Having one of the team members masquerade as one of the enemy isn’t an unusual concept in the Stargate universe. Remember Daniel in the Stargate SG-1 episodes Summit and Last Stand? However, I haven’t seen an episode before in Atlantis that covers the same ground, until now.

The Queen brings back Todd the Wraith and begins with a meeting between his hive ship and Sheppard’s Atlantis team, Dr. Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, and Teyla Emmagan. The team would like to convince the Wraith through Todd to consider the treatment Dr. Jennifer Keller has developed to cure the need of the Wraith to feed on humans. Todd considers the idea, and frankly, Lt. Col. John Sheppard is suspicious, and rightly so. Todd comes back with his own proposal–that Teyla masquerade as his Queen.

Teyla’s DNA has traces of Wraith DNA (mentioned in previous episodes) that will allow her to disguise herself as a Wraith Queen and successfully fool the Primary, the Wraith Queen who is in charge of the entire Wraith alliance. No one else has the ability to pull this off, and so Teyla feels bound to help.

But when she and Todd are successfully aboard the Primary’s hive ship, they encounter unexpected developments that appear to force a change in their plans. Does Todd have a hidden agenda? Will Teyla be able to maintain her masquerade, or will they be discovered and killed?

Dr. Beckett and Dr. Alison Porter stay behind in the lab to go through the research while Sheppard joins Major Anne Teldy and the rest of her team, Sgt. Dusty Mehra and Capt. Alicia Vega, as they explore the surrounding forest and make their way to a nearby village.

They find the village abandoned, except for one man who appears to have been watching them. He tells Sheppard and the rest of the team about the curse believed to be haunting the village. People had begun to disappear from the forest around the village leading the villagers to eventually abandon the village entirely. When it starts to get late, the man seems overly eager to leave and Sheppard decides to let him go.

The team returns to collect Carson Beckett and Alison Porter from the research lab and they all decide to stay overnight in the village, but when Sheppard and the others go out into the forest to explore further, they discover the hybrid lifeforms have been released from their stasis pods.

In the thick fog and mist, the Atlantis team must fight off a nemesis they can’t see to survive.

What did I think about this episode? Read Whispers, Reinvigorating Atlantis