2.15 - Won't Get Fooled Again

John wakes up in a hospital on Earth, recovering from the crash of the Farscape module. Apparently he has never left Earth and everything that has happened has been a dream. On the other hand, if this is Earth, why does his doctor look exactly like Aeryn, why is the Farscape project suddenly being run by someone who looks suspiciously like Rygel and since when did Luxans become IASA astronauts? And, what is Scorpius doing here?

What planet are you from? - Unidentified Woman
Not this one... - John Crichton

On Earth, psychiatrists don't come in blue. - John Crichton
Do you have a problem with people of color? - Dr. Jean Kaminski
I have a contextual problem. You're an alien. - John Crichton
Yes, that's true. But I do have a green card. - Dr. Jean Kaminski

Gary Ragel has tentacles! - John Crichton
Yeah? - D.K.
What? He looks normal to you? - John Crichton
It's a lifestyle choice. Anyway, his looks are the least of his problems. He's a jerk. - D.K.

One thing you've got to know, my man. There is always time for beer. - Gary Ragel

I got a new theory on life. You wanna hear it? - John Crichton
Oh yeah, man. Lay it on me. Lay it on me. - Gary Ragel
Life sucks. Nothing matters. So, screw it all; let's party! - John Crichton
I am so there! - Gary Ragel

Don't look at me! You're the one who wanted a child; I wanted a terrier! He can't fetch a ball, he can't get my slippers, he can't even land a damn module! - Jack Crichton

Freeze! You're under arrest! You have the right to the remains of a silent attorney! If you cannot afford one, tough noogies! You can make one phone call; I recommend Trixie, 976-Triple 5-LOVE. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you? Well do you, punk? - Police Officer Bialar Crais

Lately, I've been thinking about you in a very different way and I was wondering if you would mind participating with me in a little Luxan bonding ritual. What we need are some chains, my Qualta Blade, a little squirt of lustra oil and, oh, Chiana. - Ka D'Argo
Chiana? - John Crichton
Yeah. She wants to watch. - Ka D'Argo

The space shuttle Collumroy launches into Earth orbit. There, it releases the experimental spacecraft Farscape 1 which is piloted by astronaut John Crichton. John speaks briefly with D.K. in mission control and starts his flight but it is interrupted by the sudden appearance of an electromagnetic wave ahead of the ship. D.K. and John's father, astronaut Jack Crichton, yell for him to abort but the energy wave hits the ship and John loses control. He blacks out.

Some time later, John awakens in a hospital bed; several electrodes attached to his head. His father is in the room talking on a cell phone and is saying that there is nothing else they can do and that they will just have to wait for John to come out of it on his own. John pulls the electrodes from his head and sits up, to the relieved surprise of his father. Jack attempts to hug John but John grabs him and throws him to the floor.

Several orderlies rush in and pull John from his father and wrestle him back into the bed. John struggles but a doctor enters and gives him an injection. As he passes out, John notices that the doctor looks like Aeryn.

Later, John is awake again and strapped into a chair. The doctor is here and examining him. John, addressing the doctor as Aeryn, says the last he remembers is that he was on a commerce planet and asks what is happening.

The doctor says her name is Bettina Fairchild and that John has been in a coma for the past week since the crash of the Farscape module. John asks if "they" are watching them and Dr. Fairchild notes that he is seemingly paranoid.

John pulls himself together a bit and tells her that he had a weird dream; that he was on a spaceship full of aliens and that he attacked his father because he thought he was an alien too. He also says that "Aeryn" is the name of an old girlfriend who looks like Dr. Fairchild. He asks if he can apologize to his father and Dr. Fairchild says he can do so personally. She has the orderly release him.

John leaves and starts walking through the hospital. Telling himself "Won't get fooled again" he suddenly ducks into a women's restroom, much to the surprise of the woman inside. Apologizing, he backs out saying he thought it was co-ed.
"Co-ed?" the woman asks. "What planet are you from?"
"Not this one..." mutters John as he backs out into the hallway.

Spotting someone with a paper, John asks if they are done with it and has it given to him. Reading, he notes that it is reporting a sixth alligator victim and remembers that there were only five the week before.
"They're getting the details right." he says.

John enters the waiting room where Jack is waiting for him. He apologizes to his father but Jack tells him he understands and says he remembers how he felt when John's mother died. John starts to react to this but is interrupted by the arrival of D.K. who greets him enthusiastically.

D.K. says he is glad John is awake because he is getting a lot of heat because of the failure of the Farscape project and tells them that a lot of people at IASA are blaming the failure on pilot error. Jack comes to John's defense saying that the failure was the lack of warning of the electromagnetic wave. D.K. seems to accept this but says he needs John to help defend them but that Dr. Fairchild will not release him without a clean psychiatric report. He needs to go see a Dr. Jean Kaminski.

John arrives at Dr. Kaminski's office to find it empty. While waiting, he complains of it being hot then dials the phone and orders a pizza.
"Man," he mutters to himself, "these guys are good."

He is interrupted from further experimentation by the arrival of Dr. Kaminski, who looks exactly like Zhaan in a business suit. When he questions her she does not seem to see anything unusual about her color, does not know who "Zhaan" is and when he asks if they have ever shared unity together she thinks it is a euphemism for sex and says they have not. He tries to get her to share unity with him, placing her hands on his head and his on her's, but nothing happens. John sits down on a sofa, dejected. Dr. Kaminski asks what he was expecting to happen and he responds that he was hoping for an ally. He then says that he has no allies, only enemies and they haven't revealed themselves yet.
"The Ancients?" John asks himself. "Nah, they picked my brain already. Maldis? Uh-uh. Not Gothic enough, not his style." He pauses. "Delvians. Yeah. Occam's Razor; Taleen and her wacky bunch." He looks up and, in a sing-song voice, says "Come out, come out, wherever you are, and see the young man who fell from a star."
Dr. Kaminski watches him for a moment, then pages her receptionist. "Kim, cancel my three o'clock appointment." She looks up at John. "In fact, cancel the rest of my day."

Some time later, John is walking with D.K. through a parking garage. John tells D.K. that he told Dr. Kaminski whatever she wanted to hear; that the stress from the crash was making him see things and that she gave him a clean psyche report. He is surprised, he would have locked himself up.

They are interrupted by the arrival of a convertible which races into the garage and performs a 180° skid into a parking space. John is stunned when D'Argo, dressed in stylish Earth clothing, gets out and greets two women who happen to be walking by. D.K. identifies him as Gary Ragel and says he is the latest hot-shot to graduate from IASA astronaut training. He doesn't seem to see anything odd about the fact that Ragel has tentacles.

Ragel sees them and comes over. He ignores D.K., except to give him a hard time, then invites John to go out for a beer. D.K. says they don't have time but John asks Ragel for the keys and heads for the car. Ragel stops to talk to D.K. before following.
"There is always time for beer." he tells him.

Later, John and Ragel are in a bar. Both have apparently been drinking for a while as both are somewhat drunk. John is telling Ragel that he thinks he must be in some sort of alien experiment designed to see how he will react and that he is going to beat them by not reacting. Ragel thinks this sounds like a good idea and calls for another beer. John turns to observe the jazz band which is playing in the club and suddenly notices that Pilot is playing the bongos and Scorpius is on drums.

He is interrupted from any further reaction by the arrival of Dr. Fairchild. He invites her to their table and introduces her to Ragel. She looks at Ragel for a moment then straddles his lap and begins to kiss him laviciously. Stunned, John asks if they knew each other and they both say no, they just met. Ragel asks John to get them all a beer. They return to kissing each other. John stares in disbelief for a few seconds then gets up and goes to the bar.

There, he finds Scorpius. Looking around, he sees that Scorpius is also playing drums. He comments on this to the Scorpius at the bar and Scorpius replies that he is the only person there who can help him.

John realizes that this Scorpius is the only person he has yet met who does not have another name and who does not seem to be playing a role and accuses Scorpius of being the one behind what is happening. Scorpius denies it but before he can explain suddenly says he has to go. He gets up and leaves. John tries to follow but it suddenly seems as if he is paralyzed. He struggles for a moment then falls to a table, unable to move and staring at the Scorpius playing the drums.

Some time later, John is back in Dr. Kaminski's office. He tells her that she isn't Zhaan and she isn't a psychiatrist but that she is the best he has. He then says that he knows that someone is trying to drive him crazy and that it must be Scorpius but he can't understand why Scorpius would want him to think he had never left Earth and that Moya and the others were just a dream. He also says that he could have almost believed it, even believed that Aeryn was Dr. Fairchild, but that after that things became too weird.
"It's strange." he tells her. "I miss Moya. A ship full of aliens becomes so normal."

Dr. Kaminski points out that there is another possibility and John agrees. He could still be on Moya and has finally snapped.

Later still, John is on a balcony observing a space shuttle on a launch pad. His father and D.K. show up and say that a new director has been assigned to the Farscape project, a Douglas Logan. They also say he is very tough and difficult to deal with. John describes Scorpius and asks if that is what Logan looks like but neither of them have ever met him. John says he will go talk to Logan and leaves. His father and D.K. follow.

John arrives at Logan's office only to find that "Logan" looks exactly like Rygel wearing a business suit and riding a motorized wheelchair. John greets him enthusiastically and takes his cigar then sits across the desk from him. He picks up a stack of business cards labeled "Douglas Logan" and begins flipping them at Logan, repeating the name under his breath each time. (He continues this throughout the rest of the scene.)

Logan berates John for a bit then announces that he has authorized a second attempt at the Farscape project and that he wants John to pilot it, saying that people like come-from-behind wins and it would be good publicity. He also says that if John won't do it he will get Gary Ragel to fly the mission. John realizes that what is happening is that someone wants him to refly the mission so they can see how he created the wormhole in the first place. He starts yelling for Scorpius and tells him he won't do it. The others ask who "Scorpius" is but John leaves.

Outside, both his father and D.K. catch up with him and tell him to apologize to Logan. At this point Logan arrives, still yelling. John pulls Logan from the cart he is in, spins him through the air a few times then throws him off the stairwell. His father and D.K. look at him in shock. John says that the bad part is that both of them are looking at him exactly the way he thinks they would. He tells them to go away and leaves.

He finds his way to the bar and finds Ragel and Dr. Fairchild in a booth, Dr. Fairchild cuddling with another woman. John sits down and the other woman is revealed to be Chiana, who Dr. Fairchild introduces as Jessica. Dr. Fairchild starts to cuddle with Ragel and Jessica starts to come on to John, telling him that she "likes astronauts". John calls her an astronaut groupie.

John suggests that all of them go for a ride. He is interrupted by Scorpius, from the next booth, who says that they need to talk. John asks the others if they can see Scorpius and they all say no. They all leave.

Everyone winds up in Ragel's car; John and Ragel in the front and Fairchild and Jessica in the back. John announces his new theory on life; since nothing is real nothing matters and they should just party. Everyone agrees with that sentiment.

At this point, Scorpius suddenly lands on the car's windshield. He again tells John that they need to talk but John turns on the windshield wipers to try to get rid of him. He then turns the car into the path of an oncoming truck and there is a crash.

John wakes up on the hospital bed again. Dr. Fairchild, her hair done up in enormous rollers, appears and starts to examine him. He asks what happened and she tells him that all of them are fine; apparently they were very lucky. She then says he has another visitor and leaves.

John asks who the visitor is, speculating that it is Crais or a Sheyang, but is stunned when his mother enters the room; mainly because his mother died five years before. She comes towards him and tries to comfort him and, seemingly almost against his will, he lets her do so. She then starts to talk about how he has lost so much of his innocence and how he can't sleep at night because he has killed. John pulls away from her and says there is no way she could know that and starts to back away.
"Where are you going?" she asks, hurt.
"Away from something that isn't my mother." he responds.

He finds his way to the bar where he sees Scorpius. He tries to talk to him but Scorpius acts as if he doesn't know who he is. John realizes that this is the drummer Scorpius and not the real one. He is interrupted by the arrival of his mother, this time in a hospital gown and pushing a rack holding an IV bottle. She is obviously in bad shape. She begs for John to stay with her "this time" and to be with her when she dies. John, extremely distraught, attempts to back away but falls to the floor. In tears, he begs for whoever is responsible to not do this to him. His mother continues to beg him to stay with her.

Some time later, John is wandering down the street and is seemingly in shock. He is spotted by a police officer who happens to be Bialar Crais. Police officer Crais recognizes him as "that astronaut" and, thinking that John has had too many to drink, tries to get him off the street and to somewhere where he can sleep it off. When he touches John however, John slams him against a nearby car and hits him several times. He then takes Crais' gun and runs off.

He finds his way to Douglas Logan's office where Logan, D.K., his father, Dr. Fairchild and Dr. Kaminski are standing around the desk talking. They all say they need to talk to John about his future but John goes to examine several objects on a nearby shelf, including a picture of everyone standing around the desk in the same position they were when he first entered the room and a picture of Scorpius holding a gold record. John says he has no future unless Scorpius stops whatever it is he is doing because he is about to go insane. When they ask who Scorpius is he says they must be in on the plot and, pulling the gun he took from Crais, attempts to shoot his father.

The gun fires but his father is unaffected. He then shoots at D.K. and twice at Logan, all to no effect. The others then ignore him and start discussing plans for lunch. John shoots several more times, still with no effect, then screams.

He suddenly finds himself back in the hospital again and back on the examining table, to which he is handcuffed. Crais appears, now carrying a small dog, and accuses him of assaulting a police officer, theft and attempted murder. He then gives John a bill for twenty-nine dollars and forty cents and leaves.

Scorpius then appears and John asks if he has come to release him but Scorpius says that he isn't the one responsible for what is happening to John. He walks to an x-ray display on the wall of the room and flips it on, revealing an x-ray of a Scarran.

Scorpius says the Scarrans captured John on a commerce planet. They wanted him because they knew Scorpius was after him and wanted to know why. What he is experiencing is a standard Scarran technique in which they use bizarre experiences to totally break a person's mind.

Scorpius also reveals why he is here. When John was in the Aurora Chair, he implanted a neural chip containing a clone of his personality in John's head. The main purpose of the neural clone is to search John's mind for wormhole information but it also functions to keep John safe and as a fail-safe to prevent John from harming Scorpius. This is why John was unable to harm Scorpius on the royal planet. After thinking a bit John starts referring to the neural clone as "Harvey".

John asks how he can know Harvey is telling the truth and Harvey points out that John has been hot and sweating the whole time he has been here; a natural reaction to the heat a Scarran produces. He also says that John still has his pulse pistol since it is no threat to the Scarran. He starts to say something else but before he can finish he has to leave as the Scarran is returning. John yells after him but he disappears.

The x-ray of the Scarran seems to come alive and for the first time we see the real environment in which John is being held. The Scarran approaches John, who is lying in some type of chair, and John passes out.

When he awakens, he is once again handcuffed to the hospital bed, this time with his legs raised and spread by the stirrups normally used for gynecological exams. Zhaan stands between them rubbing the inside of his legs. Aeryn stands to one side wearing a nurses outfit and playing with a piece of medical equipment while Chiana stands to the other wearing a "school girl's" outfit. All three start making suggestive comments to him. They are interrupted by the arrival of Rygel, wearing full leather fetish gear, who starts whipping him. John manages to get his hands free and knocks out Rygel.

John leaves the room and meets D.K. being brought in in a wheelchair. D.K. has apparently cut both of his wrists and blood splashes everywhere. He blames everything on John, who staggers backwards in disbelief. Two orderlies pick him up, put him in an oversized baby carriage and wheel him into the next room.

There, both his father and mother are having a fight. His mother is trying to defend him but his father says he didn't want a child, he wanted a terrier. Saying that John couldn't even land the module right, he grabs the carriage and throws John out the window.

John lands on a sidewalk and a police car driven by police officer Crais arrives. Crais, for some reason, is wearing a pair of red pumps. Crais reads John a rather odd set of rights and asks if he understands them. When John says he does not Crais says that means he can't arrest him and opens the door to the police car, hitting John in the head and knocking him out.

John awakens in the convertible with Gary Ragel. Ragel, in a lisping and effeminate voice, says he has been thinking of John in a very different way lately and asks if he will participate in a "Luxan bonding ritual" with him. His hands drop out of sight and John's eyes roll up into his head.

John opens his eyes to find himself in Dr. Kaminski's office. Dr. Kaminski sits beside him while his mother, wearing a robe and negligee, reads a book from the shelf. She says the book is interesting and that she is fascinated by the Oedipus complex. She leans close to John and suggestively asks if he will help her understand it. John flinches away and covers his face with his hands.

When he removes them he finds he is once again in the bar, this time on the dance floor. Dr. Fairchild and Jessica are dancing and Ragel keeps yelling for him to "boogie or die"! John looks around in confusion, on the edge of a total breakdown.

Suddenly, he hears Aeryn calling. She enters the room and shoots the disco ball hanging from the ceiling. It shatters and the room is suddenly silent and empty. She comes over and helps John to his feet.

He asks what is happening and she says he is still on the commerce planet in some type of holographic chamber. She destroyed the projector. She also says that Scorpius was behind it and that she has killed him.

"Scorpius?" says John. "Was he behind this? That's interesting."
Aeryn suddenly becomes interested. "Why is that interesting?"

John suddenly becomes suspicious and says he will tell her later. She insists that he tell her then and John refuses. She tells him that he can stay there then and leaves. The dance floor and music return and Ragel is once again yelling for John to boogie. John looks up at the disco ball.
"Hey you!" he shouts. "Kiss my..."

John is suddenly frozen in a spasm. He sees images of all he has gone through for the last few hours; Ragel in the car, Crais trying to arrest him, D.K. with his wrists slashed and his mother dying.

Once again, we are in the real world. John stands in the middle of an open chamber where the Scarran, Grath, is manipulating controls. Grath says that John's brain wave patterns are becoming irregular and increases the power on the device he is using. Suddenly, John spasms and falls to the floor. Grath looks at him and announces that John is dead. He starts making a report into the machine.

Suddenly, John's eyes open. He glances about then he reaches for his pulse pistol. He manipulates something on it and the pistol begins to whine.

Grath continues to make his report but then becomes aware of the whine. He goes to stand over John, who suddenly leaps up and shoves the pistol into the Scarran's mouth. John leaps to one side as the pulse pistol overloads and explodes. The headless body of the Scarran falls to the ground.

Scorpius appears and tells John he did well. John asks what happened and Scorpius tells him that he stopped John's brain functions for a few microts in order to distract the Scarran and that he will now be returning to the neural chip.
"Don't get too comfortable." John tells him. "I'm gonna get that chip out of my head."
"There is no chip in your head, John." says Scorpius with a smile.

John says there is but suddenly seems to have trouble talking and then doesn't seem to be able to remember what he was talking about.
"You were saying?" asks Scorpius.
"What am I saying?" says John. "I'm..." He trails off in confusion.
"As it should be." says Scorpius. "I won't trouble you again." He pauses, then adds "Until I need to. There's an exit to your left which will no doubt take you back to the surface of this commerce planet. I leave you to your ship mates, John. But rest assured, I'll be with you always; keeping you safe."

The scenes of the shuttle launching into space and of the original Farscape project experiment are from Premiere.

John's comment that his father had "alien goo" inside of him and several other events early in the episode all come from the time he found himself inside the artificial environment created by the Ancients in A Human Reaction. There, an alien took the form of his father and when John ripped its shirt off it revealed some "alien goo". One of his early indications that something was wrong was when all of the newspapers and magazines were out of date. Later, he realized that everything in the environment was someplace he had been before and proved this by opening the door to a women's restroom, someplace he had never been, and finding nothing but an orange light inside.

When John is speculating as to who is responsible for what is happening to him, he gives several possibilities. The Ancients appeared in A Human Reaction. Maldis appears in That Old Black Magic and Picture If You Will. Taleen and her Delvian followers are from Rhapsody in Blue.

When Dr. Fairchild tells John he has a visitor he asks if it is a Sheyang. Sheyang's appeared in PK Tech Girl and (very) briefly in Dream a Little Dream.

The Ancients implanted the wormhole information in John's mind during the time of A Human Reaction though we do not actually see this occur and John was unaware of it himself.

Scorpius implanted the neural chip in John's head during one of his sessions in the Aurora Chair in Nerve or The Hidden Memory though again neither we nor John were aware of this at the time.

The Scarrans learned of Scorpius' interest in John during his time on the royal planet in the Look at the Princess trilogy (A Kiss is But a Kiss, I Do, I Think and The Maltese Crichton). It was during the last episode that John was unable to kill Scorpius when he had the opportunity. This was the first appearance of the Scarrans.

John has been seeing visions of Scorpius since at least Crackers Don't Matter.

John has named Scorpius' neural clone "Harvey". This is the name of the invisible rabbit that only Jimmy Stewart can see in the 1950 movie Harvey.

Won't Get Fooled Again is the title of the hit song by The Who. It is most recently famous as the opening theme for the TV series CSI: Miami.

How did Grath manage to capture John in the first place?

Won't Get Fooled Again is an exercise in bizzareness. If you are willing to go with the flow of this episode it can be quite entertaining. But if you don't buy into the concept you will probably find it weird and tune out by the first commercial break. This is one of those polarizing episodes; almost everyone either loves it or hates it with very few people in the middle.

It is hard to say much about an episode like this since so little of what has happened is "real" but there were one or two important points. The first, and biggest, is that we now know why John has been having visions of Scorpius from time to time and why he was unable to kill Scorpius when he had the chance. When John was in the Aurora Chair, Scorpius implanted a neural chip in his head. The chip contains a copy of Scorpius' personality, a "neural clone", which has been searching through John's brain in order to find the wormhole information hidden there. From time to time John's consciousness has become aware of this personality and produces his visions.

However, it seems as if the neural clone is capable of doing more than simply search for wormhole information. Harvey, as John has named the clone, admits that part of its job is to keep John safe and it apparently can control his actions to some extent as well. It certainly prevented John from harming Scorpius when he had the chance. It also seems that it is able to erase knowledge from John's mind and can even kill him, as it did briefly in order to fool the Scarran. The full abilities of the clone are unknown and if it is able to take full control of John's actions as well as prevent them then it may prove a danger to the rest of the crew. John may no longer remember it but the presence of Harvey will certainly have an effect in times to come.

Also, John is more and more becoming a center of attention. First Scorpius was after him and now the Scarrans are after him as well. Like it or not, he has gained another set of enemies. And the Scarrans are probably not going to be too happy with John, seeing that he has killed every Scarran he has met so far.

We also learn a bit more of John's background in this episode. It seems that John's mother died several years ago and that he wasn't there when she died. John seems to feel some guilt about this but how this will affect him in the future is unknown.

There is one other thing we have learned about John. At one point, he tells "Dr. Kaminski" that he misses Moya; that a ship full of aliens has become normal. It seems as if he prefers that enviornment to the one in which he now finds himself. True, the "Earth" he is on is a simulation with the goal of driving him insane, but it seems as if John is starting to think of Moya as home instead of Earth. The opening theme each week tells us that John is "just looking for a way home". But now, after all he has been through and all he has experienced, if he does find a way home, will he take it?

Overall though, Won't Get Fooled Again is simply a fun romp which gave the writers and actors a chance to try something different. It can be a fun episode, but only if you are willing to go along with the concept.