#ep. epiphany

I have discussed it many times in the past but it seems as though Sheppard had moved in with McKay (for a second time) at the end of Irresistible (S03E03) and had not been living in these original quarters of his for many months. He had been bunking here temporarily when McKay's sister was in town in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) but otherwise it seemed like he had been using the space mainly to store his non-essential things, enough to make the space look lived-in at a quick glance but not actually containing any of the items he might have needed in his day-to-day life like his toothbrush -- having used the toothbrush he had stored here in polishing his golf clubs instead. The room had looked barren in Tao of Rodney (S03E14) when he had filled the space with candles, his only personal item there a golf magazine he had used to distract himself from McKay's closeness and the intimacy of their activity.

In contrast, his room seems filled with stuff now. This room is a space where someone lives. Not only has he finally arranged for some place for people to sit -- even if Ronon has chosen to sit on his bed instead of the love seat -- but Sheppard now has his laptop, he has a sound-system for the laptop that facilitates listening to music, he has a miniature fighter jet he may or may not have brought with him from Earth, he has drinks and snacks to offer his guest. Sheppard appears to be leafing through another magazine here -- a surfing magazine by the looks of it -- but while he is doing it to hide behind it, he is doing it for a different reason than when he uses magazines to hide behind with McKay. Sheppard is feeling emotionally vulnerable here, and so the magazine is a crutch -- it is something he can pretend to be leafing through if it came necessary for him conceal his emotions about something.

And of course, as ever, he has the poster of Johnny Cash up on his wall, right above his bed watching over his sleep, and if there is a homage in the importance of the poster to Sheppard to the film Midnight Cowboy (1969) where Joe had brought with him from home to his new place a poster of Paul Newman that seemed to be his most prized possession, then we should note that it certainly was not there to establish the character's heterosexuality, even if both Paul and Johnny are considered by many "men's men."

It seems as though Sheppard is teaching Ronon about North American popular culture, seemingly having introduced him to the art of crushing a beer can with one's forehead, something popularized by Jim Belushi in the film National Lampoon's Animal House (1979) and which is seen as a particularly manly thing to do, a rite of passage. Sheppard is trying to teach Ronon the mechanics of how to do it "properly," which seems to imply the act looking hard but not necessary inflicting the most pain on the performer -- and crushing a beer can on one's forehead is always a performance, it is not something most people would do on their lonesome to entertain themselves. And while we do not know what had led Sheppard to taking this as a topic of conversation -- perhaps he had been filling Ronon in on other times he had taken blows to the face -- it very much seems like Sheppard's thoughts are circling on the topic of pain.

And what he is saying about this pain is similar to what people say about band-aids: it is better to get it over quickly even if it hurts more than to do it slowly and so make the pain last longer. This seems to be like a metaphor to what Sheppard had done in ending his relationship with McKay so abruptly, trying to convince himself that he had done the right thing. But the way Sheppard is describing it -- straight on and then as hard as you can -- also recalls what he had said about needing "max thrust" in No Man's Land (S03E01), which seems to hint at Sheppard's preference for how he wants to receive penetrative sex that seems frequently to have left him too sore to sit in a normal way, seeming to need it to hurt for having this lightly masochistic streak, as discussed previously.

Sheppard lays back and sounds perfectly relaxed as he comments on this being the kind of day off that he likes having -- and I have mentioned before that it seems as though what we see Sheppard try to recreate here with Ronon (and once again finding Ronon just a little bit wrong for the occasion, finding his responses a little bit off) is something that he used to do often, habitually, with McKay. In The Shrine (S05E04), when McKay comes to his quarters in the middle of the night wanting to know why Sheppard had not been with him when he had woken up, Sheppard invites McKay to have beers out on the pier -- reminding McKay of the fact that he likes doing it. They have done it often, and so Sheppard is trying to recreate a moment then for McKay that he believes would be familiar, something that they have done so many times over the years even if it is the first time that we get to see it. But Sheppard confessing that he enjoys this -- beer and popcorn in particular -- suggests that this is what he usually does on his days off, when ever and however often they have them. He may not have done it in this particular room at least for the last while but he has done this. He has the beers, he has the popcorn, he has the weird dried mushrooms that may or may not be native to this galaxy. He says it to Ronon here: you kick back, eat some junk food (that McKay seems to enjoy as much as he does) -- and you listen to some tunes.

So, let us talk about the tunes. Ronon actually asks the question of whether Sheppard likes the song that is playing in the background, calling attention to the music, and the answer seems to be obvious -- of course he does, otherwise he would not be playing it. They are not listening to radio, they are most likely listening to a CD that has been imported from Earth. And what is real curious here is that he is listening to a Canadian indie singer-songwriter Leeroy Stagger -- but not his most recent album at the time (Depression River, 2006) but the previous one, Beautiful House (2005). The artist being Canadian of course does not mean that he is listening to a record that had belonged to McKay because it is possible that this is something that Jeannie could have left for him or sent to him -- but it is unlikely that he could be listening to Canadian heartbreak tracks without thinking of McKay. But given what they talk about in this scene, the real important thing here is the song he is listening to, which is Just In Case. We should pay attention to the lyrics:

Just in case anybody wanted to know Just in case anybody needed to know You still change, you're the same Everyone but you to blame Just in case anybody wanted to know Just in case anybody wanted to know (Don't tell) Just in case anybody needed to know (Don't tell) Lock it in your cardboard box, throw it in your room Just in case anybody wanted to know (Don't tell, don't tell) Everyone in this town needs to shut up I don't want to hear you say my name (Don't tell) And just in case anybody wanted to know (Oh well) Just in case anybody need to know (Don't tell, don't tell) So and so tried to kill themselves last night Just in case anybody wanted to know I've got a reputation, ostentation, none of which is true Just in case anybody needed to know

Sure, the music is in the background and you have to put some effort into hearing what is being said but this seems more than a tacit confirmation about Sheppard's entire conversation here circling the topic of DADT. The music is reminding him of one half of the regulation: don't tell, don't tell -- which just throws into starker contrast the fact that in this scene, Sheppard violates the Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 as a USAF officer, and he seems to do it consciously and on purpose. This is scene is not an accident but actually very important, and their choice of the song playing in the background confirms that this was intentional.

But as important as this playing in the background of Sheppard violating the directive is, the lines "Everyone in this town needs to shut up, I don't want to hear you say my name" seem especially pertinent given the mood that Sheppard is in right now, what he is experiencing internally. Everything reminds him of McKay, which is natural because their lives had been intertwined. They had been living in each other's pockets, they had grown together, we had seen them sharing one brain between them. More so even than normal couples, it seems like they were able to sometimes even read each other's thoughts. They did not always seem to know where one man ended and the other one began, and so it is normal that people had started treating them as an item, regardless of whether they knew about their relationship. It makes sense for Beckett to have come to him when he was looking for McKay who, unbeknownst to him, was avoiding him. The city itself is reminding him of McKay. Everywhere he looks, he sees his face; everywhere he turns, he hears his name. Sheppard just wants to get away for a little while, but their lives are such that he cannot get away from McKay or his broken heart.

Of course since Sheppard most likely has the entire album, we should also look at the other songs on it. Notable examples that might bear relevance for their current situation are I Break Hearts ("I don't remember anything, not anything but you"), Stupid Love Song ("Got a friend, cries herself to sleep every night. She never has known love all her life, she thinks it's her fault"), Beautiful House ("And when you cry I will cry too, cause in these walls I cant hide from you"), Count Me Out ("Cut me up, count me out, I don′t know what is worse: you kiss me here, you kiss me there, your love just feels like a curse"), Sweet Liza Jane ("Sweet big city, let me run through your streets naked in the rain, and tell the story of the people that have left and that have came"). It is an extremely melancholy album and the only way Sheppard could be more obvious about having the post-break up blues is if he were listening to another Canadian artist -- but it might be McKay who has the more Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill (1995) feels right now.

While we are on the topic of song lyrics, most of the time when we see the poster of Johnny Cash as "the man in black," one of his songs has been of particular importance to the episode and especially for illuminating Sheppard's internal world, and while The Man in Black is important here since his motivation for breaking up with McKay was to better be able to protect him, to be "the man in black" who can carry some of the darkness on his back so that one day he might be able to wear that rainbow. However, given their one-armed combat (hiding the hand) earlier, I would venture that the song they had been thinking of in particular here is God`s Gonna Cut You Down (2003):

Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news My head's been wet with the midnight dew I've been down on bended knee Talking to the man from Galilee He spoke to me in the voice so sweet I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel's feet He called my name and my heart stood still When he said, "John, go do my will!" Go tell that long tongue liar Go and tell that midnight rider Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down You can run on for a long time Sooner or later God'll cut you down Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand Working in the dark against your fellow man But as sure as God made black and white What's down in the dark will be brought to the light

The song seems fitting given the conclusion of the episode, and we may note that the epithets "long-tongue liar, midnight rider, rambler and gambler" could be applied to both Sheppard and McKay in different contexts, and they both suffer the consequences of their choices in this episode that poor Beckett ends up paying the price for. What happens feels very much like a Greek tragedy, like divine punishment. It seems like especially poetic irony that Sheppard seems to have explained to himself his need to end the relationship by him being better equipped to keep everybody safe if his focus was not split by him being distracted by McKay, only to be shown that sometimes fate is capricious and there is nothing he can do.

Sheppard: What, you don't? Dex: It's fine. Sheppard: I'm gonna stick to golf. Your game's a little too much like my day job. So how long have you been here now? A year? Dex: Year and a half. Sheppard: Year and a half?

Sheppard seems to hold an ice pack against his cheek briefly and asks if Ronon means to say that he is not enjoying the music, seeming almost offended on behalf of his own music taste, his defensiveness betraying the fact that he does like this music even if he does not come out and say it. Sheppard has such a need to be seen as cool by other people, he is concerned for his image and how he comes across, that he is unable to admit to liking something in case someone that he looks up to -- like he looks up to Ronon in many ways -- expresses dislike for the thing.

For all Sheppard seems like the too cool for school guy, the slacker who does not care what others think about him, as I have discussed before, this just betrays how much he cares about how others see him. His nonchalance is carefully curated, his cool facade is meant to be something that he can hide behind and he hopes that people do not look at him too carefully. He does not want to be the centre of attention, needing to be normal and ordinary enough that people would not look at him twice. McKay being so unapologetically himself and not caring about whether people like him or not -- as established in his conversation with Rod in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) -- is something that Sheppard has always admired about him. He thinks that it makes McKay free in a way that he has never felt himself. Ronon tells him the music is fine even if he is not blown away by it, and we do not know what kind of music they had on this planet -- if any. He does not feel equipped to comment on the music, and seems to be going along and indulging Sheppard with all the activities of this day anyway. Whether or not he knows that Sheppard has just suffered a painful break-up, Ronon seems determined to indulge Sheppard on this day because Sheppard seems to need a friend.

Still feeling defensive about having had his ass handed to him, Sheppard tells Ronon that his sport resembles his "day job," meaning to imply that if he had been taking it seriously, he would have faired better at it. Obviously Sheppard had known that this was not a real fight, and so he had not tried as hard as he would have if it had been for real. Sheppard had given Ronon the excuse that he is "naturally lazy" in Condemned (S02E05) when the younger warrior had quipped that he was starting to worry that Sheppard did not know how to fight, and to be sure a part of this is that slacker persona that Sheppard so carefully curates for others. Partially it is about keeping his cards close to his chest, not wanting his enemies to know what he is capable of so that he might be able to take them by surprise. We have seen Sheppard transform into this Black Ops killing machine when the situation has called for it, so we know that he is capable of guerilla style warfare -- he is a lethal weapon, he is a professional soldier that has received SERE training and who can become a one-man army when necessary, and he likes to project a laid-back persona to hide this professional killer most of the time.

Most people he meets in most contexts do not need to know that he could kill them with his bare arms. Partially projecting this laid back, almost a bumbling fool persona is for show. But partially, especially when he measures himself up to Ronon, he simply feels his age. He does feel inadequate, like he does not measure up to him even though he very much would like to. He had hired Ronon specifically because he is a capable warrior, because Sheppard thinks that Ronon is capable of performing feats that he cannot, hoping that Ronon might be able to keep McKay safe when Sheppard cannot do it personally. He had put his hopes into Ronon being better than him, more than him, stronger than him, faster than him, having more stamina than him -- in him having everything that Sheppard might lack when it comes to protecting McKay. He is counting on it. It is a good thing that Ronon is this super warrior, even if he does make Sheppard feels his age and his mileage in a way that makes him uncomfortable, even if he unintentionally puts a mirror in front of Sheppard that forces him to see himself as he is -- flawed and aging. Sheppard is not a man without an ego -- and it is because he recognizes himself in McKay that this facet of McKay seems to bother him so much, disliking in someone else what he hates about himself -- and so it is because he needs to protect his own ego here that he tells Ronon he was not even really trying. If he had been trying for real, the outcome would have been different. This is basically from the handbook for sore losers.

And with that out of the way, Sheppard does not want to be thinking about how he got his ass handed to him, and so he changes the subject -- switching the spotlight off of himself, on purpose, and moving it on Ronon instead. This is a strategy that people use when they do not wish to talk about themselves, when they don't want to reveal too much about themselves to others. Asking questions about their conversation partner is a convenient way to avoid talking about themselves. Sheppard is basically chit-chatting here, trying to keep the conversation light. His intention is not actually to probe about Ronon and his personal life, he is just meaning to keep the conversation off of himself and his private business, not wishing to reveal too much about himself and his thoughts or feelings. This is not about Ronon so much as this is Sheppard not feeling comfortable sharing himself with others -- from what we have seen in the past, it seems like Sheppard is uncomfortable sharing himself with anyone other than McKay. He likes to hide in plain sight when it comes to everyone else -- and it is quite possible that he would never have shared himself with McKay either if it had not been for this unsettling ability McKay had for reading his thoughts just by looking at his face.

Sheppard had found himself an open book for McKay without ever intending to be this. But the point here is that while Sheppard turns the conversation on to Ronon and asks about him, it is not because he is particularly interested or curious. In fact, Sheppard's question here betrays the fact that Ronon has been with them for a year and a half, and Sheppard has not asked Ronon about him for all that time. Sheppard has not been interested in him and his life like that. He is not even that interested now -- he is making small-talk just to pass the time, just to avoid being alone with his own thoughts. This can seem like a bonding moment between the two of them but actually betrays the opposite -- Sheppard has been so caught up in his relationship with McKay that he has barely given any consideration to others.

It is only not that he is suddenly bothering to get to know who Ronon even is, to ask about his personal life. And even now his motivation is not getting to know Ronon, as might even be his duty as team leader, but to avoid dealing with his own personal life. Sheppard is trying to avoid feeling his feelings and thinking his thoughts, and so he is again using Ronon to distract himself. Sheppard seems genuinely surprised when Ronon tells him that he has been with them for what seems like such a long time since it had felt shorter to him. Time flies when you are having fun. Sheppard has often lost his sense of time when he has been with McKay. When he has been with the man that he loves, time has always seemed to stand still. It has felt like a shorter time to him than it has been.

Sheppard: You ever hang out with anyone else besides me and Teyla? I'm not saying we're sick of you or anything. I dunno -- are you dating anyone? Dex: You mean like a woman? Sheppard: Or a man. Dex: No. I'm not ready yet.

Sheppard continues his interview of Ronon, asking the kinds of questions that a grandmother or an inquisitive aunt might ask -- not really what two guys just shooting the breeze would broach. And we should reiterate that Sheppard is not asking these questions because he has suddenly, a year and a half into Ronon's stay, developed an interest in the man's affairs, that is not what this is about. It is a cliché that men do not talk about their personal lives with their male buddies -- that two guys can become best buds and not necessarily even know each other's names, let alone whether they are married or have kids or what they do for a living. They might consider each other best friends without knowing any personal information about each other, only knowing the pertinent stuff like whether they are good fishermen, what kind of beer they prefer, whether they are good at what ever activity the two guys bond over.

Sheppard's intention is simply to keep the conversation off of himself and on Ronon, and so it seems like the only thing he can even think to ask is what Ronon usually does on his time off -- that is Sheppard's actual question here but, true to form, he can not just come ahead and ask the question he wants to ask. Even deeper than that, his real question is whether Ronon is involved in some kind of activity that Sheppard might use to fill up his own free time in the future now that he is not spending all of his free time, between missions and at nights, with McKay. He is asking Ronon to provide him with something to fill the emptiness in his life. That is the question underneath the other questions that he is obviously not just coming ahead and asking. But because he can only arrive at what he is digging for in a round about way and he is known to project, he makes it sound like Ronon is the one who has no friends and who is unloved and alone -- like he feels right now. He is asking whether Ronon is seeing anybody else besides himself and Teyla because he is seeing only the two of them now. Now that he is not spending every free moment with McKay, he is the one who has no one else.

But because even Sheppard seems to recognize that his question is kind of rude he broadens it up, trying to be smooth about asking Ronon's love life, if he has any -- and he is still projecting here because he is actually dying to to talk about his own broken heart, which he can of course not do in any shape or form, not even if he was the kind of guy who could talk about his feelings. His relationship is illicit, against regulations, a violation of the directive. He could not talk about it even if he wanted to. So he is asking about Ronon, whether he has a sweetheart. It is not because Sheppard cares, or is even interested whether he is seeing anyone. He wants to talk about his own relationship. He is dying to tell someone that he is not seeing anyone right now, thank you. It has cost him a piece of his soul to arrive at this place and he needs to tell someone about it.

Because they had been forced to live out their relationship in secret, it seems like no one even knows that they have broken up. The most significant thing in Sheppard's life has just occurred, and he can't tell anybody about it. He is hurting worse than if he had been forced to cut out his hand (which he would get to experience later in Remnants, S05E15), and everyone was looking at him like he still had two hands. Everyone was treating him like he was a normal two-handed person who had not just experienced a traumatic injury. It felt absurd. It felt offensive. Sheppard needed to be able to tell someone about it, and so -- he is testing the waters here. Ronon is a friend, he is an alien. Maybe he could talk to him about it. Maybe he could tell him.

By clarifying whether he had understood what Sheppard was asking him, he actually gives him an in. Ronon asks whether Sheppard means if he is seeing a woman in a romantic sense, and Sheppard ever so nonchalantly points out that he might be seeing a guy. He does not care. Insert shoulder shrug. Cool as a cucumber. Or a man, he says not caring. It makes no never mind to him. He is broad-minded like that. A modern man, with the times, not one of those tight-ass, homophobic Southern Baptist USAF officers. Sheppard does not care if you are a big old 'mo, Ronon. You can share with the class, you can tell him, he won't make a big deal out of it. Only, this is a big deal, what he does here. It seems like most viewers did not get what a big deal this was. Sheppard is violating directive 1304.26 here. At the time when the episode aired, the directive stated that applicants for enlistment, appointment, or induction shall not be asked or required to reveal their sexual orientation nor shall they be asked to reveal whether they have engaged in homosexual conduct, unless independent evidence is received indicating an applicant engaged in such conduct or the applicant volunteers a statement that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect. Sheppard, a Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Air Force, asks. He a s k s Ronon if he is dating a man. He is violating the directive because under US military law he was not allowed to do that.

Now, the thing is, he is not technically violating the directive because Ronon is not a service member. Only, Sheppard himself had made a big deal out of treating the members of his team as though they were members of the US military and under the same protections in Sateda (S03E04). That had been a big deal for him. He had been ready to throw hands with his superior officer over this, which would have led to a court martial. He had told Caldwell, about Ronon specifically, that although he was not a member of the US military that "He's a member of my team, and he deserves the same respect as anyone on this expedition." Sheppard had gone on record that we was going to treat Ronon just like any other man serving under him. And the fact that they are chilling here, drinking beer on a mandated day off, does not change that. If Sheppard considers Ronon like any of his men, he is not allowed to do this. He is not allowed to ask. Sheppard knows this, and he asks anyway. He is purposefully violating the directive. He is in violation of the regulations. This is just as much of a violation if he had disclosed about himself. He is not allowed to ask someone if they are dating a member of the same sex. Sheppard could not be more explicit about being in violation of the regulations here. In the background, the Canadian man is singing "Don't ask, don't ask," and here he is, asking.

And it is not about Ronon. Sheppard asking Ronon if he is dating a man is not about Ronon. It is about him. Sheppard is the one who has been dating a man -- up until like a week ago. Even though he has ended his relationship and his heart is broken, he wants to be able to say that to someone. He wants someone to know. In fact, he wishes more than anything that everybody serving under him in the expedition felt free to say if they were, that they felt free to disclose because he would try to protect them to the best of his ability. He has tried to create an atmosphere in the city that could be free to be who they are, to love who they do. To wear that rainbow every day. He wants that for others even though he feels like his duties mean that he can never have that for himself. Sheppard is so broken up about what he has been forced to give up that for this fleeting moment, he does not care. He is throwing caution to the wind. Even though this is very much not about Ronon, he wants the guy to know that if he were, it would be OK with Sheppard. Anyone is free to date who ever they wants, as far as he is concerned.

This is a big deal, having Sheppard say this. The show had actual ties to the USAF. They were taking a chance with this seemingly innocuous piece of dialogue. Technically they are not breaking any rules here. Technically Ronon is not a service member so Sheppard can ask anything he wants to. And Ronon basically tells him no, he is not light in the combat boots, he is not a pillow biter, he is not a fudge-packer, he is not any of the colourful names for queens and queers and friends of Dorothy that they had in the Air Force. Ronon may not be a patriotic red-blooded American man but they establish that he is straight here (even though, they really don't -- only that he is not dating a man right now and that he had been in love with a woman in the past). And it makes Sheppard not gay by association -- when in reality this proves not a thing about Sheppard's interest in anybody. What this does prove is that Sheppard thinks nothing about violating DADT when it suits him, however. He does that on purpose here. Sheppard is conscious about what he does -- how can he not be? He is an officer -- and more than that, a base commander.

Atlantis is considered a major military outpost, as seen by Sheppard's "chest candy" at the end of the episode, by his service ribbons. This means that his boots are bigger than his rank strictly states on account of his post. If Ronon had been a member of the US military and had wanted to make trouble for Sheppard, which he of course does not want -- and he has no idea what had just happened here because most of the viewers probably did not catch on to it -- he could probably have ended Sheppard's career right here. This is probably one of the reasons why General Landry and his all male panel had not wanted to give Sheppard the post originally -- they had seen him as trouble, as compromised -- as someone who would not care about upholding certain regulations because he was in violation of them himself.

This was a big deal, and it was real clever of them to bring this up now that Sheppard and McKay had apparently ended their relationship. Sheppard was not in active violation of the regs now on the other side. It is clever of them to do this while basically confirming another character's heterosexuality (even though we never find out much at all about what to Satedans or the other peoples of Pegasus think about same sex relations) and while they are hinting at a possible romantic interest between Sheppard and a woman, even though they are pretty securely establishing no romantic connection between them in this episode. It is all around cleverly done, very subtle and yet undeniable. Nothing about this scene is an accident. Nothing about this entire episode is an accident. John Sheppard is in love with Rodney McKay. Rodney is the love of his life. He had been forced to end their relationship because due to the tragic death of his lover before the start of the show -- his tragic backstory -- he fears more than anything else that his own actions would lead to the death of the one person he has learned he cannot live without. And it is now that their relationship is ended that we are confirmed that it had existed. It it this heart-breaking end of their relationship that establishes it as having been real this whole time. This is masterful storytelling.

Sheppard: Not ready yet? Did you leave somebody behind on Sateda? Wife? Dex: Close enough.

It is only now that Sheppard actually looks at Ronon, actually sees him, the unexpectedness of his response shaking Sheppard out of his reverie, getting him out of his own head. Sheppard has been so caught up in his own broken heart that he had failed to see that someone else had been hurting this whole time.

Ronon's radical honesty is something that Sheppard had not expected because he is incapable of being honest like this about his own emotions -- Sheppard could never confess to something like that himself. In this, Ronon is actually a lot of like McKay, and we have noted before how to two of them have a lot in common when you look beneath the surface. On a very deep level, the two of them are very much alike, both are deeply damaged and broken, and they even try to deal with their damage in similar ways. Ronon's response seems to stop Sheppard in his tracks and he has to think about it for a moment. He does not quite know how to react at first because he had not anticipated this. As a matter of fact, Sheppard had not been thinking about Ronon at all here -- he had been using Ronon to distract himself from his broken heart, and he had accidentally stepped on what seemed to him might be an emotional landmine. He suspected that he needed to be careful in his steps now because although he had been shifting the focus of the conversation on Ronon on purpose, not wanting to talk about himself or his feelings or reveal too much about himself -- but he had not meant for this conversation to actually get too deep, too intimate, too emotional.

Sheppard had expected Ronon to be like an ordinary guy -- not too keen to talk about feelings and things of that nature. Sheppard himself would not be caught dead talking about how he feels, and hence he had felt safe being alone with Ronon in a way he would never have felt comfortable being alone with his best friend Teyla -- who would probably corner him and demand they talk about intimate stuff even after he has tried to let her know that he does not like doing that and is not good at it. And now somehow he found himself here with Ronon -- the last person he thought would want to talk about his feelings, sharing with him something intimate like that. Sheppard is completely caught off guard here, and so he is careful in his probing -- but suddenly interested in spite of himself. At the very least, this distracts him from his own tragedy.

This is probably the first time that Sheppard is seriously thinking about Ronon and what his life must have been like before he had been forced to leave his entire world behind. On some abstract level Sheppard had realized that Ronon must have had a "before." At the end of Runner (S02E03) Sheppard had seen the still smoking ruins of Sateda, he had been forced to show them to Ronon personally. In Sateda (S03E04), he had seen the man's home-world for himself and had been able to witness the trauma that his experiences seemed to have wrought on him. Ronon was very obviously a deeply damaged, broken shell of a man and it was really miraculous how well-adjusted he seemed to be in spite of his past. Sheppard probably realizes that he should have encouraged or even insisted that Ronon talked to Heightmeyer about his experiences -- but he seems to have been reluctant to make use of her services himself. Sheppard knows that he has suffered deep trauma himself, and he has not wanted to see a head-shrink about it, and he seems to have quite naturally projected about this on Ronon.

He has been a big boy about his boo-boo and he seems to have assumed that Ronon would see it the same way, and so he had not pushed him. It is only now that he is forced to actually see Ronon as a person, as a distinct personality separate from himself, and he has a moment of realization of what a shitty team leader and friend he has been. He really has had his head up his own ass this whole time, preoccupied with his own life and his own drama and his relationship with McKay -- and this is just reminding him of how focused on McKay he has been this whole time. It really was necessary for him to end his relationship because this was the kind of stuff he had been missing when his focus had been on McKay 24/7. And of course it had never been McKay's fault, but he finds it easier now than ever to blame it on McKay.

Ir was not a coincidence that he had not mentioned McKay earlier when he had asked Ronon if he ever hung out with people other than himself and Teyla. Ronon and McKay might not have been best buds like that or even had that much in common, but it would not be wild for Ronon to sometimes hang out with McKay. Sheppard has seen them chatting on their missions, having points of interest in common. There are easily a dozen things that Ronon and McKay could have bonded or geeked out together. It was on purpose that Sheppard had not invoked his name. Sheppard finds himself incapable of speaking his name. Sheppard is quietly hoping that no one would speak his name to him today, and Beckett had already done it. He had been hoping not to have to think about him for one day, and of course that had been doomed to fail. His brain had been running on McKayMcKayMcKayMcKayMcKay for the past two and a half years -- why would he expect it to be any different now? Yes, it was best that he focused on Ronon's tragedy. That would at the very least be something else for him to think about.

To distract himself, he asks if Ronon had been married. He realizes that he had never even considered it because the guy was so young and seemed to have spent most of his adult life running from the wraith. But of course he now recognizes that the Pegasus people might have had very different customs. For all he knows, Ronon had been a child groom or betrothed to someone from birth. He had never even thought to ask, and it was not because he was such a considerate guy as not to want to pry. He had not just been interested in Ronon or his life like that. And he realizes what a shitty friend and team leader that makes him now. Teyla probably had asked and had known all about that kind of stuff.

But it turns out that Ronon had not been married. He tells Sheppard that she had been "close enough" to a wife -- and this is an interesting way to describe it. It is not an accident in the context of this episode because that is precisely what Sheppard and McKay had been to each other. They had been "close enough" to be married -- because they could not be married. Not under US law, not with Sheppard's job. Under Canadian laws they could have been married, and that was the thing. That had become a whole thing as time had gone on. That is the whole reason to even have Ronon describe him having been in a serious relationship like this. Close enough. He was not the only one who had been close enough. Who had had a close enough. To wit:

Sheppard: Sorry. Dex: What about you? Sheppard: What about me? Dex: When are you getting married? Sheppard: Already done that. Not very good at it.

Sheppard says that he is sorry, realizing he had stepped in it (the emotional landmine) -- and we very rarely hear Sheppard says that he is sorry, and even more seldom as genuinely as he seems to be here. McKay had told Sheppard that he was not very good at apologizing in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) because he was so rarely wrong, which of course is not the only or even the main reason that people say they are sorry.

Sheppard seemed to disagree with McKay at the time (about McKay rarely being in the need of apologizing, not that he was not not good at it), and he was projecting at the time -- we have seen McKay capable of expressing genuine remorse when the situation calls for it whereas Sheppard seems to find it much more difficult to admit that he has done anything that warrants saying that he is sorry, let alone that he could do it honestly and from the heart. Sheppard tends to see many of his own flaws in McKay and it is because he loves McKay that seeing his own flaws in him has been an attempt of Sheppard to try to love himself better. Regardless, this is a rare occasion of Sheppard seeming to genuinely be sorry and to even be able to come out and say it to someone else, to mean it. He realizes that this must be difficult for Ronon, and he had not meant for the discussion to go there, not at all, not by any means. He had been going for lighthearted chatter, and they had somehow ended up in Heartbreak Crossing, and that was his bad.

It does not seem like Ronon is that keen on dwelling on this topic either, and so it is his turn to deflect by turning the conversation back on Sheppard. Ronon is actually a lot more clever than people give him credit for, and he seems to get his payback by turning the question around on Sheppard, demanding that he share something personal in turn -- and so he asks Sheppard when he is getting married. It is important to note that he is not asking whether Sheppard is dating anybody -- important also that he is not asking him whether it is a woman or a man, Sheppard's own question pretty much begging for this question that Ronon skips right over -- and it is entirely possible that he skips this question because it is rather obvious to him that Sheppard has been seeing somebody. In fact, if there is one person who has had a front row seat to the Sheppard and McKay relationship drama, it has been Ronon.

As we had seen in the previous episode The Ark (S03E15), there is no one who has had a better seat to that show, and more incentive to try to make sense of the things that Sheppard actually genuinely cares about, and even to try to see through his pretenses and projections. Ronon is genuinely trying to guard Sheppard's life, and so it has been vitally important for him to understand Sheppard and the things he cares about. If Sheppard has been in a serious relationship with someone -- and he has -- Ronon would know about it. And so he does not insult Sheppard by asking him if he has been seeing anybody, it is obvious to him that he has. Instead, he is asking when Sheppard is making an honest man out of McKay. And he may be asking this in spite of -- or even because -- it seems like Sheppard has just freshly broken up with a man he is still so clearly in love with. Ronon is not stupid.

And again we have to note that Sheppard is taken off guard by Ronon's question, by the directness of it. And we have to acknowledge the fact that he is not answering the question here, he is deflecting like his life depended on it. This is not a question that Sheppard can answer, not for real, not being genuine. This is not a question that he wants to answer, and it may be a question that he may not even know how to answer even if he wanted to. Which he does not. This is not even in the neighbourhood of Sheppard being honest with his answer. I am certain that there are viewers who believe (or even insist) that Sheppard is telling the truth here when Sheppard is not a just coming around and telling the truth kind of a guy. He has very little incentive to just straight up telling the truth here. That is not what this is about. That is almost the opposite of what this is about.

Sheppard responds by saying that he had "already done that" and that he was "not very good at it." The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the lack of pronouns here -- this is something that CIA analysts note is often a sign that someone is lying, the sudden dropping of pronouns. Sheppard is not being truthful here but it does not necessarily mean that he is outright lying -- because the dropping of pronouns may also signal him putting some distance between himself and the memories that the question had invoked in him. This is something that had happened to him but not something that he had actively participated in. Him dropping the pronouns all of a sudden is really significant and underscores how difficult he finds this topic of conversation.

Most viewers watching the show now will interpret this scene in light of what we learn later in Outcast (S04E15) -- that Sheppard had been married to a beautiful woman called Nancy and that they had divorced at least partially because Sheppard had been keeping things from her and participating on the kinds of missions that married men seldom participate in or are even allowed to participate in, and who seemed to come from his social circle -- and that his father had very much approved of this marriage. And given that we had just been revealed that Sheppard had been playing golf since he was six, it is not impossible that they had already thought of this part of his backstory here. In fact, it is possible that they had hinted at Sheppard's backstory already in Epiphany (S02E12), as discussed at the time -- Sheppard had been in love with a man whose sister he had then married out of societal pressure. Be that as it may, it is not necessary that Sheppard is referring to that here regardless of whether the backstory had been sketched out for him at this time, because the divorce he is thinking about now is the one he had suffered more recently.

They may not have been married but he and McKay had been close enough, and Sheppard has to be thinking about their separation at this time. His marriage and divorce back on Earth are not relevant to his life right now -- he is mourning the ending of the most important relationship of his life, and whether or not he ever got to call McKay his husband, he very much feels like they have divorced. This feels worse than his divorce because he had never been in love with Nancy. He had never been forced to live right next to her and work with her. With her, Sheppard had likely been able to pack his bags and leave for another country, another mission, not having to be where everything reminded him of her, where everyone was talking about her to him because they had been such an item that people could not think of one without thinking of the other. Regardless of what we learn about Sheppard later, and the writers (the actor among them) may have based the episode on this moment, that is not what he is thinking about here. And it is important that Sheppard admits that he had not been very good at it, even though he does not use the pronoun -- ever unable to outright accept his own culpability in things. Sheppard knows that he is the bad guy here, never mind how good his intentions had been. McKay deserved someone better than him. However much he might hate the guy McKay eventually finds, he sincerely hopes that he does find someone better.

Sheppard: Besides, there really isn't anyone here that... you know. Dex: I always thought you and Teyla would... you know. Sheppard: Really? Dex: Yeah. Why not? Sheppard: Umm...

Deflecting even more, uncomfortable sharing details of his personal life let alone his feelings, Sheppard then continues unprompted that he does not feel like there is anyone here that he could even see himself marrying -- or at the very least that is what we are invited to read into what he says. We can note that he does not just drop his pronouns here, he drops also the verb. Ronon had asked him when he would get married and he is saying that there is no one there, seeming to mean the city but possibly the entire galaxy, but instead of just saying what he means he finishes with "....you know" -- and we have seen time and again that Sheppard really prefers it when people just get what he means without him having to spell things out, without him just having to come out and say it.

The thing is, the heterosexist assumption here is that he is talking about a woman -- and to be sure, we have not seen him making many connections with women in the city outside of his boss and Teyla, whom Ronon then even offers up as a candidate. But what he says is so vague that Sheppard could just as easily have meant to say "Besides, there really isn't anyone here that I can marry" -- he is legally now allowed to marry the person he has been most intimately connected with. It is not just the regulations of his office but the laws of his native country that made that a foregone possibility. Technically the two of them could have married in Canada under Canadian law but that would have marked the end of Sheppard's career, and he thinks that this war needs him "on that wall" so badly that he had just given up the person he loved most in the world to be able to perform his duty.

No, there literally really isn't anyone in Atlantis that Sheppard could marry -- not that he did not want to. Sheppard does not say that there is not anyone he wanted to marry or he found interesting enough to marry or any number of things he could have said here. He leaves it at an ambiguous "you know" because we are meant to read it in our own context. Given the rules against fraternization, the reading would be pretty much the same even if one had been thinking of him having been interested in Weir, or even Teyla who is a member of his team. Note the way he looks first to his upper right, remembering something, and then to his upper left when he finishes with "...you know," suggesting that he was thinking about someone specific at first and then made the decision to lie about it.

And this brings us to Ronon's suggestion here, and the spirit in which it is given. It seems like he is saying that he had detected something between Sheppard and Teyla, some kind of a "vibe" like they were more than friends, even if just looking at the earlier scene where Teyla had been trying to get out of spending time with Sheppard and had been pawing Ronon's naked bicep might suggest otherwise. Of course Sheppard had just (seemingly) risked his life to save Teyla, even though he had told her not to think that he had been doing it specifically for her because he would have done it for everyone. Sheppard has seemed to avoid spending time alone with Teyla, and it is certainly not because he is feeling some uncontrollable passion for her -- lingering desires, secret longings for her touch. We have been shown pretty decisively that this is not the case -- and as pointed out, Ronon had most definitely noted the difference in how Sheppard regarded McKay and the others in the previous episode. Just contrast Sheppard asking Teyla whether she was still alive with "Teyla?" and pursuing no further conversation with her to him being entirely beside himself when he had not know what had happened to McKay. They could scarcely have made the contrast more stark, and Ronon had been there to see it from a front row seat.

Now, it is true that we have seen Sheppard and Teyla kiss in Conversion (S02E08), albeit is unlikely that Ronon would know about this since they both seemed so mortified when it had happened as to never want to discuss it again and certainly did not want others to know about it -- even though it seemed that McKay knew about it by the following episode. They have had intimate moments and they do appear to be good friends, and Sheppard does definitely care about her. But it seems as though their intimate moments are not something that Sheppard pursues but instead tries to actively avoid because they are uncomfortable to him -- even more uncomfortable as he is talking about this now -- and there are so many episodes where we can contrast Sheppard's regard for Teyla and McKay to see who the most important person in his life is. There is no contest -- we have seen Sheppard actively choose McKay times and again, and it was because of this that Sheppard turning McKay down when he wanted to ask at the end of the previous episode for Sheppard not to go through with it had been such a big deal.

What ever Ronon has or thinks he has seen between Sheppard and his other team mates, it is entirely possible that he is digging here -- that he is baiting for Sheppard to tell him something that Sheppard seems to be dying to tell him anyway. Sheppard seems to really need to unburden himself here, and he seems unable to do it unless prompted. Ronon bringing up Sheppard potentially dating a member of their team is an opening for him to talk about it not dissimilar to Sheppard throwing in his "Or a man" earlier, giving Ronon leave to tell him if he had been interested in guys. He is similarly trying to let Sheppard know that it is OK by him if he was interested in a member of their team -- Teyla or otherwise.

Sheppard himself had made it clear earlier that women or men made no never mind to him, so it would have been easy peasy for Ronon to segue into "What about McKay?" from here -- only he never gets the chance because they are interrupted by the plot happening. But before Sheppard is literally saved by the bell, the ringing alarm saving him from having to answer, we have to note the derisive "Really?" with which he reacts to Ronon's suggestion that he might have been interested in Teyla like that. He responds like it is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. Ronon invited him to elaborate on why not Teyla, and for all we know Sheppard had been about to say something to the tune of "We're just good friends," "I like them thicker," "Well, she's a girl" -- or even "I prefer more than seven inches."

McKay starts by telling everyone that he will be done in two minutes, likely in response to worried thoughts he is picking up all around him. He seems to be engaged in a complicated operation of rearranging the city's electrical grid but we have seen before how he tends to focus best when there is some amount of distraction going on that frees his mind from monitoring his environment for danger. But due to his childhood induced hypervigilance, there is always some part of him waiting for the other shoe to drop and so he zeroes in on what Weir and Sheppard seem to be thinking almost immediately, stopping everything he was doing in order to address this. While Weir starts with "We need to talk to you," which is often a precursor for difficult conversations, they do not actually do a whole lot of talking in this scene. McKay is having a conversation but we only get to hear his part of it.

McKay's initial reaction is denial. It seems like the thought he had picked up -- and it is likely it was from Sheppard, who must be thinking it exceptionally loud -- had been "You are going to die." And it is revealing that the reason he cannot be dying he falls back on is that he is not even sick, he does not feel sick at all. As discussed before, it is likely that McKay's mother had died from a protracted illness and so it seems like the immediate association McKay makes in his mind is that dying involves being sick, that people do not just drop dead on the spot but have to wither away. Not only does McKay not feel sick -- and like Zelenka had just pointed out, he is a hypochondriac and certainly knows what being sick feels like -- he actually feels great. He feels good. As blissed out as he had seemed before, it is possible that using the Chair was making him feel especially good. It also says something that McKay admits that he has never felt this good before, which is not that different from Sheppard confessing that the best week of his life had been when he was high on Codeine for a full seven days, like he had confessed to Weir in Conversion (S02E08). There seem to be a lot of parallels between these two episodes.

Sheppard: That Ancient device-- McKay: --has accelerated my evolution. Eventually I'll reach a point where I'm physically capable of ascension, but ascension takes more than that -- there's a... there's a mental component. I need to know how to make it happen... which I don't. Yet!

Hearing the distress in McKay's voice Sheppard immediately starts trying to make him feel better, likely also hoping that as soon as he has been able to explain what the problem is to McKay that McKay might be able to fix it or they could at least start working toward a solution, because McKay dying is simply unacceptable to him.

With regards to the latent telepathy that McKay may have even ordinarily, it seems like he either needs to or wants to look at the face of the person whose thoughts he is reading and so we are able to see whose thoughts he is responding to at any given time. The first thoughts he reads are those of Sheppard, getting the gist from him. And it is not inconsequential that the first person whose thoughts he turns to is Sheppard, and in fact Sheppard seemed to be the first person he looked at when he got out of his chair. McKay seems to mostly cycle between the thoughts of Sheppard and Weir, who had come to him with this idea that he is going to die unless he learns how to ascend, but he does then turn to look at Ronon, who seems to have had some choice thoughts relating to McKay not knowing something. McKay's indignant "Yet!" implies that Ronon has not been shy in letting McKay know exactly what he thinks about him -- and Ronon even later confesses to McKay that he tends to not let things he cannot change bother him, seeming unbothered by McKay's powers by this time.

As McKay starts reading their thoughts one after the other, we see Sheppard first look up at him with childlike wonder but then briefly glance at Weir when McKay seems to be reading her mind, swallowing and looking quite uncomfortable. But as we shall soon see, it is not McKay reading his thoughts that is making Sheppard uncomfortable, and so it must be either watching McKay read someone else's mind right in front of him or the actual thoughts that Weir is having that McKay is verbalizing for them that are discomforting him in this moment.

McKay: I'm getting smarter by the minute. It's a pretty good assumption I'll be able to figure it out on the way. OK, so it's not as easy as that. Well, even if I don't, so I stay a highly-evolved human. I mean, I don't have to ascend -- it's, it's a choice, right? No? What do you mean, no? Oh, that stupid Ancient device doesn't work properly, does it?

What is interesting about this is that while McKay is having a monologue, he is actually having a whole conversation with the others, and this is not the first time we have seen him do this. But previously McKay has been able to have such conversations chiefly with Sheppard, Trinity (S02E06) being the clearest but by far not the only example of him doing this. And even here we see Sheppard responding to McKay with changes in his expression, his face falling when McKay responds to his thought as he is thinking it.

McKay seems almost to be going through the five stages of grief, going from denial to bargaining to anger and despair, cycling through the emotions in a rapid-fire way. McKay is talking so quickly that it seems like no one could get a word in edgewise if they wanted to, slowed only by the fact that he needs to respond to the others verbally. What is interesting is that the thought that Sheppard has that McKay seems to respond to has to do with whether or not ascension is a choice, McKay's reaction suggesting that Sheppard does not think that it is a choice. McKay's "What do you mean, no?" implies that Sheppard had mentally responded to McKay's question "It's a choice, right?" with "No, it's not a choice" or "It isn't a choice," or some variation thereof.

But the thing of it is, Sheppard had been given a choice whether to ascend with the rest of the villagers in Epiphany (S02E12). He was far from achieving ascension on his own but Teer had invited him to join them and Sheppard had turned her down. He had told her that he is not ready and that he doubts he ever will be ready to join them. And this may not even have been the first time that Sheppard had turned down the offer to ascend with someone, as "sharing the essence" that he had done with Athar at the end of Sanctuary (S01E14) seemed to contain the option that Sheppard and her stay like that forever. But that is not something that Sheppard wants, it never has been. As discussed in connection with both women, while Sheppard is looking for someone that will stay with him always, it was not like that and it was not with them.

Sheppard had given up the chance to ascend to stay with McKay, and now the prospect that McKay might ascend and leave him behind was terrifying him. Perhaps there is a part of Sheppard that hopes that Avrid or someone else from the village would have chosen him instead of ascension if that had been an avenue available for them but to Sheppard, the question of ascension has always been tied to McKay and him preferring the flawed, very human McKay to any ethereal beings of pure light. But it seems like Sheppard may have been having a private thought connected to this because he seems surprised, even taken aback that McKay had been able to read this thought off of him. This had not been a thought he had meant for McKay to catch.

Another alternative is that Sheppard had been musing about McKay staying a highly evolved human and was jarred out of his reverie by McKay's indignant "No, what do you mean no?" that he had said in response to something Weir had thought, just as upset to hear that McKay would not be able to stay as this superhero as McKay had been to hear it himself, since Sheppard seems to have made peace with him being Lois Lane now. Given what Sheppard says about thinking that McKay is the Human Torch in First Strike (S03E20), fantasizing about McKay being a superhero come whisk him away may be something that he does on the regular. Sheppard may also have been musing about himself having turned down ascension because for him it had been a choice, and he might have been shocked to hear that it would not be the case for McKay.

McKay: It's set in motion a series of genetic mutations that will result in my death if I don't ascend Sheppard: There is something easier about this.

McKay seems to reach fever pitch, reaching the point of what Weir and Sheppard had come to tell him, which is that he might die unless he ascends, which he does not know how to do and likely will not have time to learn. Picking up the term "genetic mutations" is something that McKay may adopt from Sheppard, since he had told Beckett earlier that he preferred to use the term advancement instead and did not want to use that term, and genetic mutation was something that Sheppard had experienced himself when he had been turning into a bug, when he had been dying from his body undergoing changes in his DNA. What McKay says here could easily be him repeating Sheppard's thought.

What Sheppard then says in response, as a comment he makes to Weir, is important. There are people who interpret Sheppard's character as a closeted gay man who pines for McKay that remains oblivious to this until the end of the show. They see McKay as a heterosexual character (yes, people actually think this, and for sure that is a reading), and in fact the actor may well have played the character as merely idolizing Sheppard to the point of having a "mancrush" on him but still being attracted to women -- which the writing does little to support since McKay does not even like women. It is an interpretation that has support but that I cannot prescribe to, and this scene is one of the major reasons why Sheppard secretly pining for McKay all these years seems to fall apart.

Sheppard says that he thinks there is something easier about McKay reading their minds so that they do not have to verbalize these things, and this tracks with Sheppard's character. Sheppard seems to have a very difficult time talking about emotionally overwhelming topics, preferring people to just "get" his meaning. We had seen this in Sateda (S03E04), when Teyla had thanked Sheppard for what he had intended to say, and we have seen many times that Sheppard tends to fall silent to the point of being unable to speak when he is overwhelmed, when he is barely able to contain his emotions -- which I have suggested may be some form of voluntary mutism, not wanting his men or his enemies to hear him stutter, possibly having been chastised for stuttering or speaking unclearly by his father when he had been a child.

While it was implied that Sheppard finds it unsettling that he and McKay seem to be able to read each other's thoughts just by looking at the other man -- and we have seen especially McKay able to easily read Sheppard's thoughts at least ever since he had received his gene therapy (and in fact one of the first things McKay had done in Rising (S01E01) was to tell Sheppard to think of something and then able to see his thoughts manifest, essentially reading his thoughts, while Sheppard had been seated on a chair very similar to this one) -- and not only does Sheppard not have a problem with this, he seems to prefer it. Sheppard is grateful when he does not have to say the hard things, when he can just expect the other person to get his meaning -- and the two of them not talking things out but expecting each other to just understand what they mean and what they are thinking has contributed to their relationship issues in a big way. The point is that if Sheppard was secretly pining for McKay, he would not want him to read his thoughts. He would go to some lengths to keep McKay from being able to read his thoughts, he would avoid him and try to disguise them. But that is not what Sheppard does. He seems to have nothing to hide from McKay -- at least not in this moment. And while there are many thoughts that Sheppard might want to and definitely tries to hide from McKay, wanting him is not and never has been one of them -- or at least has not been one since before The Defiant One (S01E12), after which Sheppard had dropped that pretense.

But the reason for Sheppard to turn to Weir and make this comment, which is basically again him cracking a joke about it, is deflection. McKay dying is a though that is making Sheppard very, very uncomfortable and he is in full-blown denial about this even being a possibility. He refuses to talk about it with McKay later on, and he is refusing to think about it too. He needs to make a smartass comment because otherwise he would have to face up to the grim reality that McKay might be dying, and he is not ready to do that.

McKay: That's why the Ancients didn't put it into common use -- it's just one more in a long line of abysmal, over-ambitious failures! Oh, God. I'm a dead man! Coleman: Doctor McKay. McKay: Yes, yes -- it's because I stopped in the middle. I will fix it -- just give me a second here. Coleman: We have massive power surges throughout the grid. Shutdown protocols are not responding. McKay: Damn it!

Starting to despair, McKay's tone climbs up an octave and it is unclear whether the final part where he describes what the Ancients had accomplished being "just one more in a long line of abysmal, over-ambitious failures" is his own thought or that of Sheppard -- it certainly rhymes with what Sheppard had said earlier about them making giant mistakes and never fixing them. And so we know that at the very least Sheppard can wholeheartedly agree with him.

McKay describes himself as a "dead man" here, not for the first time. McKay had called himself a "dead man" in Hide and Seek (S01E03) when he had realized that the personal shield was not coming off. He had further called himself the "dead man" in The Siege (S01E19), forced to make a space walk without a tether -- and it is notable that Peter Grodin had been present for both occasions. But Sheppard had also called himself dead man in Conversion (S02E08), describing Weir trying to reassure him as "dead man talk." As discussed before, it seems like the writers have made multiple references to the Book of the Dead Man poems by the anti-war poet Marvin Bell where the poems always come in twos, where both Sheppard and McKay have been portrayed in ways that match some of the poems.

It is easy to find s reference to the poems in here, as well. One interesting option is the poem "About the Dead Man and the River"* which features the line, "What size shirt and cape fit a man of pure energy?" -- befitting the theme of superheroes and ascension in the episode. The line about the "random apocalypse that blinked from another galaxy" also recalls the events of McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08). There are too many connections in these poems to McKay in particular for it to be accidental, some of the writers for the show must have been familiar with these poems -- to be intentionally making references to the "dead man" in connection with McKay. And I say again: even if there is nothing to this connection, the poems are still well worth reading.

McKay's spiraling into a full-blown existential crisis is halted, however, by the electrical grid of the city going on the fritz, and he is alerted to this by the woman we presume is Dr. Coleman -- although it is not necessary for the Dr. Coleman that Weir had referenced earlier to be her. McKay recognizes that this is happening because he had stopped in the middle -- because he had been interrupted when things were getting good -- and he is immediately ready to start fixing his mistakes, again contrasting him with what Sheppard thinks of the Ancients. But unfortunately McKay is not able to do this in time and tragedy strikes when a massive bolt of energy shoots through Zelenka's chest. He seems to be mortally wounded, and McKay feels like it is his fault.

Continued in Pt. 13

-*

Sheppard saunters into Weir's office like he owns the place and parks himself right next to her but it seems to be because he is curious to see what she is doing, he actually wants to know what she is working on because it has something to do with McKay. The question that Sheppard speaks to Weir, "How's it coming?" is one we have heard him speak to McKay often, and this is because McKay is usually the guy he turns to for answers, but he seems to feel like he cannot rely on McKay with this, cannot trust McKay to be impartial when it comes to his own condition, knowing as he does that McKay is prone to both catastrophizing and self-delusion. But note that although Sheppard gets close to Weir, he is keeping his arm between the two of them as a barrier because if getting close to her was the point, he would be leaning on one arm and have his body open to her, which he does not. This is about needing to know what she has discovered about McKay, this is not about being close to her.

Weir tells him essentially that he was interrupting her and she would like to return her focus to what she had been reading but in referring to it as "getting to the good bit" she is, possibly unwittingly, opening herself up as a target for innuendo, and we have noted how Sheppard's nervous system seems to shift his thoughts to sex when ever it is over-excited. Sheppard's comment is suggestive, he definitely seems to make a reference to "things getting good" as a euphemism for sex, his cheeky line meant to purposefully rile her up. There is a comedic beat to this in that Sheppard is doing exactly what he claims to dislike here, as though he was oblivious to the fact that he was interrupting Weir -- which he is not, we have seen Sheppard frequently interrupt McKay on purpose, knowing that McKay sometimes needs to redirect his thoughts from scenarios of certain death to something more productive, like being annoyed with Sheppard. When Sheppard manages to annoy McKay, the man forgets that he was ever meant to be afraid of something.

But Sheppard making this comment also suggests that he has been interrupted when things have been getting good, possibly recently, and since he says it so pointedly, possibly even by Weir himself. We had seen the way Sheppard was practically humping the air while half-climbed on McKay's bed in the infirmary earlier, and he had certainly seemed like he might want to do something about that with McKay, whether or not they ever got the opportunity to act it out. Sheppard's comment really only makes sense if Weir has caught him in delicto flagrante and he is now wanting to repay the favour.

Sheppard: I know McKay is some super-genius now, but I find the flickering lights incredibly unnerving. Weir: Doctor Coleman has -- however reluctantly -- admitted it does seem as if Rodney is significantly improving the city's power system.

The lights suddenly flicker and Sheppard cannot help commenting on them, just like he usually is helpless not to comment on things that McKay does -- and we should pay attention to the fact that Sheppard knows this is McKay's doing, he knows where McKay is and what he is occupied with, he has obviously been keeping tabs on him. What ever Sheppard has been doing with his day after returning from the mission apart from having been fiddling with one of the machines in the Ancient lab, he has kept on top of McKay's whereabouts and as suggested, had very likely been the one to assign Ronon to look after him.

Sheppard calls the flickering lights "incredibly unnerving," and he does this with the intent of undercutting the moment with humour, his favourite deflection technique, rather than to actually talk about his feelings with Weir. He may genuinely be unnerved but it is not by the flickering light so much as the fact that McKay is now this super-genius who can do that, feeling like the chasm that had existed between them intellectually -- like Sheppard has always felt -- was only getting bigger. While McKay has always thought that Sheppard is smart -- at least ever since he had impressed McKay with his mental math skills in Rising (S01E02), proving that he is more than a pretty face -- Sheppard himself suffers from feelings of inferiority when it comes to McKay specifically in the intellectual arena. And while it would be easy to think that Sheppard's issue was with the unnerving flickering lights here, it is actually the "some super-genius" part of what he says that is bothering him but which he cannot admit even to himself.

We had heard Weir describe looking at her counterpart in Before I Sleep (S01E15) with "When she looks at me, it's as if she's sensing my thoughts, and I'm sensing hers. It's very unsettling." And as discussed at the time, Sheppard seems to recognize this feeling. Sheppard had further confessed that he was unsettled in The Brotherhood (S01E16), having apparently been unsettled by their experiences on Dagan. While Sheppard is being facetious here, we have noted how he tends to use sarcasm not to say untrue things but to get some emotional distance to his own feelings -- and he does indeed seem to find this whole experience "incredibly unnerving." And it seems like Sheppard gets what he had come to Weir for, which is her assurance that everything is fine. McKay is fine. Doctor Coleman vouches for him.

Sheppard: Whatever. Anyway, you were saying...? Weir: Well, we know the Ancients evolved physiologically to a certain point where they could transform into a state of pure energy.

Sheppard leaves her side and takes a seat on the other side of the table like we have seen him do before, and Sheppard has usually had some kind of an agenda in coming to her, whether to seek for her protection or to make sure that their working relationship has not been damaged by what ever events had transpired. While Sheppard may have sought Weir out now to ground him, to assure him that everything is going to be alright and there is nothing to worry about, it could also be that he does not know what to do with himself now that McKay is otherwise occupied. We had seen in Echoes (S03E12) that Sheppard had happily spent his entire day following McKay around, and he had been ready and willing to do that even earlier on this day. But now that McKay was occupied doing some super science and he had Ronon on McKay detail, it may be that Sheppard is feeling adrift, like he does not even know what to do with himself.

Pay attention once more to how Sheppard takes his seat. He had just made a reference to people interrupting when things are "getting good," which may hint at this having happened to him recently. Sheppard again takes his weight off of his tailbone by keeping most of his weight on the hand he rests down on Weir's desk, sitting first on one cheek and then adjusting himself, slouching down so that his full weight does not land on... areas that might be sore. For sure he is trying to affect a slouch to communicate how much he does not care about any of this, because like we have seen, the more Sheppard tries to perform being relaxed, the less relaxed he actually is. But Sheppard taking this slouch also parallels him with McKay laying back on the Control Chair at the same time, the two of them engaged in the same activity, and in fact Sheppard could be seated on his lap given how he is several floors topside.

Sheppard further emphasizes how unbothered he is by responding to Weir's comment with "Whatever" like he did not care about what McKay was doing when that is the only thing he cares about in this moment. We should also note that Sheppard almost touches the tip of a triangular box of some kind on Weir's desk, hinting at the fact that he is longing to touch something, but then thinks better of it, not wanting to touch her things. It speaks of him being nervous or anxious over the situation, touching something a self-soothing technique, but the fact that he decides not to do it also implies that he does not feel entirely at home in her office.

Sheppard: Ancient History 101. Weir: Yes. We also know that not all of them managed to get there. Sheppard: You're saying some of them needed a kick in the pants. Weir: So to speak. I think this machine was not meant to help them fight the war against the wraith but rather to help them escape it.

Sheppard makes a pun about Weir telling him something he already knows, something that both of them already know -- exposition for the audience -- by calling it "Ancient history 101," which is made humorous by the fact that "ancient history" is a topic covered in many curriculums where the contents of the class would of course be entirely different from what they are talking about. His 101 class is more to the tune of "History of the Ancients" than ancient history.

Regardless, Weir fills him in on what she had managed to discover by reading texts seemingly pertaining to the machine suggesting that the machine had something to do with ascension, which she had already suggested earlier in in the infirmary where she had been discussing the topic mainly with Beckett. Sheppard again makes a humorous comment about the Ancients having needed a "kick in the pants," meaning that they had needed help with the process, and the way Sheppard seems to be making this entire thing into a joke only speaks of how serious he actually finds this situation. It is a well-established psychological defense mechanism in Sheppard to use humour to undercut serious, emotionally overwhelming situations and him needing to do that here -- him needing to talk about this with Weir to begin with -- is testament to how much this is actually bothering him. At the same time, him implying that the Ancients had needed a kick in the pants betrays how he feels about the Ancients, and likely he would not have eschewed giving them a good kick in the pants personally.

Sheppard: An ascension machine? Weir: Like the one the Goa'uld tried to create in the Milky Way. Sheppard: Are you saying McKay's going to ascend?

Sheppard seems to finally catch up to what this means and we see the pretense fall away all of a sudden. This is an important moment where we can actually see that Sheppard is performing aloof a lot of the time, that he pretends not to care about the things that he really cares about. It seems like his entire body becomes alert and he turns to Weir, leans toward her, giving her his full attention -- and it seems like there are full on Ironside sirens blaring in his head all of a sudden.

Sheppard is immediately alarmed by the prospect that McKay might ascend, and we have to acknowledge the role that Sheppard's "serious abandonment issues" are playing here. McKay ascending essentially means leaving him behind. Whether or not he would continue his existence in the form of pure energy, it would mean that McKay goes somewhere where he cannot follow, and Sheppard is not alright with that. He is not alright with that at all. While causing McKay to die through his own actions is Sheppard's worst fear, at the root of that fear is McKay leaving him just like his mother had left him, just like Captain Holland had left him, just like everyone he loves always leaves him. Sheppard may have been flippant only a moment ago but now he is deadly serious, needing to understand precisely what Weir is saying here. He needs to understand what this means. For all he may have pretended that McKay is a nuisance and a pain in his ass earlier, this is the truth of it.

Weir: Unfortunately there's a whole lot more to ascension than just being physically evolved. Sheppard: Believe me, after spending six months with a bunch of pansy wannabes, I know! But what does this mean for McKay?

Not really allaying his worries, Weir mentions that ascension is not that easy and Sheppard makes a reference apparently to the time he had spent in the Sanctuary in Epiphany (S02E12), none too charitable in his description of them.

It possible he is referring to them as wannabe Ancients since the whole village had eventually managed to ascend, but him referring to them as pansies certainly makes it loud and clear what he had thought about them. Sheppard makes it sound like he had spent six months too long with these people, and we can surmise from this that Teer had not been the love of his life or even someone he had liked very much. This is Sheppard's own interpretation of the events, just as describing the attempt of the Ancient woman to seduce him as not having been very "entertaining" is how he had interpreted his encounter with an Ancient woman previously. Interestingly enough, Sheppard mentions having spent six months with them, which corresponds with what I had calculated from Teyla's measurement of the time dilation effect, translating to 17 hours of time for the others, meaning that McKay's assessment of it having been twelve years for Sheppard was way off. Maths truly is not his strongest suit.

Important to note here is that Sheppard seems to double down on his question of what this means for McKay. He really needs to know because he really cares about McKay in spite of what he might like to pretend, McKay is the love of his life regardless of the current state of their relationship -- and regardless of what we had seen in the previous episode, they seem perfectly domestic in this one. And Sheppard is not even sure which answer he would prefer here, what he would like to hear. He does not want McKay to leave him by ascending but what would it mean for him to be unable to ascend? Sheppard needs to know the implications, needs to know what Weir is not saying here, he needs to understand this so that he can decide what to do about it. He wants to know what he can fight to save McKay because the scariest thing of all is that there is nothing for him to fight, that there is nothing he can do to keep McKay safe in spite of his best efforts. We see Sheppard blinking here, betraying how afraid he truly is, as we usually only see him blinking like this when he is truly harrowed.

Weir: Like I said, just getting to the good bit. Sheppard: I'll leave you to it. Weir: John, wait. We need to talk to Rodney right away.

Sheppard seems unsettled and vulnerable as he offers to leave Weir alone so that she can concentrate. For all he had walked in with jokes to interrupt her work and to annoy her on purpose with the intention of lightening up both of their moods, he is deadly serious now. He understands that this is important and he needs Weir to understand what is going on so that she can explain it to him. He cannot read Ancient so he will not be able to help her with that, the most he can do is to remove himself as a distraction. Look how Sheppard is almost trembling as he gets up, a fine sheen of sweat gathering on his lip that he sucks in, worrying his lip in a self-soothing manner.

But Sheppard does not manage to get very far when Weir calls him back, her tone of voice alarming him. To make the situation more ominous the lights go out again, and they do not flicker this time but stay out, plunging them into darkness. Weir tells him that they need to talk to McKay immediately and that does not sound good. Note the way Sheppard turns to go without waiting for Weir, probably intending to take off at a run because if there is something that is a threat to McKay, he needs to be there to protect him from it.

Sheppard does not comment on the strangeness of McKay choosing to lay down on the floor like that is a normal thing to do, but what is curious is that just as soon as McKay finds a comfortable position and closes his eyes, Sheppard actually approaches him. He comes close and sits down right where McKay's head is, keeping his legs open for the other man, and there is something extremely homoerotic just in the way Sheppard positions himself.

It was not necessary for them to do it like this -- they could have made McKay lie down with his feet toward the bed or diagonally like he does later, Sheppard could have resumed his former seat by the drawer and computer, he could have sat closer to the end of the bed -- but we now see him purposefully shifting to sit closer to McKay. They could even have given Sheppard one single chair for his room that it does not appear to have. But for some reason Sheppard wanted to sit down here, to be close to McKay, to be in a position to watch him from on top -- and we may recall from the end of the first season that Sheppard seems to watch McKay sleep then, helpless to protect him from the nightmares that had been plaguing him. McKay looks peaceful now as Sheppard tries to guide him in meditation to become more aware of his body -- and it seems Sheppard himself is growing more aware of McKay's body as this goes along.

The tone Sheppard uses in speaking to McKay is soft, and the fact that he is trying to teach McKay meditation disguises the fact that Sheppard always sounds like this when they are alone together, and he never uses this soft tone with other people. We get to see them interact longer alone together now than we normally do but what they do is not categorically different from what we have seen before. Sheppard tells McKay to breathe in and out, and McKay complies immediately and without question, eager as ever to please Sheppard and to do what he wants him to do -- being a service top to his power bottom.

Sheppard: Do it without talking. McKay: Oh -- right, OK. Sheppard: Now -- I want you to think about the things that you worry about the most. McKay: You mean, like death?

McKay repeats Sheppard's words as he relaxes and focuses on his breathing, doing precisely what Sheppard had been instructing him to do. Sheppard snaps at him to do it without talking (and McKay certainly seems like the kind of man who talks even during sex, and this may not be the first time Sheppard has had to tell him to put a sock in it) that seems to immediately jolt McKay out of his relaxed state, and he then opens his eyes and looks at Sheppard imploringly, which seems both unnecessary and counterproductive to their aims.

Sheppard snapping like this has a comedic beat in how he seems to achieve the exact opposite effect from what he was going for, but we have to acknowledge the reason why Sheppard is behaving this way. He is clearly feeling agitated, trying to calm himself down at the same time as he is directing McKay to relax, and as we shall soon see, this seems to be caused by the fact that he is turned on. Being alone together with a man he finds sexually attractive in soft candle light while the man is pliant and has his face inches from his groin would be difficult enough as it is but as suggested, it is possible that McKay's accelerated evolution is making him even more attractive to Sheppard. And the thing of it is that what McKay says, "In... and out," can so easily be interpreted in a sexual framework, "the old in and out" being an actual well-known euphemism for intercourse. Sheppard had told McKay to think about his breaths going in and out of his body but what McKay says sounds more erotic, and is easy to associate with sex. And so Sheppard snaps at McKay only to break his focus because McKay is making it more difficult for him to concentrate, and dealing with things via projection as he normally does, Sheppard blames his own inability to focus on McKay.

Then we get to another very peculiar part of the scene, which is that while McKay has his eyes closed and is focused on breathing and Sheppard tries to guide him through the meditation, we see him leafing through a magazine that he seems to have picked up from the drawer -- seeming to be an old golf magazine. The mainstream audience might interpret this as Sheppard being too cool for school, like he is so bored with what he is having to do here that he has to entertain himself by leafing through the magazine even while he is doing this. Sheppard is so unconcerned with what he is doing and having to project how much he does not care about this (to whom?) that he needs to make a display of unseriously he is taking all of this lest it come across a pansy or something. His friend is dying, so Sheppard not taking this seriously because he is such a dickhead dudebro is really a poor explanation for what is going on.

Sheppard is obviously not actually reading the magazine, he is using it to distract himself. We have seen Sheppard pretend to read before, notably in The Brotherhood (S01E16) when he was pretending he was not listening in on McKay's conversation with the beautiful local that was seeking his affections, but also at the start of the episode while he was pretending he was not listening in on McKay's conversation with Zelenka about their beautiful young colleague. What he is doing here is different in that he is not trying to make other people think he is focused on reading because he is doing it in a way that McKay cannot even see him do it, or at least he is hoping that McKay does not catch him doing it. Sheppard is doing this to distract himself from the sight of the man laid down on his back by his feet breathing in and out and who can read his thoughts, because he is powerfully turned on by this and even he realizes it is wrong. This is not the time, even if this might be the place -- at least sometimes.

I had suggested already in connection with Trinity (S02E06) that what ever had happened between the two of them when they had been alone together in Sheppard's quarters which we never got to see, it seems that Sheppard on every subsequent time the two of them are alone together in this room requires something to be placed as a physical barrier between them. Sheppard uses magazines on more than one occasion, and even the bed itself in Outcast (S04E15). And the way he maneuvers things to be between them when they are alone together in his room is not the same as how he places barriers between himself and Weir (or other people) usually because most of the time, when they are somewhere else, Sheppard tends to keep himself open for McKay, and even here he keeps his body turned toward McKay, he orients himself to McKay.

Sheppard places these objects as physical barriers between them not because he is afraid of McKay or because he expects that McKay might do something but because he is afraid of himself. Sheppard knows that it would take only one look from him for the two of them to tumble onto the bed (and the way we see Sheppard lay McKay down on the bed later is for sure not the first time he has done it here, echoing other times it has happened in other contexts), and he knows that he is weak when it comes to McKay. He knows that he cannot resist, and so he clings to these objects. He tries to distract himself. He is quite possibly doing this to hide an erection, pulling the magazine on his lap like that is a normal thing to be doing at a time like this. In the context of their situation, this seems infinitely more likely than that Sheppard is merely bored by what he is having to do here because Weir told him to do it.

Feeling chastised, McKay opens his eyes and looks up at Sheppard and there is such childlike trust in McKay's gaze that it must split Sheppard's heart right open, knowing that he is not capable of such trust and earnestness himself. Looking back at the other man McKay also lifts his chin up, exposing his naked throat, and Sheppard has a very good vantage point to see it -- the camera seems to be giving us Sheppard's point of view on McKay, inviting us to see what he sees and to feel what he feels.

Sheppard: There's no talking! Think of anything that makes you anxious. McKay: Oh, God, there are so many things! Not talking happens to be one of them, by the way. Sheppard: Deal with it!

Sheppard snaps at McKay a second time, and it is from moments such as this that it is easy for especially the mainstream audience to come to the conclusion that Sheppard does not even like McKay very much. It is easy to misinterpret Sheppard as being exasperated by McKay's antics or being fed up with him when the reason Sheppard feels so touchy here as to snap at McKay is because McKay dying is literally his worst fear, McKay dying is a thought that Sheppard cannot even begin to process, and he does not want to hear about it. He especially does not want to hear about it from McKay. Sheppard has such severe abandonment issues that the mere notion of McKay dying terrifies him, and McKay throwing the concept out there so casually feels actually offending to Sheppard. He is hurt by the thought and so he lashes out in retaliation. He is essentially telling McKay to shut up about it, not because he does not want to hear McKay talking but because he does not want to hear him talking about this. McKay asks whether Sheppard meant death as the ultimate thing to worry about, and while that is a perfectly sensible thing to worry about, Sheppard does not want to hear about it, not from McKay.

Sheppard invites McKay to think about what worries him the most instead of what worries him the most, and even he soon realizes what a mistake this was since McKay confesses to him that there are so many things that he worries about, the perpetual worry-wort. McKay had confessed to them in the beginning of Sateda that he is always expecting something bad to happen, and this seems to be his natural disposition and not just the result of having been tasked with keeping the city safe and keeping his staff unharmed. McKay is a big brother, like he had pointed out himself at the start of the episode, and older siblings often develop an inflated superego -- which Sheppard had lampooned earlier by referring to his super-ego -- meaning that they feel an overbearing sense of responsibility. Later on in Quarantine (S04E15) he tries explaining to Katie Brown that he has to be the worrier because somebody has to do it and she asks him if he could just not do that, essentially asking him not to be himself -- which is contrasted with Sheppard who loves McKay just the way he is. We later see that McKay thinks that Sheppard is asking him not to be himself here when that could not be further from the truth, Sheppard merely trying to make him feel more at ease with who he is.

McKay confesses to Sheppard that not talking is one of the things that causes him to feel anxiety, and we have seen this to be true. Sheppard had invited McKay not to talk in The Intruder (S02E02) when the two of them had been stuck together in the cockpit of an F-302 and McKay had seemed offended to the point of being injured to hear this from him. We have seen again and again that McKay babbles away to relieve his anxiety, and this may result from him having been lonely as a child, not having had anybody to talk to. We have also noted that McKay is aware that most people do not want him to talk and would like him to shut up, and Sheppard has been a notable exception to this. Sheppard seems to genuinely enjoy listening to McKay and frequently approaches him with some variation of "Talk to me, Rodney," which must have been very attractive to McKay. To have someone who not just enjoys but invites him to talk is wonderful, and it makes it all the more hurtful when ever Sheppard communicates that he wants McKay to shut up, like he does here. And McKay does not understand why Sheppard does not want him to talk -- the subject matter bothering him more than McKay talking away.

Sheppard: Now. Imagine yourself sitting on a Ferris wheel. McKay: What? Sheppard: Look, I told you, I didn't pay much attention to what the Ancients were teaching me. I like Ferris wheels, so that's what I thought about... and the fact that the woman teaching me how to meditate was... very attractive.

Purporting to take this seriously now, Sheppard puts his magazine away, leaving it laying open on his bed, and leans forward with his elbows on his thighs -- curling in on himself in a way that would hide his erection if he happened to have one. Sheppard invites McKay to imagine a Ferris wheel because he likes Ferris wheels and had hence thought about them when he had been learning how to meditate. This had been one of the first things that we (and Teyla) had learned about him in Rising (S01E01). He also mentions that he had been thinking about how attractive the woman who was teaching him to meditate was, and I have written about this before so I am quoting from before:

Later on in Tao of Rodney (S03E04), Sheppard has to use the skills that he learns here to save McKay's life, he has to try to teach McKay how to ascend. While he is doing this, Sheppard tells McKay about his time here and while the information does come through a filter, at the same time it does tell us how he viewed his time here, how he felt and what he thought about it, how he experienced it all.

While all the others in the village may have been meditating in pursuit of ascension, that was never Sheppard's motivation for doing it and that was not something he was ever interested in doing. However much he may have wanted to leave the Sanctuary, leaving by ascension was never an option for him. While he participated in meditation with them, we can tell by the faces he makes that he found it an absolute waste of time. But because McKay was now dying, he was having to rack up his memory for the teachings he had received during his time there. Also, Sheppard calls them Ancients here where they considered themselves "the ones who came after," but, although likely an error in continuity, it also tells us that he placed them in the same exact category in his mind as Chaya--which is to say, not his favourite people. Also, this tells us that the thought that he might ascend and retake human form on the other side probably had occurred to Sheppard while he was there, because he really did want to get the heck out.

So, for one, Sheppard saying "...very attractive" here has more to do with what is right in front of him on the floor than it does with what ever had happened in the sanctuary all those months ago, but let us brush that aside for a moment. The obvious reference here is to Teer. The obvious interpretation of the line is that Sheppard is remembering Teer, the woman we saw kiss him, and that he is describing her as "...very attractive". She had to have been the woman teaching him how to meditate, yes? Only, each and every time we actually see them meditate, both Teer and Avrid are behind him, and this may be because he chose to place himself so that he was not in a position to watch them out of fear that they might distract him -- which is unlikely because it seems like he had come in before them and they had taken their places after him (and also, he clearly did not care about being able to concentrate) -- or they had both chosen places and vantage points to be able to watch him. However, if what they were doing was guided meditation and there actually was someone teaching him how to meditate here, it follows that the teacher would have been up front and he actually would have been in a position to watch her during his meditation. Meaning that the attractive woman he is referring to (again 100% in an effort to think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts while McKay is lying prone right before him) was someone else, someone other than Teer. All the people in the sanctuary were attractive. He may have been distracted by any one of them. So he is not necessarily referring to Teer but who ever he was thinking about, he was thinking about them now to distract himself form McKay. In order to keep himself from making a move on McKay, he has to think about a sexy Ancient, a Ferris wheel and golf. And it seems barely to be working, as is. What Sheppard is saying and why he is saying it are two very different things. But even if Teer had not been the woman who taught him meditation, she is still very attractive, we can concede that. They are all very attractive. And we may again point out the fact that McKay seems hyper-aware of Sheppard finding women attractive (and women finding Sheppard attractive) like that is a normal thing between buddies and pals, and the same is true for Sheppard as regards McKay. McKay cannot help but snark about it even here.

The thing that I invite you to pay attention to is where Sheppard looks when he mentions this "woman" who had taught him to meditate, glancing down at McKay. This implies that it is actually McKay he is thinking about when his thoughts go to this attractive person, and it is entirely possible that he is forcing himself to think about an attractive woman to hide the fact that he is so turned on by McKay that he can barely keep his thoughts together here.

Sheppard says woman but he looks down at a man, and again what we are shown and what we are told are two very different things. Sheppard may be truthful in what he is telling McKay about having thought naughty things about his meditation teacher instead of focusing on ascension but that is not necessarily the case because Sheppard so very rarely is -- truthful. Sheppard lies pretty much all of the time, and he lies most of all to himself. Sheppard's intention here is not to confess to McKay or to the audience what turns him on, his intention is to redirect McKay's thoughts (and his own), and because he had been embarrassed by McKay's reaction to when he had been truthful -- mentioning that he likes Ferris wheels, McKay's "What?!" having made him feel silly and self-conscious about it -- he is trying to make himself come across as a smooth operator instead, only he is so flustered by McKay's presence that he ends up talking utter nonsense and balderdash instead.

Sheppard had not meant to be talking about those pansy wannabes he had turned down in favour of McKay but he is trying to cover up for himself because he is trying very hard to keep it in his pants right now for McKay's sake. He is meant to be teaching the man how to meditate, not to solicit him into a quick romp so that he might get his own thoughts under control about this, so he is trying any and everything to redirect his own thoughts about McKay lying beneath him with basically his head between his thighs. I invite you to listen to how strained his voice sounds here. This is his turned on voice implying that he is turned on right now, and it certainly is not from him reminiscing about this woman. This is the voice we had heard him use when he was looking down at McKay lying similarly down on the floor of the jumper in Condemned (S02E05), when Sheppard had been so turned on he was trembling which, as suggested at the time, may have been because McKay had also been lying down on the floor in front of him fixing the jumper just before they had made out for the first time following the end of The Defiant One (S01E12).

McKay: Why am I not surprised you didn't ascend, huh? OK, look, I'm a busy man, you're a busy man. We're both busy men. Sheppard: Just... relax, alright? I'm gonna try to remember what the woman taught me. McKay: Alright.

This is the second time in this episode that McKay snaps at Sheppard for bringing up women -- other women -- and it is more than obvious that McKay does not want to hear about them. McKay has always had problems with Sheppard and women like that is a normal thing between friends, and he makes this acerbic comment, intending it as a barb, intending to make Sheppard hurt because this hurts him. McKay immediately gets up with the intention of leaving because he is not here for this and he had not come here to be reminded of the fact that Sheppard had sex with someone else. On an intellectual level he might understand why Sheppard had done it and they had talked it over. It may have been six endless months of pining for Sheppard but it had been fucking hours (17 of them, to exact) to him, and we see here that McKay is far from being over it.

McKay getting up to go panics Sheppard because he had not meant to hurt McKay, and he has those severe abandonment issues that McKay unwittingly manages to jab at here, and so Sheppard backtracks and scrambles to convince McKay to stay. He had put his foot in his mouth and he realizes that. He does not want McKay to go. He never wants McKay to go. And the thing we have to remember here is what Sheppard may never have spelled out for McKay, which is that he did not fail to ascend -- because he was thinking about sexy women or otherwise. Sheppard had been invited to ascend and he had turned her down. Teer had extended him her hand and invited him to come with them, and he could have had what he desires most of all -- a family and companionship that would be with him always, who would never leave him. But instead he had glanced at McKay and told her he does not think he will ever be ready to join them.

Sheppard had told her the same thing as he had told Athar in Sanctuary (S01E14) and that he had told the wraith in Common Ground (S03E07) -- he has someone waiting for him back home and he was damned well getting back to him. McKay's deepest desire is to be chosen, to be someone's first choice, and he does not even realize what Sheppard has given up for him, to be with him. Sheppard has turned down ascension twice for McKay -- regardless of whether they are in a sexual relationship with each other (which they are), regardless of whether he had thought that the woman who had taught him how to meditate had been very attractive. However attractive she had been, Sheppard thinks that McKay is more attractive -- both then and now. Also, we can tell that Sheppard is lying about the woman because while he tells McKay that he is going to try to remember what the woman had taught him, what he then tells McKay is not what the woman had taught him.

Sheppard: Now, there's a dark storm swirling around your head. McKay: How is that comforting? Sheppard: I'm getting there! McKay: I just thought of a brilliant adjunct to the Chaos Theory. Look, I should write this down-- Sheppard: McKay! McKay: Letting it go. Letting it go.

This is the important bit. Sheppard tells McKay to think about Ferris wheels because that is what he had thought about when he had been learning to meditate. Then he tells McKay to think about a dark storm swirling around in his head. Only, as I had discussed at the time, the people who lived in the Sanctuary had no idea what storms even were. We heard Sheppard tell them about storms on his last day with them, telling the little girl that he had been afraid of storms when he had been a child, trying to explain what a storm even was. It seems like the time dilation field was climate-controlled and the most they ever got there was gentle summer rain.

Storms did not exist there and these people had lived in this Sanctuary with perfect weather for generations. Not only did they not know what storms were and had never experienced them, even their ancestors had never experienced them. They did not have even memories of storms passed on to them. What Sheppard is teaching McKay here, what he is telling McKay to think, is not what the attractive woman who had taught him how to meditate had told him to think, it was what Sheppard had thought for himself. And like I had mentioned at the end of the previous episode, there is a storm swirling inside Sheppard -- the Ouragan -- that has been inside of him ever since he had fallen in love with McKay, which had been symbolically represented by the once in a lifetime storm we had seen in The Storm and The Eye (S01E10-11). McKay had harnessed the power of the storm and they had both been struck by lightning in the sense that Emily Dickinson had written about in her poem.

Quoting from before:

Now, Sheppard uses the mental image of a thunder storm to help McKay focus here (and he also calls him McKay here because he needs that to create some distance between them), and this too is real interesting because we are made clear later on that there are no thunder storms in the sanctuary, where these people have lived their whole entire lives. They have no idea what that even is. They get gentle rain to water the orchards but they have never experienced storms. Sheppard tells them that storms can be "very cool". So it seems like using the storm swirling in his head and clearing into blue skies was, despite what Sheppard tells McKay, not something that this woman had taught him but had been a mental image that Sheppard had chosen himself. He had used both Ferris wheels and swirling thunder storms as his own points of focus. And let us recall that it had been during that once in a lifetime storm in The Storm (S01E10) that Sheppard and McKay had been falling in love. It had been in anticipation of the storm that McKay had realized he was in trouble, and it had been watching McKay harness the goddamn lightning that had made Sheppard look at McKay like the man was Christmas morning.

Sheppard had been thinking about storms while he sat there meditating, and if he can think of a storm again in his life without thinking about McKay, it has to be one damn impressive storm because what he had experienced then is not easily forgotten. Anyway, this is what Sheppard tells us (and McKay) about his time in the sanctuary later, specifically as it regards meditation and what had been on his mind during these meditation sessions. And since we know for damn sure that the attractive woman had not taught him about thunder storms swirling in his head given that not one of them even knew about storms, he may not have been entirely truthful about the rest of it either. He admits that McKay has a good point about the dishonesty. He is not saying that he is or was not dishonest himself.

Sheppard is a lying liar who lies, and he is lying to save McKay's life here so he is lying extra hard. His intention is to save McKay's life, not to talk about his love life or his sexual orientation or who he is attracted to. He is attracted to McKay, this much can be seen from space, but he is trying very hard to hide that fact in this moment because it is not the time for that. This is the time for being there for the man that he loves. Sheppard is really, really trying to be helpful to him. And the thing is, he is actually doing a pretty good job because he knows McKay. Sheppard knows McKay better than anyone. He actually manages to calm him down.

Sheppard: Now, the sky is clearing. All of your troubles are fading away. McKay: Bright blue sky. I am there. How'm I doing? Sheppard: Don't think that way! McKay: Oh, forget it. Look, this is never gonna work. Sheppard: What's wrong now? McKay: I just realized why light ...

It is notable that Sheppard actually manages to make McKay relax and calm down. Just by focusing on Sheppard's voice McKay is able to calm his nervous system, and as Sheppard observes his brain wave frequency come down a notch, we also see that he is feeling much more relaxed in Sheppard's presence to begin with than he had back in the infirmary when the company of his best friend had just made him more anxious. His EEG had been at 30 Hz there and now Sheppard watches it drop from 24 to 23 Hz, still in the Beta wave range but going down. The fact that McKay, who suffers from hypertension, is considerably more relaxed in Sheppard's presence than he is in the presence of his best friend with whom he is comfortable -- in spite of Sheppard purposefully riling him up -- is tangible evidence of the fact that these two men are in a romantic relationship. It is a well-established fact that being in the presence of their partner tends to calm the nervous system, and one of the most powerful aspects of relationships is co-regulation or the ability to soothe one another's nervous systems through presence, being there.

While the frequency is still relatively high, we see it drop by an entire Hertz as McKay lets himself relax, as he does what Sheppard tells him to do. What is more, when McKay apparently manages to ascend for a moment at the end of the episode, he does it using what Sheppard teaches him here, seeking those clear blue skies. We see McKay smile to himself here as he imagines it -- and it is quite possible that he is imagining himself at a beach, on a beach vacation, something he would associate with Sheppard. In his mind, he is there and he is happy. We have never seen McKay this honestly content before -- and it is possible Sheppard has neither. But then McKay ruins it, incapable of believing that he has it in him. He does not believe this will work, and then causes it to not work through his sheer pessimism, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

McKay: ...behaves as both particles and waves. Sheppard: Rodney, if you don't try to do this... McKay: I know. I don't have much time left.

We -- and Sheppard -- hear anguish in McKay's tone as he gets up and walks away, and the look on Sheppard's face is heartbreaking. He looks like a lost child, and it is more than likely McKay triggering his abandonment issues is regressing him to his childhood. The thought that McKay is going to die and there is nothing he can do to stop it is reminding Sheppard of how his mother had died when he had let her go, when he had told her goodbye because she had asked him to let her go.

And now he was being asked to let go the person he loved most in the world, and Sheppard has never been so afraid as he is now. He might have told Weir that fighting scary monsters is what he does best but he does not know how to fight this monster. He is helpless and he is hopeless and all he can do is watch McKay leave him behind, wringing his hands. For a fleeting moment we get to see Sheppard's undisguised pain and fear as we hear McKay leaving him, we hear the door closing and Sheppard is left with his own thoughts, having no escape and no respite from them. There is nothing Sheppard can hide behind and there is no one he can lie to when he is left alone in his room with nothing but Johnny to keep him company.

And it is not coincidental that the poster of Johnny Cash is there now, since the poster has often accompanied scenes and episodes where the lyrics to one of Johnny Cash's songs have given some insight into Sheppard's character and his emotional state. Sheppard does not talk about his emotions and uses projection and deflection so successfully that it is only through such devices that we gain any insight into his character. So which Johnny Cash song is appropriate for the moment? For my money, it is A Thing Called Love (1972):

Six foot six he stood on the ground He weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds But I saw that giant of a man brought down To his knees by love He was the kind of man that would gamble on luck Look you in the eye and never back up But I saw him crying like a little whipped pup Because of love You can't see it with your eyes, hold it in your hands But like the wind it covers our land Strong enough to rule the heart of any man This thing called love It can lift you up never let you down Take your world and turn it around Ever since time nothing's ever been found That's stronger than love Most men are like me, they struggle and doubt They trouble their minds day in and day out Too busy with living to worry about A little word like love But when I see a mother's tenderness As she holds her young close to her breast Then I thank God that the world's been blessed With a thing called love You can't see it with your eyes, hold it in your hands But like the wind it covers our land Strong enough to rule the heart of any man This thing called love It can lift you up never let you down Take your world and turn it around Ever since time nothing's ever been found That's stronger than love

The wind covering the land, the Ferris wheel turning around, the troubled mind and the busy, busy men, it is all there in the song. Sheppard is the kind of man who would gamble on luck, look you in the eyes and never give up, and by the end of the episode we are going to see him crying like a little whipped pup because of a thing called love. We do not see what he was going do when the camera leaves him now but it is possible he was crying like a pup already as McKay leaves him behind here. McKay leaving him is what hurts Sheppard the most. He is not ready for McKay to leave him. He will never be ready for that.

It seems like the two of them are already in the middle of a conversation as they reach a table, and while there do not seem to be many tables for just two people in the cafeteria, it is notable that it is Sheppard who chooses the table and that he chooses a table meant for multiple people, even though this is quite possibly a conversation that they do not need other people to overhear, meaning that he has no desire to actually be alone with her. Sheppard is also leading the way and sits his ass down first, where a gentleman might lead the way but would then let the lady go before him to their destination and would definitely allow them to sit down first. He also takes the seat from which he can see the exit, which is strategic but also signals his desire to not actually be there. Sheppard also does not even wait for Weir to sit down before he starts eating but starts stuffing his mouth the minute he is seated, perhaps hinting at the fact that he has not had time or desire to eat with all this going on. For all they may be having lunch together, Sheppard's body language is not the body language of a man who is romantically or sexually interested in the woman they are with.

This is the only time we see the two of them have lunch alone together even though as the leaders of the expedition, they might be expected to have done it frequently. There is no reason to think that this was a common occurrence since it seems like Sheppard prefers to have his lunch with his team, with the people he had chosen to be around. But because we see them having lunch in this episode and we see McKay sitting alone in the cafeteria while the others were seated at a separate table, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that Sheppard having lunch with Weir and the rest of his team without McKay is something that he does habitually and that McKay tends to eat alone because nobody likes him like this was high school, when the times that we have seen McKay eat alone (or have seen the team eating without him) have been special occasions, not the norm.

I have suggested before that breakfast is likely the one meal of the day that Sheppard and McKay seldom enjoyed together both for reasons of having different sleeping schedules and not wanting to be seen together or seen coming in together first thing in the morning. But otherwise there is every indication that not only have they eaten together frequently but that Sheppard actually keeps tabs on McKay's eating -- enough to be able to comment about him feeding his sadness earlier but also to make sure that he eats regularly. From what we learn in Search and Destroy (S05E01), it also seems that both of them really enjoy the times they have that they are alone together, when it is just the two of them. Since we had seen an empty coffee cup and sandwich wrapper by McKay's desk earlier and had seen Sheppard's men watching over McKay, it is a definite possibility that it was Sheppard who had provided him with those, if only by proxy, since it seems that when McKay is in his head figuring something out that he forgets to eat -- and Sheppard knows that about him. He needs someone to take care of him and Sheppard is more than happy to be that guy -- as long as they are in a relationship. This is one of the boyfriend privileges that Sheppard gives to the person he is with.

Weir gives Sheppard her expert opinion on where he thinks McKay is at emotionally right this moment, and her assessment of his head space seems to be correct -- it is not difficult to see that McKay is trying to rationalize his way out of dying. We should note what Weir is doing here because, as mentioned before, not only does Weir likely know that Sheppard and McKay are in a relationship but she is under the impression that Sheppard is gay-gay and often treats him as though she would like him to be his gay best friend -- and this is common enough of an occurrence in unmarried women her age that there is a term for them. Relevant here is that Weir seems to take it upon herself to arrange for Sheppard and McKay to seek each other out, and it is quite possible that they needed her to do this because both of them have a tendency to nurse their hurt in private, and something dramatic and scary like this happening may easily have caused Sheppard to withdraw and McKay to not pursue him feeling unwanted, giving him space when, although Sheppard uses isolation to punish himself, giving his abandonment issues space would only make him hurt worse.

Sheppard is already feeling abandoned by the very idea that McKay might die, irrationally feeling like it is his fault just like it was his fault that his mother died, that Captain Holland died because he had not been there to save him. It is possible that Weir needed to drag Sheppard out here to have lunch with her and trick him into seeking McKay out because otherwise his self-flagellation might have caused Sheppard to shut himself off from everyone entirely. By manipulating both McKay and Sheppard to seek each other out, she manages to interrupt the negative feedback cycle that occasionally sets them on a downward spiral where they just hurt each other worse when what they really want is to be with each other.

Sheppard: You know what he needs? He needs to... release his burden. Weir: Yeah, well, you know McKay. Sheppard: Maybe Doctor Heightmeyer can help. Weir: Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of you. Sheppard: Me?

Sheppard makes a dismissive, flippant comment emphasizing his sarcasm with scare quotes -- but note that his sarcasm is not directed at McKay but for the "pansy wannabes" he had been imprisoned with for six months in Epiphany (S02E12) -- and Teer specifically. When they had finally defeated the monster and Teer invited him to join them in ascension, she had told him that "You were right, John. We were afraid. The Beast was the final burden we had to shed, manifest from our own fears. You gave us the courage to face it." And in making it sound like this is the silliest thing Sheppard has ever heard, he is certainly not painting the people of the Sanctuary and the woman who had been in love with him her whole life in a very good light. It does not seem like Sheppard is putting much in stock with what they had believed or what he had learned during his time with them.

But note that "releasing his burden" could also easily be interpreted as a euphemism for ejaculation, and given what Sheppard had hinted at earlier about having suffered some coitus interruptus recently, it is possible that this is a parapractical way of saying that he had been thinking about McKay and "release" just now -- and McKay is certainly not the only one who needs to release his burden, as far as Sheppard is concerned. It is also not nothing that Sheppard seems to think that he knows what McKay needs, McKay's needs being something that often occupies his thoughts -- and not just for the sex either.

Weir makes the comment "Well, you know McKay," which could easily be interpreted to mean that she knows McKay. They both know what McKay is like, McKay is known to them. But she actually seems to be communicating that it is Sheppard specifically who knows McKay. Weir is aware that the two of them have a special connection, and this is true whether or not the two of them are in an intimate relationship and whether or not Weir knows about it. Weir referring to them as "boys" and "gentlemen" in her exasperation of their antics, everyone else in the city frequently having trouble keeping up with their conversation, the way they so quickly fall into a bubble where only the two of them exist, how they shut other people out of conversations without even meaning to -- Weir means that Sheppard knows McKay, and this is why she seems to think that he is in the best position to help him with this. Sheppard seems surprised when Weir suggests him, possibly because he has made his stance clear on all of this Ancients and ascension business -- he thinks it is just as much "woo woo" as McKay does. Sheppard has turned down ascension twice, but while he thinks this disqualifies him from helping McKay, Weir suspects that this is precisely what would make him a good teacher. What is more, she knows that Sheppard would love nothing better than to be able to help McKay.

Sheppard suggests that Heightmeyer might be able to help McKay, reminding us of her existence, and given that Sheppard himself had suggested to Ronon that he take Teyla up on her offer to teach him meditation in Echoes (S03E12), it is somewhat curious that he does not suggest her instead. It might be that Sheppard thinks this is a psychological problem for McKay and not a technical one, and so being taught the physiological practice of meditation is not what would help McKay but that he needs someone to resolve his mental and emotional issues -- of which he has many, and of which Sheppard probably knows some, and definitely knows more of them than most people.

We may recall that McKay had been "seeing" Heightmeyer in The Gift (S01E18) when Sheppard had arranged for her to accidentally bump into Teyla so that Teyla might also benefit from her expertise, and it seemed like because Teyla and McKay were suffering from similar difficulties sleeping that it is possible Sheppard had made McKay seek professional help from her also -- something that he would personally never do, no matter how much he might need therapy, quite possibly due to his traumatic experiences with therapy in his youth. Heightmeyer had helped McKay when Sheppard had been unable to help him sleep, and he had helped McKay when he had been possessed by one of his lieutenants, so Sheppard hopes that she might be able to help him now even if he does not personally put much in stock with therapy.

But the thing about psychotherapy is that it is not a quick fix, and so Weir suggests that Sheppard himself might be of more help to McKay. Sheppard seems surprised to hear Weir suggest this, and this may be due to Sheppard feeling inadequate comparing himself to McKay now. Even usually, Sheppard tends to think that McKay is smarter than him, braver than him, and all around a better person than he is. With McKay now having developed superhero powers and becoming a "super genius," Sheppard feels completely worthless, like he has nothing to give McKay that he might need. McKay needs him desperately because Sheppard is not just the love of his life but is also his hero, Sheppard is where McKay derives his strength and bravery. Sheppard might be right that McKay needs to release his burden but we also get to see in this episode that McKay is unable to do that until Sheppard confesses his love to him. It is only after Sheppard lets McKay know that he is loved and that he is loved by him that McKay is finally able to let go. McKay would never have been able to release his burden without him because his burden has a lot to do with him specifically.

Weir: Mm-hmm. You lived with the Ancients for six months on the brink of ascension. You helped them face their fears and finally ascend. Sheppard: I fought a scary monster -- that's what I do best. Weir: And for Rodney, I'm sure this seems like a pretty scary monster.

Weir recaps the events of Epiphany, suggesting that Sheppard has written them into a report, and it is not impossible that it is the very same report as from which Lucius was drawing from when he mentioned that being almost seduced by a beautiful Ancient is not all its cracked up to be in Irresponsible (S03E13). Of course Sheppard may have edited his experiences in the Sanctuary somewhat, and as hard as he hopes that nothing had happened between himself and Teer the night before McKay came back for him when he had waited to hear from him for six months and had started to feel like he might never hear from him again, the night after he had discovered the t-shirt McKay had sent through the portal to him that had just reopened his wounds and reminded him of how much he missed him, at least Teer and her psychic powers had very much believed that the two of them would have sex. And while he may have left this out of his report, it is unlikely he had left it out of what ever he had told McKay about it later -- since McKay at the very least deserved to know why this woman he had never met seemed to hate him.

Sheppard plays down his part in having helped the villagers ascend by pointing out that all he had done was fight a monster, and for sure we had seen him take on the sum of their fears in the form of a beast many times. He had both shown them by example and through tough love in calling out their hypocrisy that the only thing holding them back was themselves. Sheppard reduces his contribution to fighting monsters, suggesting further that he is a grunt by saying that fighting monsters is what he "does best," like his worth comes from his ability to fight battles for other people, to put his own life and body on the line for others. This results from the deep hatred Sheppard seems to feel for himself that can easily rise from his childhood, especially from his youth where he had been invited to cut out entire parts of himself to fit in with his family and his social circle.

In many ways, Sheppard feels just as worthless as McKay does and that his body is nothing but an instrument, and him joining the military was an attempt at finding something through which his life might have a meaning -- or at least his death. Sheppard had not joined the military out of some patriotic duty or because he believes in the Star-Spangled Banner but as just another attempt at running away from himself, even knowing that it is quite impossible for him to ever outrun his own thoughts or feelings. Sheppard tells her that fighting monsters is what he does best, and that is because he has been fighting monsters his entire life -- but what he does not say is that he has also been afraid every day of his life. The monsters are always there and he is barely keeping his neck above the water. It is only when he is with McKay that Sheppard does not feel afraid. But now McKay is frightening him by slipping away, and Sheppard does not know how to deal with that.

Weir points out that this entire situation must feel like "a pretty scary monster" to McKay, making him realize possibly only now that McKay must also be afraid -- he must be terrified. The thought of McKay dying is terrifying Sheppard, and doing his damnedest not to think about it he had completely ignored how this must be affecting McKay. Listening to Weir, Sheppard comes to the conclusion -- not for the first time -- that he is the worst boyfriend in the world, that he really sucks as a partner and that McKay really deserves better than him. It is Weir's words that help him get over himself and start thinking about this from McKay's point of view, and he recognizes that this is not about him. He needs to be there for McKay now, even if it hurts. He needs to be there, even though he is afraid. He needs to be there for McKay even if his heart is breaking. And make no mistake, as Sheppard rolls up his sleeves and gathers up his big boy pants and agrees to help McKay with this now -- he is doing all of it for love.

McKay says that he had the machine, which had previously been used in connection with the Anubis clone, "shipped" from the SGC, which once more raises the issue of the timeline and the sequence of the episodes. Either three weeks have whizzed by since Zelenka's accident while McKay has been slowly evolving, which is not impossible, the gate bridge is finally operational, of which we have no indication, or the SGC has a ZPM as I had suggested before because the events of McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) were always meant to follow the mid season in The Return (S03E10-11), completing the transition from the old to the new by finally giving Sheppard his leather coat and removing one of the free-floating ZPMs from the playing field. The number of ZPMs floating about at this point is unclear. And the position of this episode with regards to both episodes is likewise unclear, although I would hedge a bet that it works best between them as a prelude to McKay reconnecting with his sister and depleting their ZPM -- which is not nearly as dramatic if there is an extra one going around, and would also explain the slap on the wrist McKay got for depleting it. An argument could be made for a sequence of The Return > Echoes > Tao of Rodney > McKay and Mrs Miller > Sateda > Common Ground > Irresponsible > Phantoms > Sunday -- at least insofar as it comes to the B plot of the character journeys, but the A plot of the season is also confused by the episodes being out of sequence. As it is, Sheppard and McKay's moods in any given episode are inexplicable and seem to come out of the blue, their disposition toward each other inconsistent.

Regardless, McKay had told Weir that he had read everything in the database that had to do with ascension, which suggests that he is at this time their ascension expert, and at the very least he feels like he knows more about the topic than anyone else. Of course there is a no small amount of wishful thinking guiding his actions but McKay seems to genuinely believe that this is going to work -- that he can cheat death by ascending and taking human form. He is definitely coming across as both arrogant and condescending with his treatment of Beckett here but we have to account for the fact that he is deep in denial, and a part of him must feel like if he can brow-beat Beckett into going along with this then it has to work.

Beckett: I really don't think we're going about this the right way. McKay: If you're a highly-evolved super-genius, put up your hand. Oh! Beckett: From everything I read about the subject area-- McKay: Look, when you get down to it, even mental states are actually only physical states, are they not? I mean, the brain is just a chemical super-computer.

Beckett remains skeptical and voices his concerns, and he is doing this not only as a medical professional but as McKay's best friend. This is not the first time that McKay has tried to talk him into going along with something that raises concerns, and because Beckett is as risk-averse as McKay is prone to taking risks, they often balance each other out. McKay is trying to convince Beckett by using arguments that could convince him, reminding him of things about human physiology that he must have known since grad school.

McKay describes himself as a "highly evolved super-genius," and while this too sounds undeniably arrogant, it does not seem like it is inaccurate at this time. McKay makes what to him seems like a true statement and it is easy to interpret it as having an inflated ego because people usually do not say things like this -- people often do not say things like this even if they were factually true because false modesty about one's skills is more socially acceptable. McKay seems socially inept enough not to recognize that there are usually social sanctions for this kind of behaviour, there are social scripts people are supposed to follow about these things. But on the flip side of this coin, McKay is also honest and truthful -- guileless even -- in a way that most people could never be. Rod had called McKay brave for not caring what other people think about him but it is more that McKay, just like Ronon, does not let things that he cannot influence bother him, and, whether accurately or inaccurately, he believes how other people see him to be one of these things.

Beckett: Well, I suppose an incredibly complex... McKay: "Yes" is all you need to say, my friend! Look, the universe may seem mystical to those without understanding, when in truth anything and everything can be quantified. Look, all the hocus-pocus stuff is just a way of getting the brain into the proper electro-chemical state to allow the final physical evolution, at which point the matter that makes up this body will turn into pure energy. Look, what mere mortals would refer to as the... mystery of ascension is actually just a scientific process -- it's just protons and electrons.

For all Beckett may not agree with McKay and for all he may be concerned for his friend, he is still helping him with his project not just because McKay is a brilliant scientific mind who has saved their asses so many times that people have started to trust his calls and tend to do what he asks them to do without question. More importantly, Beckett is doing this as McKay's friend, because that is what friends do.

McKay peppers what he says to Beckett with the command "Look" several times, and we have seen at the very least Sheppard develop a Pavlovian reaction to hearing the word because McKay often speaks it in a moment of crisis when he really needs someone to pay attention to what he is saying, needing to see their face so that he can be sure they have understood. But again there is a sense that he is most of all trying to convince himself, that he is actually talking himself into believing that this is going to work because the alternative does not bear thinking. He is also trying to strip the whole process of the "woo woo," to make it all seem perfectly rational and natural. We have noted before how McKay has a real need to both understand things and for things to make sense, so if he can explain this to himself by explaining it to Beckett, he might even come to believe it himself.

McKay: Protons and electrons! Beckett: If you say so. McKay: Now, if you don't mind, can we... Yeah, that's it. Now, based on what I've extrapolated from the Ancient research, I have been able to set measurable parameters for achieving the proper mental state. Once I reach ninety six percent synaptic connection, as measured by this device... all I need to do is maintain an EEG frequency of zero point one to zero point nine Hertz and presto. I arise to a higher plane of existence.

McKay explains to Beckett what he hopes to achieve by using this machine, and what is interesting is that even though what he says should be much more up Beckett's alley as he is using medical terms, we have seen McKay actually studying brain wave patterns even before this, chiefly at the start of the season when Beckett had been drugged by Lucius Lavin in Irresistible (S03E03) and it was up to McKay to find an antidote to the potion that had enslaved most of Atlantis. The two of them had been puzzling over brain-wave patterns also in Phantoms (S03E09), albeit I hold that the episode should have come only later in the season and definitely well after this episode.

McKay had detected gamma activity in the prefrontal cortex in the prior and an "ultra low frequency" in the latter. in Aurora (S02E09), when McKay had been monitoring Sheppard's brain he had kept track of his delta waves, the same as what Beckett had been observed in Michael in Michael (S02E18). Gamma frequency is the highest and delta frequency is lowest. Gamma activity is upwards of 25 Hz (sometimes upwards of 30 Hz), meaning that McKay is currently in the low Gamma range, and prominence of this wave leads to anxiety, high arousal and stress, meaning that McKay probably spends most of his waking hours in this range of brain activity. By aiming at a range below 1 Hz McKay is suggesting a low Delta frequency, which is usually associated with people who are asleep. Beckett points this out for him.

Beckett: OK, let's assume for one completely insane moment that you are right. Those frequencies are associated with near-comatose patients. No-one who's actually awake can just will themselves anywhere close to that, no matter how bloody relaxed they are. McKay: No unevolved person. Beckett: Give it a rest, Rodney. McKay: Just turn it on! Beckett: Your synaptic activity's abnormally high. Over sixty percent.

Beckett seems knowledgeable about brain waves and points out to McKay how nuts his plan is, not just in general but for McKay in particular. He is like quicksilver at the best of times, thinking quicker than his mouth can speak out his thoughts even ordinarily. McKay suggests that his evolved state should give him a leg up in this, and this is wishful thinking on his part. And again while it may not be McKay's intention to come across as smug but just to call things as he sees them (and to cling on to his copium), he does manage to take a swing at Beckett's own ego because he too is an educated man of science, and does not enjoy his friend treating him like a simpleton.

But it also speaks of their friendship that Beckett is able to tell McKay when he has crossed the line, essentially telling him to get over himself. Beckett knows what McKay is like and allows him to cling to his delusions most of the time but McKay does occasionally manage to say hurtful things -- Beckett himself occasionally says hurtful things because banter is his chosen method of male bonding -- but it seems like both of them are quickly able to get over themselves, which is one of the things that has facilitated this friendship between them. What is more, McKay seems to trust Beckett, he trusts Beckett to both know what he is doing and to tell him the truth and not to sugarcoat things, and McKay needs that in his life -- both in general and right now in particular. Beckett conveys to McKay the readings he can see, and he is able to observe immediately that McKay's synaptic activity is abnormally high -- superhuman, just like they knew it to be. It also seems to be increasing from the readings Beckett had taken of him previously, and this does concern him.

McKay: Yes! I don't have much time left. As I said, by my calculations, when I reach ninety six percent, I either ascend or die. Now, what's my EEG? Beckett: Twenty nine Hertz, which is about average for someone in an extremely heightened wakeful state. McKay: OK, so I just need to, uh, clear my mind and relax.

McKay sounds blasé as he mentions to Beckett that according to his calculations, he does not have a lot of time left before he has to either make this plan of his work or die. His tone does not betray how afraid of dying he really is because just like Sheppard had confessed to his wraith companion in Common Ground (S03E07), about having a lot to go back to and damned well going back to it, McKay too thinks that he has a lot to live for right now, and he would very much like to continue living. McKay would not like to die at the worst of times, but especially not now that he has found love and a home and a family. He has friends and a meaningful job where he can make a difference.

Beckett gives him the verdict, which states that his brain is currently either in the Gamma or Alpha state, and Beckett throws some shade on him by pointing out that not only is he nowhere near the range he needs to reach, his activity is high even for a normal person because he is so agitated. I have mentioned many times how Ronon and McKay seem very much alike on a deeper level, and we had seen the trouble Ronon had in trying to learn how to meditate with Teyla in Echoes (S03E12). He too has real trouble staying still and not thinking about anything, and while Teyla might be able to achieve a state of lower brain frequency by calming her mind in meditation, neither Ronon nor McKay are able to get to this place. They are restless and unwilling to stay still because ceasing their movement and being alone with their thoughts would mean having to face up to some truths about themselves and about the world that neither McKay nor Ronon are willing to face. Ronon had been a Runner whose paramour had warned him, as we had seen in the flashback in Sateda (S03E04), that he could not run forever. This may be true of Ronon but it is also true of McKay and Sheppard -- and all of them seem determined to keep trying anyway.

McKay takes a breath and closes his eyes, trying to force himself to calm down and to reach a state of mindfulness but he can only keep himself still for a moment before he needs to ask Beckett to give him a reading, to tell him how he is doing.

McKay: What's that now? Beckett: Thirty. McKay: What? Oh, come on, that's impossible! You must have me hooked up wrong. Beckett: No I didn't, thank you very much. We're getting a clear reading. Rodney, the Ancients that eventually learned to ascend dedicated their entire lives preparing for this moment. McKay: Trust me, this will work. I just need some more time. Now stop talking so much. You're -- you're rippling my pond.

There is a comedic beat to the scene as there often is in connection with McKay in that even as McKay is trying to relax and clear his mind, his brain activity (signaling his agitation) only increases. Because it had been McKay's honest attempt at trying to relax, he suggests that the reading must be wrong, not him.

Beckett points out that the Ancients who had been able to make the transition had spent their entire lives preparing for ascension, and while we do not know whether this had been the case with all of them, at least the "pansy wannabes" that Sheppard had spent time with in Epiphany (S02E12) had done that, actually having spent generations trying to ascend, and they seemed to do little else but meditate in their free time. And I have suggested that it is because their lives, and likely the lives of the Ancients, were spent on this pursuit to ascend but they still needed to ascertain the survival of their species until they would be able to achieve it that either by the process of natural evolution or genetic manipulation they had developed a powerful sexual desire toward one another, compelling people to have sex and procreate even when meditation and the pursuit of ascension were the only things that interested them anymore.

In fact, we have seen with Orlin in SG-1 and Athar in Sanctuary (S01E14) that they felt a powerful sexual desire even after ascension. While we know nothing of the Furlings, it seems like three of the Great Races had all developed different strategies for the survival of their species, all of which seem to have failed in the end. As the Fifth Race, we do not know what strategy humanity would yet take, but they were still young on the evolutionary ladder. Important here is that the people possessing the Ancient gene seem to have inherited something of this natural pull between members of the species, and it also follows that as McKay continues evolving, he may actually start both feeling more desire and becoming more attractive for people with the gene, irresistible and compelling. While it does not seem like there has ever been sexual desire between Beckett and McKay (apart from the time a woman had possessed McKay's body, the attraction rising from the physical body and not the mind since both Cadman and Beckett seem to have lost interest when she was no longer possessing a body with the gene), Beckett does seem to give in to McKay surprisingly easily, doing what he wants Beckett to do.

McKay finishes with commenting that Beckett is "rippling his pond," which seems to be an euphemism for disturbing his calm. While it is unlikely that McKay has studied Taoism, given the title of the episode, there seems to be a reference here to Tao Te Ching by Laozi where the pool of water is frequently used as a metaphor and a tool for teaching. In fact, its description of what sages are like seems befitting of McKay:

Sages have depth of character. Like a deep body of water, sages are tranquil and composed. A pool of water is not only the surface but also everything below it. Likewise, there is more to a sage than meets the eyes. It may take a while for people to realize this, but the more they get to know the sage, the more they discover. Water provides its benefits and moves on, without waiting for any benefits in return. Sages benefit others in the exact same way. They give only to give, not because they want recognition or payback. When they provide teachings, assistance or guidance, they do so with no conditions, no strings attached, and no expectations. Water reflects its surroundings. It does not try to hide or change anything in its reflections. When sages speak, it is with this same sense of integrity and sincerity. People come to trust the sage, because they realize the sage will give them the truth when no one else will.

It is possible that McKay makes the comment as a generic jab at "Eastern Philosophy," betraying how unseriously he is taking this even though he is dying because he does not really believe in what Weir had figured he would call "mumbo jambo." But at the same time, describing inner peace as a still pond is a powerful metaphor, and given how McKay seems to be getting smarter by the moment and had read up everything there was to learn about ascension, it is possible that he had also educated himself on such concepts. But knowing about something on an intellectual level is very different from experiencing it, as McKay is about to discover.

It seems like Sheppard is also in the commissary but what is strange is that they are not sharing a table and eating together, and McKay had not even seemed aware that he was there. We do not even know whether this is still the same lunch as to which McKay had stated he was going to earlier or a whole other one, because it is possible that he had gone to lunch with Sheppard and this was a further snack for him later on. But it still seems strange that McKay should be in the middle of a meal and that the rest of the team are eating together at another table, and this is somewhat reminiscent of what had happened in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08), during which McKay had discovered the team eating without him multiple times, eventually complaining that he felt like he was not getting the "team e-mails" anymore, like the others had purposefully been excluding him. And it was quite possible that the final time Sheppard had intended to have a conversation with the rest of his team without McKay, about McKay, asking everyone to be more considerate of his feelings because Sheppard was doing damage control, having noticed that McKay was actually suffering.

Because we have further seen McKay eating alone in Michael (S02E18) when Sheppard had purposefully removed McKay from the dangerous project for his own good, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that this is something that McKay frequently does -- that he is so unlikable or ostracized somehow that he usually eats alone, that people avoid spending time with him and do not want to be in his company, and that McKay is so socially inept that he may not even realize people are avoiding him. It is unlikely that this is the case because we have seen Sheppard not only voluntarily spend his time with McKay but actually yearn for McKay's attention in Echoes (S03E12) when he had sought McKay's company to the exclusion of everyone else. But it is possible that again Sheppard had sought out to meet with the rest of his team without McKay to have a private word with them, to talk about McKay and his situation with them without McKay overhearing them, because it seemed to be Sheppard's intention here for McKay not to know that they were talking about him. Sheppard is worried about him and while he really does not want to be thinking about everything that could have happened to him, he needs to make the rest of his team aware of what had happened so that they will know to accommodate him, that they will know to look out for him and to take care of him. It is also on brand for Sheppard to want to hide from McKay how much he worries about him.

We jump into the middle of the conversation Sheppard had been having with the others, and unbeknownst to McKay or to us, they are actually sitting far enough away that Sheppard thinks they will not be overheard by McKay -- but likely Sheppard had chosen his seat so that he would still have direct a line of sight to McKay, still needing to keep an eye on him, and not just because that is something he had told Weir he would do. He had volunteered to keep an eye on McKay to have a pretext to be able to do something he would have done anyway because he is concerned for McKay and cares about him. He is concerned enough to want to talk it over with the others, and we join in on their conversation seemingly when McKay's sense of hearing suddenly becomes augmented, when he starts picking up on voices from further away. Teyla asks Sheppard how McKay is doing, which implies that Sheppard had just been filling them in on his situation, that he had told them what had happened to McKay.

While Teyla expresses concern for McKay, Ronon sounds callous, making a comment about McKay's weight that is not very kind but that is likely his gruff way of saying that McKay is probably alright, there is nothing wrong with him. It is Ronon's intention of putting Sheppard's mind at ease in his own way. And while it is not a friendly thing to say, Ronon does care about McKay in his own way, even if the two of them would never be each other's bosom buddies. Like we have seen, on the surface the two of them are very different and do not understand each othe at all, where as on a deeper level they are much alike and get each other, and this disconnect is probably what sometimes causes them to gnaw at each other. Regardless, it does not seem like Ronon necessarily means anything by his crass comment other than to communicate to Sheppard that McKay is alright as far as he can see. He is not starving, at any case.

Teyla chastises Ronon because it is not a very friendly thing to say, and while Ronon may mean it, we cannot even be sure whether it is true. The actor had been skinnier during his very first appearance in the franchise but had seemed slimmer during the scene in the sick bay earlier than he had toward the end of the second season, he he may actually have lost a few pounds -- but this does not necessarily translate to the character. We do also do not know whether McKay's self-assessment of him still weighing the same as did coming in is true or wishful thinking. Ronon's point, however, is not to assess McKay's health but to assure Sheppard that McKay is fine as far as he can tell, McKay is being McKay and one of the things that Ronon and McKay seem to share is their interest in cuisines. McKay seems to have a healthy appetite but he does not exercise -- even though we know he has partaken in combat training with Sheppard and seems to keep himself fit for the field, in addition to which he is quite strong relatively speaking -- not in the way Ronon thinks of exercise, like his runs with Sheppard. But Ronon's intention is not to take a jab at McKay behind his back either, this is his gruff macho way of expressing his fondness for McKay -- not dissimilar to how Beckett seems to use disparaging comments as a form of masculine bonding.

Sheppard's response to Ronon's comment is interesting, and interpreting it is complicated by the reshuffling of the episodes that makes it more difficult for us to determine the current state of their relationship. While it seems like Sheppard is building on what Ronon had said, agreeing with him that McKay has been eating more and offering an explanation for why he might be doing it, he sounds sad and concerned as he says it. "Feeding unhappiness" sounds like therapy talk, and we have to wonder where Sheppard has picked up the phrase and whether this is something that he himself might have engaged in at some point in his past, even if he does not look it now. If Sheppard had been harassed by women in positions of power when he was a handsome youth, eating to create a protective layer around oneself is a well-known coping mechanism to sexual abuse and for all we know, Sheppard had been more round-faced before he had joined the military. But this also betrays the fact that Sheppard has been observing McKay keenly, and he has been in a position to watch what McKay does consistently enough to have a baseline for him and to have noticed him diverge from his baseline.

But the thing of it is that like with most things, what Sheppard says is not necessarily about McKay at all. We know that he is prone to projection, and attributing sadness to McKay as his motivation for stuffing his face may imply that it is Sheppard himself who feels sad, whether or not he has been feeding his sadness. And if Sheppard has been feeling sad lately, the question is naturally what has been making him sad. It seems like in spite of his relationship with McKay, there has been this low level sadness to him at least ever since they had been forced to return to Earth, and we have noted an increased awareness in Sheppard that he is simply unable to keep McKay safe in spite of all of his efforts. What had happened to McKay in the lab had been but another reminder of this. Anything could happen at any time and all of his efforts might not be enough to change the course of events.

McKay: Hello? I'm right here. I can... I can hear you. Huh!

When McKay starts suddenly hearing familiar voices talking about him, he naturally assumes that the others are somewhere close by -- and he must assume they had not joined his table because this was Sheppard and "the kidding" again, this was Sheppard acting out his feelings in some childish way again, something that McKay has been growing accustomed to. McKay turns around to confront them only to notice that the others are sharing a table on the other side of the mess hall, having been conversing in quiet tones.

Note how Sheppard is positioned so that he is able to see McKay, having been keeping an eye on him from a distance, and while he is doing this for himself more than for Weir, he was concerned for McKay enough to want to watch him even more than usually. We do not know whether the two of them had come into the commissary together, although it would make sense if they had, but Sheppard had either decided to give McKay some space or had needed to confer with the rest of their team about this in private, and hence had taken up a table with them further away. It is still strange for them not to eat together as a team when all of them are in the commissary at the same time, and it might be explained by McKay having been so focused on stuffing his mouth that he had remained oblivious to everything else until his brain had enough sustenance.

We can see the way McKay's full genetic potential is being unleashed not just in his hearing improving but him grabbing his datapad seemingly with a thought without even realizing he had done so, and we should make record of the fact that everything that McKay seems able to do in this episode appears to be the consequence of having his natural abilities augmented. McKay is hypervigilant and prone to scanning his environment for danger due to his childhood and in his profession tries to effect changes in his environment, so him being able to read people's thoughts and to hear them from a distance and being able to manipulate his environment are just amped up versions of what he does naturally. It does not seem like McKay is able to project his thoughts, for example, or read anyone's feelings, which might have been experienced by Sheppard or Beckett if they had been similarly affected. He is also unable to predict the future or remote view things like Teer had been able to do in the Sanctuary in Epiphany (S02E12). He is able to heal later on, however, which again may be McKay's need to please other people and do things for them amped up to eleven.

McKay: For your information, I am exactly the same weight I have been since I got here. I need to eat regularly, otherwise I become hypoglycaemic; and I am generally a very happy person!

It is a mark of McKay's bravery that instead of wallowing in feelings of inadequacy or going somewhere to lick his wounds, McKay decides to confront the others head on and marches directly to them to give them a piece of his mind. We had learned from Jeannie in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) that McKay had been bullied at school, but this experience must also have taught him how to stand up for himself. And hearing the kinds of things he had heard the other speak is made worse by the fact that these people are meant to be his friends -- his lover -- who had apparently been sitting here in their own Mean Girls table talking about him behind his back, and not even for the first time because he knows Sheppard had been full of it when he had told him they had not been talking about him with his sister previously.

McKay does not appreciate it and feels a clear need to defend himself, and while there may be some attempt at coping in him stating for the record (and note that he adopts this phrase that Sheppard had used with him earlier) that he is exactly the same weight now as he has always been, he is not wrong about needing regular sustenance either. And there is a comedic beat to the scene with McKay insisting that he is a happy person when he is so very clearly unhappy in the moment, even though he had seemed perfectly content munching on his grapes just moments ago. McKay probably does not spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not he is happy, but we may recall that when he had asked his sister whether she was happy in her life, she had never returned the question to him. He knows that he has every reason to be happy, he is lucky beyond his wildest imagination, so he cannot explain even to himself why just like Sheppard he likely does feel sad. There is a low level of sadness and dissatisfaction that is growing in size that he has been trying to ignore and he knows that he should not be feeling it, but he is.

There are things eating up both of them that they have been unable to address and talk about, a slow and incremental festering of their connection. We can note how unhappy Sheppard also looks here, betraying the way he had been projecting on to McKay just now. Thinking that McKay cannot have overheard them he must be wondering what had brought this on since McKay definitely seems to be commenting on what they had just been talking about, and yet it seems like Sheppard is preoccupied by his thoughts about McKay and sadness enough that it does not even register to him that there is anything strange about McKay walking up to them with his rant like this. Sheppard looks vulnerable here, like he is afraid that McKay is going to say something that is going to hurt him.

Intercom: Colonel Sheppard. Please have your team report to the Control Room immediately. Colonel Sheppard. Weir: We received this transmission six minutes ago from Major Lorne's team. Lorne: Atlantis base, repeat: we are under attack and cut off from the gate. I counted at least twenty, maybe more. Request back-up immediately. Sheppard: Where are they? Weir: M72-656. Sheppard: Have a team of marines meet us in the Jumper Bay.

Sheppard and the others are spared having to explain themselves by being hailed, Sheppard's entire team required urgently in the control room. They get up and leave without saying another word, and just as soon as they discover that they had been called because Lorne and his team were in trouble, everything is forgotten by them in favour of mounting a rescue mission. This is made all the more emotional for Sheppard for the fact that the previous time that Lorne had called for assistance he had thought that he had lost them, he had thought in Coup d'État (S02E17) that Lorne and his entire team had died, that he had simply been too slow to get to them in time. They listen to the distress call and Sheppard takes charge of the situation, not waiting for Weir to give him permission to go rescue his men. And the rest of his team seem just as ready to take on the task, all of them remembering how hard it had been for Sheppard the last time. Sheppard and McKay take toward the Jumper Bay side by side.

Sheppard sounds introspective rather than urgent as he comments on the machine and responds to McKay's earlier comment about hoping that the machine had been responsible for people turning on each other. This not only tells us that he is not trying to hurry McKay up the way Teyla had been doing earlier, clearly hoping that he would join in on this, Sheppard seeming perfectly content being just where he is with McKay in the protective covering of the metal ribcage right now. He is also trying to convince himself of the fact that the machine is not a danger to them. Sheppard seems to always been scanning for potential danger to McKay, things that might harm him, and we had seen only earlier in this episode that just as soon as Ronon had suggested that he himself might pose a danger to McKay that Sheppard had immediately put some distance between them. And he is feverishly trying to decide now how much danger this machine poses to McKay and what their options are if McKay was needed to shut it down so that they might get out of the planet. He was caught in a kind of a Catch-22 situation: he needed McKay to work on the machine to get McKay to safety but he was never going to let McKay work on the machine at a risk to his life.

Here, Sheppard is once more asking the why? question, so often his purview, even if he is not verbalizing it as an actual question. He is trying to figure out the motivation of the wraith for having made the machine and what their intention might have been. He surmises that the intention of the machine cannot have been to make people kill each other because the wraith want to drain people of their energy, not to just kill them, and it could be that Sheppard's recent experiences in Common Ground (S03E07) have made him more sensitive to how the wraith think about things in general -- if indeed the episode was meant to come before this. Effectively, the machine seems to amp up paranoia and make people manifest their fears -- it makes their nightmares become real not in the sense of becoming tangible but in that they see them as waking dreams.

It is akin to delirium, especially delirium tremens as suffered by alcoholics as the result of a sudden withdrawal -- from going "cold turkey," which is how they had described McKay's withdrawal from the wraith enzyme in The Hive (S02E11). It may not be a coincidence that they actually explicitly return to the connected The Lost Boys (S01E10) in this episode with McKay revisiting the time he had toked pot in college with Beckett later. One theory for the cause of hallucinations during this withdrawal is that alcohol blocks REM-sleep (suppresses high frequency gamma waves in favour of low frequency delta waves) and alcoholics have been bereft of both REM-sleep and dreams sometimes for years, and suddenly their brains are flooded with the dreams that had been held back, causing them to have waking dreams -- manifesting as hallucinations.

The machine could function similarly by inducing a dream-like state while people are awake, making them see waking dreams -- to induce hallucinations in them. But the machine does not just induce hallucinations but specifically nightmares, which have been shown to coincide with a higher incidence of low-frequency theta-wave patterns. All of this seems to track. And the thing is, people have different nightmares. People have different fears, which is why we see the characters experience different things during their ordeal now. Sheppard is both right and wrong with his assessment here. The machine is not supposed to make their prey kill each other, but the machine is doing what it is supposed to be doing -- only more. The intention of the wraith may have been to induce a sleep-like paralysis in their pray while in a state of increased blood pressure and heart rate, which would have made them easy pickings for the wraith. It would have essentially rendered people fast food for them, working not unlike a microwave oven.

McKay: Well, I think you're right. I don't think these “antennae,” as I have so colourfully put it, have overgrown beyond their intended lengths. It's as if whoever turned it on dialled it up to eleven and just left it there.

McKay seems to agree with Sheppard very easily, and not even necessarily because he thinks that Sheppard is right. McKay does think that Sheppard is clever and he respects his insight, but there may also be something going on between them currently that makes McKay capitulate extra quickly, not wanting to quarrel with him. We had seen previously that something seems to have affected McKay's confidence in his own abilities, whether simply recent events or something that has happened between them that we never got to see, and McKay is putting obvious effort into remaining reconciliatory.

McKay also makes a pointed callback to what he had said before during their first visit to the cave when he had given his initial analysis of the machine, which is what Sheppard himself had referenced earlier with this "We already knew that!" It is somewhat curious that he describes his earlier comment as "colourful," since what he had said was "It's some sort of EM generator. It's emitting a modulated ultra-low-frequency pulse. These energy conduits are acting almost like antennae." There is nothing particularly "colourful" about his description, suggesting that what had made it colourful was the fact that it was he who said it -- and there might be a rainbow dick reference hiding in there with this talk of colourful antennae.

Antenna is synonymous with "rod," being a rod that is capable of receiving sensations in particular, but it is unlikely that it is McKay's intention to make any innuendo here -- which, of course, has never stopped Sheppard from hearing innuendo in the things that McKay says. He does grab a firm hold of one of the actuator veins, and as much as the innards of wraith facilities resemble female genitalia, there is something phallic about this as well, especially has he makes a reference to the thing "growing beyond its intended length" here. Also, it seems like what ever the machine had been intending to do, it had left its subjects in a perpetual state of arousal without follow-through, which can be frustrating. And inside the metal casing, McKay appears to be experiencing some frustration currently himself.

Also, just to make a record of it, "dialing up to eleven" is a well-known reference to the film This is Spinal Tap (1984), frequently lampooned in popular culture, spoken in the film by the writer of the song "Lick my Love Pump." The film is notorious for its gay subtext, having undergone queer readings ever since it came out -- the whole film being about "epic pining" toward the band members in their tight trousers. There has also been an on-going discussion of whether the creators had intended for this subtext between Nigel and David or not, and whether it even matters if it had been intentional or not with the "death of the author" and all that malarkey.

Let us also make record of the fact that Rob Reiner, who had written This is Spinal Tap, also directed The Princess Bride (1987). The book that the film is based on is name-checked by Sheppard a couple of episodes hence and there may be a visual reference to the film later on in this episode, the story seeming extremely significant to the relationship between Sheppard and McKay in more ways than one -- and I will return to this later. But note that it is McKay who seems to be doing the "As you wish" routine here, trying to do anything Sheppard wants him to do just to make him happy. While it might be easy to cast Sheppard as "the man in black" as Wesley in his Dread Pirate Roberts phase, it is McKay who is the simple farm boy to Sheppard's princess Buttercup. Sheppard wants McKay to be his Wesley.

Sheppard: You don't think... McKay: Yeah. The Genii. They must have discovered the place, started messing around with the machine without having the first clue as to what they were doing. It explains why the place is covered in this. Teyla: And before they realised what they'd done... McKay: ...they couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so they shot the thing, hoping they could somehow kill it, which only made it regrow more, make it that much more difficult for someone with the ability to actually turn it off to actually turn it off.

Even though McKay does not precisely have warm and fluffy memories about the Genii in the general, having reminded us of his history with them and their nuclear weapons previously, the tone in which he mentions them is dripping enough disdain to again make it unclear whether the episode should follow the events of Common Ground (S03E07) or not. While they may have a tenuous alliance with the technologically next-most advanced people in the galaxy, McKay has clear and obvious beef with them too -- and yet we might expect both McKay and Ronon to have expressed a personal kind of hatred toward them if they had just been forced to watch the Genii torture Sheppard while being helpless to do anything about it.

But what I want to draw attention to here is the fact that both Sheppard and McKay seem to read each other's thoughts here. Sheppard makes an explicit mention of McKay thinking about something and him correctly intuiting what that is -- the Genii. But at the same time, McKay was able to capture what Sheppard had been implying without him having to say it out loud. They have that unsettling ability to know what the other man is thinking just by looking at each other, and here we see an example of that happening. And while again it could easily be just the fact that they know each other so well living in each other's pockets, or that what McKay was about to say was so obvious as to Sheppard being able to guess what he meant and McKay being able to finish Sheppard's sentence for him, this kind of thing keeps happening between them. In fact, when they do not want the other man to know what they are thinking, they have to actively block them from being able to see it by looking away, by not meeting the other's eyes.

There might also be some meta commentary about the show here as regards network censors or higher ups having attempted to pull the plug on playing with this subtextual narrative, having during the second season tried to insert sexy female characters bearing their breasts at Sheppard into the mix without realizing that with the groundwork done, scenes such as we had seen in Epiphany (S02E12) and The Tower (S02E15) only made it seem even more like Sheppard was in love with McKay because the actor had made acting choices early on and kept responding to events in the context he had created for the character.

It is relevant here because in this episode we get to see the backstory that seems to have been a part of Sheppard's character all along, what has informed all of his choices and responses so far. The question to ask here is of course whether they had intended to bury the subtext by making Sheppard and McKay break up toward the end of this season, which is what this episode was building towards, "someone with the ability to turn it off" actually turning it off in a narratively satisfying if extremely tragic way. While the fourth season again came with many changes and the actor for Sheppard taking an active role in producing the show, the fact of the matter is that as the third season comes to a close they had effectively "turned off" the relationship between the characters, only the bitter resentment of former lovers who still longed to be together lingering between them.

Sheppard: So you can actually turn it off? McKay: I never said that. Sheppard: Well, what did you say?

This is again an interesting exchange because every transcript I was able to hunt down renders what Sheppard says here as "So you can't actually turn it off?" and how the viewer interprets Sheppard's relationship with McKay has everything to do with what people seem to hear here. A lot of human perception is coloured by expectation because we filter sensory input due to it quickly becoming overwhelming if we took in everything, famously exemplified by the Laurel or Yanny? experiment. Interpreting Sheppard as saying "can't" here makes sense if the viewer expects McKay to respond with "I never said that [I couldn't]," defensive of his ability to perform feats of science, as though he had interpreted Sheppard as casting aspersions on him being able to do it, thinking he is impotent.

What Sheppard actually says here is "So you can -- actually turn it off?" pausing after the word "can" that inserts a glottal stop in the word boundary, and likely this is caused by him starting to say "So you can turn it off" and then switching gears mid-sentence, adding the "actually" that McKay had pointedly mentioned twice into the sentence, quoting McKay to indicate both that he was actively listening to McKay and that he was engaging with him, borrowing words and phrases often a sign of attraction. It seemed like McKay had been implying that he would be able to turn it off, having been referring to himself with his usual confidence, and Sheppard wanted to confirm that McKay had implied what it seemed like he was implying. Sheppard wanted McKay to tell him that he would be able to turn it off. And on any normal day, McKay likely would have confirmed to Sheppard that he could, even if he has a known tendency to sell himself short. While he might not believe it himself, McKay's usual bluster would have him say something to the tune of "Please, I'm Rodney McKay. Difficult takes a few seconds. Impossible, a few minutes!"

But like we had seen, for some reason McKay's confidence seems to have taken a hit and he has been uncharacteristically cautious this whole episode, seeming afraid of making a mistake or making claims that he cannot back up. And because it seems like him having ranted in his usual style, having sounded like "his old self" for a moment, Sheppard had gotten his hopes up about McKay being able to shut it down, and so McKay felt the need to temper Sheppard's expectations here. McKay is saying "I never said that [I could turn it off]" or better yet, "I never said that [I could turn it off]." Sheppard believes in McKay, and in a moment we will see how Beckett also believes in him. But McKay does not believe in himself, and this could have something to do with the machine itself -- McKay's own fear being that he is incapable, that he is unable. McKay thinks that he is the last to be affected by the machine but it is possible he had actually been the first, that he had started feeling the effects the moment they had stepped through the gate and he had snapped at Beckett about having to repeat not knowing something.

And this seems to be confusing Sheppard, because while he might be aware of McKay being cautious making promises he does not know for a fact he can keep and making claims he will not be able to follow through -- his "impossible heroics game," as he had so colourfully put it before -- McKay vacillating between his usual assertive self, Sheppard fully believing that McKay is the bravest man he has ever met, and this new timid and cautious McKay is jarring to him. McKay may have been trying to explain the problem to him as simply as he could but Sheppard seems more confused than he started out as. And it is telling that he actually has to ask McKay what he meant when the two of them usually communicate so efficiently that they barely require words to have a conversation between them. They are literally at odds here, at cross purposes.

McKay: Look, the control console is shot to hell. As I was telling Teyla, I'll have to bypass it, isolate the primary actuator conduit, and follow it back to the core. Once I cut power to that--

McKay continues trying to explain what he has been and is doing here, and it is rather telling that what he is describing here sounds a whole lot like heart surgery. McKay is standing there inside the metal ribcage explaining a heart (coronary artery) bypass surgery, which actually involves arresting the heart temporarily. It seems like McKay is attempting to fix this broken heart symbolically, having a solid plan for how to accomplish it. And it is Sheppard's heart that he is trying to fix more than his own, even if Sheppard does end up shooting him in the heart later. Sheppard's control console may be shot to hell and he does not have a lot of control over his fear responses but McKay is a very clever man with a lot of incentive. Perhaps there is hope for them yet, even if McKay's work is now temporarily halted with the sounds of Ronon's blaster coming in from outside.