Recap / Lexx S 01 E 02

Season 1, Episode 2

Super Nova

Stan has fallen asleep on the bridge, only to be woken up by Zev chatting with 790. She's asked the robot-head to help her find Brunnis, the now-deserted original home of the Brunnen-G, in the hopes that it will contain something that can help Kai come back to life. Undaunted by 790's claim that it could take thousands of years to find Brunnis, she tells him to get started. Of course, since the Lexx is their only means of long-distance transport, she can't get to Brunnis, even if she can find it, without Stan's help. Zev argues that they owe Kai their lives, but Stan counters that their lives aren't that great, and says he won't spend his searching for "some lifeless rock." Dejected, Zev walks away.

In the pit below the bridge, a hand sticks up out of the mist. It's Giggerota, demonstrating superhuman toughness after being thrown off the bridge in "I Worship His Shadow." She lets out an angry howl as she pulls herself out of the swampy chamber.

Stan interrupts Zev in her shower, ostensibly to discuss ways to get along better, really in an attempt to seduce her. Zev admits that she has heightened sexual desire as a result of her love-slave transformation, but rejects Stan anyway. Later, she checks on 790's progress, and observes Stan pointedly coughing while standing on the edge of the bridge. 790 informs her that Stan is trying to "end his pathetic existence, only he's taking all day!" Stan uses the opportunity to ask for a kiss, which he refers to as a "dying man's request"; Zev complies, but tells him there was no spark. Gesturing dramatically in exasperation, Stan takes a wrong step and falls.

Zev grabs one of the arms, and Stan begs her not to drop him. Zev answers that, if he would agree to take her to Brunnis, she might find the strength to save him. When Stan agrees, she pulls him back onto the bridge and happily takes him to tell Kai about her plan.

Giggerota has found her way into the cryochamber and is attempting to force open Kai's pod to get at the "sleeping meat." Frustrated, she yanks a control console out of the floor. Zev and Stan break in on her, and she decides that "fresh meat tastes better than frozen." Giggerota adds that Stan is "a waste of skin," but tells Zev that "you, girlfriend, Giggerota will eat first."

Luckily for Zev and Stan, Giggerota's rampage has, indeed, triggered the cryopod's thawing process, and Kai wakes up just in time to save them. He subdues Giggerota, whom he and Stan tie up, and tells Stan to leave her on the next habitable planet. When Kai starts to get back in his pod, Zev stops him and tells him about their search for Brunnis. It turns out that he learned the exact location of Brunnis when he was in school. Although he denies wanting to go there, or even having any wants of any kind, he agrees to guide Zev when she tells him that she wants. Stan reacts with dismay: "So, does this mean we're really going?"

The Lexx lands (after Stan's directions nearly kill cause his and Zev's deaths), and Stan, Zev, and Kai head for the Memory Bank, where the Brunnen-G once stored their collective knowledge. The official guide, a hologram, has been partially overwritten by another hologram, this one created by an obnoxious poet who was left behind in the evacuation. The rest of the population relocated to the Light Universe after their sun begin to die; "orbital stabilizers" (satellites around the planet) still shoot bolts of some energy into the sun to keep it from going nova. Kai notes that the sky contains a blue star that he does not recall from his lessons about Brunnis.

Inside the Memory Bank, the crew faces a selection of doors with different emblems: Zev picks the one with a bird, which Kai translates as "burst of life," and is teleported to another room. Kai chooses to follow her. Stan declines to follow, but, after "Poet Man" reappears and goads him to repeat the phrase "I want love!" he gets teleported into another room.

Zev experiences a vision of swirling colors, followed by unpleasant childhood memories. When she was an infant, her parents abandoned her for not meeting "the standard," and the holo-matrons raised her solely to be a perfect wife, without any concern for her own well-being. The guide's voice informs her that her suffering is now over, and her burst of life about to begin. Zev experiences another hallucination, this time of a living Kai dancing with her in a sparkling room. The vision fades away, and machines grab her and strap her to a table. She sees Kai, similarly restrained. The guide explains that she will experience a painless death in which the Bank will copy her memories. As Zev watches, a circular blade cuts Kai in two, and chains raise a thin film from the center through a hatch above them.

Poet Man's machines trap cuff Stan to a chair. He intends to scan anyone who falls into his trap, test them to see if they're female, and, if they pass, artificially inseminate them. However, a burnt-out wire in his scanner causes the program to believe that Stan is a candidate, and the needle approaches a horrified Stan.

On board the Lexx, Giggerota reveals a prehensile tongue that she uses to free herself, then quarrels with 790 until she hears the Predecessors calling her name. They want her to turn off the stabilizers and bring back Stan, but not Kai, so that Kai will be destroyed in the supernova. Since Giggerota only cares about eating tasty meat, their initial offers fall flat, and she samples two of the Predecessors before they come up with an offer she likes: If she helps them, they'll help her find Dexter Nine, "the secret planet of the milk-fed boys," where she can eat her fill of tender human flesh.

Following the Predecessors' instructions, she locates the Memory Bank, rescues Stan, and turns off the stabilizer. She tries to seduce Stan and convince him that Kai and Zev want to stay behind. Stan remains suspicious and says he won't leave without his friends. Stan and Giggerota fight over the stabilizers, with the result that the uneven power drain causes the saw over Zev to keep starting and stopping. Giggerota decides that she only really needs his "magic hand to fly the big bug," rips it off with her tongue, and leaves.

Unbeknownst to Giggerota, the Key requires Stan's voice as well as his hand. Although they can mimic Stan's voice, they tell Giggerota that she has to bring them Stan. She flies back to the Memory Bank, eating chunks of her moth and telling it to stop complaining. Once she sets down, the moth laughs and abandons her to die in the coming nova.

An exhausted Stan blunders into one of the memory films, kept in storage with accompanying discs, in the room above Zev and Kai. The Time Prophet appears, having foreseen this very moment and had instructions committed to the Bank, via the memories of an unlucky pilgrim. She tells Stan where to find the hatch over Zev and Kai. At first, Stan can only look helplessly down at his friends, but then the light from the strange star bounces off a disc and into the operating room, where it awakens Kai, who easily puts himself back together and gets Zev.

The three discover that, even though they reactivate the stabilizers, it's too late to stop the nova. Kai suggests that, since they're all going to be destroyed soon anyway, they might as well go outside to watch the sight. Zev and Kai snuggle against one another, and Zev takes Stan's hand. They watch the Lexx, now controlled by the Predecessors, lift off in the distance.

The nova's light becomes more intense, but as it pulsates, so does the blue star. The two entities audibly introduce themselves as "Brunnis Sun" and "Blue Star." They know that Kai still has a destiny, and, while this is their day to nova, it is not the Lexx crew's day to die. Blue Star sends a beam of purple light to the Lexx, who tells the groaning Predecessors that it is being pulled back by something more powerful than itself.

With the Lexx back on the ground, the crew boards, minus Giggerota, who remains trapped on a stabilizer column and dies. The Lexx flies away just in time to avoid the nova. 790 reluctantly helps Stan make the protein regenerator to reattach his hand, and Kai tells Zev that, if she can't find a way to bring him back to life, then spending his remaining protoblood with her is "what [he] wants."

Tropes present in this episode include:

• Alien Sky: Even in-universe, since nobody knows what to make of the blue star.
• Ambiguously Human: Giggerota might be an alien, or she might be Transhuman, but she's definitely not a standard-issue human.
• Asshole Victim: The universe might be better off if Giggerota had gnawed on more of the Predecessors.
• Auto-Doc: This episode includes our first look at the protein regenerator.
• Beautiful Void: The Brunnen-G left behind architecture befitting a race of warrior-poets.
• Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Giggerota and the Predecessors try to use Stan's hand to control the Lexx. When it turns out to require his voice too Giggerota leaves to fetch him but the Predecessors telepathically replicate Stan's voice and leave her behind.
• Brainwashing: The main purpose of the Wife Bank is to focus all its charges' interest on becoming good wives.
• Camp Straight: Poet Man rambles on about possessing fertile females, yet shows effeminate mannerisms, waves around a feather, and (obviously) defines himself by his poetry.
• Captain Obvious: When Stan asks, "Who's Poet Man?," Kai replies, "A poet, perhaps."
• Continuity Nod: In I Worship His Shadow, the display on the Lusticon showed a stylized image of a woman with blue scalp and pubic hair. When Zev takes a shower in Super Nova, the camera pans down to reveal her blue pubes.
• Cool Gate: The different areas of the Brunnis Memory Bank can be accessed through these.
• Deadly Euphemism: In the second episode, "Super Nova", the place the group lands at stores countless people's memories, and makes references of the "Burst of Life", making it sound like some kind of celebration of life and good experiences. Poet Man (an independent hologram played by Tim Curry) clarifies that it's "burst" as in "bubble burst" or "balloon burst"... and, as it turns out, the place outright murders people by slicing them in half, then storing a thin cutout along with an extracted memory record.
• The Dog Bites Back: Giggerota abuses her moth, so it seizes the opportunity to strand her on a planet that's about to get hit by a supernova.
• Double Entendre: In addition to repeatedly calling Zev "girlfriend," Giggerota admiringly says that she wants to eat her.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner:

  Kai: "Would you care to join me in watching the super nova? It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

• Failed Attempt at Drama: Stan's fake suicide attempt.
• Fanservice Extra: The shirtless guys on Dexter Nine.
• Fantasy Sequence: The "burst of life" allows Zev to believe that she's dancing with a living Kai. Giggerota also experiences a fantasy sequence, thanks to the manipulative brains.
• Femme Fatale: Subverted when Giggerota tries, ineptly, to seduce Stan into abandoning Zev and Kai.
• Ghost Planet: Brunnis has been uninhabited for thousands of years.
• Holding Hands: Zev and Stan do this for comfort when they think they're going to die.
• Hollywood Kiss: Comically averted: Zev finds Stan's technique disgusting.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Giggerota wants to eat Kai, Zev, the brains, and the "milk-fed boys" from Dexter 9.
• Incoming Ham: Giggerota's roar of fury as she climbs out of a foggy pit.
• Leonine Contract: Zev saves Stan from falling to his death, in exchange for him taking her to Brunnis.
• Meaningful Echo: "It's what I want."
• Memory Jar: The Memory Bank, a library for memories.
• Modesty Towel: Zev wraps a towel around herself in the typical "feminine" variation, despite having seemed comfortable nude in the same scene.
• Multipurpose Tongue: Giggerota's can bite through ropes and wrists.
• Obsessed with Food: When the Predecessors ask Giggerota if people to eat is all she wants, she tells them that yes, it is.
• Parental Abandonment: Zev's parents gave her to the Wife Bank when she was a toddler.
• The Peeping Tom: Stan spies on Zev in the shower.
• Pensieve Flashback: Zev watches the Memory Bank's download of her childhood memories.
• Pulling Themselves Together: Kai, with a little help from Blue Star.
• Raised Hand of Survival: The first shot of Giggerota.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: From Zev, to Stan:

  "Realistically, Stan, there's just not much to like about you. You're old, unattractive, vain, weak-willed, treacherous..."

• Sentient Stars: Blue Star and Brunnis Sun have agendas and voices.
• Shower Scene: With full nudity, to boot.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Giggerota has finally been stopped and Stan is able to turn the star stabilizers back on at just the last second...and because of the light speed delay he is immediately informed by the computer that by the time the pulses reach the star it will have already gone nova. Turning the system off and on repeatedly couldn't have helped either.
• Take My Hand!: A relatively practical version, as Zev grabs Stan's forearm when he falls off the bridge.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Subverted. Stan tries to get Zev's attention by threatening to kill himself, but she declines to argue with him.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: The Time Prophet demonstrates her prescience by recording her half of a conversation with Stan thousands of years in advance.
• The Tease: Zev has some fun with her rejection of Stan.

  Zev: "My 'sexual needs' are not 'somewhat increased.' They are beyond measure. [...] This body needs to be touched, stroked, pleasured. I am a white-hot volcano of desire."

  Stan: "Oh, I'm a volcano too!"

  Zev: "Well, then, there's only one thing for you to do, Stanley Tweedle: Go somewhere private, and erupt by yourself."

• Transferable Memory: The Memory Bank copies people's memories onto discs and stores them.
• Volleying Insults: Between Giggerota and 790.

  Giggerota: "Metalhead!"

  790: "Leatherass!"