In the fourteenth episode of the second season of The Next Generation, Riker’s past haunts a decision he must make. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
HOLY SHIT, I LOVED THIS EPISODE. LET’S DISCUSS A LOT OF THINGS.
Worf
You know, I kept expecting there to be a reveal that Wesley was wrong about the source of Worf’s anxiety. I was convinced that he was torn up about Riker leaving, but I’m much more satisfied with the story we’re given. Cultural isolation is a very bizarre and discouraging thing to experience, and it’s something I have had to deal with my whole life as a transracial adoptee. Those issues aside, I could still say that my experience as a Latino kid in Boise, Idaho in the late 80s and early 90s could be considered cultural isolation. My brother and I were the only brown kids in our class, and, if memory serves me right, two of three people of color in a school of well over a thousand students. We stood out, and kids knew it. We were teased constantly, and none of the teachers were prepared or trained to deal with the kind of bullying we faced.
That sensation – of feeling alone in a crowd, no matter how friendly the crowd was – has influenced me a great deal. It helps define who I consider a friend, whether or not I feel safe in public spaces, and how I navigate social settings. I often seek out people of color or queer folks when I can do so safely because it gives me a comfort I don’t normally have. That doesn’t mean I won’t have friends who are white or straight, but it affects how open I am with others. Of course, the fact that I was not raised in a culture that matched where I came from means that I have felt like Worf feels here, but for my entire life. There’s a disconnect between those two aspects of me, and I know it’s something I may never repair.
That’s where my hesitation came from. I spent so much of this episode worried that Wesley would botch this because… well, when does this ever happen? When does someone outside of a culture offer up a genuine cultural experience to someone who desperately needs it? This is also why Worf’s story in “The Icarus Factor” is so rewarding. His friends give him true happiness with that Ascension ritual. They do it without necessarily trying to understand it or judge Worf for it, and they don’t make it about themselves. It’s solely for Worf and his pleasure. In the process, they offer him something he hasn’t had in ten years.
It’s a remarkably sweet storyline, and I’m very pleased with how it went down, y’all. Bravo, The Next Generation.
Father
I hold a longstanding repulsion towards the term “daddy issues,” especially when it’s applied to someone or a situation in a manner that delegitimatizes what someone’s going through. It’s used flippantly to describe anyone who doesn’t necessarily feel positive towards their father. I suspect that because our society valorizes fatherhood over motherhood more often than not, it becomes easier to criticize people for having any sort of “issues” around the concept.
I was often told I had daddy issues when I spoke about my strained relationship with my father, and it took years to realize how dismissive that was. I didn’t have daddy issues; my family was homophobic. My father believed in outdated and essentialist modes of gender expression. He couldn’t relate to me or get close to me because he was raised that way, to believe that men should like football and tools and not showing your emotions. It’s extremely rude to write this all off as “daddy issues.”
I think “The Icarus Factor” has a strength in validating the anger and rage that Riker feels towards his father without making it a case of “daddy issues.” This is perhaps one of the most deeply personal episodes of the show, one that relies almost entirely on the character study of Will and Kyle Riker. At times, it’s unapologetically brutal, something we don’t really see that much of on The Next Generation. Riker is cold towards his father the second he steps off the transporter, and it doesn’t relent for nearly forty minutes after that.
Of course, part of the driving force behind this episode, which is largely without a central conflict, is the mystery of Riker’s anger. Why does he despise his father so much? Why did his father not reach out for fifteen years? I liked that the answers to these questions were not necessarily that simple. There’s a complicated emotional landscape at play here, fueled in part by Kyle Riker’s ego and by the resentment Riker feels about his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment when he was a teenager. These are all valid things to have a problem with! It’s revealed that Riker was on his own at age fifteen, and when you couple that with Kyle’s statement about “13 years” being enough time… well, christ. It’s clear that Kyle was not in his son’s life for a significant period of time, and what little he was? It doesn’t sound like that was a pleasant time for either person.
Which is such a horrible thing to deal with, y’all. I know I’ve spoken openly about this before, but I think it’s relevant. There are few things more confusing and bewildering than growing up and not believing that your parents love you. That’s especially the case in this culture because of how functional families seem in popular media. But I don’t want to rely solely on that; I know that most of my friends had loving families, too. Yes, there was dysfunction. Yes, they had problems. Yes, they fought. But at the end of the day, most of my peers didn’t have to wonder whether they were messed up or wrong.
I imagine that is part of Riker’s life and why he’s so cold to his father. Why does the man show up after fifteen years? To gloat? To beg for forgiveness? And why should Riker forgive his father for a lifetime of disappointment? My only worry here was that the writers would find some way to dismiss Riker’s concerns and to redeem Kyle in a way that ignored what he’d done in the past. I don’t think that happens here. First of all, the Anbo-jyutsu match is evidence of that because these two dudes LITERALLY GET TO A POINT IN THEIR BICKERING WHERE THEY BEAT THE HELL OUT OF ONE ANOTHER. Even when Riker realizes how much the death of his mother affected Kyle, I didn’t feel like the show was saying, “Yay! All their problems were done!”
No, I think “The Icarus Factor” gave Kyle Riker and Will Riker their first stepping stone. It gave them understanding. Grief can be a nasty thing, and it consumed Kyle so much that he ended up turning on his son. That’ll hurt for Riker for a long time, and it may never go away. But this episode offers these characters a chance to move forward much later in life, and I appreciate that. Maybe I can do the same some day.
The video for “The Icarus Factor” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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