Stargate 8x08 Affinity or The Day The Ship Died

[oceana]

I'm very tired, so my apologies if I'm being unneccessarily mean.

I watched Affinity unspoiled, and when I saw the Sam and Jack scene, I thought: the ship is so dead. It was like a father/daughter scene, with Sam asking the adult for help. Jack, who has been through it all, who has been married, who tried the kids thing. And Sam, who is about to do it. Clearly not with him. Not a bad scene, but definitely not shippy.

And then I read my flist, and people seem to think that there was talk about feelings. That they were saying things between the lines. That - god help me - if things had been different, Jack would have been at home, raising kids with SupersoldierscientistSam. (*throws up*)

Excuse me, but are you people blind???

If this had been about feelings, wouldn't Sam have said something? Seeing that this is her last chance?
And if Jack had meant that, had things been different, he would have been with Sam, wouldn't Sam have said NO to Pete's proposal?
Oh wait, no she wouldn't, because it wasn't what Jack meant, and she knows it, and I hope for her that she is finally gotten over Jack, so she wouldn't even WANT to be with him.
So shw wasn't sure if she wanted to accept Pete's proposal. Big deal, most people don't marry just like that. Especially not Mrs. Independent-secret job-life in danger on regular basis-never had a real boyfriend and the others all dies-Sam. That 's what this was about. Sam asking Jack, who has had a family, if working at the SGC and having a family can be combined.
His answer? Charlie. How can people not see that this was about Charlie. If Charlie hadn't died, if his marriage with Sarah had survived, then he would have stopped working. Because Jack, who has suffered the worst loss a person can go through by losing his child, knows how important a family is.

Let's get some facts straight: they never had a problem throwing the Jack/Sam into our faces. Jack/Sam was never about subtlety. "Divide and Conquer", the episode shippers like to point to when they want to prove that their ship is canon, has sure seen many interpretations by slashers in denial, but you can't deny that he admitted to care for her. Yep, he has to say it, because otherwise we wouldn't have understood it. We'D all have thought that it was just Jack's "don'T leave a member of your team behind" thing that made him hesitate to flee from the ship.
And may I remind you of Grace, where they had to have unrealJack say things explicitly that he would never say in real life, because subletly so doesn't work between him and Sam?
So, there has definitely never been sublety in Jack/Sam.
Why in gods name would they start now??? Why wouldn't they, especially in light of how, hmm, "adolescent" that ep seemed in many other ways, not just come right out and say: "If we had been together, if we had acted on our feelings, would things have been different then?"
That's what they would have done if this had been a shippy scene, that's what they do with their twisted view of shippiness in what should better be a shipfree show.
But they didn't. Instead, they chose the one thing that dare not be mentioned on front of Jack: the death of his son, the destruction of his family, a family that, from what we've seen, has been a very happy family. Even in "Cold Lazarus", they enver really talk about it: his feelings and memories are shown through a "clone", because he is unable to face them, to express them.
This is what Sam meant to ask him, but it was the one thing she couldn't say out loud. Anything that would have to do with her "feelings" for Jack, rest assured, the writers would have tattooed it on her forehead before they would have risked any subletly or subtext that the fans might misunderstand.

No ship, sorry.
But don't worry shippers, I'm with you on the Pete thing. As much as I like him, I don't think that Sam loves him. and I don't think she should marry him. She is trying to be super-women again, and she will fail again. All we can do is hope that someone will finally tell her to stop trying to be something she isn't and to start living her own life. No one wil love her less if she doesn't succeed in her relationships. And it is unfair to break poor Pete's heart, just because Ms Carter wants to try if she can ba a good little house wife.

Now, was that too mean?
I don't think so.
If I were mean, i'd make a case pointing out why there is a lot of evidence that "what if things had been different" meant: "What if you hadn't fallen in love with Daniel, what if your relationship wasn't one that you have to hide?".
That would be mean, that would be pouring salt in shippers wounds. But i'm not that mean.
Well, almost not.