'Miller's Crossing' (409) General Discussion

[Integrabyte]

Indeed! That was just the epilogue, babe. I'm starting off gently and working my way up to novel length.

Don't let me stop you BABE. You seem very feisty lately ....did you break your whip or something?

[Falcon Horus]

I don't know, that's a good question. Even if he didn't tell her, I think she's intelligent enough to figure most of it out or ask someone else what happened. I know I would want to know everything that happened! I wish we had gotten to see her reaction, though.

That would have been nice, but yeah...unfortunately for us we have to improvise it ourselves.

Also it would be so funny to see Teyla in full mood-swinging ice cream-craving preggie madness!!

The Athosian way of it...

[jelgate]

Indeed! That was just the epilogue, babe. I'm starting off gently and working my way up to novel length.

Save me a copy. I'm a little surprised that knowone has brought up the fact that McKay was willing to committ suicide for his sister. I'm not sure if he would have done that a year ago and shows how he has changed his relationship with his sister

[justhere1971]

Save me a copy. I'm a little surprised that knowone has brought up the fact that McKay was willing to committ suicide for his sister. I'm not sure if he would have done that a year ago and shows how he has changed his relationship with his sister

Exactly. That's probably one of the only 2 reasons I actually liked this episode. Other than Shep actually showing his darker/ruthless side.

[technoextreme]

Wallace was trying to save his daughter's life.... what is selfish about that. If you were told your child only had a few weeks to live but there was a possibility if a new treatment was used she would live a full life.. are you saying you wouldnt take that chance.. well I would in a heart beat. How do you know she suffered anymore than she was already suffering with the cancer. Do you think that cancer is a painless way to die. Her father took a the chance that the treatment would cure her... and it nearly did so again how was he seflish in what he did.

First of all the line Wallace said the treatment is worst than the cancer. She originally had weeks to live but now she'll be dead in days. McKay's sister said something about them forming blockages in her veins, attacking healthy cells, and attacking the same cells. Then she died; brought back to life; and then died again. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Im an engineer. Im bound by a code of ethics. A code of ethics that he thoroughly thrashed. Not only that but Im pretty sure "close enough" in this case would have sent him to jail/electric chair.
PS: I really hope you aren't a scientist,engineer, or a doctor.

Believe me, and I speak from personal experience here, it isn't always better to try experimental and dangerous treatments. Sometimes it's a bad decision and the patient DOES suffer more than they would have and die earlier because of that. Wallace using the treatment killed his daughter earlier than the cancer would have.

True but at this point were the nanites even considered experimental? It was more like a theoretical concept whose chances of working was completely unknown. If it was something that had some testing I would probably be more sympathetic but it was completely untested.

[Naonak]

Oh, look! Another excellent episode!

Man, JM was right about that Sheppard/McKay scene... Great acting between the two.

IMHO, what John did was pretty dark, and morally questionable, but I don't feel he did anything wrong. I don't think he forced Wallace to sacrifice himself, just "presented the situation", as he said. Wallace chose to sacrifice himself, to make amends - to save a life that he had potentially ended. Regarding Sheppard's motives, not only did it save Jeannie's life (without ending Rodney's), it was also an important step in the Replicator war.

And Sheppard definitely didn't feel happy with himself at the end.

9/10

[gebtkd]

Well, if the producers wanted to create contreversy, they certainly succeeded. Even Joe M. said in his blog that they had lots of conversation about this episode. The reality is that nothing will get solved here. Some people will think that Sheppard's action were immoral others won't think like that. No matter how you look at it, Wallace was a criminal, he had injected Jeannine with the nanites knowing full well the implications in order to manipulate her and Rodney. He stepped over a lot of lines in the name of saving his daughter which is understandable, who wouldn't do anything they can to save their child. I have posted this on another tread, but how often have we seen on TV people who have killed someone either by mistake or intentionaly and wish they could change it or take it back. This is the choice Wallace was presented with and he took it, so yes, he was not a bad guy and in the end he redeemed himself. There is also a lot of talk here about Sheppard and the dark side. It's funny how many people loved the dark Sheppard in Doppeldanger but hate it here when it's connected directly to him. Anyway, people are also always complaining that there is never any background story about the characters especially Sheppard so in reality, we don't know much about him. So, people are willing to be accepting of Sheppard's background as long as it nice and loving and he is a good guy, but bring to the table that he might have a dark side and that's not acceptable? Anyway, he gave Wallace a choice and no matter what the guy's state of mind, since Wallace was not a bad guy with nothing left in his life, he choose to give a mother her life back so she had a chance to get back to her daughter, a choice that he no longer had. Until they brought the Wraith anyway and Sheppard spoke to him, Wallace didn't know that he had an opportunity to change what he had done.

[CalmStorm]

My main issue with this episode is that Rodney was emailing sensitive information to Jeannie. Beyond being stupid, it just seems implausible.

As this episode pointed out, anyone with the knowledge and desire to do so, can tap into email. They had been monitoring Jeannie's emails for months. It would make more sense that if McKay needed his sisters help with something, that she could be transported to the SGC to work on it. It just borders on the unbelievable that that kind of information was emailed out of Atlantis, beyond the SGC, to a family members email.

[Sue_Jackson]

From Joe Mallozzi's Blog:

Wow. The debate on this Miller’s Crossing - and the last ten minutes in particular - reminds me of a similarly animated writer’s room discussion on, coincidentally enough, Miller’s Crossing - and the last ten minutes in particular.

As some of you have already mentioned, the episode was all about choices, self-sacrifice, and how far one should go to save someone they care for. In the case of all three major players in last night’s episode, the answer is: as far as they need to. Yes, what Sheppard did was dark and no doubt morally objectionable to some, but the fact is he didn’t force Wallace’s hand. He presented the dilemma and, ultimately, left the decision with Wallace. As for Wallace - in my mind, his fate was sealed the second he injected McKay’s sister with the nanites. In the end, he realized that there was only one way to undo the mistake he had made. His death was an act of redemption.

I understand more now.

[Falcon Horus]

I understand more now.

I don't. But that's okay, cause I don't need to understand it.

[Uber]

Not just that however --

by kidnapping Rodney, whether Wallace himself realized the full implications of this action or not -- Wallace in effect jeopardized Atlantis by kidnapping Rodney, and by extension, possibly jeopardized Earth as well.

Morjana

Yep. But more than that even.

McKay and Todd (more McKay than Todd it looks at the beginning) were working on deactivating the Asuran attack code. By the way...it irritates me that McKay is stubbornly trying to do it without accepting the aid of anyone and everyone that can help. They are on a clock here and it's time to set aside his petty issues. The longer they diddle around, the more worlds are decimated by the Asurans.

At any rate, McKay had to be recalled because of his sister...and Todd had to be brought to earth to save Jeannie from the nanites...and in the interim, how many worlds were destroyed by the Asurans? With their directive in place and with a sound strategy to rid the galaxy of the Wraith's food source (and since they have no love for humans to begin with)...there's no reason to believe they've stopped killing countless thousands/millions.

And then Todd became weak and could not continue. Again I ask...what are the alternatives to feeding a starving Wraith? I know of only one solution. It's not pretty, but it is a reality. In order to save him, someone has to die.

They need Todd, not only for Jeannie's sake but also to help McKay turn off this attack code, since we know McKay can't do it by himself. Hundreds of thousands/millions of people's lives were at stake.

Wallace might not have known about the threat to the people of the Pegasus galaxy, but he did recognize his own guilt in putting Jeannie in harm's way. He knew she'd die and he knew he'd be able to undo what he did. With nothing left to live for and with a desire to fix the harm he caused, he sacrificed himself.

Oh...for those who think that Wallace didn't know they were deadly, I'd advise you to watch this episode again. Per Wallace himself...the nanites were doing harm and not good and now his time with his daughter was shortened because he used them. McKay asked for motivation to help and Wallace gave it to him...by infecting his sister and putting her on the same dangerous countdown that his daughter was on. He didn't care he was killing her...he needed that fear as leverage to get what he wanted. If she and McKay succeeded, then she'd live. If she failed, well his daughter would have died and he knew his freedom and the life he knew was forfeit.

[jckfan55]

From Joe Mallozzi's Blog:


I understand more now.

I could see that they were *trying* to do the redemption thing with Wallace, I just don't think they pulled it off very well.

[kurya]

In terms of the email thing.... it was probably a dedicated Stargate computer, and not the email in the normal , oh look what popped in my hotmail account. It is done all the time, to have dedicated servers and dedicated lines for encrypted information... the "email" was probably not sent over the internet but on their dedicated servers. It can be surmised from season 3 that Jeannie was probably continuing her consultant position with the SGC and essentially her brother. Especially since she was given high level access to SGC stuff. THis would be

To hack into her "email" communications is not something a mundane normal hacker could do, but someone with resources like one of the companies contracted to do work for the SGC. This was probably done over their intranet, and not over the general internet.

Prakash

[Pocus]

<snip for space>

He (Wallace) wasn't a monster, he was a desperate man who crossed the line. Was Sheppard? Possibly. But, the difference is that Sheppard laid out a situation for Wallace, he didn't make him do anything, he gave Wallace the opportunity, the choice to reverse what he had done to Jeanie. Wallace didn't give Jeannie a choice, he injected her and used her to motivate her and McKay to help him.

Thanks Linzi for this paragraph. I think this sums up what has been running around in my mind since I watched this ep. It took me a long time and a few watchings and much reading on this thread to figure out my feelings and you managed to sum them up in a few sentences.

Both Wallace's situation and Sheppard's choice make each of us think "What would I do?" There is no right or wrong answer or feeling or thought on this situation because each person is going to make up their own mind based on personal beliefs, values and experiences.

I must say that I am loving the discussion going on. There is a lot of back and forth talk, but that is exactly what it is --talk. I love how people are explaining their POV and making rebuttal's to the opposite views.

Either the mods are hard at work or this ep has made all the little gray cells go into overtime.

[norak1]

1) The treatment of McKay's character was really awful. Eveyone including people who claim to love him, I'm looking at you sister McKay!, all blame Rodney for something that was clearly out of his control. And the end with Ginny (don't know if I have her name spelled right) still blames his brother when the audience knows he had been willing to not only sacrifice his life for her but die a painful horrible death on top of that to save her. Sure she might have not known that but it made her look really mean. Why is everyone so mean to McKay when he doesn't deserve it?

Hello I'm knew!

well I adore McKay but he really is mostly to blame for a lot this time. At least from Jeanne's perspective. (i think it's spelled like this?)

She gave up academia because she firmly believe her family more important than putting her big McKay brain to work. Aaaand ...Along comes Carter representing the SGC and push Rodney into drafting her into the alien madness. So there he was last year knocking at her door with flowers and a nervous smile....
Yup, me thinks it was her own repressed competitive streak, the: "How could I let you talk me into this you mook!!" feeling and that sibling animosity that makes her lash out at Mer, her less than huggable brother (prickly like the cactus Katie named after him ).

If it was my brother showing up at my door step after years of not speaking, just because he was forced to ask me for help by his boss/peers.....
Dude I will soooo slam the door in his face!!!
and maybe if he begged VERY HARD, cry even!!!! and buys me something a lot bigger than a car I'll think about forgiving him for mixing me up with kidnappers, whichever their reasons are...

I'm not even going there with the moral thingy,
I love dark Shep (not too dark mind you, but just disturbing enough, I liked that about the Captain Mal from Firefly) You have got to be a bit unhinged to work for the SGC period. Not to mention anger a few to be sent in the original 1 way ticket to Pegasus expedition.

I miss Hammond.

I miss the old cowboy, Landry is too... I dunno that father daughter troubles with Lam, is for another show. Something corny maybe... Bad US tv habit of making everything into a father-daughter / mother-son issue

Sorry you dropped off the SGA ride.
Me? I like geeky scifi shows!