Some random thoughts on Bloodlines

[fignewton]

Watched Bloodlines last night, as the recap goes up tonight for redial_the_gate. I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

Hammond is, as always, solid gold. Don't try to lie to him - like in COTG, he's perfectly willing to call his people's bluffs - but once he knows what's really at stake, and he has all the information he needs? He backs Teal'c all the way.

Interesting to see how stratified society is on Chulak, especially compared to what we see of the Hak'tyl in S8. Good thing Teal'c had eight years' worth of fighting side-by-side with Sam at that point, which allowed him to accept the concept of a female warrior.

Daniel shooting the symbiote tank will always and forever be one of my top five Daniel defining moments. Period.

On the lighter Daniel side: I noticed, for the first time, that when Daniel idly speculates about the need to feed their captured symbiote, it's because he's taken a bite out of a powerbar. And then the shooting starts, and he and Sam are dodging through the trees looking for shelter, and Daniel is still holding on to the silly thing until they finally take cover. Then he sort of gives the powerbar an incredulous look before tossing it onto the ground and drawing his weapon. I do love you, Daniel.

And again, when SG-1 says goodbye to Bra'tac after he singlehandedly gains access to the Gate: they stand framed by the active wormhole. Teal'c is at stiff attention; Sam and Jack snap off formal salutes. Daniel? Waves cheerfully. :)

When you think about it, the mission to Chulak had three objectives: obtain a symbiote for study, bring Teal'c's son and wife back to the safety of Earth, and make contact with those Jaffa who might be willing to join the fight against the Goa'uld. The first objective failed when they used their captured symbiote to save Teal'c's life; the second failed for reasons that are utterly beyond my comprehension, as I have no idea why Teal'c left Drey'auc and Ry'ac at the side of the path instead of bringing them back to Earth. But the third objective? That one was a spectacular success. They met Bra'tac, and impressed him enough (both with their willingness to fight for Teal'c and their unthinking audacity in robbing the temple) that he insinuated himself into Klorel's good graces in order to try and stop the invasion of Earth. The success of that mission - and again, the impressions he got of SG-1 and Hammond - were enough to put Bra'tac solidly on their side, causing a chain reaction that eventually led to the entire Jaffa rebellion and the eventual overthrow of the System Lords. So, yeah. I'd definitely call this one a success.

I hadn't planned on it, but I will definitely be writing some Bloodlines-inspired meta on Bra'tac and Daniel over the next day or so. redial_the_gate welcomes multiple meta posts on episodes, so I won't be stepping on dunv_i's toes. I'll wait until after her meta post, though, since she's officially signed up for it. I'll link back to it here when it gets posted... or, y'know, you could just go and add redial_the_gate to your watchlist. I think you'll find it well worth it. :)

Comments

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Heh. Little do you know that making mild observations like that tends to lead to frenzied canon vs. fanon research! I've definitely added that one to my Sam list. It probably won't be for this coming edition, but it'll end up posted here. Eventually. :)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Cool! One of the things I like about meta is that it often helps me redefine my own opinions. It's *SO* easy to be swayed by fanon if you read a lot of fic. While some fanon doesn't bother me (or is a guilty pleasure :-), I hate it when I can't remember if it's canon or not.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

That's what started the canon vs. fanon posts, yes - the need to figure out how much canon was being overwhelmed by fanon. Fanon isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but when it starts to supercede canon, it's time to back off a bit. :)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Yep! I'm reading the St. Daniel one right now. Fascinating, though I think I may have found an error (fairly minor), but I'll have to look it up before I say anything. I want to be able to provide references or discover if I'm misremembering before making a fool of myself. ;-);-)