Emancipation is episode 4, and it's bad. It's real bad.
We do at least get to see an alien planet again this episode, but the people here are descended from Mongols. This basically destroys the timeline the show has set up for the rebellion that led to the burying of the Earth stargate and freedom from the Goa'uld, but if you care about that kind of thing making sense then you're watching the wrong show.
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| Father and son. |
Anyway, SG-1 saves some guy who turns out to be the son of one tribe's leader, and in return they get brought back to the camp (village?). Everything's going pretty well except for the fact that this society is deeply patriarchal/sexist. In a rare moment of competence, Daniel points out that the Earth culture they're descended from were actually pretty good about women being treated as people and all that, but there's some bullshit about how that's changed because they're trying to protect their women from the Goa'uld somehow?
Result of this, Carter has to put on a ridiculous dress. Everyone is shocked that she's pretty like you couldn't tell when she's in uniform? Jack and Daniel are pretty gross about it, and the main plot of the episode is kicked off by her being kidnapped in the middle of the night by the guy they saved when they arrived. Four episodes in and this is already happening way too much.
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| Her expression says it all, really. |
Turns out he wants to marry the daughter of the ruthless warlord one camp over (Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat movie, whose supposed daughter looks nothing like him), and his plan is to exchange Carter for her. This goes about as well as you'd expect and Carter ends up a prisoner there. SG-1 finds out what' happened and set off to rescue her with the leader of the friendly tribe, who feels just terrible about what his son's done (although not with the concept of selling or trading women in general).
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| Your soul is mine! |
Sam makes an attempt at escape herself before they arrive, but is caught embarrassingly easily. This leads to a painful sequence where Sam has to convince Shang Tsung's daughter that equality is good and flogging disobedient women is bad, done in an over-the-top way to make sure the audience understands which side of the issue we're supposed to be on.
Then the boys arrive and try to negotiate to buy her back, and Daniel makes up some weird and unnecessary bullshit about her being a wizard and also their leader. Surprisingly, Shang Tsung doesn't give a shit. So Jack offers him his pistol, which is such an obviously great deal that he immediately accepts. Should have asked about ammunition first (they have bows so it's not like they don't understand the concept of projectile weapons), but if the bad guy wasn't dumb then there's no way SG-1 could outsmart him.
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| This guy spends most of the episode looking worried. |
With Carter rescued, you'd think that'd be the end of it, but it turns out Shang Tsung is going to have his daughter stoned to death for trying to escape. There's some bullshit here about how he doesn't want to but it's the law so he has to? He's clearly shown no respect for the law and just done whatever he wanted previously, and he's already established as a bad guy, so I have no idea why they felt this was necessary, but SG-1 need this explained to them because they just can't believe a father would kill his own daughter - like as though that's totally unheard of on Earth.
Jack and Daniel are all prime directive about it, but Carter's all "Nope. We don't just leave a teenage girl to be stoned to death by her tyrant father." No one is convinced until Daniel Jackson suggests that maybe there's some local law they can exploit to save her. Of course there is and of course it means that one of them has to fight Shang Tsung to the death, and of course it ends up being Carter. Jack's really patronising to her about it because we didn't get enough of that already.
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| See the family resemblance? |
If you've watched literally any TV at all then you know how this goes. Carter wins and refuses to kill him and the good guys get everything they want, and the bad guys don't retaliate in any way even though they're violent arseholes who've been repeatedly embarrassed in front of their hated rivals. And that's it, episode over, let us never speak of it again.
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| Friendship. Friendship, again? |
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