Recap / Lexx S 01 E 01

Season 1, Episode 1

I Worship His Shadow

Severely outnumbered and outgunned, human warriors in tiny spacecraft make a desperate last stand against the conquering Divine Order. In voice-over, Kai, the humans' leader, states that he will one day fulfill a prophecy and destroy the Order, but not today: "Today is the day that I die." He rams his craft into the mighty enemy flagship; while he succeeds in crashing through its hull, the damage to the flagship is insignificant. His Divine Shadow, the head of the Order, personally kills an injured Kai, taking his memories in the process. However, instead of having the body incinerated as an aide suggests, His Shadow decides to punish Kai by transforming his corpse into a Divine Assassin, a near-indestructible revenant with no will of its own.

Over two thousand years later, a low-level security guard named Stanley Tweedle heads to work his shift on the Cluster, the capital of the League of 20,000 Planets, a totalitarian theocracy controlled by priests of the Divine Order. While at work, he inconveniences a forgetful military officer by following procedure and demanding an access code before letting her ship dock. She arranges for him to face a "severe" punishment, which turns out to be three organs, bumped up to execution when he fails to turn himself in on time.

At the same time, an prisoner named Zev Bellringer of B3K has just been shipped to the Cluster to await trial and execution on charges of "failing to perform her wifely duties" and "humiliating her husband in the temple." Via an electronic interface, the holographic judge accesses her memories: An adolescent boy's parents bought her as a gift, but he dismissed her as a "cow," leading her to punch him in the face. The judge declares her guilty and sentences her to be transformed into a "love slave," then sent to serve a seminary. Zev volunteers for the "protein bank," a vivisection process that appears to be standard punishment, but is rolled away to be transformed anyway.

Another prisoner, described by priests as a "truly vicious specimen," has been selected to serve as the next Divine Shadow, which involves the removal of incompatible brain patterns and possession by a whirling spirit. Due to time constraints, the priests decide not to perform the recommended "second vac" on his brain. He wakes up deranged, self-obsessed and risk-taking, and tells the Divine Predecessors (the sentient brains of former Divine Shadows) that he will serve them, the Order, "and myself." When they tell him about the Lexx and ask him which planets he will destroy, he replies that he intends to destroy them all. Additionally, he intends to board the Lexx himself, taking the Predecessors with him. They warn him of a prophecy that the Divine Shadow would be destroyed if he ever left the cluster; however, rather than being concerned, he dismisses the prophecy as a superstition that he means to prove wrong.

Unbeknownst to both Stan and Zev, Thodin of the Ostral-B, a notorious heretic and rebel, has been captured by the Cluster. "Due to the political nature of his crimes," the judge sentences him to be executed in an arena and fed to Cluster lizards, for the enjoyment of the attending faithful. In reality, Thodin intended to be captured: He plans to release a "bugbomb" that will short out his restraints, then to free his compatriots from jail, fight his way to the Special Projects Area, and capture the Lexx, a giant insect designed to destroy planets.

The bugbomb malfunctions slightly as a result of Stan swatting it while it flies to the judicial building's electrical controls; it still shorts out Thodin's restraints, but it causes other systems to fail as well. The Cluster lizards escape, and one of them knocks the robotic head off of the cyborg overseeing Zev's love-slave transformation. Part of the lizard gets caught in the machine just as the physical part of her transformation begins, and it gets absorbed into her reconstituted DNA. Her appearance and libido now conform to that of a love slave (e.g., beautiful and insatiable), but she has a degree of Cluster lizard strength and aggression. She escapes the machine before it can install the love-slave personality (utter devotion to the first person she would see). She tries to trick the system into believing that the transformation is complete by putting the robot head, 790, in the machine. "He" declares that he will love her forever, and, even after she punts him into a garbage can, wirelessly hacks a small sled to follow her around as she attempts to flee.

On Zev's way out, she runs into Stan. The robotic guards, who were not fooled by her trick, recognize and attempt to capture them both. Using both the ongoing commotion and 790's expertise at hacking elevator controls, they survive their initial encounter with the guards, but find themselves on the way to the Special Projects Area, where, the elevator's computer face tells them, they will be disposed of as "useful organic material for the protein bank."

His Divine Shadow recognizes His mistake. To rectify it, he orders Kai to kill the heretics, then has His own brain removed and stored on the Cluster, while his still-animated body joins the Divine Predecessors on the Lexx.

Before Stan and Zev can be fed to the protein bank, they run into Thodin. Thodin has succeeded in freeing all the prisoners awaiting execution, including his allies and an unrepentant cannibal known as Giggerota the Wicked. Thodin is at first displeased to see Stan, whom he labels an "arch-traitor," but softens when Zev talks to him and permits Stan, Zev, and 790 to follow him to the Lexx. En route, he explains that Stan was once a member of the Ostral-B as well, before betraying the resistance, leading to the destruction of a hundred Reform planets, which Stan contradicts: "It was more like ninety-four." At one point, the Ostral-B had the Lexx's genetic code, but the Divine Order took it back when they captured Stan, who was carrying the information in one of his teeth. Rebel spies still managed to duplicate a copy of the Key, a form of energy that lives in the captain's hand, for Thodin; by getting to the Lexx, Thodin will, hopefully, be able to prevent the Divine Order from blowing up the remaining Reform planets. Thodin transfers the Key to a subordinate before facing off against Kai, who kills him and boards the Lexx.

During Thodin's duel with Kai, Stan and Zev try to follow the rebel assistant, and discover him being eaten by a Cluster lizard. The Key leaps out of the dying rebel's hand, and into Stan's, although Stan does not realize what has happened. Zev chases away the lizard with her own newfound ability to scream like a lizard, and they, now accompanied by Giggerota, make their way to the bridge, where Zev figures out that Stan now has the Key. Stan commands the Lexx to take off, but its programming will not allow them to blow up the Cluster or any ship in the Divine Order's fleet, so they try to think of a safe place to go. Stan remembers that the mercenaries who tortured him never learned about his second tooth, and that it's supposed to contain the coordinates to a location inaccessible to the Divine Order. With the fleet pursuing them, Zev knocks Stan's tooth loose and has 790 decrypt the coordinates, which Stan orders the Lexx to find.

While killing the Cluster lizards that are attacking His Divine Predecessors, Kai brushes into the brain of the Predecessor who once killed him. Kai now possesses his own memories again, as well as all the other memories stolen by the Divine Predecessor whose brain he touched. He encounters His Divine Shadow just as His Shadow is entering the bridge and declares his independence, then jumps off the bridge to attack the Predecessors again. His Shadow follows and attempts to stop Kai by firing pulses of energy at him. First Zev, then Stan, decide to also make their way to the hall of the Predecessors. Zev correctly guesses that destroying Predecessors will harm His Shadow, so she and Stan begin smashing them, which gives Kai the chance to slice off the top of His Shadow's skull. The Essence inside His Shadow's head rushes out and back to the Cluster.

The Lexx reaches his destination, which turns out to be a "fractal core" leading into the Dark Zone. They survive the trip, but one of His Shadow's ship follows them. However, the Lexx has lost much of his memory, including the programming that kept him from attacking His Shadow's ships, as a result of passing through the core, and he simply blows up the enemy.

Stan is terrified to find himself in the Dark Zone, which he labels "the universe of depravity and evil and chaos." Kai notes that his own ancestors were immigrants from the Dark Zone, and that he was taught that it contains a few good planets. He advises Stan and Zev to find one.

Kai enters a coffin-shaped cryogenic pod, warning Stan and Zev that he has little remaining "protoblood," without which he would be incapable of animation or thought, and that they should be certain of their need before they reawaken him. Stan and Zev leave him in the pod and go to the bridge, where Stan orders the Lexx to help them find a new home.

Tropes present in this episode include:

• The Ace: Thodin has destroyed 231 of His Shadow's military vessels.
• Action Bomb: Thodin's bugbomb, a flying, talking, grasshopper-sized explosive weapon.
• Action Dress Rip: Zev tears off the lower part of her dress so she can move faster.
• Alien Landmass: A sizable amount of the Cluster's surface either consists of or is covered in large squares, which resemble the pattern of the rubber harnesses worn by Cluster prisoners.
• Almighty Idiot: The results of the priests not performing the "second vac" on the latest Shadow host.
• Ambiguous Robots: Are Thodin's bugbomb, and the clam-shell... thing holding him, animals that have been altered with technology, or technology altered to look like animals? This may be a Cluster aesthetic, since it pretty much disappears after the première.
• Arranged Marriage: Zev's in-laws bought her for their son.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Giggerota's crimes include murder, sixty-one counts of cannibalism, and failure to perform her wifely duties.
• Attractiveness Discrimination: Before sacrificing himself to let the others escape, Thodin tells Zev, "Beauty such as yours should live on."
• Big Brother Is Employing You: Stan starts out as a security guard for the Divine Order.
• Bio Data: The Ostral-B used to have Stan carry around codes in his teeth.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Happens to the guy who gets converted into His Shadow.
• Bystander Syndrome: Thodin frees Giggerota, hands her his breaking-out tool, and tells her to free the prisoners behind her. She refuses.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Stan's status as a potential informant kept him alive in the Cluster despite habitual poor performance in his duties. Unfortunately for him, he learns in the premiere that said status expired five months ago.
• Captured on Purpose: Thodin, by the Divine Order.
• Catchphrase: For the Divine Order, "I worship His Shadow."
• Child Eater: Some of the escaped Cluster lizards eat a group of kids who are on the Cluster to receive awards for good citizenship.
• The Chosen One: Kai says he's destined to destroy the Divine Order.
• Computerized Judicial System: The unnamed rail assisted holographic court with a judge, a defense hologram that switches to an executioner hologram at sentening, and a prosecutor hologram that doubles as a Blood Sport announcer, decided by a Mental Picture Projector instead of a jury and with several 790 series bailiffs.
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom: Carrying criminals to the protein bank.
• Decoy Protagonist: This is Thodin's only episode.
• Deprogram: Kai's memories override his programming as a Divine Assassin.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: The Divine Order blows up entire planets in the creation of its totalitarian empire.
• Disaster Dominoes: The automated judicial system goes from small mistakes to large disasters from Stanley flicking away a smart incendiary grenade the size and shape of a bug.
• Disintegrator Ray: Wielded by both Thodin's heretics and the Order's guards, and, of course, by the Lexx himself.
• Disney Villain Death: Kai slings Giggerota around by the throat and into the gigantic pit below the bridge.
• Doomed Moral Victor: Thodin dies, but Stan and Zev take the Lexx out of His Shadow's control, and Kai remembers that he is prophesied to overthrow the order.
• Establishing Character Moment: For Kai: His introduction as a Stoic Determinator leading a fight against all odds and barely blinking when his homeworld explodes.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Divine Predecessors reside in a massive, black tower prone to lightning-esque flashes of malicious spirits.
• Eye Scream: Thodin rips his Invisibility Cloak out of his eye socket.
• Fate Worse than Death: Part of the love slave transformation for female prisoners is for her brain to be reprogrammed so that she falls madly in love with and is fanatically devoted to the first person she sees after the reprogramming is complete, which would be whoever her owner would be. At Zev's trial, it is explained that the owner can treat his love slave any way he pleases and discard her when he gets tired of her. So basically he could abuse her to his heart's content and she would continue to worship the ground he walks on no matter how horrible he was to her. This programming would hold even if he got tired of her, which would cause untold anguish for her when he abandoned her. This is hammered home when after she is sentenced, Zev begs the judge to send her to the protein bank instead.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Under the Divine Order, you can receive a death sentence for running a few minutes late paying a fine.
• Foreshadowing: You'd expect a human neck to snap, if the person was slung around like Giggerota is when Kai catches her, but hers doesn't. A later episode that she's at least partially non-human and very hard to kill.
• Free-Fall Fight: Between Kai and His Shadow.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Subverted. Stan tries to get it on with Zev when they celebrate their escape, but he winds up awakening her Cluster lizard appetites instead.
• Gonk: Prior to her transformation, Zev was obese and plagued by skin tags and uneven gums.
• Gorn: The execution close-ups.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Stan's higher-ups assess a fine of three organs on him, for insisting that a docking ship provide access codes.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Thodin faces a Divine Assassin alone, hoping he can buy his supporters time to get away.
• Honor Before Reason: Thodin might have beaten His Shadow to the Lexx, if he hadn't taken the time to rescue a bunch of ordinary prisoners.
• Ignored Confession: Stan admits to giving away the Ostral-B codes and tries to deliver a speech on how nobody could have resisted. He directs his confession at Kai, who at this point has no memory or motivations of his own, and could not possibly care less about Stan's backstory.
• Invisibility Cloak: One of Thodin's eye is actually an invisibility device.
• Ironic Echo: After dispatching a couple of Divine Order Mooks, Thodin bows slightly and recites, "I worship His Shadow."
• Kangaroo Court: The Divine Order's interpretation of criminal activity is so broad that virtually nobody can be "innocent" of it.
• Last Kiss: Between Zev and Thodin.
• Last Stand: The episode opens with a flashback to the destruction of the Brunnen-G.
• List of Transgressions: According to the announcer at Thodin's aborted execution, Thodin is guilty of treason, piracy, destroying military vessels, promoting heresy, and "blasphemous self-aggrandizement."
• Losing Your Head: A cluster lizard knocks 790's head from his body in "I Worship His Shadow"; however, since his personality, memory, and power packs were located in the head in the first place, this only affects his mobility, not his capacity for thought or speech. He spends most of the series as just a head.
• Mind-Control Music: Inverted: Hearing the Brunnen-G fight song inspires Kai to rediscover his true identity.
• Mind Probe: Attached to criminal suspects' heads, so that the judge can see their memories.
• Mr. Fanservice: Thodin's only costume is quite skimpy.
• Noose Catch: Inverted: Kai slings Giggerota around by the neck, before he throws her into the pit below the bridge

• Picky People Eater: Giggerota has her eye on Stan's liver.
• Proud Beauty: While trying to break through a door to escape the guards, Zev sees her reflection and stops to marvel at her new beauty.
• La Résistance: The Ostral-B are a plucky group of heretics trying to steal a superweapon out from under the Divine Order's nose.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Both the Brunnen-G and Thodin are literal examples.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Thodin upbraids Stan for betraying the Ostral-B.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Everyone is terrified of Cluster lizards, anthropophagous reptiles that can spin faster than a human can run, possess a weapons-grade scream, grow to be larger than humans, and are used in public executions by the Divine Order.
• Screw Destiny: The new Divine Shadow believes the Brunnen-G prophecy is superstitious nonsense.
• Space Cossacks: Invoked when Giggerota tells Stan to order the Lexx to head for the frontier.
• Space Pirates: Included in Thodin's litany of transgressions.
• Spoiled Brat: Zev's fiancé, whose parents bought Zev as a present for him. He ends up getting a very satisfying punch in the face from his bride-to-be.
• Title Drop: The episode's name is the Divine Order's catchphrase.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Divine Shadow who, instead of letting his minions incinerate the corpse of the one person prophesied to destroy the Order, decided to have him transformed into an immortal assassin.
• Transformation Ray: A beam of light somehow turns Zev from Lisa Hines into Eva Habermann.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Nobody seems to think it's odd that Thodin and his male rebels are running around shirtless.
• We Used to Be Friends: Based on Stan's reaction to seeing Thodin, he and Thodin are this.
• Wetware Body: Are a standard addition to robot heads on the Cluster. Sometimes, said robot heads are, in turn, Wetware CPU.
• The Un-Hug: Thodin shoves Stan back into the elevator when Stan tries to hug him.

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