Adrift, Pt. 4
After the opening crawl there is a shot of the city drifting through empty space, likely symbolizing how unmoored Sheppard feels currently. We had left Sheppard standing alone and seeming lost as McKay had just walked away from him, and now that the episode properly begins, we find Sheppard seeking out McKay to speak privately with him. It seems that Sheppard is already reaching out for McKay for the fourth time, the difference to the previous times being that Teyla is not there with them this time. The two of them are alone and possibly mostly out of earshot of others, and I have pointed out before how we very rarely get to see scenes of the two of them truly alone and that there must always be some attenuating circumstance to facilitate us getting a glimpse of how they are with each other when they are alone together. This time they are out in a public space where they can be overseen but this is still an intimate moment -- and we can tell because Sheppard does not sound like this with anyone else. Sheppard does not use the soft tone that he does here with anyone other than McKay because it seems as though McKay is the only person in all the world he trusts not to judge him when he is being vulnerable and open.
Sheppard: Listen... McKay: What? Sheppard: You've been making a lot of decisions without consulting me. McKay: I'm sorry -- we're a little under the gun here. Things move fast.
Sheppard sounds very uncertain as he approaches McKay, asking for the man to stop for a moment because while Sheppard is usually fast and McKay likes to take his time, we had seen a reversal of their usual roles as McKay had been scrambling to get on top of their current crisis and Sheppard had felt like things were moving too fast and he did not have enough time to think things through, to see all the angles and figure out exactly how the situation was threatening the life and well-being of McKay in particular. Sheppard cannot seem to meet McKay's eyes at first, having to work himself up to actually looking straight at him. It seems as though a moment has passed since the previous scene even though both of them are still on the control platform, and it is possible that Sheppard had simply taken a moment to get his bearings and was now approaching McKay after coming to a decision. It seems like he had a moment to think things over, and it was with new resolve that he was now approaching the person whose attention he had been bereft of ever since he had called out for McKay from the Chair room earlier, getting no response from him.
Sheppard begins with "Listen," in contrast to the "Look," that McKay often begins what he has to say that seems to have created a Pavlovian response in Sheppard (and many others in the city) since McKay often uses it to preface something of critical importance, something he needs others to understand because their lives may depend on it. Sheppard choosing "Listen" instead betrays the fact that he needs to be heard by McKay even though he is speaking in a soft and quiet voice, vulnerable and genuine in a way that we rarely if ever see Sheppard be with anyone else. It seems as though Sheppard trusts McKay enough to allow the man to see him for who he really is -- for the most part -- trusting that McKay will not make fun of him and will not use his earnestness against him. It is not easy for Sheppard to be open and to bare himself the way he does here, and he must have come to some conclusion in the time he had spent thinking this thing through -- figuring that since he had been unable to get McKay to focus on him by being forceful and making demands that he needed to ask for it instead. Sheppard actually needed to explain himself to McKay, and it speaks of the importance for Sheppard of having this connection to McKay that he had challenged himself to actually do this. This is not a small thing, this is momentous for Sheppard to do because this does not come naturally to him. But McKay is worth it for him to lay down his defenses and actually approach McKay with openness and vulnerability.
Even though McKay is working on something that is probably important, he turns to Sheppard just as the man approaches him and actually seems to give him his whole attention because it seems that the tone of voice Sheppard was using had already invited McKay to understand that Sheppard had something important to say to him. Sheppard had invited him to listen and just like he always does, McKay wants nothing better than to give Sheppard anything he could think to ask for. Whether there actually was a lull in one disaster seeming to follow another, McKay turns himself to Sheppard and looks at him openly, prepared to listen to what ever Sheppard thinks that he should hear out -- at least until it becomes apparent to McKay that Sheppard is blaming him, seemingly for acting out of turn. We have noted before how sensitive McKay is to being blamed, largely on account of his childhood when his parents had hated each other and blamed him, and so he seems to immediately become defensive as he catches Sheppard's drift -- or so he thinks.
Sheppard tells McKay that he has been making a lot of decisions without consulting him, and this sounds like an accusation. Sheppard is saying that McKay has been flying solo and that he is not comfortable with him doing that -- McKay should have been running his decisions by him. The issue of the chain of command between them is not actually very clear, as we are reminded later in the season in Harmony (S04E14) where they tell a little girl who has a crush on Sheppard that they are basically equals while Sheppard is technically in charge since McKay is not a ranked member of the military. McKay is a member of Sheppard's gate team but he is also the head of the science corps and he is the second in command as the civilian authority of the expedition. The chain of command between them would be confused even without a recently ended romantic relationship between them -- and this has always been an issue. This was always the danger, this is why them getting involved had been a risky endeavour from the start, and it seems that now with Weir incapacitated that this was becoming an issue. Or so Sheppard claims.
But we should note here that what Sheppard is saying about what McKay has been doing is not actually true. McKay has not made a single decision in the time that we had been able to see, having only tried to gather information and to understand their problems sufficiently that he could give Sheppard the "How Screwed We Are" report that he expects Sheppard to want to have from him, as per usual. The only decision McKay had made was to let Chuck work on communications while he fried some bigger fish and what ever he had been about to do with Zelenka that he had not explained properly as the two of them had left their sentences unfinished. And this had been the whole problem with Sheppard. He was not upset that McKay was making technical decisions about how they were supposed to achieve their aims of staving off certain death for a few more minutes, which they were all agreed on -- Sheppard was upset that he did not understand what McKay was doing.
McKay did not have the time to explain to him what he was doing, which annoys Sheppard even ordinarily, and it irritates him even more for him to not understand what McKay and Zelenka are talking about amongst themselves. Sheppard knows that he is going to need to make some decisions about how best to keep McKay alive -- and he is currently coming up empty on exactly how to achieve that -- and he cannot make these decisions unless he understands what is going on. It is not McKay making decisions that upsets him -- Sheppard would gladly let anyone else make decisions for him all the live long day -- it is McKay not explaining his rationale to him. It is the same thing it always is -- the thing he had told the attractive chief scientist of the Taranans that he hated when McKay does in Inferno (S02E19). He hates it when McKay does this, when he ignores him.
Sheppard: I understand that, but with Elizabeth... incapacitated, I hate to say it, but... McKay: You're in charge, I know. I'm sorry. Sheppard: Just keep me in the loop. McKay: OK.
McKay tells Sheppard that he is sorry immediately -- not actually meaning that he is remorseful and accepting the blame for having done the wrong thing but as a prelude to excusing his behaviour. Because what Sheppard is saying to him sounds like an accusation, it seems like McKay has to defend himself and to deflect some of the blame, immediately feeling like he is being attacked by Sheppard -- and it is counterproductive of Sheppard to use this strategy because the result is not getting McKay to open up and to draw him closer, which is what Sheppard desires, but instead to get him to put his shields up and try to shut Sheppard out.
McKay explains to Sheppard that he had to move fast because they were "under the gun," again reminding Sheppard of how he is in mortal peril here, and since McKay had been scrambling to save everyone's lives, it had not even occurred to him that he had been doing anything wrong. As far as he had been aware, McKay had been doing the same thing he always does -- he had been trying to save everyone's lives while things had been falling apart all around him, another great vacation getaway in the Pegasus galaxy. He had not intended on stepping on Sheppard's toes here, and it seems to mortify McKay to realize that Sheppard feels this way -- offering up excuses a way for him to protect his ego. McKay's explanation is actually perfectly reasonable and he should not even have to give it -- but Sheppard is not coming from a place of reason here, he is coming from his "serious abandonment issues" and his fear that McKay is slipping away from him, whether or not McKay is on the level about them facing almost certain death here.
Sheppard tells McKay that he "understands" -- and on some level, he does understand that McKay needs to act fast to keep ahead of the curve of disaster, and he appreciates that -- but this is not actually about Sheppard being reasonable and having a rational grievance he is bringing up to McKay here. While Sheppard is being open and vulnerable about needing McKay, essentially asking McKay to play ball with him, what he is saying about Weir being incapacitated and him being in charge is just an excuse. Sheppard does not actually want to be in charge -- he had literally told this to Ellis in the previous episode -- and he would love nothing better than for someone else to be making command decisions. This is not about Sheppard having suddenly realized the role that had been thrust upon him and trying to grow into the role and the responsibility. Sheppard is lying about "hating to say it" because he does not even mean what he is saying here, he is saying all of this just to get McKay to pay attention to him. The only thing he hates about saying this is having to say it at all because he should not have to beg McKay to explain things to him, to be considerate of him -- to pay attention to him.
It is not even entirely clear whether Sheppard should be in charge here. We had seen McKay argue against Colonel Caldwell in The Long Goodbye (S02E16) that as a senior member of the expedition, he should have been in charge with both Weir and Sheppard incapacitated. Caldwell had argued that since it was a military situation and he was ranking military officer, he was in charge. McKay had disagreed with him but he had not felt like challenging him in the middle of a crisis, possibly fearing that he would not be able to get people to accept his authority anyway. But we had also seen in the previous episode how important retaining civilian authority over the expedition was to Weir, and so as this is not a military situation, it is not at all clear who should be in charge here. While Sheppard has de facto become Weir's second in command on the expedition, Weir herself would not want to default the leadership of the expedition to the hands of the military, and McKay is the next in line for civilian leadership.
McKay has a very good case to make here for why he should be in charge and not Sheppard -- but of course he does not make it. McKay would do anything that Sheppard asked him to do, what ever roles they were in. We had seen McKay fire on basically innocent lives at the start of the previous season, he thinks nothing of committing war crimes for Sheppard. As a matter of fact, Sheppard himself has seemed reluctant to tell McKay what to do in the past because he has seen how keen and eager McKay is to do anything that he wants, and his own relationship with his business magnate of a father seems to have taught him that having this kind of power over someone comes with a tremendous responsibility. Sheppard does not want to be in charge here, and he most of all does not want to pull rank on McKay, having tried very hard to vanish the chain of command and power hierarchy between the two of them in particular -- and likely Weir would not want him to be in charge, either. Sheppard should not be in charge of the expedition on a normal day, let alone in a crisis. We need to acknowledge that what he is actually doing here is grasping at straws. Sheppard feels like he is helpless and out of options, and it seems like pulling rank on McKay is the only way he can get the man to stop for a moment, to look at him and listen to him, to connect with him. The only thing Sheppard wants is for McKay to acknowledge him, and it seems like this is the only way he can get McKay to do it -- and it works. McKay does stop, he does acknowledge Sheppard.
McKay immediately recognizes that Sheppard is in charge, and this had never even been in question to him. McKay is in love with Sheppard and lives to serve him -- he is an acts of service kind of a guy who tries to perform tasks to earn the acceptance of people even ordinarily, let alone with the single most important person in his life. There is quite literally nothing that McKay would not do for Sheppard just like Wesley would have done anything for Princess Buttercup, telling her "I love you" with every "As you wish." For all McKay's first "I'm sorry" had not been an apology, his second one is -- heartfelt and earnest. McKay had told Sheppard in McKay and Mrs Miller (S03E08) that he is not very good at apologizing because he is so seldom wrong, but both we and Sheppard have known at least since the time of Trinity (S02E06) that this is simply not true -- McKay is actually very good at apologizing, he is capable of being open and genuine in his contriteness in a way that Sheppard could not be in a million years.
McKay tells Sheppard that he is sorry, and we actually hear his Canadian accent here in the same way that Carter had pointed out when he and his sister had apologized at the same time, and he acknowledges that Sheppard was right and that he had been in the wrong, he had been inconsiderate of Sheppard. He also promises to do better in the future, to change his behaviour in response to this perceived slight -- and he does not just say it, he also attempts to do it. McKay hits every note in his apology, and he also really means it. There is nothing more important to him than having Sheppard's confidence and his love -- even now, even after Sheppard had ended their relationship. What ever Sheppard had thought McKay was doing, it had never been his intention of being dismissive of Sheppard or ignoring him, he had just been too busy trying to save everyone's life to not have considered Sheppard's feelings, since he is under the false belief that Sheppard ending their relationship had actually meant that it was over for him.
Sheppard seems satisfied by both McKay's response but also the fact that for a moment he gets to experience being the sole focus of McKay's attention here, and so he magnanimously lets McKay off the hook with "Just keep me in the loop," as though he were the reasonable one here. This is actually the thing that Sheppard had wanted, that he had been looking for -- he needs McKay to explain things to him so that he can know what he should do about it, so that he can come to some decisions and properly assess the level of danger that McKay is in currently. Sheppard's mind has been filled with klaxons blaring danger ever since he had heard the voice call for medics while he had been in the Chair room announcing that there had been multiple injuries in the control room, and he would not be able to get his cortisol to stop spiking until he figured some way that he could stop McKay from dying with everyone else in the vacuum of space within the next day or so.
Sheppard asks McKay to keep him "in the loop," and Weir actually had said the same words before -- to Zelenka in The Brotherhood (S01E16). The thing to note is that Weir's intention had been almost the opposite of Sheppard -- she had wanted to dismiss him, basically telling him to come to her only when there was something important that she needed to know but otherwise to keep up the good work. Zelenka had chuckled and told her that "You are the loop" since basically there was no one else that he could report about things of this nature while McKay was out gallivanting on alien worlds and did not seem to care about most things that the science corps got up to -- seeing how he and Sheppard had been very much in the early stage of their relationship at the time. Weir had told him "Isn't that a nice thing to say. You're more than welcome to continue walking with me, but if there's something that you need to do…" clearly trying to dismiss him. What Sheppard is intending here is the polar opposite of what Weir had meant to communicate to Zelenka -- he actually wants to know what McKay is doing. He intends on plastering himself to McKay's side until he understands. He intends on being McKay's whole loop even if he has to bend himself into a Pretzel to achieve it.
Continued in Pt. 5