Stargate Universe - Justice

Welcome to my first ever episode writeup for Stargate Universe. I'm very excited about this, especially since this episode was so damned good. And we will get to that in a second. First and foremost, SGU is now on hiatus for a very long time. Until April-ish in fact, which is almost 5 months away. This is rather distressing, as the ending to this one definitely left me wanting - no, needing - to see what else is in store.

But, fear not, the Hiatus Project is here. For the next few months, every Friday night, we'll be meeting up for a group chat during regular SGU time (9:00 EST). Hang out with cool people, learn the SGU drinking game from the queen of the game, maybe even a few special guests. If you're interested, head over to Colonel_Ez's blog for full details.

Onto the show. I'll try to keep the spoilers to an absolute minimum.

Before I get to the show, though, I would like to take a moment to thank my SGU friends on Twitter for their humor and insight.  Karrie, Sherry (together, they are "moms"), Abigail, and Terry - you guys are wonderful people and generally hilarious!

In the long list of good episodes, "Justice" is right up there with "Time" and "Life" on the holy shit meter. We had some questions answered, but the show asked a huge number of new questions. And the fact that I have to wait until April for answers... ACK!

Among the best moments in this episode were the ones involving new sides to the characters. This episode had many of them.

One of the characters that I neglected to mention (complete brain fart) in my character writeup was Chloe, as played by Elyse Levesque. Many folks on the webs have been rather harsh on Chloe's character for being weak and fragile. Yet, in this episode, we saw her strength and her passion. There was a very intense moment between her and Wray, and watching her stand on on her principles and fight back was a treat. For me, it was a long-expected one. I knew there was more to her character than what had been shown in the previous 9 episodes. This is a direction in which I really hope her character continues.

Speaking of Wray, we are privileged to see a great evolution in her character. Small spoiler... As she assumes the leadership role aboard the Destiny, we see her struggle with that authority and her ability to wield it. The scene in her quarters where she is staring at herself in the mirror is particularly revealing. Her transition between that scene and the one moments later in which she confronts Greer is picture perfect. And her reaction to the big reveal is very well done. Her confrontations with Chloe, Greer, and Young are amazing. Ming Na is truly a talented actress, as we have seen between "Life" and "Justice" where she goes through completely different emotional states and does so with flair. I hope this is a step towards her getting a larger role in this show.

Robert Carlyle as Doctor Rush is just fantastic. His numerous confrontations with Young throughout this episode are high points and not enough can be said about how well they are acted and written. Rush's character reveals some major things, confirming many theories I've had over the last few episodes. How I wish I could spell them all out here....

And since I'm on the topic of Young, we get to see where his currently shaky emotional state takes him after his confrontation with Telford. I sooooo feel the urge to spoil things here, because they are important to Young's character and a very large part of why the episode was so great, but I can't. Go watch it, then hit me up on Twitter for some spoiler-riffic discussion.

Last, but certainly not least, we get to see an interesting evolution of Scott's character. In "Water," we see that there is a fierce loyalty between Young and Scott, as Young is willing to risk his own life to ensure that Scott makes it back to the ship alive. In "Justice" we see Scott repay that loyalty. No matter what happens through the episode, Scott never loses faith in Young and is always ready to defend him. In fact, some of the lengths to which he is willing to go are disturbing (for lack of a better term), at least in the first viewing....

Anyway, we get to see this newer Scott who is more sure of himself, and we can see his confidence in himself growing. I've always known (and defended) reasons why he is Young's second in command, and now we are seeing them more bluntly. Scott handles his leadership role in this episode far more deftly than he has in the past. He's also becoming a bit more aggressive, though it is very important to note that he did stand up to Greer when Greer was talking about using their force to put Young back in charge. This is a great evolution for him, as it's a natural one considering his empathy. Now he's using the empathy to motivate himself and be a stronger person, which is fantastic.

Me and the Twitter folks spent a good amount of time chatting about this episode this morning. The most popular topic was by far the acting - specifically Brian J. Smith's. Tweeting with him mom may bias these opinions, but still :-). There were some really great moments for him in "Justice", but there were three that really stood out for me. Near the beginning, they were talking about the person who was murdered. Rush asks Scott, "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but was he a friend of yours?" The expression that crossed Scott's face was amazing in the same way that I've talked about on this blog for a while now. I could read all the emotions without him having to say a single word.

Further in, there is a scene in which Scott, Young, and Eli are debating an appropriate course of action. Scott argues his point passionately, despite Eli's disagreement. But when Young makes his decision, Scott falls in line with it. And the acting here... hoo boy. One again, it is the expressions that are crossing Scott's face as he shoves his feelings down and goes along with Young's plan that really show Smith's depth of acting talent.

Later in the episode, though, Scott stood up to Greer when he was speaking of using force to retake control of the ship. This was Scott in Greer's face like we've never seen before. In these three scenes, we can see that evolution I was talking about. At the beginning of the episode, he couldn't quite stand up to Rush, but by the end, he was butting heads with people. THAT is great character development, and it was acted to perfection - the whole development felt natural and real, because Smith has the acting skills to pull off the range of emotion necessary to make that evolution believable.

Something else about Scott's character that I'd like to discuss at this point, since we are currently talking about it in the Hiatus Project chat - Scott has a great moral compass. He has very strong definitions of what is right and wrong, and you can always see him struggling between doing what is right and doing what may appear to be better. Hence his confrontation with Greer. We can see in his facial expression that he wants to go along with Greer's idea, since the idea shows a lot of support for Young... but he knows that it would ultimately be wrong. He knows it and falls on the side of what is right.

Wow, great stuff here. The fact that I can spend any length of time writing about the depth these characters have is amazing. Like I mentioned, I'm chatting with SGU peeps in the Hiatus Project chat right now, and we're dissecting the character interactions on the show. Once again, it is amazing that the characters are real enough to be able to have that kind of discussion!

Anyway, I'd also like to throw kudos out there to writers who wrote such a brilliant script for this and all the other episodes thus far. They have been immensely enjoyable, and it's fantastic to see that the story lines don't just exist in a bubble. They are a continuous thread, and each episode builds off of things that have happened in previous episodes. Also, after watching "Justice" 3 times now, it is still fascinating to observe the deft manipulations of the one responsible. Those parts especially were very well written.

In conclusion - if you are not already watching this show, wtf is wrong with you??? :-) It's the best thing on TV and you absolutely MUST be watching it. If awesome characters plus awesome Sci-Fi adventure  sounds exciting to you, hit up Syfy's website where you can watch the whole season so far from "Air" up through "Justice."

EDIT - It looks like SyFy only has "Earth" through "Justice" posted, not the whole season. 

Brian J. Smith assures me that there are many, many more new things to see in the second half of the season that are really going to spice things up even further, including some very exciting character developments. "Justice" established the baseline for some very important things that are going to happen come April. So make sure you're back in 5 months to see the mid season premiere and see what direction the cast and crew are going to take us next!

If you've got any questions or comments about the writeup or the show in general, feel free to hit me up in the comments or on Twitter (@nunchux). The next section is totally spoilers, as I definitely want to talk about some of the developments in Rush and Young, so if you haven't watched yet, don't go any further. Thanks for reading, though.


If you'd like to read another great writeup of "Justice", swing by WormHoleRiders for a particularly good one.

*** SPOILERS AND SPECULATION AHEAD***

As a general synopsis: Rush frames Young for murder in an attempt to get him to step down from command. Being the good guy that he is, Young realizes that he cannot command the ship if people suspect he is a killer, so he does step down. This leaves Wray in charge, and Rush promptly manipulates her into giving him control of the science team, which he uses to further manipulate Franklin into sitting in the chair ("I got stuck with the late shift").This is all revealed in a confrontation between Young and Rush that ends in a great fight and a better cliffhanger, which I won't spoil, even here.

Rush answers many questions in this episode. Namely, we find out what his true motives are, how he really feels about Young, and, especially interesting, we can now assume that Young was right about Rush back in "Light."

Young is who I'd like to talk about at the moment, as he is the reason this spoiler section exists. We saw some fantastic changes to his character in "Justice" and I'd like to spend some time on those. Two weeks ago in "Life" we saw Young snap. He went back to earth through the communication stones and beat the crap out of Telford for telling Young's wife that he was still having an affair with TJ (which, so far as we've seen, he is not). This opened the door for his evolution into more aggressive territory. I watched it build throughout the course of the entire episode - his building anger at the way everybody was being manipulated. He could see it too, Rush's plan coming together, culminating in Franklin using the chair.

Young confronted Rush after Franklin used the chair, and the scene was among the best acted in the entire series. The animosity is real - it reminded me of the confrontation between Spock and Kirk in the new Star Trek. Wonderfully acted and edge-of-my-seat intense.

Near the end of that confrontation, Wray butts in and tells Young that since she is in charge, the blame lies with her. Young turns to her and, with venom, says "I know." Holy sheeee-it. That sent me reeling to the back side of my chair.

At the end of the episode, Young confronts Rush about the whole shebang - the manipulation, Rush framing Young for murder, etc. - and Rush really hands it to him. This is a scene for which movie actors win awards, and if there is justice in the world (haha no pun intended), both Justin Louis and Robert Carlyle will win awards for this scene as well. This was far and away the best part of the entire episode as these actors just nail everything about it. It is a complete shock to me that these actors get along outside their roles, as the animosity between these two feels so real. And it's been a long time in coming, as that animosity has built up over the entire course of the season. It finally comes to a head in "Justice" and the episode is worth watching just to witness the fireworks.

Debate is going full swing right now as to what this means for Young. Do his actions make him the new de facto "bad guy"? What do they mean for his command of the Destiny? Why didn't he want Scott to see the Kino footage?

To answer with my thoughts on those questions: I don't think this will make Young the bad guy. He and Rush often clashed about what was best for the crew and whether sacrificing people in the name of results was the correct way of going about things. This is an age old debate, and it is one which does not yet have an answer. Nor, likely, will it ever. The last scene showed this season-long debate come to a head, and Young made the decision to end it. Whichever position ends up being right in the show, it is for the greater good of the people on that ship that there is not dissent in the ranks, something that Rush provided a whole lot of. I think that in that one moment, when Rush said the argument between he and Young would never end, when Rush confirmed that there would be more backstabbing and treachery, Young made a decision to end it right there. Time will tell if this was the best course of action, but it certainly does not make Young an evil person in my mind. As a commanding officer, Young must be able to make decisions for the good of the people under him, then act upon them. I firmly believe at this point that he made the best decision he could have in that one moment, given those circumstances.

Think about "Light" for a moment. I think it's probably safe to assume that Rush knew that the ship would survive its journey into the sun and manipulated events for his benefit. He allowed Young to send people out in the shuttle (even suggested that Greer go too) to their deaths. Thankfully that didn't happen, but had Rush gotten his way, it damned well would have. So, why is it a bad thing then that Rush was left behind in the same way he tried to leave others behind?

I do believe that if the crew of the ship finds out the truth about what happened on the planet, Young will end up losing his command. People on the ship will likely react the same way people are reacting online. Some will think its great, others will find it heinous. The rift that any sort of revelation would reveal would force Young to step down as commander. I'm tempted to think that this will leak out, perhaps by way of Young breaking down. Scott's character is maturing to the point where I see him becoming the commanding officer sooner rather than later.

Finally, I had to think for quite a while about why Young didn't want Scott to see the footage of Rush taking the gun from Spencer's quarters. I understand why he wouldn't want the rest of the folks to see it - seeing the footage means its very easy to jump to the correct conclusion about what happened on the planet. But it is very clear that Young has a great deal of respect for Scott and he obviously trusts him, so why not let him see the footage? I think that Young is worried about what Scott's reaction will be to that footage, and doesn't want to risk losing Scott's respect... or Scott's friendship.

For the record, however, I do believe Scott suspects that things didn't quite go down how Young described them, but he likely has too much respect for Young to confront him about it. Scott has a knack for seeing things for what they are - for example, when he understood that the gun in Young's quarters was put there to undermine his authority - and I have serious doubts that he took Young's story at face value. I think that he understands that Young is back in command, and that is, ultimately, the important part.

Oh, the possibilities! This is all speculation, of course, so we'll see how this pans out in a few months.

Alrighty, that wraps things up for me. Thanks for reading, everybody!