Recap / Stargate SG 1 S 8 E 10 Endgame

"I think the Trust intends to launch a full-scale chemical attack against the Goa'uld, without any regard for the millions of Jaffa lives that could be lost in the process."

— Lt. Col. Samantha Carter

Carter and Daniel are sent to investigate when Earth's stargate it beamed away in the dead of night, and come to believe that the Trust are responsible. Meanwhile, Teal'c is stranded offworld and becomes aware of several planets where entire Jaffa armies have been slaughtered en masse with no signs of a struggle having taken place.

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"Endgame" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Alone-with-Prisoner Ploy: The Tok'ra Zarin, posing as a minor Goa'uld in the service of Ba'al, pulls this in order to speak to Teal'c and M'Zel without blowing her cover when they deliberately get themselves captured by her forces.
• Badass Longcoat: Hoskins, the lead Trust operative, wears one.
• Big Damn Heroes: Teal'c shows up just in time to save Daniel and Carter before they're executed by the Trust.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. The magazine for Hoskins' machine pistol depletes after about three seconds of sustained fire, and he's shown to replace mags repeatedly.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': The one time Walter turns his back on the stargate for a few seconds to make some coffee during the graveyard shift, it winds up getting stolen from right under his nose.
• The Chains of Commanding: O'Neill notably struggles to cope with the pressures that come with being General here; he's unable to give the order for the Prometheus to fire on the Trust al'kesh while Daniel and Carter (and Teal'c, though he doesn't know it at the time) are still on board, which results in at least one of the operatives escaping with a fully-functional Goa'uld ship and several cylinders of symbiote poison.
  Daniel: In retrospect, maybe you should have destroyed the ship when you had the chance.
  O'Neill: Yeah. Tough choice.
• Chekhov's Gun: The symbiote poison, the ship left in orbit by Osiris and the translation that Daniel provided for the Trust all reappear to play a part in this episode.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Carter states that the Trust have been busy lately, after trying to kill Alec Colson and blackmailing Daniel.
  • The ship used by the Trust was left in orbit by Osiris after he visited Earth in the previous season.
  • It's mentioned that not much is known about the whereabouts of the Tok'ra after they left the alliance.
• Crazy Enough to Work: This is O'Neill's opinion of Daniel's plan to beam aboard the ship alone, disable the cloak and plant a locator beacon on the stargate for the Prometheus to beam it back out. This is something of a subversion, however, as it doesn't work and Daniel winds up getting himself captured alongside Carter.
  Daniel: They'll never see it coming.
  O'Neill: Which is one of the advantages of a totally insane idea.
  Daniel: Yeah, where'd I learn that from?
• Deadly Gas: The symbiote poison, which is delivered via missile to take out thousands of Jaffa at once. Also subverted when Carter and Daniel first find the stockpiled canisters and mistake it for nerve gas, leading to a brief Oh, Crap! moment when one of the canisters is shattered during a gunfight before they realize that they're not actually dying.
• Faux Affably Evil: Hoskins.
• Genocide Dilemma: Averted; the Trust don't see any problem with using the poison to slaughter millions of Jaffa as collateral if it gives them an edge over the Goa'uld.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Teal'c and M'Zel fill the roles respectively when they go to question Zarin after believing that the Tok'ra are responsible for the poison attacks, despite the fact that they're technically her prisoners.
• Hyperspeed Escape: The last remaining Trust operative pulls this at the end of the episode.
• I Die Free: M'Zel's last words after the poison is deployed on the planet where he and Teal'c go to speak with Zarin.
• Layman's Terms:
  Daniel: What this?
  Carter: Methyl phosphonofluoridic acid.
  Daniel: Which is?
  Carter: Nerve gas.
  Daniel: Okay, putting that back...
• Mauve Shirt: M'Zel is killed in his second appearance.
• The Mole: It turns out that a scientist at the SGC was working with the Trust and planted the locator beacon on the stargate, allowing it to be beamed away.
• Mundane Solution: Daniel beams up to the ship and tries to disable the cloak by hacking the Ancient command codes. When it doesn't work after the third try, he loses his patience and just shoots out the control crystals instead.
• Oh, Crap!: At the beginning of the episode, when Harriman and the other technician realize that the gate is missing.
• Only in It for the Money: Dr. Bricksdale, the Area 51 scientist who figured out how to use Osiris's beaming device and sold it out to the Trust. He becomes a lot more cooperative when Daniel states that they can come to an "arrangement" regarding his offshore account.
• Perp Sweating: Daniel does this with Bricksdale.
• Sadistic Choice: O'Neill being forced to choose between giving the order to destroy a ship containing his True Companions or letting the bad guys escape with enough poison to launch several more attacks.
• Shoot Out the Lock: Hoskins breaches a few doors with his machine pistol this way. Played with a bit in that Hoskins never shoots the lock, but the door immediately around the lock. Conveniently, he only encounters wooden doors when doing this.
• Tempting Fate: Double Subversion. The two techs are discussing how boring the graveyard shift is, and Harriman points out that it's daytime somewhere and a team could be coming in under fire at any second. They turn toward the gate expectantly... and nothing happens. Then the gate is swiped moments later while they're getting coffee.
• Trojan Prisoner: Teal'c and M'Zel deliberately allow themselves to be captured by Zarin's forces in order to speak to her.
• Troll: Daniel has some fun interviewing the gate technicians, who are freaking out over the fact that the gate disappeared on their watch.
  Mackenzie: Are we gonna be facing any kind of disciplinary action for this?
  Daniel: No, Sergeant, I think it's safe to say there's nothing you could have done.
  Mackenzie: Thank God. I mean, there wasn't. One minute we were getting coffee, the next minute the gate was —
  Daniel: Wait a minute, wait a minute... you were getting coffee?!
  Mackenzie: Um... we...
  Daniel: I'm joking, I'm joking. It's just a joke, I'm sorry.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: By the end of the episode Teal'c, Sam, and Daniel are on the Trust ship, fully armed, with only one Trust operative remaining. Taking the ship would be pretty doable. Instead they have Prometheus beam them off with the Stargate, giving the Trust operative the chance to escape with the ship- likely because it's slated to show up again a few episodes later.
• Villainous Rescue: An unintentional version. Teal'c and M'Zel turned themselves in to talk with Zarin, a Tok'ra operative undercover. However, there was not really any realistic way for them to escape the planet, which they understood upon going there. However, the Trust operatives send the symbiote poison to the planet, which kills all the Jaffa (including M'Zel), allowing Teal'c to be able to easily leave.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Trust claim that they're only interested in defeating the Goa'uld and protecting Earth, but they have no problem with committing genocide against the Jaffa in doing so.
• Would Hit a Girl: M'Zel starts to choke Zarin in his anger when he believes the Tok'ra to be behind the attacks on the Jaffa.