Pete Shanahan
Summary
Pete Shanahan is a police detective, formerly from Denver, Colorado, more recently of Colorado Springs. He dated and for some time was engaged to Samantha Carter.
Character Biography
Pete Shanahan was a police detective who worked in Denver, Colorado (7.15 "Chimera"). As a child, he started going down the wrong path, but a cop took him under his wing and Pete decided to follow in his mentor's footsteps. His default line when asked how he became a cop is from watching cop shows like Barney Miller and Starsky and Hutch on tv. Pete was married once, but his wife became resentful of the amount of time he spent on his dangerous job and left him.
Pete was close friends with Mark Carter. Enough so that when Pete was in Colorado Springs working a case, Mark suggested a "blind date" between Pete and Mark's sister, Major Samantha Carter, stationed out of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. The two hit it off and started dating in earnest. After Pete's case was over, he took two weeks vacation leave to spend more time with Sam.
Pete became resentful and suspicious that so much of Sam's life and job was a mystery to him, and he was not buying the cover story he had known that Sam was merely an analyst of deep space radar telemetry in Cheyenne. He called another old friend, FBI agent Dan Farrity to do a background check on her. When Dan called his friend "Shandy" back, he revealed Samantha Carter's backtrace had been scrubbed, like what is done with special-operations personnel and advised Pete to steer clear of any further investigation.
Unpersuaded, Pete ended up watching Sam on a stakeout of a suburban home and saw two armed men enter the house. Unbeknownst to him, Sam and the rest of her team were laying a trap for the Goa'uld Osiris, who had been visiting Daniel Jackson at his home each night and manipulating his dreams in a search for information. After spending the night watching Sam's surveillance van, Pete decided to confront her. At this moment, Sam got out of the van to try and stop the fleeing Osiris from escaping. Pete got caught in the middle of the firefight with Osiris, witnessing first hand the eye-glow natural to the Goa'uld, her bullet-deflecting shield, and a "laser gun" hand weapon. Osiris was captured, but not before destroying the van. Pete was wounded by a piece of shrapnel.
Pete was taken to the SGC infirmary to recover. Sam visited him there, revealing the truth about the Stargate program and warning him about the classified nature of the information. Pete accepted the truth with relative equanimity and their romance continued.
When the Replicator Fifth kidnapped Samantha Carter, he entered her mind and took the guise of Pete Shanahan as someone she loved and trusted (8.01 "New Order Part 2"). Sam saw through the disguise, especially when an angered "Pete" yelled at her for rejecting the farm "paradise" he had created.
Eventually, Pete transferred to the Colorado Springs police force and proposed to Sam (8.07 "Affinity") Taken off-guard, Sam demurred an immediate answer. Before accepting or rejecting his proposal, Sam asked for Pete's assistance. Teal'c was being accused of murdering the boyfriend of his neighbor, Krista James. Pete was able to find circumstantial evidence that showed Teal'c was framed and that Sam's friend was being watched. When Daniel Jackson went missing, Pete and a local SWAT team assisted Sam and other SGC personnel in the rescue. They recovered Daniel and Krista, but the perpetrators mysteriously disappeared. It was at this point that Sam accepted Pete's offer of marriage.
The wedding plans continued despite Sam's duties at Stargate Command, which made her miss some appointments with wedding vendors (8.18 "Threads"). One appointment not missed was when Pete was given an all-access pass to the SGC. He didn't know what the purpose of this "tour" would be until she brought him to the VIP quarters to meet Jacob Carter. A flustered Pete tried to converse with his future father-in-law, making social gaffes in his nervousness like asking how weird it was to have an alien in his head. Pete noticed Sam getting more and more distracted as the wedding plans progressed, but did not know the reason. Wanting to surprise her, Pete remembered the "dream house" Sam had once described to him and purchased it for them. Sam was shocked when he presented it to her; he was oblivious to her misgivings as he waxed poetic about the dog he pictured as part of their new household.
After the death of Jacob Carter and Selmak, Sam met Pete at the "new house" and broke up with him. Suspecting this was more than grief over her father, he took the news well, noting he knew it from the beginning but figured she was worth the risk. Sam was surprised at his reaction. Tearfully, he wished her the best and left, pulling "sold" off the real estate sign as he passed.
Episodes
Related Characters
- Samantha Carter
- Dr. Daniel Jackson
- Teal'c
- Jacob Carter
- Mark Carter
- Special Agent Dan Farrity
- Fifth
- Sarah Gardner
- Krista James
- Osiris
Related Articles
Actor
--Aurora 15:00, 20 September 2007 (PDT)