Season 2, Episode 22:
Die Me, Dichotomy
The crew visit a Diagnosian in order to heal Moya from the damage she suffered during the Depository heist, as well as to figure out how to remove the chip from Crichton's head. However, the neural clone has other plans, and one final trick up its sleeve...
Tropes present in this episode include:
- Aerial Canyon Chase: With a Wronski Feint by Harvey-Crichton.
- Ace Pilot: Harvey concedes that Aeryn is the superior pilot, but notes that Crichton was trained to fly in the atmosphere and is far more capable than expected.
- Batman Gambit: Pretending to be Crichton, Harvey gets Zhaan to share Unity with him so he can break free and knock her out."Hello, Delvian. 10th level Pa'u? Pity. A 12th could break this bond. Time to pray."
- Break the Comedian: Aeryn's death destroys Crichton's sense of humour, and the finale breaks his spirit seemingly for good
- Blinded by the Light: The module approaches Aeryn's Prowler from out of the sun, so Harvey-Crichton can come up in her blind spot.
- Canyon Chase: Harvey flies into an ice canyon to try and shake Aeryn off his tail. She easily keeps up with him.
- Cliffhanger: Crichton is lobotomized, Aeryn is dead, and Scorpius gets the wormhole technology.
- Cruel Mercy: Scorpius to Crichton."You've cost me much, and I do not suffer disappointment well. I condemn you, John Crichton... to live, so that your thirst for unfulfilled revenge will consume you. Goodbye."
- Cutting Back to Reality: At the start of the episode, Harvey appears to Crichton in a mirror, taunting him. Pushed to the absolute limit of his sanity, Crichton smashes the mirror - only for it to reappear intact with Harvey still mocking him; Crichton ends up breaking the mirror about five or six times before Aeryn drags him away, whereupon a cut to reality reveals that he actually destroyed the mirror on his first try and he's been punching the wall behind it on every other attempt.
- Ejection Seat: Unfortunately one with retro-rockets instead of a parachute, which melt through the ice on impact. Thanks to Jammed Seatbelts, Aeryn can't detach before hitting the ice.
- Deathly Unmasking: Diagnosan Tocot wears a face-concealing mask to protect his vulnerable sensory organs from infection, as the same abilities that make him so effective as a doctor leave him with an extremely fragile immune system. Consequently, when Scorpius arrives on the planet to retrieve the wormhole information recently extracted from Crichton's brain, he makes sure that anyone who can help Crichton recover from the surgery is dead, namely by ripping off Tocot's mask and breathing on him; Tocot instantly collapses.
- Foreshadowing: Crais and Talyn had obtained a chip that they wished to show Aeryn. It won't be until "Thanks For Sharing" when its contents are revealed.
- Grand Theft Me: Harvey takes full control of Crichton's body.
- Hope Spot: Aeryn manages to eject before her Prowler crashes. Unfortunately, her chair is coming down over a frozen lake, and she can't remove the straps.
- Improvised Weapon / Ramming Always Works: Harvey lowers the landing gear on the module and rams it into the Prowler, tearing off the top surface.
- I Choose to Stay: Stark says he will stay with Zhaan if she will permit it.
- Like You Would Really Do It: Harvey openly doubts that Aeryn would shoot the module down and kill Crichton. During their air fight, however, he realizes that she actually would if she had to, so he goes on the offensive.
- The Man Behind the Man: The Diagnosan is revealed to have been the one who installed Scorpius's cooling apparatus.
- Mountaintop Healthcare: Diagnosan Tocot works at a medical facility situated atop a mountain - on an otherwise uninhabited ice world. For added creepiness, Tocot's business partner is in the habit of cryogenically preserving dead or dying patients as potential organ donors. For good measure, the isolation and climate made it the perfect place to outfit Scorpius with his coolant system.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Crichton after Aeryn's death.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: "We've reached the end of the old and the beginning of the new."
- Sarcasm Mode: "Terribly sorry. Didn't see you there."
- Scary Symbolic Shapeshifting: Crichton finds himself losing control of his body as Harvey progressively hijacks his brain. In the process, Crichton appears to shapeshift into Harvey, though Cutting Back to Reality demonstrates that the transformation takes place entirely in his mind; from then on, it becomes common for Crichton to assume the coolant suit and half-Scarran appearance whenever Harvey takes control.
- Transformation Discretion Shot: Early on, Crichton appears to morph into Harvey (as portrayed by Ben Browder in Harvey's makeup) and back again; however, with this established, any further instances of Scary Symbolic Shapeshifting over the course of the episode occur entirely through cuts.
- Underestimating Badassery: Aeryn notes that the module is without weapons and is far more primitive that her Prowler. Unfortunately, as she soon discovers, that doesn't mean it can't inflict serious damage.
- Verbal Salt in the Wound: Aeryn is caught off-guard when Harvey takes over Crichton's brain in the middle of an intimate moment, cracking her skull against a wall. When Harvey surfaces again and takes Crichton's module on a joyride, a freshly-recovered Aeryn follows, trying to get through to him via the comms; Harvey mockingly replies, "Little lady! How's the skull fracture?" For her part, Aeryn doesn't even dignify the insult with a response.
- Well-Trained, but Inexperienced: Aeryn is normally Skilled And Strong, but this episode uncovers a critical gap in her experience: her dogfighting's been limited to the vacuum of space. By contrast, Crichton has lots of experience with flying in an atmosphere back on Earth - resulting in problems when Harvey takes over his mind and leads Aeryn on a chase across the ice planet. Harvey is able to use her limitations to perform a surprise attack from above, critically damaging Aeryn's prowler and ultimately sending her on a fatal plunge into a frozen lake.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Scorpius to the Diagnosan (though the next episode reveals he survived).
