The penultimate episode of season two finds Sheppard (Joe Flanigan) and his team discovering that some new possible allies not only have ancient tech, they may have an ancient warship.

Inferno was written by Carl Binder and debuted on 3 March, 2006.

While McKay (David Hewlett) helps Norina (Brandy Ledford) with the planetary defense shield, Sheppard and Weir (Torri Higginson) work on negotiations. Things are complicated by the discovery that not only had the shield been running continuously without fail safes. And that’s bad, because it draws its power from a geothermal resource… a once dormant volcano that has become active because of the power draw.

A super volcano.

What started as the potential for an alliance and negotiations soon becomes a rescue and relocation mission. But that may not happen when the stargate is destroyed by lava. Good thing, there’s an ancient starship that if they can get running, could save the day.

Can McKay figure it out?

Teyla (Rachel Luttrell), Ronon (Jason Momoa), Sheppard and Beckett (Paul McGillion) run the evacuation, but things escalate when a group of them become trapped. Will everything play out okay in the end?

Of course it will, McKay is able to figure out how to get the ship out from under the lava flow, and the Daedalus arrives to help out.

The visual effects for the episode are pretty solid, and it also continues to advance the Wraith narrative (there’s a single hiveship on the way). It doesn’t do much in the way of building character arcs, but overall, it’s pretty entertaining.

And now, we’re off to the season finale!

Allies closes out season two. Written by Martin Gero, this episode first aired on 10 March, 2006.

The lone Wraith hiveship headed towards Atlantis? It’s Michael’s (Brent Stait, voiced by Connor Trinneer). Trinneer was unavailable at the time, so dubbed in his voice during post-production.

He’s come to Atlantis because he wants to propose a trade. He want’s Beckett’s retrovirus. And in return he is willing to offer insights into Wraith technology. Micheal also holds an ace – he can reveal Atlantis’ existence to the rest of the Wraith.

It seems since all of the Wraith have awakened there is a lot of internal conflict taking place. There is famine and civil war. Michael wants to use the retrovirus on some of the Wraith and turn them into a food source.

But is it the right thing to do?

There are moral questions front and center even as the unusual alliance proceeds, at least temporarily. And there’s also the question of whether the Wraith can be trusted to honor the deal.

As the episode races to its cliffhanger conclusion, the Daedalus with Sheppard aboard flies into an ambush, Zelenka (David Nykl) finds a problem, Atlantis has been hacked (with planetary locations, including Earth, revealed to them) and Ronon and McKay are trapped on a hiveship! And Sheppard who took out a 302 is missing when the hiveships take off.

Lets see how things go for everyone when season three begins next week!