1.12 - Rhapsody in Blue

Moya discovers a colony of Delvian priests who ask Zhaan for help. But the crew discovers that the cost may be too high for Zhaan to bear but they can do nothing to help when they can no longer distinguish dreams from reality.

I like my wives pregnant and my ships cold to the touch. That way my feet stay warm and my slumber is uninterrupted. - Rygel
Wives? Plural? Big fella! - John Crichton

Something Crichton said is disturbing me. - Ka D'Argo
I've been saying that since he arrived. - Dominar Rygel XVI

I need you, John. I need you. - Zotoh Zhaan
For what? Target practice? - John Crichton

I have always wondered what could possibly go on in there... - Zotoh Zhaan
Not a lot. I'm a guy. - John Crichton

John is sleeping in his cabin on Moya. He is dreaming that he is in bed with a woman named Alexandra. She tells him that she is leaving to go to Stanford. He is upset and wants her to stay. She says she can't because she is getting a medical scholarship and he can't go with her if he wants to get into the space program. She says that maybe they need to take a break from each other anyway. She turns over and we see John hide an engagement ring.

He is suddenly jolted awake by a sudden movement of Moya. He runs to Command and finds everyone else there, all of them in their bedclothes. Pilot says that Moya detected a distress call from another pregnant Leviathan and went unexpectedly into Starburst to reach it.

John notices that Aeryn is wearing his underwear and asks her about it. She shows him the tag in the back.
"What does this say?" she asks.
"Calvin?" says John, confused.
Aeryn nods. "Then they're not yours."

Rygel is complaining of being awakened and says he was having a dream of his last mating session with his wives. D'Argo mentions that he also dreamed of the last night he spent with his wife and John adds that he dreamed of someone close to him too. He asks Aeryn and Zhaan if they had dreams and both deny it.

Moya is unable to locate another Leviathan but Pilot receives a signal. It is from a Delvian named Tahleen who welcomes Zhaan and asks for her help.

Aeryn, John and Zhaan go down to the planet and meet Tahleen. She and several other Delvian priests have a ship hidden underground and she leads them in.

Tahleen says that she knows Moya is low on food and tells Aeryn and John to take all they need. The two of them start pulling fish-like creatures from a pool. John identifies them as being part plant and part animal meaning they contain complete nutrition. He and Aeryn talk and they both agree that something is not right.

Tahleen is talking to Zhaan. Zhaan is unhappy with Tahleen, especially the dreams she caused them to have. Tahleen says the others enjoyed their dreams but Zhaan says she didn't enjoy hers; it forced her to remember something she wanted to forget.

Tahleen tells Zhaan that what she needs is the knowledge of how Zhaan keeps her rage and anger under control without going insane. One of their number, Tuzak is already insane. Tuzak is their leader and Tahleen's father. Zhaan says that she does not know how to help them but Tahleen says she will teach Zhaan many things and takes her hand.

She then looks at John and John has a vision of himself as a young boy. The young John falls into the water and starts to drown and John jumps back from the pool in fright. Zhaan realizes that Tahleen has somehow altered John's memory. Tahleen offers to teach Zhaan how to do the same if Zhaan with teach her how to control her darker impulses. Zhaan tells Tahleen to restore John's memory and agrees.

The Transport Pod is returning to Moya with forty days worth of food on board. Rygel is eagerly awaiting the food but D'Argo is disturbed by the fact that all of them had the same dream. He suspects that the Delvians are up to something.

John is wandering through the Delvian ship and enters the sanctuary where the Delvian's Sanctity Root is growing. There he meets Tuzak, who mistakes him for a Peacekeeper. Tuzak tells him he is insane but also tells him that his companion is in danger. John thinks he means Aeryn but Tuzak corrects him and says he means Zhaan.

Aeryn is also wandering the ship and is met by Hasko. Hasko tells her that he was driven from his home by Peacekeepers and that he does not want her here, especially since she is carrying a weapon. He tells Aeryn she must leave.

John finds Tahleen and Zhaan preparing for a ceremony and tells Zhaan that Aeryn has been thrown out of the temple. Zhaan tells him that she left in the Transport Pod at her request. John is still here because she needs his help. She admits that she too had a dream the night before and needs John to know what is happening. She asks Tahleen to show John the dream.

John sees Zhaan in bed with another Delvian, Bitaal. They are having sex together when suddenly Zhaan starts to give him pain and kills him.

John is shocked. "What the hell was that?"
"The crime I was imprisoned for." she tells him. "I admit I have not revealed all parts of myself to you."
John is still in shock. "No, no you haven't. You killed a guy you were having sex with, Zhaan!"
Zhaan starts pleading "I need you, John. I need you."
"For what?" he asks, stunned. "Target practice?"

Zhaan tells John that Bitaal was their spiritual leader. She was his student and became involved with him. When his tenure was up, instead of stepping down he invited the Peacekeepers to Delvia to help him maintain power. The Peacekeepers arrested all protesters, including Zhaan's father.

Tahleen and the others want Zhaan to help them. Normally, when a Pa'u releases their dark impulses they become insane. This is what has happened to Tuzak. Zhaan was somehow able to control her impulses without losing her mind. They want to know how she did it and Tahleen wants Zhaan to enter into Unity, a merging of two minds, with her. She hopes in this way to learn what Zhaan did, then return to Delvia to lead a rebellion against the Peacekeepers.

On Moya, Aeryn regrets leaving John and Zhaan alone on the planet. She decides to go back and D'Argo and Rygel say they will come with her.

Tahleen is talking to Hasko and Lorana saying that Aeryn is planning to return with the others and that John is asking too many questions of Zhaan. She asks Hasko and Lorana to distract them.

Lorana goes to John but causes him to see her as Alexandra. John asks why she isn't at Stanford but Alexandra tells him that she joined the IASA with him and flew with him on the Farscape 1. Lorana alters John's memories to match what she is telling him. John is confused.

Hasko enters a trance. Back on Moya, Aeryn drops her pulse rifle and sees it fall to pieces. D'Argo sees it as normal and tries to hand it to her but she thinks he is only handing her part of it. She becomes confused and can't remember how to use the rifle.

Suddenly, D'Argo sees Jothee, his son. Jothee runs towards D'Argo but a group of Peacekeepers appear and drag Jothee away. D'Argo starts yelling for an increasingly confused Pilot to help and runs after the Peacekeepers.

Rygel suddenly sees himself shrink to only a few inches in height.

Zhaan and Tahleen enter Unity together. Tahleen sees within Zhaan her ability to control her impulses but rather than learning from them she literally rips them from Zhaan and makes them her own. Zhaan screams and breaks Unity. Her eyes have turned red. Tahleen tells Zhaan that she does not have time to learn the control on her own and leaves Zhaan behind.

John arrives and asks Zhaan what happened. Zhaan tells him and he says she learned to control herself before and so can again. Zhaan causes him pain and tells him she was insane for many cycles before she gained control and that she cannot go through that again.

John gets away from Zhaan and goes to his room where he finds Alexandra. He tries to explain to her what is happening to Zhaan but Alexandra accuses him of caring more for Zhaan than for her. They are interrupted by a call from Pilot who shows what is happening on Moya. John leaves to see if he can find out anything from the Delvians.

He finds Tahleen in the temple with the Sanctity Root along with Hasko and Lorana and demands to know what is going on. She tells him that she wants to free the billions of people on Delvia but John says she just wants power. He tells her to undo whatever she has done to Zhaan and leaves. Tahleen tells Lorana to continue to distract John because she did not get all of what she needed from Zhaan and will have to try again.

John returns to his room and finds Alexandra again. She asks him when she will become more important to him than Zhaan. She shows him a wedding ring and he denies giving it to her. Then, we see the scene from the beginning except that this time he asks her to marry him. We then see a wedding where he is getting married to Alexandra. Alexandra tells him to choose her or Zhaan. He takes the ring and puts it back on her finger then they embrace.

Tahleen goes to meets Tuzak and they argue. He tells her that she is trying to go too far too fast but she will not listen to him. She says that when they return to Delvia the people may listen to him and not her and kills him. Her eyes turn red.

John finds Zhaan in the temple with Tuzak's body. He tries to get Zhaan to come back to Moya with him but Zhaan wants to stay to help Tahleen. She is planning to enter Unity with her again and John realizes that Zhaan plans to kill her while in Unity. John comments that Alexandra said she wouldn't leave and Zhaan, confused, asks who Alexandra is. John tells her Alexandra is his wife and Zhaan looks at him sadly.
"I should not have brought you here." she says. "We are both lost."

John returns to Alexandra and she asks him why Zhaan is so important to him. He tells her to remember all the things Zhaan has done for them and Alexandra tells him that Zhaan has never done anything for her because she doesn't know her. Alexandra changes into Lorana and she restores John's memories. He stares at her in horror.
"How," he asks her "in God's name, do you call yourself a priest?!"

Lorana tells him that, by seeing his feelings for Zhaan, has found the same feelings within herself and has realized that what she and the others have been doing is wrong. John has helped her and she thinks he can also help Zhaan.

Hasko releases everyone on Moya and restores their memories as well. Rygel wants to send Aeryn and D'Argo down shooting but Hasko asks them to give them time to resolve things on their own. D'Argo gives them two arns.

Lorana goes to Tahleen and tells her that John and Zhaan are trying to get to their ship. Tahleen goes to stop them.

Zhaan arrives in the temple for Unity and finds John instead of Tahleen. John asks her to enter Unity with him. She refuses to do so but John accuses her of being afraid. She admits to wanting to know what is in John's mind and returns to him and they enter Unity.

John starts laughing. "It's like... Disney on acid... like ten years of really great sex all at the same time... Oh, god. What is that?"
Zhaan's answer is one word. "Unity."

John tells her to see herself as he sees her. As someone who is kind, gentle and giving. He tells her to hold onto that and Unity ends. Her eyes have turned blue again and she collapses.

Later, John has an ax and is chopping at the Sanctity Root. Tahleen enters and tries to attack John but Zhaan prevents him. Zhaan also learned something from Tahleen during their Unity and she is now a tenth level Pa'u. Zhaan finally makes Tahleen see that her way is wrong.

Zhaan leaves her priest clothing behind and starts to leave the temple. John asks her why she is doing so.
"I will be a Pa'u again." she tells him. "But I am not today."
"It seems a shame" he tells her "to waste all those years of training."
"Hardly wasted." she tells him. She pauses for a moment, remembering. "They were the best cycles of my life."

Zhaan has used her abilities as a Pa'u several times, most significantly in That Old Black Magic. In that episode she also released her darker impulses and had difficulty controlling them.

Zhaan has previously only said that she was imprisoned for being an anarchist. (Premiere)

D'Argo, John, Rygel and Zhaan all had dreams about someone they cared for, though Zhaan initially denied it. Aeryn says she did not dream. Is she telling the truth or lying? If the truth, why not? If she is lying, who did she dream of?

Did Pilot dream? Of course, he may not even sleep.

What happens to Tahleen and the others? Is she in control of her impulses or will she succumb to them? Will she ever get back to Delvia to lead a revolution there?

Well, this was actually a pretty straightforward episode for Farscape but it did contain a good deal of new information. And, being Farscape, a lot of that information really isn't very nice.

The big revelation is, of course, Zhaan's past. When she told us way back in the Premiere that she was an anarchist she didn't entirely reveal the magnitude of what she had done. She killed the man she loved while having sex with him for bringing the Peacekeepers into her world. Ouch. No wonder she spent a few years insane.

A great deal of new information about the Delvians and the Pa'u is revealed. Apparently all of them reach a point where they have to overcome their darker impulses or go insane. Zhaan seems to be unique in that she was able to release her impulses and still maintain her sanity. This is what Tahleen wants, so she can return to Delvia and lead the revolution there. Of course, how much of what she wants is for the good of Delvia and how much it is for herself is never completely clear.

There is a telling scene when she and Zhaan are sharing Unity. When John is in Unity with Zhaan he describes it as being like "ten years of sex all at once". We can compare it to sex, but at levels us mere humans can only ever hope to dream of. Given this comparison, when Tahleen rips Zhaan's knowledge from her it can clearly be described as rape. And, if Unity is far beyond sex as we know it, then rape of this kind must be far worse than we can imagine.

Add this to the way Tahleen, through Hasko and Lorana, plays with the minds of the crew and the way she admits to having used Lorana, not to mention her killing of her own father, and it is obvious that Tahleen is not what we would call a nice person. She is a monster, and one has to wonder if Delvia would be any better off under her than it is under the Peacekeepers.

A comment must be made of the scenes with John and Alexandra. She is obviously someone he cared for very much. (He was planning to marry her, after all.) We can see how much he is hurt by his glimpses of "what might have been" when Lorana is playing with his memories. He has been hurt before when someone he loved was lost to him. When he was pulled away from Earth he lost everyone.

Overall a very good episode but not quite one of my favorites.