Recap / Stargate SG 1 S 10 E 16 Bad Guys

"This is not how you make First Contact with people!"

— Dr. Daniel Jackson

SG-1 inadvertently gates to a planet where the stargate is a museum piece without a working DHD, leaving them stranded, and the situation becomes worse when they're mistaken for anti-government rebels by people attending a party inside the museum. The team decide to play the part of the rebels and hold the partygoers hostage in order to stall for time until they can find an alternative power source for the gate, but encounter yet another obstacle in the form of Jayem Seran, a bumbling security guard who tries to save the day.

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"Bad Guys" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Affectionate Parody: Of Die Hard, to the point where they mention the film by name.
• All Up to You: Subverted and played for laughs with Jayem thinking it's up to him to foil the "terrorists", despite the negotiator explicitly warning him to stay out of the way.
• Bottle Episode: Takes place almost entirely inside the museum.
• Call-Back: The Goa'uld bomb that Vala jury-rigs as an alternative power source to manually dial the gate is of similar design to the one from "Resurrection".
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Lampshaded when two female hostages get into an argument over some guy while they're being held at gunpoint by armed "rebels", prompting Daniel to question what the hell they're playing at.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: Somewhat subverted by Vala when the team needs to liberate a naquadah bomb from one of the museum exhibits in order to power the gate. She plays this up and proudly boasts of her reputation as the best thief in two galaxies, before failing in her attempts to bypass the security system. Mitchell accuses her of showing off and rushing the job.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The team initially travels to the planet of the week in search of the Clava Thessara Infinitus.
  • Mitchell points out that the last time they went hunting for Ancient treasure was what got them involved in the whole Ori mess to begin with.
  • It's mentioned that Carter is in Washington briefing President Hayes on the alternate universe she recently experienced.
• Crazy-Prepared: Lampshaded when Vala nonchalantly produces a glass cutting tool in order to liberate the bomb.
  Mitchell: You just happen to carry one of those around with you?
  Vala: One must always be prepared to liberate treasure, Cameron.
• "Die Hard" on an X: Die Hard in an alien museum, with the twist that the heroes are posing as the bad guys and the John McClane wannabe is a bumbling security guard. Lampshaded, of course:
  Mitchell: We've got ourselves a bit of a John McClane here.
  Daniel: What? What are you talking about?
  Teal'c: Die Hard.
• Didn't See That Coming: SGC procedure is to send a MALP ahead to look for a DHD, so the team sent through won't be stranded. The idea that someone would have a working stargate and a recreation of a DHD wasn't something they ever considered. Apparently, the MALP didn't travel very far either, or the SGC would have quickly figured out that the gate is housed in a museum.
• Failed a Spot Check: Jayem fails to notice Mitchell and Vala for several seconds when they're standing about two feet away pointing their weapons at him.
• First Contact: From the perspective of the natives. Mitchell makes it a point to state that the official SGC protocol for first contact situations with relatively advanced cultures is to send a MALP first and only follow it up with a visit from an SG team if the natives are comfortable with the idea, which is what they would have done here had they known what they were walking into.
• Idiot Ball: The normally sensible SG-1 decide the best way to resolve the situation is to just go along with the native people's belief they're terrorists. In fairness, they do try and explain the situation at first, but the natives don't believe them, but that's no excuse for their continued deception. Especially since the ending shows that if they'd just stuck to explaining the situation and waited, the natives would've let them go in peace.
• Kirk Summation: Mitchell gives one at the end of the episode to convince Quartus to let the team go, insisting that they could still be allies despite the misunderstanding.
• Lockdown: During the initial confusion when the team is first mistaken for rebels, one of the guards shoots a glass display case, triggering the museum's security systems and locking the building down.
• Lord Error-Prone: Jayem Seran, who is Wrong Genre Savvy and, as Lampshaded, thinks he's playing the role of The Hero in a "Die Hard" on an X plot.
• Love Triangle: Played for laughs with the two women who are involved with the same guy and apparently more concerned about that than the ongoing hostage situation.
• Make-Out Kids: The only reason the team initially get caught is because two of the partygoers sneak away from the main event to make out in a closed area of the museum.
• Mistaken for Terrorist: SG-1 is forced to play along
• Most Definitely Not a Villain: Daniel is very, very bad at pretending to be a terrorist.
  Daniel: What about freeing the imprisoned rebels?
  Quartus: That'll take time.
  Daniel: Oh, absolutely. We recognize that, sir, you take all the time you need. [laughs] Yeah, you run that through the proper channels, you talk to who you need to talk to. We're in no rush.

  So far so good, but....

  Quartus: I'm sure the hostages would disagree with that.
  Daniel: They're fine. We're not gonna hurt them. [Teal'c gives him a look] ... Unless you get cute! In which case there's gonna be killin' and ... whatnot.
  [Teal'c rolls his eyes]
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The security guards at the beginning caused the whole hostage scenario in the first place when they shot a display case, which automatically triggered a lockdown protocol, trapping everyone in the museum.
• Oh, Crap!: When Mitchell realizes the "DHD" is actually a plastic replica and the team are effectively trapped.
• Only Sane Man: Cicero, a research scientist working at the museum, is the only one of the hostages to be remotely helpful and believes the team when they claim to have come through the stargate, having previously theorized that it was a portal to other worlds.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Daniel has no idea who John McClane is, so Mitchell's joke goes right over his head. Amusingly, Teal'c is the one who fills him in.
• Rage Breaking Point: Daniel is pushed into losing his cool by the two women arguing over their love life and delivers a slightly hysterical rant on why this is not appropriate behavior for a hostage situation.
  Daniel: What the hell are you doing?! Stop it!
  Varina: She started it.
  Sylvana: I think you started it when you kissed Harren.
  Daniel: Shut up! Shut up. You're hostages. This is like a life-and-death situation here! Start acting like it.
  Sylvana: Oh, please. You're not rebels. We're not deaf, you know. Everyone in this room knows it.
  Daniel: That doesn't matter! You're hostages, we're your captors. [slaps weapon] We're heavily armed! There's rules, there's a whole school of etiquette to this!
  [Sylvana continues to glare at him]
  Daniel: Don't eyeball me.
• Screaming Woman: Varina screams almost non-stop after discovering the "rebels" until Mitchell tells her to shut up.
• Shout-Out: The episode's title is one, to the movie Serenity. In Serenity, before the heist at the beginning of the film, Mal says "Let's be bad guys."
• Spanner in the Works: Jayem manages to be this to both the team and the hostage negotiators.
• They Called Me Mad!: Cicero is an academic who became the laughingstock of his community after publishing his (correct) theories about interstellar travel. After hearing his story, Vala tells Daniel that he's found a kindred spirit.
• Too Many Halves: When Vala is trying to rig the naquadah bomb to power the gate and discusses the probability of each outcome:
  Vala: There's seventy percent chance that if we dial manually we'll be able to establish a connection, and a fifty percent chance that the bomb will just go off.
  Mitchell: ... That's a hundred and twenty percent.
  Vala: Well there's some crossover where we establish a wormhole and it blows up.
  Mitchell: [into radio] Jackson, you catch any of that?
  Daniel: Yeah, a hundred percent chance we should have brought somebody who knows what they're doing.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Actually averted for once; the partygoers at the museum react to the sudden appearance of four heavily-armed individuals in military dress pretty much exactly the way you'd expect them to react, and all hell breaks loose as a result.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After the locals try to end the hostage situation by sending in troops disguised as medics, Mitchell calls the new guy in charge to complain about them risking the lives of wounded hostages they were willing to release no-strings-attached.
• The World Is Not Ready: After letting the team go, Quartus decides to cover up the true purpose of the stargate for this reason. The end of the episode implies that they ultimately bury their gate.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Jayem Seran believes himself to be the down-to-earth Action Hero lead who will foil those evil terrorists and rescue all the hostages, thus proving his own worth. In truth, he is a bumbling security guard and the "rebels" are really the heroes who are Mistaken for Terrorist. Even his own superiors recognize him as an impediment and instruct him to stay out of the way. He ignores their advice, reasoning that their communications must be compromised.
• You Rebel Scum!: Played for laughs with Jayem calling the team "filthy rebel scum" at every opportunity.