Andromeda: S02E08: Home Fires
An epsiode review by Hollydays
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“With their miniscule families, Than-Thre-Kull |
Totally taken by surprise, Dylan warily lets Jamahl board and has Sara’s message sent to his quarters. The nasty ho, I mean his loving Fiancé, tells Dylan that she has moved on with her life and is married and pregnant. She tells him that things are very “bad out there” but knowing that one day he’ll be coming back to make things right again keeps her going. She asks Dylan to be well and wishes him happiness. Andromeda, of course, eavesdropped on the message and when he comes out of his quarters Rommie makes a generous comment towards Sara stating “She was a remarkable woman” and asks him if he is all right and if he would like to speak with Rev Bem. Dylan declines talking to a “counsellor” and instead sends for Jamahl.
Jamahl tells Dylan that Sara founded his planet, Tarazed, for all the survivors and their families from the Andromeda and from Starry Wisdom. She did this for the day when Dylan would return and restore the commonwealth.
Through a rocky slipstream route, Andromeda heads to Tarazed. Harper reminds Dylan of their last encounters with commonwealth leftovers (psycho ships).
As Andromeda exits slipstream, Harper freaks out assuming the 36 slip fighters are there to ambush them. The ships quickly align themselves in formation around Andromeda… as an Honour Guard! Dylan is beginning to like this. As they approach the planet, they are hailed by first “Triumvir” Rekel Ben-Tzion (essentially a president?), and invited to join a planetary celebration. She looks like she just stepped out of a travel ad for Air China, and Harper is ready to board. Dylan teases him with a “Does she look like a killer android?” He replies, “Who cares! What a babe!”. Rommie scans the news and learns that the planet does have free press and are holding elections; a democratic society based on the commonwealth.
Once on Tarazed, the group express varying degrees of comfort with this situation. Beka is thrilled with their reception, especially the high guard lancers lined up for her personal inspection! Harper and Tyr are wary. When the beautiful Triumvir asks for five minutes alone with Dylan, she has to dismiss her guard in order to appease them. Dylan is taken to a surprise party, a reunion of Sara Riley’s descendants. Jamahl is there and enthusiastically describes his lineage for Dylan (great grandson, nine times removed).
In walks Gaheris Rhade, or at least the spitting image of him. Admiral Telemachus Rhade greets Dylan. (He is actually quite a cutey) He is in charge of Tarazed’s Home Guard.
Dylan withdraws to Andromeda and there shows Tyr a picture of him and Gaheris and Telemachus and a friend. He cannot believe that it is possible that genetic reincarnation could possibly reproduce a perfect example of Gaheris when Andromeda backs him up spouting the mathematical possibilities (or impossibilities). Tyr shrugs off Dylan’s paranoia and mentions that his own father was the almost the genetic double of a previous Alpha named Suliman, and goes on to muse about the “second coming” of Drago Museveni. Dylan is not placated by Tyr and doesn’t trust Rhade, while Tyr again reiterates not to trust any Nietzschean but himself, of course.
Meanwhile on the command deck, while Trance and Harper run some regular maintenance, Rev Bem explains to them about how the Vedran government and the local Tarazed government is similarly based. Harper doesn’t like democracies (For once he and Tyr agree!!) and would like to stuff the ballet boxes, but Trance tells him not to bother as the vote is supposed to be a shoe in. After all this is what the planet was created for.
Dylan is now showing his ship off to the Triumvir, who begs him to speak to the people in order to help them (her and Dylan’s cause) be victorious. Apparently there is an isolationist movement who would rather Tarazed remain safe and hidden, just as they have done all these generations.
So Dylan steps up to the plate and delivers a great speech down on Tarazed. As he finishes, Telemachus Rhade congratulates Dylan on his speech and requests to speak with him privately. They step into an office (Rhades, I think). Here we are offered two flash backs by our intrepid hero. The first one consists of Dylan playing basketball while Gaheris Rhade walks in and argues of other people Dylan should have picked to be his best man at his wedding, instead of him. He suggests ‘Refractions of Dawn’, but Dylan derides this choice by saying that he doesn’t think “Best insectoid Hermaphrodite” works well. He coerces Rhade by telling him that because they have been through so much together, it’s only right that he be Dylan’s best man. Gaheris, with the ball, fakes out Dylan and sinks a basket. Because of this Dylan pretends to reconsider his choice. The next flashback consists of Gaheris Rhade killing Refractions of Dawn and attacking Dylan…Dylan shivers as he faces Telemachus Rhade as he asks Dylan to tell him the truth about his ancestor. To the Tarazed’s, Gaheris is a hero but the Nietzscheans told him that Gaheris was a spy, an integral part of the rebellion. With a big breath, Dylan diplomatically states that Gaheris tried to warn him, but Dylan did not listen until it was too late. Telemachus thanks him and states “then he was a hero after all” and then informs Dylan that he is the Official Opposition, the leader of the isolationist group.
Meanwhile….poor Andromeda has just finished drooling over the incredible stockpile of armaments on Tarazed and dreaming of being fully fitted (“But you know what I really want?” Tyr “An avatar unencumbered with cleavage?” Rommie“A real crew”) when the election results come in and she finds out her side lost. With her honour guard, the Triumvir Rekel boards Andromeda yet again to dissuade Dylan form leaving, as once he got the election results, he was ready to leave. Rekel begs him to stay and tells him she will call an emergency election. She also asks him to talk to Rhade again. Dylan heads to the court to play another game of basketball, I’m sure imagining Rhade’s head as the ball. Rev Bem slips onto the court to talk to Dylan. Dylan confesses that he is angry not because Gaheris betrayed him, but because now another Rhade is betraying him by trying to stop the restored commonwealth. The restored commonwealth was the only reason Tarazed was created. Rev tries to get Dylan to see Telemachus’ side by telling Dylan that because of his many battles against the Calderans, Telemachus believes he is only doing what is right for his people.
Alarms start on Andromeda announcing a code blue. Maggog swarm ships have been sighted in the outer system. Telemachus blames Dylan for leading the ships there but still turns over the Triumvirs honour guard to Dylan’s command. The Triumvir protests, as her people are untrained in battle. The honour guard, which includes Lt Jamahl, advance against the Maggog. The Maggog retreat quickly. In order not to test the Honour guard further, Dylan calls a stand down but Jamahl does not obey and refuses to break his pursuit. Andromeda races to intercept Jamahl, but Jamahl kills his target and makes the rookie mistake of not pulling up and smashes himself into the debris. Dylan is suspicious of the Maggog raid and has Andromeda do a full analysis of the debris. Andromeda informs Dylan that the Maggog ship contained no slip drive and no pilot. Harper furthers the investigation with the information that the dummy ships were actually launched from Telemachus’s command base on Tarazed!
Dylan and Triumvir Rekel, meet in Dylan’s office. She tells him that something is going on Tarazed. She can’t get in contact with any government office and important officials are not responding. She dejectedly tells Dylan that she is ready to turn things over to Rhade as he already has the home guard in place in the city to ‘protect the planet’ and hints that it was Telemachus behind the fake maggog attack in order to force the isolationists to stand against the restored commonwealth. Dylan angrily states that he refuses to allow another Rhade to destroy a commonwealth, or at least one in the making. We see the flashback battle between him and Gaheris once again. Dylan receives a message from Telemachus saying that he and Dylan need to talk. Dylan agrees to meet with him alone on the Andromeda and orders everyone off the command deck.
Telemachus arrives and as he heads to the command deck, Andromeda scans him and tells Dylan that he is carrying a force lance. He tells her to let Rhade in and engages the privacy mode. Telemachus angrily storms in and tells Dylan that he understands “why Dylan did it”, “to sway the people into joining the renewed commonwealth”. He opens fire on Dylan. They fight almost exactly the same as Gaheris and Dylan did 300 years ago except when Dylan gets the opportunity to kill this Rhade, he does not. Now that they both know who the real criminal is, they set off together.
In the corridor, Dylan reviews information that Andromeda has found that proves Triumvir Rekel was behind the whole fake Maggog attack. Dylan informs Telemachus that he could easily have Rommie falsify the reports and therefore have Telmachus arrested and gain Tarazed for the commonwealth. Rhade agrees that that is what he would do in his place. They enter Rekels quarters and fight her personal guards. Then Telmachus places the Triumvir under arrest. Rekel turns to Dylan and tries to turn Dylan to help her overthrow Rhade as they both want the same thing. Dylan retorts “No, we don’t!”
We fast forward to a High Guard Memorial Service being held in the obs deck, in honour of Jamahl. Telemachus and Dylan both understand Gaheris Rhade better now (IE: Dylan is not so bitter). We flash back to a happy memory of Gaheris. Gaheris enters Dylan’s office and stoically asks Dylan is bachelor parties have to always include dancing girls, to which Dylan takes a deep breath and resignedly answers the affirmative. To his surprise, Gaheris then accepts the position of best man and further informs him that is an honour to serve with him and be his friend.
Later, on the command deck, Dylan questions his actions. He could have easily gotten what he wanted at the expense of betraying Rhade. Rommie tells him she tries not to think of right and wrong, but does think he has made the right decision. Dylan retreats to his quarters to watch Sara’s message again and we hear her words “to make things right…” He tells her that he is doing his best to move on and be well.
Just like our ‘different’ versions of Rommie, the identical Rhades were well differentiated in each scene. A few nitpicks; I was surprised there was no mention of whom Sara married, or how many children she had or the steps she took to accomplish what she did. I would definitely investigate those things were I in a similar situation. Also, in a previous episode, Dylan guarded the belongings of his dead crew from sale. There was no mention of him returning their belongings to their descendants. Why keep the stuff? And lastly, this was a “Me, me, me…me…me” episode for Dylan and a little sickening because of it.
All in all this was a very cheesy episode. I’d rate this a 10000 out of 10,
What do you think?
The “Home Fires” episode review is © 2001, 2002 Hollydays.
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