“The Serpent guard’s eyes glow. The Horus guard’s beak glistens. The Setesh guard’s nose drips.”
- Release Date: 2nd July 1999
- Season 3
- Episode 2
- Director: Bill Corcoran
- Writers: Jonathan Glassner
Jacob Carter (and the Tok’ra Selmak) arrive on Earth through the Stargate. He’s come to ask for help tracking down a Gou’ald. He brings up a hologram which is essentially a family tree of the system lords. Daniel says there’s probably thousands of them but Jacob says that only a small number are system lords. There’s one System Lord the Tok’ra haven’t been able to track in a while – Setesh. He was an anime of the other System Lords and vanished when Earth cut itself off from the Stargate. Jacob wants SG-1 to find a single Gou’ald that is likely hiding on Earth.
Thinking that Gou’ald will keep acting like a Gou’ald, Daniel finds reports of multiple cults throughout history that worship Setesh (or different incarnations) and all the followers end up killing themselves. He points out that his symbol is a fictional animal, which Teal’c mentions is the source of much amusement among the Jaffa, with him telling a joke he finds hilarious. The conversation quickly moves on to a cult in Seattle. The leader, Seth, can reportedly heal people and could make his eyes glow. Sam also has a conversation with Jacob, with Selmak taking over to tell Sam that she wants Jacob to reconnect with his son.
SG-1, along with Jacob, head to the compound. They meet the father of one of the people in the cult – he gives them some information. He leads them to a place with cover where they can sneak in – but the compound is well armed and, knowing an attack will lead to all the humans dying, they back off and encounter the ATF, who want to attack to stop the group from using illegal weapons. They take SG-1 to their tent to work out issues with jurisdiction – but the president phones to order them to give Jack full control.
They need to work a way to sneak in, and they manage to find the escape tunnels. The next issue is the mind-control substance Seth has. Jacob says it’s a more powerful version than what Hathor used – however, an electric shock can cure someone. This is what Apophis used on Teal’c son, which is why the Zat gun works. Although it turns out that even a tiny electric shock that doesn’t even cause a flinch can reverse it – Teal’c didn’t have to use a torture gun on his son. Jack, Daniel and Sam will go in as Seth will detect the symbionts in Jacob and Teal’c.
They head through the tunnel and find an empty circular room. They get brought up with a Gou’ald ring teleporter with Seth using the magic dust on them. They wake up later and get brought to Seth – the electric shock can’t be done too quickly or else the organism in the dust can “hide” in unaffected cells. It turns out the whole of SG-1 forgot that Sam had naquadah in her system from Jolanar so she instantly gets discovered by Seth, who wants to know if the System Lords or Tok’ra sent them. They get taken away to be killed.
They knock out the one cult member escorting them and Zat him. He doesn’t even get knocked out, just dazed for a second, and snaps out of it. They realise he’s the son of the person they spoke to earlier. The father also manages to sneak into the tent where Jacob and Teal’c are looking after the mission, and tells them that they stopped talking after an argument months earlier with Teal’c being disturbed with how a father can not speak to his son in so long (somehow completely forgetting about his own situation with his son).
SG-1 arm themselves up with Zats (for someone hiding since ancient Egypt, Seth has a lot of technology that he’s snuck around the world) and start shooting the cultists (and, despite dual wielding zats, none of them hit the same person twice), while Seth sets up bombs around the building. Jack and Daniel get knocked out by Seth, who disguises himself as one of the people fleeing, and heads through the rings. Following after, they let Sam and Jacob know that Seth is hiding as one of the cult, Jacob finds him but gets pushed aside. He passes his hand device to Sam and tells her to use it. She finds Seth and uses the device to kill him. Jack makes an inappropriately timid joke but seems to realise straight away, as Sam is clearly disturbed by what she did. I wonder if it’s because it was more like murder than self defence, or perhaps the device lets you feel the suffering of the victim – it seems like something the Gou’ald would do.
With Seth dead and the cult members rescued and deprogrammed, the mission is finished. The episode ends with Jacob visiting his son for the first time in years. I like the idea of having an episode of hunting a hidden Gou’ald on Earth, despite a few issues with the plot like forgetting that the Gou’ald can detect that Carter is a former host.
