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dr-futbol-blog · 1 year ago

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The Storm/The Eye, Pt. 5

Believing that Weir is dead and McKay is in mortal peril, Sheppard proceeds to go on what amounts to a rampage.

The first scene of The Eye (S01E10) seems to continue the show's meta-commentary. McKay, brave toaster that he is and possibly at least partially motivated by the desperation that they can all hear in Sheppard's voice over the intercom, places himself between the gun and Elizabeth. The dialogue tells us what's going on (with the show and where it's heading):

Kolya: Sheppard put you in this position, not me. McKay: You can't do this. This is crazy. You need her! Sora: She's right, Commander. McKay: I'm not kidding. There are codes required to activate the shield – codes that only she knows. You can't do it without her! Well, you can't do this without me either. I mean, we're a package deal. You take us out of the equation and-and-and-and you don't have an end game.

The fact that Weir and McKay are a package deal is emphasized by their placement, McKay coming to stand in front of Weir and obstructing her. That is to say, the show needs to imply attraction between Weir and Sheppard to be able to explore the relationship between Sheppard and McKay in subtext, to blur the lines between the characters and their relationships. The first they could easily have done without the latter, but the latter they could never have pulled off without the former (re: the shows ties to the USAF and DADT still being a thing when it aired). It offers the cover of plausible deniability while allowing people attuned to homoerotic subtext to easily be able to recognize the narrative undercurrent.

Again, note that McKay is lying to save Weir, claiming that he absolutely needs her help to save the city. Also, it's Kolya mentioning Sheppard by name that initially makes McKay dive in front of the gun. He says "Sheppard put you into this position, not me" which has the implication that if McKay allowed Kolya to shoot Weir, Sheppard would have to live with the guilt of it for the rest of his life, and McKay wasn't about to let that happen. He hears Sheppard's name and he immediately reacts, does something really brave and heroic without even having time to think about it. Because, as I've discussed previously, he is a Big Damn Hero and this very characteristic of his is what Sheppard admires and loves in him so much, even though he doesn't even get to see it this time.

Halfway through his rant McKay realizes that he just put himself into jeopardy, and this is when he starts consciously doing the same thing he has been doing with the Genii ever since their first encounter: trying to convince them of his invaluability (and it's striking that it's always in the service of trying to save someone else, not just or even predominately himself). He has self-esteem issues, he doesn't actually believe he's invaluable. But probably since he was a child he's had to project invaluability, has had to prove to people that he is a valuable asset, to gain acceptance. He thinks that he will only be tolerated if he proves himself irreplaceable.

The characters continue lying to one another. Kolya lets Sheppard know that Weir is dead.

I want to point out two things. Where Sheppard was extremely agitated just a moment ago, willing to do anything, he is extremely and exaggeratedly calm when he tells Kolya that he is going to kill him. Of course he is very upset that Weir should have been killed on his watch. Of course he cares about Weir and is upset by this. But again knowing the outcome changed his demeanor. Sure, responding in a cool and collected way is a performance to hide the fact that he is internally shaken. But he still manages to pull it off.

Then Kolya continues with "Stay out of my way or McKay will join her." That is when we get a brief glimpse at how Sheppard is actually feeling, his internal conflict and anguish (and which is something that he has no intention of letting Kolya know, hence putting the radio down):

Now. My friends. When you desperately need something, you need something so badly that you're willing to kill for it, you start killing off things from the least important to the most important. Like when a parent starts counting down from ten when they're warning a child that unless they cease their behaviour, they're going to "get it". You don't start from one, you start from ten and count downwards.

If Kolya had thought that Weir was Sheppard's main motivation, he would not have started by killing her off. Never mind how important McKay may have been, you keep the ace up your sleeve as long as you can. And Kolya had decided that the ace up his sleeve was McKay, which is why he reminds Sheppard that he is, in fact, still very much holding him hostage.

Again, the main stream audience is going to watch the show thinking Sheppard's entire upset has to do with Weir and Weir alone. And yet we always seem to find McKay between references to Weir and changes in Sheppard's demeanor. And once more, given what we saw of their interaction in the previous episode (Sheppard barely saw Weir when the three of them were in the lab together; he was so focused on McKay it's as though she weren't even there for him; we've really had zero indication of him harbouring some hidden secret passion for her that would explain this reaction; she is not the love of his life and a budding interest would not even begin to explain his reaction here), it makes so much more sense to interpret this reaction and the events that follow as motivated by McKay. Especially in the context of him having lost Captain Holland to enemy combatants in Afghanistan, as we later learn.

Also notice that once Kolya mentions McKay, Sheppard doesn't respond. There are probably a hundred things he could have said, maybe even wanted to say. You can read it all on his face. But he doesn't say anything because he doesn't dare do anything that might provoke this sociopath further. He actually has to stop himself from saying something he might regret. He can't risk responding. Like, he physically has to force his hand down to keep from say something that McKay might end up paying for.

Sheppard was afraid that he wasn't going to be able to save the people he cares about from the storm before, but this is a whole new kind of fear. This is a nightmare of the kind he had never even thought to have. But he's going to move heaven and earth to save the man. He's even willing to kill to save him. Kill a lot of people to save him, as it turns out.

And it is also noteworthy that he immediately springs into action, here. We've seen previously how characters are incapacitated when they lose someone important to them (cf. Cowen sitting down with his legs giving way when he mourns Tyrus). Sheppard is the opposite of incapacitated (in fact, we see him incapacitated in this particular fashion in Doppelganger, S04E04, when he thinks McKay is dead, so we see what Sheppard is like when he's lost the most important thing to him; he's slow, sluggish, going through the motions). This is not a man going through the motions, this is a man on a mission.

Again we get a transition from Sheppard's emotion to the raging storm to indicate that there's a storm also raging within him. The storm is a metaphor for what's going on inside him. And the calmness with which he then proceeds to take out the Genii is him being in the eye of the storm. Because the show is subtle with the symbolism like that.

Sheppard is moving fast, he's being strategic. He's not someone that's blinded by rage on a revenge mission because someone just killed the love of his life. He's also not acting reckless, putting himself needlessly in danger and this is not because he has some payback to do and someone to kill but because he has someone to save. You can contrast all of this with Sora's behaviour later on with regards to her vengeance against Teyla.

He even stops to check his watch at one point because he remembers McKay's words about them being under a time element, that there's a deadline looming over them all -- this is reinforced by the fact that the previous time Sheppard checked his watch, it was on the balcony right after McKay had just checked his watch (unwittingly mirroring someone's actions, again a sign of attraction; although synchronizing watches is also a very military thing to do, to be sure) and told them they have just over four and a half hours until the storm hits.

We are literally told that it's McKay he's thinking about when he stops and actually asks himself, "What would McKay do?" Again reminding us of the fact that for Sheppard, McKay is a hero. That McKay is constantly on his mind.

I also need to emphasize that he is killing actual people here. Yes, they're enemies but they are also human. This is the first time we see him kill humans after the mercy killing of Col. Sumner.

McKay starts fixing the grounding station and it's really quite sweet how he attempts to make it look like Elizabeth is vital to the process to keep her alive. It's not that he's trying to be a hero, it just comes naturally to him. He's not very good with people, though, so Elizabeth both has to explain to him that they need to stall and to actually lie on his behalf. When they overhear that Sheppard has killed some of the Genii strike force over the intercom, it's again only McKay's reaction that we get to this, not Weir's. He made a mental note of it albeit he does not seem to know what to think of it. Sheppard is alive, yes. He's being hunted by people with guns. And he's having to do terrible things.

McKay really is quite rattled, never having been in this kind of situation before. And it's interesting that Weir uses Sheppard to kick McKay into gear. She actually mentions Sheppard by name: "Look, from the sound of it, if we can buy Sheppard enough time, it seems like he can take care of the rest of them on his own." Not only had she figured out that this is what would motivate McKay the best, she is actually getting him to focus by appeasing him, pointing it out to him that Sheppard is really doing quite well for himself out there. She's not telling him that they're going to be alright, she's telling him that Sheppard is safe. Because for some reason she thinks that that's what will motivate him.

And Kolya does the opposite. He's trying to demoralize them by mentioning Sheppard by name: "If you're hoping Major Sheppard can diminish our numbers, you are mistaken." And notice that he is saying this to McKay. He glances at Weir a few times but when he is saying this, he is looking directly and only at McKay. An angel and a devil on his shoulders, they're both using Sheppard to get to him. I find that really interesting. Now, Weir knows him and has been able to observe them for a while now. But these people are complete strangers to Kolya, and he's still figured it out.

Now, if earlier Sheppard had to stop himself from saying something that might cause McKay trouble, McKay seems to be doing the same thing. And keeping quiet isn't the easiest thing for him, does not come to him naturally. But he keeps quiet because he's trying very hard not to make things worse for the Major.

If both Kolya and Weir are using Sheppard to motivate McKay, Sheppard himself is using McKay to motivate himself:

He has a dilemma here. He's trying to think of what McKay would do in his situation but he's come across explicit instructions from McKay not to do what he's thinking about doing. That's quite the pickle! (Also hilarious that the sign can be read as implying that touching McKay is dangerous, telling him not to do it). Are you thinking about touching McKay right now? Because this is not the time, my friend.

From the pleased look on Rodney's face, Sheppard was able to correctly intuit what he would have done in the situation when he shuts down the naqada generator. It's like they're working together as a team even when they are apart.

Continued in Pt. 6

#stargate atlantis #sga meta #sga #john sheppard #sheppard is bi #rodney mckay #rodney is gay #ep. the storm #ep. the eye #ep. doppelganger #genii

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dr-futbol-blog · 1 year ago

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The Storm/The Eye, Pt. 6

Upon hearing that Sheppard managed to cut the power to the gate room and having apparently crippled the Genii strike force, McKay also shifts to a higher gear. He tells Weir that if called upon, she needs to lie for him. He realizes that they need to help Sheppard any way they can, knows that he's not very good at that kind of thing and also knows Weir is a world-class negotiator, so he anticipates what they're going to have to do and makes sure that she knows to do her part.

And even then, when called upon to do it and believing himself a terrible liar ("I'm a terrible bluffer. I've lost small fortunes at poker. Look, my eye twitches, I laugh inappropriately, it's not pretty"), he immediately jumps in to reinforce the lie Weir tells Kolya. All to help Sheppard.

McKay says that he's a terrible liar. He believes that he's a terrible liar. But we see again and again that he can pull it off quite well when it's really needed.*

And Sheppard also seems to be trying to help them (or him, thinking Weir is dead), managing to cut power to the grounding station, too. It's possible that this was motivated by his belief that the Genii would need McKay to fix it and hence continue keeping him around and therefore alive. You can see that while McKay was having real trouble bluffing, as soon as the power is cut, he's able to use the truth much better to stall the Genii. Like Sheppard actually did help him, unwittingly, to do something he wasn't able to do without his help.

Again, it's very noticeable that when Kolya tells his people to "take Sheppard with overwhelming force" when their reinforcements arrive, he is looking directly at McKay.

Why? Why does keep looking at McKay every time he mentions Sheppard? What possible reason would he have to do that if not to gauge his reaction to Sheppard's name being spoken? To let him know through a look that he better not try any funny business because they're going to get the Major sooner or later. He's looking at McKay when he says this even though Weir was the one just lying to his face.

Also noticeable: we keep getting shots of Sheppard doing his little commando routine, and he seems extremely focused. Not upset, not mourning, not enraged. Focused. He is executing a strategy methodically. He also has the life signs detector on him the whole time and keeps glancing at it. While he's using it to look at the whereabouts of Genii soldiers, the fact that he cut power to the grounding station suggests that he had a pretty good idea that one of the three dots there was likely McKay. Keeping an eye on him the only way he knew how. If the Genii were able to discern which life sign was Sheppard earlier, it follows that Sheppard likely would have been able to discern which dot is Rodney, especially having much more experience using it.

This is lampshaded by the conversation Ford and Beckett have in the jumper bay:

Ford: Life signs detector. Beckett: These wee dots don't tell us much about who's who. How do we know which one's the major? Ford: He'll be the dot getting rid of the other dots.

Ford knows his commanding officer. But Sheppard also knows McKay. As we've seen, he knows McKay well enough to anticipate his actions.

This, again, is lampshaded later in the episode as Beckett tells Ford: "I really only have a basic understanding of how Rodney and his team configure the power." Sheppard may or may not be more intelligent than Beckett, we're never really shown or told either way. Sheppard is not a mechanical engineer. But he's still able to figure out exactly how McKay has set up the generators probably because watching McKay work is like his favourite pastime.

Sheppard then kills fifty five (55) people by lowering the shield as the Genii company are attempting to enter. Fifty five actual human beings.

Pop quiz: did he do this a) to avenge the death of an authority figure (as a man with a known problem with authorities) he was ready to send to another galaxy in the previous episode and whose presence he had largely ignored returning from his earlier mission and in Rodney's lab earlier or b) to save a man he hand-picked for his team, who has saved his life at least twice, who he keeps talking about to other people, whose company he seeks out in his free time, he can't stop looking at, is physically drawn to, whose abilities he has blind faith in, who he has observed keenly enough to be able to anticipate his actions, who he keeps poking good-natured fun at, expects to finish his sentences, and is a vital asset to the entire mission?

I wonder.

Anyway, again something Sheppard does makes Kolya turn to McKay:

Kolya: Tell her the procedure! McKay: I can't! I don't know what he's done! Kolya: Tell her! McKay: Well, he must have entered his own personal command code! Kolya: What is it? McKay: I don't know! Weir: Only Sheppard would know it! McKay: Trust me – I'm not that brave! I would help you if I could!

That's what he says. Earlier, he told us that he's a terrible bluffer so he must be telling the truth here, right? But it doesn't seem like Sheppard did anything particular to the shield besides raising it. We are later told that he entered a code to lock the gate but raising the shield was a simple task operated by the pushing of a single button they stumbled onto as one of the first things they ever did upon arriving at Atlantis (and he hardly had time to enter two codes). There is no reason to believe that McKay didn't know exactly how to undo it. When push came to shove, McKay could lie to help Sheppard, and extremely convincingly at that. Note also that McKay already lied about the command codes previously to save Weir's life.

Note also that "trust me" is something often said by liars. McKay tells Kolya, "Trust me, I'm not that brave!" But the entire reveal at the end of the episode is that McKay has been lying about not being able to raise the shield, and he's been lying about this so convincingly that he not only fooled Kolya, he fooled the whole audience. So not only can he lie when he really has to (even when he's being beaten), he can lie well. When the occasion calls for it. And he's doing all of it to save Sheppard. Rodney was just that brave.

Even though he clearly fears for his life, he continues to "feel the fear and do it anyway". Kolya is enraged, having lost a company of men in one fell swoop. He very much wants to take it out on McKay (and note again that he wants to punish McKay for what Sheppard does, like they're an extension of one another).

And McKay is able to save both himself and Weir by again reminding him that they're both needed. This is also a lie, since he's been lying about Weir being needed the whole damn time. He has saved Weir's life several times by now.

And make no mistake, he did that for Sheppard. To help him any way he could.

Even though they are separated, they are both trying to keep the other safe. Just like they did in the Genii home world, the first time Rodney was being held hostage by them along with Sheppard.

Kolya gives in and contacts Sheppard via the intercom. They have the following exchange:

Kolya: Major Sheppard, I have a proposition for you. Sheppard: Kolya, I'm having a hard time keeping up. What's the score again? Kolya: My men have informed me that not only have you disabled some crucial generators but you've stolen key components that make it impossible for them to be restored. Sheppard: Yeah. I did that. Kolya: There are two flaws in your plan. Sheppard: Always open to constructive criticism. Kolya: One: the assumption I would believe you'd rather destroy the city than let it fall to us is childish. Sheppard: Doesn't sound like me.

He's flippant. He's sarcastic. He's antagonizing Kolya, attempting to keep the man's attention on himself rather than on anyone or anything else. He is neither enraged nor mourning the loss of the love of his life, or potential love interest. In fact, this is a direct continuation of the conversation they were having before Kolya threatened Weir and pretended to kill her ("I guess we're even!"). And this is precisely when we return to the topic:

Kolya: Second: if and when I determine Atlantis unsalvageable, Doctors Weir and McKay become obsolete. Sheppard: Weir's alive? Kolya: Doctor McKay was able to make a strong case for keeping her alive. Sheppard: Let me talk to her. Weir: Sheppard! We're both here! Sheppard: It's good to hear your voice. Weir: Yeah, it's good to hear. Kolya: We have less than one hour before the storm hits full force. If the power is not returned to Grounding Station Three within the next ten minutes, Doctor Weir dies. Sheppard: Again, you mean? Kolya: Her death will buy you another ten minutes, after which – should the power still be out – Doctor McKay dies. We will then leave with what we can, and the city will be destroyed.

I want to point out a few things.

While Kolya is trading with Sheppard using the fact that he didn't kill Weir but had only pretended to, he still feels the need to tack on McKay's life into the bargain.

Of course he's happy Weir is alive. Among other things, it means this guy isn't a complete psycho and it might be possible to negotiate with him.

Kolya mentions McKay three goddamn times here.

Weir is real quick to let Sheppard know that McKay is alright, it's like the first thing she does; she clearly understood that he would want to know this and would not be able to directly ask about it. The relief we can hear in this "It's good to hear your voice" is at least partially in response to this. It's good to hear your voice [that just told me McKay is alright].

He's real flippant about the possibility of Weir dying again here.

McKay's life is still the final bargaining chip, still the thing Kolya seems to think Sheppard cares the most about.

The phrase "Doctors" Weir and McKay again presents them as a package deal.

And once more, while he's able to joke about Weir dying again, it's threatening McKay's life that seems to really agitate Sheppard:

Sheppard: Well, that's not enough time! Kolya: If you don't mind destroying Atlantis, stay where you are for the next twenty minutes, starting now.

That is when he steps into action. Twenty minutes, starting now.

Continued in Pt. 7

.* And, as discussed previously in connection with the Rodney from the alternative timeline, lying is especially necessary when you're a civilian gay dude working in a military environment where your peers are going to need your help upholding DADT. You would learn to lie like a pro. Never mind that he's likely also lied to himself for most of his life. But Rodney, big brother Rodney that comes from a dysfunctional family, definitely lies really well when he's doing it to protect someone other than himself.

#stargate atlantis #sga #sga meta #john sheppard #sheppard is bi #rodney mckay #rodney is gay #ep. the storm #ep. the eye #genii

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