![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
John has a weird laugh. I like it. It is dorky and bizarrely deep, and now I see why he trained himself to smirk instead.
General thoughts on the episode: Yay! Fun. Although it honestly should've been two episodes; they did a yeomanly job of connecting the Meet Mrs. Miller plotline and the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Rod McKay plotline, but I genuinely think either thread could have been better explored at a full hour's length. And YES, this is me saying there should have been two McKay episodes instead of just one, so don't say I never stand up for you Rodney people!
Specific things that caught my attention:
1. Meredith. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It is *love.* If the entire episode had been an infomercial for flame-resistant doggy beds, and right in the middle, Chuck the Tech popped up holding a giant sign that said HIS REAL NAME IS MEREDITH RODNEY MCKAY, I *still* would have thought it was a good episode. That would really have provided me a week's worth of amusement right there.
2. I like how Rod was all baffled, like, "You knew this could destroy my universe?" Apparently he comes from the alternate reality where SGA thinks shit through and behaves responsibly. WELCOME TO OUR WORLD, MOTHERFUCKER! Hahaha!
3. John being all smug because he figured out a feeling during his conversation with Rodney. He was like, "No, wait, I know this one!"
4. WTF, Elizabeth? Why does she have to say "He claims he's from another reality" all snide and suspicious like that...where the hell else would he be from? It's not like this shit doesn't happen to SGC all the freaking time -- oh, hey, and you were building a particle bridge to another reality at the time! Oy.
5. You will all receive the shock of your lives when I tell you that my actual favorite moment in the episode involved Ronon. That first cafeteria scene was priceless. I know some people Disapprove of picking on McKay in general, but COME ON, PEOPLE! He makes it so easy! You almost have no choice! I *love* how he blunders right into the whole story about Ronon and the bully -- he's all, "HEY! That happened to me, too, once!" Oh, Rodney. He's one of those people who's so totally incapable of hiding or dissembling in any way that it *never* occurs to him that other people aren't speaking the literal truth until it's too late -- how can you not fuck with those people? You can't! You have to do it!
5b. Although that scene would not, of course, have been as marvelous without the companion scene at the end. First, I don't know if he meant "team e-mails" lit or fig, but in my heart, it's totally literal, and they all send out e-mails when they're going for midnight snacks, because OMGTEAMLOVE!!!! And they totally lie to make Rodney feel good about how nobody liked Rod at all, and it was *darling.* Also, John and Ronon teasing Teyla about her flirting with Marines, and her kicking John? I have no words for how fab that is, both on the OMGTEAMLOVE!!!! level, and also because it's such a big, honking NYAHNYAH in the face of any canonical John/Teyla or Ronon/Teyla UST -- they're *so* her brothers. Appropriately enough for this, another in a long line of s3 "SGA=Intentional Family" episodes. Also, she kicked John.
6. I've seen several people (including my own
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
marythefan )glee about how this episode was made for them. You know what was made for me -- me, personally? What was totally made for me, me, me was the bit when Rodney goes off being an idiot about the "Kirk" thing, and John looks so blank and vaguely annoyed, all like, "WTF are you on about, you freak?" Because YES! CLEARLY he was not hitting on Rodney's sister, just like clearly he's not hitting on 95% of the female beings on the show, and yet CLEARLY, Rodney thinks he is. I can't remember who it was who created the Flow Chart of Rodney's Wrongness in this matter, but it went something like this:--when John smiles at me, I want to sleep with him --> when John smiles at everybody, everybody wants to sleep with him --> if everybody wanted to sleep with me, I would be a big, giant slut --> John is a big, giant slut!
The logic breaks down in at least two and arguably three places, but I truly do believe that's what life looks like from inside Rodney's head. I love that this episode demonstrated John totally failing to have the slightest idea where Rodney comes up with this stuff. Hee!
In Closing, More Generalities: This was just a lovely episode for the good and the bad of McKay's character. He's a *jerk.* He's a selfish bastard who manipulates his sister ("this isn't what Dad would've wanted"), undertakes more than one gambit to undercut her share of the credit, and won't let her push the damn button. And yet, underneath it, there's this really genuinely kind heart, and we all totally believe that the answer matters to him when he finally says "are you okay?" Rodney has to be *pulled* out of his shell of self-absorbtion, and yet what you find there if you manage to do it is worth the effort.
I now await the inevitable flood of stories, chiefly the Sam/Jeannie/Rodney threesomes -- hey, she digs the accent!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 04:27 am (UTC)From:For some reason, it registered as big, giant slug. And then I was all confused.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 04:45 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 04:56 am (UTC)From:atwith you*Secret handshakes are love. It's universal canon.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 06:37 am (UTC)From:Word, dude. Saying "There is a VERY small chance of this destroying an ENTIRE 'VERSE" just doesn't cut it, you know? But yet...they keep using it! LOL Our verse is definitely the ethically dodgy one. Wow, I wonder what it's like in Rod's rational, responsible verse...*imagines such a place*
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 06:51 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 06:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 06:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 07:04 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 07:35 am (UTC)From:See, now, I reckon you can interpret it as John/Teyla because some couples do tease each other like that. But we do read these things the way we want. For me it was a completely wonderful OT4 moment, not brotherly at all.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 10:06 am (UTC)From:Yeah, I wondered that too, especially since they witnessed how he materialized in his crouching Terminator pose right in their machine. I mean, if he had popped up from somewhere via a weird Stargate effect I can see how they'd be suspicious, especially after the running into Replicators in Pegasus (weren't there replicator doubles in in SG-1?), but inside their own chamber, that they isolated from the outside of their own universe?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 10:23 am (UTC)From:I think that's about the best sentence about Rodney ever. Also, OMGTEAMLOVE!!! Oh yes! Those e-mails are so for reals. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 12:27 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 12:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 12:58 pm (UTC)From:Hey I know that one. It's Mom Elizabeth! That's the same voice I use when I have to say things like, "And why did you think it was a good to give the cat a bath in the toilet?"
Ron/Ronon. Oh please, please, please...
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 01:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 04:31 pm (UTC)From:Laughing and laughing and laughing over here--omg, how true! Rod, share our pain, man!!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 04:47 pm (UTC)From:*dies laughing*
I seriously loved you, Now? Now I just love you a whole lot more.
Yay for teamness, yay for accent porn and just yay for Rodney! (I want an icon that says two McKay's are better than one. Badly)
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 08:07 pm (UTC)From:Making that icon took a lot longer than it should have...
no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 08:16 pm (UTC)From:3. John being all smug because he figured out a feeling during his conversation with Rodney. He was like, "No, wait, I know this one!"
And they totally lie to make Rodney feel good about how nobody liked Rod at all, and it was *darling.*
Yay! You're the third person, including me, who thinks they were lying there. :)
also because it's such a big, honking NYAHNYAH in the face of any canonical John/Teyla or Ronon/Teyla UST -- they're *so* her brothers.
ITA about Teyla and Ronon! I think in other circumstances, John would want it to be more with Teyla however. If she wasn't part of Atlantis and had stayed on the mainland with the other Athosians, I could definitely see him making a play for her. JMO.
--when John smiles at me, I want to sleep with him --> when John smiles at everybody, everybody wants to sleep with him --> if everybody wanted to sleep with me, I would be a big, giant slut --> John is a big, giant slut!
Hahahahahaha!
Sam/Jeannie/Rodney threesomes
I'm looking forward to the Rodney/John/Rod stores and the Rodney/Rod stories. You know Rodney wouldn't be able to resist sleeping with himself if for no other reason than curiosity. *g
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 01:39 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 08:32 am (UTC)From:I have read more recaps of this ep than I will normally read for any ep and yet... YOUR recap is just beautiful and the last para about Rodney is just EXACTLY what I think. How did you do that?
So, um. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 05:38 pm (UTC)From:Oh, lord. I think it's the little holster on his tail that really makes it work. You rock.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 05:39 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 05:44 pm (UTC)From:Anyway, I definitely stand by my statement that it is the polar opposite of UST, which after all stands for "unresolved sexual tension," and there's *no* tension in that scene and an enormous amount of comfort and casual silliness. Personally, I think it would be cool if we got a relaxed, open, teasing, polyamorous love affair out of canon...but I doubt it. I think we're getting a thicker-than-blood-relatives situation being developed.
Thank God for fans, and long live OT4 fic!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 05:56 pm (UTC)From:Re: John and Teyla -- I could see that. I mean, I think that's the case with a lot of m/f friendships -- there's that sense of, you know, if the timing had been different or some element of your lives weren't what it is, you could see yourself being involved with them. But the way things are, it just wouldn't work, so you remain friends instead. I think that's a very, very easy case to build for John and Teyla -- and I don't just say that because one of my WIPs is a hugely long Teyla-centric story where that's more or less their situation. *g*
I don't doubt you'll get plenty of those threesome stories -- and probably Rodney/Rod stories, too. Personally, I think Rodney is *much* too threatened by Rod's existence to want to sleep with him (my God, he's probably better in bed, too, and how humiliating is that?) -- as John pointed out, normally curiosity would make people want to at least have a conversation with their AU double, and Rodney wasn't curious enough for that, so I can't see the curiosity factor kicking in here, either. However, as out of character as I suspect it is, people are definitely going to write it, and there's definitely an audience for it -- the fandom free-market at work! *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 10:58 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 10:59 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-09-12 05:23 pm (UTC)From:(and, not to make this an annoying omgicon comment: I totally agree with you, HTH, about the teamlove yay. And hee, I didn't think about the 'alternate reality where SGC acts responsibly for a change,' but, OH YEAH.)