The Last Man
Mar. 7th, 2008 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielSGA - "The Last Man"
The previews the SciFi channel ran all week for this episode made me really nervous. To kind of a ridiculous point. Going into it and knowing that Sheppard was going to be hurtled thousands of years into the future, I hoped that the things I was worried about would turn out to be flashbacks and therefor not set in stone.
And what do you know? They were.
I thought "The Last Man" was lovely. Beautiful, even. For an episode that was advertised as being "action packed," it felt very calm to me. Gentle and calm and sad, so very sad. But at home with that 48,000 year old sadness because that's a lot of time for emotion to sink in and in the end there's the hope of something better.
Rodney broke my heart here. At one point during Rodney's relation of his own journey to that point, I texted![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trademybike, "My love for Rodney cannot be textually rendered." And that's pretty much true. He loses John, then Teyla, Ronon, Sam, Atlantis, Jennifer...But he holds onto the belief that John isn't really lost, and if John's not lost, then the rest of them aren't either. Because they're his family. And no one gets left behind.
I liked that while love and concern for Keller was what sparked the idea to save them all, it was based on his belief that he was absolutely right about what had happened to John, that John was in fact still alive somewhere in the distant future. Losing the last person he had left may have started Rodney's brain moving in the right direction, but it all hinged on John. So John doesn't get left behind.
Which is something that I just completely love from my little fangirl POV. The McKay/Keller thing would work even without the added angst, but it made complete sense that when everything else is taken from both of them, they'd cling to each other.
And how sad is it that they make their little bit of happiness together only to have even that snatched away too soon?
Oh, Rodney. And then it all turned (even more) into fanfiction when Rodney began teaching at a community college. I wish I could visually remember that little montage better, but I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of it all.
How does this show do this to me? It freaks me out and then it gives me all the things I didn't know I was hoping to see. Granted, this doesn't happen all of the time, but here? This? It really worked for me.
And I love the potential here for all the things left unsaid from a fanfiction stand-point. Especially for John and Rodney. I can't help it that everything comes back to the two of them for me.
- I loved John's arrival into future Atlantis, the lighting and the quietness. The shadow of the 'gate on the floor. How calm John was in that bizarrely heavy emptiness. It's a little funny, actually, thinking back on it now because they can shoot the Gateroom (and the rest of Atlantis) so it looks quite large, but here it felt smaller. Less.
- Hologram Rodney and how quickly he picks up on John. His "for you it's been, like, five minutes." Telling John to go to the hologram room. John questioning why, but going anyway. Because that's what he does.
- John's face when Rodney appears. His "what, you mean earlier today?" when Rodney realizes he looks different from the last time John would have seen him. His admission that in 25 years of planning this he never thought of what he was going to tell John.
- SG-1 and 1969. I'd been wondering about John getting accidentally sent to the future and completely forgotten that something similar had happened to SG-1. Except they had less angst and sillier outfits.
- 48,000 years. The cool/not cool conversation. "That means you're, uh..." "Dead." And, again, John's face. That realization that things really are just about as messed up as they can be. And that here he is, 48,000 years in the future, and all he's left with is a hologram of Rodney McKay. Which is better than nothing, but a reminder of all the things that have gone wrong and could go wrong again.
- "Things didn't exactly go well for us after your disappearance." It all hinges on John. I really do feel like he's that glue that keeps them together. Not that the Team can't function without one of the members, but it's not the same. What is Atlantis without John Sheppard?
- From bad to worse. Finding Teyla too late. Upsetting, to say the least.
- "Jennifer." I liked that you could see where the narrative was going with Rodney personally when he kept calling Keller by her first name.
- Michael took over in less than a year. I know he's evil and he's done bad things, killed Teyla and took her baby. But at the same time, I have to say he's a bit impressive. If only his powers could have been turned toward good...The speech he gave the queen was needed. He started out the victim. It doesn't make his actions any more forgivable, but it's not completely impossible to see where he's coming from. The way he said, "You still have your pride. Good for you" gave me chills.
- "48,000 years in the future and you've still got a knack for stating the obvious."
- The sand storm.
McKAY: Ever been in one of those?
SHEPPARD: As a matter of fact, I have.
McKAY: Oh.
We continue to get little pieces of John's past.
- The IOA and the SGC focusing their attention on Earth and their own galaxy, leaving Atlantis and Pegasus to fend for themselves. Sam refusing to give up, give in. The Phoenix. "Zelenka might have been there as well, I don't really remember" and Zelenka over Rodney's shoulder, coffee in hand. Rodney insisting that Sam should take a break, too. Sam's thanks. The lovely, grateful, solemn hug between the two of them.
- Sam going down with the ship. Oh, Sam. She looked frightened and determined as you can be when you don't really have a choice.
- "Another empty casket." Sigh. I can just imagine what Atlantis was like with John's empty casket, first those days, weeks, months spent hoping he'd reappear, then the emptiness of realizing he wouldn't. A lose that no one could really believe.
ETA: I was just thinking about the difference between John's empty casket and Sam's and how difficult it must have been to accept John as gone. It wasn't a suicide mission, he wasn't blown up, he wasn't ambushed or kidnapped. All they knew on Atlantis was that he dialed the 'gate, Lorne saw him walk through, and he never appeared on the other side. He's a missing person, no certainty to his whereabouts. He's there and then he's not.
I kind of want to read the shock and worry and panic of it and then the relief when he finally reappears.
- The shots of the empty corridors of Atlantis. Loss lingering in every line, on every surface. Earlier John and Rodney walking through the corridors, the lights keeping up only with them. I loved this episode visually.
- Of course, the plan to get John back to the present can't just happen, there has to be a hitch or two. But John comes up with his solar power idea and Rodney agrees it could work. And then John goes out into the storm and wants Rodney to tell him about Ronon. Because he wants to know and, I like to think, because Rodney's voice grounds him, makes the whole situation less insane and overwhelming. Because if Rodney's still around (even as a hologram), things can't be too bad. "Talk to me, Rodney" just confirmed it.
- Poor Ronon, first the loss of John, then Teyla. The team falls apart. But Ronon continues fighting, making his own army. Running into Todd.
RONON: I was just going to flow it up.
TODD: Naturally.
Pulling their weapons on each other during the fight.
RONON: Force of habit.
TODD: Indeed.
- "I wish some of these stories had happier endings."
- Rodney worried when John doesn't respond. He's a hologram, but John's there for a reason, he has a task to perform. Without John surviving, the hologram is meaningless. And it's enough Rodney to know why Rodney did it all in the first place, as he later explains.
- John asking for Rodney's story, sort of hesitant but insisting. "You never told me what happened to you." Rodney explaining his survival because he quit. The new management turns out to be Woolsey, which is not surprising considering the spoilers for season five. I'm still fine with this turn of events, though I think Woolsey looks kind of hilarious in the uniform. But he was a bastard here.
- "Sheppard is not dead." Rodney doesn't hesitate at all. He's that sure that he's right. And that sure that John just isn't dead. He clings to it, like he clings to Keller.
- Three weeks together on the Daedalus. Becoming more than colleagues and friends. John's surprise. "You and Keller" and no guarantee that things will turn out the same. Rodney hoping for that. Keller's sickness.
And John's going to remember all of this.
- "You can't change the past." Her concern that Rodney will waste his life on something that will only torment him and keep him in the past. Rodney's assurance that he can and will change it.
Rodney has the power to do things when he sets his mind to it. I imagine it would be a very bad idea to get on his bad side.
KELLER: I don't have any regrets.
McKAY: Well I do, a whole boatload of them.
Rodney's face. The way he tears up and everything's just under the surface, ready to crack. Oh. And all the things Rodney might be regretting, now that he's losing it all.
- Jeannie.
- Lorne! I watched this in one room and my mom watched it in the other and when he showed up you could hear both of us go, "Lorne!" It was amusing. General Lorne. Letting Rodney do what he needs to do.
- John asking about the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and World Series.
- "Good luck, John." Rodney's little wave.
- John hurtling through the 'gate after being missing for twelve days. "Rodney, you're a genius."
- Could have been prevented if not for glitches in the 'gate after them doing...whatever to it.
- McKAY: Do I still have hair?
(pause)
SHEPPARD: No.
- The end! As soon as they entered the building I went, "Oh no, no, no." Once again, the SciFi channel spoils its viewers by giving things away in the previews. There was only one big thing I hadn't seen in the episode itself, and that was the exploding and collapsing of the building. Now, as usual with their season finales, I'm not too worried. But. That was a pretty good way to end the season. And an interesting way to set up the episode, all fairly calm exposition and then an intense final two minutes.
And that's the end of season four.
Again, John's left knowing these things that might have been. A bit like Teal'c at the end of "Unending." It will be interesting to see if they ever make mention of it in the coming season.
The previews the SciFi channel ran all week for this episode made me really nervous. To kind of a ridiculous point. Going into it and knowing that Sheppard was going to be hurtled thousands of years into the future, I hoped that the things I was worried about would turn out to be flashbacks and therefor not set in stone.
And what do you know? They were.
I thought "The Last Man" was lovely. Beautiful, even. For an episode that was advertised as being "action packed," it felt very calm to me. Gentle and calm and sad, so very sad. But at home with that 48,000 year old sadness because that's a lot of time for emotion to sink in and in the end there's the hope of something better.
Rodney broke my heart here. At one point during Rodney's relation of his own journey to that point, I texted
trademybike, "My love for Rodney cannot be textually rendered." And that's pretty much true. He loses John, then Teyla, Ronon, Sam, Atlantis, Jennifer...But he holds onto the belief that John isn't really lost, and if John's not lost, then the rest of them aren't either. Because they're his family. And no one gets left behind.I liked that while love and concern for Keller was what sparked the idea to save them all, it was based on his belief that he was absolutely right about what had happened to John, that John was in fact still alive somewhere in the distant future. Losing the last person he had left may have started Rodney's brain moving in the right direction, but it all hinged on John. So John doesn't get left behind.
Which is something that I just completely love from my little fangirl POV. The McKay/Keller thing would work even without the added angst, but it made complete sense that when everything else is taken from both of them, they'd cling to each other.
And how sad is it that they make their little bit of happiness together only to have even that snatched away too soon?
Oh, Rodney. And then it all turned (even more) into fanfiction when Rodney began teaching at a community college. I wish I could visually remember that little montage better, but I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of it all.
How does this show do this to me? It freaks me out and then it gives me all the things I didn't know I was hoping to see. Granted, this doesn't happen all of the time, but here? This? It really worked for me.
And I love the potential here for all the things left unsaid from a fanfiction stand-point. Especially for John and Rodney. I can't help it that everything comes back to the two of them for me.
- I loved John's arrival into future Atlantis, the lighting and the quietness. The shadow of the 'gate on the floor. How calm John was in that bizarrely heavy emptiness. It's a little funny, actually, thinking back on it now because they can shoot the Gateroom (and the rest of Atlantis) so it looks quite large, but here it felt smaller. Less.
- Hologram Rodney and how quickly he picks up on John. His "for you it's been, like, five minutes." Telling John to go to the hologram room. John questioning why, but going anyway. Because that's what he does.
- John's face when Rodney appears. His "what, you mean earlier today?" when Rodney realizes he looks different from the last time John would have seen him. His admission that in 25 years of planning this he never thought of what he was going to tell John.
- SG-1 and 1969. I'd been wondering about John getting accidentally sent to the future and completely forgotten that something similar had happened to SG-1. Except they had less angst and sillier outfits.
- 48,000 years. The cool/not cool conversation. "That means you're, uh..." "Dead." And, again, John's face. That realization that things really are just about as messed up as they can be. And that here he is, 48,000 years in the future, and all he's left with is a hologram of Rodney McKay. Which is better than nothing, but a reminder of all the things that have gone wrong and could go wrong again.
- "Things didn't exactly go well for us after your disappearance." It all hinges on John. I really do feel like he's that glue that keeps them together. Not that the Team can't function without one of the members, but it's not the same. What is Atlantis without John Sheppard?
- From bad to worse. Finding Teyla too late. Upsetting, to say the least.
- "Jennifer." I liked that you could see where the narrative was going with Rodney personally when he kept calling Keller by her first name.
- Michael took over in less than a year. I know he's evil and he's done bad things, killed Teyla and took her baby. But at the same time, I have to say he's a bit impressive. If only his powers could have been turned toward good...The speech he gave the queen was needed. He started out the victim. It doesn't make his actions any more forgivable, but it's not completely impossible to see where he's coming from. The way he said, "You still have your pride. Good for you" gave me chills.
- "48,000 years in the future and you've still got a knack for stating the obvious."
- The sand storm.
McKAY: Ever been in one of those?
SHEPPARD: As a matter of fact, I have.
McKAY: Oh.
We continue to get little pieces of John's past.
- The IOA and the SGC focusing their attention on Earth and their own galaxy, leaving Atlantis and Pegasus to fend for themselves. Sam refusing to give up, give in. The Phoenix. "Zelenka might have been there as well, I don't really remember" and Zelenka over Rodney's shoulder, coffee in hand. Rodney insisting that Sam should take a break, too. Sam's thanks. The lovely, grateful, solemn hug between the two of them.
- Sam going down with the ship. Oh, Sam. She looked frightened and determined as you can be when you don't really have a choice.
- "Another empty casket." Sigh. I can just imagine what Atlantis was like with John's empty casket, first those days, weeks, months spent hoping he'd reappear, then the emptiness of realizing he wouldn't. A lose that no one could really believe.
ETA: I was just thinking about the difference between John's empty casket and Sam's and how difficult it must have been to accept John as gone. It wasn't a suicide mission, he wasn't blown up, he wasn't ambushed or kidnapped. All they knew on Atlantis was that he dialed the 'gate, Lorne saw him walk through, and he never appeared on the other side. He's a missing person, no certainty to his whereabouts. He's there and then he's not.
I kind of want to read the shock and worry and panic of it and then the relief when he finally reappears.
- The shots of the empty corridors of Atlantis. Loss lingering in every line, on every surface. Earlier John and Rodney walking through the corridors, the lights keeping up only with them. I loved this episode visually.
- Of course, the plan to get John back to the present can't just happen, there has to be a hitch or two. But John comes up with his solar power idea and Rodney agrees it could work. And then John goes out into the storm and wants Rodney to tell him about Ronon. Because he wants to know and, I like to think, because Rodney's voice grounds him, makes the whole situation less insane and overwhelming. Because if Rodney's still around (even as a hologram), things can't be too bad. "Talk to me, Rodney" just confirmed it.
- Poor Ronon, first the loss of John, then Teyla. The team falls apart. But Ronon continues fighting, making his own army. Running into Todd.
RONON: I was just going to flow it up.
TODD: Naturally.
Pulling their weapons on each other during the fight.
RONON: Force of habit.
TODD: Indeed.
- "I wish some of these stories had happier endings."
- Rodney worried when John doesn't respond. He's a hologram, but John's there for a reason, he has a task to perform. Without John surviving, the hologram is meaningless. And it's enough Rodney to know why Rodney did it all in the first place, as he later explains.
- John asking for Rodney's story, sort of hesitant but insisting. "You never told me what happened to you." Rodney explaining his survival because he quit. The new management turns out to be Woolsey, which is not surprising considering the spoilers for season five. I'm still fine with this turn of events, though I think Woolsey looks kind of hilarious in the uniform. But he was a bastard here.
- "Sheppard is not dead." Rodney doesn't hesitate at all. He's that sure that he's right. And that sure that John just isn't dead. He clings to it, like he clings to Keller.
- Three weeks together on the Daedalus. Becoming more than colleagues and friends. John's surprise. "You and Keller" and no guarantee that things will turn out the same. Rodney hoping for that. Keller's sickness.
And John's going to remember all of this.
- "You can't change the past." Her concern that Rodney will waste his life on something that will only torment him and keep him in the past. Rodney's assurance that he can and will change it.
Rodney has the power to do things when he sets his mind to it. I imagine it would be a very bad idea to get on his bad side.
KELLER: I don't have any regrets.
McKAY: Well I do, a whole boatload of them.
Rodney's face. The way he tears up and everything's just under the surface, ready to crack. Oh. And all the things Rodney might be regretting, now that he's losing it all.
- Jeannie.
- Lorne! I watched this in one room and my mom watched it in the other and when he showed up you could hear both of us go, "Lorne!" It was amusing. General Lorne. Letting Rodney do what he needs to do.
- John asking about the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, and World Series.
- "Good luck, John." Rodney's little wave.
- John hurtling through the 'gate after being missing for twelve days. "Rodney, you're a genius."
- Could have been prevented if not for glitches in the 'gate after them doing...whatever to it.
- McKAY: Do I still have hair?
(pause)
SHEPPARD: No.
- The end! As soon as they entered the building I went, "Oh no, no, no." Once again, the SciFi channel spoils its viewers by giving things away in the previews. There was only one big thing I hadn't seen in the episode itself, and that was the exploding and collapsing of the building. Now, as usual with their season finales, I'm not too worried. But. That was a pretty good way to end the season. And an interesting way to set up the episode, all fairly calm exposition and then an intense final two minutes.
And that's the end of season four.
Again, John's left knowing these things that might have been. A bit like Teal'c at the end of "Unending." It will be interesting to see if they ever make mention of it in the coming season.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-08 10:19 pm (UTC)It broke my heart, it really did.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-10 02:04 am (UTC)Me, too. I spent a lot of the episode going, "Oh, Rodney."
I've been thinking about the episode off and on all weekend and the weight of Rodney's lost just keeps on hitting me.
And the title, "The Last Man," which I love, doesn't help. Because there's John, possibly the last human, but there's Rodney, the last of his team...
I'm just terribly pleased with this episode and the depth it gave us.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-08 10:40 pm (UTC)Well said. He certainly had a lot of potential for good or bad. I was hoping that he wouldn't turn simplistically evil. I hope that, in the "real" timeline, he still has that chance to develop into something more complex than just a villain out for revenge, but I don't know that it'll happen.
I liked your inclusion of quotes from the episode. I'll take comic relief wherever I can get it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-10 01:54 am (UTC)That being said, I hope that he doesn't get reduced to the evil genius cackling madly in the corner. That I would not like.
Basically, what you said. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-11 08:31 pm (UTC)Remembering nothing else about the preview other than old man Rodney and the kiss, I wasn't expecting much after John goes into the stasis pod. I figured, there's enough "What ifs" left about him surviving, since they said he'd need at least 700 years and they might be able to push it to 600 with the extra solar panel power, so I'm thinking, "Good place to leave off... leave John's life hanging by a thread and now fans have to wait until next season to see if he makes it." I also thought, considering the conversations we've had regarding the SAGgies possibly striking over the summer, that the writers took this into account, but *shrug* I think I think too much.
Anyway, so after he came through the gate, I was waiting for a big ol TO BE CONTINUED when they're getting ready to go through the gate, a la "The Return Part 1". Nope. Not there either. So at this point I'm thinking that this is gonna go on forever and maybe it was a two hour episode and I had failed to notice so. Nope. Not that either. Building collapses. Fin. That just sort of made me go "WHAT?!" in a pissed off "of all the times you could have chosen to TBC the episode for next season, you pick this one??" So yeah, no real animosity or anything, but I thought the choice for ending it was a little strange and just sort of "Uh oh, we hit the 42 minute mark, JUST CUT IT!"
Anyway, that's the way I feel about the ending. Totally loved the rest of it though. Except now I'm not so "omg can't wait 'til next season" as I would have been elsewhere.
Like I said, I think too much. It spoils things.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-11 10:58 pm (UTC)YES. While I loved it, obviously, I kept going, "This is their big action finale? What?" I kept waiting for more, action-wise. And it just never came.
Until their stupid decision to cut it where they did. I think it would have been better just to leave John in the stasis pod over break. Or, like you said, just after he came through the 'gate. But then they tacked on another change of scene and the building. Though I did love Rodney asking about his hair. Heh. Oh John, you liar.
Anyway, I'm relieved to hear that you liked it too, besides the ending. When you texted me I had a silent moment of "oh noes!!" (I was at a library thing) and worried.
We both think too much. Time to go do something non-thinky. Like look at pretty, pretty pictures.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-11 11:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-11 11:24 pm (UTC)::scares away tyra banks::
Seriously. Little details like Carson's eyebrow or just plain Grodin being involved make me ridiculous.