After Carter discovers the location of the Tok'ra in a dream, the team seeks them out to propose at alliance. Meanwhile, Hammond pays a hospital visit to Jacob Carter, whose health is rapidly deteriorating.
First appearance of Martouf and Selmak.
"The Tok'ra: Part 1'' provides examples of the following tropes:
- A Father to His Men: Hammond demonstrates this when he comforts Carter over her father's deteriorating health and offers her compassionate leave.
- Berserk Button: Calling the any of the Tok'ra a "Goa'uld" is guaranteed to piss them off.
- Bizarrchitecture: The Tok'ra can apparently "grow" underground tunnels made out of crystals.
- Continuity Nod: Daniel says that he can vouch for the negative effects of the sarcophagus when the Tok'ra explain why they don't use it.
- Eternal Love: Jolinar and Martouf/Lantash apparently had this, having been together for a hundred years. Carter says that she can't even comprehend it, given that they were in love for longer than she has been alive.
- Generation Xerox: Hammond tells Carter that she is more like her father than she would like to admit.
- He Knows Too Much: At the end of the episode, the Tok'ra reject the team's request for an alliance but refuse to let them go as they now know too much about how the Tok'ra operate. Notably, they don't intend to kill the team, but keep them prisoner until the time comes for them to move their base.
- Heroic Host: When Daniel asks why anyone would ever willingly volunteer to become a host, Yosuf explains that they are given increased strength, knowledge and an extended lifespan, something that many see as worth having to time-share your body with another being.
- Hollywood Psych: Carter likens having to live with Jolinar's memories to having schizophrenia, explaining it to Martouf as "like having a split personality, two people in one body." Though it's a common misconception, this is not what schizophrenia is at all; she's actually thinking of Dissociative Identity Disorder, a completely separate condition.
- Insistent Terminology: The Tok'ra do not take kindly to being called Goa'uld, although they're technically the same species.
- La Résistance: The Tok'ra are a largely underground movement that oppose the system lords; their name literally means "against Ra".
- Mexican Standoff: Between SG-1 and the Tok'ra at the beginning of the episode, when they first arrive on the planet.
- Moment Killer: Daniel interrupts an intimate moment between Carter and Martouf, in a Call-Back to "Enigma" where he did much the same thing with Carter and Narim.
- Nice Guy: Martouf is by far the most approachable of the Tok'ra, the rest of whom seem to veer into Good is Not Nice territory.
- No Biological Sex: It's explained that the symbiotes themselves are without gender, though many adopt that of the hosts they possess and have a preference for hosts of a particular gender.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Carter finds out the location of the Tok'ra base through a dream she has at the beginning of the episode. Justified, as it's already been established that she retains at least some of Jolinar's memories.
- Really 700 Years Old: The Tok'ra are a milder version of this than the Goa'uld since they don't use the sarcophagus, but the presence of the symbiote alone can still double the natural lifespan of the host.
- Ship Tease: Between Carter and Martouf, though it's unclear how much of this is due to the remnants of Jolinar.
- Symbiotic Possession: The Tok'ra claim that they do not take unwilling hosts and that human and symbiote share equal control over the body, allowing for a "truly symbiotic relationship."
- Trust Password: Carter mentioning Jolinar by name when the Tok'ra have the team at gunpoint is at least enough for them to lower their weapons.
