Stargate Atlantis/Recap/S04/E18 The Kindred, Part 1

"The random nature of this drug's distribution is clear and calculated. It's obviously intended to throw the Wraith completely off balance. They have no way of knowing which of their food sources has been infected."

- Col. Carter

The episode opens with Teyla standing before a funeral pyre, her people around her. On the pyre is Kanaan, the father of her child. As she lights the fire, he turns and begs her to save him...and she wakes up.

Teyla is convinced that her nightmare is a vision, and a message from Kanaan, who shares her gift. When she experiences a second vision, directing her to a specific village, she asks for permission to go and investigate. Although the base is spread pretty thin at the moment dealing with a strange and deadly new plague, Carter authorizes the mission and Sheppard's team goes to check it out. And finds absolutely nothing.

When they get back, there's a message waiting for them from their old buddy Todd the Wraith. He has discovered the source of the "plague" - someone has poisoned the well, so to speak, distributing a drug that makes humans toxic to Wraith, but at a 30% fatality rate. The team has a fairly good guess at what it is: the drug the Hoffans developed way back in Season 1. They also have a fairly good guess at who's doing it: the only person in the Galaxy with a grudge against humanity and wraithdom alike - Michael!

Meanwhile, Teyla has had another vision and returned to the planet with Major Lorne's team. This time she does find a lead on the missing Athosians...and is promptly kidnapped by Michael. He has been busy - not only has he learned to plant false visions in Teyla's head, he has also begun turning the Athosians into hybrids under his control (starting, sadly, with Kanaan), and, most importantly, has altered his own biology so that he no longer needs to feed. But, he says, he's had help.

Ignoring that bit of Foreshadowing for the moment, we cut back to Atlantis, where the expedition has agreed to give Todd all the information they posess on the Hoffan drug. In return, they enlist his help in tracking down Teyla and launch a rescue mission in the Daedalus. They find Michael's secret base, but it seems they're too early. Teyla is still on the hiveship that just appeared and started blasting the Daedalus. Sheppard radios Caldwell and tells him to disable, rather than destroy, the hive - but it jumps back into hyperspace and disappears before they can take out its engines. Teyla is gone.

Before they call the mission a complete wash, however, Major Lorne points out that the people they just fought were certainly guarding something, which is probably worth checking out even if it wasn't Teyla. They open the cell door to reveal...

...To be continued

Tropes
"McKay: Hey, I've been cocooned inside an alien space craft, I've had another person living inside me, I've encountered, not one, but two different versions of myself, so who am I to judge? If you say it was a vision then I believe it was a vision."
 * Pregnant Hostage: Teyla
 * Seen It All: McKay's reason for purportedly believing Teyla.
 * Seen It All: McKay's reason for purportedly believing Teyla.


 * Shoot Out the Lock
 * Starts With Their Funeral: subverted, in that it turns out to be a dream