SGA 4.12 "Spoils Of War" Episode Guide

Précis

The Atlantis team successfully salvage a partially damaged Hive ship and in the process retrieve some critical information that may help in their war against the Wraith.

Guide | Transcript

MGM/SciFi.com Official Summary

A week after the battle with the Replicators, the Atlantis team spots a Wraith hive ship adrift in space. It belongs to the particular Wraith who was first a captive and later an ally of the team, whom, for convenience, Sheppard now calls "Todd".

Curious about Todd's fate, Sheppard's and Lorne's teams board the battle-scarred hive, which is empty except for a few corpses. After McKay and Ronon discover a map to a mysterious planet that the Wraith seem to consider sacred, Teyla — whose Wraith DNA makes her the only person who can control the ship — flies the hive to this new destination.

Sheppard, reluctant to let Teyla take risks now that he knows about her pregnancy, orders her to remain in the hive ship with Lorne's team while he, McKay and Ronon fly down to the planet in a Jumper.

Sneaking into a vast facility on the surface, they find a Queen Wraith fertilizing pods that grow new Wraith drones. Tens of thousands of empty pods fill the eerie structure. Enemy Wraith patrol the corridors, and soon the team finds Todd himself locked in a cell.

When the teams free Todd, he explains that this place is a unique cloning facility, where a Queen's moderate output can be copied many times over to breed a vast army. It hasn't been used in generations because it requires multiple ZPMs for power. Todd, hoping to clone an army for himself, stole several ZPMs from the Replicator city seconds before it was destroyed, but other Wraith learned of his plan, attacked him, and took the ZPMs.

Now, Sheppard's team and Todd once again have a common purpose: to remove the ZPMs powering the facility so that Todd's (and Atlantis's) enemy can't create a massive army.

No sooner have they agreed to collaborate than the enemy Wraith spot them. Todd escapes, but Sheppard, McKay and Ronon are dragged before the Wraith Queen as prisoners. Just as the Queen prepares to feast on McKay, however, she hesitates.

Moments later, she speaks to the team as if she is not the Queen at all, but rather Teyla. In fact, Todd has stolen a dart, flown to the hive ship, and alerted Teyla to the crisis. With her psychic powers augmented by her pregnancy, Teyla has taken control of the Queen's body.

Teyla forces the Queen to release the prisoners, but the alien woman remains a formidable foe. Locked in a psychic battle with Teyla, the Queen reaches out to destroy that which Teyla holds most dear — her unborn child….

Cast

• Joe Flanigan as Lt. Col. John Sheppard
• Amanda Tapping as Col. Samantha Carter
• Rachel Luttrell as Teyla Emmagan
• Jason Momoa as Ronon Dex
• and David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney McKay

Guest Stars

• Christopher Heyerdahl as Wraith ("Todd")
• David Nykl as Dr. Radek Zelenka
• Kavan Smith as Maj. Evan Lorne
• Scott Heindl as Wraith
• Brendan Penny as Wraith
• Andee Frizzell as Wraith Queen
• Morris Chapdelaine as Newborn Wraith

Production

• Written by Alan McCullough
• Directed by William Waring

Related Articles

Keywords

• Ancients
• Cloning
• Wraith
• Zero Point Module (ZPM)

Other

• Season Four Episode Guides
• Episode Guides
• Season Four Transcripts
• Transcripts
• Previous: SGA 4.11 "Be All My Sins Remember'd Part 2" Episode Guide
• Next: SGA 4.13 "Quarantine" Episode Guide

Related Links

Official

• Official MGM Stargate Atlantis Website
• SciFi Channel 4.12 "Spoils Of War" Episode Guide

Fan

• Solutions On-Site Forum: Season Four Discussion Board
• Solutions News and Spoiler Blog
• Stargate Screencaps: Season Four

Production Notes

• "Spent the day spinning - Alan’s story which is looking more like a third part to the mid-season two-parter. Another revelation in a season full of surprises, an unlikely alliance, and things develop for Teyla." (Joseph Mallozzi's April 20 blog)
• "Alan is working on what [we] like to call “the third part of the mid-season two-parter”." (Joseph Mallozzi's May 7 blog)
• "We just never got around to it [giving Maj. Lorne a first name]. But Alan has given him a name in Spoils of War. It starts with a W. We’ll see if it sticks." (Joseph Mallozzi's May 27 blog)
• Fans brought to Joseph Mallozzi's attention in the comment section of his blog that Lorne already had a first name: Evan. Mallozzi did some investigation, and reports the results: "Oh, so Evan it is. Evan Lorne. In all fairness to Alan who was anoint everyone’s favorite Major with the Wesley moniker, no one could remember naming the character. But after some not-so-gentle fan prodding, Alex Levine dug up the truth. He was never actually called Evan at anytime, but in First Strike, he did wear a flight suit and said flight suit did require a name. So, Evan it is. Or, rather, Evan it still is." (Joseph Mallozzi's May 31 blog)
• "Alan’s Spoils of War is almost prepped and ready to shoot, promising wraithy revelations." (Joseph Mallozzi's June 1 blog)
• "We watched the director’s cut of Spoils of War (I’m so glad I ate my breakfast before sitting down to watch that wraith birthing scene)..." (Joseph Mallozzi's July 16 blog)
• "Actually three great mixes of late: Spoils of War (So what is the difference between the silent masked wraiths and the chatty ones? Ohhhhhhh, I see.)..." (Joseph Mallozzi's October 31 blog)

Further Reading

• Joseph Mallozzi's Blog
• Alex Levine's scifi.com January 11, 2008 blog entry
• MGM: Close Up: Andee Frizzell, January 15, 2008

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--DeeKayP 08:15, 1 June 2007 (PDT)