In the fifteenth episode of the third season of Enterprise, a lot happened, and a lot didn’t. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Enterprise.
Trigger Warning: For consent, torture.
I’m fascinated by a lot of this episode, even if I didn’t ultimately feel it was that entertaining. See, the main plot is left hanging while the two subplots escalate matters VERY, VERY FAR. It’s also a strange follow-up to “Stratagem,” since it does the one thing I asked for from that episode. On top of that, I finally feel like I don’t have to worry about continuity as much as I used to, since season three is the most serialized season thus far.
As you can see, lots to talk about. Let’s get into it!
Reed and Hayes
I feel like I saw a plot like this on something I watched in the last year or so. Right? or maybe this specific trope – where two headstrong men have a pissing contest that ends with them beating the shit out of each other – is so prevalent that it simply doesn’t feel new anymore. It provides closure, though, and I’m not sure it does much else. I never felt like Hayes was an antagonistic force, and while Reed’s position was kind of understandable, I generally saw Reed as the more difficult party. Hayes had never truly expressed any interest in taking over Reed’s job. Indeed, their end goals felt so different! Yet Reed’s paranoia and his own military past got in the way.
At least until Archer forces Reed to work with Hayes in training, and then the two men finally took out their frustrations on one another. Good lord, they both handed out a beating! Hopefully this is the end of this plot, though, since it doesn’t really interest me.
Love Triangles
So… this isn’t going to evolve into one of those, right? Because y’all. I know this show aired over a decade ago, but I feel like the entire universe exhausted their supply of antagonistic love triangles many, many years ago. Unless a love triangle ends with a triad or a poly relationship of some sort, WE DON’T WANT THESE ANYMORE. Now, I’m not sure if this counts because I have no idea if Amanda Cole will appear again. It’s entirely possible that she existed here to give Tucker a chance to pursue someone else while T’Pol experienced romantic jealousy for the first time. If so… that’s kind of a lousy reason to introduce a character like Amanda, right? She doesn’t exist to be a character in her own right; she’s there to push T’Pol and Tucker together. EW. TRIADS INSTEAD, PLEASE.
Like the Reed/Hayes plot, there are a lot of tropes attached to this story, too. However, there’s one spectacular scene here that felt exciting and refreshing. I am ENAMORED with the decision to have T’Pol tell Tucker what Sim said about him. First of all, it’s so perfectly in-character for T’Pol. Her blunt honesty works as a way to advance the plot, sure, but it didn’t feel like a bogus moment. That’s totally how she would react! But it’s also a disarming sequence because LITERALLY NO ONE EXPECTED IT. I certainly thought she’d keep it to herself because it was such a personal thing for Sim to reveal.
But the honesty is the first moment in this plot that felt real. That felt like the writers weren’t using miscommunication or passive-aggressiveness as a plot device. That felt like these characters ACTUALLY TRYING TO UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER. So I’m hoping that despite the uncomfortable scene in the mess hall, T’Pol and Tucker ditch the awkwardness and just be real with one another. It’s way more interesting.
Harbinger
The unnamed alien at the center of this episode never truly gives us anything. Oh, there’s enough here to make an educated guess, which Archer tries to do before this being disappears out of existence. I had mentioned before in earlier reviews of this show that I wasn’t sure if some of the ambiguous resolution to episodes was very fair or satisfying, given that I had no idea if there’d ever be a follow-up.
Yet by the time I got to the end of “Harbinger,” I did feel satisfied. Even if there’s no specific update, this alien was a harbinger of what is to come, a sign of how desperate the Xindi are to eliminate humans and any threats to the weapon they’re constructing. My take is that the pod the crew found in that anomaly was a trap right from the start, something interesting enough to pique the interest of the crew of Enterprise. They’d take it onboard, and the alien’s next step would be put into motion: they’d gain the ability to walk through solid matter, and they could destroy Enterprise. It’s all a guess, but it’s one I’m safe making based on what happened.
It was striking to me, though, that this episode was so explicit about the ethical concerns that Phlox had for his patient, while “Stratagem” utterly ignored them. Was it because Phlox did not view this alien as an enemy? And what does that say about Phlox’s code of ethics if he can suspend them just because he doesn’t like someone? I don’t see this as a flaw of his character as much as I see it as a flaw in the writing. Maybe the writers just forgot to address this in the last episode? It felt like the right addition here, for what it’s worth, and it is yet another example of Archer’s desperation in the Expanse. He’s the only character consistently willing to do shit like this! So… will this be all justified in the end? Or will it come back to bite him in the ass? WHO KNOWS.
The video for “Harbinger” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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