"You've made a big mistake."
— Maj. Samantha Carter
Carter is abducted by a dying millionaire named Adrian Conrad who has knowledge of the stargate program and hopes that the naquadah in her system may provide the answers to curing his condition. O'Neill teams up with Maybourne to get to the bottom of her disappearance, but begins to suspect that the other man knows more than he is letting on.
"Desperate Measures" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abandoned Hospital: Conrad has taken up residence in one, partly because his condition means that he requires constant medical supervision and partly so that his team can carry out their "research".
- Anti-Villain: Adrian Conrad isn't really evil per se, just a rich man who's scared of dying from an incurable disease. Same goes for his assistant/girlfriend, who's just trying to save the man she loves. His doctors, on the other hand, are out and out bastards.
- Badass in Distress: Carter is definitely a badass, and definitely in distress. She spends most of the episode while she's conscious trying to escape by herself, and almost succeeds at one point before the rest of the team show up to rescue her.
- Big Damn Heroes: O'Neill and Maybourne arrive just as Carter is about to be killed for dissection. She compliments O'Neill on his dramatic entrance.
- Blatant Lies:O'Neill: You'll be here when I get back, right?Maybourne: Oh yes, Jack.
- Bulletproof Vest: Used realistically when Jack is shot by Simmons (using a handgun). Despite the vest stopping the bullet, O'Neill is still immobilized on the ground in a great deal of pain and requires an ambulance. The typical Hollywood bulletproof vest tropes are averted. One of the shots also hits him in the unprotected arm, and he laments the lack of sleeves.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Maybourne cites this trope when O'Neill threatens to shoot him, although he's well aware of the fact that O'Neill would never actually follow through with it.
- Come with Me If You Want to Live: Simmons delivers a variation on this line to the Goa'ulded Conrad after he shoots O'Neill.
- Hollywood Silencer: Averted; When Simmons shoots Jack, his gun has an attached silencer, but the gunshot is quite loud.
- Continuity Nod:
- O'Neill makes a reference to the Starsky and Hutch aliases that he and Maybourne used previously.
- Maybourne tells O'Neill to investigate user 4574.
- Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: Carter knocks over a tray of medical equipment when she tries to escape while still under the effects of the sedation, and sneakily takes a scalpel that she later uses to cut through her restraints.
- Crazy Homeless People: The homeless man who witnesses Carter's abduction is one, believing her to have been taken by "ninjas" and claiming that he's been warning the government about them for years.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: Conrad is reliant on medical intervention to keep him alive.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite being willing to sell a Goa'uld symbiote to a civilian entrepreneur for unspecified reasons, Maybourne is genuinely sorry to find out that he is inadvertently implicated in Carter's abduction and helps the team find her. Meanwhile, Conrad apparently drew the line at actually killing Carter in order to find his cure, despite okaying the kidnapping and medical experimentation.
- Evil Is Petty: Simmons keeps O'Neill waiting outside his office for two hours while he eats a sandwich, seemingly for no other reason than because he can.
- Friendly Enemy: Maybourne is becoming this for O'Neill, though whether he can truly be considered an "enemy" at this point is probably debatable.
- In the Back: Simmons shoots O'Neill twice in the back; O'Neill never actually sees the attack and assumes that it's Maybourne.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Conrad has one.
- Just in Time: O'Neill and Maybourne bust in to save Carter just as the doctors are about to give her the lethal injection.
- Love Makes You Evil: Conrad's assistant-slash-lover Diana gives the doctors the go-ahead to kill Carter so that they can examine her brain tissue in the hopes of finding a way to extract the Goa'uld, despite Conrad himself feeling that that would be going too far.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: The doctors on Conrad's payroll are apparently just fine with kidnapping and murder.
- The Needs of the Many: The doctor about to kill Carter tells her she'll help save millions of lives with her death.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Averted; O'Neill is shown to be in a great deal of pain and seems to briefly lose consciousness after Simmons shoots him in the arm and torso (the latter was stopped by his bulletproof vest, preventing it from doing any serious damage).Carter: Sir, are you okay?O'Neill: I've been shot, Carter.Carter: I know. Your vest stopped one of the bullets.O'Neill: ...I want sleeves on my vest.
- Shoot the Hostage: Clearly O'Neill's plan when the symbiote warns him that shooting will also kill the host, though he's interrupted before he can do it. Given that O'Neill knows the host kidnapped Carter and that he believes the host also ordered Carter's death its not too surprising.Conrad: If you kill me, you kill the host!
O'Neill: [Smiles] Don't make me! - Strapped to an Operating Table: Carter spends much of the episode this way after she wakes up in Conrad's hospital.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Daniel pulls this in order to get inside the abandoned hospital where Carter is being held, acting like he needs medical attention in order to distract the guards long enough for him to zat them.Daniel: I said, I think I've electrocuted myself, do you have any idea what that feels like?Guard: No.[Daniel shoots him and another guard in quick succession.]Daniel: ...Something like that.
