Adrift, Pt. 2
The beginning of the episode before the opening crawl switches between two things happening at the same time: Keller is performing emergency aid and then intensive care on Weir in the infirmary and McKay is trying to do the same to the city in the control room, both of them doing triage in a desperate attempt to discover what the most crucial injury is that they need to focus on. What is important to note is that often the city of Atlantis has been a reflection on Sheppard, the city matching his emotional landscape -- and it seems that Sheppard is currently a whole mess. Sheppard represses his emotions so hard that we might never get any insight into what is going on with him if it were not for the parallels. And because Weir and the city are paralleled in this episode, both of their condition critical, we should note that both of them are trying to tell us something about Sheppard -- and his relationship with McKay in particular.
McKay had told Sheppard previously that he had the Canadian gate technician working on communications because he had no time to focus on them himself, and we are about to see the communication between Sheppard and McKay get incrementally worse throughout the episode. What they have here is a catastrophic failure to communicate.
Zelenka: I don't think the problem is on this end. McKay: I don't care where the problem is. I wanna know what the problem is. Zelenka: It's in the conduits. It looks like several of the main conduits were affected by the brush with the beam. McKay: Alright, that means we'll need to... Zelenka: Yes, yes, yes. You-you should get the... McKay: I will, as soon as I've shut down all of the... Zelenka: Yes, yes, yes. I will do the same thing.
When the scene cuts back from the infirmary to the control platform, we see that McKay is in contact with Zelenka who is, together with a team, back in the ZPM room. It seems as though Zelenka has been just as busy trying to get on top of things, trying to put out these metaphorical and literal small fires that seem to be popping up all over the place.
We jump in the middle of an on-going conversation, Zelenka responding to what must have been a question from McKay that he does not think the problem is on their end -- and likely this is his honest professional assessment of the situation, even though we have noted before that Zelenka seems to be a lot like Sheppard in many ways, and that Sheppard is much more likely to project than he is ever to admit that something might be his fault. But Zelenka is not trying to deflect blame here, he is honestly trying to get to the bottom of their trouble. McKay responds to Zelenka that he does not care where the problem is (or, and he may not say it out loud, whose fault the problem is, largely because he knows that it is his own fault), he just wants to know what the problem is -- but just as Zelenka seems to zero in on where the problem is that both of them to understand what the problem is, all that the same time. McKay makes a small, almost inaudible pained sound at the realization, able to anticipate that this is going to be a big problem.
We get an exchange that has a comedic beat to it of McKay and Zelenka speaking in aborted sentences, not needing to speak out in complete sentences because they understand each other's meaning anyway, and too busy to complete their sentences anyway. At the same time, Sheppard is making faces, seeming confused at first but then quickly upset -- and for sure McKay would be able to read Sheppard's thoughts right off of his face here, only he does not have time to focus on Sheppard. We see that McKay and Zelenka's communication is exceptionally expedient here, and this is due to both of them having a shared education -- they come from adjacent fields and seem to get each other when it comes to the science. Furthermore, McKay and Zelenka have been working together very closely for three years, in ways living in each other's pockets, so it is understandable that they might have developed a short-hand. It is obvious for anyone to see that they get each other, but what the mainstream audience may miss is how upset witnessing this seems to make Sheppard, and not just because he is sidelined and left out of the loop. It is McKay ignoring him in favour of Zelenka that seems to upset him especially.
Sheppard: Wait, wait, wait. What's going on here? McKay: Every second I waste, we're draining more power. Just trust me, we're doing the right thing here.
For all there may be a comedic beat to the exchange, Sheppard does not find this amusing at all. In fact, he hates it. He hates what he is having to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears here. He does not just hate the fact that he is so obviously having trouble keeping up with McKay and Zelenka, whose intimate working relationship had clearly bothered him before when he had walked into McKay's lab earlier and accused the two of them of harboring unresolved sexual tension and invited them to make out to "get it over with," but he especially hates the fact that this shows how close McKay and Zelenka have become.
This is actually a very important scene, and the comedic beat vanishes some of the impact that carries over to the end of the episode -- what is begun here keeps growing in size until Sheppard finally blows up on McKay later. This is not and never was about McKay making quick decisions as he is trying to save the city -- Sheppard understands that when things are critical that he cannot expect McKay to run every decision by him. Sheppard hates it when McKay does not explain things to him and he hates it when he does not understand something that McKay is doing because it makes him feel stupid and he does not want to feel stupid and most of all does not want to feel like McKay thinks that he is stupid -- which he never has done. McKay respects Sheppard and in fact there are many times that Sheppard has made him feel stupid, as seen for the first time in Rising (S01E02) when Sheppard had calculated the number of possible gate addresses faster than McKay (and perhaps already back in the Antarctic when Sheppard had been able to easily wield the Control Chair that McKay has seemed reluctant to even try outside of having had his evolution accelerated in Tao of Rodney (S03E14), not even after he received the gene therapy).
We have seen before that Sheppard and McKay seem to understand each other exceptionally well, seeming able to at least very nearly read each other's thoughts. We have seen them finish each other's sentences and able to speak for the other man, knowing what the other man had wanted to say, communicating on more levels than just words. We have seen Sheppard and McKay hold conversations where they have not needed to speak words. The two of them have a special connection -- but this may be facilitated especially by McKay's ability to read people around him on account of his trauma-induced hypervigilance, having had to monitor his environment for signs of potential danger in his childhood. McKay is able to read people, and his ability to both read people but also his environment may have been augmented by his Ancient gene to the point that he occasionally seems able not just to read thoughts but actually predict the future -- and no one ever seems to catch on to him doing this, even though we had seen him develop actual telepathy when his genes had been super charged.
The important thing to note here is that Sheppard is jealous. He is upset that he is unable to keep up with McKay and Zelenka's back and forth but most of all he is jealous because he wants this for himself. Sheppard has actually convinced himself that McKay has started a relationship with Zelenka after he had broken up with him, whether in rebound or just to spite him, and observing their intimate interaction is doing nothing to convince him otherwise (while, of course, Zelenka's statement that he does not think the problem is "on this end" is hinting at the fact that Sheppard is projecting about this situation that does not actually exist -- and of course we will learn later that the problem here is that the information is simply not flowing between Sheppard and McKay currently). Sheppard wants this for himself with McKay, he wants the two of them to speak with each other in incomplete sentences with third parties not understanding them and jealous of their closeness, wanting what they have for themselves -- and the ironic thing is that they do have this. Just at the end of the previous episode we had seen how Zelenka had no idea what the two of them had been talking about right in front of him, and it was not a question of the two of them sharing an education that made them understand each other, it seemed like the two of them had actually been reading each other's thoughts.
Sheppard wants to be the centre of McKay's world and needs McKay's focus on him -- we have noted before how McKay may want Sheppard more but Sheppard needs McKay more, being a needy and possessive man in spite of himself -- and for all Sheppard may wish that he was a responsible and stalwart leader now that Weir was incapacitated and he is starting to realize that he is in charge, this is not about Sheppard grasping for control to fill somebody's shoes. Things seem to be happening too quickly for him to even have grasped the weight of the responsibility that had suddenly been thrust on his shoulders -- and it is ironic that Sheppard feels like things are happening too quickly for him to keep up because we have noted before how he and McKay seem to operate on fundamentally different times and usually it is him trying to hurry McKay up and McKay taking his sweet time doing things. But McKay can be quick and dirty when he needs to be, his relationship with Sheppard has taught him the value of the occasional quickie, and so their roles seem reversed as Sheppard is now begging him to wait, to slow it down for him while McKay is asking Sheppard to trust him -- and as much as Sheppard would like to do it, he is simply not able. And, as discussed in connection with Trinity (S02E06), it is not because he does not find McKay trustworthy but because is untrusting. Sheppard is unable to trust.
Sheppard: Tell me what's going on, Rodney! McKay: Long story short, there are a bunch of systems on right now that don't need to be, and given our current situation, they are draining the life out of the city. Teyla: Can you not just shut them off? McKay: Just... wait... Maybe, yeah. Keller: Come on! McKay: Oh, come on!
Sheppard needs McKay to explain things to him, and we have noted how McKay has actually developed his ability to explain things especially to Sheppard, in the way that Sheppard likes him to explain things to him.
Sheppard actually demands that McKay explain what is going on to him now, and we note that he uses the more intimate address that Sheppard often uses when he wants to feel closer to McKay, seeming to be fearing that McKay is slipping away from him here. But do not miss how Sheppard demands McKay to explain himself just as McKay had asked him to trust him, as though in response to this. McKay had asked Sheppard to trust him to know what he is doing and that he would explain it to him later when they have time, but Sheppard finds himself unable to trust unless he understands what is going on, unless he knows for himself. Sheppard's tone is almost whining as he pleads for McKay to walk him through what he is doing and what he is thinking, wanting to be included -- and it is possible that the small child inside of him is feeling like he is being left behind by the most important person in his life when McKay is actually working as hard as he is because he wants to keep Sheppard safe, along with everyone else.
Sheppard also intensely dislikes it when McKay does not explain something to him, feeling ignored and through being ignored abandoned by him -- and Sheppard has self-diagnosed abandonment issues that cause him to frequently over-react in his fear of being left behind. McKay also has a trauma-induced tendency to dissociate in emotionally overwhelming situations, which serves him well in crisis situations but which causes him to focus on his work and to shut off his emotions that may cause Sheppard to feel like McKay is purposefully shutting him out -- and in this scene we see both of their core issues, their childhood traumas, clashing in a big way. On the surface, McKay is scrambling to save the city and everyone in it and Sheppard is scrambling to understand what is going on because he needs to make sure that McKay is safe and that his actions are not placing him in jeopardy. But at the same time, McKay is withdrawing and Sheppard is desperately clinging and exerting control when the lesson he has no learn during this season is that he needs to let McKay go to find that he is always right there next to him, that McKay has no intention of leaving his side.
Even though he is in the middle of it, McKay does take the time to try to explain the situation to Sheppard because he asked, always trying to give Sheppard what he wants because he lives to please Sheppard, he lives to do what Sheppard wants him to do. And again it is Teyla who asks the pertinent question, who is using her common sense in the situation that she barely understands, asking him whether they cannot just shut these systems down if they do not need to be on, and we see that McKay actually seems to stop to consider her suggestion -- her question actually forces McKay to slow down for a moment to think about it. McKay and Keller continue to be paralleled in their performance of intensive care on their patients, underscored by how they seem to speak the same thing at the same time here, and we should note that this is not intended to lay the foundation of them becoming romantically involved down the line.
This is meant to connect the scenes of Weir and the city being resuscitated at the same time, not to show us that McKay and Keller are alike (albeit they are, in some ways, this had already been established at the start the previous episode even though they did not even meet in it -- and this does not make them compatible as romantic partners but rather the opposite) but to establish them as narrative mirrors, just as Weir and the city are narrative mirrors for Sheppard in this episode. While it had been unintentional, both Weir and Sheppard had brought their current lamentable condition on themselves. Because Sheppard represses his emotions so expertly, it has been difficult to see how poorly he has been fairing for a while now -- ever since he had woken up to the grim reality of having shot McKay himself. All of this is fallout from that moment. The bullet had grazed McKay's heart but it had lodged itself into Sheppard's, and it had never left him. The bullet was still there festering.
Continued in Pt. 3
