Stargate Universe ”Malice” Detailed Analysis& Review

Nerd heaven

Following from the disturbing cliffhanger at the end of the previous episode, This one opens with the tragic death of not one, but two semi-regular characters. While Eli tries to handle his grief, doing what he can to help with the situation, Rush goes off in a revenge-fueled rage to kill the Lucian Alliance killer Simeon.

An emotion-filled episode shot in the beautiful Binti Badlands.

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Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 79 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Malice.”

The description on Gateworld reads

Simeon makes his escape from Destiny, sending Nicholas Rush on a vengeful mission to catch him. But Young and Greer must attempt to retrieve Simeon unharmed.

This episode was both written and directed by Robert C. Cooper

And it first aired on the 16th of November 2010

Young is talking with Brody, Park, and Volker. They’re all trying to come to terms with the recent revelations. The bridge, Destiny’s mission, and how much they should trust Rush, keeping in mind that he was responsible for Riley’s death.

Young is being surprisingly lenient on that. “I don’t believe he intended Riley harm,” he says. And that is true. Rush messed up big time. He made a mistake that cost a man’s life, but it was hardly pre-meditated murder.

As Young says, Rush is going to have to live with that for the rest of his life.

The scientists are amazed by the importance of this discovery, assuming it’s true. As Eli says “you have planted false information in the computer before.”

Have you noticed that over the last year and a half, Eli has grown more dubious of Rush, and has less tolerance for him?

They’ve dropped out of FTL in a system. There are three planets in range. One is a wasteland but the other two show promise.

Rush is going to have to get used to the fact that the bridge is no longer his own private domain. That will be a pretty hard adjustment for him.

Nick goes to see Doctor Perry, who isn’t answering. She’s lying unconscious on the floor.

What did Simeon do to her?

Scott has quickly determined that all Lucian Alliance are accounted for except Simeon.

And he’s got a gun. Not sure how he pulled that off.

TJ doesn’t seem to be doing much to help Perry. We learn that this body is dead. That leaves them all fearing the worst for Gin. Nobody knows for certain what happens to the other person when a body-swapped person dies.

They use the stones to check in. And James confirms the worst. Amanda Perry is dead.

That means Gin is dead too.

Wow. I knew this was coming, but in my memory, Eli and Ginn’s relationship lasted a bit longer than this. I didn’t remember exactly how she died. We only really got to see them together for that one episode.

This is heavy.

And heart-breaking.

And both Rush and Eli are beyond heartbroken.

Rush goes on a rampage through the ship, screaming and hitting the walls.

Eli asks Young, in a trembling voice, for a gun.

Simeon’s motivation seems pretty clear. Ginn was telling Lucian Alliance secrets to homeworld command. Simeon killed Perry in order to kill Ginn.

So that was a pretty gutsy move. The show has just killed two semi-regular characters in one swoop. Reasonably likeable characters at that. It’s a big deal. But it kinda hurts.

And now we have a hostage situation.

Simeon is holding Park and orders Volker to dial the gate.

He’s already killed a couple of guards.

By the time Brody gets the door to the gateroom open, Simeon has already gone through the gate with Park. Rush lives up to his name and … rushes straight through after him.

The planet looks pretty desolate, but livable.

Park says that there’s something on her back.

And as serious and tense a moment this is, all I can think of is Doctor Who. I’m sure some of you will know what I’m talking about.

It turns out to be a bomb.

While TJ fights to save the lives of the downed guards, Young gets a team together to dial the gate back again,

There’s a problem. Several actually.

The bomb is an ancient device. So they only know what they’ve been able to piece together about it. Young has learned that Ginn told homeworld security that Simeon knows the location of the Lucian alliance base. His knowledge may be the only way to stop the impending attack on Earth. They need him alive.

Right now, Rush is on the planet, and while he’s currently distracted with the bomb on Park’s back, he has every intention of killing Simeon on sight.

Young and his team can’t come through the gate while Rush is trying to disarm the bomb. At least, that’s what he says.

He has no reason to lie at this point because he doesn’t know Young wants Simeon alive.

Simeon has a shot lined up on Rush’s back. But for some reason, he doesn’t fire. He seems to reconsider when the gate dials. I’m not really sure why.

Rush is on the verge of giving up, abandoning Park to her fate, because he has nothing small enough to remove the bomb.

But then he realises he can use his glasses.

Rush may have his own priorities, as always, but he’s not completely heartless.

Young has a little talk with Varro, the leader of the remaining Lucian Alliance people. He’s the reasonable one.

He assures Young he didn’t know about Simeon’s knowledge of the attack. And I tend to believe him. But he warns Young to simply let Simeon go.” You’ll lose more people trying to bring him in alive. He’s dangerous.”

That, they’ve already figured out.

Turns out there are more bombs. Simeon has booby trapped the desert with them.

Scott tries to reason with Rush. Once Colonel Young is done with Simeon, Rush can do whatever he wants with him. Scott doesn’t care. And Greer says “if you don’t kill him, I will.”

But right now, they have to bring him in alive. Even from so far away, they can still do their part to help save Earth.

And Rush seems to understand. He’s an intelligent man.

But right now he’s running on pure emotion.

Let’s see if he really can reign that emotion in.

After securing Rush’s agreement to play by the rules, Scott allows him to remain.

The location they used to film this planet is pretty cool. I love all the rock protrusions.

I found myself wondering where they filmed this. After all, the Stargate shows were all shot in Canada, and while I’m sure a landmass the size of Canada is more diverse that people would assume, it’s certainly not known for terrain like this. Are there any deserts in Canada? Not that I’m aware of, but I wouldn’t know.

Anyway, it turns out they shot the location stuff for this episode in New Mexico, which is a state of the USA. Air Part 3, and the Atlantis episode Vegas were also shot there.

They’re in a place called the Bisti Badlands.

The sandstone formations were formed by a glacier.

The funny thing is, the cast and crew joked that people will assume it’s fake, that it's CG, or that the rocks were built on a set. And funnily enough, when you see these rocks close up, they do kinda look like they’ve been made out of moulded concrete. But That’s what they actually look like. It’s all real.

Apparently the wind was pretty bad out there, and caused some problems with some of the equipment.

Eli is keeping busy trying to stall the FTL clock.

Volker is struggling with the fact that Simeon let him live. Why didn’t he kill him?

Rush and Scott are talking about the message the ancients found in the background radiation. He points out that Scott likely wants to believe that the message is from God, the creator.

Rush says “well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Rush is implying a complete openness to discovering the answer no matter what. He’ll follow the science, even if the science leads to God.

And that’s actually the scientific ideal. Just follow the evidence with no preconceived notions at all.

Of course, it’s very difficult for any of us human beings to put aside our own biases enough to reach that ideal.

Greer really doesn’t trust Rush at the moment. While Young may have forgiven him, Greer never will. I think he’s almost hoping that Rush betrays them so he gets to kill him.

They’re not going to be able to figure out how to stop the clock in time before the ship jumps. However, they can stop the ship again. It has to remain in FTL for a minimum for 4 hours. At that point, they’ll still be in range of the planet.

That’ll be the last chance. They don’t have complete and full control over the ship, afterall.

Scott spots an animal. A big alien lizard thing, not too dissimilar from a dinosaur.

I love Greer’s first thought. “Is it something we can barbecue?”

In the 90s, I remember that while we might see creatures on the big screen, it was pretty rare to see alien animals or monsters on TV. They just didn’t have the budget for it. Today, of course, premium TV has similar budgets to movies and the results are often indistinguishable. Modern shows like Star Trek Discovery will often give us big CGI alien creatures. Stargate Universe was one of the very first shows to do this. I’m not sure it gets enough credit for that.

Back in season 2 of SG-1, it was such a huge deal when they splurged to give us the folding Horus Guard helmet, previously only seen in the movie.

Chloe is working on equations. She might as well use what she has. It seems she may have figured something out just as the ship jumps.

Rush is overcome with grief at the loss of Perry. He breaks down in the middle of the desert and cries.

He’s blaming himself. He brought her on board.

Scott tries to console Rush, saying that even if they don’t find Simeon, he’ll probably die a miserable death on this world. But he has a kino remote. He’ll probably wait for them to leave and then planet-hop, searching for the other Lucian Alliance people that were left on a planet behind.

Simeon has them in his sights. He fires.

Here’s a question. Is he deliberately just trying to warn them off, or is he a terrible shot?

From where he was, he should have been able to easily take out Greer.

I think it’s just the same story logic that makes storm troopers bad shots.

The bad guys have to miss, otherwise the heroes will be dead.

Eli is not coping very well. He’s biting people’s heads off, and actually acting a bit like Rush, like nobody else is smart enough to do anything. It’s completely understandable given his recent loss. Usually, after suffering a loss like this, people don’t go to work. But he doesn’t have that luxury, and the last thing he wants to do is just sit around.

Lieutenant James’ team is compromised by one of Simeon’s bombs. They have to get their wounded back to the gate, which means less people looking for Simeon.

Rush has found a way to locate Simeon using the remotes. But how long has he known? Greer and Scott are not trusting him.

There’s a nice scene between Eli and Young. Eli can’t solve the clock problem, not any time soon. So he wants to go to the planet and help go after Simeon.

Right now, it’s all about having something constructive to do that will help him get justice and revenge.

Everyone keeps pointing out how unlikely it is that they’ll get Simeon to talk. I’m curious how they’re going to go about that. It’s not like they’re going to torture him. It does seem unlikely they’ll be able to extract the information they need from Simeon.

Young warns Eli that killing for revenge will change him.

They find Simeon. Greer shoots to wound. Rush is furious about this. And while Scott and Greer are distracted by him, Simeon wounds Greer. Now Rush is on his own, tracking Simeon. And it’s time to turn back.

Chloe thinks she might be able to help Eli stop the clock. It’s all about Rush’s equations. She is slowly starting to understand them.

Now, realistically, I’m not sure how useful those advanced equations of Rush’s are going to be here. What they’re facing is essentially a software problem. Trying to understand how complex code written by somebody else works is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my day job. And that’s with the source code. Eli is trying to reverse engineer an alien program written in an alien language. It’s not a physics issue. It’s a code issue.

Anyway, Brody and Volker bring up a valid concern. Who knows if whatever Chloe does will actually be helpful. It’s quite possible she’ll unknowingly sabotage Destiny, allowing the blue aliens to attack again.

It’s a risk Young is willing to take.

Wounded and unable to move very far, Simeon takes to taunting Rush over the radio. He doubts Rush cared enough about Ginn to pursue him like this, so it must have been that other woman. You must have loved her very much.

Rush spots a herd of those animals near where Simeon is limping.

Time is up. Scott and Greer are back at the gate. They have to return to Destiny. At this point, Rush is a lost cause. He won’t get back in time.

Rush really should have learned to shoot a gun properly before getting into a firefight with a soldier. But then, he has another plan. Hisgunshots are just a distraction to get Simeon in the way of the stampeding dinosaurs which Rush sets off with one of the bombs.

The plan works.

A badly wounded Simeon says he has information. Rush isn’t interested. He shoots Simeon in the head, claiming his revenge.

Chloe is clearly not in control of whatever is in her. At least not on a conscious level. But whatever she does helps.

But he reaches the gate to find it abandoned. Or so he thinks.

It turns out Chloe plotted a new FTL course. She brought Destiny back to the planet to get Rush. Perhaps Rush’s equations were more relevant to that.

At the end, Scott asks Rush if he feels any better, having taken his revenge.

He doesn’t answer.

I think we can guess the answer, but Rush doesn’t want to admit it.

I don’t have any first hand experience with Revenge. Not on a scale like this. Oh, there’s simulated revenge, like when you’re playing Civilisation, and another country takes one of your cities, and you want to get back at them, or when you’re a kid and somebody breaks one of your toys.

But an actual burning adult desire for revenge. I’ve never suffered anything from somebody that has given me cause to feel that. Which, I guess, makes me very lucky.

But I’ve heard it from multiple sources. “Revenge doesn’t make you feel any better.”

And I believe it.

One of the most important things that a story is supposed to do, is make you feel something. It could make you feel happy, sad, angry. It doesn’t really matter what. By that logic, this is a very good episode. It had some good human drama, some beautiful scenery, and plenty of excitement.

This episode will leave a number of our characters with far-reaching consequences.

Next time, we have a big arc episode which will bring back some familiar faces, and reveal what’s really been happening to Chloe.

It should be fun. I’ll see you next time for Visitation.

In the meantime, don’t forget, if you’d like to support me, you can check our my Jewel of The Stars series of books. Just go to AdamDavidCollings.com/books or, you can read the first book completely free by searching for Jewel of The Stars on Wattpad.

Have a great two weeks, live long and prosper

Make it so.