star Trek. If Captain Kirk had encountered the Wraith, he totally would have had sex with them.

The Magnificent Three find the camp of the Big Bad Wraith. Or, well, Ronon finds the camp, and Shep and Teyla catch up to him a few minutes later. Heh.

Beckett and McKay wander through the woods pretending to know what they're doing. McKay: "Do you hear anything?" Beckett pauses. "No." "Huh. Me neither," says McKay, right as the Big Bad Wraith drops out of a tree. Hate it when that happens! Big Bad Wraith flings Beckett about thirty feet. Ow! Hands off the Beckett! I should point out, though, that Big Bad Wraith has been stuck on this planet for ten years without human assistance, and his outfit is still way better than Kaylee's.

Shep, Ronon and Teyla hear the commotion from all the way across the woods and take off running.

ACTION! Finally! Big Bad Wraith moves on McKay, and then, with some totally wonky sped-up camera work, a bright blue and completely psychotic bug!Kaylee descends on the Big Bad Wraith like a flying squirrel and snaps his neck. YIKES! Her blue-ness is busting out of her horrible, horrible blouse, Incredible-Hulk-style, and now she moves on McKay, clicking and hissing. McKay babbles that she shouldn't kill him after putting out the effort to save his life, and then Beckett picks up a gun and shoots her in the shoulder from behind! Beckett! Gun! OhmygodYAY! The fact that he just saved his boyfriend is totally secondary for me to the fact that he just shot her all confidently with a gun. I LOVE IT when the doctors on these sci-fi shows get violent. Kaylee Ingalls Wraith whirls around, all pissed as heck but not obviously damaged, and then runs off. Beckett White Knights over to McKay to ask if he's all right. McKay is in gibbering panic mode, grabbing his chest and using words like "peachy." "What the hell was that?" he manages. Beckett, in a voice like he's saying "I'm really sorry, but they were out of Boston Kreme at the Dunkin Donuts, so I hope chocolate glazed is okay," exposits that the retrovirus is having the opposite effect -- so, stripping Kaylee of her Laura Ingalls side instead of her Sheppard Bug side. Got it. McKay flails a bit more before reaching into his shirt to make sure his heart is still present and accounted for. Beckett pats him on the shoulder, but then walks away instead of helping him undress. Business before pleasure, I guess.

Pa wanders around the woods. He sees Kaylee, calls her a "poor girl," and looks totally paternal and heartbroken. She looks... well, like a human-sized bug. She grabs Pa by the throat with BUG CLAWS and then hurls him across the woods. Then she screams The Scream Heard 'Round The World, I assume, since we get reaction shots from The Magnificent Three as well as Beckett and McKay. Pa lies on the ground, bleeding from the mouth. There has to be a moral in here somewhere about not adopting alien children who could spontaneously gain superpowers and go psychotic on you when they become teenagers. "Word," says Janet Fraiser circa 'Rite of Passage.' "Although I'd totally never leave an untested retrovirus in a non-childproofed suitcase on the dining room table, so leave me out of this."

McKay and Beckett find Pa first. Pa insists that this wasn't Kaylee's fault, like he grabbed himself by the throat and threw himself across the forest. The very quiet and totally inefficient angry mob of villagers stroll up next in a very calm and orderly way. McKay orders them back to the village because it isn't safe out here, but they don't listen. Instead of, like, torching something, or making actual sound, or doing anything else you'd expect from an angry mob of villagers, they all kinda stand around patiently while Goran walks up to Pa, all "Who is that?" Pa blinks up at him. "Don't you remember me?" Goran: "It can't be! You were taken by the Daemos!" Well, yes he was, but in a less deadly sense. Pa then calls Goran "Father," and Beckett and McKay are all "what kind of circus are you people RUNNING around here!?" Because, see, Pa is just as old as Goran. Goran is not amused, because his son would only be 34. Pa: "Precisely!" Goran is Pa of Pa! Everyone else on-screen: "Oh, well, okay then." Viewers at home: "Huh?"

This episode of Atlantis was sponsored by Jose Cuervo. I seriously wish this recap had been sponsored by Jose Cuervo, you have no idea. In fact, we should all play a drinking game. I think I'd start with anytime anyone says the words "hunger" or "to feed."

The rest of Team Sheppard must have showed up during the commercial break. I think we actually just skipped over five pages of script, because Tavern Boy comes up to Shep and says: "There's another one of those things out there. Look what it did to Zaddik!" So, in the missing script pages, Shep arrives on the scene, Zaddik convinces them all that he somehow actually is who he says he is and someone exposits that one Wraith has been taken care of but that there's still another one for Tavern Boy to be concerned about. Well, good thing we didn't miss anything important. I mean, I'm all in favor of cutting out exposititory dialogue when possible, but why would they start now, when that's really all this entire episode has been? Shep tells Tavern Boy to shut up, basically. "Stay calm!" he orders, which is funny only because this particular angry mob is about ten times calmer than my last knitting circle. Beckett reports that Pa is doomed. Goran's still a little shell-shocked. Pa begs them all not to blame Kaylee, because "it was [his] idea."

We flash back again to baby Kaylee unconscious in the woods after the crash, this time with an angle on a young Zaddik as well. Pa's real family had just died from fever, he sob-stories. "When I saw her, I knew what I had to do," Pa voice-overs. The part that I'm confused on here is how Goran said that his son -- Zaddik -- was taken by the Daemos two years after the crash. So... where was Baby Kaylee being kept all that time? Why do I care? I don't. Moving on. Now we flash back to Kaylee hitting puberty and crying of hunger. (Drink!) She's wearing the EXACT SAME HORRIBLE SHIRT. It burns meeee! "It's all right," young Zaddik says to her in the flashback. "Take what you need." He sticks Kaylee's hand on his chest as she resists, and there is what the closed-captioning calls [powerful suction], which cracks me up. "She took what she needed from me to survive until I perfected the serum," Pa explains, and, whoa, like, I'm all about breastfeeding your kids and stuff, but this is way beyond the call of duty. Flashback!Kaylee Ingalls Wraith cries over a slightly-aged Zaddik.

Back in the woods, Shep asks if Kaylee ever fed on anyone after that. (Drink!) "No." Pa is a terrible liar, but I give him serious points for defending his daughter to the last. Everyone stands around. Shep orders Teyla and Ronon to come with him and everyone else to stay put. "Sounds like a plan," says the angry mob. "We'll just stand here unresponsively, okay?" Beckett warns that almost nothing of Laura Ingalls Wraith remains in bug!Kaylee now, and, while he might be able to reverse the effects if they bring her back alive, she probably won't be willing to, you know, come back alive. "She's also stronger and faster than any Wraith I've ever seen," Beckett adds, which makes sense, given that it took an electric jolt, about six gunshots, and exposure to vaccuum to kill the last one of these blue things we encountered, and that was only the small bug variety. "Great," says Shep, who is totally thinking about just how much he really, really, really hates the Sheppard Bugs, and that he isn't too keen on my having named them after him, either. The Magnificent Three leave. The angry mob stands around. Goran and Pa bond for a bit, all "We thought you were dead! And, you know, we kinda wondered why you'd been sneaking off to the woods for two years ahead of that time, but none of us ever bothered to ask!" and "The totally docile mob over there would never have accepted us!" and whatnot. "She needed me," Pa says as explanation for his actions. Goran either cries or looks disgusted.

The Magnificent Three wander through the woods again, some more. Beckett radios that Pa is dead. Ronon says Teyla's line: "She knows we're here. She's watching us." Teyla puts on her Spooky Psychic Face again and tries to talk Kaylee out of the crazy bugness, promising to help her, make her better, etc, which all does no good because Kaylee has probably devolved below the point of language skills. Bug!Kaylee jumps Teyla and bitch-slaps her a lot. Ronon and Shep run to the lady's aid all hero-like. Ronon shoots Kaylee. The closed-captioning claims he yells "Die!" but I'm pretty sure that he's just screaming a standard Manly Man scream of aggression. Belle does not succeed in blowing a hole in Kaylee, who runs off again. Ronon hovers and pets Teyla's shoulder as she lies unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. Shep whips off his jacket (YAY! So much closer to naked! I mean, this is totally not the time for that, but I'll take any bare skin I can at this point, really) and orders Ronon to stay with Teyla. ["It's so sad that we'll take short-sleeved Shep as 'close to naked' now, especially because the speed at which he de-jacketed himself speaks volumes ofjust how quickly he could be naked." -- Pooh] Ronon objects, but Shep uses the magic words and makes it an order. Ronon bundles up Shep's jacket and sticks it under Teyla's head before hovering over her some more, all cutely.

Allow me to break up this tender moment, however, for a few Very Important Points:
1) DON'T MOVE HER HEAD IF SHE HAS UNSPECIFIED HEAD AND NECK INJURIES! IDIOT!
2) Shep's a macho idiot. No, really. I am all about someone staying to guard Teyla, because you have no idea how much I would yell at them if they hadn't stayed, but COME ON, Shep. Ronon is far more qualified to take on that Wraith, team-leader or no team-leader.
3) Teyla and Ronon are So Doing It. The only reasoning I can come up with for Shep ordering Ronon to stay besides Shep being really sick of no longer being the alpha male on the team is that he knows that Ronon and Teyla are having wild alien sex and figures that Ronon would want to stay with her. Personally, I think Ronon would much rather exact revenge than play nursemaid to his lady love, but Shep's imposing his Earth romantic sentiments and he personally would probably punch anyone who ordered him to leave Elizabeth after she'd been taken down.
4) Ronon's sword? Not only has a tassle, but a tassle with a braid. All it's lacking is a My Little Pony keychain on the end before it can be officially the girliest Manly Man sword ever. My hat trick of 80s childhood references is now complete.

Poll
Shep skulks around the forest like a macho and/or romantic idiot. But a macho and/or romantic idiot with bare forearms, and that makes all the difference.

Teyla regains consciousness, which means Ronon did not just accidentally snap her neck. She asks after Shep. "He went after the creature," says Ronon. Teyla thinks this plan is just as stupid as I do. "And you let him go alone!?" Ronon looks all cute. "Well, he wanted me to stay with you." Teyla makes the "I turn my back for one minute and everything falls apart!" face, says she's fine, and tells him to go. Ronon is confused. "Aren't we supposed to follow his orders?" "Not when he's being a suicidal moron," Teyla replies. Actually, she just says that sometimes they're allowed to make exceptions. It's entirely possible that Teyla and Elizabeth have really had this conversation: "No, really, Teyla, you need to follow his orders." "Even when he's being a suicidal moron?" "Well, you're allowed to make exceptions." This does not compute in the Ronon!brain. "Who decides when it's one of those times?" And then, in the second best moment of the entire episode after McKay getting smacked, Teyla makes her "I am surrounded by idiots" face and declares "We do!" Ronon: "Good enough." HAHAHA. There's a lot awesome about this. People have been worried that this means that Teyla's only humoring Shep's leadership and secretly thinks he's a bit of an idiot, but I happen to find that hilarious instead of troubling, especially considering Shep's own broad interpretations of orders in the past. She will, of course, have to make clear to Ronon at a later time that her orders are non-negotiable.

Bug!Kaylee stalks Shep, and he sees her. "Don't make me do this," he says, pointing his P-90. Freeze frame enables me to tell that he starts shooting at her before she jumps him, but ultimately the point is that he puts a whole bunch of rounds in her and it doesn't even slow her down in pinning him on his back and straddling him. Sheesh! Fangirls today! Shep tries to stab her with a knife, and totally fails. Bug!Kaylee grabs his nice, nice forearm with her bright blue claws, and it starts to bleed. Dammit! Now he'll never want to bare skin for us again! Ronon shoots her a couple of times and Shep does a backwards somersault out of the way. They shoot her for like a minute and a half, and finally she dies. Ronon didn't even break a sweat. "You okay?" Shep eyes the damage. "She tried feeding on me." (Drink!) Ronon obviously could not care less that the Wraith With A Heart Of Gold has just been toasted, but tries to give Shep a "buck up, little soldier" speech anyway. "She wasn't going to let us take her back." Shep ponders whether or not this is something that he can angst about and sighs. "Yeah, I know." Ronon slaps him on the shoulder and pimp coats on back to Teyla. Shep stares at his bloody forearm, stares at Kaylee, purses his lips, and finally walks after Ronon. Beckett's going to be pissed that y'all didn't bring the body back, guys. And... what? That's the end of the episode? That was a weird ending.

Ohhhhh. Because this whole mess of exposition and running around in the woods forever and ever was really just a PREQUEL! In the preview, Beckett exposits that "the virus is beginning to alter his DNA." Elizabeth stands at Shep's bedside all "We're going to beat this!" and he snarks that her bedside manner totally sucks, which, shut up, Shep, I was squeeeing over Sparky here! Then he's all "I'm not safe to be around anymore," and then Elizabeth hangs out at his bedside some more with a look of "oh my God, my boyfriend is totally ugly now," and then Shep is totally ugly and Teyla shoots him. Or something. Look, Pooh! I just did your recap for you!

I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL NEXT WEEK, OMFG.

p.s. Spoil me beyond the preview and the Independent Republic of Little Red will respond with shock and awe, y0. Shock and awe! *quivers with anticipation*