Those days are long gone.

Ronon Dex has turned out to be a multi-layered individual and his growth has been phenomenal over the last few years. Tracker, on the surface, was a Ronon, McKay, Keller episode, but underneath it all, I believe this episode was about Ronon Dex and Rodney McKay.

Several episodes have really played up the relationship between these two so-very-different guys. Tao of Rodney, The Shrine, each show picked up the thread and wove it expertly, and now, in Tracker, I have no problem believing there’s true affection between Rodney and Ronon.

In Tao of Rodney, Rodney uses his healing abilities to remove Ronon’s scars. Those scars represented his past life, his runner history, and removing them was a gift from a dying Rodney McKay.

In The Shrine, Ronon is determined to get McKay to the place where he can be himself for one more day. He doesn’t hope to gain anything from Rodney, and no one in Atlantis is looking for that one piece of information only Rodney can give them before he dies. They want only to have the opportunity to say goodbye.

Tracker has no overt theme of friendship between Ronon and Rodney, but their interaction as they try to save Dr. Jennifer Keller is fun to watch. They act like friends who know each other well and they seem to have fallen into a rhythm of conversational byplay that really shows the bonds are there. These guys are friends and you can tell.

In fact, after watching Tracker, I’ve had to go back to Tao of Rodney and revisit the developing friendship. One of my favorite Rodney and Ronon exchanges happens after Rodney begins developing what he calls “superpowers.” He uses telekinesis to swipe Dr. Beckett’s doughnut as he’s walking out of the room with Ronon.

“We could be a team. You could be my sidekick.” (Rodney)

“Sidekick?” (Ronon)

“Yeah, it’d be like Batman and Ronon. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Yeah, you keep eating like that it’s going to be more like fatman.”

You can’t build these kinds of relationships in movies. There just isn’t enough time. So I find myself hoping this final season of Stargate Atlantis solidifies these relationships between Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, and Ronon. Once the movies start, there just won’t be these opportunities again.

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?