“Ninjas. Three, maybe four. Happened fast. They pulled up in a white van, grabbed her. I’ve been telling the police about ninjas for years.”
- Release Date: 7th September 2001
- Season 5
- Episode 11
- Director: William Gereghty
- Writers: Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
We start with two kidnappings. One has Russian soldiers assault other Russian soldiers and kidnap someone from a trick – a Jaffa! We also see Sam leaving a gym and getting taken by people in a van wearing black, although she gets a few hits in first. A nearby homeless person sees it, calling them ninjas.
After not turning up for work, the police are trying to locate Sam. Jack is eager to be part of it. Hammond points out that they have no jurisdiction, but Jack points out that they can still have a look. He finds the homeless man and offers him money in exchange for information, and has to promise him his National Geographic magazines (the studio wouldn’t allow Playboy) for the information: ninjas in a white fan, but she put up a fight.
Sam is being held up in a large room on a hospital bed, she is being sedated and her bloods taken. They’ve discovered an unknown element as well as a strange protein marker. She also continues to fight, requiring a colossal dose of sedatives to keep her at bay.
Jack uses the NID boards to send a message out to Maybourne, who turns up when he drops the magazines off for the homeless man. Maybourne doesn’t have that much information, but does point Jack in the direction of the recent pain in the neck: Simmons. Jack visits his office and they have a rather unfriendly conversation. Simmons points out that Maybourne was recently paid three million dollars.
They look into this deal and find that the payment was from a man called Adrian Conrad, who disappeared from public view six months ago. It was his secretary, Mendez, that made the deal. We cut to Maybourne visiting her, asking her about Carter’s disappearance – he sold the information, but seems to be concerned about what happened because of it. As he leaves, Jack gets in his way and they get in a car together.
We have a brief cut back to Carter. They ask her about the alien that was inside her but she refuses to talk. Mendez seems to be the one leading the show, having lied to Maybourne. They talk about running out of time and starting implantation early. Maybourne tells Jack what he knows: the deal he made was for a Jaffa, his symbiote approaching maturity, he presumed they wanted it for medical research. The only connection is that Carter has been through that process and survived. Maybourne does know who took the delivery, though. They manage to get Adrian’s medical file.
Fraiser studies it and discovers he has a disease which affects his immune system. She says they really don’t have enough time to study it enough to learn of its healing properties in time. She does mention he’d need to be under constant medical care. Daniel has a location: Adrian owns a hospital which has been closed down for a while. SG-1 are sent there, and will have local police covering the building.
Sam manages to escape, running into Adrian. She threatens him with a gun and he tells her if she escapes, he’s as good as dead anyway. He thinks they can both come out of this alive. He explains his plan of implanting the Gou’ald and working on a way to remove it, which is why they’re studying Sam (she does point out that Jolinar chose to let her live). Adrian starts crashing. They whisk Sam away and implant the Gou’ald. Mendez wants it removed straight away and the doctors say that Adrian didn’t approve of the next method they want to try: direct brain tissue examination, which would result in death. Mendez orders it.
SG-1 turn up. Daniel and Teal’c head off and essentially just fill up empty time with a few to many random shots of them searching, while Jack and Maybourne search around. The Gou’ald inside Adrian tries to convince Mandez that he’s over powered the Gou’ald. He gets her to release one of his restraints. Carter is able to be put to sleep when Jack turns up just in time and frees her. He lets Maybourne keep an eye on the scientists (essentially allowing him to escape).
Sam lets them know what is going on and that a Gou’ald was put into Adrian. They search around separately, with Jack finding Adrian in the basement. The Gou’ald says that if he dies, the host dies, but Jack doesn’t care. However, before he can do anything, Jack gets shot in the back – by Simmons. Simmons offers the Gou’ald a chance to live if he follows. After they’ve gone, Carter finds Jack and gets him medical attention.
I’m the debrief, Jack says he doesn’t know who shot him, but suspects Maybourne. Both he and the Gou’ald managed to escape, so there’s a Gou’ald loose on Earth. We cut to Simmons promising the Gou’ald better accommodations in exchange for information. It’s always good to see the Jack and Maybourne buddy cop stuff, but this episode seemed to be more about setting stuff up.
