Redial the Gate: Out of Mind (and a fic rec)

[fignewton]

Tonight redial_the_gate recaps the last ep of (in my opinion) the best season in Stargate, S2.

I am so absurdly charmed about the way the writers made their season-ending cliffhanger out of a clip show. :)

First, some very random thoughts on the episode:


Shirtless Daniel!
Shirtless Jack!
(Not quite) shirtless Sam!

Teal'c Teal'c Teal'c Teal'c.

George!

...the writers wished that they could erase Hathor from everyone's collective memories, so they - brought her back. Yeah.

You don't need to ship Sam and Jack to be amused that Jack really is - well, a guy.

::pauses for a moment of silence over the tragic loss of floppy-haired Daniel...::


An interesting fic rec for all of you here, even though it's related to Into the Fire rather than Out of Mind:

Just two days ago, I was talking to abyssinia4077 and pepper_field about Makepeace. We wondered when he joined Maybourne: how far back did it go? I suggested that the deaths of so many officers in the rescue mission during Into the Fire might have driven Makepeace to find some way, any way, to make their mission a safer one. Abyssis agreed that it was likely.

And then I did one of my semi-regular checks of FF.net (because yes, I have found decent fic there, and when I'm lucky enough, the author's page leads me to an LJ profile - I found one of my nicest Sam and Daniel recs that way), and what do I find? After The Fire Burns Out, by Dream Weaver 85, in which Makepeace thinks miserably about the funerals he's just attended in the wake of Into the Fire... just before he gets a visit from Harry Maybourne.

I know I'm pretty much in the minority of SG fandom in that I liked Makepeace, and consider him to be a lot more of a good guy and a better ally than Maybourne could ever hope to be. Yes, I think he was betraying the SGC - but he was doing the wrong thing for the right reason, rather than for personal gain. Do the ends justify the means? No, of course not. But I don't forget that Makepeace saved SG-1 in The Broca Divide, and came pelting into Hammond's office to alert him to SG-1's plight in Into the Fire and then volunteered to lead the teams to rescue them.  Even in Into the Fire, there's the seeds of his resentment with their sometime allies. Consider his comment to Sam about the Tok'ra: "Don't know. Don't expect to find out any time soon, either." We all know the Tok'ra operative did risk her life to save Jack, but from Makepeace's POV, the very limited help was the indirect cause of his people's deaths. His betrayal of the SGC's ideals was rooted in his need to save the lives that were lost when he went through the Gate - a far cry from Maybourne's accumulation of gadgets for his own self-interest.

He might not have been likeable - he was abrasive and arrogant and had little patience for Daniel-the-civilian. But I also don't forget that half-quirked smile when Jack yelled at him, "Great rescue!" It's because he has faults that I liked him, I suppose.

Check out the fic. I couldn't leave feedback, because the author has anonymous comments disabled and I'm not exactly registered there. But I do recommend it as an interesting look at a character that's a lot more ambiguous and interesting than fandom seems to realize.

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I too didn't like Maybourne--and I'm no more impressed with him in later episodes than in the early ones. Why on Earth did the writers of "It's Good to Be King" think it would be funny to have him abuse his power and take multiple fawning wives?

I like Makepeace as both a good guy and a bad guy, and his decision to cross the line makes sense to me--yes, I'd liked to have seen more of him coming to the decision (or any of him coming to it), but he's annoying and abrasive on either side! He seems enough like Jack, without the good influence of Jack's teammates, that I think we get an interesting contrast.

Yes, it could have been a more interesting contrast if we'd gotten more of Makepeace before, or, as Pepper says, in "The Sentinel." But I've read some fics where Makepeace is the true hero, in deep cover or just in the wrong place at the wrong time in "Shades of Grey," and that doesn't work for me at all.

The Bunnyfic link seems to be working right now: ELG's "Ripples" is here. I like that one too!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, no argument with me re Maybourne. Trust me.

I agree - Makepeace was a much more fascinating character, because he was complex and his motivations were real. I love your suggestion, like Pepper's, that Makepeace is the way Jack could've gone - with your extra idea that it's the people around him that make the difference. ELG, in fact, makes the same point towards the end of the fic: that it's his friendship with Daniel that keeps him from being like Makepeace. So, yeah.

(It's one of my top fave fics, as I say upthread. Link to rec and everything!)

I don't buy Makepeace as deep cover, either, but I find it plausible enough that it doesn't annoy me the way it would if, say, someone tried to make the same suggestion about Maybourne. :)