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Farscape - Season 4 - Episode 05

Farscape - 4x05 - Promises - Originally Aired: 2002-7-12

My Rating - 9

Fan Rating Average - 4.36

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# Votes: 47 3 25 0 5 61 26 8 8 25 5

Synopsis
Crichton and the crew are reunited on Moya. Crichton finds Aeryn suffering from Heat Delirium and under the care of Scorpius, who wants asylum aboard Moya. Soon after, a giant Lukythian ship appears nearby, and its Captain, Ullom, claims that Aeryn was recently part of a team that assassinated an important Lukythian leader. Ullom offers to heal Aeryn in return for information about the plot. While battling with the notion of trusting Scorpius, Crichton remains unaware that neither Aeryn nor Ullom is telling the whole truth. [DVD]

Filler Quotient: 0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Problems
None

Factoids
None

Remarkable Scenes
- Aeryn greeting John as he lands on Moya only to reveal she's suffering from heat delirium and that Scorpius is with her and wants asylum from the Peacekeepers.
- John: "You will never get the wormhole tech from me." Scorpius: "I could not use it even if I had it! I merely want to safeguard it and hope that when the inevitable Scarran bloodbath begins, you make the appropriate choices."
- John: "Damn it Harvey, guns are dangerous man and there ain't no smokin' in my head!"
- Harvey recommending killing Scorpius.
- Rygel breaking the cooling rods.
- Rygel saving Aeryn from killing herself.
- Scorpius removing Harvey from John's head.
- Scorpius revealing that Grayza is planning to kill Moya with an experimental leviathan killing weapon.
- Scorpius revealing that he has a spy aboard the command carrier.
- Sikozu making the alien ship look like Moya to Braca's scans.
- Scorpius revealing that he really does know where Earth is and that he's the only Peacekeeper who does.
- Moya and Pilot deciding that they want the crew to elect a captain.
- John confronting Aeryn about her keeping her pregnancy from him.

My Review
A fantastic episode that draws well on the time honored Farscape cliche of turning old enemies into ambiguous allies. Scorpius fits surprisingly well into Moya's crew given the carefully crafted circumstances for his arrival. In many ways this is his episode as each step of the plot is designed to redeem him further and further. First he saves Aeryn, then he removes Harvey. Both events a delightful counterpoint to Die Me, Dichotomy. Finally he divulges critical Peacekeeper intelligence to save Moya. Way to go Scorpy!

The only wrinkle in the plot is Aeryn's behavior. She spent the first half of the story actively working against John's efforts to save her. Then, even after John goes the last mile to protect whatever it is Aeryn felt she needed to go this far to protect, she still refuses to reveal her pregnancy to him. At this point John's had enough, and I don't blame him. He gave her the perfect opportunity to come clean and she wasted it.

A final point of significant interest is Scorpius revealing to John that he really does know where Earth is and that it wasn't a bluff. Combine that with John's budding wormhole knowledge and I'm not exactly sure what stands between John and going home now! Obviously he might want to not drag characters like Scorpius along with him to Earth, even despite Scorpy's newfound trustworthiness, so this could be a good reason that John's not chomping at the bit to go home right this second. However, the complete sum of this episode works out to another outstanding chapter in Farscape's long term story while setting up nice possibilities for more great stuff to come.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From David on 2011-06-12 at 8:32am:
    My favorite episode because John finally gets a clue and dumps Aeryn. To be frank I would have dumped her butt about 6 seasons back:p
    There's a point in the start when Areyn forces John to promise not to hurt Scorpious.
    "If you love me you won't hurt him or I'll leave Moya" something like that. Perfect manipulation from her there. I doubt she even knows what love is because the first thing she reverted to was to manipulate John into not hurting Scorpious. Obviously Areyn hasn't learned a thing in her time away and she never learned that people can change from better to worse. (Goes to her comments "People can change can't they John?")
    Having Scorpious on board Moya would have been great for 2-3 eps but I was always against him being on board for a whole season. Personally I would have rather John shoot Scorpy in the head 9 or 10 times and resolve 99% of his problems right there on the spot. And if Areyn wanted to leave, well good luck see how far you get with maxed out heat delirium. I guess the writers had to write Scorpious on board somehow.....I stopped watching this series at S3 with the whole "I love you but we can never act on it" crapola. Pure soap opera.Am am now finally getting to watch Farscape after snagging the entire series for a song..
  • From Margaret J on 2019-07-28 at 12:43am:
    First off Claudia Black's acting when she first sees John is once again phenomenal. Secondly I do not care if Scorpius saved her and put her in the cooling suit IMO it is against her character (PK training/upbringing and all) not to kill or at least want to kill Scorpius after all he has done to them. I could more see John being swayed by such emotion and or gratitude than I do her.
    Other than that one thing I liked the episode a lot. it is nice to have them all together again. And even though we never got any real info on why and how the assassination took place the story still worked. Based on Farscapes past history I am sure we will get the back story on it all at some point.
    IMO this is the first really good episode of season four. I rated it an eight (8).

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