Citizen Joe

"Citizen Joe" is the fifteenth episode of the eighth season of Stargate SG-1.

Synopsis
Joe Spencer, a barber from Indiana buys a mysterious stone in a garage sale seven years ago, and ever since then, has received several visions concerning SG-1 and their missions to save the world.

Plot
The episode opens with Brigadier General Jack O'Neill walking into his kitchen, talking on the phone to Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter about his "world famous omelet" (the "secret ingredient" being beer), when a man O'Neill has never met bursts in with a gun claiming that O'Neill has ruined his life. The viewer is then taken to a flashback 7 years earlier where Joe Spencer, the man in O'Neill's house, is at a garage sale and picks up a mysterious black stone. When he does, he receives a vision of SG-1 going through the Stargate against orders in the season 1 episode "Within the Serpent's Grasp". He buys the stone and, as the episode progresses, continuously receives more and more visions of the exploration team.

Joe, unable to create or tell amusing jokes or stories of his own, tells of the visions he sees as if they were stories he had conjured out of thin air. To start with, he tells these visions to his son Andy Spencer and the customers in his barbershop, entertaining them where he had previously been nothing but a bore. Later, at the suggestion of his wife Charlene Spencer, he starts to write them down and send them in to various magazines (all of which reject them) instead of telling each and every individual the tiniest of details relating to SG-1. As the episode goes on, skipping ahead in years, the people he tells start to get tired of the tales of SG-1 and, eventually, they stop coming to his barbershop. Despite his wife's urging, telling him to stop writing the episodes down, he continues to type and becomes convinced that the visions are actually happening. After years of too-intense focus on SG-1, long since passed into obsession, his wife leaves with their son. At this point he tries to find evidence that what he has been seeing is real, collecting data on mysterious stellar phenomenon and unexplained deaths, but is unable to contact Colonel O'Neill. Eventually, he tracks down where O'Neill lives, bringing the viewer to the opening scene.

It is then discovered that the reason Joe has been seeing the visions, flashes of the life of Jack O'Neill, is because of an Ancient Long-range communication stone brought back from P3R-233 the same world as the Quantum Mirror. The device, which was activated by O'Neill when he touched a mysterious black stone in Dr. Daniel Jackson's lab, connects two minds together telepathically and Joe, who possesses the same Ancient gene as O'Neill, activated the companion device when he touched the stone at the garage sale. That stone, we find out, was discovered by the grandfather of the garage sale's operator and had been found at a dig in Egypt. When Jack had been on the base, writing his mission-reports of their off-world adventures, the stone in Daniel's lab transmitted his thoughts to Joe. Conversely, O'Neill had been seeing visions of Joe's everyday life periodically, as the two devices could work in either direction; Jack never said anything because he found the visions "relaxing." At the close of the episode O'Neill helps Joe start to piece his life back together by personally talking to Joe's wife. Just as the camera pans out O'Neill begins by telling Joe and his wife that "it's all true".

Notable Quotes
O'Neill: I just walked in with a whole handful of ingredients for my world famous omelet.

Carter: World famous, huh? What's in it?

O'Neill: Eggs.

Carter: I doubt that that actually qualifies as a recipe.

O'Neill: Oh, don't kid yourself. There's a secret ingredient. Can't tell you what it is or I'd have to shoot you.

Carter: It's beer, isn't it.

O'Neill: Okay, look. This obviously isn't your forté. So why don't you just put the gun down before you get hurt.

Joe: Don't come any closer!

O'Neill: I know your gun isn't real. However... mine is.

Joe: Oh god! I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You're right. It's just a toy. Please don't shoot me.

O'Neill: I'm not gonna shoot ya.

Joe: I'm sorry. I just thought it was the only way to make you listen to me.

O'Neill: Oh, where you're going people will listen. They got nothing to do but listen to what you have to say. They have nice white coats, padded walls. The whole nine yards.

Joe: You have a thing for The Simpsons, fishing, Mary Steenburgen, the color peridot and you're a terrible ping pong player.

O'Neill: Have we met?

Joe: Between you and me, I totally see the analogy: Burns as Goa'uld.

O'Neill: Thank you!

Joe: Dr. Jackson, can I just say, thank goodness you're back. Not that Jonas was a bad guy, but after all you've been through together, you belong here with SG-1.

Jackson: Thank you. Jack?

O'Neill: He's a barber.

Jackson: Broke into your house?

O'Neill: Yeah.

Jackson: Second week in a row.

O'Neill: Mm hm.

Jackson: Alarm.

O'Neill: I'm thinking dog.

Joe: You could try locking your front door.

Jackson: Wait a minute. Jack, you've been seeing parts of the life of a barber in Indiana for seven years and you never mentioned it?

O'Neill: Yeah. Sure I did. I know I did.

Carter: No. No, you didn't, sir.

O'Neill: I didn't?

Jackson: You didn't find it the least bit odd?

O'Neill: Actually, no. I found it quite relaxing.

Goofs

 * At the end of the episode it is revealed that as Joe was seeing visions of SG-1, Jack was seeing visions of Joe's life. In the beginning of the episode, Jack doesn't seem to recognize Joe. However, his visions would have been from Joe’s perspective, so, despite Joe standing in front of a mirror frequently as a barber, he may have never seen Joe’s face.
 * At the start Jack references meeting with someone named Johnson from the CIA relating to recent events with ex-Vice President Robert Kinsey. This person is quite clearly implied to be Kerry Johnson whom Jack is shown to be having a relationship with at the start of "Threads" (she is a CIA agent involved in investigations after the Kinsey incident). So a subtle mistake here occurs when this episode is aired after Threads in some DVDs as Jack acts as though he doesn't know her yet.

In other languages

 * French: Rien à Perdre (Nothing to Lose)
 * Italian: Il Cittadino Joe (The Citizen Joe)
 * Spanish: Ciudadano Joe (Citizen Joe)
 * Czech: Občan Joe (Citizen Joe)
 * German: Joe
 * Hungarian: Joe polgártárs (Citizen Joe)
 * Polish: El Joe de Citizen poip (Citizen of Joe)