"Homecoming"
Overall Rating: Excellent
Commentary by:
Michael Shanks – “Daniel Jackson”
Martin Wood – Director
Jim Menard – Director of Photography
The commentary is very informative and interesting. Lots of behind the scene information. The commentary stays on point with what is on screen.
Review:
This episode begins immediately after the events in “Fallen.” O'Neill and Carter return to SGC, successful in destroying the power core of Anubis' weapon. Lord Yu is off somewhere with his fleet, and not there to destroy Anubis. Daniel and Jonas are still on Anubis' ship. Jonas is captured and interrogated (using a mind probe device that reads Jonas' thoughts) by Anubis. With that device, Anubis learns of naquadria (“Shadow Play”) and where to find it – Jonas Quinn's homeworld of Langara. Thanks to the isotope injected in to him by the Tok'ra (“Fallen”), Daniel doesn't show up on Anubis' ship sensors and remains at loose. Teal'c is a prisoner on Lord Yu's ship.SGC doesn't know the current whereabouts of Anubis, and by extension Daniel and Jonas. Then, the Kelownans (“Shadow Play”) communicate with SGC via the stargate, asking for help. Instead of another request for advanced technology of destruction, the Kelownans need help because their world is invaded by a Goa'uld – Anubis.
Teal'c learns from Oshu, Lord Yu's First Prime, why the agreed upon plan to attack Anubis was rescinded by Yu. It turns out that while being long lived, especially with the use of a sarcophagus for healing, Goa'ulds are not immortal. As one of the oldest System Lords, Yu has shown signs of confusion and disorientation for some time, usually smoothed over by the very loyal Oshu. Yu fully intended to attack Anubis as planned in “Fallen.” However, Yu mixed up where Anubis was located and commanded his fleet to go to the wrong location. While Oshu covers a lot of Yu's day to day missteps, he could not directly countermand Yu's order to move the fleet to the wrong location. Fortunately, Yu spends a lot time in his sarcophagus. Oshu and Teal'c form a new plan to take down Anubis – contact another System Lord. Anubis has been making life difficult for all of the System Lords, so an arrangement is made.
O'Neill and Carter go to Langara to check out what is going on there. Anubis' big, giant ship is in the air above a Kelownan city (or maybe Kelowna is a humongous city-state), and after some destruction and executions by Anubis, he makes clear that he wants all the naquadria. The Kelownans had wisely given all of their naquadria to Anubis, but still the Goa'uld was hanging around, with his Jaffa searching Kewlona for something.
Anubis is working on getting his super weapon a new power source, and past experience shows that if successful he will destroy any and everything, starting with Kelowna. After being made aware of Langara's stargate, the Tirania and Andari Federation representatives seriously believe that Anubis is solely Kelowna's problem. They are in danger of getting a crash course in Goa'uld school 101, which is to destroy or enslave all. The Tok'ra trick of hiding Daniel from Anubis' ship sensors is about to expire, at which point he'll join Jonas in being Anubis' prisoner. Teal'c has to extend trust a Goa'uld System Lord ... again. Meanwhile, O'Neill and Carter try to deal with the squabbling representatives of Kelowna's three factions, and there are a lot of enemy Jaffa roaming around. General Hammond authorizes a couple of additional SG units to Kelowna, but sending a full on fighting force is beyond his authority. Things are moving fast on Langara, and waiting for an SGC authorization of a bigger fighting force to go through committee isn't an option.
This episode is awesome. The acting performances and effects are wonderful. What I also enjoy about this episode is the messiness of the proposed solutions as the story progresses. Instead of being neat and tidy, solutions open the door to more problems. Using a System Lord to take down a System Lord, after being betrayed by a System Lord. The three Kelownan factions fighting amongst themselves, incorrectly believing that Anubis will have any regard for Langarans geopolitical boundaries. O'Neill limited in how many SG forces he can muster, while dealing with a Kelownan representative who is looking for a full scale invasion force from Earth. And, with all the messiness, the story is completed in a believable fashion.
Kevan Ohtsji returns as Oshu, and Michael Adamthwaite as Anubis' First Prime, Her'ak. Gillian Barber and Doug Abrahams return as the Kelownans Ambassador Dreylock and Commander Hale, respectively ("Shadow Play"). The regular cast provide strong performances. All in all, “Fallen” and “Homecoming” provide a strong, entertaining start to season 7.
Failures:
There is a moment of highly unlikely serendipitous timing when Carter and Teal'c are facing Anubis' Jaffa, but the rest of the episode is so good, I'm okay with it.
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