This week Stargate Universe tried to heal our wounded hearts from last weeks crazy episode — by trampling a key character.
Everyone was pissed this episode. Rush was mad because Angry Lucian murdered his new sweetheart, whom he'd only just let into his heart. Eli was pissed because his brand new girl is probably also dead, and Angry Lucian is pissed, because that's what he was put on this show to be.
The stand off between Rush and Angry Lucian was top-notch stuff. We especially enjoyed it when Rush Mufasa-ed Angry Lucian with the angry alien stampede. It was creative, clever, and gave us all new aliens to look at. By killing, Rush is taking back the power he lost over the Bridge. It should be interesting to see how this death and revenge will change his demeanor over the next few episodes. It might not change too much, as he had a pretty cool head, while disarming the bomb from "girl scientist's" back (which in itself was actually a pretty great scene). Perhaps Scott will have a lot more to say to Rush after their strange one-on-one on the desert planet. Watching Scott give Rush advice was very odd, seeing as I assumed Rush was Scott's spiritual adviser, from the strange fever dreams he had a few episodes back. Then again, they could be grooming him to take Young's spot by the end of the season.
Let's talk about Eli's anger. Now, I'm not saying that this character isn't entitled to feel angry and lash out in crazy ways, but the whole "give me a gun" thing was almost too out of character for Eli. Plus how long had Eli really known Ginn? No more than a week or two tops by my guess. That being said how long did we know Ginn? Does the possible death of this character really have that big of an emotional impact on the audience? The actual murder itself was incredibly shocking and good TV (man goes into a room, man comes out and the lady is dead. I didn't need to see it, my mind did all the work already, and it's 1,000 times more horrible when I imagine it than anything they could have shown). But I'm not so sure the death warranted a crazy Eli. We will, however, give him the anger he possessed on the Bridge — that seemed much more Eli than actually looking for a gun to murder someone with.
In the end none of us really know what happened to Ginn, and I suspect we won't find out for at least another episode or two. Is she trapped in Amanda's body, or did killing Ginn's body kill Ginn as well? Are they both dead? We don't know. I'm very curious to find out what will happen. I ask this because even though James reported she was dead, we all know the Stargate rule when it comes to pretty characters, plus Joseph Mallozzi hinted that whatever you think happened to Ginn, didn't. So me personally, I think she's coming back.
And finally, the other thing we got a little taste of this episode was more of Chloe's transformation. Why any of them let her into the control room, I'll never know, especially since EVERYONE seemed to have such a ridiculous problem with her being there in the first place. But you'd think the crew of SGU would have figured it out by now that everything on Destiny can be solved with math — especially if it's alien math. They should have just given her some chalk and said, "work it out on this wall, and then we'll copy it if it's legit."
While I didn't love this episode as much as last week's, you have to admit that SGU is finally finding a balance and tempo for this series. They're sticking to simple drama, and infusing each episode with just enough spice, and thus far it's been working. Fingers crossed they can keep this up.