Instinct - Recap

The team travels to a world and finds out that the people of the planet haven’t been culled by the Wraith for a long time. They learn that a Wraith ship crash landed on their planet 10 years ago, and that several Wraith survived the crash. The town’s people who found the survivors, feared them and killed them outright. However, the town folk also know that at least one Wraith survived, as a number of people, slowly over time, have been killed in a Wraith-like manner since the crash.

The town’s people gladly welcome the SGA team’s offer when Sheppard tells them his team will hunt down and kill the remaining Wraith.

The crew are able to track the Wraith to a cave, but find that another of the town’s people blocking them. He tells them he has been protecting a young female Wraith named Ellia, and acting as her father. The acting father, Zaddik, tells the team that the killings are not by Ellia, but that they must be by another surviving Wraith from the crashed ship. Zaddik also tells the team he has perfected a medicine that allows his daughter, Ellia, not to need to feed on humans.

To verify the drug works, the team brings in Dr. Beckett to assess Zaddik’s claim that his drug can allow a Wraith not to need to feed on a human’s life force. Dr. Beckett tells Zaddik that he too has been working on a retrovirus that would remove the Wraith part from a human’s physiology. Dr. Beckett goes on to explain that the medication he has been working on has not been perfected yet. He doesn’t know if or when it might work, or what the side effects will be.

Unfortunately, Ellia overhears this and decides to take the untested medication once the others leave. Ellia, after taking Beckett’s retrovirus, then disappears. The team then attempt to find her. Later, after eluding the team, she reappears and tells her father that his medicine had not been working. She has had to feed on human life, but believed the town folk and he would believe it was just another Wraith killing them.

The team at this point has already set out to find the other Wraith; the one they believe has been killing the town’s people. They track him using Telya’s Wraith perceptive skills and Ronon’s tracking skills. However, now Ellia has reverted to a more Wraith form, gets there first and kills the other Wraith that is attacking the team, also saving McKay life indirectly. Dr. Beckett begins to realize that his retrovirus is having the opposite effect on Ellia.

Zaddik, who is also searching, finds his daughter, but she is too far gone to recognize him, and mortally wounds him. The team and the town’s people come upon him wounded, and learn that although Zaddik looks older, he is really the younger son of one of the town’s people. Young Zaddik was the one who had originally found Ellia, and who felt he had to raise her in secret.

He raised her, but soon realized she would hunger for human life. He worked on a medication that would prevent her from needing to feed on humans, but before he could perfect his medication, he had to give her years of his life in her feeding process.

Unfortunately, back on the search for Ellia, Telya is attacked and knocked out. Sheppard and Ronon come upon this, and have to kill her when she starts to feed on Sheppard.

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