#ep. echoes

Sheppard seems wholly unaware of the tragedy that had just struck the others, lost in his own world as he softly informs who ever might be listening that he is taking the city into hyperspace -- and we might recall that while McKay had been surrounded by people in the control room, Sheppard had been alone all along with only McKay's voice in his ear, seeming ignorant of the few crew members that had stayed with him. To him, he and McKay had been doing this together the whole way, just the two of them.

What is interesting about this is that as I had discussed in connection with The Tower (S02E15), the Tarot card for the Tower features a tower that is struck by lightning, which is what we had just basically seen as the replicator beam had just punched through the central spire. As I had discussed then, the card signifies change -- which is not inherently good or bad, it just is. This is befitting the end of the season, this episode on the cusp of the old and the new, in the liminal space in between. Things would necessarily not be the same on the other side even if the symbolism remains neutral on whether the change would ultimately be for the better or worse -- and likely the writers and showrunners had not known themselves how all the changes would ultimately pan out.

As mentioned in connection with The Tower, it also seems as though the two figures that are falling dramatically from the tower in the Rider-Waite deck are the same as are featured in the Two of Cups or the Four of Wands, being essentially The Lovers in the early stages of the relationship. They would evolve into The Lovers with time but had so far been courting each other, may even have tried to establish a relationship but had not matured yet as a couple. Of course in the context of this episode Weir had definitely been one of the figures flung by the lightning bolt -- and as of the end of this episode, her fate would remain unknown. But as it is, as Sheppard takes the city to hyperspace, speaking softly in the way we have only heard him speak to McKay, he is unaware of anything that had happened while he had been thinking "Fly!"

Sheppard: We did it! McKay! Elizabeth! Chuck: I need a medical team to the Control Room, stat! Multiple injuries!

After he has managed to get the city to do what he had told it to do, we see Sheppard sit up on the Control Chair and likely break what ever connection he had with the city as the person with the strongest Ancient gene, as the person that the city itself would recognize as being the closest to the Ancients. Sheppard seems to take a moment to gather his bearings, to re-orient himself, and it could be that losing this connection to the city might even make him feel strangely empty and hollow for a moment because he looks almost lost.

But Sheppard comes to himself soon enough, and thinking that they had succeeded, that they had been able to pull off this cockamamie plan that he and McKay had devised together and everyone had worked so hard to pull through, he jubilantly announces "We did it!" likely expecting McKay (and the others) to join in on the celebration. Because he gets no response from McKay, he calls out for him and then also to Weir -- and we may note that he calls for McKay with his surname and Weir by her given name, which does not mean that he is closer with Weir than he is with McKay, only that he is being unofficial and yet needing a modicum of distance to McKay, attempting to remain professional and not seek intimacy with him -- and it seems to alarm him the longer it goes by that he does not hear anything from them, that he does not get a response.

Sheppard had glanced to the people who are in the room with him when he called out their success, whether or not these people doing some kind of diagnostics on McKay's behalf had been aware of what he was doing while he was on the Chair, but it was clear that these people who are complete strangers to him (and they may even be strangers to McKay, if he was being truthful about his level of familiarity with his own people), and these were not the people he wanted to share his joy with. These people were not his people, and he wanted to be with his people right now. Hence it is really rather disconcerting that McKay is not speaking into his ear the way he usually is, usually unable to keep his thoughts to himself even when he should. He is expecting to get a similar response from McKay as he had back in Echoes (S03E12), when the two of them had been together even as they had been in different places of the Daedalus, sharing in the joy and relief of their survival.

But as apprehensive as Sheppard may have been getting, it is nothing compared to when he finally does hear something from the control room -- someone's voice crying out that they require a medical team since there had been multiple injuries. Sheppard has no idea what has happened, he cannot even begin to guess, but it does not sound good. I should point out that the GateWorld.net transcript for the episode awards the line to McKay but it is not McKay who speaks the line -- likely it is the Canadian gate technician that Weir had called Chuck who is calling out for the medical team, and this is the whole point. It is actually quite telling that they would interpret the voice as McKay's voice when it is not him, which just highlights how the mainstream audience may misconstrue what is actually happening here. Just thinking logically, even though the voice of the Canadian gate technician might sound similar to McKay, surely McKay would be too busy trying to get on top of what ever technical damage may have been incurred in the blast to be the one to call for medics -- that is not his job, that is surely the job of the man who had manned the communications desk this whole episode.

Sheppard does not know that McKay is not among the injured, the only thing he knows here is that McKay had not responded to him when he had called out for him. It seems as though by being ignorant of the subtext some viewers will miss the entire point of what takes place here, what about this is making Sheppard a nervous wreck. It is not McKay calling out for someone to come tend to the wounded because if Sheppard had known that McKay was alive and unharmed, there would be no drama here. Sheppard not knowing that had happened to McKay is 100% of the drama. And so, knowing only that there had been injuries and that the voice announcing it had sounded quite agitated, Sheppard takes off toward the control room. He has to find out for himself what had happened. He needs to know why McKay had not responded when he had called out for him.

Sheppard: Keller, what happened? Keller: Apparently the beam grazed the tower and blew out the-- Adams, that guy just has a cut. Tell him to put pressure on it and move on. There's a lot of people worse off upstairs.

As Sheppard walks into the scene of the disaster, the first thing he sees is Keller tending to the wounded. It seems as though Weir is the first injured person he catches sight of since she had been flung with the pressure wave, and she seems to be in an extremely dire condition.

Sheppard asks Keller what had happened by name, betraying the fact that he knows who she even is and that at least he had tried to welcome her in, even though none of them really think that she will be able to fill Beckett's shoes any time soon -- they all know that they need a professional doctor in their ranks. We had seen her briefly at the start of the episode and she gets to earn her chops a little bit here by the end but she was not a major character in the episode, the intention obviously to slide her in slowly so as not to anger the fans that were still likely feeling sore about what had happened to their fan-favourite character. It is not the intention for Keller to replace Beckett -- even though it obviously is -- but that she might earn her place with them by doing her job. This is her trial by fire -- that would continue in the next episode that would pick up the story from here.

Keller had understood Sheppard as asking about the overall situation, not just about Weir, so she fills him in the best she is able given that she had not been here when the beam had struck the tower either. She tells him what she knows, which is that the replicator beam had grazed the tower and likely she was going to say that it had blown in the windows, but she gets interrupted by trying to keep on top of things, ordering one of her crew to stop wasting time kissing someones boo-boo when there are more severely injured people to tend to. This is meant to show (and not tell) us something of her characterization, which is that she is conscientious and good at her job, even if she is not as empathetic as Beckett had been even though she is a woman. Keller is under a lot of pressure and clearly feels like she is way in over her head, but she has no choice right now but to grow into her responsibilities here. Lucky for her, Weir had told her at the start of the episode that she felt very comfortable with her life in her hands -- and she had no choice right now but to try to take care of her.

Sheppard: Elizabeth? Is she gonna be OK? Keller: I don't know yet. She took quite a fall and her pupils are sluggish. I'm gonna have to get her under a scanner. I'll know more in a bit.

Sheppard asks Keller if Weir is going to be alright, and because we had just seen Sheppard in a very similar situation where Beckett had been escorting Teyla out of the scene of an accident in Sunday (S03E17) where Sheppard had been demanding answers from him on whether she would be alright, we are able to compare the two scenes, the situations. Sheppard had been concerned for Teyla, clearly distraught and with a slight desperation in his tone. He had demanded Beckett for reassurance that he had been unable to give to him -- just as Keller is unable to tell him for sure whether Weir would be alright. While for what ever reason Beckett had been reluctant to tell Sheppard anything until he knew for certain, Keller is able to tell Sheppard what she knows for now, which is that she needs to run some tests before she can give him a more complete diagnosis. The difference between Beckett and Keller's dispositions is not important here, the importance is in how Sheppard had regarded the sight of the injured women.

Sheppard cares about Teyla deeply, she is in ways his best friend and he moreover feels responsible for her as a member of his team. He and Weir are colleagues and perhaps even friends -- in Sateda (S03E04) Sheppard had named her as one of the people he had come to see as her family in Atlantis -- but they have never been as close as that, partially because Sheppard has always been wary of Weir as a woman in a position of power, because Sheppard has not wanted to confuse the already fraught hierarchy between them and most of all because Weir is not very emotionally expressive and she does not easily let people get close to her. Weir and Sheppard could respect each other, they could even understand each other, but they could never become very close. And when we compare the two scenes, Sheppard had been much more concerned for Teyla. It is almost as though he wants to know Weir's current condition here because it is his job. Sheppard is second in command for Weir, and when she is down for the count, it is up to him to become the leader. If she is incapacitated, he has to pick up her mantle, he has to do her job. He does not want that responsibility, in fact he eschews it, but them's the breaks -- and he needs to know her condition to know his own role in this situation.

Sheppard is not in love with Weir. Weir is not the love of his life, and his concern for her is not romantically motivated any way you want to twist it. Especially now that they were so obviously writing her character out of the show, there is no reason for them to even tease anything between them. Sheppard starts by asking how Weir is because her unconscious body happened to be the first one that he had stumbled across here -- but it is not her condition that most concerns him here, just as it had not actually been Teyla's condition that had most concerned Sheppard in Sunday, even though he had not been able to voice the question to which he had really needed a response from Beckett at the time, and then from Zelenka. His break-up from McKay had been so fresh that at the time he did not even know how to ask the question that was burning a hole in his chest because in some ways, he had convinced himself that it was not really any of his business anymore, like he no longer had the right to be concerned for McKay, even though he so clearly was. We had seen Sheppard when both Teyla and Weir had been injured in Echoes (S03E12) when he had even carried Weir to the infirmary personally, and the thing we can take away from these moments is that neither Teyla nor Weir are Sheppard's primary concern, as much as he might care for the both of them.

As Keller leaves to tend to Weir and to find out more about her condition, we can note that Sheppard does not even entertain following her to the infirmary to stay by her side because she is not a priority for him. Instead, his eyes scan the upper floor for the information he is actually looking for. We may recall the moment from The Siege (S02E01) when Sheppard had been beamed back into the city from the Daedalus for the first time ever since he had left to sacrifice his life while not telling McKay goodbye, only telling him "So long, Rodney!" He had known that he had hurt McKay and he was apprehensive about how he would be received, and we had been his eyes scanning the upper floor from the gate room as he does now, seeming to hope to catch a sight of someone that his eyes could not find when Weir walked up to welcome him, taking him into her arms in a hug that he had not known what to do about. Weir had not been the person he had hoped would welcome him back, just as Weir is not the person whose well-being most concerns him here as he then takes up to the control platform in search of someone else, seeming to take the steps two of a time to get there quicker.

Sheppard: Oh, God. Are you alright? Dex: Yeah, I've had worse. Sheppard: How come no one's helping you? Dex: I told them I didn't need any help. Other people need more. Sheppard: I doubt that. Get this man to the Infirmary. Adams: Yes, sir.

Sheppard runs up the stairs until he reaches the top, seeming to stop in his tracks almost comically, seeming to almost freeze in place. He lays his palm on a surface that is filled with broken glass like a great big idiot as he takes in the sight in front of him, and it seems to take him a moment to register that Ronon is sitting on the floor next to him -- and it takes him a moment to register either Ronon or the broken glass because he had been looking for McKay. While we do not see McKay until after Sheppard has exchanged a few words with Ronon, it is important to understand here that Sheppard sees McKay as the first thing he does here because McKay is who his eyes had been scanning for, and it is only after he has ascertained that McKay is alive and mostly unharmed that he can start taking in any other information. Everything else to him comes after McKay. McKay is Sheppard's first priority, and everything about this entire scene is circling around that fact.

After Sheppard has satisfied himself with the knowledge that McKay is moving around doing some kind of busy work, Sheppard notices Ronon and kneels down by his side to check up on him. Sheppard seems to notice the huge sliver of glass that is sticking out of Ronon's chest, possibly sticking right out of his lung, and he seems immediately alarmed by this sight. Sheppard asks Ronon if he is alright, clearly able to see that he is not, and Sheppard further knows that Ronon has a high pain tolerance. He had not just seen Ronon reset his dislocated shoulder recently in The Ark (S03E16), but earlier in the season he had watched Ronon continue pursuing his vengeance like the Terminator in Sateda when he had performed some emergency surgery on himself in the derelict ruins of the hospital where the love of his life had been killed years ago with only the ghosts of his past to keep him company. Ronon had been sitting in a similar state when Sheppard had offered his hand to help him up then, and while he likely would never learn the whole story, Ronon had told him about this woman who had been "close enough" to his wife recently in Sunday.

Sheppard seems to perform some quick triage and asks one of Keller's people to see to Ronon because he has his own "close enough" to check up on, as much as Sheppard seems to want to put off actually finding out how McKay is doing, his "close enough" now become "the one who got away." It seems like Sheppard can easily recognize macho bullshit when he sees it, having seen this guy in the mirror enough times in his life. Do not miss the almost gentle way that Sheppard lays his palm on Ronon's uninjured shoulder, seeming to try to convey some of his compassion through this gesture even though his words are brusque and manly, maintaining much needed emotional distance to the situation.

Sheppard: You guys alright? McKay: All things considered. Sheppard: What happened? McKay: The beam grazed the side of the tower before the shield was completely closed. Sheppard: Damage? McKay: Minimal -- I think. Look, I was able to get the shield up fairly quickly. It took the brunt of the blow.

Content that Ronon would be seen to and that he would survive this because while Sheppard had called bullshit on Ronon's act, he also fully believes the man when he says that he has had worse -- Sheppard has seen him have worse, albeit not that much worse -- he then gets up and approaches McKay who is tending to some equipment that seems to be sparkling and fizzing out with loose wires. Because Sheppard represses his emotions all the more the more distraught he is, it is crucially important to pay attention to what he is not doing here.

As he walks up to McKay and Teyla, note that he is not asking McKay if he is alright, he is asking them together, collectively. It is emotionally easier for him to inquire McKay indirectly if he is alright than it is for him to actually ask McKay, to have McKay tell him directly. The thing to understand here is that Sheppard is deathly afraid of what the answer to the question that he cannot bring himself to ask here is. He does not want to hear the answer because what ever it is, he had not been here to protect McKay and worse of all, he feels like he had caused this to happen. And to add insult to injury, McKay does not actually respond to the question that Sheppard could not bring himself to ask, telling him "All things considered," which he easily takes to mean "No, not really" because Sheppard is already primed to learn that McKay is not alright here. Of course, par for the course, Sheppard and McKay are actually having two difference conversations here because one of the themes of this episode has been "What we have here is a failure to communicate." We have seen Sheppard and McKay speak wildly past each other when it comes to matters of the heart, and they have not suddenly learned how to communicate with each other in the past five minutes when nursing their own hurts both of them are all the more likely to turn away from the other man and withdraw.

McKay cannot bring himself to pretend like he is alright for Sheppard because he is not alright. He is not injured, not really. We see some cuts on his face and he seems to be guarding his side, suggesting that being flung from his station by the pressure wave may have bruised his ribs. At the same time, we had seen Ronon try to shield McKay from the shattering glass with his body meaning that McKay had probably been protected from the worst of the blast even though he may never wise up to just how much time and effort Ronon puts into keeping him safe, let alone why the big guy is doing it in the first place. But the physical injuries are secondary to McKay -- he can easily dissociate from physical pain, and we have seen him push past what must have been agonizing pain previously, even while at the same time he has squealed like a stuck pig over some minor injuries, looking for sympathy when he has scrapes but hiding his pain when he is well and truly hurt, all of this resulting from his childhood.

McKay is easily able to push past his physical ailments even here, but he is fucked up by the knowledge that this was all his fault, that he had allowed this to happen. He had been too late raising the shield, and he had allowed all of these people to get injured. He might as well have turned the sustained beam on them himself. Worse yet, he knows that the replicators would not even have attacked them in the first place if he had not stupidly flung a pathetic handful of nukes on them to start off with. All of this was on him, and so McKay was scrambling for something, anything to do that might help him take his mind off how all of this was his fault. He was pretty damn far from alright, thanks for asking.

Another thing that Sheppard cannot seem able to do is to look at McKay. He asks him and Teyla collectively how they are doing while parking himself in front of McKay but we see him first drop his eyes and then turn away, even taking a few steps to get some space between the two of them. This is subtle in that if one did not know Sheppard, one might think that he is just scanning his environs to see if there is anyone else needing help, if there is anything that he could be doing in this situation, like the great big hero that he is. Only Sheppard is not at all concerned for anyone else, his focus is entirely on McKay even as he turns away from him, as though he cannot bear looking at the cuts on his face. For all McKay thinks that this had all been his fault, Sheppard knows that this was all his fault instead. He had caused Weir to become injured, he had pierced Ronon with a glass shard and he had caused the man that he loves to get injured, again. McKay could have died, and that was on him. He had told McKay to raise the shield at 18,000 but he could have said 15,000 feet and likely they still would have made it. He had erred on the side of caution and almost killed the person he loves more than anything, and he had not even known about it at the time. He had been feeling happy, wanting to share in the news with McKay, and McKay could have been dead. Both Sheppard and McKay are fully convinced that they had caused this to happen and for as much as they had accused each other of blaming the other man earlier, they were certainly ready to hog the blame when people had actually been hurt.

Sheppard asks McKay for a damage report, and he cannot face the man as he invites him to fill him in, and while he does mean the city and McKay takes him to mean the city, a part of Sheppard is asking about the damage that McKay had suffered, even though he could never just come out and say the words. McKay tells him that as far as he can tell, the damage had been minimal since most of it had actually come from the blast wave and the beam had mostly missed the actual tower. McKay and Teyla cannot see Sheppard's face as he turns away from them to listen to McKay's report, and we can see his mouth tremble in a way that betrays how much he is actually feeling here, how much of his feelings he is repressing in an attempt at staying functional under pressure. But as much as he had dreaded what he might find it, it seemed like McKay was alright. McKay was alive, and while again he had allowed him to get hurt, at least they were out of the danger zone now. Or so they thought.

McKay responds to Sheppard somewhat distractedly because most of his focus is going into hooking up the ZPM, but we have noted before how McKay seems to have developed an ability to do work even as Sheppard is talking his ear off, even as Sheppard is supposedly distracting him, and this may be due to his childhood when he needed to develop strategies to focus on his school work while his parents were busy hating each other and blaming him. It is possible that McKay even requires some amount of distraction for his mind to be able to focus on solving problems instead of scanning his environment for sources of potential danger.

And because the two of them have worked together for so long and so well, Sheppard may intuitively understand that McKay needs these interruptions from him. Of course McKay is grumbling just to take some of the pressure off, and this could be interpreted as him displaying his "impossible heroics game" like Sheppard had accused him of doing in Phantoms (S03E09) -- and if the order of the episodes were reversed, as I have suggested, then Sheppard might easily be able to refer to times just such as this then -- even if it is not McKay's intention of making himself seem like the bigger hero, someone who is able to take on this gargantuan task and resolve it, by making what he does sound more complicated than it is.

Likely he is absolutely truthful about this being rather complicated and not something that just everyone would be able to do -- even if we had seen Sheppard handling the ZPM back down on the planet in a manner that suggested that he knows how to handle himself around it, like he might have been able to do this on his own because it had not been McKay's technical expertise that had made Sheppard insist on bringing McKay up on the spaceship with him. Sheppard had needed to take McKay away from the planet where the fish were increasing the volume of their warning that had been causing people to start developing aneurysms to the point of dying, and Sheppard could not allow McKay and that big old brain of his to spend another moment down on the planet if he was in danger of dying from having his brain exploded by the whales. He had needed to remove McKay from the planet's surface as quickly as possible, and he had taken the ZPM with him so that he might literally be able to shield McKay from danger to the best of his ability up in the ship. Of course neither McKay nor anyone else knows that this had been Sheppard's motivation, and as far as they are concerned, he and McKay are here saving everyone else even if everyone else had been perfectly safe under the umbrella of the shield, at least for the time being.

We have also noted before that McKay and Sheppard seem to run at fundamentally different speeds, Sheppard preferring fast and intense and McKay being meticulous and taking his time doing things. While Caldwell is also telling McKay to hurry up here, what McKay is saying about how it may look easy but it is actually more complicated than just flipping a switch is actually something that could also have been spoken by him during their more intimate moments, insisting on proper preparation especially because Sheppard seems to need that "maximum thrust" to get off -- as hinted in No Man's Land (S03E01). McKay is only thinking of Sheppard's best interest as he takes his time to do this properly, wanting nothing better than to give Sheppard exactly what he wants and needs. There is also symbolism in having both Sheppard and McKay fondle this girthy phallic object one after the other.

McKay: What, we are already? Caldwell: We didn't have far to go. Position, Doctor. The shields are up. We need the extra power from that ZPM now. McKay: Yes, yes. I just need to...

While Sheppard wants to be kept apprised of what McKay is doing we have noted previously that he tends to defer to Caldwell's authority when ever they are on the Daedalus, and so it is Caldwell who takes over communicating with the engine room or where ever the shield is emitted on the ship, telling McKay that they had arrived in the position that likely either McKay or Zelenka had calculated would be the optimal place for them to open Sheppard's umbrella. We see that the whole bridge appears to be looking out to the sun but since it is possible that they do not actually have windows on the ship but cameras are projecting an outside view of the ship on a screen, they have to be filtering some of the radiation so that it only looks like they are staring directly into the sun from much closer on than they would on the planet's surface because that would surely blind each and every one of them. Also note that Sheppard is leaning against the captain's chair, wanting to keep some distance to the female helmsman, seeming more comfortable in the space of another man.

We can also note that McKay uses a different tone with Caldwell than he had with Sheppard, having tried to explain to Sheppard why he was taking his time whereas he almost snaps at Caldwell, sounding irritable. We had noted him do a similar shift in tone earlier when he had asked Zelenka why he was bothering him while he had been in the middle of an intense conversation with Sheppard, and we have noted that McKay has a tendency to take out on other people feelings that have been generated by Sheppard making demands on him, feeling the growing pressure but not wanting to unload his irritation on Sheppard because he does not want Sheppard to be cross with him. It seems like McKay actually is on his best behaviour with Sheppard much of the time because he needs Sheppard to like him, somewhere deep down he fears that if he upsets Sheppard then the man will no longer bother with him, he will not want to waste his time on him. McKay seems to fear showing his authentic self to Sheppard, not realizing that Sheppard loves him warts and all, that Sheppard has chosen McKay several times over in lieu of perfect beings because he loves his faults. It is McKay's deepest desire to be chosen by someone, to be their first choice, and he does not even realize that Sheppard has done that over and over again.

McKay: Oh no. Sheppard: What? McKay: The prominence is fully collapsing into the photosphere. Brace yourselves!

McKay turns to check out the status of the prominence and notices that they are out of time, speaking only the words "Oh no." It is a feature of Sheppard hearing these ominous words and not being able to read McKay's face to see what he is thinking, which is something that Sheppard thinks is vitally important for him to be able to do in a crisis, that we then hear Sheppard tightly ask McKay what it is, his tone suggesting that he expects McKay to know to tell him what it is without him having to ask, he expects McKay to know to explain it to him and not just leave him hanging with a dramatic, suspenseful and very unhelpful "Oh no!" And McKay does fill Sheppard in even as he scrambles to do what had been asked of him, which was to boost the shield with the ZPM. This was it. Also, pay attention to how the stream of plasma ejaculates from the sun like a metaphor for sexual completion, Sheppard seemingly wanting to take it right in the face.

Sheppard: Rodney! McKay: ZPM is online.

Sheppard and Caldwell are watching the stream coming right at them since they had purposefully parked the ship right in its path, and as it seems to be getting real close we hear Sheppard call out for McKay, his tone part pleading, part insisting that McKay do something about this.

While we have gotten some indication of the fact that McKay would prefer to die with Sheppard when the time comes, it had never been Sheppard's plan to actually die here. Sheppard does not want to die with McKay because he does not want McKay to die at all. The thought is unacceptable to him. He had brought McKay up here on the ship to keep him safe from the whales and to give him the best cover under the boosted shield to the ZPM but because they had arrived at the scene so quickly and the prominence had collapsed so unexpectedly, Sheppard likely had a moment to doubt whether he had made the right choice here, had time enough to think whether he should demand that Caldwell open a hyperspace window and get them the hell away from the stream. Now that the planet is not shielded at all it would definitely fry everyone down in the city but Sheppard had not come here to die and he certainly had not come up here to sacrifice McKay for everyone else. This is what we hear in Sheppard's tone as he pleads for McKay to give him something. Having made the choice to bring them up here, there is nothing further that Sheppard can do except to trust that McKay is able to pull another eleventh hour miracle out of his shapely posterior. Watching the stream coming directly at them, Sheppard likely has time enough to pray. He hopes he did the right thing.

Caldwell: How long will this last, Doctor? McKay: Anywhere from a few seconds to several hours. Sheppard: Hours? You never said anything about hours! Caldwell: We're building up serious heat behind the shield. McKay: I told you this wasn't a good plan!

Caldwell asks a pertinent question that Sheppard clearly should have thought to ask before, which is how long they can expect this coronal mass ejection to last. McKay tells them something that he has likely known since graduate school, which is that these kind of phenomena are very unpredictable and can last up to several hours. And because Sheppard is so taken aback by this brand new information here, it is obvious for anyone to see that he had not brought the two of them up here to die.

Sheppard had not known this and if he had known this, he likely would have thought of something else. His intention had been to take McKay away form the place where his brain, his most important and priced possession, was in danger of killing him, and to bring him somewhere where he might be able to shield him best, and now McKay was telling him that this might have been the worst place to bring him. They might be able to shield the city but at the cost of their own lives and that had never been Sheppard's intention. We can hear the accusation in Sheppard's tone, like he was blaming McKay for him having brought them up here, and we have to account for the fact that Sheppard seems to have a very obvious tendency to project. He is afraid and he can only deal with this sudden and overwhelming fear by blaming McKay for having made him bring the two of them up here.

And since we know that McKay thinks his parents had hated each other and blamed him when he had been a child, Sheppard's tendency to blame McKay may actually be something that he finds comforting and familiar, people having a known tendency to try to resolve their childhood traumas in their relationships as adults. It is for sure not the healthiest way to conduct courtship, and Sheppard and McKay's relationship has all the signs of trauma-bonding, which likely required them to dissolve their relationship so that they might be able to build it up again in a healthier way down the line. We can hear the anguish in McKay's tone when he whines to Sheppard that he had told him this was not a good plan from the get-go -- he is not wrong about that -- having obviously gone along with this plan only because he felt the need to please Sheppard, to do what Sheppard needed him to do for him.

While this is going on, we get an interesting exchange between Zelenka and Ronon down on the planet that might just as well be about Sheppard and McKay's relationship:

Dex: How're they doing? Zelenka: Well, according to my calculations, the blast wave should have hit us by now but I'm reading no discernable increase in radiation. Dex: So they're doing good? Zelenka: Yes. So far, anyway.

McKay: Temperature inside the shield's rising too fast. I'm already detecting several failed sensors on the bow. Caldwell: If this thing keeps going, the heat build-up could damage the hull. McKay: Not "could." It's already damaging it. We have a breach in the 302 Bay. Caldwell: Seal it off. McKay: Another breach. Deck four -- we're venting atmosphere.

But while things between the two of them may be so far, so good, it seems like everything is currently crumbling all around them, the ship coming apart at the seams. We can note that while McKay and Caldwell are both trying to stay on top of things, are trying to deal with the problems as they arise, Sheppard has once again fallen quiet.

We have noted that Sheppard has a tendency to go quiet when he is overwhelmed by emotion, not wanting people to hear his voice tremble or stutter, needing the maintain an image as the stoic action hero type to his men, to the people he is asked to lead into battle. While he is not in charge here and there is nothing he can do but pray, Sheppard is faced with the fact that he had brought the man that he loves up here, and although he may have had the best of intentions, it seems like he had personally doomed them, like he had brought McKay up here just to die. Sheppard thinks that his love is a death sentence, that he is a death bringer, that he marks the people he loves for death, and it seems like he had managed to do that again. He had damned McKay, and because he had never loved anyone as much as he loved McKay he had always known that it would end up spectacularly badly. It is possible that Sheppard is not even hearing or able to take in what Caldwell and McKay are saying, even if it is a comfort for him to be able to hear McKay's voice in his ear. McKay mentions the word "bow" here, and while they may have started their adventure the other day standing by what had reminded him of the bow of a ship watching the sun set beneath the horizon as he had been reminded of Celine Dion bellowing out a song about her heart going on, Sheppard felt anything but the king of the world right now. He has never been more afraid as he is here.

The episode begins with a view of the city from afar from which the camera is then submerged underwater -- deep in the dark underwater where it seems that Sheppard's team are joined in the submersible jumper with several others for what ever mission they are on. We first get a shot of Weir and Ronon sitting in the jumper hinting at the fact that Weir has taken McKay's usual seat, the seat of the spouse that is also called the shotgun seat, next to Sheppard -- also sometimes seen as the "seat of honour" even though in cars dignitaries are often seated in the back, on the rear right behind the driver. But seating Weir here now and McKay not being seated there currently is not arbitrary, and in fact they call attention to this in the dialogue.

Teyla walks up to McKay who seems to be seated behind Sheppard, in the seat that he had occupied traditionally and before the two of them had started an intimate relationship, the seat that seems to have been reserved for an Ancient science person, with access to scientific instruments in the jumper. McKay seems not to be looking out of the window into the darkness since there does not appear to be much out there for them to look at but is watching Sheppard, looking at the back of his head, perhaps oblivious to the fact that Sheppard may also see him from the reflection in the window. Teyla seems to be inviting herself to sit in his place, which is a curious request to make -- made especially curious by the fact that she does it by calling "shotgun," clearly not understanding what "shotgun" means in the context. Shotgun is meant for the place currently occupied by Weir, being a particularly desired seat, and since we have seen Teyla seated behind Sheppard on many of their missions recently, this suggests both that Teyla has heard McKay call "shotgun" previously while claiming his seat next to Sheppard, and that Teyla feels like McKay had taken up her seat on this mission, and it really is not her problem that someone else had claimed McKay's seat. She should not be relegated to the back of the jumper just because Weir had decided to tag along.

It seems like at some point, after Sheppard and McKay had started their relationship, she and McKay had switched seats, and Teyla had mereley come to claim her own seat now -- from wherever she was coming from. We do not know how long they have been on the way down by this time, albeit they certainly make it seem like it has been a while, and so Teyla may have gotten up to use the restroom or what ever facilities they may or may not have onboard the jumper or even just to stretch her limbs, and McKay may have taken the opportunity to claim her seat when she got up -- using the ancient principle of "you snooze, you lose," or figuring that this was a case of them playing Musical chairs and that the seat was open for anyone to claim once it was vacated. She did not feel like this, however, and all of this just calls attention to the fact that McKay is not seated on what had by this time become his usual seat by Sheppard's side -- Sheppard was no longer extending those boyfriend privileges on him. It seems like Sheppard is petty when it comes to things like that.

McKay reluctantly gets up and gives Teyla (back?) her seat, feeling the need to throw a comment as he leaves, which he seems to direct at Sheppard especially even though he does not seem to expect him to respond -- which he does not. McKay's attitude suggests that this may not even be the first seat he has had to vacate on this journey, and Sheppard may have asked him to give up his seat for Weir earlier. Sheppard loves McKay, that has not changed. He just cannot stand to be around him right now, especially knowing how much he has hurt the other man and unable to deal with his emotions, needing to project about them, needing to lay the blame on McKay for what he had done to him. And so it seems that McKay has no alternative but to move to the back with the unwashed masses, the grunts and redshirts, needing to make it known to everyone that he is doing this under duress.

McKay: What? Zelenka: Nobody said anything. McKay: You don't have to, do you? Look, it's not my fault things are hard to find on the bottom of the ocean. Zelenka: Rodney, you said you knew where it was.

Relegated to the back compartment, McKay takes up a seat that may or may not have been left vacant by Teyla. McKay seems to feel everyone having a negative disposition toward him, responding to what he thinks people are thinking by asking them to spit it out. Zelenka even points out to him that no one had said anything -- and this is another rather clear example of McKay reading people's thoughts.

We had seen McKay develop his seemingly latent ability into full-blown telepathy in Tao of Rodney (S03E14) but we see hints of him catching people's thoughts at least to some extent again and again without anyone thinking there is anything strange going on. Zelenka's comment here seems to lampshade this -- they were doing this on purpose even if it was too subtle for most viewers to pick up on. There is always the chance that McKay is just good at picking up patterns or is able to read people's expressions, possibly due to the hypervigilance he has developed on account of his abusive childhood environment, but it is curious that it keeps happening to him and no one else. And being that he seems able to sense the thoughts of the people around him (but Sheppard's the loudest since he possesses an exceptionally strong Ancient gene), it must feel uncomfortable to the point of being unbearable for him to experience everyone's frustration with him, feeling like everyone is blaming him for the trip taking too long.

McKay: I said I knew its last known location. It is a mobile drilling station, remember? Obviously that's gonna take a few hours. Dex: If we don't find it soon, this is gonna be your last known location. McKay: Oh, zing!

We get some exposition as McKay mentions that they are looking for a moveable drilling platform at the bottom of the ocean, and hence the presence of both Weir and Zelenka on this mission may recall the events of Before I Sleep (S01E15), in which both Zelenka and Sheppard had jumped with Weir from another timeline into this one and had subsequently died at the bottom of the ocean. Their remains, if there is anything left of them, have been beneath the waters for 10 000 years, since the last great battle between the Ancients and the wraith, which is not irrelevant for the events of the episode

Listening in on the conversation, Ronon turns back to make a somewhat unfriendly comment to McKay and McKay makes what seems like an equally hostile response, and we have to address what is going on here. McKay had suffered a tragic loss at the end of the previous episode to which Ronon had seemed sympathetic, and so his treatment of McKay could be seen as callous here -- and it might be by design. We do not know how long it has been since the memorial when Ronon had come to check up on him, but it could be that Ronon is trying to help McKay in his own way, trying to create a sense of normalcy when his break up with Sheppard has thrown all of their lives out of whack. He is not treating McKay like he is fragile, like he is a shrinking violet or a Victorian maiden who needs to be treated delicately.

Ronon could be doing this as a mercy, as callous and annoyed with McKay as he seems. On the other hand, McKay may have been acting particularly prickly recently, and Ronon may be genuinely sick of his antics, telling him that enough is enough and he needs to start acting like a human being again. The third, and I think the most interesting possibility, is that this is the first time Ronon is under water and he is freaking out, he is barely keeping it together because the environment is out of his control in a way it is not when they are in space -- and in this too we may see how similar he and McKay are on a deep level.

We can recall that McKay has a very traumatic memory of being under water and they seem on their way to the bottom now, and this can only remind of his previous experience even though McKay is trying not to show that he is feeling uncomfortable -- and he would not want Sheppard to see him vulnerable right now anyway. McKay had confessed to Sheppard in Echoes (S03E12) that he feels uncomfortable under water, and Sheppard may even be aware of this, even though under the circumstances he cannot react to this in any way, as concerned for McKay as he had seemed then. Ronon's comment of this being or becoming McKay's last known whereabouts also highlights the fact that this is the last known whereabouts of Sheppard and Zelenka from the other timeline. The two of them had perished here, and we are supposed to remember them.

Feeling like everyone has turned on him or that it is pile-up-on-McKay day, feeling the hostility coming at him from all quarters, McKay comments with a sarcastic rejoinder to Ronon, his tone betraying the fact that he too is frustrated by the situation -- quite possibly more frustrated than the others because while they may be bored by what seems to be a wild goose chase, McKay feels all of the blaming him for their current situation, of not having led them directly to their target even though it seems like McKay actually had given them a pretty close ballpark to where they might be able to find this platform that they had obviously found worth checking out, hoping to find information and technology of the Ancients there that might help them with their many and sundry problems.

Feeling like he is being blamed might be familiar and even feel comforting in a way to McKay but he is still acting out under the extreme pressure, unable to keep his thoughts or comments to himself at the best of times. And it must be especially upsetting to him not to have Sheppard's back anymore, not able to count on Sheppard being there for him. McKay may be surrounded by people in this jumper that seems to be filled to the maximum capacity now but he is more alone now even than he had been standing outside alone on the edge of the city in the previous episode. If the others were thinking this would be a long trip, they had no idea how long it was starting to feel like to him.

It is notable that it is Ronon who has to ask the question of what had happened, and it could be that Sheppard has lost his ability to speak for the moment, as he often seems to do in emotionally overwhelming situations, his voluntary mutism possibly resulting from his childhood and how ever his father had disciplined him when he had been a normal child who may have wanted to cry upon occasion, and partially from him developing a slight stutter when he is overwhelmed and not wanting his men to hear it -- believing that he sets a better example to them as a stone faced commander than a stuttering human mess. Sheppard had taken Ronon in so that Ronon might be able to perform duties when he is unable, and him speaking for Sheppard now could easily be an example of him doing this job.

The scene they arrive at had been the site of an explosion -- the partner of Sheppard's golf buddy Jim had exploded due to some Ancient radiation essentially transforming both of them into living bombs, and she had gone off in the afternoon just following lunch time. Teyla had actually been with her because they had been practicing stick fighting since Weir had cancelled her lunch date with Teyla, and Teyla seems to have survived only because she had suddenly turned back, having forgotten her sticks in the gym. If not for suddenly having remembered what she had forgotten, she would have been the closest person to the exploding woman. But she had still suffered grievous injury, and it seems to be Beckett who detects her among the injured. Sheppard is immediately by her side, sounding distraught now that he forced himself to speak, able only to demand answers from Beckett -- assurances that Teyla would be alright. It is easy to read this scene in the context of what Sheppard and Ronon had just been talking about up in his room on the topic of his love life and whether he is romantically interested in Teyla, since the explosion had gone off just at the right (or wrong, depending one one's point of view) moment, sparing Sheppard from having to respond to Ronon's question of why he and Teyla could never be a thing -- or what ever it is that he was about to say on the topic.

Beckett: She's lost a great deal of blood. We're gonna need to get her to the Infirmary stat. Sheppard: Is she gonna be alright? Beckett: Let's go. Let's move!

Sheppard's worry could be described as almost excessive here, a real desperation in his voice as he pleads for Beckett to tell him that Teyla is going to be alright. Sheppard does care about Teyla a great deal, and so it would be easy to interpret him as revealing his true feelings toward her here, the emergency and her dire condition bringing out the love that he feels for her even though he pretends never to show it ordinarily. Only, this is not the first time that we have seen Teyla in mortal peril or even knocking on death's door, and we may recall that when Sheppard had stopped by Teyla's seeming deathbed in Echoes (S03E12), it looked to be the first time he had given her a single thought during the entire episode and he had only a moment to spare by her side at the time. Sheppard does care about Teyla, but his behaviour here is not romantic and it is not ultimately motivated by her.

Let us appreciate the fact that Sheppard has no idea what has happened here, not sporting his earpiece on his day off and having received no news beyond Beckett just having told him that there had been an explosion that had claimed three lives and injured dozens severely -- two of them that he has seen with his own eyes. In other words, Sheppard does not know that McKay is not one of them and as it is, he does not feel like he can ask -- he cannot bring himself to even speak his name. He does not feel like he is in a position to ask after having ended their relationship, even though it must be the foremost thought on his mind -- his worst fear -- like it always has been. Ending their relationship had not changed that. And seeing Teyla had just ramped up his fear because if Teyla had been one of the injured, it is entirely possible that McKay had been there too. For all he knew, Teyla had been so shifty before because she was going to have lunch with Weir and McKay. Sheppard knows McKay well enough to know when he usually eats lunch (hence not having wanted to be at the commissary at the same time as him), not knowing that McKay had not been there because he had been eating lunch elsewhere at the time. What is more, having seen Beckett on the scene meant that McKay was not on the mainland fishing with the guy, which is what Sheppard had still thought might have been the case on their way over here. Seeing Beckett tending to the wounded had immediately made his internal alarm go up a whole notch.

But what is most harrowing of all here for Sheppard is that as he sees Teyla, her injury reminds him of what he had done to McKay in Phantoms (S03E09). It was intentional that we never got to see Sheppard's initial reaction to seeing McKay's injury and his realization that he had been the cause of it because it must have been absolutely devastating to him. We had not seen Sheppard until he had a moment to process it, when he had been desperate to find Beckett in the forest so that the man might come fix McKay, come tell him how bad it was -- whether he was going to be alright. It is not incidental that Teyla appears to have her injury on the same side, almost in the same place as McKay because this is bringing up memories for him -- this is bringing up feelings that he finds difficult to fight down. And do not miss the way Beckett does not actually respond to Sheppard's question here, which is odd. He glances up at Sheppard's face and looks concerned, and it is possible that he does not say anything because he knows that he does not know. Beckett is not able to make any promises here, and he expects Sheppard to know that he would naturally do his best -- he would always try to save everyone he could but especially someone he knew personally.

Sheppard had only recently found Beckett cradling one of his men in the forest trying desperately to keep him alive, and so Beckett expects him to understand that the answer to his question is "I'll do my best." But that is simply not what Sheppard wants to hear here -- he wants reassurance. He actually needs someone to tell him that it is going to be alright, and not just about Teyla -- even though Teyla does contain a lot of symbolic value to him too. If he had failed to keep Teyla alive and safe a week after ending his relationship with McKay with the excuse that focusing all of his attention on McKay made it more difficult for him to keep everyone safe, it would only highlight what a huge mistake he had made. Of course there is also the possibility that Beckett is able to read Sheppard's emotions here since he seems to be emoting very strongly, and it is even possible that he is confused by what he is receiving from Sheppard since he had not known that Sheppard had felt like this about Teyla -- because most of what he is feeling here is not generated by her, he is only projecting it on her in the moment.

Sheppard: What the hell happened here, Radek? Zelenka: There was an explosion. Sheppard: I get that, but why? Zelenka: Well, I'm not sure yet. I wasn't allowed on the scene until the emergency crews cleared the floor. What took you so long? Sheppard: The transporters are down and there's a lot of stairs.

Beckett and his team leave them, intent on taking good care of Teyla and the rest of the injured, and Sheppard has a moment to look absolutely distraught. But seeming to still be scanning his environment for something, he then lands on Zelenka and approaches him, demanding answers from him -- his expletive revealing just how intensely he needs to know the answer to the most important question, even if he cannot voice it. He needs Zelenka to understand what he is asking without needing to come out and say it -- even if seeing Zelenka so calmly studying the debris already suggests to him that McKay had not been one of the wounded or the dead. Sheppard has seen how much Zelenka cares about McKay (more even that he feels strictly speaking comfortable with), and so he eases marginally just seeing that Zelenka, who has been at the site longer, is not broken up about it.

Zelenka tells Sheppard that there had been an explosion, which Sheppard can see for himself, showing once again how Zelenka is not as good at communicating pertinent information to Sheppard as McKay is. Zelenka is an intelligent man but there is no one who knows Sheppard as well as McKay does, and Sheppard finds himself constantly disappointed when other people fail to act or to respond to him the same way as McKay does -- which is just the way he wants him to. And because it seems like Zelenka does not have the answers that Sheppard is looking for here, he seems to join the party in figuring it out for himself, grabbing one of the flashlights from the floor to get a better look at what had happened -- and to be sure, as a soldier he does have some expertise when it comes to explosives.

But I will call your attention especially to what Zelenka says here about it having taken an unexpectedly long time for Sheppard and Ronon to get to the site. Obviously Zelenka had expected Sheppard to get there quicker, and Sheppard explains that it was because the transporters were down and that they had to take a lot of stairs to get there -- which is fair enough. But for Zelenka to comment on this means that they are more than fashionably late to the scene, which again seems to confirm the location of Sheppard's quarters by the edge of the city on one the promontories and that it takes at least one but possibly two trips on a transporter to get from there to the central spire. The explosion must have happened somewhere near the mess hall and the mess hall has to be at a central location -- which Sheppard's quarters are not. But Zelenka's comment here does not just betray the fact that Sheppard's quarters are a long way from the central spire but also hints at the fact that Sheppard had, until very recently, lived somewhere much closer. It seems like Zelenka expected Sheppard to have gotten here quicker on his day off -- having expected him to be somewhere closer. It is not impossible that Zelenka straight up knows that Sheppard had been living together with McKay.

Zelenka: McKay is in his lab. He thinks he might have a lead. Sheppard: What kind of lead? Zelenka: He didn't say. The good news is, though, the structure is intact, so there's no danger of the tower falling down. There is, however, something very odd. Dex: What?

It could be because Zelenka does know McKay so well and has been able to observe Sheppard when it comes to him -- having even been dragged to the bottom of the ocean to save the man's life in Grace Under Pressure (S02E14) when Zelenka had been fairly sure that Sheppard would expend both of their lives trying to save McKay, having seen how desperate he was to save him -- that Zelenka then does answer the question that Sheppard had been unable to voice so far: he tells him that McKay is safely in his lab and is working on this. McKay being in his lab and having sent Zelenka here when normally he might have been at the scene himself is not arbitrary because it seems like they are both almost as though avoiding each other at this time, they are avoiding having to say the other's name and are even trying to avoid having the other's name come up in conversations, which is quite typical post-break up behaviour. On any normal day McKay would gladly have been right on the site trying to figure this one out but now he had preferred to stay in his lab instead -- and it is not even impossible that he had been by the site already and had time to leave given that he had been closer to the scene, having left Zelenka to hold up the fort and do the job he might have normally done himself.

Note that as Sheppard asks what kind of lead McKay had, he quite pointedly avoids mentioning McKay, not asking about him but about the thing, and he carefully avoids looking at Zelenka when he speaks the question as though pretending that his attention is on the wall. He is affecting a casual air as he asks the question, which only tells us that he is feeling anything but casual -- Sheppard only needs to perform not being interested in something or not caring about something when he does care very much, and there is nothing he cares about more than McKay even though he is trying to pretend like there is anything normal about the two of them trying to solve this thing on their own when this is the kind of thing that on any normal day, the two of them would have tried to solve together. Zelenka does not actually know what McKay's lead had been and is unable to report his theory to Sheppard so that the two of them could start workshopping this via proxy. Note also that what Zelenka says about the structure being sound and withstanding this quite massive explosion is also true of the show -- and of their relationship. The foundation is sturdy enough that it can withstand the kind of really rather drastic roadblock that they had introduced on the course of true love right now.

Zelenka: Well, the few eye witness reports that we have say that Doctor Hewston just... blew up. Sheppard: What the hell does that mean? Dex: How is that even possible? Zelenka: Yeah, normally I would agree with you but from what we can tell, she was standing right in the middle of the hall here and just exploded.

Zelenka explains to them that the explosion seems to have been caused by a woman just blowing up -- and we may note here that the woman who had been practicing stick-fighting with Teyla seems to be a narrative mirror for Sheppard and the man who had been playing golf next to Sheppard where we had seen McKay's lookalike previously seems to be a narrative mirror for McKay.

Both of them had an explosive tumour on account of what they had done together alone in the night -- and McKay later calls Doctor Hewston Jimbo's "partner" and does not seem to be referring to lab partners -- making it really quite concerning that one of them had just combusted. What is more, she had exploded with no forewarning and no one had been able to anticipate anything being wrong. Let us note that for all McKay is devastated both by the events of this day but also seemingly the past week, of what had happened between himself and Sheppard of which we only get hints, McKay is much better at expressing genuine emotions than Sheppard is. For all he may cope through dissociation, McKay works through his emotions and does not bury them inside the way Sheppard does. McKay may often take them out on others but he does take them out and does not bury them inside to fester. There is a metaphor here for the two of them, and it is very concerning what it says about Sheppard in particular that his mirror should just explode with no forewarning.

Sheppard: So, what, a suicide bomb? Zelenka: Well, see, no. That's what I thought too originally, but I've scanned the area with my equipment and there isn't even the slightest trace of explosive residue. We have no idea what we're dealing with here.

Trying to get to the bottom of this and needing to understand why this had happened, Sheppard arrives at the possibility of a suicide bomb -- which is not altogether different from the crisis they had to deal with in Critical Mass (S02E12). For all he knows, there might have been another Goa'uld to have attempted to infiltrate the city even if the devastation seems --thankfully -- relatively small this time. But Zelenka disabuses him of the notion that this had been any explosive device -- and for sure both of them know that there are many ways to blow up the entire city that does not involve explosives -- seeming to at least rule out any ordinary human terrorist or insurgent.

What is interesting here is that they use the catch word "suicide," which had been so prominently featured in the previous episode where "Sammy Suicide" had fired up his rockets and blown himself up -- Herick too having been a narrative mirror for Sheppard in his grief. It seems like the point of Herick was to reflect what Sheppard might be like if he ever lost McKay, the darkest mirror for when he hits rock bottom, and so having his narrative mirror blow up again seems like a reflection of this, tying the episodes together. Sheppard had gone on what both of them would refer to as "suicide missions" in The Prodigal (S05E15), McKay seeming to make light of Sheppard having the tendency to take on these kinds of missions -- and if we were to ask his ex-wife, it is possible that he had been undertaking missions of this nature long before he had ever arrived in Atlantis. McKay had certainly thought that that is what Sheppard had been willing to do to save Teyla -- to take on an insurmountable mission with the odds stacked up against him.

But while it is easy to see what Sheppard does when he undertakes these kinds of stunts as "suicide missions," what Zelenka points out here is important -- that is not really what had happened. Sheppard had never set out to destroy himself, he had never wanted to die -- like he had explicitly told Ronon in the previous episode. Sheppard's overwhelming emotions had driven him to make a choice that he had felt had been the only one available to him at the time, but he had never wanted to die. And Sheppard keeps his cards so close to his chest that most people in his life have no idea what motivates him to do most of the things he does -- even when it is always the same thing. It is always McKay, and even if he had once wanted to shout about it from the rooftops, he is currently bitterly aware that he would never be allowed to let anyone know this even if he wanted to. And as it was, there was no longer anything to tell anyone anyway.

As mentioned, Teyla later says that she had seen the first echo around the time that McKay had spotted his whale friend swimming outside of the city. Whether or not McKay actually had been whale-spotting the previous night when Teyla had seen the echo for the very first time, this scene seems to coincide with Teyla encountering the echo of a badly burned Ancient in the hallway with Ronon. We join McKay just as Sheppard walks up to him, McKay standing on the edge of a balcony of some kind, resting his leg on the railing -- indicating that he may have been there for a while. Because he is observing what seems to be a whale that is swimming around the city, it would make sense for him to have taken up position at the end of one of the promontories, far away from the central spire. And Sheppard has come all that way to meet him because apparently McKay had asked him to, without even knowing what for.

Later on in The Shrine (S05E06) we learn that Sheppard and McKay used to enjoy beers together hanging out at the edge of the city because Sheppard tells McKay that he likes beer a lot, and his intention seems to have been to recreate something familiar for McKay, something that the two of them had done often. In Sunday (S03E17), we also learn through the parallel of Weir and the random scientist that is introduced in the episode for this specific purpose that Sheppard and McKay used to have dates out by the water. We had seen Sheppard romancing what he had thought was an alien priestess with food and drink that he knew were McKay's favourites while being mind-controlled by her in Sanctuary (S01E14), and because she seemed jealous of McKay, her creating something that Sheppard had done with McKay following the two of them getting together at the end of The Defiant One (S01E12) would not be out of place. All of this is to say that Sheppard might have assumed McKay had invited him to come out for beers, even if it is the middle of the day and he seems to be working, even if he had told him that he had something to show him. Sheppard was not going to say no a mid-day rendezvous with McKay even if he was on duty. But it does not seem like McKay has any beers with him, instead peering out into the sea with a pair of binoculars.

Sheppard walks up to McKay and parks right next to him -- and pay attention to how close he comes to stand. Even if it was Sheppard's intention to try to see what McKay is seeing, there is no need for him to stand that close. A heterosexual man would not choose to stand this close to their platonic friend or co-worker, or what ever we are meant to think that the two of them are to one another. As a matter of fact, Sheppard comes to stand slightly behind McKay, boxing him in between himself and the railing, and the the reason he does not touch McKay is because he had made the decision to tease the boy that he likes by not announcing his coming, wanting to surprise him, to see how long it would take McKay to realize he was right there.

I have mentioned before that we get few scenes where Sheppard and McKay are alone together (this episode seems to contain more of them than any other), and there is always some attenuating circumstance that precludes them from acting the way they normally might around each other. And here it is Sheppard's kidding that makes him approach McKay in a different way than he might normally do when the two of them were alone together at a place where no one is able to oversee them. Sheppard does not touch McKay because he wants to surprise him since McKay had been so engrossed as to not even notice his coming.

And as we have noted before, Sheppard is a jealous, needy man who does not like to share McKay's attention. He had confessed in Aurora (S02E09) that he does not like to be ignored and in Epiphany (S02E12) that he has serious abandonment issues, and he was not kidding about that. Both in The Hive (S02E11) and Common Ground (S03E07) we had also noted that Sheppard is hurt when McKay does not welcome him enthusiastically, when he does not tell him he had missed him, tell him that it is good to see him, that he is glad to see him. And this explains Sheppard's need to tease McKay here, his need to pull at his pigtails. Sheppard is slightly hurt by not being welcomed with open arms by McKay and being ignored by him in favour of something else when he had come all this way just because McKay had asked him to, and so he decides to act like a child about it. Note the way he lifts up his jaw as he looks out into the distance here. He is actually hurt not being acknowledged by McKay. This is not him thinking he is being funny but him trying to hide his hurt.

Note also that the railing they are standing by resembles the bow of a ship, and this seems to be on purpose. I will return to this later.

McKay: Huh! Hey. How long have you been standing there? Sheppard: Hour or so. McKay: What? Why didn't you say anything? I feel like a... Oh. It's the kidding. Sheppard: What did you wanna show me? McKay: Right there.

McKay pulls back from the railing and almost certainly bumps into some part of Sheppard that we cannot see inside the frame of the shot given how close Sheppard was standing half behind him. McKay actually seems surprised that Sheppard had been able to sneak up on him, witnessing only to how engrossed by the whale he had been since we have noted that the Ancient gene seems to give him some form of latent telepathy and that he has an especially strong connection to Sheppard, seeming almost able to sense him. And it is entirely possible that he thinks here that he should have been able to sense Sheppard coming. While McKay had been expecting Sheppard to come, apparently having invited him here specifically, he clearly had not been expecting Sheppard to be able to sneak up on him like this.

Instead of welcoming Sheppard or telling him how nice it is to see him, which is what Sheppard longs to hear, McKay asks him how long he had been standing here, which is not categorically different from him greeting Sheppard with "Why aren't you dead?" in The Hive, to Sheppard's obvious upset. This results from the two of them having a never-ending conversation that they only ever pause, and again while McKay does say "Hey" to Sheppard, it is not intended as a greeting to restart a conversation so much as it is a term of affection, a caress in verbal form. But Sheppard is hurt enough to respond to McKay facetiously with "An hour or so," which is an obviously untrue statement even though it takes McKay a beat to parse it as one. While Sheppard is being sarcastic, this is not how he usually uses sarcasm -- usually he very much means what he says and merely needs some distance to his emotions whereas here he has not factually been here for an hour or so. It is, however, possible that he had been bereft of contact with McKay for an hour or so or that it felt like he had been there for ever being ignored by McKay, so while he is not being factual, his assessment may still be truthful.

It may result from McKay expecting Sheppard to be truthful with him, to never lie to him, that he expects him to be telling the truth even when he is clearly not. We have also seen that McKay tends to interpret things fairly literally and it has been only his acquaintance with Sheppard that McKay has started understand sarcasm. Regardless, it takes a beat for McKay to understand that Sheppard was not being truthful, and he is able to name what Sheppard is doing as "the kidding." This suggests that Sheppard has done this before, and has done this enough times that McKay has had to name and shame the practice. It is quite possible that they have had to talk about this before because it runs the chance that Sheppard has wound up hurting McKay unintentionally in the past, his emotional constipation and McKay's emotional incontinence naturally coming to clash. Sheppard needs some distance to his emotions lest he be overwhelmed, and the way he accomplishes this using sarcasm can be quite hurtful if one does not understand what he is doing. Combined with McKay's difficulty understanding things that are not intended to be interpreted literally, this may easily be a recipe for disaster. But McKay seems to understand that this is what Sheppard is doing here and that he has a tendency to do this, and while it may frustrate him and he may not appreciate it, he does get it. Sheppard is kidding. Sheppard tends to kid around. He does not mean anything by it.

This episode has to be one of those whiplash-inducing episodes for the general viewer where they cannot be quite sure what Sheppard thinks about McKay, what their relationship is like, how Sheppard regards him. Does Sheppard suffer McKay or does he actually like him deep down inside? If Sheppard finds him annoying and irritating to be around, why does it seem like he is seeking out McKay's company voluntarily? It is strange that McKay had assumed Sheppard would care about something that he cares about. It is strange for McKay to have invited Sheppard here in the middle of nowhere just to check out something that he finds interesting. It is pretty presumptive for McKay to invite the military commander of Atlantis to take time out of his day to come check out something that interests him personally. And it is even more strange that Sheppard would do that, that he actually had taken time off his day to come check something out without a hint as to what it is, why McKay had wanted to meet him up out in the boonies.

This, what happens here? Really only makes sense in the context of an intimate relationship between the two of them. McKay is able to invite Sheppard on the assumption that he is going to care about what he has to show him on account of them being in a relationship. When two people are in a relationship, there is an unspoken agreement that you care about things that are important to the other person -- or at least you pretend to care (but when you actually love someone, you do care about the things they care about because they become a part of you; when two people are together they form one organism and try to make their disparate parts fit together). This is not McKay assuming that Sheppard is going to care about something just because he cares about it and Sheppard just indulging him because the poor guy does not know any better, he is so bad with human relationships that he does not even get that people do not like him -- as suggested in his conversation with Rod in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08). This is not Sheppard indulging McKay's particular interest in his role as team leader and someone who wants to keep McKay happy because they need his genius to save them from tight spots on the regular. Sheppard is here because he wants to be where McKay is. Sheppard cares about the things McKay cares about because he loves him. It is just that simple.

And because it is just that simple, Sheppard ignores McKay trying to apologize in his own way for not having acknowledged Sheppard, launching right back into that never-ending conversation of theirs, picking up a thread of conversation they had clearly already been having. We do not know how McKay had invited Sheppard here, whether it had happened over radio (we cannot see either of them wearing their radio and while they probably should have them on as leaders of their respective departments that people might need to reach for any number of the reasons, we have also seen before e.g., in The Gift that they have chosen not to wear the radios when they are in each other's company) or whether McKay had asked Sheppard to join him here later back when they had been together earlier in the day -- perhaps even when they had been in their shared quarters before starting the day, what ever the logistics of that had been.

Important is that Sheppard knew to come here because McKay had asked him to accompany him, and it is because he knew McKay had wanted to show him something. He holds out his hand for McKay to give him the binoculars without asking for them, this being a part of the wordless communication between them. When they are alone together they speak using words but they also speak not using words, multiple channels open between them. Note also that while the binoculars are a rather wide object, their fingers almost touch when McKay hands them over because both of them are are almost as though trying to stretch their fingers out to make contact with the other on purpose, whether they actually connect or not.

Sheppard: Wow! McKay: Hmm! Sheppard: All that... water! McKay: Just wait for it. It's my friend. He's back.

Taking the binoculars without another word or question Sheppard looks at the direction McKay is pointing at (and we should note that he hands them over with his right but points with his left hand, left seeming the more dominant of the two), and while Sheppard trusted that McKay had invited him for a reason and was asking him to actually look at something, he cannot resist teasing the boy that he loves some more. And this is Sheppard trying to be funny, this is him flirting by poking fun at McKay. Although Sheppard sees nothing but water, he is pretending like seeing all that water had been well worth him coming all this way and that even if this had been the beginning and the end of it, McKay's company itself would have been well worth the trouble. But of course McKay had not invited him to come look at all that water but had an actual reason for wanting him to come, and Sheppard is soon able to see what McKay had wanted him to see. And here we again see their fundamentally different timetables, Sheppard anxious to get to the good part already where McKay urges him to have patience, that it is well worth the wait when something amazing is in store for them.

McKay had been observing a whale-like creature swimming outside the city, and he suggests that it is the same as had led Zelenka and Sheppard to him in Grace Under Pressure (S02E4), which both of them had actually seen swimming above them when Sheppard had been helping McKay from the crashed jumper into the one that they had come to rescue him in. McKay calls the giant fish his friend, and we see that Sheppard turns his face toward McKay, probably ready to make some kind of a quip -- but he then thinks better of it, and actually keeps what ever he had intended to say to himself. Something about McKay's tone stops Sheppard dead in his tracks.

Sheppard smiles fondly hearing the soft tone that McKay uses, and it is obvious for anyone to hear that this is important to him. Sheppard may need to wisecrack to get some distance to his own emotions, to keep from feeling mushy, quite possibly to keep that voice that sounds suspiciously like the voice of his father inside his head from calling him a big girl or something worse. But Sheppard loves McKay and wants only the best for him, he wants to be a good partner and a boyfriend for him, and whether it results from lessons he had learned through his divorce or not, he knows when to keep quiet. This is not about him, this is a chance for him to be there for someone else.

But make no mistake, hearing McKay talk about someone or something else with these tones does also make Sheppard feel mighty jealous. Sheppard is jealous of the fish. We see later just how jealous of the fish he is. No one had ever accused Sheppard of being too mature, rarely even of acting his age. And yet another reason for Sheppard to choose to say nothing is that what McKay says, "He came back" must pull at his heartstrings a lot what with his abandonment issues. It had been McKay coming back for him in The Defiant One that had made him give in to his growing love for his new friend, had made him decide to give it a chance, and that keeps him coming back again and again for McKay even at the bottom of the ocean, never wanting to let him go. He would always come back for McKay but what had astonished him was that McKay had kept coming back for him.

McKay for his part sounds wistful to the point of being awed as he calls the fish his friend, certain that it is the very same one that had saved him. And it is entirely possible that he is right about that since they seemed to have formed some kind of a psychic rapport at the time, him and the fish. Teyla's wraith DNA makes her sensitive to their psychic powers and McKay's Ancient DNA seems to give him latent telepathy so it makes sense that the two of them would be the first to sense the giant fish attempting to contact them using their psychic powers, even if McKay never does see the echoes himself. Teyla and McKay are the first people in the city that the fish manifest themselves to and slowly but surely they all succumb to their attempts to communicate.

Lorne contacts Sheppard from the jumper, telling them that they are coming, adding that they are on "afterburners" -- which he seems to mean that they are making their way to them as quickly as possible, not that they are literally employing afterburners since it does not seem like the puddlejumpers use combustion engines. And of course Lorne has no way of knowing what a tragic event involving afterburners had just taken place on the moon base.

But Sheppard is visibly relieved to hear from him, seeming to almost deflate as the tension leaves him -- and we can note that he has seated himself back down now, having been able to relax enough to sit only after he had heard from Weir and had been able to hold on to hope that help was on the way. Before having been thrown this lifeline, Sheppard had been standing almost as still as a statue, his every muscle poised for action, trying to think of anything at all that he might do to help McKay. Sheppard and Ronon exchange a glance here, and we only get to see the way Ronon is looking at Sheppard, not how Sheppard is responding to his look -- but it is entirely possible that Sheppard had not been able to meet Ronon's eyes until this moment, until they had been given hope of survival. The way Sheppard had behaved when McKay had been in jeopardy had been so different from what he had been trying to project to Ronon just before that it cannot have been easy for him to try to put himself back together again, to recreate his usual devil-may-care persona that he carefully curates both for himself and for others. There is a knowing look in Ronon's eyes here, as though he is aware of how difficult this has been for Sheppard for all he may pretend like he is unaffected. They are both relieved to hear that help is on the way.

Note that as Sheppard gives Lorne instruction on what they need to do to be able to enter the moon base, he must be telling him things that McKay had explained to him when they had done it themselves before the start of the episode which we never got to see. What is more, what he is describing is also what they had done in Grace Under Pressure (S02E14) when Sheppard had been saving McKay from underwater with Zelenka, and it was Zelenka who had come up with the idea of extending the shield between the two jumpers to create a seal -- and he had done this because Sheppard had insisted that they do not leave McKay behind in spite of their original plan to save him using a cable having failed because Sheppard made it clear that he was not leaving without McKay, and it had been becoming apparent to Zelenka that Sheppard would expend both of their lives trying to save McKay. He had to come up with something because his own life had been on the line, and this may be something that Sheppard had never told McKay.

But he can easily have explained the technical side of what they had done, and so while Sheppard may be repeating McKay's words to Lorne now, it is possible that McKay himself had been explaining to him things that he had learned either from Zelenka or Sheppard himself earlier -- and whether either or both of them had been reminded of the events of that fateful day is anybody's guess. Remembering how close he had come to losing McKay had certainly not made Sheppard any keener on spending time on this mission, even if McKay himself had pointed out in Echoes (S03E12) that he was "Ok" with space even though he was made uncomfortable under water due to his memories of almost dying. Regardless, Lorne seems to be on top of things and it is possible that he himself had learned about what to do here from Zelenka since he seems to come prepared.

Beckett: How are my patients doing? Sheppard: Jamus could use your help. Beckett: Tell him we'll be there in a jiff. Sheppard: You guys hear that? McKay: Yay! Faint hope!

Beckett is making use of the time they have until they get to them by asking about the work ahead of him, wanting to know what he is having to deal with once they get there. Sheppard tells him that the old man could use his help even though he is the one who had suggested that Beckett should take a look at Ronon earlier, seeming to know that the big guy does not like to seem needy or vulnerable. Sheppard also does not think that it is his place to report Ronon's need for medical assistance since he is perfectly capable and likely even prefers to speak for himself. It must be obvious to Sheppard that Ronon is in pain given how he seems to be nursing his shoulder by keeping his arm still but Sheppard likely thinks that he is being merciful and considerate toward Ronon by not exposing his weakness to others, just like Sheppard would not like anyone exposing his weakness to anyone while they are out on the field.

It seems like they are all together on an open channel because just as soon as Beckett tells them that they will be arriving shortly Sheppard asks the others whether they had heard him -- and note that he actually has to specifically address "you guys" because if he had just said "Did you hear that?" likely both McKay and Teyla would have assumed that he had meant McKay because the two of them are speaking to one another most of the time. Both of them have to specifically point out when they are including others. Sheppard gets a sarcastic reply from McKay, the sarcastic "Yay!" again a very early aughts thing to say, and there is a comedic beat in the contrast of him saying something that ought to be extremely perky with a tone of voice that suggests he is very weary, despondent even -- hopeless. At the same time, McKay does appreciate even the faintest hope in their situation, clings on to it -- but as ever, he does not want to jinx it by actually believing that they might be saved. He would rather be pessimistic and be pleasantly surprised than be optimistic and be disappointed, and this can only come from his childhood. McKay must have had his hopes dashed enough times as a child that he does not dare hope anymore even if in his heart of hearts he probably does have hope, he does carry a secret wish that everything will turn out fine.

Pay attention to Sheppard's reaction to McKay's words, and likely especially his tone here. McKay does not see him because they are on radio and it does not seem like Ronon is able to see his face either, so this is not a response that Sheppard intends for anyone to see -- but we get to see it. Sheppard grimaces as though he is in pain, as though he had been physically hurt by what McKay says. This is not simple distaste on his face, this is pain. And it is not the words that smart but the attitude underlying them, McKay's seeming disbelief that they are going to make it out of here -- underneath which is McKay's conviction that he is not worth saving. McKay's safety is the most important thing to Sheppard and we see it in subtle ways throughout this episode. Sheppard cannot control his face when it comes to McKay, he cannot control any part of himself, feeling utterly adrift with just the thought that he might not have McKay anymore. Look at the deep sadness in his eyes at the end of this, only a brief flash but speaking volumes, Sheppard blinking here the way we have seen him blink when he has been at the end of his tether. McKay may not realize it but Sheppard is getting there, desperate to somehow make sure that he might be able to keep McKay from danger but starting to realize that it may be impossible.

Teyla: Doctor McKay. McKay: Busy working right now. Call back later. Teyla: It is a matter of great importance to Jamus. McKay: Yeah, well, what is it? Teyla: Will it be possible to take the people stored in the device along with us? McKay: No. No, there's not a chance. Look, the internal batteries would run out in half the time it would take me to patch in a compatible power source. Look, maybe, maybe if I could keep it in the compartment, but we're not sticking around that long. We're in a decaying orbit, remember?

Elsewhere the plot is happening, and tending to the injuries of the old man that had been released from the storage device Teyla is attempting to empathize with him as well. It seems that the man called Jamus had not been hurt just physically by his young compatriot taking his own life but had also been injured by his accusations of him having manipulated their current situation to save his own life, and it is possible that there was more than a grain of truth to this. Seeming to feel guilty, Jamus appears to find it especially important that his people survive now because if the "thousand souls" that had been stored in the device were to perish, it would not just mean that his entire civilization was lost but that Herick had been right about him. It is for his guilty conscience that he seems to obligate Teyla to give him assurance that his people are going to be saved.

Empathetic to a fault, Teyla seems to fall easy pray to the man's machinations even though she seems to suspect already that it might not be possible to do what he wants, no matter how much she would like to save these people herself. At Jamus' insistence she contacts McKay, and it is not often that we find her asking McKay for anything. McKay himself might be surprised that she contacts him out of all people if he was not so focused on fixing the hatch, trying with all his might to make his way to Sheppard -- and we can hear from his grunting that he is putting his back to it, he is expending all of his strength in trying to twist the door back so that it might close. Because he is so focused on his task McKay does not even get what Teyla is asking him at first, seeming to respond to her on autopilot -- "Call back later" sounding a little like he had a mental answering machine on to take her call. But since this seems to be important to the old guy, McKay explains to her a problem he had already foreseen earlier when Herick himself had asked him about the power source in their jumper, and it seems to be Herick's actions that had damned his people -- and he may well have intended for this to happen, wanting to take everyone with him in his pain.

What is happening here is that we have a train that is moving inevitably forward and there are a thousand people that are going to get killed if the train keeps moving on its current trajectory -- preparing us for the "trolley problem." McKay tells Teyla that there is nothing he can do, it is not possible to get the people out of the way -- the people cannot see the train and move, they cannot hear it, they cannot get out of the way. The speed of the train does not matter either because they cannot outrun it. McKay reminds Teyla of the fact that they are running out of time, that they are on a decaying orbit and what is interesting here is that he asks Teyla to remember that they are on a decaying orbit even though he had never used the term -- it is what Sheppard had called it when McKay had described it to Sheppard as a "low orbit" earlier. This means that Sheppard had understood McKay's meaning, he had extrapolated from what he had said, and McKay is inviting Teyla to remember what Sheppard had just said here. And McKay would like to save these people too if it was in any way possible, even if he is not interested in risking their lives for them -- he sounds unaffected here but it is mostly because he is distracted, focused on getting to Sheppard. McKay is the one who had offered to ferry their people down on the planet in the first place. But none of them -- not even Teyla -- see the point in risking their lives for these strangers who are stored as patterns, not even aware of whether they live or die.

Teyla: Then there is an excellent chance that we will be able to save them. McKay: What? No-no-no-no-no-no-no -- I said no. Teyla: Jamus will be very happy to hear this. McKay: What are you...? Oh, OK. Yeah, tell him no problem. The more the merrier.

Teyla responds to McKay as though he had just said the opposite of what he had said and it takes McKay a beat to understand what she is doing, thinking she must be nuts for a moment. McKay thinks that Teyla is much smarter than what she appears to be, expecting her to understand him most of the time and so he seems baffled as to why she seems not get him now. It is also very rarely that we see Teyla fibbing, which may be a cause of further whiplash for McKay, not expecting her to to be lying.

But as she mentions that the old man will be happy to hear his words McKay finally seems to get that she is intending on telling him what he needs to hear, seeing no point in giving him the bad news when it is likely touch and go whether the old man will even survive this ordeal himself. There is no need to cause him additional pain, and so letting him believe what he needs to believe seems to be an act of mercy on Teyla's part. But it may be because Teyla so rarely lies that she is not very good at it, and so even though Teyla is pretending to get good news from McKay the old man seems suspicious of her, even though McKay had not even said anything to Herick's question about their compatible power source earlier. The old man had seen McKay for a very short moment and he still seems able to extrapolate from what he had seen that it seems unlikely he was saying to Teyla what she is pretending he had said, standing further away from the old man so that he might not overhear their conversation.

McKay tells her "The more the merrier," seeming quite magnanimous about this false promise that they would save his people. This is the second time McKay is implying that he would like people to be together in this episode, possibly betraying what he is secretly wishing. The More the Merrier (1943) is a romantic comedy that may be one of the original "forced to share a room" stories that has since become a trope in fanfiction. It is also interesting in that because the apartment is shared by a man and a woman who hare not married, they cannot be seen leaving together in the morning, their arrangement not unlike that of an illicit couple -- not unlike how Sheppard and McKay seem to have lived since they moved in together at the end of Irresistible (S03E03), living together in their cozy little home but constantly mindful about being seen entering or exiting their domestic bliss. While the saying McKay uses is a common phrase and likely no reference is intended, it is interesting that one of the characters sings a song to himself that McKay might easily have been thinking about in this moment as he is trying to make his way back to his man:

Don't try to steal the sweetheart of a soldier It's up to you to play a manly part Though he's over there and she's over here Still she's always in his heart They may not meet again to love each other Still he prays that he'll come back some day

They run across McKay who seems to have been looking for Sheppard, wanting to show him something -- and this does not necessitate a very long absence between them, just long enough for McKay to have done some digging up from the database while Sheppard was catching up on his work. Weir's reaction tells us that she had not seen McKay ever since telling him no more e-mails earlier, and it seems like not only had McKay respected her wishes not to pester her with the topic any further, he had put it entirely out of his mind. He had not even been thinking about the ZPMs after being told no.

McKay had not been looking for her at all, and tells her as much with less than appropriate tact, and she seems to take some offense at being so sidelined even if she seems mostly amused by his excitable state. But McKay is just so excited about what he had found that he cannot wait to share it with Sheppard, again with the assumption that Sheppard would or should care about it just as much as he does. Note the way McKay gestures at Sheppard as he mentions him by name, pointing at him from across Weir, seeming to stretch his neck to be able to see the man from over her head. Sheppard seems somewhat uncomfortable with the way McKay is approaching him here in public and in sight of everyone, and we should note that "There you are!" is still not the kind of welcome that Sheppard desires from McKay. Pay also attention to the fact that Sheppard is and had been walking with his hand in his pocket on Weir's side, needing to keep it as a barrier between them, blocking her off from his soft and sensitive parts.

McKay: Oh, I mean, not that I don't wanna talk to you. Well, you can be a part of this conversation. In fact, I think you'll probably find it every bit as interesting... Sheppard: What are you saying? McKay: Check it out. Found it in the Ancient database.

McKay stumbles over his explanation in his excitement and takes his time getting to the point -- to Sheppard's enduring frustration -- and we can see McKay's idiosyncratic way of associating here, how his mind bounces from one thing to the next. We had seen something similar taking place when McKay had returned from Ford's planet while hopped up on enzyme in The Hive (S02E11), trying and failing to explain himself to Weir, circling around what he needed her to understand and never getting to the point because one tangent seems to lead to another.

And let us be clear that it is McKay taking his sweet time getting to the point here that frustrates Sheppard, not McKay's presence or that he had come to him, wanting to share something important with him with the enthusiasm of a child -- and certainly not the fact that he had interrupted his conversation with Weir. Sheppard does care about things that are important to McKay, and even if this was not the case, their spheres of interest seem similar enough that they naturally gravitate to the same topics, and their conversation remains interesting because while their interests are shared, they come at them from different perspectives and points of view -- something that has facilitated their close relationship, however you want to interpret it. Sheppard sounds frustrated and impatient as he cuts McKay off with "What are you saying?" essentially telling him to spit it out already, but this is because he is actually eager to know.

Sheppard wants to hear what McKay had come to tell him and it seemed to take him so long getting to the point that Sheppard needed to get his attention back on the topic (and himself), thinking he had spent quite enough time with the teasing and foreplay already -- not for the first time. But note that the reason McKay seems to feel the need to do this is because he has poor self-esteem, he has an assumption that people do not like listening to him and do not care what he has to say, and so he has to sell the topic itself as something really interesting to Weir to excuse to himself why he is taking up time from her day to talk to her. He has to justify taking up her time whereas with Sheppard, because the two of them are in an intimate relationship, there is a natural assumption that they get access to each other's time and attention. But while Sheppard does not need McKay to fluff him up to get him interested in what ever McKay might have to say, he is not keen on watching him fluff up other people in front of him. And so McKay whips it out and shows them.

McKay: They have a whole subsection on indigenous Lantean animal life. Did you know that there was a lobster-like crustacean down there the size of a Buick? Weir: Hmm! And what is that? Sheppard: That's Rodney's whale friend.

And so we get to observe the rub. McKay explains excitedly what he had discovered, still seeming to take a detour even though now Sheppard knows what he is talking about, having only needed to see the picture McKay had been holding up for them to understand what this was about. Sheppard looks like he had been sucking on a lemon all of a sudden, unable to look at McKay or thinking -- as they both are prone to do -- that if he does not meet McKay's eyes that the other man will not be able to read his thoughts right off of his face even though Sheppard is broadcasting his every thought here up to outer space. He looks physically uncomfortable, almost squirming, barely able to keep his thoughts to himself. And when Weir asks McKay what the picture was that he had shown them since this was starting to sound interesting and somewhat relevant if not acute for this precise moment in time, Sheppard cannot help bitterly commenting on McKay's whale friend.

Sheppard is jealous. Sheppard is jealous of the big fish that McKay had called his friend. Sheppard is jealous of this fish that McKay is giving his time and this attention to. He is purposefully using a dismissive tone in referring to the whale friend but at the same time displaying his superior knowledge of McKay. Sheppard was in on McKay's show-and-tell, he seems to know precisely what McKay is talking about, witnessing to the fact that this was a topic the two of them had broached before (as we had seen them do but which Weir did not know), and that this was a topic of conversation the two of them were picking up from before. Sheppard is able to translate McKay's meaning to Weir, cutting to the heart of the matter since McKay still seemed to be circling around the actual topic he wanted to talk about. Sheppard smiles as he finally meets McKay's eyes and while he may be aiming for supportive, he may even sound fond since McKay having this childlike enthusiasm must be wonderful for Sheppard to witness, he still manages to look like someone who had just bitten into sour grapes. Sheppard may be mocking McKay for thinking of a whale as his friend but he is the one jealous of this whale.

McKay: Ah, but not actually a whale. Whale-like, but not a mammal. It's a fish. It's a big, big fish. Sheppard: Did the Ancients have a name for it? McKay: Yeah. Flagecallus. I know -- they were terrible at naming things. I've just... I've just called it "whale" for now.

Sheppard betrays the fact that he actually is invested in the topic and is curious to find out more about it by the fact that he asks McKay a question about it, whereas if he thought this was a waste of time and some childish pursuit of a guy he tries to avoid and does not want to spend his time with, he would not ask, he would not make an effort to keep this conversation going. But that has never been Sheppard, he actually very much enjoys his conversations with McKay, McKay is his favourite person, and later on in the season when he can no longer have these conversations with McKay we see him try to use both Teyla and Ronon to fill in the void left by McKay and come out dissatisfied. McKay is like a force of nature as a conversant, he is quite unique as a conversation partner, and Sheppard appreciates that about him.

McKay seems uncomfortable as he shares with them the name the Ancients had given the fish that he had found in the database, seeming to almost blush. The fish had been called flagecallus, which may be a combination of flagellum for "whip" and callus for "hard skin." Flagellum is also the tail of the spermatozoid and may invite an association with the word "flaccid," so the name the Ancients had given to the fish may sound somewhat naughty to him -- especially since McKay has already seen what the fish are packing. Of course in noting that the Ancients were terrible in naming things McKay is calling back to Inferno (S02E19) where they had discovered the Ancient warship Hippaforalcus named after the Ancient general Hippaforalcus, which Sheppard had then renamed as the Orion.

It seems like McKay thinks that Sheppard is much better at naming things than the Ancients, even if he had some ideas of his own for the name of the ship at the time. And it seems like Sheppard agrees with McKay's assessment of this being a bad name, and note that although Sheppard does not say a word it seems like again McKay is able to read his thoughts just from looking at his face. There is a part of their conversation that always seems to happen entirely without words. And note that Sheppard's thoughts sure seemed to go somewhere naughty as he hears the Ancient name of the fish.

Weir: And why are you studying this? McKay: Oh, ‘cause he's out there right now, circling the city. Sheppard and I saw him. Probably the very same whale that saved me last year when I was trapped in that submerged jumper. Sheppard: I thought Zelenka and I saved you? McKay: Well, you did, technically, but only after Sam led you to me.

Weir feels like she is still missing half the story that both McKay and Sheppard are clearly in on, and she asks why he is pursuing this even knowing that she might not even want to know the answer because she, along with everyone else in the city, have given up trying to understand what Sheppard and McKay get up to a long time ago. It is only now that McKay gets to the actual point, which is telling her that he had seen the whale outside and he had been researching the whale because it was a present and actual issue for the city currently. The fish may not have been threatening the city but it was something new, and all of their job was to learn new things about Atlantis and the Ancients.

McKay suggests that the fish that is circling the city is the very same one that had saved him -- and as mentioned, he may well be right about this. It was the intention of the fish to warn the inhabitants of the city of the impending disaster, and since the fish had likely used its psychic powers to project itself in the visage of Samantha Carter into the jumper to converse with McKay, it may have felt a connection to him and had been the first one to come and warn them. McKay recalls the events of Grace Under Pressure (S02E14), which had been harrowing to both himself and Sheppard, and it was only in Phantoms (S03E09) that we had learned -- or would learn -- exactly how harrowing the experience had been for Sheppard, who had been convinced that history had been about to repeat itself and he was about to lose another lover, helpless to save them.

And this is why Sheppard is mortally wounded to hear McKay say now that he thought the fish had saved him instead of himself -- he throws Zelenka's name there to take some of the edge off his words, but he means mostly himself -- even though he tries his best to disguise how much these words hurt him. Sheppard's face suddenly becomes like stone here, his voice a flat monotone, and although he is so clearly hurt this whole exchange is played for comedy. They went through all that trouble and McKay thanks the fish, cares more about the fish, thinks the fish was his saviour. Sheppard was fast staring to hate this fish, but it is not until McKay lets slip that he calls the fish Sam to himself that the green monster truly raises its head. He has to wonder whether McKay is doing this on purpose since he manages to hit so many of Sheppard's sore spots at one and the same time.

Weir: Sam? McKay: Uh, it's the whale. I named him -- after Sam... antha Carter. Personal reasons. Sheppard: You named him after Samantha Carter? McKay: Well, Sam's a boy's name too.

McKay let it slip that he calls the fish Sam and Weir finds this curious, asking him about it and forcing him to admit that he had named it after Samantha Carter. Sheppard is immediately seething mad. To say that Sheppard is jealous of the connection McKay and Carter have is to downplay it. We had seen Sheppard's face sour the first time that McKay had spoken her name in his presence in Childhood's End (S01E06), and regardless of whether or not Sheppard knows that nothing has ever taken place between the two of them (beyond Carter kissing his cheek and McKay's hallucination of Carter trying to seduce him), Sheppard hates her.

We had seen in The Pegasus Project just how much Sheppard resents her, even though the two of them should be fast friends as Air Force officers of similar rank, for Carter being a beautiful and brilliant scientist who every man she meets falls in love with. I have discussed it many times, but it seems like McKay had actually thought that Carter was a gay woman in the closet in the military, and he had thought he was doing both of them a favour in publicly hitting on her, in letting people think that he was crassly and sexually interested in her where most of his comments were coming from his feelings of inferiority connected to beautiful and intelligent women -- like his sister, and quite possibly his mother. McKay had never actually found her sexually attractive because women are not on McKay's radar like that, his pursuit of her purely performative.

But he has learned to both see her as a human being and to grow to like her during their acquaintance, even to respect her as a fellow scientist. Carter is many things that McKay wishes he were, able to effortlessly capture the attention of handsome men like Sheppard. Only, she had never captured Sheppard's attention. Sheppard had hated her long before he had ever met her. It was bad enough that McKay held the fish in his heart as his saviour instead of Sheppard who had effected the daring rescue but to have named him after Carter? We see Sheppard lift his chin defiantly, drawing his lips in a tight line and he is clearly putting effort into tamping down the anger that this had ignited in him. But the anger is him sublimating his hurt into something that is easier to deal with. Sheppard almost seems ready to cry here. He is hurting.

McKay himself gets defensive when Sheppard comments on his choice of name even though Sheppard manages to keep his tone almost neutral. He points out that Sam is a boy's name too, pulling the kind of face one might make in kindergarten in response to some juvenile taunt, like he was saying some variation of "I am rubber, you are glue." While McKay likely has no idea that Sheppard is jealous of Carter and the attention he thinks McKay is giving her, not understanding his own worth to his partner, it is possible that McKay simply misattributes Sheppard's comment here. He says in his defense that Sam is a boy's name too, and because we hear Sheppard call McKay Meredith later on in the episode, this may have something to do with him being defensive over his own name, of having what he calls to his sister a "girl's name" in The Shrine (S04E06). He may have interpreted as Sheppard making fun of him calling a boy Samantha like he had called a boy by a girl's name and that had been his issue when Sheppard's mind had not been able to parse anything beyond that Jezebel ever since McKay had spoken Carter's name. McKay is hitting him with a lot here, and Sheppard is not very good at dealing with his emotions in the first place.

Weir: And how do you know he's a he? McKay: Oh, because I cross-referenced the renderings in the database with the whale outside and, you'll see... the males have a rather prominent-- Weir: Oh, it's OK, never mind. I'll take your word for it. I trust this little diversion isn't actually cutting into your work time?

Weir asks how he knows it's a he not because she is really interested but to facilitate what amounts to a dick joke. McKay is only too eager to show her that these fish have really large members, prominent masculine attributes. And it is really important to note what Sheppard does here. We have noted before that Sheppard seems to have a preference for large penises. Not that he necessarily has a large one himself -- surely he is perfectly average -- but that he prefers other men to have large penises, which is a curious attribute for a man to have. This goes back all the way to Hide and Seek (S01E03) where he and McKay were having a conversation about dicks and dick-sizes even as they had been dealing with the crisis of the week. McKay had told him that it is not the size of the boat that counts, suggesting that the motion of the ocean is more important -- a saying frequently connected to sex -- and Sheppard had insisted that that is a myth. Size does count. The size counts for him.

We have also been given hints that McKay himself seems to be packing something above average in his kiwi-slice decorated pants to Sheppard's enduring joy. The two of them seem uniquely compatible sexually. And it is in this scene that we get to see openly -- if not textually -- Sheppard's preference for large members. McKay tries to show Weir the fish's junk, and she does not want to look, seeming too bashful and telling him that she will take his word for it, she does not need a demonstration of whale dick to spice up her afternoon. Sheppard, however, does not just look and nod appreciatively, he seems to get caught in it. He looks not once but twice, making a face that says "Good for him." Obviously what McKay is showing them is much larger than anything humans have but Sheppard can appreciate a big dong. This is not a face that a straight guy makes when they are shown another guy's dick.

However, let us appreciate why Sheppard is doing this. Note that somewhere along the way, quite possibly when Carter's name had been mentioned, Sheppard has lifted and folded up his arms in front of him, putting them up as a protective barrier between himself and McKay. Sheppard is still very much feeling hurt when McKay veers the conversation into whale dick, and him pretending to be paying attention to the whale dick is him trying to make it seem like he is not even bothered, like he had not just been mortally wounded by his lover right in front of someone who is an outsider to their relationship, out in the public where Sheppard's men are walking past them during this whole conversation. Sheppard does like a big dick but that is not what this is about. Sheppard is making a show of appreciating the whale's dick a little too much on purpose because he wants to incite jealousy in McKay. He wants McKay to feel as jealous as he does in this moment. He is dying. He wants McKay to get a taste of this. Because Sheppard is prone to projection, it is entirely possible that because he is feeling jealous himself that he has convinced himself that it is McKay who is actually jealous, and so he is playing it up by giving the fish an appreciative once-over. This scene is hilarious but it is also so very, very tragic.

McKay: Oh, no, no. No, of course not. No, I'm just dabbling in my free time. Weir: Alright, then, boys. Dabble away! Sheppard: So, these whales. Did the Ancients say they're good eating? McKay: Oh, you wouldn't! Sheppard: I would.

Weir wants to make sure that this diversion is not cutting into McKay's work time like he was not doing the workload of two or three people as it was (being the head of the science corps and on a gate team in addition to being a scientist), and McKay is quick to assure her that he is just dabbling in his free time, which does not seem to be entirely truthful since not just him but also Sheppard have not been doing any work leading up to this, neither of them have even been to see their team mate who had recently needed medical attention. McKay had even dropped the topic of the ZPMs, having been doing nothing but this for the whole morning.

And while they have been spending time on the fish, most of all the two of them have been caught up in each other. And while McKay only speaks for himself, Weir seems to correctly intuit that Sheppard has been spending time on this too since Sheppard seemed to know exactly what McKay had been talking about. She tells them to "dabble away," referring to them as "boys," suggesting that there was something boyish about getting excited over big, big fish. Not for nothing but the word "dabble" also has the meaning of experimenting sexually with one's own gender, and it is not out of character for Weir to have intentionally given them leave to dabble here since Sheppard's collar made it rather obvious that some dabbling had recently already taken place.

Weir seems to have had enough of this and so takes off, leaving Sheppard and McKay to their own devices, and note that while Sheppard had lifted up his arms as a defensive barrier against McKay, he drops them just as soon as Weir takes off, letting McKay into his personal space. The two of them also start walking together, both of them seeming to know where they are headed without even needing to talk about it. But while Sheppard may let McKay into his space and he may angle his body toward McKay as they walk, he is not letting him off the hook just yet. Sheppard is partially teasing McKay as he asks whether the fish are good eating just because he likes to tease him and he wants McKay's attention by any means necessary. But partially he is not joking -- he wants to murder this fish. The only thing keeping the fish in his good graces is that it had helped him save McKay, and saving McKay is the quickest way to Sheppard's good book. That is the only reason why he cannot hate the fish as much as he would certainly like to. But he does not have to like hearing the infatuated way that McKay talks about it. He wants McKay to talk like that about him and no one else but him.

But the echo of the woman that Teyla encounters at night is left unexplained, and we next join Weir as she too is on her way down the stairs, this seeming to be the following morning, and she seems to be followed by McKay who has things to say to her. We do not know where she is coming from or where she is going, but we are able to gather from the dialogue that McKay is picking up on something that had been on-going, as him having looked her up specifically to follow up on an e-mail he had sent to her to which he had not received a reply.

Weir's response makes it clear that it had not been the first e-mail he had sent that she had not replied to since he had been bombing her with messages, and while the two of them know what he the subject of the e-mails had been, the viewer is left wondering what this might be about since the two of them probably are not e-mail pen pals where McKay had been writing to her just to ask about her day. McKay admits that he has been unusually persistent meaning that he would not be writing to her like this under normal circumstances. What is more, since Weir notes that he had sent seven already on this day when the day seems only to have been starting is meant to indicate that McKay has been really proactive about this. Whether McKay had time for a warm bath and a hot meal since Sheppard had returned to the city with Ronon and Zelenka is anyone's guess but probably he had been doing other things even if he had time to write her several e-mails, and we might even suggest that some of the e-mails had been written while Sheppard had been out moonlighting as a cab driver, leaving McKay ample time for e-mail-writing activities.

What remains is that McKay is really excited about something and seems to want something from Weir that he cannot get from anyone else, and we are meant to wonder why since McKay does not usually follow Weir around like a dog begging her to give him something. This must be important, like he points out himself.

Weir: We cannot keep all three ZPMs from the replicator take-over, Rodney. We get one. Now, I don't know how to make it any clearer for you. McKay: Well, I felt if I could just outline the reasons for keeping them -- you know, bullet point, very brief-- Weir: It was twenty-six pages! McKay: I know, but if we hope to persuade Stargate Command--

And so we finally find out what they are talking about -- the ZPMs from the mid-season finale. The replicators had brought ZPMs with them and combined with the one the Ancients had brought with their ship, there were now extra ZPMs to go around. McKay seems to be salivating over the prospects of what they might be able to achieve with three full ZPMs in the city, knowing that with three they could even make the city fly, which is something that he seems to want to be able to make happen for Sheppard. He might have been having wet dreams about this for ages -- they both have.

There is still some ambiguity over the actual number of ZPMs and how many there had been before the replicators had arrived. There should have been one that the Ancients had brought and the one that they had from before that had been brought over by Caldwell on the Daedalus in The Siege (S02E01), which had been discovered at Giza, left there by Ra of the original motion picture, following some timeline shenanigans by SG-1. This particular ZPM had been depleted by McKay during McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08), only we had discovered the mid-season finale could not have happened without it since they needed a ZPM to get O'Neill and Woolsey to Atlantis for the negotiations, and they later needed one for the Daedalus to get to the city in 4 days to nuke it from orbit. The point is that the reshuffling of the episodes leads into some continuity issues that they are trying to fix here with this conversation. That is the whole point here, to use this as exposition that will leave them with one functional ZPM in the city, and no more than one. This will leave them with the ability to use the shield, to cloak the city when and if necessary, but which will not give them full functionality for the city ship -- effectively grounding them for the finale of the season.

Because this episode had clearly been written after the mid-season had been plotted out, intent on calming things down after the dramatic events that were meant to shake things up for the Sweeps (shows on network television need to prove their viability for the advertisers around this time of the season, hence usually featuring some dramatic events or bringing back fan-favourite characters that will put asses in seats, to make sure that people tune in for these episodes in particular, after which they can return to business as usual, maybe run some episodes lighter on plot until things start ramping up toward the end of the season), the purpose of the episode is to establish the status quo on the show: they have just enough of unobtainium to facilitate sci-fi shenaningans on the show but not too much to jeopardize the building of suspense, raising the stakes for the finale. The city gets one ZPM, not three. It will not get three until the end, the final showdown where the wraith are defeated once and for all. It was only to tease the final showdown that we had been reminded of what the three ZPMs can do in the previous episode. And they needed to figure out how to disperse them now in a plausible way, this conversation just making sure that everything is as should be so that episodes more or less make sense in the order that they are in now. There are some details that might seem out of place, but roughly the current sequence of episodes works, even if the drama at the end of McKay and Mrs Miller is kind of vanished and it seems like the dramatic events of Phantoms (S03E09) had no effect on anything or anyone.

The conversation between Weir and McKay here is necessary for them to establish what they have achieved so far, what they are capable of currently, and what they might potentially be able to do in the future at full capacity. And this is relevant only as it regards the subtext in what it tells us about Sheppard and McKay's current living arrangements now that they have returned from Earth. McKay had been at Area 51 and Sheppard at the SGC, and while they may have made use of McKay's Colorado Springs apartment during their time there, they had still been in a more or less long distance situation for the duration. But now they were living together again. This, here, is when they are the most together, when they are at their most domestic, when they are the most couple-y until it all starts going to spectacularly wrong. There are no dark clouds gathering in the horizon, not yet. This is the calm before the storm. This is when both of them are happy.

Weir: OK. So tell me. Who would you deprive of the other ZPMs? The Antarctic outpost? McKay: Well, no, because they need it to power the Chair to protect Earth. Weir: OK, how about the Odyssey, then? They're getting the other ZPM to help them in their fight against the Ori. Rodney, we have enough power now to raise the shield and cloak the city and dial home. Please, can you start seeing the glass as half full? McKay: Well, you mean one-third full. Weir: No more emails.

There is a comedic beat to their exchange what with Weir using the Socratic method to allow McKay to come to the conclusion himself that they cannot in good conscience keep all three ZPMs no matter how much he would like to. We have seen that McKay does not share well and seems to hoard resources quite possibly on account of his childhood, of having been deprived of basic necessities.

Children who struggle with food insecurity and poverty often grow up wanting to make sure that they have enough, that they never run out of things, and they may have a difficult time sharing of things they have amassed or letting go of things they have accumulated. It seems like in this McKay and Sheppard have experienced very different upbringings, and where Sheppard is easily able to share and gives liberally of what he has, seems to enjoy providing the person he is in a relationship with and where he seems to require very little for himself, McKay needs to make sure that his needs are met -- and also that the needs of the people he loves are met. McKay is concerned for his home and that he has the resources to defend it and the people he loves, and what Weir manages to do here is to expand his sphere of concern, of pointing out that the people of the Earth are also important to him, that the battle against the Ori is also his battle. And although McKay grumbles and seems to make a sarcastic quip about the glass not being half full but one third full with getting to keep only one ZPM, he does acknowledge the point Weir had made.

What is more, with Weir telling McKay in no uncertain words that he does not want to receive one more e-mail about this, it seems like McKay honours and acknowledges the boundary Weir sets here, and McKay does not pester her further about the topic. He has been told no and he understands that no means no. McKay seems to be very respectful of other peoples boundaries, and we have seen how careful he is to get consent from Sheppard to touch him, how careful he had been even to hug his own sister and making sure that his touch is welcome. This hints at McKay possibly having experienced his own boundaries being violated in the past, and so he does not want to subject other people to unwanted advances of any kind. Just as soon as Weir tells him that he does not want to hear another word on this topic again, McKay drops it just like that, even though he really, really wants them to get another one of the ZPMs, just the one extra, even though he thinks that they deserve to have a full three of them. McKay believes that now that they actually have four ZPMs to go around that they should be able to have three of them.

Note that Weir places one ZPM at the Antarctic outpost and another in The Odyssey, seeming to be the flagship for the Earth at this time. She gives the excuse that the Odyssey needs one for combating the Ori, to be able to travel faster within the Milky Way as needed. But Weir makes no mention of the SGC getting one, and surely the SGC having a ZPM would be a priority. Surely the SGC should have one even before Atlantis since it had been the SGC ZPM that had been brought to Atlantis to protect it against the wraith originally. Atlantis needs one to be sure but so does the SGC, even if the gate bridge was meant to make travel between the two galaxies faster and more convenient. This, giving an extra ZPM to the Odyssey is another hint at the fact that they were actually playing thimblerig or "follow the queen" not with three ZPMs but with four, a four-card monte. There are so many things that only make sense if there are four ZPMs to go around and not three.

We see McKay open his mouth as though intending to argue the point but then think better of it, and he looks bashful as he recognizes that the case was now closed, that he would not get to argue his case further. He had been dismissed by Weir, and it did not matter how rational an argument he might be able to build, it would not change things. Like the Rolling Stones had pointed out in 1969, You Can't Always Get What You Want. McKay knew it well. He was disappointed but not crestfallen, seeming far too content to let this darken his day.