2.16 - The Locket

Aeryn leaves on a brief reconnaissance of a mysterious mist and returns having aged many years. She claims to have found a new life and has only returned to say goodbye but when John follows her on her return both of them may have to face the possibility of never seeing their friends again.

You're wearing the locket that Chiana gave you. The one that says "Sorry I smashed your Prowler". The one she stole from the last Commerce Planet we were on. - John Crichton
She stole it? - Aeryn Sun
Yes. - John Crichton
She told me she bought it. - Aeryn Sun
Well, that's Chi. - John Crichton

You're worse than me. I like that. - Dominar Rygel XVI

There is no dignity in what you are doing. - Ka D'Argo

You're not gonna change me. - Chiana
I'm only just beginning to realize that. - Ka D'Argo
You're pretty straight, huh? - Chiana
Yes. I am. - Ka D'Argo
We're not going to make it, are we? - Chiana

Oh damn, baby. I miss you already. Who else am I gonna tell this crap to? - John Crichton.

Um, Do you get a feeling? - John Crichton
About what? - Aeryn Sun
I don't know. I... I just have this feeling that something happened. - John Crichton
Between us? - Aeryn Sun
Yeah. - John Crichton
Well, what kind of something do you think happened? - Aeryn Sun
I don't know. - John Crichton
If something happened, I'm sure we would have remembered. - Aeryn Sun

Moya is floating in a dense cloud or mist. John and D'Argo are on Command and both are wondering where Aeryn is. Pilot is reporting that Moya's sensors are not working well and that he is having trouble navigating. Stark is on board and is listening.

Zhaan enters and, seeing Stark, greets him enthusiastically. Stark says he has returned the transport pod they leant to him after they escaped from the Gammak base and that he has important information for them. He has been there for several days and has been waiting for Zhaan to finish her meditations.

On Command, a signal from Aeryn is received asking permission to dock. Pilot reports that something is changing in the mist and that he can now detect a planet below them. Everyone goes to the hanger bay.

The transport pod lands and seems to be in very bad shape. Rygel speculates that it was in a battle and Chiana says she thinks they should not have let her enter the mist in the first place. The airlock opens but no one exits. After a bit, John takes a pulse pistol from D'Argo and enters.

The pod is in as bad shape inside as out and is completely overgrown with some sort of plant. Zhaan identifies it as a plant she gave Aeryn several days ago as a headache remedy but that the one she gave her was very small. John sees a body lying on the floor and, turning it over, reveals it to be a greatly aged Aeryn.

Aeryn comes to and, after asking how long she has been there, says she must return because the mist will close and her granddaughter, Ennixx, cannot survive without the pod. Everyone is confused and asks how she can have a granddaughter and Aeryn insists that she has lived on another planet for many years. John does not believe her and points to the locket she is wearing, a locket given to her by Chiana, but she continues to insist that she has lived a full life. She starts to struggle and try to get up and Stark opens his mask, bathing her in light. She calms down. John asks Zhaan if what Aeryn is saying can be true and Zhaan says she has examined her and that it is Aeryn but that she seems to have aged over 160 cycles. She also says it is very probably not reversible.

Later, John and Chiana are back on Command. Pilot examines the planet below them and says that it has a toxic atmosphere which cannot sustain life. He also says that he has examined the mist and that he can find nothing which would cause Aeryn to age rapidly but that the mist does seem to be contracting around them.

Later still, Rygel and Chiana enter the pod looking for anything Aeryn may have brought back with her. D'Argo catches them and, though Rygel claims innocence, chases them out and tells Chiana to go sit with Aeryn as she may be dying.

Chiana finds Aeryn in her cabin. Aeryn asks Chiana to help her sit up and then for some water. As Chiana turns, Aeryn injects her with something and Chiana passes out.

Aeryn goes to Pilot and tells him she is glad she got to see him one last time. She tells him to tell the others to stay out of the mist and leaves. Her transport pod leaves Moya.

Later, everyone is angry with Pilot for letting Aeryn go but Pilot points out that everyone is free to come or go as they please. John asks if there is anything in the mist or on the planet that could have caused Aeryn to age and Pilot says no. John then leaves, saying he is going to get Aeryn back.

John takes another pod down to the planet. There, he calls for Aeryn and she appears and tells him to go back. She comes up to him and he grabs her and tries to get her into the pod. Another woman appears and shoots at John, causing him to let go of Aeryn. The woman turns out to be Ennixx, Aeryn's granddaughter.

Aeryn tells Ennixx who John is and Ennixx is stunned, saying that no one else had ever believed Aeryn when she told them that there was a ship above them. She says that Aeryn has returned to this place every cycle looking for the opening so she could go back.

Aeryn tells John that the opening in the mist only occurs every 55 cycles and is only open for a short time. She tells him that he must go back now or be trapped. John reluctantly agrees and she tells him if he returns in eight arns, when the mist next opens, she will return with him.

Up on Moya, D'Argo checks on Chiana who is still feeling the effect of the knockout drug Aeryn gave her. D'Argo is upset with Chiana for trying to steal from Aeryn's pod but Chiana says that she is what she is and that D'Argo cannot change her. She also senses that D'Argo disapproves of her behavior.
"You're pretty straight, aren't you?" she asks him. He indicates agreement.
"We aren't going to make it, are we?" she asks, more sadly.

They are interrupted by Zhaan who tells them that John's pod is returning. John contacts them and tells them that Aeryn's story is apparently true; she does have a daughter and a life on the planet.

The pod jolts and Pilot tells them that the opening in the mist is closing and tells John to abort. John continues on his path and sees Moya briefly, then the mist suddenly closes and John's pod seems to bounce off of it. Then, the mist is gone and the pod is flying through a normal, starry sky. John tries to contact Moya but there is no reply.

On Moya, Stark finds Zhaan in her cabin praying for John and Aeryn. He enters and tells her he has an idea about the mist. He says that an Ancient named Delik had theorized the existence of what he calls "Center Halos"; areas of mist where all of the dimensions meet and time ceases to exist. He thinks that they have encountered such a place.

He asks if Zhaan will help him test this theory. He says that Delvians can sense the time dimension and Zhaan admits that it is something they strive for but that very few succeed. Stark offers to join minds with her and guide her. Zhaan at first is afraid that his mind will overwhelm hers but eventually agrees.

Stark and Zhaan join hands and touch their foreheads together. The room begins to shake violently and they begin to spin around each other. Suddenly, they are thrown apart. At first they seem to be moving in slow motion then Zhaan falls to the floor and Stark is thrown against the wall. Both seem to be in pain.

Pilot calls, panicked, and says that Moya's sensors went all over the scale then suddenly he froze and couldn't move. He asks if the others experienced the same thing and Zhaan says they did.

On a planet somewhere, Aeryn and Ennixx are planing trees. John, looking older, stands some distance away. Ennixx asks what is wrong with John and Aeryn says that something must have reminded him of his past. Ennixx is concerned and says that she has done everything she can for John but that he is still unhappy. Aeryn says that he just needs more time to adjust.

Ennixx asks why everyone from outside is unhappy and Aeryn says that it is because they weren't born here. Ennixx points out that Aeryn isn't unhappy and Aeryn says that maybe she just hides it better than the others.

John is seeing Scorpius and talking to him. Scorpius says he will get the wormhole information from John's mind but John says he will never get to him now. Ennixx comes up and asks if Scorpius is talking to him again and John says he is. Scorpius disappears.

On Moya, everyone is in Command and Stark is telling them about Center Halos. He says that time stops in a Center Halo and everyone realizes that time is not passing faster for Aeryn; it is passing much slower for them. Stark says that eventually the mist will harden and time will quit passing for them. They discuss leaving but decide to wait for the planet to appear again.

On the planet, we hear John singing. John and Aeryn, both old, appear walking among the trees. Aeryn asks why John was never able to accept living on the planet and John says that he is an astronaut and always will be. She then asks if being with her for 50 cycles was so bad and he says that she is the only thing that kept him from killing himself long ago.

Aeryn has a sudden pain and stumbles, dropping the locket she is wearing. John picks it up for her and asks why she still has a picture of her husband inside since he died 90 cycles ago. She says the locket has a picture of the only person she ever loved. John jokes with her, saying that it is his picture inside, not her husband's, and she tells him to open it and see for himself. He gives her the locket back and helps her back to the house.

On Moya, the time for the mist to open arrives and everyone gathers in Command.

Aeryn, John and Ennixx are on the barren planet. John opens a container holding his comm badge and starts trying to contact Pilot. Ennixx asks Aeryn to stay and Aeryn tells her that Peacekeepers are born in space and must die in space. Ennixx unhappily accepts this and leaves.

At first they cannot make contact and Aeryn and John are afraid that Moya left without them but eventually they get through. D'Argo offers to come down but John tells him they will make it on their own. He and Aeryn head towards the pod. Aeryn stumbles backwards but John catches her and helps her to the pod.

The pod arrives on Moya and everyone rushes to the hanger bay. They find John sitting at the bottom of the steps to the pod, holding Aeryn's body. She died on the way back to the ship.

Everyone is around the pod and John is explaining what has happened. John thinks that they can get out of the mist by leaving it at the same place they entered and that everything may go back to the way it was. Pilot says that he thinks the mist has been moving with them and that the back of Moya is at the very edge of the mist but that the mist has hardened around them and that they cannot move.

John suggests using Starburst to get out but Pilot says that Leviathans cannot Starburst in reverse. The suggestion is made that they go down to the planet but John tells them that there is nothing there; just a few planets and a handful of people. Eventually they decide to try a reverse Starburst.

John returns to the pod where Aeryn's body is lying on a cot. John starts talking to her and tells her that he loves her and misses her already. He sees the locket she is wearing and opens it, revealing his own picture inside. He breaks down in tears.

Pilot attempts to initiate Starburst but time begins to slow down on Moya and he is frozen in place. D'Argo tries to initiate from Command but he too becomes frozen. Chiana desperately calls to Zhaan and Zhaan tells Stark they will have to help John initiate Starburst. Since she once shared Unity with John, she and Stark together may be able to keep time running for him. They touch foreheads as they did before.

Zhaan mentally contacts John and tells him what is happening. John, with difficulty, makes it to Command and initiates Starburst. Moya Starbursts backwards out of the mist.

Aeryn and John, both young again, Chiana and D'Argo are on Command looking at a cloud of mist on the forward screen. Pilot says the mist seems to be harmless and John says they may be able to use it to hide from the Peacekeepers. Chiana seems to be concerned but Aeryn says she will fly a transport pod into the mist to check it out. Picking up a small plant, which she says Zhaan gave her for her headaches, Aeryn starts to leave Command. Pilot starts moving Moya towards the mist.

Zhaan runs from her cabin, yelling for Pilot to stop. She runs into Stark, who is also concerned about what is happening, and the two of them run to Command. There, Stark is briefly confused by the fact that Aeryn and John are both alive and young but says that they should not enter the mist. Zhaan says that they have had a vision of danger within the mist and Chiana says that she thinks there is something wrong with it too. Everyone else seems dubious but John tells Pilot to avoid the mist and they fly away.

Later, Stark and Zhaan are walking the corridors trying to determine why they remember what happened and no one else does. They decide that they returned to a time before they entered the mist and the others remember nothing because it never happened. The two of them remember it because they were joined in Unity at the time. Stark then says that the Center Halo may be a connection between different universes and that somewhere Ennixx still exists. He then says that he needs to tell D'Argo why he is here.

The two of them go to D'Argo and Stark gives him a photo of a person who he says is part of a lot of slaves being sold in the next few days. The person is identified as Jothee, son of Ka D'Argo.

D'Argo becomes quite angry and attacks Stark for not telling him sooner. Stark says they have several days and that they will come up with a plan to rescue Jothee. Somewhat satisfied, D'Argo leaves.

Elsewhere, John enters the maintenance bay where he finds Aeryn working. He, somewhat uncertainly, says that he has a feeling that something happened between them but that he can't remember what it was. She says that if something did happen then she is sure they would have remembered it.

He asks what she is doing and she tells him that she found the locket that Chiana gave her lying in a transport pod and it has apparently fused shut. She is digging at it with a small tool and John asks if she had put anything inside and she says no.

The locket opens, revealing a few flakes of something. She dumps them into her palm and the two of them examine them for a moment but cannot determine what they were. She drops the flakes to the floor. The two watch the flakes fall then look up and find themselves staring at each other.

Stark escaped from the Gammak Base with the others in The Hidden Memory. He has not been seen since then and no mention of him or his disappearance has been made.

Chiana stole Aeryn's Prowler in Taking the Stone but that may not be the incident referenced here.

Before attempting Starburst, Pilot prays to Kahaynu; revealed as one of Moya's creators in I Do, I Think.

John and Zhaan shared Unity in Rhapsody in Blue.

D'Argo has mentioned his missing son many times but it has been a key plot point in They've Got a Secret and The Flax.

What did Chiana do to Aeryn's Prowler?

How did the other inhabitants of the planet Aeryn lived on get there? Had all of them been trapped in the mist?

The Locket is not one of Farscape's better episodes. In fact, I would probably have to rate this one as the weakest episode of the season. There are so many problems here it is hard to decide where to begin, so let's start with the overall episode itself.

The main failing of this episode is that it contains a total "reset" at the end. Everything that happens within it is rendered meaningless because, by the end, it never happened. One of the strengths of Farscape has always been that actions have consequences and that people have to live with those consequences. Here, everything is made meaningless at the end. It may as well have ended with "and it was all a dream".

This episode simply screamed Star Trek. From technobabble and previously unknown phenomena (Center Halos?) to previously unknown abilities of equipment or individuals (reverse Starburst? Delvians sensing the time stream?) to that previously mentioned reset at the end, it certainly is quite different from the standard episode.

The main point of the episode seems to be to establish that, yes, Aeryn loves John and John loves Aeryn. Of course, anyone who has been paying attention over the last season or so already knows this. The only effect this episode has on that is that this is the first time that John has actually said "I love you". Of course, he said that to someone who was already dead in a time line that no longer exists so the importance of it is somewhat moot.

In the same way, Aeryn implicitly says the same thing by telling John that the picture in the locket was of the only person she ever loved and we later see that it is of John. Of course, she is already dead when this discovery is made and it too was in that same non-existent time line.

Even if we accept the episode there are problems. For example, we are told the opening appears every 55 cycles and that Aeryn has been there for 160 cycles. This means that Aeryn missed two earlier chances to leave. Why? Was she that dedicated to whoever she was married to there? Who was this person anyway and where did he come from?

Or, everyone lives on the "favored planet" but the opening appears above another, inhospitable planet. At the end, Aeryn and John go to the inhospitable planet so they can return to Moya. Ennixx goes with them. How does Ennixx plan to get back to the favored planet? Aeryn and John leave in the pod. Did Ennixx come in another ship? (There were two pods on the planet; Aeryn's and John's. It appears that they returned to Moya in Aeryn's pod since it was overgrown with the plant. Maybe Ennixx was flying John's pod.)

Or, how about the fact that Aeryn and John are on the planet together for 55 cycles and they never once let the other know of their feelings? These two do have some commitment problems, don't they?

Then, there is the fact that Aeryn chooses to do her reconnaissance of the mist in a transport pod instead of her Prowler. Or, that John chooses to follow her in another pod instead of his module. Of course, if she doesn't take the pod we don't have the scene where the plant has overgrown the pod and John can't make his initial discovery of her lying on the floor.

Of course, Aeryn has the locket because Chiana "broke" the Prowler so maybe that is the explanation. But, when did Chiana break the Prowler? We know Chiana stole the Prowler in Taking the Stone. It was undergoing maintenance in Picture If You Will and Aeryn was working on it (using a part from John's module) in My Three Crichtons. Either it has been broken since Taking the Stone or Chiana broke it again.

For that matter, why is Aeryn wearing the locket in the first place? Have we ever seen Aeryn wearing any type of jewelry at any point in the series? None that I can remember. (In fact, it looks (to me anyway) as if Claudia Black has pierced ears but the character Aeryn never wears earrings.) Why did she suddenly decide to wear the locket? And for 215 years! Because Chiana gave it to her? Aeryn never seemed sentimental about such a thing before. Of course, she has to be wearing the locket so John can open it and find his picture, making it just another contrived plot point.

We'll ignore other bits of ridiculousness like the fact that Stark and Zhaan remember what happened even though no one else does. Their explanation of how they remember (or of how they sensed the time stream in the first place) comes across as contrived. What is bad is that Justin Monjo has written much better episodes than this one (The Flax, A Human Reaction and The Hidden Memory, to name only a few; he is actually one of Farscape's most prolific writers) so it is hard to figure out what happened here.

My only guess is that someone wanted to do a John-and-Aeryn-get-together episode without really letting it happen. While many of the scenes were extremely well done and incredibly effective (John holding Aeryn's body after arriving on Moya or his breakdown upon realizing who was in the locket after it was too late and the scene where Aeryn stops to say goodbye to Pilot all come to mind) the fact that everything is erased by the end of the episode removes any impact the scenes may have had.

Fortunately, there were a few bits that salvaged the episode from the complete bottom. We finally learn what happened to Stark after The Hidden Memory; he was given a transport pod and left. We also finally get information on D'Argo's son; something that will probably be driving the plot for the next several episodes.

Another more subtle point is made in the confrontation between D'Argo and Chiana. D'Argo is angry with Chiana for continuing her thieving ways and Chiana doesn't seem to be inclined to change. As Chiana herself admits, this is likely to cause problems for them in the future. Yes, their actual confrontation no longer happened but the underlying emotions are probably still there. This conflict (like Aeryn and John's feelings for each other) is almost certain to reappear in the future.

Overall, I rank The Locket as the weakest episode in the second season and it probably falls into my list of overall weakest episodes. The only impact of this episode is the return of Stark and the revelation of the discovery of D'Argo's son. Beyond that, unless you are an incontrovertible Aeryn/John shipper, I would say to skip this one.