This Show Is Da Bomb! (WARNING: Spoilers for Farscape Episode 4.21, "We're So Screwed, Pt. 3: La Bomba")

You know something... This episode was very, very cool, and I enjoyed the heck out of it, but it many ways it leaves me feeling more frustrated than ever. So very, very many unanswered questions and, barring a miraculous eleventh-hour reprieve, so very, very little time left for the series. I'm left with a rather disturbing urge to go "Wow!" and "Urgh!" pretty much simultaneously...

Right. On to the usual random thought-spewage:

You gotta love the layers upon layers of intrigue here. I've always said that Scorpius never limits himself to plans A, B, and C, but tends to keep right on going through a huge chunk of the alphabet, yet even I never dreamed that he'd gone so far as to have a backup plan for bringing down the Scarrans. Silly me. Major points also have to go to Harvey here. I suspected he might have been lying in Part One, but it hadn't occured to me that he'd come up with that ruse entirely on his own. And I never for a moment doubted that he actually was communicating with Scorpius, which seems not to have been true. Very clever, Harve!

There were a few elements of the story that kind of left me thinking something along the lines of "Oooo-kay. Whatever." Sikozu's glowing trick, for one. And the notion that blowing up one flower is going to set the Scarran empire back as much as or more than using wormhole tech on them would. Although, to give the writers due credit, at least if they had to use the cliche of "destroy the mother organism and all the others will die, too," they gave the bad guys enough brains to have that one plant really well defended. Also, the idea that it's basically the equivalent of Scarran royal jelly does make a certain amount of sense.

See, I knew Scorpius wasn't really working for the Scarrans! But I'm more confused than ever about his relationship with the Scarran emperor. How did this supposed alliance come about? Why did the emperor trust him? Why did the emperor take such great pains to conceal their relationship from the other Scarrans? If the emperor was on Katratzi, and Scorpius was working for (or rather, pretending to work for) the emperor, why didn't he know where Katratzi was in the first place? I have the feeling that these may be questions that would have been explored in the fifth season and that now we'll never get to know the answers to.

Although (sadly enough), I don't think it would have been especially out of character for Stark to torture Scorpius like that (particularly if you caught him on a really bad day), I'm glad that it wasn't really him. I hate to see poor Stark giving in to his dark side. Zhaan would never have approved. It was, however, great to see the real Stark again, if only for a few minutes, and it was also nice to see how warmly Pilot welcomed him. Even Rygel seemed pleased to see him, which is a bit surprising. And did you see they way he and Granny kept smiling at each other? I think they're going to make a really interesting team. Or would, if the series hadn't just been cancelled. Aaaargh.

Speaking of Stark, there are even more unanswered questions revolving around him than there are around Scorpius. OK, so now we know what Scorpius was trying to get out of him with the Chair. Or do we? If you ask me, nothing seems to add up. OK, maybe Katratzi was the "place he saw as a boy." But what was he doing there? The Baniks were slaves of the Peacekeepers, not the Scarrans, yes? And if it was information on Katratzi that he was hiding from Scorpius, why? Stark never seemed to bear much love for the Scarrans, so why would he fight so hard to keep their secrets? And if it was Stark's personal knowledge Scorpius was after, why was he interested in the possibility of replacing him with another Stykera in "Liars, Guns, and Money"? It's possible that Stark gave him such information on the Scarrans as he had (and, indeed, Scorpy does say Stark told him some things) and that Scorpy kept at him afterwards primarily out of interest in his abilities. Or else there were a lot of Stykera at Katratzi, and Scorpy was hoping to get lucky twice in his selection of Banik prisoners, but that seems far-fetched to me.

John worries me more and more all the time. When he dropped the bomb down the elevator shaft, I found myself thinking, "Man, that's it. He's now dangerously insane. Well, I suppose it's been building to this point for quite some time..." In a way, I guess it's a bit of a relief that his conscience bothers him (in the same way that it was a relief that he couldn't actually pull the trigger on Aeryn-Chi in "Prayer"), but that final scene of him agonizing over what he'd done really ripped me apart. I'm kind of wondering, by the way, if the reason he didn't take that vote until the deed was done was so all the moral responsibility would rest on him alone. Still. Ouch.

I did like the bit in the elevator, with not one but three couples clinging together waiting for the bomb to go off. Aww. Not to mention the three separate shippy bits at the end. I still think D'Argo and Chi getting together again is probably a mistake, but I can't help but feel happy for them just at that moment, anyway. And, hmm, so Sikozu is biologically engineered to kill Scarrans? Suddenly Scorpy's attraction to her makes perfect sense...

Hey, Braca has a first name! And a pair of mivonks! Go, Braca! You rock, dude, and I take back every uncomplimentary thing I've ever said about you (of which, I admit, there were many).

Hmm, three guesses what Aeryn went into the medical center for. Somehow, I don't think it was her annual checkup. Either she went to confirm what we already knew -- the paternity -- or else she actually had the pregnancy activated. If it was the latter, I dunno, it doesn't seem like the world's best timing to me, but I guess we'll see. Or else, of course, we won't. Did I say "aaargh" enough times yet? In either case, here's hoping they didn't get much of a dose of radiation when Crichton's little toy went bang, 'cause that could spell really bad news for Crichton, Jr. I wonder if John even thought of that?

I actually had what is possibly my first real moment of sympathy for Grayza here, when she's losing it to John over having all her (apparently sincere) peace plans frelled up. Fortunately, it passed quickly, in large part due to John's too-perfectly ouchy reply.

Hey, I wonder how they made the Stark bioloid glow like that? Artificial lighting?