Relativity

Ratings
1.1 (US)
1.84 (UK)

Linda Cropper..............Xhalax Sun
Thomas Holesgrove..........Vek
Dominique Sweeney..........Thek and Kek

Wassup?

"Nice to see you again, Mother."

What Talyn needs most is rest and time to heal...but it doesn't look as though he's going to get it, as the Retrieval Squad closes in. While Crichton and Crais test their jungle survival skills, Aeryn's reunion with her mother leads to some dire consequences, not only for Talyn, but for Rygel as well.

Backstory

Aeryn and John have become active lovers (apparently rather noisy ones).

Talyn's internal bulkheads are not soundproof.

Hynerian males evidently do not customarily exert themselves during mating.

The planet's vegetation has restorative powers.

Powering down to stasis levels facilitates Talyn's healing; heavy gravity allows him to sleep.

The planet has two and a half times the Colartas' normal gravity.

Talyn's restoration is nearly complete at the point when the Peacekeepers arrive.

Crichton does not trust Crais enough to leave him on Talyn while they play decoy.

John is demonstrating protective tendencies toward Aeryn, yelling at Rygel for poking through her possessions.

The Colartas seem to be a cross between slaves and mercenaries. After nine successful missions, they can buy their freedom, but if a mission goes bad, the count is reset to zero. They are evidently paid for their work, in shares -- the fewer of them on a mission, the more each member earns.

The planet's mist has a detrimental effect on the pulse deploy of Peacekeeper pulse rifles.

Stark hums when nervous; Rygel hiccups.

The planet vents an odorous gas through blowholes.

Vines must grow quickly on the planet, as they grow into Talyn after the decoy party has departed.

The decoy team was not quite one full metra from Talyn before running into Xhalax and her party.

Colartas have two hearts, which can be burst by exposure to high gravity.

The acid from oarusk fruit can be used to cauterize wounds in the field.

Xhalax not only didn't know Aeryn was with Crais and Talyn, she didn't know that Aeryn had been excommunicated from the Peacekeepers.

Colartas can smell the difference between Humans and Sebaceans.

Regulation Peacekeeper field op procedure is to kill all hostile personnel at point of contact.

John's first girlfriend was named Julie; she loved mazes, and evidently found them an arousing experience. John, however, detests them.

Xhalax had a knife hidden under the skin of her wrist; at least one of the fingernails on her opposite hand was sharp enough to slice open the skin so that she could retrieve it.

Harvey, quietly observing from John's subconscious, realized much sooner than John did that Crais was relying on Moya's crew for protection from the Peacekeepers.

John has jungle survival skills.

Xhalax was carrying an inhaled stimulant with effects similar to PCP: strength, loss of pain response, dilated pupils.

Stark observes that Rygel really does have three stomachs...and a very small heart.

The vines intruding in Talyn function well both as ropes (tying Aeryn up in Command), and as suturing material (Rygel's belly).

Xhalax severed Talyn's higher functions (his capacity for independent thought), assuming that once he was fitted with a Peacekeeper control collar, he could be "restored". Her mission was to deliver Talyn for easy transport, then track and recover the second target -- Crais.

Crais knew (or guessed) that he was a target of the Retrieval Squad, as well as Talyn.

Crichton believes Crais only kept them as allies for self-protection, knowing that they would do anything to protect Talyn; Crais insists he had other reasons for helping them.

Even dormant, Talyn has some realization of Xhalax's actions, and struggles against them.

Aeryn truly sees Talyn as a fully individual, living being, not just a ship. As Xhalax goes about crippling him, Aeryn pleas on his behalf, referring to him as a "magnificent creature" who the Peacekeepers will "enslave".

Xhalax was interrogated by her superiors, for her visit to Aeryn as a child. She confessed her feelings for Talyn, who was older than she was and no longer as proficient in battle (and presumably therefor considered expendable by High Command). She was offered, and accepted, an opportunity to "redeem" herself, by killing him.

Per the Colartas, Crais is wanted by more than one Inquisitor, back at High Command. Their orders are to bring him back alive (although not necessarily undamaged).

Colartas don't appear to have the physical toughness of Scarrans; John is able to impale them with wooden spears.

John is able to use the Colartas' positioning device to locate Talyn again.

Rygel died for several microts, before being revived by Stark.

Stark met with Zhaan while bring Rygel back from death. She looked contented, and whispered a prayer indicating that she's watching over them.

Crais is attempting to splice his neural engrams with Talyn's, in order to provide Talyn with the ability to navigate on his own once again. A large part of Crais' psyche will now reside in Talyn, but according to Aeryn, it's the only way to bring Talyn back to life.

Aeryn believes that, with the death of her mother, all her ties to the Peacekeepers are now completely severed.

Reactions

Questions

1. Did Xhalax already have the burn scar on her neck, when she visited Aeryn in the creche? If not, was it acquired in the course of her "redemption"?
2. Is this the same planet they were going to take Zhaan to, for "healing"?
3. John used the Colartas' positioning device to locate Talyn again -- how? The Retrieval Squad didn't appear to know exactly where Talyn was, and this planet didn't exactly seem to have GPS satellites.
4. Despite being stabbed, one of the Colartas survived and resumed tracking. Was it not badly injured to start with, or did the planet's vegetation heal it?
5. Why is Xhalax so emotional in her rejection of Aeryn? If she has truly renounced her past actions, why are they so painful to her? Aeryn has a valid point, that her mother has, in part, shaped what she has become, by planting that idea of independence and rebellion. Has Xhalax truly been "reeducated" by the Peacekeepers, or is she just trying to force Aeryn into killing her, as the only way out of a horrible situation?
6. In both IRC and Usenet, the big debate after the credits rolled was over whether or not Crais actually executed Xhalax.

   Opinions from the "no, he didn't" contingent included:

   • Crais insisted that Aeryn and John not watch.
   • The actual act of execution occurred off-camera, and no body was ever shown.
   • We heard six shots fired. Since one shot should have been sufficient, this was an attempt at misdirection by Crais.
   • The planet's vegetation has healing properties, so even if she was shot and left for dead, she might recover.
   • Crais might have seen an opportunity to cut a deal with High Command, and let Xhalax go.
   • Farscape has a history of not killing its best villains, but bringing them back and letting them develop into complex characters.
   • "Xhalax" might have been a Colarta in chameleon mode.

   Opinions from the "yes, he did" contingent included:

   • The execution took place off-camera only so that we could concentrate on Aeryn's tortured response to the event. This enabled us to share her perspective on events, making a more potent episode.
   • The episode is much stronger if we assume that Xhalax is truly dead; it was the right thing to do, from a story standpoint. The audience is wearying of the "they're dead!...oh, wait, no they aren't..." theme.
   • Showing the execution would have been gratuitous violence; it was held off-camera as a matter of taste.
   • Not showing the actual execution was a deliberate choice to heighten viewer reaction by making us wonder, rather than a setup for a future return of the character.
   • Even the presence of a body is no guarantee of death, as we learned in "Season of Death".
   • Crais didn't want them to watch only because he understands the importance of family, and wanted to spare Aeryn as much of the pain and guilt as possible.
   • Crais is a target, and letting Xhalax live would be too big a risk to himself and Talyn.
   • There wasn't sufficient time for Crais and Xhalax to strike a deal, between the time John and Aeryn left, and we heard the shots.
   • If Crais offered to strike a deal, it's doubtful that Xhalax would have been willing to negotiate with a traitor. She was dying in the line of duty, and there is no higher goal a Peacekeeper soldier can aspire to. Even Aeryn didn't want to escape with Crichton and D'Argo, when she was declared universally contaminated back "Premiere".
   • Even if a deal was put on the table, Xhalax probably didn't have the authority to make it or guarantee it, and Crais would have no reason to trust her to keep her word.
   • Xhalax might have sacrificed herself to give Aeryn emotional closure, seeing no other way out of the situation for her daughter.
   • Really killing Xhalax lent the ending a flavor of Greek tragedy, which appealed to several viewers. "Warm fuzzy" endings aren't Farscape's usual style.

   Yet a third opinion was that Xhalax is in a deliberate state of limbo. She was "executed" off-screen merely to leave the door open in case the whim should strike the writers at some future point, to bring her back.

Observations

1. Rygel's wink at Stark was amusing.

2. The positioning device looked like the external gyrosensor from "Eat Me", with a red light stuck to the top of it.

3. John really didn't want Xhalax to be killed (perhaps his own relationship with his mother colored his feelings in this situation?). Nevertheless, he didn't fight that hard against Aeryn and Crais' decision. His judgement continues to become more "life and death" oriented, moving farther and farther away from his original conciliatory, compromising nature. He has no qualms about leaving Crais to die in the jungle, and no hesitation in killing the Colartas.

4. Crais claimed that, while he used Moya and her crew as assets for his own protection, he also had other reasons for helping them. If this is true, we really haven't seen any indication of it; John's feelings of betrayal seem entirely justified so far.

Bloopers

1. Several viewers said they could see the seam on Xhalax's scar makeup.

Annotations

John: "Well, they're either after us or not. We've left a trail Stevie Wonder could follow."
Aeryn: "Oh, well...wait."
John: "What?"
Aeryn: "Oarusk fruit." [knocks one down, revealing it to be highly acidic]
John: "Remind me not to put that on my Cocoa Puffs."

Stevie Wonder is one of the best-known of Motown's R&B artists. He's also known for his blindness, which is the reason that he's often used in ironic contexts such as Crichton's.

Cocoa Puffs is a brand of cereal made by General Mills. Its advertising shtick was Sonny the Cuckoo Bird saying, "I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"

Crais: "You have no idea where we are going. We could be going around in circles."
John: "We're not going in circles, nimrod. Because we've never been here before, we're completely lost."

The word "nimrod" has a strange etymology. Most people know it from its colloquial definition: a stupid or foolish person. This meaning comes from its use as an appellation given by Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam.

The way Bugs spoke it made it sound pejorative, but he was, however, undoubtedly using it in its true definition of "hunter", derived from the Biblical character Nimrod, a great-grandson of Noah, as mentioned in the Old Testament Book of Genesis:

10:8 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

John: "As long as you're here...these piña colada things chasing us...are they everything Crais has cracked them up to be?"

The Piña Colada is an alcoholic beverage of Caribbean origin. John is playing on the phonic resemblance of "Colarta" and "Colada".

John: "We've been here. That's Old Faithful. We must be near Talyn."

Old Faithful is the name of the world's best-known geyser, located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

Translator Microbe Report

Quotables

"Hang on. [thump] Ohhh... [thump] Oh, gawd... [thump] Ohhh..."
"You were louder than that, believe it or not."
- John Crichton, Aeryn Sun

"Friend or foe, friend or foe, friend or foe --"
"Will you shut the frell up? Of course it's a foe! We have no friends!"
- Stark, Rygel

"We've got to do something! There's nothing we can do. Crichton, you always have a plan! Well, sometimes..." - Stark

"So frell the gravity. Cinch up your mivonks, and keep moving!" - Xhalax Sun

"Remind me not to put that on my coco-puffs." - John Crichton

"A hiccup is involuntary, you pellish venker! Humming isn't!" - Rygel

"Okay, welcome to the butthole of the universe." - John Crichton

"Nice to see you again, Mother." - Aeryn Sun

"I've been hit."
"Aw, hell, that's ugly."
- Bialar Crais, John Crichton

"You leave me here bleeding, they will find me and kill me."
"...And?"
- Bialar Crais, John Crichton

"If she's still alive."
"She is still alive. She is alive."
- Bialar Crais, John Crichton

"Where are you taking me?"
"Back to the gunship. Which I named Talyn, by the way."
[laughs in disgust]
"Yes, I thought you'd find that amusing."
"Naming it after Daddy? It's not amusing, it's sentimental and weak. Is that why you're sparing me? Because I'm your Mummy?"
- Xhalax Sun, Aeryn Sun

"Eliminate the threat. And when I'm gone, you can name your Prowler after me."
"Oh, yes, that's very funny."
- Xhalax Sun, Aeryn Sun

"I'm not flinching." - Aeryn Sun

"Oh, god. I hate mazes. Ohhh.. My first girlfriend, Julie, she loved 'em, oh boy, did she. 'Hey, Johnny, let's go in the mirror maze together, huh?' Hey, Jules, is this making you horny?" - John Crichton

"Shut up."
"You shut up."
"No, you shut up, I got an idea!"
- John Crichton, Bialar Crais

"Spread it around! Don't forget to cover your private bits." - John Crichton

"As long as you're here...these pina colada things chasing us -- are they everything Crais has cracked them up to be?"
"Oh, yes. In that, at least, Crais has been completely forthright."
"Where has he not been...forthright?"
- John Crichton, Harvey

"Oh. You really do have three stomachs...and the smallest little heart I've ever seen." - Stark

"You knew we wouldn't lift a finger to help you, but we would do anything to protect Talyn." - John Crichton

"Look at what you are doing! You are butchering this magnificent creature in its sleep. When it wakes it will be a slave, and there is no guarantee it will survive the procedure." - Aeryn Sun

"What did you do to redeem yourself? How did you redeem yourself?"
"By killing your father."
- Aeryn Sun, Xhalax Sun

"You don't get it, do you? Ain't no way, son. You stuck the knife in one time too many."
"What, you just going to leave me like this?"
"Well, you earned it."
- John Crichton, Bialar Crais

"You lied to us! You betrayed us, and you used us!"
"I used all my assets to stay alive, and those assets were you!"
- John Crichton, Bialar Crais

"You cared enough then to risk everything, to meet the child that you had conceived. You can't have burned that love away completely. I am that child. I am part of you. I am part of Talyn. The Peacekeeper way isn't the only way. It's not too late for you."
"Nooo! This is dead history. Your father is dead. And you...you will face a Peacekeeper tribunal, on a charge of high treason."
- Aeryn Sun, Xhalax Sun

"I've been filletted." - Rygel

"Have you seen these so-called stitches? Who did this to me?"
"I did."
"Oh, great! A one-eyed hingmot with no 3D vision! How many of my vital organs did you puncture?"
- Rygel, Stark

"You sewed my robes to my chest!" - Rygel

"Oh, for frell's sake, Rygel, use two hands! Two hands!"
"I'm going as fast as I can! My robes are stitched inside my chest cavity --"
"You are so ungrateful!"
"-- and I'm trying to keep my guts from spilling out all over this frelling floor!"
- Aeryn Sun, Rygel, Stark

"I would take you back, attempt to redeem you if it was possible. But your corruption is too advanced."
"My corruption began the moment I was conceived."
"No!"
"Don't you see? My independence comes from you, anyway. I grew up wanting to be just like a woman I'd only seen once!"
"You are a traitor."
"I am the part of you that wanted to be a rebel, the part of you that knew deep down inside what was right!"
"Shut up!"
"You've resisted Peacekeeper doctine before --"
"Shut up!"
"-- why can't you do it again now?"
"You...are an aberration!"
"I am your child!"
- Xhalax Sun, Aeryn Sun

"Does it look all right?"
"You...you're as handsome as you ever were."
- Rygel, Stark

"That's why you stitched the frelling tunic to my chest -- you were busy hallucinating!" - Rygel

"Crais is attempting to splice his neural engrams with Talyn's, and if he can, then Talyn will be able to navigate on his own once again, and we can get some sleep. Or not... You don't have to wait up for me if you don't want to."
"Nah, I don't mind."
- Aeryn Sun, John Crichton

Comments from Cast & Crew

Ben Browder, Mat McCoy (w/Fiona Gentle and Tim Mieville), Lily Taylor, & Richard Manning, July 12, 2001

• Moderator: <The-Keeper-of-Tears> to <Moderator>: Hi. I know it's not "your end" but could you tell us how hard it was to make Rygel wink (instead of blink) in "Relativity"?

  Puppeteering Team: Push of a button by Mario.

• Moderator: <Riddley> to <Moderator>: was the autopsied Rygel from A Human Reaction recycled as the cut-open one in Relativity?

  Puppeteering Team: No.

• Moderator: <PhantomComputer> to <Moderator>: Hi there, Ricky, Why did it take Crais so many shots to kill Aeryn's mom?

  FrooniumRicky: He's a PK
  FrooniumRicky: They are notoriously bad shots, like most bad guys
  FrooniumRicky: Either that, or he just likes splatter

• Moderator: <Gmmas> to <Moderator>: Ricky: after Relativity, some people doubted that Xhalax was really dead. Any comments to the conspiracy theorists?

  FrooniumRicky: Well, define "dead"
  FrooniumRicky: Is that Aeryn Dead, Zhaan Dead, Stark Dead, Gilina Dead...
  FrooniumRicky: I s'pose it depends on how much you trust Crais

• Moderator: <shokoti> to <Moderator>: Hey Froon! Where do you continuously find such amazing guest stars (Linda Cropper, Thomas Holesgrove, etc.)? Do you have some endless pool of talent to delve in to?

  FrooniumRicky: Yes, it's called Australia
  FrooniumRicky: Huge amount of talent here
  FrooniumRicky: (FrCh: "You want to stay, don't you?")
  FrooniumRicky: (Yup)
  * FrooniumRicky tips his hat to Maura Fay Casting who brings us these wonderful people

• Moderator: <birthsister> to <Moderator>: what's with all the new words, and when do we get a dictionary...what is a pellish venker...and while you're at it, what the frell is a drannit?

  FrooniumRicky: We don't talk much about a drannit
  FrooniumRicky: It's not a pretty story
  FrooniumRicky: where's a pellish venker from? doesn't sound familiar

  Moderator: <Thinkum> to <Moderator>: last week's ep
  Moderator: 310
  Moderator: Did Rygel say it?

  FrooniumRicky: Beats me
  FrooniumRicky: Guess that'd be a Rockne question

  Moderator: (Moderator thinks a "drannit" is...the thing Ben Browder was refering to when he said in all those interviews that Farscape fans are smart enough to "get" stuff)

Farscape Wrap Day Extravaganza, July 26, 2001

• Moderator: <Ky> to <Moderator>: How do you feel about Crichton and Aeryn FINALLY getting together?

  ChickWithGun: well, ben and i are having fun we just hope the audience is enjoying it :)