Recap / Stargate SG 1 S 6 E 10 Cure

"Tretonin makes our immune systems impervious to any ailment. We live in perfect health."

— Dollen

SG-1 visits a world called Pangar, whose citizens take a drug called tretonin that they claim grants them immunity to any disease. After further investigation, the team discover that the drug is made using symbiotes harvested from a captive Goa'uld queen.

---

"Cure" provides examples of the following tropes:

• All-Loving Heroine: Egeria. She spent 60 years being medically tortured by the Pangarans (who, to be fair, had no idea that she was anything other than a typical evil Goa'uld), yet she died to save them.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Pangarans are saved from the crippling side effects of tretonin, but the only known Tok'ra queen Egeria dies.
• Blank Slate: The symbiotes used for the production of the tretonin are this, as the usual Genetic Memory was not passed on by the queen.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Teal'c states that Ra and Apophis were killed some time ago.
  • Jonas likens the situation on Pangar to his own government's less than ethical handling of new scientific discoveries.
• Description Cut: Played for Laughs at the start of the episode.
  Dollen: They are sending their most respected team of representatives. No doubt the leader of this group will be a brilliant and savvy negotiator.
  Tegar: We must be at our best to meet the challenge.
  Dollen: Personally, I cannot wait to meet a man of such genius.
  (The team enters through the stargate)
  O'Neill: Howdy, folks!
• Dying Race: Malek refers to the Tok'ra as such, stressing that this is why it's so important for them to free their queen. Sadly, thanks to the death of Egeria at the end of the episode, they seem to be only further stuck on this path.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The Tok'ra aren't precisely bad, more Good Is Not Nice, but they have a massive soft spot for their mother, Egeria, whom they revere - something which gains them major sympathy points.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Tok'ra queen Egeria was medically experimented on and then kept in a tank and forced to breed against her will for decades so that her offspring can be used to in the production of tretonin. She is finally freed only to die shortly afterwards, and her last act is to save the people who experimented on her in the first place.
• First Contact: Shown from the perspective of the Pangarans, who are nervous at the prospect of meeting the team as Earth is apparently rather more technologically advanced than they are.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Jonas is flipping through Zenna Valk's notebook, a sketch of a Goa'uld canopic jar nearly identical to the ones Osiris and Isis were trapped in can be seen for about a second or so. A sharp-eyed viewer can thus figure out the origin of the Pangarans' symbiotes in the next scene before the Pangarans reveal the existence of Egeria.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Egeria explains that tretonin's crippling side effects are this; she sabotaged her childrens' genes in the hope that the Pangaran gavernment would eventually give up this line of research once the drug proved untenable. Instead, they doubled down and effectively milked her dry.
• Government Drug Enforcement: A variation; the government doesn't force its citizens to take the tretonin, but once someone starts on it they have to keep taking it every day. Also, Zenna mentions that it's not available to everyone; it's a "privilege", and it can be revoked.
• Gratuitous French: When O'Neill is first presented with the tretonin he asks, "qu'est-ce que c'est?"
• Greater-Scope Paragon: Egeria, who literally spawned the Tok'ra resistance.
• Hazardous Water: Teal'c and Jonas discover a large pool at the tretonin production plant filled with infantile symbiotes. Jonas and a random security guard fall into the water shortly afterwards, and the guard is possessed by an infant symbiote. However, said symbiote is a Blank Slate, operating on autopilot, which is key to the resolution of the episode.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kelmaa gives Egeria its host in hopes of saving her and subsequently dies. Additionally, Egeria - who has been fatally injured by the decades of medical torture she has endured - willingly blends with the unnamed host of Kelmaa so she can communicate with the others and give the Pangarans the cure.
• Ideal Illness Immunity: The tretonin grants this to those who take it; unfortunately, it works in much the same way as the symbiotes carried by the Jaffa, replacing the body's natural immune system so that if a person stops taking the drug, they will quickly die.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The general opinion, particularly by the Tok'ra (to SG-1's mild surprise), of the fate of the symbiote Queen prior to The Reveal that she's not a Goa'uld but Egeria, given the Goa'uld's own ruthless exploitation of human bodies.
• Momma's Boy: All the Tok'ra are demonstrated to be devoted to their mother, and visibly heartbroken when she dies. It gets them major sympathy points.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Pangarans are horrified when (having encountered the Tok'ra and knowing the difference between them and the Goa'uld) they find out that the symbiote queen they've spent the last 60 years milking for symbiotes is not a Goa'uld getting what even the Tok'ra consider to be Laser-Guided Karma, but Egeria - the mother and founder of the Tok'ra.
• "Not So Different" Remark: O'Neill accuses the Tok'ra of this in regards to the Goa'uld, claiming that for all their talk, they still view humans as nothing more than "a nice place to live".
• Oh, Crap!: Once Jonas says the name Egeria, Teal'c has this reaction written all over his face as he realizes who that Goa'uld queen really is. Basically becomes a Mass "Oh, Crap!" once they share the news with everyone else even the Pangarans who realize they have been basically slowly torturing the mother of the very people who are now trying to help them.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Most of the Tok'ra shown elsewhere in the series are The Stoic. As such, them being visibly on the verge of tears as they watch their mother essentially pass away right in front of them is particularly effecting.
• Retcon: Possibly. The ability of Goa'uld queens to spawn infant symbiotes is retconned to be achievable through asexual reproduction, while in the season one episode "Hathor" it required fertilization via the DNA of the host species. Of course, Hathor being Hathor, that could have been a matter of personal preference - and there was something very different about the symbiotes Egeria spawned under those circumstances.
• The Reveal: The Goa'uld queen that the Pangarans have been using to produce their tretonin is not a Goa'uld at all, but is in fact the Tok'ra queen Egeria.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Pangarans mention that Egeria was found sealed inside a canopic jar, similar to that which was used to imprison Osiris on Earth. This turns out to be a subversion, however, once it's revealed that Egeria is actually Tok'ra.
• Sealed Good in a Can: After The Reveal that the queen is Egeria.
• So Proud of You: Rather heartbreakingly, Egeria's final words are reassuring her Tok'ra children that they have succeeded beyond her wildest dreams from when she originally founded the Tok'ra.