In the fourth episode of the third season of Star Trek, THIS IS SO RELENTLESSLY CREEPY. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For discussion of suicide, child abuse, and manipulation, specifically of children.
HOLY SHIT, WHAT HAS THIS SHOW DONE TO ME. Am I going to get a fantastic episode followed by a terrible one for the remainder of this season? That could actually be a lot of fun, now that I think about it.
Anyway, THAT’S NOT WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT. I called the use of the trope of creepy children to build horror fairly early into “And the Children Shall Lead,” but I’m impressed that this doesn’t end up going where I thought it would. At the end of the day, the five children who are controlled by Gorgan are still just children. They don’t possess any special powers, they aren’t evil incarnate, and they were horribly manipulated by this being to serve his imperialistic desires. At the same time, the writers are able to invoke this trope without it seeming like past episodes, particularly “Miri.” There’s a similarity, since children are the antagonist in this episode as well, but it’s somehow a million times more horrifying here.
It’s the grimness in “And the Children Shall Leave” that’s at the heart of the unsettling feel of this story. Granted, “Miri” was also about death, but it’s so much more upsetting to see the juxtaposition between all those murdered parents (who were compelled to commit suicide JESUS CHRIST) and their joyous children. At least with “Miri,” the children understood that something had gone wrong. Here, as the crew tries to determine what happened down on Triacus, they have to contend with the overjoyed survivors. The children are eager to play, eat ice cream, and act as if their parents weren’t just lying dead on the ground. While Bones theorizes that there’s some horrific form of shock at the source of this bizarre reaction, we know that something else is at hand.
The explanation is a little strange, I admit. Gorgan isn’t even technically anything other than the distillation of the marauders’ “evil,” so I don’t know that he counts as a distinct being. He used his mystical powers to brainwash those children because… they were easy to manipulate, maybe??? That’s also not addressed, and there’s the perpetually goofy method by which these kids use their telekinesis, as if they’re playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Perhaps coming off of “The Paradise Syndrome,” I was already biased to like this episode more than I normally would. But even with the strange exposition provided by the story, this is an eerie, upsetting experience. As the children increasingly rely on the powers Gorgan gave them, the crew succumbs to their fears and paranoia. Sulu believes that if he touches the controls, he’ll veer the Enterprise into… concentric circles of knives? That’s…. that’s incredibly ridiculous, okay. But Uhura and Kirk are both hit with much more believable fears: death and the loss of control/command. Even Spock becomes susceptible to the mind control for a brief moment, and it’s goddamn scary.
Y’ALL: KIRK HAD TWO OF HIS OFFICERS BEAMED INTOÂ SPACE. CAN WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT.
There’s just a lot of things here that are incredibly disturbing. I was thankful, then, that the end of the episode showed us that these kids needed to grieve. It’s how Gorgan’s power is undone, and as fucked up as it is that they’re shown their dead parents, it was the only way to break the spell he had over them. As far as I’m concerned, he abused those kids for his own needs. He sought them out because he knew they’d be easy to control, and he knew that he could use people’s assumptions about children to keep them under the radar. His entire image was constructed so that they’d view him as their best friend, which is why it was so significant that he began to literally decay once they lost their faith in him.
Is it the best episode? No, not really, and there are a few too many holes or absurdities for my own taste. I mean, I’m all for weirdness, but the space knives are too much, and I don’t understand the background for Gorgan at all. Still, there’s a distinct surrealism within “And the Children Shall Lead” that I kind of admire. The clothing choice for the children is fascinating, since they’re visually at odds with the uniforms of the Enterprise, and it’s a great way to create a sense of visual juxtaposition. As goofy as the gestures are, I kind of like the idea that something we’d recognize as a children’s game is re-appropriated into a gesture that causes harm. Even Gorgan’s outfit is reminiscent of clowns (FUCK CLOWNS, THEY ARE THE WORST), and so we’ve got a visual fabric to this episode that’s all about twisting what we associate with children. It fits the larger narrative of children being used for evil, doesn’t it?
It’s a solid story, and it’s certainly better than the last episode. The content was a little more unsettling than usual, but it was a lot of fun to watch for the first time. I will not apologize for my reaction to this episode, either. I’m ridiculous. EVERY TIME, y’all. EVERY TIME I am ruined by creepy children. It always makes me feel awful.
The video for “And the Children Shall Lead” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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