Season two of SG-1 got underway on 26 June, 1998 with The Serpent’s Lair. Written by one of the series showrunners, Brad Wright, the episode picks up moments after the conclusion of the season one finale.

O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), Carter (Amanda Tapping), Jackson (Michael Shanks) and Teal’c (Christopher Judge) are still aboard the goa’uld mothership which is minutes away from Earth. They quickly find themselves outnumbered by jaffa and the entire team ends up captured while Apophis (Peter Williams) decides to hold the attack until Klorel/Skara (Alexis Cruz) is revived.

Things are looking pretty dire, but Bra’tac (Tony Amendola) is also aboard the mothership. The good news is, they have enough C4 to take out one mothership, but not enough for two…

At Stargate Command (SGC) Hammond (Don S. Davis) is working on getting people to the Alpha site in case things go badly for Earth, but Samuels (Robert Wisden) says the Pentagon has a new weapon. Will it work? The SGC is less than hopeful.

Daniel Jackson ends up mortally injured, Bra’tac and the team grab Klorel, and hold him hostage as the square off against Apophis. Is there a way out?

Of course there is, thanks to things already established in continuity, and a great payoff at the end of the episode the team is reunited, and ready to continue their exploration of the gates, and battle the goa’uld.

There’s some great dialogue, the writers and actors are really able to mine the moments for humour in a natural way, that doesn’t detract from the narrative and actually benefits the characters.

In the Line of Duty debuted on 3 July, 1998 and was written by Robert C. Cooper who has moved into the Executive Story Editor position for the series.

During a rescue mission Carter attempts to save the life of an injured man, and finds herself infected with a goa’uld. When they return to Earth, a couple of things about Carter seem odd to O’Neill, but it’s not until Carter visits Frasier’s (Teryl Rothery) adopted daughter (from season one) Cassandra (Katie Stuart playing the character for the last time) that everyone realizes she’s been infected.

But, the goa’uld claims to be something else, a resistance to the other power-hungry goa’uld known as the Tok’ra. As the Tok’ra pleads for their assistance, something the SGC is reticent to give because of their own history with the goa’uld, another goa’uld, Ashrak (Peter LaCroix) is hunting down the Tok’ra, and if he finds it, will kill its host body… in this case, Carter.

As the drama plays out, O’Neill and the rest of the team play catch up, as they realize the goa’uld in Carter is telling the truth. If they can stop Ashrak, maybe they’ll have a new ally.

Carter is saved, but the goa’uld dies saving her life. Maybe the SGC will find more Tok’ra in their battle with the system lords. The series definitiely keeps building and expanding its universe, paying attention to its continuity, and its characters. Bringing back Cassandra is a huge payoff on that front, and having this episode as the second of the second season, it serves as a nice companion piece to the second episode of the first season, The Enemy Within.