First Strike, Pt. 14
Sheppard is not a good lead administrator like Weir, as seen at the start of the episode, but he is not a good officer either. He is not even a good soldier, as he dislikes taking orders as much as he dislikes giving them. He is a good strategist and he possesses excellent martial skills, but these do not necessarily a good leader make. This is to say that while we find him hanging out with Teyla and Ronon on a balcony now, we cannot be sure where he was when McKay and Zelenka had been taking the city down. He should have been there, even if only as moral support, and only a few months ago he definitely would have been there. You could not remove him from McKay's side when they were facing any kind of a crisis because he seems to understand better than anyone else that McKay is the man to be around when things are going down. And since he was not there, he alternatively could have been directing and advising his troops on where to go and what to do, giving them orders so that they knew where they needed to be and leading by his example. If indeed he has been by Ronon and Teyla the whole time after he had left the control platform when McKay had asked for an hour, it makes it seem like he had withdrawn and hidden away.
Dex: I need to learn some science. Sheppard: What for? Dex: I'm not all that useful in situations like these. If we get into a fight, or we need to break out of somewhere, you know, kill someone, I'm your man; but a laser attacking the city's shield -- I don't know where to chip in.
We find the three of them standing by a railing on a balcony watching the darkness of the sea outside of the shield, and it is not entirely clear which part of the city they are in. They are high up, so it seems like they are in one of the towers, and since Sheppard appears to have moved back in to his original quarters after he had ended his relationship with McKay some time before Sunday (S03E17) where Teyla also seems to live, it is possible that they had picked a spot somewhere close by to their quarters to watch the city submerge. And it is possible that Sheppard has sought out the company of his team mates because while he does not feel like he can be where McKay is, he does not want to be alone either. We had seen Sheppard try to use the two of them as a crutch in Sunday, using them to pass the time when he no longer had the option of passing his time the way he had before -- together with McKay.
Ronon makes a comment about wanting to learn some science, prompting Sheppard to derisively ask "What for?" And it is not that he feels derisive toward science because we can remember that it had been Sheppard who had defended the value of scientists in war efforts in The Gift (S01E18) when McKay had opined that scientists are not fit for the field, they are not soldiers. Sheppard very much appreciates the things that McKay can do and he admires him more than any man he has ever met, but we have noted that Sheppard has difficulty expressing genuine emotion -- he is horrified by the idea that he might authentically say what he means and people would interpret his words in the context in which he intends them. He has to disguise his meaning in sarcasm and flippant remarks, and so he seems to scoff at Ronon's earnest confession -- and we see again how in his ability to open up about his emotions and to let others see him as emotionally vulnerable Ronon resembles McKay. It is also not that Sheppard thinks that Ronon is stupid, although he may feel like the man's talents are better utilized doing other things -- and he feels this about himself also.
Ronon's description of why he thinks that he should pick up some science also betrays the fact that he does admire McKay even as he knows that he has McKay beat on some other metrics, as seen in the previous episode when he had been teaching McKay how to defend himself. Beckett had pointed out in Sateda (S03E04) that McKay and Ronon were like two brothers where one had gotten all the genes that the other had not, and while this was not a very friendly thing to say, it was not inaccurate either. Outwardly, the two of them seem very different to the point of being polar opposites -- but we have also noted that the two of them have many similarities when we look beneath the surface. While neither man would admit it to the other because one's strengths are the other's weaknesses and both of them have suffered such deep trauma that they tend to protect against anyone seeing where they are vulnerable, both of them do genuinely admire the other's skills -- even if, for all we hear Ronon explicitly confess to it here, we have herd McKay refer to Ronon with unflattering names when the other man has not been around to hear it, having confessed to being a petty and jealous man on several occasions.
Let us also not miss what Ronon says about being Sheppard's man -- he can be Sheppard's man when Sheppard needs someone to get into a fight, break out of somewhere or to kill someone. However, when Sheppard needs to break in somewhere, when he needs someone to open doors and hack computers, it is McKay who is his man -- and likely McKay is his man in many other aspects as well. It is not just science that makes Sheppard seek McKay out, as we are about to see in the conclusion to this scene, even if he seemed to have felt like he could not go to McKay while he and Zelenka had been taking the city down earlier.
Sheppard: Well, that's why we're a team, like the Fantastic Four. It's a comic book where superheroes fight crime and stuff.
While Sheppard's initial reaction may have been derisive, Sheppard actually does care about his team members and appreciates Ronon's company, and so he tries to make him feel better even if he does not put much in stock with what Ronon had just said. It is not that Sheppard does not think that science is not important, he does, but he also knows that Ronon has his own strengths that he appreciates a lot, and in fact Sheppard seems to have sought out Ronon to become a member of his team for his particular set of skills. And Sheppard is immensely grateful especially for the help Ronon has been able to give to him in keeping McKay safe and alive.
In trying to console Ronon Sheppard mentions The Fantastic Four, and I have discussed this scene previously especially in connection with Condemned (S02E05). Sheppard's intention is to communicate that as a team they all have their individual strengths and that they are more than the sum of their parts, which is insightful and betrays the fact that he seems to have spent some time thinking about this in the past. We should divorce what he says about them as a team from him using The Fantastic Four, a superhero team from Marvel Comics, to deliver his sentiment. Four members of a team being different from each other but having complimentary strengths and making up for each other's weaknesses goes back all the way to the Ancient Greek idea of the four humours, espoused by many Philosophers. I have discussed the concept before in connection with The Long Goodbye (S02E16), and popular culture has many examples of this in films and shows that have four characters who form a team, and while The Fantastic Four are one such a team, they are by far not the only one. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the women of Sex and the City and Stargate SG-1 are but a few examples, but there are many others.
While Sheppard is later in Miller's Crossing (S04E09) shown to be a comic book aficionado, his choice of using The Fantastic Four to make his point here seems to have extra-narrative motivations, however: guerilla advertisement. The film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) was coming out around the time of this episode and the IPs were owned by the same company -- it was synergy to have the show remind the viewers of the team when the science fiction audience would have been largely shared by the franchises. This is why they seem to spend such a long while discussing a topic of Earth popular culture even though the two aliens seem to have no idea what Sheppard is even talking about, to comedic effect. And yet what Sheppard is saying does fit them, and it gives us insight into his thoughts and feelings that we would not otherwise get to witness. It seems like the comic book is important to Sheppard, and he wants to share something that he cares about with the others in a rare moment of genuine expression of caring for them.
Sheppard: See, I'd be Mr Fantastic; Ronon would be The Thing; McKay would be the Human Torch... you'd be the Invisible Woman. Teyla: I am not invisible. Sheppard: No. No, and McKay's not a human torch.
What Sheppard says to them actually seems to build on their conversation about heroes in Irresponsible (S03E13) when Sheppard had shared that his childhood hero had been Evil Knievel and he had pointed out that McKay's hero -- not childhood hero, his hero -- was Batman, a character of DC Comics, a rival company to Marvel.
The two of them had discussed Batman previously in Irresistible (S03E03), but that had actually not been their first foray into talking about superheroes, as we may recall that Sheppard had expressed his incredulity that McKay would describe himself as Superman, another DC superhero, in The Storm (S01E10). Everyone at the time had assumed that Sheppard was making fun of McKay and his ego -- surely there is no one further from Superman than McKay -- when Sheppard had no reason to want to make fun of McKay at the time, being that he had very much been falling in love in those days. Sheppard absolutely thinks that McKay is a hero, perhaps even a superhero -- he just does not think that McKay is Clark Kent's alter ego. He thinks that another superhero is a better fit for McKay, a hero familiar to him from Marvel Comics.
To make his point, Sheppard casts his team mates and himself as members of The Fantastic Four, and while your general viewer might think nothing of it and accept Sheppard's rationale at face value, anyone who actually knows the comics will find his casting rather odd -- tendentious even. Sheppard clearly has some peculiar motivation for dividing their roles up like this because Mr Fantastic, Reed Richards (whose name Sheppard uses in Travelers (S04E05) as his alias) is a scientist, a man with multiple PhDs and an expertise that matches McKay's. Likely Sheppard's intention at the time had been to debate which superhero McKay was like because he was a bad fit for Superman when he is so obviously Mr Fantastic. It did not make sense to Sheppard for McKay to think of himself as a super strong Kryptonian when his actual superpower is the use of his brain, just like Reed Richards.
The fact that their conversation had started with Ronon complaining about not knowing science is just underscoring the strangeness of Sheppard purporting to be Mr Fantastic, made even stranger for the fact that The Thing, Ben Grimm, was a former USAF test pilot. The two of them were best friends. It seems obvious what their roles should be, Teyla getting the role of the girl and Ronon that of Susan Storm's hot-headed brother Johnny -- if Sheppard and McKay were friends. But that is not how Sheppard sees things here, and it is peculiar. And his rationale here is certainly not because he has a crush on Teyla and wants the two of them to be paramours in this fictional scenario. They actually call attention to the strangeness of his casting in how Teyla refuses the role, pointing out to Sheppard that she is not invisible -- nor does she sound like she wants to be. She sounds offended that he would even suggest it because she wants to be seen, not knowing how powerful The Invisible Woman can be.
Teyla: Well, how come you get to be Mr Fantastic? Sheppard: Because he was the leader and I'm the... I'm just saying that they were a cool team and we're a cool team and they use their strengths to, you know...
Teyla asks Sheppard why he gets to be this Mr Fantastic who just based on his name seems to be the most awesome of these comic book superheroes from Earth, what ever they are. Sheppard tries to explain to her that it is because he is the leader, and we note how Sheppard cannot even bring himself to say that he is a leader because he resents the leadership position so much, harking back to his earlier conversation with Ellis about not wanting to be "The Man." Obviously the fact that Mr Fantastic is the leader of the team is not Sheppard's actual reason for the casting, it is just what he is able to come up when put on the spot.
This exchange lampshades what might be the real reason for Sheppard to cast himself as Reed Richards -- it is not just because he projects his qualities on McKay and conversely takes McKay's qualities as his own but he actually looks a lot like Ioan Gruffudd who played the character in the film, so the Reed Richards that Sheppard might have seen in 2005 when the first Fantastic Four film came out and they had spent some months on Earth does resemble him -- but of course he is too vain to actually admit that he just wants to be the handsome film star playing a superhero. Relevant here is also his reaction to McKay telling him that he could have been an actor in The Return (S03E11), to which Sheppard had a derisive reaction just like he had to Ronon's confession on wanting to learn science here, ever unable to let his genuine feelings show. Likely, Sheppard had found it adorable to discover this about the man he had still been in a relationship at the time, and probably he would liked to have crushed on a handsome movie star McKay instead of constantly fearing for his life as he does in this life. And we should note that Sheppard mentions McKay three times in this scene, again unable to keep the man's name out of his mouth. Sheppard is an obviously bad fit for Mr Fantastic but McKay seems equally ill cast for the role of The Human Torch -- if one does not get how Sheppard's mind works.
Sheppard is not casting McKay as The Human Torch, with whom he has nothing in common as far as character goes, just because he was the odd one out after he had cast everyone else. As I have discussed before, McKay actually looks like Chris Evans who played The Human Torch in the film -- if one squints and is in love. In calling McKay the man on fire we have to acknowledge the fact that Sheppard is calling McKay hot -- because that is what he is to him. Quoting from what I had written before:
But what is interesting is that Reed Richards is also a man with an interest in a pair of siblings. Sheppard explicitly and specifically calls McKay the Human Torch, although he points out that he is not literally a torch. And there is kind of a resemblance between this iteration of Johnny Storm and McKay too. Especially if Sheppard sees McKay through the rose-coloured lenses of a man that loves him. The Johnny Storm of the film has spiky, dirty blonde hair rising up from the temples, dressed in blue. Yeah. While there is some "ho-yay" in the film, there is no particular subtext of anything going on between Reed and Johnny. The plot revolves around Reed getting married to his sister Sue. But the thing is, Johnny Storm is one of the most queer-coded characters in all of comic book history. He has been made canonically bisexual by at least one of the writers but he has also been written as a closeted gay man ever since the inception of the comic book in the 1960s. There is even an alternate universe where Reed Richards married Johnny instead of Sue where Sue Storm was Reed's sister-in-law. And this also establishes Reed Richards as bisexual. Both Sue Storm and Johnny Storm of the Fox IP franchise Fantastic Four are hot. And Sheppard fancies himself as someone that gets to hang out with both of them. This may seem ridiculous unless we recognize that Sheppard sees McKay the way a man in love will see the object of their desire, the apple of their eye. This version of Johnny is like the ultimate glow-up version of McKay, receding hairline and everything.
It is a mistake to think that Sheppard had started casting the roles in his mind from himself, wanting to be Mr Fantastic, and going forward from there, giving Teyla the role of "the girl" and Ronon the role of "the brawler" and then casting McKay with what ever was left, how ever poorly it might match him. McKay and Johnny Storm have nothing in common -- apart from their looks, and the gap in their perceived level of attractiveness makes the notion comic unless we acknowledge that Sheppard is looking at McKay like a man who is in love.
And Sheppard obviously admires Mr Fantastic also -- the superhero who is like McKay in everything but his looks. McKay is very much on his mind here because for all he may have ended their relationship in his belief that this might save McKay's life, he really really likes McKay. Sheppard thinks that McKay is smart and handsome and hot and a superhero, so basically he is all the other characters -- while he himself is uneducated (compared to McKay), barely human and only capable of visiting violence on others, a washed up former test pilot for the USAF and now an astronaut. He thinks of himself as The Thing, even though he would never admit it, someone not worthy of love even though, just like Ben Grimm, deep down he wants to be loved so badly.
And most of all Sheppard wants a family, like he had been confessing to Teyla in Sateda (S03E04). He wants for himself a best friend who is like a sibling to him and he wants a sister in law who becomes his real sister and unlike what he had been lying to Ronon in Sunday (S03E17), he wants to get good at marriage. He wants to be surrounded by people who love him and who won't leave him. He wants McKay worse now than he had before he had given him up because it had never been about not wanting to be with him, and all of that is now tumbling out of him in a confession.
Sheppard: I'm gonna go check on McKay.
For all he may have come here to hide from McKay, not able to bear watching him working closely together with Zelenka when his mind is filled with all kinds of suspicions of what has been going on between them ever since he had dumped McKay having only himself to blame, we can see how uncomfortable Sheppard is as the two aliens look at him scrambling to explain what he means, seeming amused by how uncomfortable he seems.
Sheppard had attempted to say something nice and what he thought was insightful, how each of them bring something to the team and how they all have their own strengths that might make up for some of the lacks that another might have, they all make each other better. Harking back to what Sheppard had said about family in Sateda, The Fantastic Four are also a team who are very much a family in all the different senses: the birth family, the found family and the nuclear family, all together, something that Sheppard feels for the members of his team. Sheppard had tried to be vulnerable and genuine with a pair of people he considers friends, people he had thought would not judge him, but he feels like they are judging him even though likely both of them are just honestly baffled, not following his train of thought for lack of a shared cultural matrix. Sheppard is so self-conscious that he feels like they are passing judgement on his childish and foolish musings when they just genuinely do not understand and probably even want to understand him, they are trying to understand him even if this sounds like crazy talk to them. Invisible women? Human torches? What is Sheppard even on about?
Clearly feeling misunderstood or like he is not being understood, Sheppard then seems to bite the bullet and decides to go find the one person he knows will understand him -- McKay always does. The two of them understand each other on levels that no one has ever understood him and he has never understood anyone like he understands McKay. He would only need to say "We're like the Fantastic Four, right?" to McKay to get the man to agree with him, or to say something insightful and interesting that he had never even considered before, and McKay would not judge him for having a think about topics like this. McKay gets him, and he needs someone to get him right now. He likes Ronon and Teyla, he really appreciates them and their friendship, but sometimes he just needs someone to see him, for all he spends most of his time hiding his authentic self underneath a veneer of cool and unconcerned.
And so he decides to go "check up on McKay," and while he is surely curious to hear whether the scientist with multiple PhDs who often uses his brain to save the day has figured anything out, it was never fearing he might distract McKay that had kept him away, like it had never kept him away previously. Sheppard is afraid of what he might walk into every time he knows he is going to walk in on McKay working together with Zelenka, and he only has himself to blame. But it was time to go see the guy who was keeping the city and all of them in it safe under a powerful force field -- the real Invisible Woman of Atlantis. As much as Sheppard might genuinely think it is for the best, he simply cannot stay away from McKay.
Continued in Pt. 15
