The Ugly Truth

Infobox Television episode
Title =The Ugly Truth
Series =Farscape


Caption =Stark in the custody of the Placavians
Season =2
Episode =17
Airdate =September 8, 2000
Production =| Writer =Gabrielle Stanton,
Harry Werksman, Jr.
Director =Tony Tilse
Guests =Lani Tupu (Bialar Crais); Paul Goddard (Stark); Linda Cropper (Fento); Peter Carroll (Gahv)
Episode list =List of Farscape episodes
Prev =The Locket
Next =A Clockwork Nebari

"The Ugly Truth" is an episode from the second season of the American television series "Farscape", written by Gabrielle Stanton and Harry Werksman, Jr. and directed by Tony Tilse.

ynopsis

Following a request by Bialar Crais, the majority of the crew of Moya (except Rygel and Chiana) meet with him aboard Talyn to discuss problems he has been having with the rebellious ship. Crais claims that Talyn is becoming more and more aggressive and wants to remove his cannon. Soon after the meeting begins, however, a Plokavian arms trading vessel arrives, which Talyn promptly destroys with no provocation. The crew of Moya attempt to escape back to Moya aboard their shuttle, but are taken prisoner by another group of Plokavian traders who arrive soon after. Talyn and Crais manage to escape.

The traders want to find out and punish whoever is responsible, so they interrogate each crew member in turn. Each relates what happened leading up to Talyn's action, with each account shown through flashbacks, and all differ slightly with one another. It becomes obvious that several of them are trying to protect Talyn or some other member of the crew. Eventually it is revealed what happened was this: Crais was having increasing difficulties in controlling Talyn, so he decided he must replace Talyn's main gun with a less violent holding net, which he was going to buy from the Plokavian arms traders. Crais had switched control of Talyn's weapons to a console, so Talyn couldn't do anything dangerous. But when Stark saw the Plokavians, he got upset because they are evil, so he tried to fire the weapons. To prevent that, Crichton shut the console out, which automatically restored control to Talyn, who fired because the ship had some kind of material forbidden by Peacekeepers to be carried by Leviathans. Talyn felt he was protecting his mother by destroying the ship.

At each person's telling, a little more of the Plokavians are seen, until finally they are seen in the light, and they are ugly, with faces looking like they're melting, acid dripping from them into the thin layer of water that covers the floor of the ship. Finally, the Plokavians decide that they cannot tell who is to blame, given everyone's differing account; this is strange to them because a similar group of their own species will always give one version of any given event. At a loss, they decide to execute everyone. However, at the last minute Stark confesses, because he realizes that he may very well be able to survive the execution by dispersion. He leaves Zhaan his mask, and his face is no longer glowing, presumably because he has sent his energy elsewhere, and he can re-gather it later. He goes to his death, and the crew are freed, while Zhaan looks forlornly at the mask. They all wonder what they can do to control Talyn.

Guest stars

*Lani Tupu as Bialar Crais
*Paul Goddard as Stark
*Linda Cropper as Fento
*Peter Carroll as Gahv

Production Notes

*The narrative structure of this episode is an homage to the Japanese film "Rashomon", which depicts the same story over and over, each time from a different character's point of view. This was also explored in the "" episode "A Matter of Perspective".

External links