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Stargate SG-1's Nicest Character Has The Most Valid Crash Out In The Series
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The Goa’uld served as the Big Bad in Stargate SG-1, using the near-immortality of genetic memory and lifespans reaching thousands of years to pose as Gods ruling over less advanced species. As a worm-like parasitic species, the Goa’uld weren’t often shown on camera outside of a host body, allowing the show to save on special effects but more importantly, the thought of someone becoming a Goa’uld host was a constant threat after seeing what happened to Kawalsky in “Enemy Within.” That’s why when Teal’c realizes his son is going to become a Goa’uld host in “Bloodlines,” the tension is so high, it’s understandable that Daniel Jackson takes advantage of the situation to murder as many Goa’uld as possible.
SG-1 Goes Behind Enemy Lines
“Bloodlines” is the first time that Teal’c (Christopher Judge) opens up to the team about his family, worried that he’d appear vulnerable if they knew his family was held hostage by the enemy. What he didn’t expect was for O’Neil (Richard Dean Anderson), Jackson (Michael Shanks), and Carter (Amanda Tapping) to lie to General Hammond (Don S. Davis) about a mission to retrieve a Goa’uld larvae, in a ruse that lasts all of 30 seconds, before the Commander authorizes a rescue mission.
What no one counted on, was that a return to Chulak behind enemy lines and going face-to-face with the Goa’uld would result in Jackson briefly losing his mind. While O’Neil is with Teal’c saving his son, Rya’c, Jackson and Carter sneak into the Temple to steal a Goa’uld larvae. They pull off the heist, but Jackson hesitates. He wants to destroy the entire nursery, which Carter talks him out of with the standard “don’t be like the Goa’uld” argument, but it doesn’t work. Jackson unloads his gun into the Goa’uld nursery and kills every larvae inside.
Daniel Jackson Wants To Kill Them All
Jackson’s belief that every Goa’uld in that nursery will one day infect a human isn’t wrong, and while it goes unspoken in the moment, he’s still dealing with what happened to his wife, Sha’re (Vaitiare Bandera). The Goa’uld System Lord Apophis (Peter Williams) forcibly implanted a Goa’uld within her and made her into his bride. He can only imagine how she’s suffering under Apophis, and with that going through his head, his crashout is perfectly valid.
Granted, in the next scene with the two, Carter barely hesitates before a perfectly timed grenade triple-kill on Jaffa guards. Her hesitation over killing the larvae was that they were helpless, otherwise, she has no qualms with blowing away the enemy. Given that the Goa’uld are pure evil with no redeeming qualities, and that yes, the universe is better without them in it, by the time Season 5 rolls around, anyone from Stargate Command wouldn’t hesitate to blow up every Goa’uld nursery they come across.
Stargate SG-1 often puts the team in a position to make the hard choices. Teal’c makes one of his own when he purposely implants a larvae inside Rya’c to save his life, followed immediately by another when he leaves his family behind. Killing Goa’uld isn’t one of those hard choices. Trying to not kill the host, that becomes a problem, but credit the writers for developing an alien race so vile and insidious, no one is rooting for them.