Andromeda Episode 18: The Devil Take the Hindmost

Captain Hunt and Rev Bem offer assistance to the pacifist Hajira, genetically engineered humans that are being preyed upon by slavers.

Episode Summary

Rev Bem receives a distress message from one of his Wayist friends, Thaddeus Blake, whose colony Serendipity has been continuously raided by slavers. Captain Hunt and Rev leave Andromeda in the Eureka Maru to offer aid and protection.

The Hajira

Blake welcomes Rev and Hunt with a tour of the colony and an introduction to its peaceful inhabitants, the Hajira. Hunt starts teaching them how to fight and defend themselves from the slavers, but Blake doesn’t approve. He is concerned that because the Hajira pass on their memories to their children, their descendants will no longer be peaceful once they learn how to fight and kill.

The slavers arrive and a huge battle between them and the colonists commences. Both sides have casualties (Blake among them) but the Hajira are victorious and the slavers retreat…for now.

It actually feels like the episode should end here, but this is only the halfway point.

Making Babies

The Hajira leader Tiama drugs Rev Bem and takes him to a cave, where she impregnates herself with his eggs – she wants Magog babies to serve as the colony’s protectors. The eggs hatch and burst out of her stomach, killing her (as what typically happens to Magog hosts). Hunt and Bem are worried that the savage Magog babies will eat everyone in the colony, but because they inherited the genetic memory of their mother, they’re relatively benign.

The slavers attack the colony again, but the Magog babies kill and eat them all. At the end, we’re led to believe these Magog will be the Hajira’s protectors, as Tiama intended.

Beka’s Mission

The B-plot of this episode sees Beka in command of Andromeda on a relief mission. It’s really boring; there’s stuff going on with Tyr and some mercenaries stealing some supplies or something. It wasn’t important and didn’t make an impression, so I don’t really remember any of the details.

Thoughts

Finally we get a Rev Bem focus episode. This one seems to borrow a lot from Seven Samurai (or Magnificent Seven if you prefer), with the harassed colonists learning how to protect themselves. The genetic memory of the Hajira and the repercussions of teaching them violence was probably the most interesting aspect of the story, but it’s not fully explored as the episode’s second half goes in a different direction with the Magog babies.

The slavers were dull “haha I’m evil” villains. No complexity there.

There were a couple dumb, annoying people in this episode, like Blake and Tiama, but on the bright side, they all die horribly.

What keeps this episode from being a total waste are some scenes with Rev Bem, particularly the one where he shows Hunt the photo of his “mother” (the woman whose stomach he burst out of) that he keeps with him, and the sorrow he feels for being the cause of her death.