“I’ll give you a choice: white meat or dark meat?”
- Release Date: 13th December 2000
- Season 4
- Episode 15
- Director: Martin Wood
- Writers: Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
In the gate room, SG-1 are returning home and energy blasts are coming through the Stargate. Hammond holds off closing the Iris until they make it. During their debriefing, Hammond says that if he followed protocol, they would all be dead, and that he can no longer deal with sending good men to their deaths through the Stargate. Starting immediately, he is retiring.
Jack doesn’t believe him and tried to talk him out of it, saying that he knows that Hammond is talking nonsense, and that he clearly loves his job (as well as being great at it). Hammond refuses and says a heartfelt goodbye to everyone, with Teal’c threatening to sing a song (which everyone watching would have loved to hear). He heads off.
The new head of SGC is General Bauer, who is extremely stiff. He makes immediate major changes: SG-1 itself gets gutted. Daniel is relegated to a desk job, only to go into the field when absolutely necessary. Carter is also taken off the team and ordered to work on a naquadah infused nuclear weapon (she’s clearly very unhappy about it, but follows orders). Jack goes to see the general to protest and he gets put on a forced vacation.
Jack visits Hammond at his home (greeting his grandkids, which shows he visits often) and, once again, iterates that he knows that something is going on, as Hammond clearly doesn’t want to retire. Hammond says that the NID asked him to retire and, when he refused, they picked up his grandkids from school and dropped them off – a clear threat to his family. As he can’t protect his family while remaining at SGC, he had no choice. He warns Jack about the dangers of getting involved, but Jack knows who to talk to.
Jack visits Maybourne, who is in jail awaiting his execution due to selling state secrets to the Russians in Watergate. Maybourne offers to help, but only if he can go with Jack, with Jack having to ask the president for a massive favour. They head to Maybourne’s apartment but his passwords to access the NID have been blocked, with them having to escape as NID forces close in on them. The two make for a great buddy cop duo.
Teal’c goes on a mission with SG-3 to take enough naquadah from a Gou’ald stronghold for the general’s Doomsday weapon. He returns with a wounded soldier, with another one left dead on the planet. As they got what they needed, Bauer shows little care for the life lost. Nobody at the facility seems to protect him, but orders are orders.
Jack speaks to Daniel (as he’s a civilian, he has a bit more leeway about following orders) and warns him about the NID. Jack says that Bauer may not have anything to do with them as he could simply be put in place due to his style working well with the NID. Daniel informs Jack that Bauer wants to perform an experimental weapons test on another planet with planet and animal life and that Carter doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Jack asks Daniel to find a way to delay things. Maybourne says that Jack will have to get his hands dirty and that they’ll have to directly target someone higher up – someone Jack knows.
The warhead is sent through the gate (with Siler and Carter exchanging very worried expressions). While Bauer discusses the next step – observing through the Stargate, Daniel interrupts, saying he’s looked at the survey and there’s naquadah on the planet. Carter is horrified while Bauer doesn’t react – he knew about it. Carter says she can’t predict what will happen and that the entire planet may go up. It turns out that this was the entire point – as Gou’ald planets usually contain naquadah, it would be an effective weapon (which will kill countless innocents). Carter reminds him that radiation can make its way through. The scientists at the Pentagon have said it would be fine.
The bomb is set off anyway and Carter’s prediction turns out to be correct (she knows more than anyone else about the Stargate). The MALP is destroyed and radiation starts flooding SGC, even though the Iris. They can’t shut the gate room. Bauer is now very worried and doesn’t know how to react. Carter says they need to evacuate and he agrees. Everyone is evacuated while SG-1 and Bauer go to a control room closer to the surface. Bauer suggests self-destruct, but Carter says that the radiation from the exploding planet would still make it through. The entire planet is in danger because of this. The first plan is to hope it turns off after 38 minutes.
Jack and Maybourne head to Senator Kinsey’s house. He’s having a party so has to play along. He heads to his study while giving his wife enough concern for her to be worried. Maybourne uses the computer while Jack pulls a gun on Kinsey as they try to figure out his password. Kinsey brags about how many kids and grandkids he has which makes Jack realise that the password is his dog, Oscar (while this seems dumb for a password, I can fully expect passwords like this when the show was set). Jack takes the data on a floppy disk while calling the press to the house so Kinsey has to call off his goons. We find out that Kinsey is a very dangerous person – believing that everything he does is in the name of God. Jack says that he’ll release the information if Hammond isn’t out back in command. Kinsey says that it will never make it to the press, to which Jack points out that they’ll still kill the weak link.
At Stargate Command, the timer goes past 38 minutes. Bauer (who is extremely worried), Carter and Daniel head off to work out what to do next but Teal’c stays behind and calls them back when the Stargate shuts down 34 seconds later. We don’t really find out what happened, but I’m certain that Carter was fully expecting this. Either she calculated that it would take slightly longer or she messed with the clock. Teal’c seemed to cotton on to this (my guess it’s because Sam wasn’t working on another solution, like a controlled explosion to make the wormhole jump to another gate) and the intention was to make Bauer understand that he has to listen to others.
Hammond is reinstated as head of the Stargate program. Hammond says he owes Jack a great debt and asks how he can repay him – to which Jack says to just continue commanding however he has been. Maybourne then phones the office. He emailed a copy of the data to himself and got Kinsey to put him in a less secure facility. He escaped and is partying abroad – very Silence of the Lambs. Jack asks Hammond to buy back his soul some day.
It’s great how they manage to keep the Earth politics side of things interesting and Jack and Maybourne are great together. I also like how they never explained if Carter was up to something or not, it’s up to us to figure out.
