"I will not allow my son to become a slave."
Hmm. Not too keen on this one, I'm afraid. It's a shame after what's been, for the most part, a good run of episodes.
The conceit is Teal'c suddenly revealing, after a bit of coaxing from Colonel O'Neill, that. despite claiming to have no remaining ties to Chulak, he does in fact have a wife and son whom he's omitted to mention, and that said son is to come of age within the day, and thus be implanted with a Go'auld larva and thus begin a life of slavery. Ouch.
This, so far, may already be a stretch. The General, quite rightly, refuses to approve a mission to Chulak as it would, sadly, be an act of utter madness, risking all their lives. Yet, after Teal'c goes rogue and insists of going into the Stargate alone, he has an utterly absurd change of heart.
And so the gang return to Chulak, conveniently meeting Teal'c's (interesting name to add a possessive apostrophe on to, is it not?) old mentor after a bit of emoting at the sight of his now trashed former home. And so we move on towards an awkwardly unconvincing meeting with his wife, with whom he has no chemistry at all, and his young son, both of whom are absolute ciphers whose only character traits are entirely linked to serving the plot. His wife has remained loyal to the Go-auld, knowing little else, and worked hard to show her loyalty. She accuses Teal'c of abandonment, a theme which could and should have been pursued further as an agonising choice between family commitment and social conscience.
The ceremony is sabotaged by Teal'c in literally the nick of time, most conveniently, and we find that his son is dying of scarlet fever(!) and can only survive via teal'c implanting the son with the father's Go'auld larva. It seems that Teal'c must now die... yet, in another suspiciously convenient plot contrivance, Captain Carter and Daniel happen to have nicked a Go'auld larva a few scenes earlier. The entire episode is a string of overly convenient occurrences.
We end with Teal'c leaving for Earth with the gang, his now suddenly reconciled wife and son staying behind for some reason, with Teal'c not expecting to be back for years. Is that the sound of a great big reset button being pressed, not exactly my favourite trope of '90s television sci-fi?
And it isn't about anything, not child abandonment, not the ethics of Daniel shooting the other Go'auld larvae, each of which gets no more than a brief mention. The worst episode thus far, and a wasted opportunity.
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