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“Defiance” recap (1.08): Scissoring Redux

Previously on Defiance, Stahma Tarr stopped by the Need/Want to procure a night porter to teach her virgin alien son the ways of human female pleasure, mostly so Christie McCawley can one day regale her dad with tales of Alak’s sexual prowess so he’ll know she married well. Kenya straight up laughed in her face because that’s not how human sociology works, for one. And also, Stahma’s real needs and real wants – even though she didn’t really know it when she walked in – were lesbian finger-banging and other forms of unwritten poetry. Irisa continued her transformation into The Lord. Nolan continued making the wrong decision always. And Amanda got herself into an accidental love square with her sister and with Nolan and with an E-Rep ex-boyfriend named Connor Lang of the Douchey Hat Langs.

The Arkfall from last week that got poor ol’ Sukar double-killed has some interesting treasures inside of it. Namely, a human astronaut from the international space station who was supposed to have died decades ago. He’s wrapped up in some kind of embryonic hammock and hasn’t aged a bit. He takes the news pretty well, actually, even though his wife is probably an old lady now, if she even managed to survive the Pale Wars. Rafe McCawley welcomes Commander Gordon into his home, dresses him up in dead Luke’s clothes, and gets him and Amanda and Nolan good and drunk. All the better for Kaziri to take over their minds and send them on a killing spree in the night. Nolan wakes up to find Gordon strangling Amanda, so he saves her life, and also demands that he be allowed to save her life exclusively from here on out.

This does not please Connor Lang, who is back in town wearing that ridiculous fedora and leather vest and trying to convince Amanda to move to New York with him. He wants to work with her, but also he knows Olfin Tennety – the E-Rep bitch who sacrificed her husbands in that train robbery scheme a couple of weeks ago – isn’t going to rest until Amanda is dead.

Amanda thanks both Nolan and Connor for their chivalry, but tells them that according to her Bible, The Hunger Games, she doesn’t need the protection of a Peta or a Gale because she’s her very own french-braided hero, thank you very much. (The Katniss thing stretches even further with Amanda if you think of Kenya as her Primrose. Imagine her calling Kenya “Little Duck” and see if that doesn’t melt your heart a little bit.)

Commander Gordon feels pretty shitty for trying to murder the mayor, and it gets even weirder when Doc Yewell confesses that he’s not Commander Gordon at all. He’s a clone of Commander Gordon that she made back when she was doing Pale Wars war crimes, experimenting on humans before the Volge even started attacking, really. Gordon thinks of committing suicide, but decides instead to track down his old lady wife, who is hanging up her laundry in the sunset in a grassy field contemplating mortality just the way Terrence Malick intended. They hug it to the tune of Elvis Costello, which is a little on the nose, but sweet nonetheless.

On the other side of town, Stahma Tarr is taking a bath by herself. But it’s not just any bath. It’s the nakedest bath she’s ever taken and also she’s got her eyes closed and her moan on and she’s kind of licking her lips and lolling her head around a little bit. I get a lot of emails from ladies asking how they can know if they’re gay or not, and I guess the best advice I can give about figuring that kind of thing out is: Watch Jaime Murray writhe around in a bathtub for a little while. If you don’t have a visceral reaction that includes shortness of breath, heart palpitations, eyeballs bugging out of your head, and your brain catching on fire, you’re probably  the super straightest person on earth. Or maybe you’re dead or something. Either way, I’m sorry you were not created to experience this pleasure.

Datak comes storming in and is pissed as hell to find Stahma bathing alone – “What will the servants think?!” – but he’s also angry because Kenya just told him she wouldn’t be servicing his Castithan wang anymore. She said she was overbooked, but that one of her other girls was an expert in that six-legged monkey crawl, so he’d be in good shape with her. But really, she’s got some feelings developing for Stahma Tarr that won’t allow her to poke Stahma’s husband anymore. Mia Kirshner is so great in this role I can barely handle it. I love how Kenya has this internal moral code that she’s living by, even though she’s totally operating way outside of society’s ideas of right and wrong. And she has the superpowers of empathy and sexiness, which is only the greatest combination of things I’ve ever heard of. Stahma tells Datak she’ll blow him so he can forget about that horrible Kenya Rosewater …

… and then she hops on over to the Need/Want to get her scissor on with Kenya Rosewater. Jaime Murray is so much more than the most beautiful woman in the world. It’s almost impossible to believe it’s her underneath all that makeup because she’s just so very un-Jaime Murray-like. I mean, I know acting and whatever, but Stahma is the opposite of Jaime Murray, and it’s just fascinating to watch her weave this very Machiavellian web around everything while trying to reconcile her subservient upbringing with the new world of Defiance. It’s the tenor of her voice, her posture, it’s every tilt of her head. She knows she and Kenya are making a time-bomb while making lady-love, but she’s just so into it. The sex, for sure, but also, she’s fully getting off on getting out of Datak’s grip.

Kenya, though, is developing actual heart feelings here, which is scary for both of them. She tells Stahma, so proudly, how she rebuffed Datak for her – which, note, Stahma doesn’t even bring up until after they’ve been together because she doesn’t want to ruin the mood – and Stahma laughs in her face this time because she doesn’t understand Casthian sociology. She goes, “Play the game better, Kenya, or you’re going to get us both murdered so bad.” But then to smooth everything over, she makes out with Kenya some more. And more. And more. And more more more more more more more. Oh, Lord, and Stahma’s back in the bath.

Oh, wait. Sorry. My finger was rewinding my DVR of its own volition, apparently.

Next week: There’s a plague, which means Stahma will need to be extra clean to keep the germs at bay.

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