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Episode Guide > Season Three > The Choice US OAD: August 17, 2001 Written by: Justin Monjo Directed by: Rowan Woods Guest Analysis by Erica
Stark
and Crais both want Aeryn to return, and both blame the other one
for her leaving. Oddly, Rygel is the voice of reason. He points
out that Aeryn doesn't want to be on Talyn. Stark insists saying
that Aeryn may try to contact Crichton. Aeryn,
meanwhile, is living in a bad hotel room. She is obviously horribly
depressed and drinking fairly heavily. She
tells someone that she wants to raise her father. In her room, she
sees the old John (from 'The Locket'). He says he remembers it all.
Aeryn doesn't know what he's talking about (as she has no recollection
of those events), she doesn't recognize him and resists his attempts
to touch her. Then, however, she experiences a series of flashbacks
including her chest pain (which she also experiences in present
time as she remembers) and the conversation about who's picture
is in her locket. Then the man she was expecting arrives. She tells
him she wants to contact her father. The stranger (whose face is
very strange and hard to describe) tells her that he is Talyn. Elsewhere,
Rygel and Stark have come down to the planet to look for Aeryn.
Rygel encounters a seer who Aeryn saw earlier who mentions a name,
Kellor, that Rygel finds familiar. He seems shaken and upset. Stark,
meanwhile, has been hearing Zhaan's voice calling his name. Stark
warns Rygel that the planet has dark powers. In the shadows, Xhalax
Sun watches them. Back
in the hotel room, Talyn tells Aeryn that he altered his face to
hide. He uses a blood scanning device in an attempt to convince
Aeryn that he really is her father. Though she winces at his touch,
when he begins to leave she stops him. The
searchers meanwhile speak to a slimy hotel manager with an interesting
defense mechanism. When he presses a button, quite a few pointy
objects come shooting up. They ask him about seeing Aeryn. In fact,
Stark gets quite sentimental. The manager says that Sebaceans stay
on the far side of the city. Then, Stark catches sight of a familiar
face, Xhalax. She looks different than when we last saw her, more
haggard. The two confront Crais rather violently with the fact that
he didn't kill Xhalax. Crais defends himself, saying that he made
the deal for all of them. Xhalax would tell PK High Command that
they were all dead. Stark and Rygel aren't extraordinarily impressed
with this explanation. Rygel does stop Stark from killing Crais
on the grounds that the only other one who can fly Talyn is Aeryn,
who may not be returning with them. While
Stark is attempting to discipline Crais, Aeryn continues to talk
with her possible father. He asks her why she came to the planet
and she explains that she lost someone. Talyn says that he'll find
a seer to help contact Crichton. Aeryn asks the slimy manager about
Talyn. She discovers that he'd been on the planet for several cycles
and that he'd been studying with the spirit channelers. Xhalax watches
her daughter with a less than friendly look on her face. As she
returns to her room, Aeryn sees a couple making out in the hall.
She flashes back to the long-awaited kiss from 'Season of Death'.
She turns away and into her room where she believes she sees Crichton
sitting on her balcony. Stark
and Crais finally arrive at Aeryn's door. She says quite firmly
that she doesn't want to see them. However, when they begin to shout
again she comes out to the hall. She's less than distressed over
the news that Stark has seen Xhalax, she's seen her father and Crichton.
Stark insists to Aeryn that he will take care of her, she seems
less than enthusiastic. She then offers herself to Crais, saying
that if she closes her eyes tightly enough, she can pretend he's
someone else. After telling Stark that he's even worse she screams
at them to leave. 'Talyn',
meanwhile, is talking to Xhalax. He thinks Aeryn's buying it and
that the thing he's bringing her will cause her to suffer as Xhalax
wants her to. Aeryn
is standing on her balcony, feeling quite put upon and calls for
Crichton several times with increasing desperation. She then flashes
back to 'A Human Reaction'. She tells her vision of Crichton that
Valldon is her world now and she thinks she liked Earth better.
Then, continuing to flash back she kisses her vision's shoulder
and they gently kiss. Aeryn pulls back to realize that there's no
one on the balcony with her. Rygel appears then and begs her to
return. He had a special someone, too, but self-destruction isn't
the answer. He tells her he knew Crichton loved her and that he
wouldn't want his death to leave her on Valldon. She listens to
him talk but then asks him to leave and goes inside to prove her
point. 'Talyn'
has brought Cresus, an odd deformed baby sort of alien, to see Aeryn.
She has to touch him for him to reach Crichton. When asked to describe
him, Aeryn can't seem to put her feelings into words. With a bit
of prodding she says that he loved her and made her better. After
a short message from 'John', Cresus asks 'Talyn' to find the Sintar,
a creature who can sometimes bring people back to life. While
'Talyn' goes off to find the Sintar, Aeryn sees Crichton again.
John tells her that she can't bring him back. Aeryn asks him if
it was easy to be a hero and leave her behind, he says he didn't
know. Protesting that he did know, Aeryn and her apparition of John
kiss with accompanying flashbacks. Just when things are getting
pretty hot and heavy, Xhalax appears. She kills 'Talyn' and informs
Aeryn that it's down to the two of them. Meanwhile, Crais, Rygel
and Stark struggle to find Aeryn before it's too late. Analysis: What
we saw at the end of Infinite Possibilities part II was only the
beginning of Aeryn's grief. Her reaction to his death shows a lot
about how Aeryn felt about Black John. When she pulled the blanket
around herself in Infinite Possibilities, it seemed as if she was
shutting out the world. Now she takes that a step farther as she
flees from her life to the dubious safety of Valldon. Contacting
Crichton was probably only part of why she came to the planet. On
the one hand she might be able to contact John and on the other
she could leave a place with too many reminders of the painful memories. One
nice thing about this episode was that it did reveal that Xhalax
was not totally against her daughter. When she put her gun down
at the end I knew Crais was going to kill her, but I was pleased
that she had shown just a bit of caring for her daughter before
she died. The most painful thing she did during her 'Make Aeryn
Suffer' campaign was the comment about loved ones. She said that
you didn't forget them little by little, you lost them all instantly
leaving you with nothing. You could see the pain on Aeryn's face,
I don't think Xhalax even noticed. At
then end of the episode, Aeryn turns away from her vision of Crichton.
Does this mean she's trying to turn her back on her feelings? She's
been hurt very badly and may be looking for some way to avoid being
hurt this way again. This
episode did leave me with a few questions. The obvious, what's on
the mask Stark is giving to Green Crichton? Is Xhalax really dead
this time? Was the Crichton a hallucination, a ghost, a flashback,
or what? What's going to happen when Aeryn and Green John see each
other again? All in all, I liked this episode.
Dallascaper's
rating:
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