Coup d'Etat

DVD, Stargate: Atlantis S2 (Coup d'Etat)

The Genii were never one of the more attractive parts of the series, with their ugly uniforms and ugly technology on an ugly planet, but for better or worse they've been used as a recurring adversary and a latent threat. So it isn't a big surprise that they cause our team some problems again. What is a surprise is that they put up the money to get Colm Meaney back as Commander Cowen, duplicitous leader of this threatening race. Previously they avoided showing him again, so it's good that they brought him back, even if it was only to set him up for an assassination masterminded by one of the men that tried to take over Atlantis at the end of Season 1/ start of Season 2: Ladon. Meaney's Cowen was never that much of a draw, being a fairly straightforward, uncompromising enemy, even if Atlantis had a tentative peace with him until now. Ladon at least had more nuance to him, and not just in the cunning turnaround to take control of the Genii from Cowan. Having a sister humanises him to some degree, even if you still can't trust him much more than Cowen, but as they say at the end, at least he was willing to let Sheppard and the others go.

The episode begins by juggling a couple of seemingly unrelated plots, the one being the apparent death of Major Lorne and his team in a fire on another planet. While Ronon and Teyla investigate this, much to Sheppard's disapproval, he's tasked by Weir to deal with Ladon who promises a ZPM if they do a deal with him. I thought this was going to turn into something that made a rift between Sheppard and Weir, but it really didn't go anywhere. To some extent that's good, but I still would have liked to see them at loggerheads, as Janeway and Chakotay sometimes were on 'Voyager,' just to spike things up a bit, and also so we could end on a return to trust and friendship. At least show Sheppard struggling with his orders because he so wants to search for his missing men. Things converge as we move along, and it seems Lorne and the team were actually captured and sold to the Genii, all part of Ladon's plan. Now, if the Atlantis gang hadn't been as treacherous as the Genii they wouldn't have walked into the trap, but because they didn't place value on an alliance with Ladon, and instead tried to shore up their ties with Cowen (why did he, the leader of his race, meet them in a cramped,  dingy tunnel?!), by telling him what Ladon was up to, even after he spun a story on how bad Cowen was becoming, they end up getting captured and doing exactly what Ladon and Cowen, working together, expected them to do. Just as Cowen's desire for Jumpers (and anything was better than that fascistic uniform, I'm sure!), got him to the location where Ladon could blow him to smithereens.

On the whole, the episode works fairly effectively - I began by buying Lorne's death because he just seems like someone introduced to be killed off at some point, and rather him than someone like Zelenka, who has more personality than a soldier. But Lorne survives again, though for how long I don't know. I wondered how Ladon was communicating through the Stargate visually since they hadn't sent a MALP at that point. I understand they wanted to tell the story like that, so he could provide visual evidence that he had a ZPM, but it would have worked just as well via audio and would have given them just as much reason to trust him, or not, than showing what turns out to be an empty one. And as to that, can't a ZPM be powered up? Is there no way? If our people seemed dishonest in their dealings with Ladon by going behind his back to Cowen and then holding his people hostage, at least Dr. Beckett leads the way in showing that they're not all devious military types, when for no other reason than that he's a healer, he attempts to cure Ladon's castoffs that were actually terminally ill volunteers for the mission (I didn't even believe she was really his sister, but she was), impressing upon them at least that humanity can be very benevolent and helpful. So well done, Beckett.

I liked the ultimate twist with Ladon revealing that his goal was to take out Cowen, the lure of Jumpers too strong an incentive not to bring him out personally, but my opinion of the Genii as a piece of the pie still remains low. It's difficult to have Wraith as an enemy from episode to episode when they don't know Atlantis still exists, but I'm betting by the end of the season we'll be finishing on a cliffhanger when that existence becomes, or is about to be, known. Whether the Genii will have further part in the fate of Atlantis, I don't know, but I suspect they will. Though Ladon's coup is 'bloodless' on his planet, he's still not to be trusted as evidenced by his deep machinations here. Allies are all well and good, but they need to be trustworthy. It would be great if his sister became a bridge between the two peoples as she was clearly impressed by Beckett's dedication to heal even those opposed to him.

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