In the twenty-third and penultimate episode of the third season of Enterprise, the end begins. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
Trigger Warning: For torture and consent.
This is a relentless set-up for the season three finale, and I’m so used to episodes like this seeming as if they’re the middle of a chess game. You gotta put all the pieces where they need to be! Except this episode murders some pieces, murders more, makes the main characters fail, and leaves us in a precarious place. I have no idea how Sphere 41 is going to be the thing that undoes the Xindi weapon. How can they do both things in ten hours? I DON’T KNOW.
Hayes
While we do get closure for the season-long arc for Hayes/Reed, I can’t say that this means much. Reed gets exactly what he always wanted, right? He resented Hayes for most of the season because he felt like Hayes was encroaching on his territory. They came to respect one another a little bit more than they had at the beginning, but then there’s that necessary (but, in hindsight, really bizarre) scene early in “Countdown” where Hayes is angry that he wasn’t with one of his MACOs when they died. So, were Reed and Hayes no longer on good terms? Or was that just a way to get Hayes onboard that reptilian ship? I don’t get it! Is Hayes’s arc that he… just died? He was annoying to Reed, they made up for like five episodes, then they had a weird moment, then Hayes dies? That isn’t a very good storyline, especially not spread out over so many episodes.
Hoshi
I call foul on this plot, and I admit that I thought she’d be a bigger focus in the episode. She was kidnapped to decypher the third launch sequence code, and she is the SOLE PERSON who can stop the reptilians all by herself. That is a huge deal, and for the length of the first act, I got the sense that this was the most important plot. Hoshi was determined to resist the reptilians no matter what they did or how they hurt her, and given her fears in season one, I was ready for this to be a HUGE episode for her character.
So you can imagine my disappointment after she’s injected with a parasite, makes one solitary bit of progress against the reptilians, and then… nothing? She’s just a damsel in distress, and the show doesn’t bother to do anything with her after she’s given the reptilians what they need. There’s no follow-up. How was she dealing with the physical or emotional ramifications of what had happened to her? Did she feel guilt? Remorse? Was she disappointed in herself? Who knows because SHE IS UNCONSCIOUS FOR THE ENTIRE SECOND HALF OF THIS SCRIPT. It feels bogus to me because we have had almost no Hoshi-centric stories this season, and when we finally get one, there’s not actually even a story there. She tries to resists, fails, and then is unconscious. MEH.
Betrayal
What does work here is the shifting alliances of the aquatics and the insectoids, who both come to epiphanies through different means. Archer gambles with the aquatics by bluffing, promising them that they’ll be able to disarm all the spheres in the Expanse, despite that Tucker and T’Pol are both still trying to determine if that’s possible. It was the last thing he had, though! He hadn’t convinced them to help out with the alliance by appealing to their morality. They still didn’t feel it necessary to get involved, despite everything that had happened. TOUGH CROWD, INDEED.
Yet the insectoids turn was the most fascinating to me. They had to witness the intervention of the Guardians to suddenly question the reptilians actions. Even then, it was too little, too late! The reptilians are buying the Guardians’s promise of domination. After seeing how easily the Guardians turned on the other Xindi species, you’d think they’d be more careful, but they just can’t seem to see it. They’re too close to it all, too certain of their role in this future.
I still have no idea how these two plots – Sphere 41 and the Xindi weapon – are supposed to converge in just one episode. I’m not ready, y’all!
The video for “Countdown” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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