In the sixteenth episode of the second season of Voyager, EVERYTHING IS SO MESSED UP and yet totally better than the last episode. Intrigued? Then it’s time for mark to watch Star Trek.Â
Trigger Warning: For discussion of mental illness, specifically sociopathy.
Goddamn, what an unnerving episode. This is not what I expected of Voyager, first of all, and I was also not expecting Tim Russ to give me LIFE. This is a challenging episode to analyze, too, and I want to be delicate in discussing it.
Why? Because even though this episode is entertaining, riveting, and scary, it treads on a common trope concerning portrayals of mental illness, specifically people who deal with sociopathy. Here, Suder is fairly one-dimensional. His inability to control his violent tendencies is directly linked to his inability to experience empathy towards anyone around him. It’s pretty much the ONLY way you see sociopaths discussed or represented in fiction, even though the reality of sociopathy is much more complicated and layered than that.
So, I want to acknowledge that upfront because while there’s certainly depth given to Tuvok’s struggle, I didn’t really see that in Suder’s character. He’s here as a foil to Tuvok, which isn’t a bad thing by itself. (And I don’t really have much sympathy for a murderer, anyway.) Suder killed simply because he could and because he wanted to, and the very idea baffles Tuvok, whose strict adherence to logic does not contain room for the ambiguity of human nature. We humans do confusing, vague, and nonsensical things all the time, and we are not easily categorized, either. So how does Tuvok deal with the senseless murder that Suder commits?
Mostly denial, honestly. It’s in this depiction that the show strays far from the fantastical science I’m used to and wades into a far more unnerving world. The Vulcan mind meld might be fantasy, but what Tuvok deals with after gaining Suder’s violent tendencies? That’s unfortunately very, very real. And perhaps you could view this episode as a genuine chance for Voyager to explore mental illness through one of its main characters. I wouldn’t fault someone who found this episode to be enlightening or relatable, you know?
Yet I also can’t deny that Tim Russ’s performance is meant to scare us. Good gods, y’all, that scene in the sick bay is HORRIFYING. Tuvok finally expresses emotions, and they are IMMENSELY UNNERVING AND UPSETTING. It’s one of the most memorable moments in this season, but it serves as a demonstration of this struggle. I admit that this episode is ambitious as hell. The entire conflict is internal, which means that it all has to be presented through Tim Russ’s and Brad Dourif’s performances. We can’t see what’s happening in their minds. Dourif plays Suder with detachment and clarity, and it’s eerie watching Tuvok slowly adapt the same behaviors. So I imagine that’s why there are such intensely visual sequences. The image of Tuvok’s quarters in disarray, coupled with his face covered in perspiration, paint a specific portrait for us. The same goes for the way he tosses a cart at the force field in sick bay, or the cunning smile that turns up the corner of his mouth when he speaks to Janeway. These moments are externalizing the internal for the audience.
So the ending feels a little rushed because of this. On the one hand, I appreciate that because it’s a clear demonstration that even far in the future, mental illness isn’t treated as if it can be fixed with a hypospray. There is no magical cure, just like there often isn’t in the real world. It’s something that needs to be worked on, either through therapy or medicine, and it takes time. Yet for a story so highly focused on an internal struggle, the conclusion also leaves everything to the audience’s imagination. What happened during the second mind meld? Did it just “fix” part of Tuvok’s emotion-blocking ability? What happens to Suder’s mind?
It’s complicated. The whole episode is, honestly. But hot damn, it’s a million times better than “Threshold,” isn’t it? Maybe we’ll see Suder again! He’s confined to quarters under protection. I wonder if we’ll see if there’s progress made on his therapy. Anyway, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS, FRIENDS.
The video for “Meld” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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