FarscapeWeekly Farscape Tainted Lunch Coup by Clam episode review & analysis Ross Ruediger part 3

Tainted Lunch
A possibly too-in-depth look at "Coup by Clam"
Ross Ruediger ¤ 21 September 2002

Part 1: Pre-Ramble
Part 2: The Episode
Part 3: Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Part 3: Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Men, men, men, men
Men, men, men, men

It's great to be on a ship with men and sail across the sea, oh
We don't know where we'll land or when, but it's great to be with men.

'Cause men can sweat and men can stink and no one seems to care, oh!
We'll throw the dishes in the sink and clog the drain with hair, oh!
(And clog the drain with hair, oh!)

Men, men, men,
We're a ship all filled with men,
So batten down the ladies' room, there's no one here but men!

There's men above and men below and men down in the galley,
There's Butch and Spike and Buzz and Biff and one guy we call Sally!
(And one guy we call Sally!)

Men, men, men,
We're a ship all filled with men,
You'll never have to lift the seat, there's no one here but men!

We're men and friends until the end and none of us are sissies,
At night we sleep in separate beds and blow each other kissies!
(And blow each other kissies!)

Men, men, men,
We're a ship all filled with men,
So throw your rubbers overboard, there's no one here but men!

Amen (pronounced "Ahhhhh, men!")

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“Coup by Clam”, to a degree, comes from the same kind of place as “Dream a Little Dream/Re: Union”. The latter revolved around a planet that was 90% lawyers – “Coup” revolves around a planet in which 90% of the population seems to be homosexual or lesbian (or perhaps it’s just a planet of bisexuals?). How procreation is achieved on Khurtanan goes unexplored, but there appears to be no love lost between the sexes. The whole thing is downplayed enough that if you’re not particularly sensitive to these sorts of issues, you don’t have to pay them much attention and can pretend they’re not there. You know - “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. But they are, and the sharp-eyed viewer will spot the signals.

I liked “Re: Union” a lot, and despite its problems, I liked “Coup by Clam”. I can buy into these silly fantastical constructs without too much difficulty. However, because of the utter ludicrousness of the ideas, one also has to surrender himself to wading through stereotypes. If “Coup by Clam” had been a novel, the emphasis probably would have been placed elsewhere, but as a 45-minute TV installment, we end up with men in dresses. If nothing else, the episode should be hailed for not forcing us to suffer through a story filled with feminine males – these are manly men, doing manly things with guyish guys!

This leads me to my next thought, which isn’t so much about “Coup”, but more of an observation about one of the series’ regulars: D’Argo, and the continued emasculation of his character. As funny as D’Argo having an orgasm via Noranti is, it’s disturbing to constantly see him treated in this manner. Of the 11 episodes thus far in Season 4, three of them featured D’Argo presented in a less than Luxan fashion. Since when did D’Argo become the comic relief in Farscape? Why must he so often be presented as girly or buffoonish? Justin Monjo jump-started it way back in “The Flax”. It was funny – really funny – in “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. It was well done in “Revenging Angel”. By the time “John Quixote” arrived, the joke had already started to go stale, and within the context of “Unrealized Reality”, it was not only unfunny, but also just downright embarrassing. I genuinely feel for Simcoe who, brave and comical an actor as he may be, is slowly losing D’Argo due in no fault to his abilities, but to the writers’ lack of imagination. Bottom line is that Big D is a warrior, and aside from a few choice lines, his character has suffered more than any other this season. Even the “Captain” development carries little weight, as he’s rarely seen making decisions worthy of the title. It should probably be considered a blessing that he went back to Moya and wasn’t put into a position where he could be hit on by a horny Khurtanan.

What vexed Ka D’Argo luckily eludes the rest of the cast. Rygel has what may well be some of his best moments ever in “Coup”: the scene where he impersonates a doctor is brief, but superb; the scene where he force-feeds Tumii the fatal Qatal and bites off his nose is Rygel 101; and lest it be forgotten, it was Rygel’s plan to cross dress and enter the nightclub. Chiana gets some good stuff with the mechanic, and again displays that she’s the one member of the Moya crew who seems to have a genuine curiosity and empathy about the people they encounter. Sikozu gets to lose a finger, Aeryn gets to break wind, and they both get to team up and kick some Khurtanan butt. (Whoever would have guessed Aeryn passes gas? Now that’s character development!) Scorpius, as mentioned above, gets to save the day, but it was disappointing and less dramatically interesting that he wasn’t part of the final healing circle. Instead, he’s last seen in his cell, upchucking the remains of the mollusk.

Barry Otto’s pot-bellied Dr. Tumii is really the only guest star who merits his own paragraph – the rest of the guest cast are minor and each are there to fulfill functions. Tumii does as well, but in a far more noticeable capacity. He’s one of the sleaziest, wormiest, most unlikable villains Farscape has yet presented, and he seems to be the exact kind of threat that Tormented Space lacked in “A Prefect Murder”. He makes villains like T’raltixx and Kaarvok seem not only congenial, but also honorable by comparison. When his eventual fate is spelled out, one can’t help but agree that it’s well deserved and you’re positively cheering as Rygel delivers the punches. There are zero redeeming features about this man, and it’s a credit to Otto’s talent for pulling off such a despicable characterization, especially given the sheer amount of cumbersome dialogue with which the actor was forced to work.

“My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina…they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson.”
– Maude (Julianne Moore) to The Dude (Jeff Bridges), The Big Lebowski

Why bring up Joel and Ethan Coen’s L.A.-based noir-comedy masterpiece? Because there’s a subtle ongoing thread of vaginal references in “Coup”, and Emily Skopov is like Maude Lebowski. Noranti’s masturbation scene was only the most obvious. There’s also the double (triple?) entendre of the episode’s title - ever hear the expression “bearded clam”? Well if not, now you have and I won’t elaborate.When Mekken and Scorpius discuss the female Moya, the officer is clearly disgusted that the crew could “…travel in something so alive. All the filthy bacteria…” Scorpy tells him “Moya is quite hygienic. She is…self-disinfecting.” Insofar as I’m aware, this is the first time this phrase has been used to describe the leviathan. There’s the gratuitous shot of Noranti urinating, which has been hailed by many as hands-down disgusting, probably because it conjures other images. Why was D’Argo not shown nearby doing the same? Because there isn’t a subtle running theme about Johnsons. Lastly when John suffers from the poisoning, Ho’Ock asks him what’s wrong and he tells him, “Cramps.”

Is it unfortunate or simply noteworthy that in the end of an episode in which “girl power” is a running theme that men basically end up saving the day? Scorpy ingests the mollusks to give everyone some extra strength and John reaches beneath his dress – “Do any of you have one of these under your skirt?”

“Coup by Clam” is good. It’s good because it reaches for areas that most televised sci-fi, as a genre, is unwilling to, and the jokes that it’s trying to make are by and large funny. It’s interesting to note that despite the gross-out factor “Lava’s a Many Splendored Thing” aspired toward, “Coup” outdoes it in those areas bit for bit. My guess is that this is the last we’re going to see of this type of humor for quite some time. Topping the gags in this episode would prove difficult, if for no other reason than because advertisers might start dropping out and censors might step in. One gets the sense that “Coup” is kind of culmination of the ongoing attempts to shock and titillate the audience. Ponder how traumatizing this episode would have been had it come out of left field? Plenty of groundwork was laid for it, and it’s less scandalous as a result.

“Coup by Clam” is not, however, great. It isn’t great because the first half drags along for far too long (the second half simply is drag) and certain aspects of the story fail to add up. The Khurtanans seemed pretty oblivious to the quirks of their society – again, possibly there’s some kind of statement at work here, but if so, it didn’t effectively come through. Aside from the problems outlined previously, there are others. Why were Aeryn and Sikozu passed out while Rygel and John were fairly alert? Why didn’t Scorpy require the cure? (Must be that cast-iron half-Scarran stomach.) Why does the cure partially lay within a completely different mollusk of the same color? Surely the infecting bacteria would be specific to each individual clam…which begs the question, what about the leftovers from the first meal and why couldn’t they be used for the cure? You know - the mollusks Scorpius ingested. Why was the female resistance movement so ready to kill two such obviously strong women? Shouldn’t they have at least attempted to recruit them first? Finally, after all the hoo-hah made about Space Madness, how come nobody was ever seen suffering from it? This last one is admittedly on the nit-picking side – perhaps it’s a set-up for an episode later on down the road.

It’s probably best if one just takes the affair for what it is, and not look too closely.

One last thing: oyster. Couldn’t find a way to work the word into the article, so there it is.

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Part 1: Pre-Ramble
Part 3: Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Ross Ruediger is a Texas-based screenwriter and filmmaker. He can always be reached at lynchnut@hotmail.com