(no subject)

[allisnow]

Overall a strong episode, if a little disjointed between the A (bomb threat) and B (Charin's sickness) plots. Carson and Teyla seemed kind of cut off from the rest of the events of the episode, at least up there until the end, but what are you going to do?

I love the scenes between Kavanaugh and Weir, because I love confrontation - especially between the 'good guys' -- and Kavanaugh is such a delightful asshole. He was too obvious to have been the operative, though, and I don't think he would have the guts to do something so... gutsy.

I think it's interesting that Kavanaugh, who is such a spineless creep, got down on Lizzie for being, well, equally spineless. And I don't think what he said was completely unfounded, either. I don't think Elizabeth is the best choice for the leader in Atlantis, and that might be unpopular, but there it is. She worked for the UN, she's a diplomat, and while her appointment to the position may have made sense when they thought that there might actually be Ancients living in Atlantis, the actual situation with the Wraith (and the Genii, and all the other threats in Pegasus) requires someone a lot stronger.

Not to say that Lizzie doesn't occassionally show some backbone, but Kavanaugh was correct when he said that she makes decisions based on personal feelings rather than rationality. Not all the time, but often enough for it to be a problem.

There is a threat from the bad guys, people might be killed, and the good guys may have to do something bad to prevent it from happening. If we do this bad thing, do we become bad guys ourselves? This is a real-life quandry that has actually been coming up in the news, and it's mirrored in this episode. Lizzie was foolish to think that she could 'negotiate' the codes out of Kavanaugh, and her comment that he was being 'less than cooperative' made me snort. Of course if he was the one who caused all this to happen he's also willing to get himself blown up, and as such I wouldn't think he'd be willing to have a friendly chat with Lizzie about his plot simply because she asked him to. Would Lizzie have OKed actual torture to get information out of a suspect? Not in a million years. What she did, at the eleventh hour and everybody staring at her, waiting for her to make a decision, was tell Ronon to give the weasel a scare. And yet at the end of the episode, she's all but comparing herself - and the others in the city - to the Wraith because she was prepared to use violence to save lives. And let us not forget that at the end it was violence (Ronon smacking Caldwell-Gou'ald around, and then Shep tasering him silly) that got the codes that saved the city.

In the 'interrogation' with Weir, Kavanaugh came pretty close to saying that she didn't have the balls to command Atlantis. He's an asshole, but I do think that Lizzie needs to grow a pair if she's going to keep them all in one piece.

Other things:

Teyla singing, hee! She really does have a nice voice, although I wished they'd focused more on her singing and less on the instrumentals. Although they made a nice counterpoint to the action scenes.

Lord of the Rings -- geeks all, science and military!

Novak -- hiccup!

And are Cadman and Carson cute or are they cute? Although why did Cadman have her hair down? Isn't that against the - dun dun dun! - regs?

Okay, that's all for now. Maybe something else later if it comes to me.

ETA: Man, I've seen so many things said on other journals that I totally disagree with and want to jump into the fray... but I'm not going to... la dee da... hmmhmmmmhm... *sits on hands*

Comments

[pixiesio.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they've made Liz a bit too "touchy feely" for the job she has to do, and she'll have to suck it up a bit more to be a leader that people (fans and the chars on the show ;) can believe in. Not to say that the chars don't appreciate her, but she needs to have a slightly harder edge. Hopefully hints of later eps will be correct and "fix" that. ;) And go figure, this all is coming from someone who likes Liz. ;)

As for Carson and Cadman, mega-cuteness. I do love how she snarks so well at Rodney.

And your ETA? C'mon, ya know ya wanna...;)

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

Well I understand that Lizzie is supposed to be the touchy-feely liberal, and I wouldn't expect her to pick up her chair and start beating Kavanaugh over the head with it (as fun as that might be to watch). But one would think that after a year and a half... I dunno. Part of me thinks that Lizzie is in over her head here, but that might just be the angst whore part ;) And I like Lizzie too, in my way... I just think she needs to grow a pair or go home *g*

Re: my ETA -- of course I WANT to... that's the problem! But I really don't want to get into an argument about what constitutes 'torture' on someone else's journal. Mine, sure ;) But someone else's is different.