Andrew Bloom

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9

[9.5/10] My goodness. The first episode of *X-Men ‘97” charts a noble if rocky path. The second episode then blew it out of the water. I don’t know what to say.

Magneto was long one of the original X-Men show’s most interesting characters. While the writing was inconsistent, the idea that he was torn between his perspective on humanity and his respect and admiration for Professor Xavier fueled an inner conflict between the political and the personal that made him the X-Men’s signature villain.

“Mutant Liberation Begins” honors that view of the character with a depiction that is startlingly complex, as Magneto tries to set aside his own perspective and vindicate the legacy of the departed friend who entrusted him with his school and his mission.

My god, it pays dividends. There is a great arc here. Scott and the rest of the X-Men are understandably wary of someone they’ve fought against so many times. (Though you’d think that him stepping in to help save Xavier’s life in the prior show’s series finale would count for something.) The struggle to accept an erstwhile villain and extremist as a leader; Scott’s fear that this means Professor X did not think him ready or worthy to lead the team; the sense of doubt over whether our heroes can even trust this guy all add dimension to the shocking twist from the end of the last episode.

Magneto’s goal to earn that trust is what puts this one over the top though. He still comes with a certain arrogance, a certain self-certainty, a certain judgment toward an accommodationist philosophy he doesn’t fully believe in. But this is also someone who defends the Morlocks(!) and finds them a new home, who submits himself to the judgment of the U.N. to prove his willingness to meet humanity on even terms, and who, tempted to unleash his fury when his act of faith is rewarded with lethal threats, chooses to relent, in the name of the friend whose presence still lurks in the back of his mind.

(One minor gripe -- it’s weird to hear the X-Men refer to Magneto as “Erik”, even if that's his more common name from the comics, since he was always known as Magnus in the 1990s cartoon.)

That is powerful as all hell. The biggest way that X-Men ‘97 pays tribute to its predecessor is in its full-throated embrace of the themes and ideas behind the science-fiction story of mutants and humans in conflict. Magneto’s trial is rife with such a mature take on the nuances and challenges of prejudice and peaceful coexistence.

I am going to have to watch the exchanges there five more times at least to digest it all, but at a minimum, I appreciate how the show connects the antisemitism of the Holocaust to prejudices that continue to be faced today to other forms of bigotry across the spectrum to xenophobic fears of replacement to the thin differences between oppression and self defense to the grace and respect that must be shown for anything to ever get better. I can't sum it up in a few humble paragraphs with my own feeble words, but suffice it to say, most grown-up, politically-minded shows don’t get this deep and this piercing in their realizations of how to grapple with bigotry and mutual mistrust among in-groups and out-groups, and it’s startling to see it in my grown-up cartoon.

Hell, sometimes it’s scary. Look, the Friends of Humanity are outsized to be sure. X-Cutioner is a souped up masked man brandishing sentinel tech and a power-deploying gun. But the anti-U.N., anti-evolution, anti-outsider perspective he brings feels all too real. The moment in the episode where a bunch of lunatics storm a hall of government is extra jarring after the events of January 6th. His gripes about how “regular people” have it harder than mutants, only they have the “dignity” not to complain like the “whiners” is eerily similar to real life rhetoric from bigots. And the broader point, that by even giving an outsider like Magneto a fair trial, the U.N. judges are now seen as traitors and fair game for the vicious xenophobes charging at the gates, highlights the perniciousness of their perspective, and the surmountable but immense challenges in showing enough grace and forbearance to pave the way for peace and reconciliation.

It stems from the personal. You can feel the fury when Magneto crushes X-Cutioner’s weapon and binds him to the U.N. seal, lifting him and the U.N. functionaries into the atmosphere far above the earth, ready to wreak vengeance upon them all. Instead, he remembers what that voice inside his head would say, the presence of a man who believed in gestures of compassion and understanding in even the worst of times -- it’s why Magneto’s standing here rather than Xavier. So he relents. He speaks of a world where human and mutant alike respect the other’s right to exist, as a starting point. And he proves himself, not just as a trustworthy leader of the X-Men, but as a worthy inheritor of his best friend’s mantle, however more tenuously it sits upon his shoulders than it did Xavier’s.

Oh yeah, and Jean has her baby.

It’s a big moment! This episode is rife with big moments. I can't do them all justice. Hell, even the U.N. headquarters fight with the FOH is a standout in terms of strong animation and inventive clashes.

But the broader struggles among societies and leaders are given more humbling form when a mutant woman can't find a doctor to treat her while she’s in labor, not because of who she is, but what she is. Amid these broader clashes of civilizations is the reality that individuals are denied the basics of their humanity, and have to rely on one another to survive in a world that hates them simply for being born. It is wholesome and heartening to have Wolverine drive like a maniac to get his lost love to a hospital, and for Rogue to absorb a bigoted doctor’s knowledge to deliver the baby.

But it’s also a sad indictment of the state of acceptances of those who are different that it has to come to that. And it’s sadder still that real life people would deny the same kind of care to those who need it in the real world.

Oh yeah, and Storm loses her powers.

Oh man, am I fascinated to see where this goes. The moment where she dives in front of X-Cutioner’s blast to save Magento is an act of great sacrifice from Storm, and in a way, the event that consecrates Magneto. But it also robs her of the life she knew. The way the animators show her struggling to move, the way she can no longer sense the breeze or the moisture in the air, the way thunder and lightning are suddenly enemies rather than allies, sells the magnitude of what’s been taken from Storm, and how it radically changes her life.

The tie to all of this is the incredible conversation between Jean and Storm about Jean’s anxieties over her child. There is truth in Jean hoping her child is human, if only wanting to protect him and spare him the hardships they’ve all faced, while feeling terrible about that. And there is hope when Storm reassures her that those feelings are natural, and that Storm’s shared them, only to appreciate how being a mutant has brought her to this family and a “sister” like Jean. And there is bitter poetry in anxious Jean holding her child and seeing hope for the future, while a depowered Storm ends the episode robbed of her powers and believing this life no longer fits who she is.

In truth, Jean and Storm never got much time to bond in the original series, which makes some of the “sister” talk ring a bit false. But this episode does such a good job making their relationship feel lived in and natural that it’s easy to give them a pass. There is incredible pathos in Storm’s loss, incredible joy in Jean’s bringing a new life into the world, and incredible heart in how the two women comfort one another.

What can I say? Other than that the original X-Men was rarely, if ever, this good. Not every part of “Mutant Liberation Begins” works. I assume it’s a fake out, but the Magneto/Rogue stuff is weird. A friend described the show’s art style as Archer-esque, and now I can't unsee it. And some of the voices still seem off. (Morph’s less convincing a substitute when he’s actually talking versus just snickering and teasing.)

But so much of it does. The trial and transcendent triumph of Magneto stepping into his best friend’s shoes as a leader and a peacemaker, the breath-holding desperation of Jean ready to give birth, the unexpected tragedy of Storm losing her powers, the sad yet hopeful resonance with real life events, all elevate X-Men ‘97 into rarified air. Time will tell whether the show will be able to maintain this level of quality as it carries on a legacy of its own, but if this episode is the only high water mark we get, then dayenu, it would be enough.

[10/10] This is nothing but sap and fanservice, but damnit, it absolutely worked on me.

I don’t know what to say. I remind myself that Disney is an emotionless corporation whose prime goal is simply to earn money for stockholders. It’s a business, like any other, and shorts like this are basically a giant, heartstring-tugging ad for it.

But I’ve also been indoctrinated by decades of films and television shows and video games and other little pieces of schmaltz just like this one. Whether I want to honor the artists who fueled the studio’s creative output, or look cynically upon the corporate moneymakers who monetized it, these characters mean something to me. I can't help that, or the emotional reaction seeing them all together, honoring the history and the spirit those stories represent provokes from me.

On a nuts and bolts level, the Toy Story-esque premise of the studio’s characters coming to life at night is an appropriately fantastical one. The short derives tons of joy from mixing and mashing-up characters from across the Disney landscape. (Something The House of Mouse, of all things, thrived on.)

I love the little sequence where Moana enlists Merlin to magic some water into the Mad Hatter’s tophat for Flounder, in a seamless melding of different players from different eras. Mirabel’s little cousin guiding the various animals to the photo spot is a nice touch. The gags involving the Zootopia sloth and Baymax getting into the elevator, much to Donald’s trademark chagrin, were delightful on their own terms. The fairies changing the studio storefront from pink to blue rather than Sleeping Beauty’s dress was a treat. And god help me, I love Fix-It Felix repairing Goofy’s camera while Tinkerbelle lifts him up to take the picture.

Again, this is all just pushing nostalgia buttons and deploying cheap fanservice, but if there’s a safe place for it, it’s this kind of celebratory occasion. In that spirit, it’s great to see some of the less-loved or more obscure films be represented as well, from the protagonist of Oliver & Company, to Chicken Little, to even a prominent appearance from Ichabod Crane. This whole short has the spirit of a family reunion, and sometimes that means inviting the rarely-seen cousins too, which is nice for the all-encompassing, celebratory spirit of the piece.

The only real demerits here are the awkward human performances at the beginning, but I assume it’s because the lines are read by animators and not actors, so they get a little slack.

What can I say? Even as someone who has mixed feelings about Walt Disney, it’s hard not to get a little choked up when Mickey doffs his cap to his creator. And even as someone who reminds himself that the big companies that make the art you love are not your friends, it’s hard not to hear generations of Disney characters I grew up with singing “When You Wish Upon a Star” together, culminating with Jiminy Cricket’s original croon, and not get a little misty-eyed.

Disney has a power over us. That is the great and scary thing about the studio having invested a century in generating stories for screens great and small, and marketing their own history and legacy in shorts like these across the globe. I can't pretend any of it’s pure, but I also can't deny the spell all those smiling cartoon faces still cast over me.

[9.5/10] One of those elements of Star Trek that's permeated pop culture is the Kobayashi Maru -- a test to confront aspiring cadets with the famed no-win scenario. I still like the concept, that even the most seasoned officer will face situations in which there’s no chance to win the day. It ties into the themes of The Wrath of Khan, that through guile and pluck, Kirk’s avoided real consequences until now, when success means paying a terrible cost.

But as duly vaunted as the Kobayashi Maru has become in the Trekkie fandom and beyond, it can obscure a deeper, more harrowing type of choice a commander may have to make. How do you make a call that unavoidably means deciding who lives and who dies? How do you set aside your personal feelings, if you can at all, when you must choose between multiple equally horrible options? How do you live with yourself afterwards, knowing some of your comrades are still breathing and some aren’t, not because of the enemy, but because of your command decision?

In short, if the Kobayashi Maru asks how you handle a scenario where the only option is failure, “Latent Image” asks what to do when there are choices to be made, but all of them are bad.

And it chooses the perfect, unfortunate guinea pig to test out that idea. The Doctor makes for a brilliant fulcrum to explore the question for three reasons. For one, he is, well, a doctor, so questions of medical triage make for an organic setup for the character. For another, one of Voyager’s strongest ongoing character arcs has been Doc’s budding humanity, so examining how that intersects with this challenge feels natural. And last, but not least, he’s a hologram, so the question of whether to subject him to this sort of choice at all adds an extra layer of philosophical inquiry to an already richly-drawn episode.

It also makes for a hell of a paranoid thriller in the first couple acts before the episode delves into the meat of the philosophical problem. I’ll confess that I remembered the twist to this one from watching the show live, but it speaks to the quality of the episode’s construction -- as written by franchise vet Joe Menosky from a story by him, Eileen Connors, and showrunner Brannon Braga -- that even knowing where the story is going doesn’t diminish the unnerving atmosphere of those first couple acts.

Much of that comes down to the increasingly concerning vibe of the piece. The episode begins with business as usual: The Doctor in his usual genial if insistent mood, the rest of the crew humoring him. But gradually, little mysteries start emerging, inconsistencies keep cropping up, and no one seems especially bothered by them despite the way they slowly unravel the Doctor’s world.

That sense of an escalating sense that something is wrong and no one in this ostensibly friendly place will fully acknowledge it (and they may even be in on it) makes “Latent Image” feel of a piece with 1970s horror films like Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives. More apropos still, the episode plays like the negative image successor to TNG’s “Clues”, also written by Menosky, where the majority of the crew starts to pick up incongruities, and it’s the artificial lifeform (in this case, Data) who seems to be hiding something.

Like those stories, “Latent Image” puts the audience in the shoes of the protagonist. We know as little as the Doctor does. And as with him, what we do know seems to suggest something nefarious is afoot. Memory wipes, hidden surgeries, and deleted files all suggest some kind of saboteur, one only the Doctor, and to a lesser extent Seven, seem to be on the trail of. Given the franchise’s history of powerful aliens and twisty tales, it’s perfectly plausible that Doc has uncovered soe malign force from beyond Voyager’s bulkheads putting the crew at risk.

So it comes as just as much of a shock, just as much of a betrayal, when he (and he) discovers that the culprit is actually Janeway.

What’s interesting about the episode is that Menosky and company pretty well give up on being a paranoid thriller at that point. The cards are on the table, and the explanations are steadily unspooled. But despite that fact, the creative team evokes the perfect mood to leave the audience as disoriented and aghast by all of this as The Doctor is.

I think that's necessary. At first, Janeway only gives Doc a partial explanation, even when he’s connected the larger dots. She tells him that there was a conflict in his programming, and the only way to resolve it was to delete his memory. On the surface, that sounds reasonable enough. Doc has had technological snafus in the past, from his head trip in season 2’s “Projections” to his memory lapses in season 3’s “The Swarm”. It’s not unheard of for there to be some technical problem with his program that necessitates the B’Elanna or others tinkering around in his ones and zeroes to get him up and running again.

But by our sharing The Doctor’s perspective through all this, with the audience just as much on the outside looking in to whatever Janeway’s done to him, we’re apt to feel his sense of indignation and violation from being in the dark on what’s happened. His friends and colleagues have been gaslighting him. When he effectively tells the Captain that she has no right, that she’s trampling on his autonomy, it comes from a place of having been lied to, of having your agency stripped away. With apologies to Tuvok, the emotions, not just the logic, of that, have to land for this episode to work, and thanks to how the episode is framed and structured, they do.

To the point, nearly everyone on the ship treats wiping a sapient being’s memories as an uncontroversial necessity, one The Doctor himself need not consent to. Even knowing the valid reasons why Janeway and Paris and the rest of the crew might act this way, given the state of distress the past incident put the EMH in, it feels uncomfortable at best to see Janeway deny him vital information about his own experiences, order him to undergo a procedure against his will, and have his erstwhile friends step in to carry it out.

Candidly, it’s the first time I’ve ever really missed Kes on the show. The writers’ conception of the character had its share of problems over her four seasons aboard Voyager. But if there’s one thing to recommend Kes, it’s that she recognized The Doctor’s humanity, his potential for growth and evolution, before anyone else on the ship. Whatever the psychological challenges the EMH might be facing, it’s easy to imagine Kes standing up for him, insisting that he has the same rights any of them do to decide whether he wants to go on like this or not.

Thankfully, Voyager makes Seven more than a replacement for Kes in the series’ cast list, but also a replacement as one of The Doctor’s best allies. Even better, she can relate to him in a way even Kes couldn’t, given the similarities in their situations, and it makes former Borg the unexpectedly zealous and convincing advocate for an artificial lifeform’s humanity.

Her late night discussion on individuality with Janeway is one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. I’ve often said that the dynamic between Janeway and Seven works because it has the recognizable vibe of a parent caring for a young adult. “Latent Image” cements that dynamic. One of those peculiar but potent moments of childhood comes when a parent has spent years and years instilling a particular set of values in their children, and then, by god, the kids want to hold their parents to them.

It’s so easy to just keep doing things the way you’ve always done them. Janeway makes command decisions for Voyager. There’s a problem with a part of the ship and a member of the crew. She weighs the pros and cons and, ultimately, does what she needs to do to keep things running. Same as it ever was. (At least in the post-”Scorpion”, more pragmatic rendition of the character.)

And yet, there can be a moral clarity from the mouths of babes. Seven has not been fully socialized into Starfleet or the Federation’s way of doing things. She has, however, been given important principles by Janeway: individuality, autonomy, the chance to grow and change. Having been immersed in these ideals, these rights even, she naturally wonders why they shouldn't be extended to the Doctor. Seven asks Janeway if she would do the same with her, trample her agency like that, given that she is, in many ways, full of the same artificial means of supporting life that The Doctor has.

It’s a bracing question. That realization -- that things society uses to put people in different categories, to treat them differently, are thin or even baseless, and they deserve the same treatment -- is the kind of young adult epiphany many go through. To have Seven challenging her mentor in those terms, defending The Doctor’s right to be a person, holding Janeway to her own standards, is one of those moments of clarity and understanding you just love in Star Trek.

In truth, I don’t love Janeway’s response. Her statement that the EMH is more like a replicator than like her and Seven feels like the kind of attitude she’d moved past already. Frankly, rather than making it about the Doctor’s personhood, I wish her position had been something closer to, “We’re tens of thousands of lightyears from home and, right or wrong, I couldn’t afford to lose our only medical officer.” (It would have presaged “Similitude” from Enterprise.) That perspective is in the subtext of Janeway’s explanation, but it comes off much more in the vein of “He’s a machine; we can do what we want with him” that feels out of character for the Captain.

But I can appreciate that as a starting place, because it gives Janeway somewhere to go. It gives her a chance to listen to Seven and, more to the point, connect the ex-Borg’s journey toward individuality with the Doctor’s. One of the more softly moving moments in the whole show comes when Janeway is being kept up late with the same moral quandary Seven was wrestling with, and turning the tables on her protege.

She asks Seven if, given her occasionally rocky path from being a member of the Collective to becoming a distinct individual, would she undo what Janeway’s done? Seven gives her the closest thing to a thank you that a Borg drone could muster -- a simple response that she wouldn’t change it, and the implicit message that however difficult it’s been, all of the hardships have been worth it.

That's all the Captain needs to hear. It’s a powerful thing to have someone change your mind through a testimonial of what you’ve done for them, the grace and trust and support you’ve shown them, that they want to extend to others. It’s hard to imagine something more heartening or truer to Star Trek’s spirit.

So she spills the beans to The Doctor. She explains to him what happened just in the nick of time, and we get to see it. And the truth is...it’s kind of perfunctory. Maybe this is one of those places where the episode is hurt on rewatch. There’s a certain satisfaction to having a mystery solved, but if you already know the answer, it’s hard to replicate that again.

So it’s good that we get to see some conversations between Doc and Ensign Jetal, the shuttle mission, and the deadly alien attack. It’s even more critical that we see the Doctor racing in the moment, trying to save both patients, and only being able to save one, so that we have the context for the choice that continues to vex him. Hell, I love the touch that he beamed their attacker back to his ship rather than into space because of his hardwired “Do No Harm” principles.

What’s more important than seeing what happened, though, is seeing what happened afterwards. The Doctor’s breakdown is brilliant. Robert Picardo gives one of his best performances in the series, conveying the sense in which The Doctor has become unmoored by the arbitrariness of what happened. The cinematography accentuates that, giving us a shaky cam alternative to Voyager’s usual stately visual style to help communicate the inner turmoil consuming Doc. His breakdown in the mess hall is downright scary, both because you’re afraid of this kind and gentle soul unraveling in the face of a mortal decision that would haunt anyone, and because it’s not entirely clear what he might do in the throes of his emotional episode. The Doctor seems unhinged in a way we’ve never seen before. (Give or take the execrable “Darkling” in season 3.)

That scene is all the more vital because it both gives us insight into the Doctor’s character and what’s bothering him so deeply, but also because it helps justify the rest of the crew’s approach. When she’s simply ordering the Doctor to submit to a memory wipe, Janeway seems cold, even cruel. But when you see the Doctor losing it, you understand why she might resort to such measures, even to the point of deceiving him, not just for the crew’s sake, but to spare him the pain and anguish he’s suffering.

Truth be told, it’s tempting. I’ve never had to decide which patient’s life to save and which one to let go, but I’ve experienced difficult moments in my life. I can see the appeal of pushing a button and flushing them out of my mind forever. More to the point, I can envision seeing a loved one torturing themselves over something that cannot be changed and couldn’t be helped, and wanting to take that suffering away from them.

And yet, as another Starfleet captain once put it, “I need my pain.” At the risk of being too sweeping, struggling with our decisions, especially those born of our connections to others, is a part of the human condition. With Seven, Janeway knew the road would be hard, but granted her the chance to become a full person again. Here, she grants The Doctor the same courtesy, the same recognition,

Growing as a person, whether you’re a real life young adult or a sci-fi artificial life form, means confronting the big questions of life. Why are we here? What is my purpose? How do I grapple with the consequences, big or small, of my actions? It’s not always pretty, but The Doctor is growing before our eyes. Janeway respecting his right in that regard, supporting his ability to find his own way through those thickets, and supporting him until he finds a way out on the other side, is one of the most humane and respectful actions she’s ever shown.

What’s so striking about the whole thing is that, in some ways, this is a question of responsibility. Part by necessity, part by a recognition of new life, Janeway has allowed The Doctor to evolve, become more than he was originally intended to be. But with that evolution comes, well, humanity -- connections to other people, feelings that can keep you up nights, personal bonds that may bias your choices.

It’s easy to imagine The Doctor whom we met in the first season having no problem with the issue of only being able to save one patient out of two. Triage is triage and just part of the job. But in the four and a half years since he was activated, he’s developed friendships with folks like Harry Kim, that consciously or not, may have caused him to favor a pal over a casual acquaintance when it mattered most.\

WWondering whether you made the right choice, torturing yourself over whether you let your personal biases get in the way of medical ethics, trying to live with the ramifications, would be a lot for anyone, let alone someone like The Doctor who’s experiencing these sorts of dilemmas for the first time. You feel for him. You feel for someone trying to do the right thing and struggling with his choices because they were, well, eminently human.

So there’s a poetry to all of this. You can't just allow something to become an individual, expose it to all of the wonders and changes that come with personhood and sentience, and then wipe it away when it becomes inconvenient. One of those fundamental throughlines of Star Trek is seeking out new life. As Picard once put it, “well here it sits.” Sentience can be a burden. But it’s only right for Janeway to give The Doctor the opportunity to experience the good nad the bad, to reckon with the hardships, not just the joys, of what it means to embrace humanity.

And what’s beautiful about “Latent Image” is that embracing humanity, that concern for friends and family, is what the episode uses to suggest The Doctor will pull through. In the midst of a rant about Determinism, he recognizes that Kathryn is exhausted, she’s drained, she’s even feverish, but she’s persevering for a friend. Her standing vigil over the Doctor processing his experiences is an act of penance and kindness, one that shows however dismissive she might have been earlier, she’s not just giving permission now; she’s doing the work to support a fellow soul.

It’s enough to give The Doctor the foothold that he needs. It’s the kind of thing that pulls so many of us out of dark stretches, a recognition of our desire to be there for those we care about, that mistakes and human foibles do not extinguish the potential for us to do good and protect and be with those we love.

The Doctor is a healer, by nature. There’s beauty and poetry in what starts to spur him out of his funk being his desire to help and protect the friend who’s trying to help him. We can't always win. We can't always make the right choices. But we can keep doing good, especially for those closest to us.

More to the point, those human connections don’t just sway us in moments when we’d rather be objective; they spur us to put others first out of love and compassion. It’s hard to imagine something truer to Star Trek’s ethos than that.

“Latent Image” is one of the high water marks for Voyager and maybe even for Star Trek as a whole. It isn’t perfect, but it captures so much of the philosophical contemplativeness that mark the franchise, the tough but humane decisions in impossible circumstances that mark Janeway’s captaincy, and the recognition and appreciation for new life and individuality, in Seven and the Doctor, that mark the openness and understanding that characterize this series at its best.

[9.5/10] What if we took Batman seriously? I don’t mean that in the Christopher Nolan sense of “What if we found a way to plausibly situate the character in the real world?” I don’t mean it in the dude-bro sense of “What if Batman, like, killed people, dawg?” I don’t even mean it in the B:TAS sense of treating him as a wounded soul struggling with the history that made him.

I mean what if we treated him like an actual person, who’d been through something traumatic, and needed genuine therapy to help him make peace with it? I didn’t know Harley Quinn was capable of achieving that with such heartrending conviction, but maybe I should have.

Because this show, and this episode, are certainly irreverent. But it’s long gotten the psychology of these characters right and, more than that, treated them as real beyond the standard-if-entertaining pop psych that pervades television. Harley’s abusive relationship with the Joker is unnervingly realistic despite the larger than life trappings. Ivy’s hesitance to get close to people comes off as an authentic reflection of her personal history, not an easy character arc. So what if you took the same approach to Bruce Wayne, using legitimate therapeutic techniques and approaches to explore the guilt a little boy still feels for his parents’ murder?

What I love about the cheekily-named “Batman Begins Forever” is that it has its cake and eats it too. On the one hand, this is a hilarious round-up of gags about the Batman mythos over the years that never stops tickling the funny bone. The brief homages to Batman ‘66 and Batman Returns are a treat for longtime fans. The extended homage to the look and sound of Batman: The Animated Series in the flashbacks to The Dark Knight’s early days are a particular boon for me. Jokes about the early Batsuit having too-long ears is a laugh in the same vein. Bruce talking about how he can become a gritty, super serious, really cool symbol and Alfred playing coy about the famed “get back up” lines amusingly riff on Nolan’s Batman Begins. You can tell all these jokes come from a place of deep knowledge and love of Batman’s history and mythology.

Beyond that, you can tell the writers also jive with the internet’s favorite Bat-critiques, spinning them off into funnier directions. The bit about Clayface and James Gunn being able to add a CGI mustache to their cinematic Thomas Wayne in post is a nice jab at the Justice League film and it’s infamous Superman lip adjustment. And Harley realizing Bruce is Batman, asking him why he doesn’t just provide affordable housing, only to have li’l Bruce respond “people pay for housing” is the perfect way to acknowledge the popular (if myopic) online critique and spin it into a joke. (It’s a big laugh in the same vein as the later “Rich people insurance doesn't have co-pays” line, making Bruce’s wealth and ensuing out-of-touchness a source of comedy.) These are more modern bits on the Bat, but Harley Quinn cultivates something hilarious with them too.

And then there’s the bits that are just funny for their own sake, distinct from the cavalcade of Bat references. Casting the debauched Dr. Psycho as a stuffy Frasier-type radio psychiatrist is wonderful. He, Clayface, and Ivy going back and forth on the distinctions between Joe Chill, Joe Cool, and Joe Camel was outstanding in its casual pop culture minutiae. And Clayface desperately trying to find out Thomas Wayne’s life motivation only to have it come down to a half-muttered line about a Rosebud-like sled is more great riffing on acting and character arcs with a fun meta bent.

But amid all the laughs is a genuinely piercing exploration of what drives Bruce Wayne, and genuinely helpful guidance from none other than Harley Quinn. One of my favorite parts of this one is that Harley gets to be a real psychologist, using actual techniques to help Bruce, and legitimately trying to ease him through something difficult. She is as caring and empathetic as we’ve ever seen her (albeit with a certain ulterior motive), and it speaks to the way she’s been coming into her own not just as a person, but a good person, this season.

Along the way, “Batman Begins Forever” finds sharp ways to dramatize not only Harley’s help, but Bruce’s emotional problems.

That manifests as young Bruce stuck in the moment of parents’ murder over and over again. I’m a big fan of that choice, because it serves two purposes. The first is a spoof of how constantly various instances of different Bat-media choose to replay that moment for audiences. The second goes a layer deeper, positing it as a reflection of how Bruce cannot get over his trauma, to where it crowds out everything else in his mind. Dr. Psycho’s mental dive have become a mini-tradition on Harley Quinn so far, and it’s nice to see the show not only shaking up the formula on the third go-round, but still using the conceit to dig deeper into one of the D.C. Universe’s signature characters.

I love how they dramatize Harley’s involvement in all of this. At first she tries to get rid of Joe Chill’s gun, to even kill the guy, but he just keeps coming. Trauma cannot simply be beaten like that, though. So using Joe Chill as a sort of supernatural slasher, one who persists through different settings and attempts to stymie him, represents that well.

Instead, the first step Harley takes is to shield young Bruce from seeing the killer’s handiwork. I love that choice too, because it fits with the theme that the past cannot be changed or forgotten, but that we can address how we react to it, how we internalize it, in a way that fits with Harley’s psychoanalysis.

And that's a neat part of the proceedings. It’s rare that we get to see Harley be a good counselor like this. SHe’s genuinely sweet with little Bruce, gaining his confidence, understanding and appreciating what he’s accomplished in his parent’s name, working to make him feel safe and loved apart from the tragedy that's bruised his psyche. Harley Quinn is not exactly a child-friendly show. And yet, there is something unbearably sweet about twisted Harley guiding and protecting a small boy (give or take a couple ass-based comments), that reveals a surprisingly humane and nurturing side to her.

She’s not just a passenger here in service to Bruce’s story either. One of my favorite sequences in the whole episode is one where she steps into Robin’s shoes and is forced to relive an attack from her and the Joker in flashback from another perspective. From a pure fanservice standpoint, it’s fun to see Harley Quinn invoke a Heather Ledger-esque version of Joker and a B:TAS version of Harley. But on a deeper level, Harley’s critiques of her past self and recognition of Joker’s bullshit is a sign of how far she’s come. Using the chance to walk in the Boy Wonder’s shoes to not only give her a new appreciation for how being a hero can be fun, but in how unhappy her life was before she herself was able to move past her own baggage, gives her a nice win. And the way seeing that reflection of her in the past gives her new clarity in the present is well-observed.

The big reveal here, though, is the show’s masterstroke. To the show’s humorous ends in the early portion of this one, Batman’s origin story is shopworn at this point. We all know the story, the wealthy young lad left orphaned by a simple crime, who vowed to fight crime so as to never let another young man suffer such a terrible fate. But Harley Quinn takes things one step further, exploring another level of, as Batman: The Brave and the Bold once put it, “the tortured avenger, crying out for mommy and daddy.”

While a bit of a cliche, the twist that the masked man stalking Bruce and Harley, the one who reduces the Dark Knight to a child in a grown man’s clothing again, is Bruce himself, is telling and potent. What’s damning Bruce Wayne isn’t just trauma; it’s guilt. He doesn’t just mourn his parents; he blames himself for their death. If he’d only gone to his father’s meeting, if he’d only agreed to take the family car, they’d still be alive. His caped crusade isn’t just to prevent another tragedy, it’s to assuage his own gnawing sense of guilt over causing the loss that has defined his life.

That is heartbreaking. At heart, Bruce is still just a little boy who misses his parents and is trying to cleanse his soul of their deaths. No child should have to endure that, fictional or otherwise. Harley doesn’t give up on him. She agrees to keep his secret. (Somewhat conveniently.) Most importantly, though, she tells him to hold on to the prospect of treatment, that his efforts to erase the past are misguided, but that he can heal from it. She uses real techniques that get him part of the way there, but this being a T.V. show with dramatic stakes that need to be raised, cannot fully succeed just yet.

Instead, we need time for Bruce’s plan to unfold, and holy shit, him trying to use Frank’s resurrection abilities to revive his parents is chilling and poignant at the same time. Batman becomes the one thing he’s never been in the mainstream stories for the screen -- a villain. He is sad and sympathetic, but he’s doing wrong. When he does, though, it’s for understandable reasons, even if his actions are misguided. Men will literally turn their mom and dad into zombies rather than go to therapy, heh. But in all seriousness, it’s a great way to make Batman the antagonist without making him the bad guy, giving him the sort of tragic backstory and sympathetic motivation despite his bad choices that characterized so many of the villains on Batman: The Animated Series back in the day.

As with so many smart choices in Harley Quinn, it recontextualizes The Bat in an impressive way, one that gives him even more pathos than the brooding avenger we know and love, while repositioning him for the broader purposes of the show’s protagonists.

This is, more than any other incarnation, a Batman who needs help. He folds his arms, focuses on his senses, and finds a place of happiness. WIth the help of a guide, he allows himself to turn away from the unfortunate tragedy he treats like original sin. And with the help of our resident psychologist, maybe our heroes can defeat the zombies, but maybe they can also help a scared and scarred little boy make peace with the demons that spur him to scale rooftops in black combat gear, and try to raise the bones of the dead, when he should be letting them, and him, rest instead.

[8.5/10] Well, if you want to get my attention with a new Star Wars show, kicking things off with a badass wire-fu fight with none other than Trinity herself, Carrie-Anne Moss, as a Jedi Master, will absolutely do it!

What a breath of fresh air this is! From that action-packed opening sequence, The Acolyte grabs your attention with verve and character. There are lived in touches, a sense of mystery and excitement, and most of all an immediate whiff of who every major character is and what they mean to the story. It’s easier to set up interesting things than it is to pay them off, but if this first hour is any indication, it’s going to be easy to be along for the ride.

I cannot say enough good things about the opening sequence. Maybe I’m a sucker, but so much modern action, including in Star Wars media of recent vintage, is chopped up all to hell in the editing bay. That kind of choice neuters the impact of the fights for me. So taking a cue from Moss’ turn in The Matrix and not only embracing those wire fu influences, but letting us see the fight in longer shots and a more measured pace and cinematography really lights my fire.

Plus man, for all of the Japanese cinema influences in Star Wars, I’m not sure we’ve ever gotten a legitimate kung fu fight on screen in the franchise. (“The Duel” from Star Wars: Visions has a bit of that, and I guess we get brief glimpses of Qi’ra from Solo doing a bit of martial arts as well.) The frantic motion of Mae and the more measured movements of Indara’s response help sell the difference between one who’s still learning and full of emotion versus a centered master. The fight itself is glorious, with well-staged action and strong visual storytelling and choreography. And the clincher -- that Indara falls not from mistake or being bested in combat, but from saving an innocent, makes her a noble and tragic figure, while justifying how this skilled but comparative amateur could take her down.

And that's just the opening scene! Dayenu -- it would have been enough.

From there, the episode splits into two story threads that eventually intersect: Osha, a former padawan being questioned and detained for the murder, and Sol, her former master, deciding to track her down. Both stories work, and the place they weave together is especially meaningful.

I appreciate the twist here. The show does a good job of suckering you into thinking that Osha committed this crime on her day off from being a “mechnik”. She has the ability, given her former training. She has the reason for resentment, having seemingly been expelled from the order thanks to Master Indara. And she has a tortured past, of great loss of her family that, as we saw with Anakin, can lead a young force-sensitive person to some inner demons. So it’s entirely plausible, even expected, that she’s the one going toe-to-toe with Indara in the opening.

I’m not always a fan of big twists, but I appreciate the reveal that it was, in fact, her twin sister who went against Indara for a few reasons. One, it’s meaningful for Osha. To learn that the sister she thought was long dead is still out there and assassinating her former allies leads to complex emotions. For another, it portends an intriguing opportunity for “for want of a nail” storytelling, showing where the different paths of daughters from the same family led them.

Most of all, it puts is in the position of Master Sol and the other Jedi, being intuitively sympathetic to this young woman who seems friendly, funny, and earnest, while wondering if the difficult things she’s been through have caught up to her in some way. Playing with the audience’s sympathies and expectations like that, to connect them to the characters’ perspectives, is the right way to use a twist, instead of just using a reveal for shock value.

Osha’s misadventures along the way are fun and sympathetic. I love the sense of her scraping by as a low-rent nomadic mechnik after leaving the order, keeping her spirits up but just getting by. I like that, through Yord at least, the Jedi seem like smug cops rather than noble monks, who are railroading Osha. I like her excitement on the prison transport, where she’s bitten by her altruism, but empathizes and saves others, which should be our proof that she’s not the one who took out Indara. All these scenes reveal character in a compelling way, and Amandla Stenberg does a stellar job inhabiting the role.

There is also such exquisite texture! The opening scene has a real old world village cantina vibe, and should make Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fans cheer. Her talking tool droid, Pip, is frickin’ adorable and endearing, and I can easily imagine every nerdy kid watching this show wanting one of their own. The ship designs are memorable and distinctive inside and out. (I especially like the droid-run prison transport.) And the different species represented are memorable and original. (The cyborg dude is especially striking.) Plus hey, the Trade Federation aliens are well done and familiar to anyone who watched the Prequels growing up.

Speaking of which, this version of the Jedi feels particularly indebted to the Prequels. There’s great discussion of the danger of attachments, of training someone who’s too old and has been through too much, of the Order’s political enemies. Setting this show a century before Revenge of the Sith frees you from a lot of the continuity shackles other Star Wars stories have to contend with, so it’s interesting that The Acolyte seems to be picking up themes and concepts from the Prequel era.

That not only includes Yord, who already seems to be the show’s stick in the mud, but from Master Vernestra, who seems more interested in wrapping up this matter quickly than in seeking justice. Heck, Master Sol even feels a bit akin to Qui Gon Jinn, someone who’s patient and wizened, but who allows himself a more emotional connection and less rigid view than the Order.

I like Sol a lot. Making the deuteragonist a master who still cares for his padawan, and is trying to balance that care and trust against his obligations to his order, makes for a compelling mix. He’s a good match for Jecki, his quietly caustic current padawan. And he’s a good counterpoint to Osha, someone who represents a difficult part of her past, but who still plainly has her best interests at heart.

The moment where he seeks her out is well done too. There’s a real The Fugitive vibe to the confrontation, with an appropriately Jedi twist. And most importantly, Sol believes his former pupil. When she’s desperate and running for her life and confronted with destabilizing surprises about her past and her family, he still trusts and accepts her. That is powerful, and portends worthwhile things to come.

The Acolyte leaves us with teases of potential sith-adjacent interlopers and weaponless threats and internal politics within the High Republic. Those are tantalizing enough as teases. But what I appreciate most about this opening hour is the good nuts and bolts work we get: in the cinematic craft, in the well-defined and sympathetic character dynamics, and in the way the script plays with our expectations. If The Acolyte can keep this up, it has a promising future ahead.

(Spoilers for Star Wars: The Clone Wars: There’s many ways in which Osha’s story seems like a reinterpretation of Ahsoka’s. Everything from the fugitive hunt to the master who still loves and trusts her, to the Jedi Order dealing with political pressures give you the sense of what Anakin’s padawan went through. Obviously Ahsoka never had an evil twin, but it’s interesting to see the franchise revisit that story shape in a different time and place. I’m not complaining! I love that storyline, and I’m excited at the notion of exploring Osha’s relationship with the Jedi and the Force through this lens.)

[8.6/10] A movie to recoil from, and to bask in.

Poor Things is a movie to recoil from because it is a story of abuse. The mere creation of Bella Baxter -- the movie’s wondrous, improbable protagonist -- is an act of abuse. Her erstwhile father, Godwin (cheekily referred to as “God” by his creation) implants the mind of a fetus into the mind of the poor child’s own suicidal mother, in a monstrous act. Even as he cannot help but develop paternal affection for young Bella, he keeps her locked away, attempts to marries her off to his assistant despite her immature mind, and treats as much like an experiment as an offspring.

Bella’s treatment at the hands of her own creator and surrogate father is abhorrent, and not for nothing, he’s probably the person who loves and respects her the most, which really sets the tone for the film.

Because things don’t stop there. A cad named Duncan Wedderburn (played with maximalist lunacy by a scenery-chewing Mark Ruffalo) spirits her away, rapes her, and keeps her like a pet in a jag and jaunt across the continent not unlike that of Humbert Humbert. Her attempts to break free are met with more control, anger, and even violence. Even friends, intent on showing her the world, do so with an intent to break her spirit. The madame at the brothel where she seizes her own “means of production” gives her a lifeline, but exerts her own brand of manipulation and assault.

And the piece de resistance of the film’s unconscionable abusers is Bella’s quasi ex-husband, quasi-father, who takes joy in cruelly, threatens her with firearms, plans to surgically remove her ability to enjoy sex, and accounts for, in his own twisted way, why Bella’s mother would rather leave this cruel world than bring her abuser’s child into it.

It is no coincidence that these controlling trespassers are almost exclusively men. Even the kinder ones, like Godwin’s more availing and understanding assistant, Max McCandles, takes advantage of Bella when she’s in an immature state and unable to consent, desiring the physical and ignoring the mental.

And it’s no coincidence that those who empower Bella, who teach her philosophy and politics and self-possession, are women. From Martha, the aging European cruiser who shows Bella theory; to fellow french prostitute Toinette who helps Bella see the confluence of politics and economics that give her a context and identify the scars that clue her into the past; to even Swiney, the madame who takes her cut but gives Bella perspective, those who lift Bella up share her gender.

In that, Poor Things is a peculiar sibling of fellow 2023 release Barbie, and a raunchier cousin of 2013’s Under the Skin in its equally off-kilter examination of what it is to be a woman, the projections and invasions of their male counterparts, and the abuse that must be endured simply for existing in this state. For all its outsized grandeur, Poor Things is startlingly frank in its depiction of many of these things, and it’s easy to flinch in its barest moments.

It’s also easy to flinch because Poor Things is a thoroughly gross movie. Gross because, being a modern day Frankenstein tale of surgeons and their subjects, it is riddled with scars, blood, and scattered organs. Gross because time and again the viewer must watch a person with the body of an adult but the mind of a child be taken advantage of sexually. Gross because it doesn’t shy away from the awkwardness and multitudinal expressions of sex in a way that is both affirming and repulsive in its peculiar way. This is not a movie for the squeamish, either physically or emotionally.

And yet, despite all of that, there is more than enough to bask in here.For one thing, Poor Things is a beautiful film. The cinematography evolves as Bella does, starting with ornate stage play sets in black and white, blossoming into gorgeous impressionistic settings in technicolor splendor, and eventually reaching a still exaggerated but ultimately more realistic presentation as Bella’s more mature view of the world comes into focus. The way the aesthetic mirrors the main character’s growth and understanding is both visually stunning and a masterful blend of vision and theme.

And the imagery works on its own terms. Director Yorgos Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan craft an iconography that is worth the price of admission on its own. The style of Poor Things blends the larger-than-life expressionism of Fritz Land, with the misfits in a toybox world sensibilities of Tim Burton, with the liminal oddity of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and the twee dioramas populated with broken souls of Wes Anderson. The production design and makeup and costuming, for Bella in particular, invite you into this particular, peculiarly-crafted world with its characters who are no less distinctive in look than in personality. In terms of pure style, pure vibes, pure feel, Poor Things is an experience all its own.

It is also blackly funny. Part of what cuts the grimness of the film’s subject matter is that laughs abound, in the dark absurdity of Bella’s various predicaments, of her matter-of-fact ways over around and through them, and in the almost slapstick-y moments of physical comedy that blend the sublime and the ridiculous. Even in its bleakest stretches, Poor Things carries an arch tone that helps the medicine go down.

It doesn’t hurt that this is one of the most quotable films of the season. In the script penned by Tony McNamara, Bella has a Vonnegut-esque way of identifying the absurdity of human existence by simply stating it plainly. There is a “from the mouths of babes” quality to her comments, driving incisive critique though blithely stating the obvious in a way that upsets polite society. Her matter-of-fact comments are often uproarious, from her agahstness at a new friend’s coital interregnum, to the aforementioned affirmation of a sex worker’s yonic take on Marxism, to Bella’s simple declaration that she need not keep chewing something that revolts her.

But that is the cinch of the film, because as much as Poor Things centers on the abusive and revolting, as much as it offers treats in the form of splendorous images and witty lines, it is ultimately a story of self-actualization. Star Emma Stone sells Bella’s journey from a developmentally challenged child who is misdirected and taken advantage of by all those who wish to extract her gifts for their pleasures, to a questioning young soul finding themselves and discovering their wants, to a worldly and experienced operator who is blunt in her assessments but no less direct or effective at reaching her desires, finally subject and not object.

That is the true focus of the film: what it is to grow-up, what it is to come into your own, what it is to become a person, with all the dangers and messiness and reckonings that entails, but in the right hands and the right company, what joys and solace it may bring as well. (Again, making it a funhouse mirror version of fellow Best Picture nominee Barbie.) Swiney tells Bella that we must experience the good and the bad, to have a full sense of the world, to know, to grow, and become. And in the end, Bella does.

Through all of her adventures, she comes out a battered but fully-formed, self-possessed individual, marked by experiences but also fortified by them. She abandons one abuser in good faith and then rejects and repels him when he blames her for all his self-made problems. She neutralizes her original abuser of sorts and turns him into an erstwhile pet for good measure. She brings her friends close, and finds a partner who is more understanding and forgiving.

Most of all, she breaks the cycle. What makes a man capable of the unfathomable acts Godwin commits sympathetic is that, as he recounts his own childhood of cruel experiments done dispassionately, you see the way he is merely perpetuating his own abuse, albeit with genuine affection breaking through for Bella. When Bella comes into her power, she does not forgive Godwin exactly, but she makes peace with him on his slow road to death. He committed the original sin of violation, lied to her, kept her, but is also the one who recognized her as a being of free will, and perhaps even one who provoked love through his futile attempts at detachment.

Ultimately, she follows in his footsteps, becoming a surgeon herself and stepping into his shoes. She spends much of the film bristling against the shackles of a system, finding the words to question it, and then building her own little oasis apart from it. There is great horror in the core of Poor Things, in its frank depiction of cruelty and craven use of another body and soul. But it is also a story of an ungodly creation who, through experiencing life’s offerings both harsh and wondrous, eventually supplants the man who sewed her together, and becomes her own creator.

[8.9/10] A title like The Holdovers has a double meaning. On a basic level, it’s simply the technical term for the three individuals--a teacher, a student, and a kitchen manager--all spending their holiday break on the grounds of the New England boarding school they call home during the year.

But in a broader sense, it refers to people who have been left behind, who remain in some uncertain limbo not just in where they lay their heads, but in their lives as a whole. The nominal goal at the center of the film is for this trio of disregarded remainders to make it to the New Year without wrecking each other or the school. But its broader aim is to give each of them a direction, a connection, and something that jostles each of them from their different flavors of sad stupor and toward a reinvigorated purpose.

The results are, in turn, uproarious, heartbreaking, and ultimately moving. The Holdovers has its antecedents: from the locked-in mischief and camaraderie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to the young man struggling with trauma a la Catcher in the Rye, to countless broader flicks about grumbly instructors warming up to rambunctious students. But there’s a greater depth, a clearer sense of open-wounded humanity, a distinctiveness in how its main players are formed and bounced off one another, that makes the film feel unlike any other.

It wouldn’t achieve that success without its triumvirate of great character and even greater performance. Paul Hunham could easily have been little more than a walking trope -- a stuffy and curmudgeonly civics teacher who’s hard on his students but betrays a hidden heart of gold. Instead, writer David Hemingson makes him more complex than that. Hunham is grumpy and hidebound before softening to this charge, yes, but he’s also a depressed drunkard, pessimistic about the world’s prospects for the future, with his dreams whittled down by the same forces that grind the other Holdovers, in various ways. Even that could have been a prestige picture cliche, but Paul Giamatti’s performance gives Hunham such spirit, and so many layers behind each grand pronouncement and reluctant, heartfelt compromise. Together, Hemingson and Giamatii make a broad archetype of a character feel achingly human, which is no small achievement.

Likewise, Angus Tully, the bright but trouble-making student unexpectedly left behind by his mother and inclined to rebel against Hunham’s supervision, could also have been a stock cliche. The recalcitrant but troubled youth who fights back against, but ultimately confides in their mandated caretaker is no less traditional a tale. And yet, again, the script doesn’t leave Tully as a one-note stereotype, but instead, gives him a cleverness, a sense of compassion, and a deep well of pain that makes him more than that outline. At the same time, twenty-year-old Dominic Sessa conveys the anger, hurt, and unassuming innocence of Angus to perfection. He cuts the figure of a young Alan Alda with both his snark and his sadness, and delivers a challenging performance for a young actor without stumbling once.

But it’s Da'Vine Joy Randolph--who plays Mary Lamb, the school’s head cook--that steals the show. Unlike Mr. Hunham and Angus, Mary is not the type of character you see much of in either these scholastic coming-of-age stories or prestige pictures. She is a black woman who works among the downstairs set in contrast to the mostly white, upper crust pupils and professors who reside upstairs. She is a woman bathed in grief, having lost both her husband and her son before they turned twenty-five. And most importantly, she is a full-fledged part of the film’s central trifecta, whose needs and concerns get the same attention and focus as her counterparts who are more often spotlighted in these stories.

Her inner life is potent and conspicuous. The things she’s feeling deeply at all times but never saying come through loud and clear amid Randolph’s powerhouse performance. She delivers the film’s signature scene, a furious, crestfallen, devastating lament in a suburban kitchen about the child and partner both gone too soon, with their absences all the more noticeable and piercing in what should be a season of joy. Like all the characters in the film, Mary is more than her trauma, with moments of kindness, levity, and insight just as memorable, but in a movie full of heart-rending monologues and stellar performances, Randolph takes the prize.

Despite the sense of hurt and alienation at the core of the film, The Holdovers is an unexpectedly hilarious movie. Angus’ antics to entertain himself and/or tweak Mr. Hunham have the shaggy whimsy of teenage rebellion. Mr. Hunham dispenses vulgar insults that tickle the funny bone, like “too dumb to pour piss out of a boot” and “penis cancer in hidden form.” The actors provide bouts of great physical comedy, from Angus’ disobedient gym floor flop, to Hunham’s ridiculous football-flubbing flail. And Mary has a dry wit that singes and can get a big laugh with a reaction shot alone. For a movie as unafraid to explore blunted hearts and lingering traumas, it’s full of humor and vigor that makes it come off like a fulsome view of life’s ups and downs, rather than a shameless tear-jerker or sap dispensary.

Nonetheless, there is a thematic undercurrent beneath all that pain and exclusion -- privilege. The recurring motif of The Holdovers is the idea that there are people who manage to wriggle out of the harshest obligations in this world, from schoolwork to plagiarism to war, because of power and position and the dishonesty and dishonor it can cover for. Some people go to Ivy league schools and get safe cushy jobs whether they have the intelligence or character for it, and others die in labor-intensive fields where worker safety is secondary to output quotas. Grades are inflated, service workers are casually demeaned, racism is tolerated, so long as it all comes from a class of people who don’t realize how lucky they have it.

The zenith of this is the Vietnam War, which hangs in the background of this seventies-set film. For all Angus’ legitimate issues, Hunham calms him down when he gets into a snit with a local missing a hand, since the teacher intuits how and why the injury happened. And the grandest injustice in the film is Mary’s son, sent off to fight and die in ‘Nam, when he had the grades, but not the funds, to go to college, denied the student deferment from the draft that would come alongside a university education. This sense of unconscionable disparity between the haves and the have-nots--one group excused from even the most minor of consequences for their actions, and one group forced to suffer the worst of them despite doing everything right--pervades the movie.

But it is also what unites Mary, Angus, and Mr. Hunham. Though thrown together by circumstance, and very different people on the surface, they find solace and understanding in one another, and it’s the most heartening part of the film. That comes through in the elegant cinematography of Eigil Bryld. The visuals of The Holdovers are not flashy, but they are quietly brilliant. Each frame is perfectly composed to convey the character of the grounds, or the ridiculousness of a gag, or the burgeoning intimacy that steadily washes over the main trio.

All three of them are touched by loss and loneliness. Mary still mourns her husband and her son, and is all but spit on by entitled twits who insult her cooking in a job she took to provide for a child who’ll never have the same life or opportunity. Mr. Hunham is, on his account at least, a low-level teacher, scorned by his students and his peers, alone in the wake of a long-since-failed shot at love, isolated and barely able to muster half-a-dream after being kicked out of Harvard for a privileged roommate’s intellectual theft. And Angus is abandoned over the holidays by a mother off to honeymoon with his new stepdad, a reminder of the mentally disturbed father whom he’s forbidden to see, and cursed with a parent in a state of living death -- physically there but mentally gone -- something all the more devastating for a young soul in particular.

So they share drinking problems. They share depression medication. They share flailing grasps for human connection that are reached for then rejected in a state of guilt and self-loathing. And eventually, they share a particular sort of bond that emerges from commiseration and acts of kindness, from recognizing one another’s pain and helping them through it, from seeing how the system works for others and stealing a piece of it for one another.

You can see it in the progression of “what Barton men do.” Angus lies about the cause of his dislocated shoulder to protect Mr. Hunham’s job, a falsehood the teacher accepts with some lecturing about honesty. Only then, Mr. Hunham lies to an old classmate about his career, reasoning that truthful or not, giving his social betters the satisfaction of his comparatively sorry state is not something he owes them.

And in the film’s close, when Angus’ mom and stepdad arrive to excoriate their son and his erstwhile babysitter for daring to let a lonely boy visit his father on Xmas, Mr. Hunham has an out. Angus’ guardians all but invite Mr. Hunham to throw Angus to the wolves, to say that the young man tricked him or “slipped the leash”, which would be half-true. Instead, Mr. Hunham lies in order to take full responsibility; he dissembles to excuse the young man entirely, sacrificing his job and the content-if-stagnant life he’s enjoyed for decades to save Angus’ future.

That is the crux of the film. The key message comes earlier when Hunham reassures Angus that he will not become like his father. Despite his obsession with the classics, he decries the Greek poets’ belief that our path is set and resistance only ensures submission to fate. Your destiny is your own, he implores the young man, and it’s not too late, never too late, to change it.

So Mary will still carry the scars of loved ones taken from her too soon, but she can make space to laugh and reminisce with her sister, and save for her newborn nephew who will carry on the name, and hopefully the spirit of her dearly departed son. So despite the prospect of being kicked out of Barton and forced to attend military school, with the prospect of war and death that comes with it, Angus can remain at Barton and find his way to the sunnier shores all but assured to bright young men in well-regarded centers of learning and the resources to propel them further.

So Mr. Hunham can become the unlikely surrogate father figure Angus is in desperate need of, and change his mind about the prospects of the next generation, at least for one young lad who makes him hopeful, whose success is worth martyring his comfort and security for. And he too can be lodged from his complacency, spurred to go visit the sites of the ancient world he’s studied but never seen, and write that monograph he’s been putting off.

When we’re introduced to the three of them, they are not just hunkering together in those almost unreal, interstitial days that envelop the end of the calendar. They are all in some in-between state, not quite where they started, but not quite able to move forward. When we leave them, Mary if able to make some semblance of peace with her tragedies and rekindle connections to her family; Angus knows someone has faith in him and has the surefootedness and, yes, character, to see his schooling through to the end; and Mr. Hunham, the stymied student-turned-teacher who’s been “held over” longer than anyone, finally finds a reason to break free.

[8.5/10] I’ve always appreciated that Star Trek is not afraid to ask hard questions. “Nothing Human” is a referendum on the use of Nazi scientific research extracted through horrific experiments on “undesirables”. There are no easy answers to whether it’s ethically right to use knowledge gathered through cruel means to help physicians and patients who had nothing to do with those trespasses. The moral balance of profiting, even intellectually, from past cruelty versus serving the greater good in the here and now is an uneasy one at best. “Nothing Human” doesn’t shy away from the difficulty of those questions; instead, it embraces them.

Showrunner/writer Jeri Taylor contrives a strong situation in which to test their fault lines. B’Elanna’s life is threatened when a giant alien bug attaches itself to her, and the Doctor must resort to recreating a famed exobiologist in holographic form to help solve the medical mystery of how to remove it. Now of course, you have to turn off your brain for some of this. The script offers some fig leaves for why Janeway would bring the bug aboard, and how safety protocols fail, and why none of their usual equipment works on the bug, and why the crew would create a second medical hologram rather than just having the Doctor ingest the info. But in truth, much of the setup feels like a bit of a stretch.

The story we get, though, is worth stretching for. Because the famed exobiologist the Doctor and company summon via holodeck magic turns out to be a Cardassian named Crell Moset, and his mere presence causes a stir on the ship. Dr. Moset is affable, knowledgeable, resourceful, and decorated. (Guest star David Clennon plays him to likable, subtly pernicious perfection.) He is also a member of the species the former Maquis aboard Voyager were fighting to the death, and a participant in the Bajoran Occupation.

That alone would be enough to sustain an episode. B’Elanna doesn’t want the holo-Crell’s help, given who and what he represents. For his part, Crell offers insights along the way that allow The Doctor to make breakthroughs in the case. And Doc not only works perfectly in sync with his new holographic colleague, but gets along with him in a way he hasn’t with anybody since Kes.

Their synchronicity, both personally and professionally, is one of the most interesting aspects of the early part of the episode. The opening comic relief of the episode sees Doc boring everyone with his visual essays. Earlier in the season, even Naomi is exhausted by spending time with him. As much by personality as by his photonic nature, Doc is a man apart.

So imagine the joy of finding a kindred spirit! Doc and Crell bond over being resourceful improvisers who have to make due without the usual implements or support. They finish each other’s medical diagnoses. They bond over breakthroughs made by necessity from situations that forced them to think creatively. They even hum the same arias. After four years of feeling like few people aboard Voyager don’t understand him, let alone befriend him, he finds someone who truly gets him -- who understands what his situation is like and can relate -- in a way he never has before.

That puts a thumb on the scale. If you’re the Doctor, it’s easy to handwave away B’Elanna’s skepticism of a Cardassian doctor as racism that has no place in medicine. (It has shades of Worf’s refusal to donate blood to a Romulan in “The Enemy”.) It’s easy to excuse divergence in the two physicians’ typical approaches as a part of standard cultural differences. It’s easy to write off any questions about his methods on Bajor as the product of a type of field medicine necessity that Doc himself understands all too well, with a cure that saved countless lives no less! If the question is whether this man is a noble healer or a Cardassian butcher, your answer will be biased by whether you like the guy and whether you can relate to him.

Here’s where I pull back the curtain a bit. I’ve been watching Voyager interspersed with episodes of Deep Space Nine that aired around the same time. (Shout out to the Star Trek Chronology Project! Thanks for adding in the animated shows!) And I think it adds a lot to episodes like these.

I’ve seen suggestions that folks not bother interspersing DS9 and Voyager because they don’t really crossover. “Not even the little stuff,” one website warned. And it’s true, to some extent. Janeway and Sisko are in two different quadrants. So things are different than between The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, where you can have Dr. Bashir show up on the Enterprise or Riker calls in a favor from Quark or Captain Picard stroll the bulkheads of Sisko’s station without too much logistical trouble.

The connections between Voyager and Deep Space NIne are more oblique. Tuvok pops up in one of Sisko’s jaunts to the Mirror Universe. The EMH’s creator, Dr. Zimmerman, shows up on DS9 to use Julian as the basis for a new model. Aside from Quark nearly swindling Harry back in “Caretaker”, there’s little in the way of direct interactions between the main characters of the two shows.

But I think weaving the shows together pays dividends in at least two ways. The first is the Maquis. While Voyager always underachieved on this front, seeing Chakotay and B’Elanna’s feelings about the rebel group helps inform the audience’s understanding of them when Sisko has to deal with other members. The two Voyager officers learning about what happened to their brethren in the Alpha Quadrant has a big impact on their mental state and what they have to return to. And it helps explain why, in an episode like “Nothing Human”, B’Elanna is so hard-nosed in her resistance to accepting any help from a Cardassian doctor, even a holographic one.

The second is that the experiences of Deep Space Nine’s Kira Nerys in particular reveals that Cardassians are not a monolith. One of DS9’s favorite hobby horses is Kira harboring great (and justified) resentment against the Cardassians, only to realize they’re as diverse and multifaceted a people as Bajorans are. Yes, they have butchers like Gul Dukat, but also scientists who look down on the oppressive regime, activists who want to reform it, and even aged potentates who become penitents and father figures.

So when an episode like “Nothing Human” comes along, we have context for the atrocities committed during Cardassia’s occupation of Bajor. We understand why Voyager’s Bajoran officer, Ensign Tabor, has such a virulent reaction to Dr. Macet. (I wonder how he felt about Seska!) But at the same time, we have a basis to share The Doctor’s suspicion that Crell may not be so bad just because he’s a Cardassian, and that reflexive rejection of someone’s work and ability to help because of the people they hail from stands in opposition to Federation values.

And then the grisly facts start piling up.

My biggest qualm with “Nothing Human” is that it seems to inadvertently back into a “that racism was right” lesson. But revisiting this one, knowing the twist, I’m especially impressed at how Taylor and company thread in little hints that something’s amiss with Dr. Moset. They build and build, to where a sympathetic EMH can dismiss them in isolation, but as they pile up, he can't deny the horrible picture they begin to paint of his erstwhile genial colleague.

He wants to use “crude” Cardassian instruments rather than laser scalpels, with a plausible story about how the tactile nature of the implement keeps physicians connected to their patients. He doesn’t flinch at the pained cries of the bug he’s dissecting, but reassures The Doctor that it’s only because their test subject is a mere holographic recreation. He proposes a treatment that would save B’Elanna and kill the bug, with fair reasoning that in a life-or-death situation, they have to prioritize the health and wellbeing of Doc’s crewmate.

I love how these little moments pile up throughout the episode. They work as reasons for The Doctor to excuse somebody he’s already inclined to like and agree with. And in hindsight, they also function as Crell’s self-justifications for his cruelty, hinting at a mentality of callousness and cravenness that bears out when the truth is revealed.

That truth is that Crell is the Cardassian equivalent of Joseph Mengele. He experimented on Bajorans because he saw them as subhuman. He forced them into brutal tests that resulted in needless suffering and death. And even if he had a breakthrough, it came at a great ethical and human cost. The path of the Doctor initially denying this, then waffling when there’s conflicting evidence, only to accept the reality, much to his horror, when the facts roll in, is one of the best parts of the episode.

And a lesser show might have stopped there. The Doctor might acknowledge the evil he’s been a party to, delete the hologram, and find another way. Hell, a lesser show might have kept the tug of war simple: do you allow yourself to profit from inhuman experiments for the health of a colleague, or do you stand on moral principle and put that colleague’s life at risk? That alone would be plenty to sustain an episode.

Instead, “Nothing Human” adds wrinkle after wrinkle that makes this situation endlessly complex. What if you’re not dealing with the bastard themself, but a holographic recreation of them who has no memory of the cruel experiments? What if your patient nonetheless refuses any treatment that involves that hologram? What if the patient’s loved one is begging you to do it anyway if it provides you with the best chance to save them? What if a good crewman might resign his commission over it? What if the patient is your chief engineer, and the Captain can't spare them on an already dicey mission lightyears from home? (On that latter point, Enterprise would dig into similar issues in “Similitude”.)

In short, nothing this episode does makes The Doctor’s choice easy. How do you balance all of those issues? How do you decide what to weigh, what to credit, and what to dismiss? What’s the right thing to do when the purely practical and the purely ethical seem to be in conflict, and everything’s gray?

Despite that (commendable!) morass of a thought experiment, I like where Voyager lands, and how it doesn’t skimp on the moral ambiguity at play in all of this.

The Doctor utilizes Crell’s help to save B’Elanna, but puts a check on him. He accepts his counterpart’s expertise, but forcefully steps in to save the alien bug’s life, even if it’s less “efficient” than Crell’s method. And when it’s all over, when there’s no longer an emergency, he deletes Crell’s program and the research that went with it. The Doctor can stomach doing what must be done to save his patient in an unusual situation, but he can't stomach continuing to eat the fruit of this poisoned tree.

In all candor, I don’t necessarily agree with every part of his approach. In my book, at least, it’s better to save the living than to honor the dead. But truth be told, I don’t think that matters. What I appreciate is that this is a tough call, given all the facets and tendrils of the crisis facing The Doctor here, and I believe that he would take this path. That's all that really matters -- acknowledging the complexity, and having a character make a believable choice. (That goes for Janeway too, who’s become far more pragmatic herself since the days of, “Oh no! We can't give the Kazon a hypospray!”)

The final scene leans into those complications as well. Dr. Crell is full of flimsy rationalizations. But he’s also not wrong when he points to the fact that human medical history is far from spotless, and where we draw the line about what research is worthy and what might be tainted is, if not arbitrary, then certainly selective in many cases. What we choose to tolerate and what we refuse to countenance speaks as much to our own personal experiences and needs as any grand moral principles, even if you’re a four-year-old Emergency Medical Hologram.

The Doctor deletes Crell anyway. And you understand it. Maybe it’s meant as an act of moral principle. Maybe he’s become immune to Dr. Moset’s rationalizations and manipulations. Or maybe it’s the EMH’s acceptance of the idea that, right or wrong, he just can't be a party to this anymore. His erstwhile new friend has turned out to be a butcher -- he can't put up with that, even if it would help people.

That is, to my mind, where the best of Star Trek lies -- at the intersection of the moral, the practical, and the personal. I don’t expect our humble writers to have all the answers, especially when real life ethicists and philosophers struggle with them. But in great episodes like “Nothing Human”, I’m glad they’re still asking the tough questions.

(A couple asides here: (1.) When The Doctor started showing his slideshow, I mistakenly thought this was “Latent Image” from later in the season, and was bracing for a very different episode! (2.) As convenient as the EMH’s tricorders and such not working on the bug is, I appreciate our heroes getting to meet an alien that's truly alien once more. The differences in language and physiology from humanoid lifeforms are the kind of thing I could do with more of in Star Trek. And kudos to the effects team for the design of the bug, particularly its internals, which are eerie and gross in a darned impressive way.)

[9.2/10] “Counterpoint” starts right in the middle of things. There is no introduction to the Devore, no context for their waltzing onto Voyager, no precedent for them inspecting the ship. The episode simply drops the audience into this scenario, trusting us to keep up with the broad contours of what’s happening and, more than that, to feel as shocked and affronted about it as the characters do.

It’s a canny move, the kind you’d expect from Michael Taylor (the writer of “The Visitor, one of DS9’s most superlative installments). On a nuts and bolts level, it’s exciting. We kick things off with action and uncertainty, a foreign invader stomping through our heroes’ home like they own the place. But more than that, it perfectly establishes two things that the show will want to subvert.

The first is the notion that the Devore are uniformly bad guys. The Inspector makes excuses for why his people hunt down and (it’s implied) execute telepaths, why they take such draconian measures against outsiders within their space. But the tone and tenor of their “inspection” of Voyager plays less like the routine work of governmental functionaries and more like Nazi thugs hectoring and harassing the locals to ensure they don’t dare to harbor any Jews.

The Devore’s main brute announces his troops will be boarding the ship in a gruff and stentorian manner. They barge through private areas while our heroes have to sit by and watch. They deliberately shatter The Doctor’s delicate cultures because they can. Without anyone having to vocalize it – sheerly through the harshness on display and the simmering resentment from our heroes – you understand the malevolent threat that these newcomers to the show represent.

And then there’s Kashyk, their erstwhile leader and the head of these intrusive “inspections.” He is not unlike Gul Dukat on Voyager’s sister show – a villain who thinks he’s a friend. His genial tone and sense of cultural understanding presages none other than Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (which, oddly enough, portends a few things in this story). He holds court in Janeway’s ready room. He aims for friendly banter with her over Earth culture. He casts these intermittent invasions as a neighborly visit, while holding all the power in the situation, and threatening to detain or destroy innocent people behind his faux-gentility.

In short, it’s easy to loathe them both: the jackbooted thugs running roughshod through our homey ship, and the smiling dastard who pretends everything about it is nice and normal.

With that start, “Counterpoint” has its work cut out for it: to suggest that a member of this cruel force might secretly sympathize with the innocent telepaths who are being persecuted, that Kashyk might be trusted, and that under the right circumstances, he might even be worth falling in love with. And what’s most impressive about the episode is that it manages to pull all of it off.

“Counterpoint” is essentially a trust game. Do you trust Kashyk when he claims to be an ally despite storming his way through Voyager uninvited? Do you trust him when she shows up seeking asylum and preaching sympathy for those he pursues? Do you buy the plans he helps spin up, the intel he shares, the methods he proposes to get the telepathic refugees to safety? And most importantly, do you trust him on a personal level, to where you might feel comfortable, or more, with him?

We have to ask these questions because Janeway is. One of the deftest moves Taylor and company pull off is to put us in her shoes. Janeway is a savvy operator, showing effective (if occasionally plot-necessity-aided) good judgment in when to trust and when to fight. So it’s easy to follow in her wake when he lets her guard down or keep it up. But all the while, we get to play the same game she is, and gauge whether or not this man who, by his own account, has been lying to suit his situation, is finally telling the truth or just lulling the Captain, and the audience, into another deception.

It helps that the stakes feel legitimately high in a way that’s a tribute to both the ingenuity and the humanitarian values at the heart of Star Trek. Hiding fugitive refugees in the transporter buffer is clever but dangerous. The show ratchets up the tension by having the Devore stormtroopers nose their way around the transporter room and give B’Elanna the third degree over power usage. She and Seven struggle to bring the refugees (and our Vulcan friends) back. The Doctor explains that the pattern buffer hideaway isn’t a permanent solution regardless, with cellular degradation afflicting more and more of them the longer they kick around in limbo.

The upshot is clear. These are an outsized version of the “undesirables” being hidden away in Nazi Germany. They can only evade detection for so long before they’ll get hurt one way or another. You fear for them. You sympathize with them. And you cheer for Janeway when she’s willing to preserve Federation ideals by getting them to a wormhole that can ferry them on to safety.

So it’s a shock when, in the midst of trying to reach a rendezvous, Kashyk himself shows up pleading that he fears for them, that he sympathizes, the same way we do. He doesn’t just want asylum on Voyager to assuage his guilty conscience; he claims he wants to help them.

What’s great about Kashyk’s supposed defection is that it makes his story and actions plausible enough to where the audience can justifiably buy it, and it makes Janeway cautious and measured enough that she, and by extension we, never feel like saps for starting to believe him.

Kashyk doesn’t just come with empty words – a plausible but unverifiable story about having long-wanted to defect, but Voyager being the first outside visitor that provided a genuine opportunity. He comes with valuable intel: patrols schedules, rendezvous coordinates, alarm system details. If that weren’t enough, he admits to already knowing about the refugees, suggesting that if he wanted to blow the whistle on Janeway and send them all to detention or doom, he could have done it already. On the merits, you can’t blame Janeway for at least tentatively buying his story, willing to consider his request on a provisional basis while they scope out whether this all adds up. And if it does, it’s the opportunity for freedom the refugees have been waiting for.

That’s what comes off the page. But what is much harder to achieve, and what owes so much to the performers, is how easy and visceral it is to believe that Janeway and Kashyk would grow close to one another. There’s a nice progression between them: from a frosty reception to gregarious come-ons, to a cautious tolerance of someone who might be of use, to a more relaxed partnership that emerges through solving problems seamlessly together, to a legitimate intimacy that emerges when it comes time for the pair to part.

It's one of the hardest things in the world to pull off in forty-five minutes. The script does its work, paying off that progression with a charming good cop/bad cop routine played on an alien scientist, and a scene of late night problem-solving that makes it natural for both Kathryn and Kashyk to let their hair down. And Kashyk’s tale of a telepathic child, destined for a grim fate if he carried out his duties, effecting a change of heart, is liable to tug at the audience’s heartstrings alongside Janeway’s.

But some of what makes it work is unwritable – the sparkling chemistry between Kate Mulgrew and guest performer Mark Harelik (who does extraordinary work in a short amount of time). You can’t force two actors to seem like an organic romantic pairing on screen. It has to happen through the right choices from the performers, and a give-and-take between them allowed to blossom, and that ineffable magic that just happens when a pair of actors are attuned enough to one another to be able convey something as challenging intimacy on screen. And it’s extra challenging for Star Trek where, if behind-the-scenes reports are true, you have about a week to shoot and little time to rehearse.

Whatever the alchemy that produces it, the slow burn between Janeway and Kashyk works like gangbusters. So the moments when they gaze into one another’s eyes in the mess hall, when Kashyk invites his benefactor in for a meal after a long night’s work, when against all odds, they share a kiss before their daring plan can go into play, you buy it. It gives “Counterpoint” an extra layer, an extra level, and Janeway’s most convincing romance this side of Chakotay.

So there’s something extra at stake when the plan to get the refugees to the wormhole of freedom runs into an apparent snafu. The scheme to get them to safety has a similar progression, with successes that happen through guile, scientific insight, cleverness, and none of which feel like automatic wins.

Hell, my secret favorite part of this one is the fact that B’Elanna and company come up with the usual technobabble scheme to avoid the Devore sensors, and what do you know, it actually fails for once! I mean hey, we eventually learn why, but still! It’s nice to see the good guys do nothing wrong and still come up short in their engineering endeavors now and again.

It’s not just a mechanical loss though. It ups the stakes again, since with the Devore alerted, the only way to make it to the exit in time is to send Kashyk back to his people, where he can pretend to be a loyalist once more and use his authority to send them on their way. It’s another trust fall, to believe that Kashyk won’t just defect back in a tight spot, and another way to make this ploy a fraught one, with Voyager’s scheme and Kashyk’s role as a double agent apt to be exposed at any minute. The show seals it with a kiss, letting us believe in the trust, and in what could be lost if it all goes wrong.

That’s why it’s such a gut punch when Kashyk returns, seems to play his role to perfection, only to reveal that the entire thing was a ruse from the start. He was convincing. He seemed earnest in his intentions, toward the refugees and the Captain. So when he reveals that this entire effort was a ploy to uncover the location of the wormhole and destroy it, it lands like a dagger in the back. The innocents will suffer. Voyager could be impounded. And on a personal level, this person the Captain treated as a friend misled her and betrayed her.

That’s also why it’s so rousing when, despite seeming to fall for this charming chap, Janeway kept an ace in the hole herself. Kashyk realizing there’s no anomaly to destroy when he fires Voyager’s torpedoes, his head goon finding canisters of vegetables rather than telepaths in the pattern buffer, and the refugees having already safely absconded to the wormhole before the Devore forces can move a muscle, is in the top five most triumphant moments in the series.

We (read: I) may have been duped, or at least convinced enough to believe Kashyk could be on the side of the angels. But Janeway, true to form, was sharp enough not to rely on that trust, and came with a back-up plan. The point and counterpoint that the title promises – of sneering enemy to trusted ally, of arm’s length pawn to unexpected beau, of a manipulator discovering that he’s been manipulated – give the episode a wonderful momentum, and the Captain one of her biggest wins.

The only real cheat in all of this is that there’s no real consequence for Janeway’s deception. Taylor and the creative team put a fig leaf over that. Kashyk gives a speech about how this blemish on the Devore troop’s record would serve no one’s interest and orders his men to forget all about it. But it seems unlikely, at best, that the Devore could see their grand plans dashed, their Inspector humiliated, without extracting a pound of flesh from the one who pulled the wool over their eyes.

Maybe there’s a deeper reason for that, though. It would be easy to leave it at that – someone tried to fool Kathryn, and rather than falling for it, she suckered them into a double bluff. Everyone was on their guard and plotting around the other the whole time. And I think it would still be a pretty satisfying finish.

Only “Counterpoint” offers us something commendably more complicated. Kathryn and Kashyk’s plans were fake, but their feelings were real. The Inspector may not have meant what we said about the telepaths, but he was true in his connection to the Captain. Janeway may not have bought Kashyk’s routine entirely, but her invitation for him to stay was genuine. And so was that kiss.
Sometimes the best shows catch us in the middle of things. We don’t have time to gradually acclimate to the new story or new characters. The creative team can trust that it will all just wash over us, and eventually we’ll swim rather than sink amid the waves of the story.

Sometimes the same is true for our connections to others. You can be a captain and a first officer unexpectedly thrown together, a wannabe lothario flyboy and a testy engineer, a double-agent hunter and a compassionate protector of the innocent. And whether you like it or not, whether you plan for it or not, something can emerge between you, in the unlikeliest of places, and by god, you just have to deal with it.

“Counterpoint” is thrilling with just enough of a sense of the intimate. It is terrifying and then hopeful. It is warm and then bitter. It is triumphant with a closing tinge of tragedy. In the rush of things, that is the point and counterpoint Taylor and company give us, and it makes for one of Voyager’s very best melodies.

[8.5/10] “The Siege of AR-558” is a grim, dispiriting episode, but in a weird way I’m glad for it. We haven't had a committed “war is hell” episode in a while-- certainly not one this stark since Jake Sisko saw the front lines in “Nor the Battle to the Strong” back in season 5. They’re important. I think of them as the necessary cost of doing rousing episodes where our heroes retake the station in glorious battle and for the fun larks when they play baseball on the holodeck in wartime.

War isn’t fun. You wouldn’t necessarily want to rub the audience’s nose in that every week. Forcing viewers to face bleak horror on a weekly basis might be a recipe for disaster. (Or maybe not. Hello Walking Dead fans!) But episodes like “The Siege of AR-558” are crucial reminders, that behind the four-color excitement and political intrigue and comic relief that are the necessary stock and trade of a network television show, real mortal conflicts are not so pristine or so bloodless. Doing an arc like The Dominion War wouldn’t feel right without them.

The truth is that Deep Space Nine won’t, and probably can't, make any of its major characters a casualty of war. (Hell, even Jadzia was killed by magic demonic lightning rather than as a realistic death in the throes of battle.) Soi savvy viewers know that, outside of a key finale or special event, the chances of anything serious happening to our heroes is slim. “The Siege of AR-558” gets around that in a few interesting ways.

The first is introducing a crew on the front lines and integrating them with our own. Introducing a raft of new characters, who’ve been on some godforsaken rock fending off Jem’hadar attacks for five months, is a dicey proposition. There isn’t time to develop all of them in depth, or establish deep relationships with the main cast. Instead, you have to rely on the strength of performance and a certain degree of recognizable archetypes to carry the day.

Thankfully, the episode and the guest stars pull that off pretty darn well! The actor who plays Vargas, the young shell-shocked soldier, overdoes it in many places and seems overmatched. But he’s also clearly giving it his all and making some big choices, which I appreciate. Lt. Larkin is a bit generic in her conception, but you get the clear sense of an underranked officer stepping into the leadership vacuum and trying to hold everyone together in an impossible situation.

Deep Space Nine isn’t going to spend months in a foxhole, but it can give us characters who have. Through Vargas and Larkin, you get that sense of exhaustion, that sense of constant terror, the sense of being alone in the struggle, and most of all the sense of abundant and looming death, in front of and behind you. The likes of Sisko and Bashir slip into that mode pretty easily, and they’ve both seen some action, but their part is more to recognize and appreciate the hell that their comrades are going through, and show their acknowledgement by stepping into the fray alongside them.

The closest friendship we see is the one between Ezri and Kellin, the spritely-if-tired engineer tasked with decoding the Dominion comms station. He and Ezri working together to reprogram the Jem’Hadar’s “houdini” mines gives them a chance to bond. The episode doesn’t belabor it, or pretend that they’re instantly the best of friends. But we see them relating to one another through working on the same problem, commiserating over what it’s like to be in harm’s way, whether you’ve had nine lives or one. There’s a shared humanity between the two of them. So even if it’s not as deep a relationship as the one between Dax and Sisko, you feel it when Kellin goes to save Ezri in the final fray and dies in the process. The stasis of 1990s television means DS9 can't kill off the people with care about, but it can give us the untimely ends of people they care about.

It can wound our heroes, though, and if there’s a piece of “The Siege of AR-558” that truly rends the heart, it’s Nog’s piece of the battle and the loss that comes with it. The young Ferengi is relatable, admiring the Jem’Hadar-slaying, knife-sharpening commando who represents a kind of badassery Nog aspires to. He is enthusiastic, devoted to his duty, ready and willing to put himself in harm’s way for the good of the mission and his brothers- and sisters-in-arms. Which makes it all the more tragic when he loses his leg in a skirmish after scouting the enemy.

Nog is a child. He’s noble but naive. He’s grown since we first met him, but is still not far removed from being a green cadet. That means he’s extra motivated to prove himself, to show his courage. The same goes for his Ferengi heritage, which he seems low-key resentful of. He has a chip on his shoulder and devotion to duty that is admirable,but also worrying for someone we’ve watched grow up. So when he loses a limb in this fighting, when his ability to walk is put in doubt by how quickly they can get him to a hospital, when his friends and allies have to look at him lying immobilized on a table as he tries to keep a brave face, it breaks your damn heart.

So does his uncle looking after him. Quark’s inclusion here is a bit strained, with a fig leaf that Zek wants him on a fact-finding mission for some reason. But it’s worth the contrivance to get his perspective in all of this. Once again, he offers an outsider’s perspective on war and the Federation, resisting the values fans like me take for granted and making legitimate counterpoints. He is a nice foil for Sisko in that.

More than anything, as venal and self-serving as Quark can be at times, he represents the idea that war is senseless, and the loss of life and health that goes with it is gallign. Sisko cuts the figure of someone who understands the necessity of this grisly business, but who feels every name on those casualty reports anew. They work as counterpoints to one another, essentially focused on the same problem -- the misery and loss of life involved in war -- only differing on whether it’s worth it or not.

He’s also an oddly appropriate mouthpiece for how dehumanizing and dangerous all of this can be. His speech about how people can become animals when you put them in impossible situations has become rightly iconic. We see that devolution, in Vargas, in Reese, in the soldiers who are at their wits end having been stranded on some far flung planet of some strategic importance and under constant attack. Quark gives name and verse to the crumbling of the soul they might not have the words for. He’s an unexpected spokesman, but an eloquent one as always.

But he’s also an uncle, and that's the other role he plays in all of this. He represents the civilians at home, worrying about their loved ones, wanting them kept out of harm’s way. It’s unfair when he accuses Sisko of not caring after he sends Nog on an operation. But he’s also understandable in not wanting his loved one to be thrust into danger, in not understanding why it can't be somebody else, in being angry and resentful when harm comes to a young man he cares about.

Quark has had some laudable moments to go with his shameful ones over the course of the series. But there may be none more touching than him hovering over his sleeping nephew, tending to his fevered brow, and using his acute Ferengi ears to detect an incoming Jem’Hadar soldier and blast him before he can dare hurt Nog even more. In a script co-written by the series’ showrunner, Quark has his faults and his selfishness and his dim view of humanity, but he is also a loving family member, who protects a barely-grown young man from the worst of a war he abhors.

He has reason to abhor it. Much of what carries the spirit of “The Siege of AR-558” is not just the crisp dialogue or the withering performances, but the haunting atmosphere of the piece. The Federation base has the vibe of a mortuary, with human beings stretched beyond their limits and expecting death at every turn. Some of that is the production design, which uses (presumably) the usual Planet Hell set to evoke the sense of some barren, forbidding locale where comforts are scarce and pain points are abundant.

But much of it is just the tone and the pace. One of the best things the episode does is convey the creeping horror of waiting around for the inevitable strike. We get the sense of soldiers waiting around for what they know is coming, forced to settle their nerves and resign themselves to the onslaught ahead. We get a sense of the grim business of turning an enemy’s own deadly weapons against them, turning their craven trespass into your righteous defense.

Most of all, we get the sense of the fog of war. Worf calls it a glorious battle, but it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. The combat is not beautiful or triumphant. It is dizzying, fast, and harrowing. At times, it’s not clear who’s living and who’s dying. They don’t play the rousing score of a brilliant defeat of the Dominion like in past episodes, but rather a morose lament, as the Jem’Hadar storm the base and too many of those we know well and briefly fall at their hands. This is not a noble battle or a glorious victory. It is just another brutal fight, with too many dead in its wake.

When Captain Sisko starts the episode, he confesses that over time, he’s become inured to the reams of the names of the fallen. It’s easy to do the same in Deep Space Nine. Even in the franchise’s most committed exploration of conflict and battle between nations, the war is often at a remove, conveniently popping up at times when it’s exciting and dramatic. Who wouldn’t see it as another adventure, another sweetener, that distinguishes Deep Space Nine in its devotion to that idea, but not that far removed from Kirk’s conflicts with the Klignons or Picard’s stand-offs with the Romulans.

“The Siege of AR-558” is something different. Its bleaker, starker, more devoted to the on-the-ground misery and suffering and loss that war always entails, far away from comfortable admirals and exciting storylines. When it ends, Sisko is stirred anew to remember those names on the casualty list, to feel those losses, to remember the costs paid by those who’ve fallen for the cause. And by devoting this time to the same losses, to the people who die in war and the conditions under which they fight, the show urges the audience to do the same.

War in fiction can be fun and thrilling. War in real life is anything but. It’s good, maybe even a moral obligation, for a show like Deep Space Nine to remind us of that.

[8.6/10] Sometimes you make the best out of a bad situation. Jadzia’s exit from Deep Space Nine is a mixed bag at best. A demon-infused Dukat magic-blasting her to death played as silly, even in the heightened confines of a sci-fi show. Focusing on Julian and Quark pining after her as the prelude to her demise remains baffling. And Terry Farrell’s exit from the show is much worse, with behind-the-scenes crudeness and arguably bullying that leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Which is all to say that there can be great poignance and catharsis in killing off a main character. Deep Space Nine earns a measure of it. But it’s still hard to look back with any great appreciation on the departure of Jadzia and the actress who played her from the series.

And yet, I kind of love the arrival of Ezri. I love the ways in which she’s different from Jadzia. I love the thought experiments that her bursting into the Deep Space Nine milieu creates. I love the ways in which the rest of the crew reacts to losing their friend while having to engage with someone who carries on her spirit. Everything here is so rich, in a way that honestly makes me wish that, if Jadzia had to go away for whatever reason, the creative team had pulled the trigger earlier in the show’s run. That way, we would have more time to dig into Ezri’s predicament and her friends’ readjustments. It’s incredible how well this replacement works.

That starts with how the show characterizes Ezri. I’m reminded of the creative team behind MASH (which, come to think of it, has a surprising amount in common with DS9), went about replacing one of its major original characters. Major Frank Burns, the irksome, sycophantic foil to the good-natured cut-ups who led the series, departed the show. In his place, the show brought in Major Charles Winchester (played by David Ogden Stiers of TNG’s “Half a Life” fame). And despite occupying the same place in the series’ orbit, the two characters could not have been more different.

Burns was a crude dummy. Winchester was a sophisticated intellectual. Burns was a hack doctor. Winchester was a talented surgeon. Burns was a twerp who arguably got bullied by the show’s protagonist. Winchester was a nerd who could match wits with him, even when the pranksters managed to get his goat. Both characters served the same function in the series -- as a low-stakes, stiffer and more uptight adversary for the main character. But they contrasted him in different ways, and thus the one never felt like the cheap replacement for the other, just a different spin on a consistent foil that freshened up the dynamic.

Deep Space Nine takes the same approach here. Jadzia was a confident cool girl. Ezri is a nervous dork. Jadzia came in with the self-assurance of multiple distinguished Starfleet careers. Ezri is an ensign and assistant counselor who is just starting out and feels it. Jadzia is someone who came into being joined well-prepared and emotionally ready for the event. Ezri has the joining thrust upon her and is still a ginger and uncertain about the whole thing. Heck, you can even break the distinctions down to something as superficial as Jadzia being tall and Ezri being short.

The contrasts are striking, and those differences allow the show to come at the idea of being a Trill in a new and different way. Beyond that, they allow the writers to tackle what Dax means to her friends and family aboard the station in a new and different way. The possibilities that opens up are endless, and the new depths it allows the show to explore pays so many more creative dividends than introducing another Jadzia-type into the show’s roster ever could.

The most exciting part of Ezri’s emergence may be the differences between her situation from Jadzia’s and how the newly joined Trill’s presence allows the audience to put themselves in her shoes.

Jadzia was someone largely at peace with her past lives. The show still made hay from the turbulence of Curzon’s misadventures or Torias’ regrets or Joran’s psychopathy, but for the most part, Jadzia was someone who drew strength from the symbiont’s memories, rather than felt destabilized by them. Whether it was because she’d been more adequately prepared by the Symbiosis Commission, or just had more time to acclimate to the joining, Jadzia walked into the series premiere fairly self-assured about her situation.

Ezri is the exact opposite, and that's interesting! Past episodes have suggested that becoming joined was a rare and immense opportunity full of responsibility and difficulty. What would it feel like to be a regular Trill, moving about your life as usual, and suddenly be thrust into it without training or preparation, because the alternative is another being’s death? (Hello, Judith Jarvis Thomson fans!) What would it be like to have your mind flooded with eight lifetimes’ worth of preferences that may not jibe with those of the current host? What would it be like to have to harmonize all of these storied memories and experiences with your own limited ones?

We never got a chance to explore that with Jadzia. She came into Deep Space Nine fully-baked, more or less. We get to see the rocky transition with Ezri (and, vague spoilers, her situation lays some groundwork for Discovery), knowing more about Trill experiences and culture that allow the creative team to add meaning and context to what it is to be a member of this unique species.

The imaginative character possibilities that opens up are crucial. The truth is that Terry Farrell wasn’t the best actress in the world when she started on Deep Space Nine. But the strength of the concept of a joined species did a lot of the heavy lifting in the early days of the series that helped buttress Jadzia amid the show’s cast. I like Nicole de Boer’s performance better from the start, and she gets the same benefit -- of an equally fascinating basic situation behind her role that gives her a lift from the jump.

So does the notion of Ezri reconnecting with the various members of the DS9 crew in ways that are both familiar and jarring. The series dug into this idea a bit with Jadzia. One of the core components of her dynamic is having a friendship with Sisko that's complicated by his friendship with Curzon. And the show got great traction from the reentry of figures from Dax’s past -- from old lovers to old enemies to old allies -- and how they affected Jadzia.

The catch is that we didn’t know Curzon. We didn’t know Kor (or at least, not Dax’s relationship with him.) We didn’t know Lenara Khan. We do know Sisko and Worf and Julian and Quark. So seeing a new Dax reconnect with them, have those bonds feel at once familiar and alien, is a richer vein to explore, one that's more visceral for the audience since we were there when those bonds were formed.

You feel for Ezri, not just because she’s in a tender and vulnerable new place, but because she’s immersed in a series of relationships that are supposed to give her comfort, but instead induce a sort of reincarnation motion sickness. (A metaphorical motion sickness to go with her actual motion sickness -- what a concept!) To be frank, you can kind of understand the Trill’s reluctance about new hosts rekindling connections with the important people in the lives of former hosts, given how murky and difficult for Ezri here. The inherent parallax of Ezri’s view of these people It’s a hard thing for her to adjust to, and a difficulty that's doubled by the tragic air that tinges her presence on the station given how Jadzia died.

It’s just as hard for some other members of the crew. As much as Deep Space Nine’s interpretation of Worf is more dickish than his Next Generation incarnation, I’m a sucker for stories about him being a stick in the mud about something, only to relent and see the ways that a softer, more empathetic approach could very well be the right move. His reaction to Ezri, and everything around her, may be the peak of that (give or take some of his tender moments with Alexander in TNG).

What must it be like to lose someone you love, to mourn them, to lay them to rest, and then be faced with the presence of a person who both is and isn’t your dear lost loved one. (Hello Vertigo fans!) It’s too much to call Worf entirely sympathetic here. If anything, he feels like a real jerk. He’s curt with Ezri when she’s already having a rough time adjusting to her new life. He gets jealous and physical with Julian when he has absolutely no right. He rejects the very idea that a piece of his wife lives on in this stranger, and it brings out the worst in him.

But you can also understand where he’s coming from. He has been through the sudden traumatic loss of a mate for the second time. He went to great lengths to make peace with the idea of his wife’s death and earn her place in Sto-vo-kor. Now, he’s confronted with a walking reminder of his loss and what he might consider an impostor.

Grief is rarely fair and linear under normal circumstances. His anger and arguably cruelty is not fair to Ezri or Julian or the others he’s short with, but it is comprehensible. Most importantly, it gives Worf somewhere to go emotionally.

Frankly, my favorite moment in Worf and Dax’s relationship may be right here, where the Klingon’s mighty heart turns upon that piercing question -- how would Jadzia want him to treat Ezri. The way he apologizes to her, opens up to her about his struggles, tells them they’re not her fault and that he is glad his wife lives on her, is moving. He asks for space, and gives Ezri a mere polite nod from across the room. But he is there, in Ezri’s crisis of self and the celebration of her joining the station’s faithful. That is growth and empathy, the kind that Jadzia prized in her beau and which honors her memory. For now, it’s enough.

That's just one of multiple fraught or fascinating interactions Ezri has among Jadzia’s dear friends. Quark is the perfect contradiction: uniquely accepting of Ezri as valid without compunction but also just interested in a second chance with Dax. Julian is kind and compassionate, recognizing that Ezri is a different person, but also strangely compelled by the remnants of his friend. (Though geeze, even with where they’re going, we can't escape the “Jadzia liked flirting with you and if Worf hadn't come along she would have dated you” bullshit.) Even Kira trying not to associate her place of spiritual peace with the loss of her dear friend is complicated by Ezri returning to the scene of her predecessor’s demise.

Then, of course, there’s Sisko. And if there’s anyone who’s instantly at ease with Ezri, it’s him. It makes sense! He’s been here before! He already had to adjust from Curzon to Jadzia, so Jadzia to Ezri is easier having been a party to the transition once already. He can call her “old man” without hesitation, and recognize the challenges of the readjustment, and see the ways that Ezri is both the Dax he knew and a whole different person all at once in a way that's challenging for everyone else.

His dynamic with Ezri opens up the same kind of new opportunities. Curzon was a mentor. Jadzia was a peer. Ezri is someone that Benjamin can guide. Seeing how he relates to three different people, bonded by the same symbiont, is another way for the show to wring new possibilities from what is kind of the same character.

It also gives him a role to play here -- guiding Ezri through the challenging readjustment to life on the station. His is a ploy to get her to stay on DS9 despite the discomfort she feels inhabiting Dax’s old environment. The inertia of network television tells savvy viewers that Ezri will probably stick around, but I appreciate the subtext that Sisko is loath to lose his friend again, and more to the point, that “Afterimage” earns her staying aboard the station. And the perfect fulcrum for that is none other than plain, simple Garak.

Look, I’m in the tank for Garak to begin with, so it’s easy for storylines focused on him to work on me. But I think using him as someone for Ezri to spark off of is perfect for a couple of reasons.

The first and easiest is that you can buy him as someone who, well, needs a counselor. From all the way back in season 2’s “The Wire”, Garak has been through emotional turmoil, despite his unflappable demeanor. Losing his emotionally distant father, being stuck in a POW camp, finding his father alive, losing him again, being forced to become a vindictive murderer, all give him reason to need therapy even before you get to the claustrophobia.

So he provides a clear use-case for Ezri’s talents. On a practical level, Garak’s ability to decode Cardassian cables is necessary for the war effort. On a canon level, his claustrophobia attacks are well-established. On a personal level, he has skeletons in his closet (if you'll pardon the expression) that need unpacking.

With all of that, at a time when Ezri is full of uncertainty and self-doubt, he’s someone who badly needs her help. You can see the young Trill, tentative and uncertain, slyly using her own discomfiting situation to prompt Elim to discuss his. The comparisons she draws between the two of them -- the way emotional hardship can manifest in physical discomfort, the way Tain locking his son in a closet as punishment has parallels to Torias dying in a shuttle accident in how each event leaves lingering scars -- allow her to help the ailing Cardassian. Ezri shows her value, even if she herself doesn’t quite see it yet.

What especially impresses me about veteran Trek writer René Echevarria’s script is how he gives the ebbs and flows and turns of Ezri’s treatment of Garak. If she’d merely given Garak some solace and coaxed him to confront his childhood abuse in a way that got him over his phobia, it would be too pat. Instead, like so many of us, both she and Garak rise and fall. One minute they're beleaguered. The next they’re self-assured. The next they’re having a crisis. The next they’ve found some measure of peace and direction. Their situation is no more a straight line than Worf’s, and it makes their shared experience realer and more affecting.

Therein lies the second reason that Garak is the perfect first patient -- because no one is more adept at slickly and cruelly tearing someone down than DS9’s resident tailor. The cliche goes that hurt people hurt people. So as with Worf, you can somewhat forgive the trespasses of another character who’s suffering his own crisis. But the way he dresses down Ezri in his own lowest moment, confirms every fear she has -- that she’s useless, not good enough, unworthy of carrying on the legacy of Dax -- comes with extra force and poison when it comes out in the form of Garak’s searing invectives.

So you buy it when Ezri is crestfallen and ready to give up entirely. You buy it (admittedly, with some reservations) when Sisko gives her some tough love, knowing his friend will bounce back. You buy it when Worf gives her the boost she needs right when she needs it most. And you buy it when she’s there for Garak when he finally feels ready to admit what the true source of his pain is.

I love the reveal that what’s eating Garak is not the ghosts of his terrible treatment by his father (or at least not entirely), but rather, the acute sense that he’s a traitor to his people. Despite his exile, Garak has always fancied himself a patriot. He lamented to Julian the pain of being forbidden from his homeland. He was aghast at the Female Changeling’s pronouncement that there were no Cardassian prisoners taken in their attack. He has his criticisms of the regime and his foes like Dukat, but by god, Garak loves his people.

And he’s killing them.

Ezri’s right. He’s doing a good thing, one that would likely spare the lives of more Cardassians than sitting idly by while the Dominion sinks its claws into his homeland. But you can understand why he would feel like he’s a traitor, a handmaiden to annihilation, someone with Cardassian blood on his hand. The source of his pain is more than a pop-psychology fig leaf; it’s an on-brand longing and woundedness at the heart of the character and his connection to his people.

To have Ezri provoke that, help him through it, get him started on the right path toward confronting his feelings and so being able to address them, shows that she does have a place on Deep Space Nine, as a counselor and a friend. Garak’s situation is a challenge that, for all her kindness, Jadzia couldn’t have handled it. She wasn’t trained for it, and I don’t think her disposition was particularly suited for it either. Ezri, however, is the right Trill for the job. Unknownst to Garak, he needed her, and she needed to know that. She needed to know that she could be a different, but no less valid or valuable denizen of the station.

That is the truth on multiple levels. She may not be a science officer, but as Sisko notes, in the throes of war, a counselor is more than called for on the station. She may not have years of friendships with Benjamin and Kira and the rest of the crew, but she can occupy a different, no less vital place in these people’s lives. And Ezri may not have been a character since Deep Space Nine’s premiere, but in the hands of de Boer and the writing staff, she still has a crucial role to play in the final year of the series’ mission.

[9.0/10] If there is a classic Star Trek move, it is encountering an alien species and deciding that we’re Not So Different:tm:. From Kirk and the Klingons, to Geordi and the Romulans, to Kira and the Cardassians, the realization that your most hated enemies share more in common than you might think is a time-tested trope for the franchise. The concept is buried so deep within the Trekkian ethos that it should get boring, especially when it comes up time and again. And yet, it doesn’t.

Much of that owes to the different ways that various creative teams find to illustrate that animating ideal. And Voyager’s comes up with an all-time premise to explore the idea.

This is where I admit that I’m a sucker for Stepford-esque idyllic towns with a dark secret. There is something inherently unnerving about a place that seems bright and shiny, but which is hiding something disturbing just below the surface. The recreation of Starfleet HQ fits that to a tee. I’ll confess, I remembered the twist here from watching the show as a kid. But I still appreciate the WTF atmosphere the episode creates, of Chakotay walking the grounds, surrounded by fellow officers, seemingly back on Earth. Trying to figure out what’s wrong, what’s changed, what must be twisted here, since something must be, adds a great atmosphere to the episode.

What’s great is that the revels add tension, rather than defuse it. Writer Nick Sagan does a superb job of spoon-feeding us key details just in time for them to make an impact. First, the audience learns that there’s a mysterious recreation of Starfleet HQ floating in the middle of the Delta Quadrant, which is peculiar enough. Then, we get hints that the people strolling the grounds may look human, but they’re aliens struggling to maintain their form. Then, we find out, to our chagrin, that these aren’t just any aliens mimicking human physiology, but Species 8472, making their first appearance since “Scorpion”. And if that weren’t enough, we then find out that the reason behind this Cold War-esque charade is to provide a training ground for infiltration and ultimately invasion of Federation territory.

(As an aside, I’m inclined to write a story of two Starfleet intelligence officers at HQ, each keeping tabs on the other, suspicious of the other’s behavior, unsure about what their real agenda is, only to discover that neither is human, but instead one’s a Changeling and the other is a member of Species 8472, accidentally getting their espionage wires crossed. The timing would work!)

We don’t get this information as part of one big exposition dump. Instead, the breadcrumbs and hints are laid out, little by little, until the new tidbit comes down, and our heroes have time to react and respond to it. That escalating sense of information that ups the paranoia, rather than neutralizes it, is one of the masterstrokes within one of the show’s cleverest episodes.

But so is the decision to have both species feeling each other out, not wanting to reveal what they know or the fact that they’re onto the other, for eighty percent of the episode. Credit where it’s due. I rag on Chakotay and Robert Beltran a lot in these write-ups, especially when it comes to episodes focused on his romantic life. But not only is he convincing as a double agent, pretending to be a member of Species 8472’s experiment, while secretly gathering information on them, but he has a surprisingly excellent rapport with “Commander Valerie Archer”, the alien posing as a colleague who he flirts with for most of the episode.

“In the Flesh” plays up the ambiguity of Chakotay’s adventures in the recreation perfectly. On the one hand, you have a certain joy in getting to bask in the idyllic locale from home, even knowing it’s fake, for the characters and the audience. On the other, you have the sinister underbelly, that this is an alien proving ground where they’re masquerading as humans for some potentially nefarious purpose. On the one hand, you have Chakotay and Archer (who, in my head canon, is Captain Archer’s great granddaughter, cause why not?) seeming to share a genuine attraction to one another, waxing rhapsodic about humanity’s faults and merits, and sharing a reluctant kiss that turns into a genuine one. On the other, you have both of them harboring hidden agendas, trying to gather information on the other and their people.

It works as a metonym of the conflict between Voyager and Species 8472. Whether they realize it or not, they have an incredible amount of common ground. Species 8472 walking a mile in Starfleet’s shoes, and the Voyager crew seeing others step into their type of lives so seamlessly, helps them each see that. But at the same time, there’s a deep mistrust, and a deeper fear, that needs to be overcome for each side to be able to fully realize it.

It’s the kind of dynamic that lends the same kind of charge to Chakotay and Archer’s date. Dating is often a little fraught, folks trying to put their best selves forward, keeping vulnerable parts guarded, trying to form a connection despite differences and anxieties. In that sense, the interactions between a human and an alien secretly spying on one another is that basic everyday experience magnified in a compelling way. I slate Voyager for cheesecake sometimes, but seeing Valerie change in silhouette, and give herself an injection on her bare leg that then flashes into an alien form for just a second, speaks to that same interplay between openness and something hidden that suffuses the episode as a whole.

Meanwhile, in the absence of certain information, the tension ratchets up on both sides of the equation. We get brief glimpses of the fake Starfleet officers murmuring to one another, worried that the bogeymen they’re trying to defend themselves against have snuck their way into one Species 8472’s training facilities, wondering what they know and how many warships they have on the way. And on Voyager, Seven and the rest of the crew are feverishly arming nanoprobe warheads, speculating about what their enemy’s game might be in all of this, and then once they find out, wondering if they have to strike now to stop disaster from erupting back home.

And on a personal, scene-crafting level, Chakotay is exposed. One of the scariest scenes in the series comes when Chakotay is trying to get back to the Flyer, only to watch the “daylight” turn on, a la The Truman Show, and to then see hordes of people pursuing him, a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There’s a delicate, paranoid energy that pervades a lot of the episode, and it reaches its crescendo in that bravura scene.

But from there, things take a diplomatic turn. One of those other classic bits of tension that the franchise likes to deploy is whether we bear down for battle or seek peace. “In the Flesh” nicely walks the line, with both sides prepping for invasion and defense, while everyone from Janeway to Seven to Valerie Archer considers whether they need to stamp out an enemy before they have the chance to attack, or sit down at the bargaining table.

This is Star Trek, so you can guess what they ultimately pick. Still, I’m a big fan of the scene where Janeway and her senior staff sit across from their Species 8472 counterparts.

Some of that is just Boothby. One of the canniest choices the Voyager creative team makes is bringing back Ray Walston to reprise his role as (a version of) the same avuncular groundskeeper who looked out for Captain Picard and Wesley Crusher in TNG’s “The First Duty”. He gives instant credibility to the recreation, helping the masquerade feel realer and more like an invasion of privacy. More than that though, Wollaston just has a hell of a presence. He has that firm but sweet demeanor that makes it hard not to love a grandfather-like figure on television. And his homespun colloquialism, delivered to perfection, gives Boothby a distinctive way about him.

Walston, Kate Vernon (of BSG fame) as Archer, and Tucker Smallwood as the faux-Admiral Bullock all come to play. The cavalcade of game, talented guest stars would be a boon to any episode, but is especially useful here in a story about how we should see the aliens on the other side of the bargaining table as fellow individuals and not just faceless enemies.

To the point, I appreciate how the inevitable peace and understanding is hard-won here. Hell, I kind of just love the fact that there are consequences for Janeway’s actions back in “Scorpion”. Part of what gave her choice to work with the Borg as certain power came from the fact that it wasn’t necessarily in keeping with Starfleet principles to arm an erstwhile enemy against an unknown third party. The Captain did what she had to do in a tough situation. The fact that there’s blowback from that bold, envelope-pushing choice, is realistic and gives it more meaning.

Janeway’s right to be unnerved that a powerful species is play-acting as humans in preparation for an infiltration. 8472-Boothby is right to be unnerved that Voyager allied with the Borg against them. Chakotay is right that Species 8472 came spouting threats of galactic extermination. Species 8472 is right that Voyager invaded their space, not the other way around. There are legitimate grievances here, reasons for each side not to trust the other, founded on deadly interactions the audience has seen.

And yet, in a weird way, that's what unites these two parties. They’re both afraid that the other one is a powerful invader, both convinced that they may very well need to strike first lest they be wiped out by a cruel aggressor, both discovering unexpected bits of, for lack of a better term, humanity in their foes that gives them pause. It’s easy to bluster and make monumental threats. It’s hard to adhere to principle and, as Surak might do, take the first step toward peace.

That's what Janeway does, disarming the nanoprobe weapons in plain view of the representatives from Species 8472. It is, in many ways, no less bold and no less daring than the choice to team up with the Collective. Giving peace a chance is a bit of Star Trek cliche, but this sense of redoing first contact, of believing that what brings us together may be more powerful than the unknowns that make us afraid of one another, shows why the caretakers of the franchise keep coming back to it.

What starts out as paranoid and unnerving becomes warm and even homey. Our heroes and their erstwhile enemies exchange information, as a sign of trust and friendship. Misunderstandings are resolved. Hopeful new bonds are forged. Even the odd lip lock comes back around.

I’m a cynic by nature. Too often idealism finds purchase in fiction while crumbling and falling in the real world. But Star Trek gives even grumps like me hope in stories like this one. Because if there’s one idea that resonates, from 1966 to 1998 to right now, it’s that whatever may divide us, there’s always an essential humanity from person to person and community to community, that binds us all together, even if mutual suspicion and even fear is the starting place for our common ground.

[9.0/10] To be frank, I didn't think Voyager had the chutzpah to do an episode like this one. For a solid half of its runtime, this episode has no imposing villain, no deadly anomaly, no ticking clock, no major crisis of any sort. Instead, it centers on the kind of thing you don’t get much of on network television, but would presumably be a tremendous part of any extended journey through the vastness of space -- the oppressiveness of monotony.

How does the crew react when they have nothing to do? When there’s no stars in the sky to look at? When the captain is remote and closed off? When the lack of challenges and differences in their day-to-day lives also comes with a lack of purpose? When the ship offers relative comfort but no excitement? When you have nothing on the docket but to sit and wait and think and stew?

I remember “Night” from childhood, and I have to admit, it hits differently after the pandemic and lockdown. The unchanging days, the isolation, the testiness, the anxiety, the random diversions to pass the time, the little “hacks” to get a sliver of normalcy aboard Voyager, all hit home when much of the world experienced the same thing in recent years.

Which is to say it’s relatable when the ship’s holodecks are in high demand because it’s all there is to do. (Appropriately enough, I watched a lot of Star Trek during lockdown.) It’s understandable when Tom and B’Elanna and even Neelix are getting short with one another amid the tedium. It’s sympathetic when Neelix starts to have panic attacks and bouts of cabin fever. It’s familiar when Tuvok tries to meditate in astrometrics as a substitute for the outside world. And it’s recognizable when Harry has nothing else to occupy him amid the doldrums and so pours his feelings into a sonata for clarinet. (Some of us pen reviews of classic television instead.)

I can't pretend that Voyager fully commits to this. The back half of “Night” goes into full “moral and practical crisis” mode while hitting some pretty familiar Star Trek beats. And even in the first half, we get the debut of the “Adventures of Captain Proton” holodeck tribute to the sci-fi B-movies of old. (Which I remember being more fun than either Janeway’s Victorian pastiche, Chez Sandrine, the resort set, or da Vinci’s workshop as Voyager’s holo-diversions go).

But for a solid couple acts, Voyager is downright languid, reflective, unbothered by the need for dramatic incident in a way we’d never really seen in thirty years of Star Trek. Leaning into that, examining what the torpor of monotony would feel like aboard a starship traversing a vast void, is bold in a way that I just don’t expect from this series.

As if to cement that “Night” is an outlier among Voyager episodes, this may be the finest hour of the series for Chakotay, and by extension, Robert Beltran. Chakotay has never been more complex or sympathetic than when he’s trying to manage the daily functions of a ship, the morale of a stir crazy crew, the moods of guilt-ridden captain, and his own struggles under the tediousness of life aboard Voyager. Hell, the show even pulls off a strong scene between him and Tuvok, rooted in their fraught history and shared admiration for the Captain.

More than anything, Chakotay feels like a real person flustered but steadfast in an impossible situation, with Beltran showing layers of the character we’ve never really seen before. The show’s usual stars shine here, but for once Beltran came to play, and it’s a glimpse at who and what this character could have been under the right circumstances.

But Chakotay is only pressed into such circumstances thanks to the self-blaming spiral of Captain Janeway. One of the coolest choices writers Joe Menosky and Brannon Braga make here is to keep Janeway from the audience for much of the early stretch of “Night”. We feel her absence in the same way the crew does, and especially for a season premiere, the delayed gratification of a Captain in absentia makes for another bold move that heightens the sense of frustrating listlessness aboard the ship before the fireworks start.

What I love most is that without the ongoing risks posed by the Kazon or the Vidiians or the Borg, the only enemy Janeway has left to fight is herself. The lack of excitement means the Captain resorts to soul-searching, reflecting on the choices she made that left everyone stranded in a faraway place for years, with the promise of decades more to come. This is probably a reach on my part, but given how she’s shot and lit, there’s an almost Colonel Kurtz-like quality to Janeway in her seclusion.

The idea that when the music stops, when the momentum that's sustained the crew grinds to a halt, the weight of their circumstances falls on Janeway in a more concentrated, demoralizing sort of way is the kind of engrossing personal hardship and reckoning that, frankly, Voyager should have done more of in its first season when the wound was fresh. I’m glad that with new leadership at the helm, the creative team is doing it now.

Of course, the quiet meditation and moral reflections can't last forever. So of course, our heroes run into some locals from “The Void” who manage to shut off Voyager’s power, board the ship, and attack from the shadows. It’s a nice little horrorshow in between the two major sections of the episode. Seeing the ship go completely without power and light is striking as a change of pace. And the all-black, scaly aliens who hiss and emerge from the darkness have a much creepier design and vibe than the similar spooks from TNG’s “Identity Crisis”.

Plus hey, it’s enough to convince Janeway to spring back into action. She needs a crisis of her own to spur her to rise to the occasion and become active once again. And the fact that she reverts to her badass space marine guise, as she did in “Macrocosm” doesn’t hurt either.

What follows is pretty standard, but well done stuff. Another ship in the void fends off the Night Aliens’ ship, and offers to lead Voyager to a vortex that could spare them another two years in the void. Only, its pilot, Emck, is cagey about why he’s there and what he wants. Naturally, it turns out the Void Aliens are misunderstood indigenous people who’ve been taught to fear strange ships polluting their territory, and Emck is a craven waste-merchant willing to sacrifice lives to make a buck.

There’s elements worth holding onto there. The idea that people who attack reflexively may not be evil, but responding with learned behaviors from other aggressors, is an interesting one, especially in the context of Star Trek. Guest star Ken Magee does a great job as Emck, giving him an appropriately slimy quality while giving the sense that he could just be a harmless local eccentric. And the idea that another operator would be so cruel as to reject civilization-changing, life-saving technology, because stopping deadly pollution would hurt his bottom line, makes Emck into something of a Captain Planet villain, but also a good vessel for societal critique.

Still, that material is largely set-dressing for the larger point here. The big idea of “Night” is a simple one -- this is a referendum on the choice Captain Janeway made four years ago. The scenario the episode presents is the same one Janeway faced with the Caretaker in miniature. Either you do the self-serving thing and take the shortcut so as to spare your crew a long journey, or you do the altruistic thing and destroy it, consigning your crew to the wilderness for longer still.

Granted, it’s not exactly the same. Two extra years in the Void is a lot shorter than seventy years through the Delta Quadrant. One chump with a radioactive tanker is a far cry from a dying demigod. And at this point, you’re talking about making the choice just for your own crew, not for the Maquis you’d be stranding alongside you.

The broad contours, however, are the same. What’s striking is that this time, Janeway would still do it all again, but won’t subject her crew to the consequences of her actions. She’d rather stay behind in the Void and send Voyager on so she can destroy the vortex alone. She’s still honor-bound to save the Night Aliens from cruel extinction, but she wants to be a martyr for the cause, bear that weight alone, rather than imposing it on her subordinates. There is a nobility in that, a brand of self-reflection and questioning that the series frankly should have interrogated in more depth when it launched.

The heartening part of “Night”, though, is that her crew, and more importantly her friends, won’t go along with it. You can quibble about how the stakes aren’t the same here as they were in the beginning of the show. But again, the upshot is plain. Every member of the main cast affirms that they would rather be stranded for longer in this miserable empty expanse than be without their captain. (Except for the extras, who are, amusingly, still pecking away at their control stations in the background while this grand, dramatic stand is going on.)

It is, in many senses, a ratification of Janeway’s original choice, the one that put all these people here in the first place. It’s a sign that they admire the Captain’s commitment to doing the right thing, even at tremendous cost. It’s a sign of how much they value her specifically. And it is an affirmation that, even if they’d rather not be stranded lightyears and lightyears from home, if it meant following Kathryn Janeway, they’d do it all again.

The rest of the episode is, frankly, kind of perfunctory and a little cheap. The opposing captain boasts that he could destroy Voyager in ten seconds, and yet the Federation starship puts up a standard fight without issue and finds a convenient weakness in Emck’s vessel. The Night Aliens have their Big Damn Heroes moment, showing well-timed trust in Janeway’s ability to be a captain of her word. And the science team figures out a way to have their cake and eat it too -- to both make it out of the vortex while destroying it in the process.

All of it feels like a zip to the finish, where the solutions are not particularly earned, and the big choices our heroes make have less impact because no one ever has to deal with the consequences of them. But that is less Voyager’s retreating to its usual reset button and more the inexorable inertia of 1990s network television.

So I’m apt to forgive it, especially when the point stands. Janeway need not torture himself. Her crew believes in her, trusts her principles, and would follow her through hell and back again. If season 4’s “Scorpion” was a turning point for Voyager, that divided the series’ eras into “Before Seven” and “After Seven”, then “Night” is a re-pilot. In some ways, the season 5 premiere relitigates the very beginnings of the series, offering a more complex and personal take on them, while also reaffirming Janeway’s righteousness, and the love she’s earned from the men and women who serve with her. That's a hell of a way to kick of off the fifth year of Voyager’s mission.

As I write this review, it’s been long enough since lockdown that the whole thing feels like a strange fever dream. I can remember the same lulls, the same sense of restlessness, the same need for distraction, the same self-questioning in the quiet spaces with nothing else to do. Despite coming out decades before, “Night” captures the feeling of that period better than any other piece of media I’ve experienced.

But I also remember how hard it was to do the right thing sometimes: to keep a safe distance from loved ones and strangers alike to protect their safety, to postpone favorite activities and celebrate holidays through computer screens, to be diligent about protective gear for the sake of others, to upend our whole lives during a crisis no one had an end date for. There were times I wanted to give up trying to do the noble thing and just give in, and if I’m being honest, times that I did.

I can't pretend that the steadfastness of Captain Janeway in “Night” is what kept me on the side of the angels. But one of the things I love about Star Trek is that there was always a set of ethics behind it. Not every moral stance is right, and not all of them have aged perfectly. And yet, time again, the franchise has given us stories of people doing the right thing even when it’s hard, even at great personal cost, because as a great Starfleet officer once put it, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

There is a cost to doing the right thing. Seeing the crew squabble and fracture confirms that. Seeing the captain beat herself up confirms that. But there is also something rousing about a group of people banding together in the name of mutual support and doing what’s right. That's the sort of ideal that sticks with you, whether you’re a middle school kid enjoying your favorite space-bound stories, or a grown adult trying to find the strength to weather your own storms. If you’re lucky, the stars still shine brightly on the other side of the darkness.

[9.0/10] One of my favorites. Long before the show would attempt a bigger rift between them, “See Jane Run” drives a wedge between the show’s two closest characters in a way that is believable, understandable, and sad. All of that makes it extra heartening when they repair their friendship. And more than that, it’s believable, both for the characters as we’ve come to know them, and for those fumbling teenage interactions where you try something on for size and decide whether you like it, even if it pulls you away from your friends.

It’s also really funny! This one can be painful at times because the interactions between Daria and Jane are a little too real. But this one is still chock full of great laughs. The running gag of Brittany toppling over during her splits cracked me up every time. Kevin annoying Mack is a great comic gift. Jake taking Daria’s protestations of having a boyfriend named “Knuckles” seriously is a laugh, as is Helen fantasizing about male cheerleaders while trying to give a speech about equality.

Plus, this is a great Quinn episode in terms of comedy. The running gag about her wearing shoes that hurt her feet but make her legs look good is well-observed for mid-1990s priorities. And everything about her “baby-sitting” Daria is superb, from the financial negotiations to the fawning time at the library to the bill she drops off afterward. Quinn’s a great side character, especially in the comedy department, and it’s nice to see her used that way here.

The main event, though, is Daria and Jane. Them being at odds is tough, but also a part of friendship. What I especially appreciate is that they're both well-motivated here. You understand why Jane wants to join the track team. She wants to show her jerk gym teacher that not all members of the Lane family are “deadbeats”, and not for nothing, she also wants to get closer to a boy. You get it, and in many ways, it’s admirable for Jane to push outside of her comfort zone and try something new.

But you also get where Daria’s coming from. In many ways, she and Jane have defined themselves in contrast to the jocks and preps and fashionistas. So even if Jane’s doing something commendable in principle, it’s hard for Daria to be supportive when it seems like her best friend is turning to the dark side. And at the same time, Daria resents track if for no other reason than it means that she and Jane don’t get to spend as much time together. The running gag of Drai talking to herself, and eventually not being able to distinguish her inner monologue from her outer one, is a laugh and a half, but also a sign of how, despite seeming above it all, Jane is an immense part of Daria’s life.

Their conflict becomes extra thorny when it intersects with more general issues they have about the preferential treatment jocks get. The way that normal gym class is turned into an extra cheerleader practice sucks for Daria and Jane (who, admittedly, probably aren’t enthused about regular gym anyway, as the intro suggests.) Daria’s willing to go along when Jane’s new status as a sport superstar gets her out of the drudgery of gym, but takes offense when it gets Jane out of the same math quiz that Kevin was exempted from for his sports acumen. There’s principle mixed with the personal in their tiff, and that's what I appreciate about it most. Their sundering has layers.

It’s also not a straight line. The way Daria is quietly resentful, but outwardly supportive, until things come to a head after constant pizza shop interruptions has a true-to-life quality to it. Her apology and their reconciliation is no less winning, and it makes it hard when the jock-versus-misfit divide is cleaved anew, and Daria’s torn between her, as Jane puts it, sense of self-righteousness on the one hand, and her best friend on the other.

I’m heartened by the fact that ultimately, what brings them back together is that, despite everything, Jane still cares about Daria. The fact that all it takes for Jane to give this whole thing up is her track crush Evan badmouthing Daria makes it one of the most rousing moments in the show. These are two young women who care about their principles, but despite their flat affects and de rigueur ironic detachment, they care about one another more. We don’t always get that in Daria, which makes it extra special when we do.

Of course, there’s still a dose of cynicism and humiliation in the finish. With her usual caustic wit, Daria lays out how the system remains unchanged despite a personal protest, and so in a weird way, this experience really did prepare them for real life just like their gym teacher said. The show wouldn't be complete without the wry worldview that made it famous. But it also comes with Daria and Jane suffering through their mandated cheerleader lesson, half-heartedly but once again together.

[9.0/10] If you’d asked me what Amphibia was about in the early going, I’d have called it a story about a fish-out-of-water adjusting to her new surroundings. Wartwood was unfamiliar terrain for Anne, far from home in both the literal and figurative sense, requiring her to step outside her comfort zone and figure things out along the way. That sense of new experiences, new challenges, new connections, that slowly but steadily make the foreign into the familiar, pervaded the series’ early stretch.

But in hindsight, as the series and its protagonist evolved, it became clear that Amphibia is about something loftier and even more essential: the act of growing up and finding yourself. The opening flashback to Anne’s troublemaking days with Sasha and Marcy gilds the lily a tad (if you’ll pardon the expression, but the point is a potent one. Whatever their other issues, Sasha had a self-possessed quality that would get her by, and Marcy had a talent bordering on genius that would see her through. But Anne didn’t quite know who she was or what she wanted. She was, as so many young people are, unfinished and uncertain.

Her journey to Wartwood was not just about new experiences that broadened her horizons. They were about Anne refining her identity, discovering the better, more determined self she became when she had a mission to complete, another family and community to protect, and lessons to be learned along the way toward both. Seen through that lens, Amphibia is more than a story about new experiences in a strange place; it’s a story about how those experiences not only shape us in our younger days, but help us to grow, and if we’re lucky, allow us to come into our own.

“All In” honors that part of Anne’s journey as the explosive climax to the story of King Andrias’ invasion of Los Angeles. And if there’s one thing to recommend this quasi-series finale, it’s that Amphibia uses its near-parting shot to focus as much on the psychological and emotional journeys of its main players as it does on our band of clever but overmatched rebels striking a blow against a cybernetic army.

If there’s one thing to criticize in this packed-to-the-brim episode, it’s that some of what the penultimate episode of the series tries to work feels rushed or tacked on. One brief visit to the St. James School metal shop and boom, Frobo is back and ready for action. While it’s nice for Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy to take part in the action, the couple becoming Mr. X’s trained space marines off-screen comes a little too easy. And Mr. X trusting Anne and the Plantars’ and taking their side in all of this with no questions asked plays as pretty convenient as well. Every grand narrative crescendo comes with its share of shortcuts and contrivances, and I’d rather the show focus on character development than checking every box of plausibility, but several of these developments feel underbaked and haphazardly tossed out in the audience’s general direction amid the whirr and blur of “All In”.

The peak of that, though, is the Plantars’ confrontation with the Herons who killed Sprig and Polly’s parents. Amphibia set approximately none of this up. Either Darcy intentionally brought the patricidal herons to L.A. to mess with the Plantars, in which case, how did she know/find them? Or it’s just a big coincidence that Darcy hauled a couple of herons who just so happened to be the ones that the Plantars have a personal history with, which feels super convenient. And even then, the script has to awkwardly shoehorn in a flashback and a wing scar to explain how Hop Pop can distinguish these specific Herons from the beaucoup other ones roaming about.

Honestly, it feels as though the writers got this semi-finale and went, “Oh crap! We didn’t set up anything in particular for the Plantars!” and so just threw this in. If we’d at least had hints of Hop Pop remembering the specific herons before now, or Marcy planning something to throw the Plantar family off their game ahead of time, this might seem less sudden and random. It’s my one major complaint about the episode.

And yet, despite all that, I still kind of like the subplot? I wish Amphibia had built to it more, but there is something tremendously powerful about the Plantars being too traumatized to fight the murder birds that took out their loved ones, only to suddenly find the fire to spring into action when their new family, Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy, are in danger. Their choice and newfound courage comes from a place of not only protecting a new part of their family in the way they wish they could have protected their old one, but also from trying to keep Anne from having to suffer the same kind of loss they did, which is beautiful. And the fact that they best the birds not from brute force, but from the Plantar family hunting dance adds to the poetry of it, particularly given the ancestral connection to Leif that's further developed here. I wish Amphibia had done a better job of working up to these moments, but they work like gangbusters on their own terms, which counts for a lot.

The same goes for Marcy’s dilemma in all of this. It’s more forgivable for the writers to withhold what exactly Marcy's been going through during her consumption by The Core. To see her in a liminal space, solving puzzles, with a fuzzy memory and no explanation, puts the audience off balance in the same way that Marcy herself is. Representing the interior of The Core as a grand library and fountain of knowledge gives it an inviting form and belies its sinister edge. And the fact that Aldrich fools and tempts Marcy with a vision of her great desire -- the escapism of a D&D-style fantasy adventure, roots the risk of her falling into this trap in established and relatable parts of her character.

Naturally, though, they come with a malevolent twist. It’s easy to sympathize with Marcy when she finds herself immersed in the grandiose fantasy she always wanted, with her pals by her side. But it’s heartbreaking, to say the least, that what snaps her out of the confining reverie is the realization that these visions of Anne and Sasha must be fake, because they want to do what she wants to do. How hard it must be to realize something is false because it’s something you want that you know can't be real.

The hardship of that makes it all the more stirring when Marcy chooses to reject the fantasy despite that. The notion that she’s done impsong what she wants on others, after the original incident with the music box and her deal with Andrias, speaks to both the measure of redemption she’s earned, and the broader theme of all these young folks learning something important from their experience. That she’d choose life in unending shadow, rather than give into a comforting falsehood and help something cruel, speaks to the character she’s developed despite some regrettable choices along the way.

It’s a trait she shares with Sasha, who’s already done much of her growing by the time she takes on the manipulative monster who’s stolen the form of her dear friend. I appreciate the writers’ choice here, to have Anne fight Andrias and Sasha fight Darcy. Along with the interludes inside The Core, it helps break up the action and add more variety to the epic presentation. The single combat clash between Sasha’s twin blades and Darcy’s slashing scythes is one of the series’ coolest visuals. But most of all, it gives Sasha a moment to shine and show how far she’s come since this all started.

Because Darcy is a taunter, someone who wins not just through brute strength, or even the Marcy-like ability to run a military assault like a real time strategy game, but by psychologically disarming her opponents. You can see it with The Core’s treatment of Andrias, and how it preys on his longstanding insecurities. The way Darcy tries the same with Sasha, only for Sasha to shrug it off because she knows that game; she played it herself for too long, is a nice way to show her savvy and using her powers for good.

The sweetest moment, though, may come from her unexpected friend, Grime. Again, this is a kids show; there’s only so far that the writers can go. But Grime sacrificing his arm to protect Sasha, and his soft monologue about how her friendship gave him so much and made him a better person, is touching in a way you don’t expect from the ol’ brute. It’s the closest thing the show can come to the ultimate sacrifice, and Sasha seeing the positive effect her friendship has had, in contrast to her recognition of the negative one it had on Anne, is moving.

So is her rejection of that past self. Darcy paints them as peas in a pod, declaring that they’re both control freaks. Sasha balks at the comparison. And while the voiceover about it not mattering who they were before, but who they’ve become now is a little blunt, the power of the choice Sasha makes in the present, to save her friend from this monster who brings out the worst in people, is a great way to cement the better person Sasha has chosen to become. She is, stealthily, the most complex character in Amphibia, and it’s nice to see her come out in a good place on the other side.

Among the triumvirate of BFFs, that just leaves Anne. In truth, the setup to get him and Anne in single combat is a little contrived. But the fig leaf that she’s mucking up their plans, that Darcy tells Andrias to stop her by any means necessary, and that he appeals to her willingness to put herself in harm’s way for the good of the many, makes it plausible enough to pass muster.

(Though once again, I will ask, what parents in their right mind would let their thirteen-year-old daughter go fight a hulking malevolent newt in a suit of deadly robotic armor? Whatever! Young adult fantasy! Gotta make peace with it!)

The battle amongst the two is fine in terms of the visuals. We’ve seen Anne go Super Sonic before. We’ve seen plenty of big robot-type creatures in the show to date. Obviously the stakes are huge, and the players loom even larger (literally in Andrias’ case), and the literal block-busting nature of the battles adds some oomph. But being a (say it with me folks) crusty old grown-up, I find myself inured to such fireworks, barring some stunning artistry.

What I’m not inured to, though, is the emotion of the moment. Because Anne’s victory over Andrias does not come from discovering an even more powerful ability, or getting in a lucky shot, or even a clever bit of battle strategy. Instead, it comes from an affirmation of who she is, and who she’s become.

There is something beautiful in all of Anne’s, human and amphibian alike, coming together to cheer her on and tell her that they believe in her. The K-Pop dance party mix to get her going again is a little much, especially because it’s something the show just introduced. But what she says to Andrias makes up for any deficit. In Amphibia, she learned to love herself, to open herself to new things and new people, and it allowed her to grow and come into her own in ways she didn’t imagine. There is a richness to her life and to her bonds, which gives her the strength to step up in moments like these.

More than anyone, Anne hasn’t just overcome, she’s become, transforming from the girl who floated through life without direction or responsibility, to a self-assured hero who knows who she is and who she loves. It’s the sum total of her experiences in the last six months, an affirmation of the self-possessed young woman she’s changed into, and it’s everything Andrias is not.

What amazes me about this finale is that, in some ways, I’m more moved by Andrias’ plight than by Anne’s triumph. Again, we can't escape the convenience of certain developments. I actually like the fact that it’s Mr. X’s spy glasses that decode Leif’s note to Andrias. But the fact that Sprig drops it at the most dramatically convenient time for the FBI agent to read it undermines my willing suspension of disbelief.

Still, as with the Plantars confrontation of the herons, the way the emotion lands for what follows makes up for the shortcuts to get there. Anne disarms Andrias as much with her words as with her special abilities. She talks about how he’s left himself closed off and depressed, and it’s the truth. You get the sense that in the wake of what he sees as his failure, he’s been worn down by The Core and the image of his father. He’s let the bitterness of his “betrayal” by Leif fester within him, and keep him from forging new connections. He’s lived for a thousand years, but it’s been a sad, lonely life.

Until Marcy comes along. One of my favorite choices in “All In” is the reveal that Marcy and Andrias’ friendship wasn’t a lie. Did Andrias use it to his advantage? Sure. But in a few simple scenes, we get the sense that Marcy was this unexpected ray of light into his life, something that reminded him of the joy of friendship he used to have, and which brightened his mood, and his world, for the first time in practically a millennium. For all her lack of boundaries and tact, Marcy cracked something open within Andrias, something good that had been shut off for a long time, that led to the most kind and generous thing he’s done in a thousand years.

That is to open his heart, in a high-literal fashion. In his last moments, the message of his long lost friend gets through to him. And there may be no more pathos-ridden moment in this momentous near-finale than Andrias sacrificing himself, opening up his armor, and letting Anne bolt through him, in the name of stopping this madness. HIs moment of self-awareness, of how those centuries of bitterness corrupted him, of how his unexpected dear friend deserves the chance he never had, is the best “All In” has to offer.

And they come in the shadow of words Leif offers him from the past. The montage of how she led a beautiful life in Wartwood, building the Plantar family homestead, marrying and raising children, forging new friendships that enriched her life, illustrates the Plantar line as one founded on connection and love, something which persists through to Hop Pop, and which Sprig and Polly carry on.

More than that, she and Andrias embody the idea that even as things change, even as grand mistakes are made between those close to one another, a connection can remain. Andrias believes he’s been forgotten by his onetime BFF, still stung by the betrayal. But the knowledge that his friendship remained in Leif’s heart as much as hers remained in his cements a parallel between Anne, Sasha, and Marcy, and also between Anne and Sprig.

Despite all they’ve been through, Anne and Sasha go to revive Marcy, to grant her their forgiveness, to let their tears of love bring her back from the shadows. They pressure her, that whatever happens, wherever they go, their bond will remain; they’ve proven that across the scrappy misadventures in a strange land and the mistakes in a familiar one, neither of which could keep them apart.

They may grow, they may change, but they have that connection to rest on. It’s reassuring for Sprig, who once again has to make peace with things changing between him and Anne. For Andrias and Leif, for the three BFFs from the human world, for the unlikely friendship between a scruffy young woman and a spirited young frog, the path may wind, but the ties between them remain, in ways both beautiful and poignant.

Amphibia is not done. There is the small matter of a mystical prophecy, and a Majora’s Mask-esque lunar threat, and another world to save. But for the time being, Andrias, Sprig, Marcy, Sasha, and Anne know who they are, what they mean to one another, and how their bonds cannot be broken by the blockbusting rigors of war or the personal pitfalls of young adulthood. Through these trials, and these connections, Anne has become her best self -- they all have -- in a show about finding the people who support and sustain you, and in the end, help you to find yourself.

[8.5/10] This is a great spoof of both 1990s sitcoms and The Killing Joke, while also managing to reconstruct both forms in striking ways.

Joker here follows a pretty standard sitcom arc. He wants something vital for his kids. (In this case, a spot in the bilingual education program.) He goes all out to get it for them, only to lose himself in the means rather than the ends. (In this case, being more obsessed with his mayoral campaign and the vanity it feeds than actually connecting with the stepkids he’s trying to help.) Only then, he has a moment of truth and realizes what’s really important -- his family. (Albeit here it involves a parade float, a child kidnapping, and a hostage situation.)

Aside from the abduction of a child and the friendly bank-robberies, that could easily be a storyline on Full House or the other Miller-Boyett productions in the same vein. Danny Tanner running for the school board to help his girls, only to get obsessed with the campaign, and relent when he realizes he’s neglecting them, would totally work. Taking that stock sitcom story shape,and grafting it onto the Joker’s vibe is masterful.

This one is especially funny for Joker as step dad/candidate. The way he spars with Debbie (Amy Sedaris!) over parking spots and program slots is a funny low stakes conflict for the Clown Prince of Crime. His lines about “speaking of racist” and frustration at his goons not knowing how to stop doing that Reservoir Dogs thing is a laugh. And the maniacal menace running for mayor on a platform of populism and socialist policies is very funny at a conceptual level.

Hell, there’s also great homages across the board here, from Joker’s campaign song to featuring lines from The Dark Knight, to his parade setup invoking Batman ‘89, to even an homage to the “We live in a society” meme. There’s scads of amusing easter eggs for longtime fans, mixed with amusingly down-to-earth problems for the Joker as a suburban dad.

This is also a nice episode for Jim Gordon! Frankly, despite loving most of Harley Quinn’s fresh takes on notable D.C. Universe figures, I haven't been the biggest fan of their version of Commissioner Gordon. But I like the idea here that despite running for mayor, he doesn’t really know what he stands for, and is just sort of doing this thing without reason beyond the fact that he wants respect.

His realization that Two-Face is doing a lot of shit Gordon disagrees with in his name, to where he has a change of heart and tries to save his political opponent, is good stuff. There’s great humor in Gordon’s almost pathological inability to understand the fact that Two-Face is, well, two-faced. But his efforts to intervene, set things right, and tell his daughter she was right all along are surprisingly stirring.

And therein lies the rub. The brilliance of the episode is that the entire climax is a clever remix of the famous final sequence in The Killing Joke. The fact that everything’s mish-mashed, with Joker rushing to save his kid, Gordon acting to save them both through a roller coaster gone wrong, and Joker talking Gordon down from acting rashly or harshly because to do anything else would be giving in to something cruel and unhealthy turns the original story on its ear in a delightful way.

At a base level, it’s unexpectedly wholesome to see Joker be willing to give up his campaign at the drop of a hat to save Benecio. It’s unusual but redemptive to see Commissioner Gordon put his neck out to save his onetime enemy and Joker’s stepson. And the fact that what pulls them both out of their vain tailspins is reminders of how much they care for their children is genuinely heartening.

That's the biggest twist in this whole thing. The riffs on classic Alan Moore stories and old sitcoms are fun. But the most impressive part is how “Joker: The Killing Vote” is able to both poke fun at those things but also earnestly adapt them for its own purposes in a way that is, against all odds, pretty moving at the end of the day. Harley Quinn continues to surprise me, in the best ways, and this episode may be the peak of its cleverness and willingness to reimagine the famous faces from Batman’s world, putting them in a hilarious but heartening new light.

[9.0/10] The moment where “Reunion” starts playing “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers bowled me over. It’s a dissonant choice from Amphibia, with a song that feels happier and warmer than this moment of impending doom and destruction seems to portend, and the first time (I think?) that the show’s used a non-diegetic real life song to score the scene. It’s unusual and different for how Amphibia presents itself to its audience.

Maybe that's why it hit me so hard. I’ll admit, I choked up at the end of this one. In the rare half-hour episode of Amphibia, we spend most of the first half witnessing what Anne’s life in the human world was like in earnest for the first time, and in particular, her unhealthy friendship with Sasha, and there’s an inherent bit of excitement to that.

As “Prison Break” hinted, Sasha turns out to be a manipulative mean girl. She spurs a clearly uncomfortable Anne to cut class, tag buildings, put random pedestrians in danger, and otherwise lie, cheat, and steal. The show does well with their dynamic, with Sasha gleefully callous, and ready to egg her partner in crime on, while Anne is reluctant, uneasy, and tries to do the bare minimum to stay in Sasha’s good graces while not doing wrong to others. It works here, both because of how relatable that dynamic is, but also because it’s a mirror image of how Anne behaved when on the Toad tax collector crew back in “Toad Tax”.

The result is that Sasha seems like something worse than a bad influence; she is a manipulative person, someone who wants to forcibly drag Anne down to her level. Not only did she spur Anne to steal the music box that caused all the trouble, which we already knew, but she basically ordered Anne to miss the birthday party her parents are throwing for her in order to do so, despite Anne’s strenuous objections.

It’s another instance of Anne trying to do the right thing, until Sasha stands in her way and all but orders her not to. Sasha is someone who puts her own needs first, and disregards the well being and needs of anyone else in the process. She is, in many ways, the antithesis of the kind, and noble, if flawed Anne we’ve met since the show began.

That comes to the fore back in Amphibia. I love the choice to show Sasha’s character in flashback, so when we see her actions in the here and now, they make sense. The premise of her putting on a nice smile and getting Captain Grime’s army to pretend to be nice to the citizens of Wartwood, only to plan to sacrifice Hop Pop as an agitator in exchange for help getting back home, is a damning one for Sasha’s character, but one that opens up plenty of doors narratively.

On a practical level, it leaves all the characters we’ve met this season trapped in the Toad fortress, having to work together through guts and subterfuge to find a way out. Anne pretending to be Sasha to sneak into the room where her friends are being held, One-eyed Wally laying boom shrooms along the path due to a wink-related misunderstanding, and the whole crew sneaking out through the sewer all make for cool immediate problems for our heroes to overcome.

On a broader level, though, I love the idea that Hop Pop is an accidental revolutionary. There is something poetic, true-to-history, and even low-key inspiring about how Hop Pop simply standing firm against a personal injustice, and challenging the order of the day in his small, local way, as inadvertently setting off a firestorm of other people questioning their oppression and even rebelling against it. Some folks start great changes deliberately, with a goal to shift the wider order, but others find themselves at the center of history by accident, simply standing up for what they believe in and the people they love. Hop Pop becoming an example of that, and a symbol of a revolution he doesn’t even know he started, is a stirring bit of irony.

And on a personal level, it shows Sasha’s true colors. She’s thrown in her lot with a bunch of brutes and molded them into her own sugar-coated yet malevolent image. The way she promises Wartwood a party, and instead lures them into a trap is dastardly. Her excuse to Anne--that they’re worthless frogs and they shouldn’t care so long as sacrificing Hop Pop’s life brings them closer to home--is even worse. When Sasha orders Anne to go along with it, you can feel the old pressures, the old insecurities, the old bullying flare up again. You can understand a demoralized, confused Anne once again facing a tormentor posing as a friend and seeming powerless to stop it.

Except she has a better friend to not only build her back up, but remind her who she is. What I love most about “Reunion” is that it’s an affirmation of Sprig-Anne friendship that has been at the center of Amphibia since the show began. Much of the episode is essentially a game of contrast and compare with Anne’s old best friend and her new one.

For her part, Sasha uses Anne, pushes her into places where she’s uncomfortable, and orders her around. For his part, Sprig brings out the best in Anne, reminds her how far she’s come in the time since she’s been here, and stands up for in a way Sasha would never. The fact that it’s Anne learning the difference, between someone manipulating her and someone who earnestly supports her, that gives her the gumption to stand up to Sasha and win the day, makes for a hell of a triumph.

So of course, when the duel happens, there’s great drama and theatricality. It is no less heartening to hear Anne stand up for her friends, for her adopted community, for the value of these people that her former friend dismisses without a second thought. That is what spurs her to victory. Even there, Sasha fights dirty, a testament to her character, or lack thereof. And even when Anne wins fair and square, Captain Grime doesn't honor the rules, a testament to his own dastardliness.

But it’s what comes next that floors me. The payoff with One-eyed Wally’s boom shrooms is a nice way to disrupt the current standoff without destroying the status quo. It leads to a flurry of nice moments, from Wally lamenting his lack of ability to wink, to Mayor Toadstool rescuing the citizenry so he has people to continue embezzling from, to Mrs. Croaker leading the ferry back to Wartwood. The explosions that follow do a nice job of paying off little bites set up in this episode and long before.

But it also shows the depths of Anne’s compassion. After everything Sasha’s done, after all the deception and betrayal, after how cruel and dismissive she was of the people Anne holds dear, Anne nevertheless risks her life to save Sasha’s. And when Anne is being pulled over, Sprig and Hop Pop and Polly spring into action to save her, to hold onto this member of their family. Their choices speak to the tight bond the Plantars have formed since Anne arrived, a self-sacrificing, caring bent that has made each of them better over the course of the past thirty-nine adventures.

That's not what got me though. It is, instead, the moment when Sasha sees that kind of loving familial support, tears up, tells Anne that she might be better off without her, and let’s go to save her friend. My word, I didn’t expect that gut punch.

I spent most of this episode (and this review, if I’m honest), hating on Sasha. But thirteen-year-old girls don’t turn into manipulative monsters in a vacuum. For all her problems, for all she seems to try to dominate Anne and lead her down the wrong path, she does seem to care about our hero. She defends Anne from a bully at school. She tries to bring Anne into the fold with the toads. And when she witnesses true care and affection from the Plantars, she perhaps realizes a touch of the error of her ways.

I don’t want to speculate too much, since I imagine Amphibia has plenty more reveals in store. (Speaking of which, holy hell, what’s with the fact that the frog Anne was supposed to dissect in biology resembles Hop Pop!?) But in Amphibia’s sister shows, Gravity Falls and The Owl House, the mean girls come from harsh families that helped make them that way. I don’t want to read too much into things here, but maybe Sasha’s family life isn’t the best. Maybe she wanted to keep Anne away from her birthday party because Sasha’s family would never do such a thing for her. Maybe seeing Anne cared for by the type of loving family Sasha envies was too much to maintain the facade. All along, I thought that Sasha was a villain. Maybe, with one gesture, one tear, one song about love and support, we’re meant to realize that she is, instead, a victim.

Amphibia has surprised me in its first season. I’ll confess that it started slow for me. The humor wasn’t quite on point. The characters were often annoying. I didn’t quite connect with it, despite its strong pedigree.

And yet, as this first season wore on, the show found its voice. It delivered more than its fair share of tremendous comic set pieces. It earned that family connection between Anne, Sprig, Hop Pop, and Polly. And it showed the growth among each of them, a product of those famed “wacky adventures” but also a streak of sincerity that buoys the series. I’ll be back for season 2, and I hope that Anne, Sprig, and the rest of the Plantars will still have each other to lean on.

[7.7/10] I love me some gray areas in my Star Wars. Don’t get me wrong, the light side vs. dark side stuff. But as I’ve grown older, I appreciate stories, including Star Wars stories, that acknowledge our communities and our choices are rarely that simple.

So I like the fact that the Nightsisters (or at least some kind of presumably related witches’ coven) are presented as a counterpoint to the Jedi, not the villains of the piece. This flashback serves a number of purposes. It gives us some of that vaunted backstory, to help us understand where Osha and Mae and Sol and others are coming from. It fills in the gaps of the events that loom so large in the histories of our twin protagonists, letting the audience see them (or most of them) after being tantalized by only being told about them so far.

But most of all, it establishes a different, but no less valid alternative to the force-users we know. We’ve seen the Jedi. We’ve seen the Sith. We’ve seen the Nightsisters who, while sometimes sympathetic (hello Fallen Order fans!), also seem to be harnessing some kind of black magic. We’ve seen the Bendu, who’s more neutral than gray. And we’ve even seen the more passive and meditative Bardottans. (Aka, the species Jar Jar’s girlfriend is from -- no I’m not joking.)

But we’ve never seen anything quite like this coven led by Osha and Mae’s mother, Mother Aniseya. I love that they have a different take on the Force. The coven thinks the Jedi view the Force as a power to be wielded, whereas they view it more as a thread, a tapestry between peoples and events, that can be tugged and pulled to cause changes amid that weaving. Their perspective on the Force is a collectivist one, where their connection to it is given strength by the multitude, in contrast to the Jedi’s view on attachments. And they don’t view the Force as directing fate, but rather as providing for choices -- one of the core ideas of the franchise.

That is all neat! One of the best parts of The Last Jedi is the notion that the Force does not belong to the Jedi. It is, instead, something that flows through all peoples. Exploring that there may be different religions out there, different means of reaching and interpreting it, adds depth ot he world and adds complication to the binary. It’s nearly never a bad thing to add that kind of complexity and ecumenical spirit to your universe.

More or less. One of the other things I appreciate is that the Coven and the jedi view one another with suspicion, even though they’re mutually respectful at first. The coven sees the Jedi as arrogant, too focused on power, too individualistic. The Jedi view the Coven as dark, as corrupting, as dangerous. I’m always a fan of shows that don’t present one perspective, but rather explore how the different vantage points affect the different views groups may have of one another. (Shades of Deep Space Nine from the other major star-bound franchise!)

This is all to say that the Coven is different than what we’re used to, but no less valid. The Jedi as we see them here are different than what we’re used to, but not invalid. And their twin approaches, alike in dignity, come through in the fulcrum between the Coven and the Order: Mea and Osha.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room with those two. The young actress (actresses?) who play the earlier version of the twins aren’t very good. That's no sin. Giving a convincing performance as an adult with years of experience remains startlingly difficult. But the reality is that, though these young actors are giving it their all, there is a put on, stagey quality to the performance that can take you out of the moment. I dearly hope the fandom is kind to them nonetheless. It’s tough being a young performer, especially in a high profile role. But despite a nice moment from Osha when she realizes the gravity of what she’s lost, a lot of the acting from the kiddos is apt to take the viewer out of the moment.

Thankfully, the writing helps make up for it. Not for nothing, given Lucasfilm’s current ownership, much of this feels like the first act of a film from the Disney Renaissance. Osha could be your classic Disney princess. She loves her family and wants to do good and be righteous, but she has this yearning for something different, beyond the garden gate. The episode lays it on a little thick in places, but it’s a venerable story beat for a reason. There’s something compelling about someone trying to make the best of a family situation that doesn’t quite fit them but yearning adventure out past the horizon. (I mean, hey, it worked for Luke Sykwalker.) Osha is roughly one “I want” song from joining the little mermaid and company.

What I like about it, though, is that you feel for all sides of this situation. You feel for Osha. She wants to have an existence separate from her twin. She doesn’t feel like she fits in with the Coven. She doesn’t want to disappoint her moms or her sister. But she doesn’t want to lie. She doesn’t want to deny herself. She doesn’t want to give up this thing inside her telling her she wants more, or at least different.

You feel for Mae. She admittedly, has signs of being the “evil” twin. (Though I guess they both seem to use their force powers to freeze that translucent butterfly? I’ll admit, it was confusing who was who there at points.) She feels at home in the Coven. She loves the immediate family and the wider one. She has power and ease, and the confidence that comes from feeling that you’re where you ought to be. In the end, she does a terrible thing, but she’s an eight-year-old lashing out at an unfortunate situation. In the larger than life confines of fiction, it’s an easy thing for me to forgive.

You feel for Mother Aniseya. She is trying to protect her people. She wants to raise her daughters in her own proud tradition. But she also wants them to find their own path to it. But, from the vantage point of being a little older and a little wiser, she knows that what you want can change. What makes sense in the exuberance of youth can fall out of favor when it makes contact with the knots and tangles of that great ethereal thread. Wanting to protect your child, to instill your values in theme, while respecting their autonomy as young people is an impossible balance. Aniseya handles it with understanding and grace.

Heck, you even understand Mother Koril, who is the more strict and belligerent parental figure here. The cultural conditions are mostly implied, but it’s easy to intuit how the Coven has been marginalized, diminished, possibly by Force. The girls represent their future, and it seems to have required a great deal of her and her partner to make that happen. Why wouldn’t she do anything to protect her girls, and mistrust the Jedi who would deign to take their future away from her and her family?

And you also feel for Sol. The Acolyte already conveyed a very fatherly vibe between him and Osha,but this episode cements it. I have my qualms about what happens to the young woman, but Sol seems searnest when he tells her that she could be a great Jedi, when he imparts that courage means pursuing honestly what you want, when he embraces her in the throes of tragedy and wants to take her on as a surrogate child. The estranged relationship between them in the present is counterbalanced by this fraught but touching connection between them in the past.

Of course, that past is no less slippery. For one thing, there’s still much that's alluded to that we don’t quite see. Presumably there was some conflict between the Jedi and the Coven that Osha wasn’t privy to, which we’ll see down the line. Presumably, it’s part of what spurred Mae to take the actions she did. Presumably it’s why there’s great regret among the Jedi who survived the encounter. And that's before you get into the fact that apparently Mother Aniseya channeled some forbidden magic, or at least did something controversial, to bring the twins’ lives into being. There’s plenty of lore and intrigue yet.

But for now, at least, we have two cultures at odds with one another, in ways that question and complicate our sympathies. This is Star Wars. We know who the Jedi are. We’re apt to side with them, to see them as Osha does, as peacekeepers and heroes of the galaxy. (Even if we’ve seen their ossification and dissolution over the course of the Prequels.) When Osha wants to be a Jedi, and her witch family tells her to lie, to deny herself what she wants in the same of something she’s uncertain about, it’s easy to see Indara and company as rescuers.

And yet, it’s also hard not to see this different means of reaching the Force, that is apparently all but outlawed, and not have serious qualms about the equivalent of religious persecution. The notion that the Coven is allowed to exist, but forbidden from passing on their knowledge to children is startling. It’s clear that there remains animosity between the Coven and the Jedi, born of mutual mistrust, with ostensible peacemakers and instigators. And it’s hard to think of Republic law allowing the Jedi to test and, with some permission, take children away to be taught in their fashion, without thinking of real life colonial schools, and so-called “residential schools” in the United States, that have a checkered history at best.

So while the show makes things a little too blunt with Mae and Osha standing across from one another on a broken bridge, you get the reasons behind the actions and anguish between these two young girls, between their various parents, between Jedi and the Coven. This is not black and white, good and evil, light and dark. This is something more muddled and uncertain than that. And it portends deeper and more interesting things as the mythos of Star Wars evolves before our eyes.

(Speculative spoilers: My bet is that Mae’s master is one of her moms, probably Mother Koril. THough I guess it being the comparatively peaceful and forgiving Aniseya would be a bigger twist. The law of conservation of characters suggests it’s one of them, unless it’s secretly Master Vernestra or something. But one of the moms would be the bigger emotional gut punch, so I presume and hope it’s one of them.)

[7.7/10] Let’s start with the superficial and work our way to the substantive.

There is something inherently cool about a Jedi Master who has taken such a vow, showed such discipline, reached some level of enlightenment to where they can basically levitate in place,n protected by a seemingly impenetrable force bubble, that can withstand even the most fervent attacks. We’re only two episodes in but what I like about the Acolyte is that it’s already expanding what we think and know of the Jedi. Using the HIgh Republic era as a playground for new and unique uses of the Force, that pose different challenges for even a trained assassin like Mae, helps make the Jedi feel amazing again, rather than rote and known.

The same goes for Sol’s fight with Mae on Olega. Maybe I will get tired of the wire fu approach at some point, but for now, it remains a thrill. Watching Mae fight with all her might, while Master Sol displays an economy of movement akin to master Indara from the last episode, remains incredibly cool. The nigh-literal dust-up between them, with furious attacks and calm blocks, again displays the differences in disposition between studied master and hungry student.

What I appreciate, though, is that neither of these exist just for the sake of coolness or sheer thrills. (Which, if I’m being pointed, is a criticism that can be leveled at J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars films, even the parts I like.)

Master Torbin’s force bubble isn’t just a unique obstacle for Mae. It means she has to find a way to get to her target beyond the sheer force that is already her calling card. The fact that she doesn't kill Torbin, but rather provides him poison to kill himself and end his guilt over what happened on Brendok is a piercing, fascinating choice. The moment where she offers him an exit, and after so much stillness and silence, he descends to accept this offering, feels monumental. And his uttering one more apology before drinking the poison sells the magnitude of what must have happened in mae’s past tremendously.

Credit to the writers. I can get really tired of mystery boxes in genre fix. (Thanks again, J.J.!) But in moments like this one, where characters’ choices are informed by a past we’re not fully privy to yet, the magnitude of those choices makes us care about and anticipate the reveal of Mae and the Jedi’s history without needing to know it right now. As someone who came of age during the Prequel movies, it’s easy to see the Jedi as a flawed institution. But meeting four Jedi who were a party to whatever happened ito Mae and Osha, and who are all clearly haunted by it, to where someone like Torbin would go to these extremes, gives you a sense of how significant that event must be, and why Mae must be so desperate for revenge.

That ties into her fight with master Sol. He’s less interested in defeating her than disarming her, both mentally and physically. From a sheer plot standpoint, the fact that even Mae doesn't know the identity of her master is an interesting little twist. But more to the point, Sol trying to get through to Mae, to help her move past what happened, gives their fight more meaning than even the most thrilling of fisticuffs could.

I also appreciate how Master Sol is in the middle of two extremes here. On the one hand, he seems frustrated by the Jedi strictures and bureaucracy. He bristles at Master Vernestra telling him the Jedi must convene a committee before he can follow-up on Mae’s fugitive run. He rejects Yord’s warning that sending Osha in to deceive the apothecary would violate various precepts. He seems annoyed at best at how Jedi practice doesn't always align with real lif needs.

But at the same time, he tells Osha to let go of her grief, of her attachments in the past, in a way that seems as though he’s telling her not to be human. On the one hand, you can sympathize. He sees how these complicated feelings about what happened have harmed both Osha and Mae, and wants to offer a method to attain peace with them. On the other hand, he still seems haunted by them, as do his colleagues. So it’s rousing when Osha basically tells him, You're not my master anymore; you don’t get to tell me what to do .”

I’m surprisingly receptive to notions that, as cool as the Jedi are, they are a terribly flawed body. (see also: their morally questionable use of invasive mind control tricks, including on Mae.) The idea that they made a grand error on Brendok, covered it up or minimized it, and are facing the choes of it in Mae and Osha is a resonant throughline.

I also appreciate how we have some structure here. Mae has a Kill BIll-esque list of the Jedi she wants revenge on. She has a particular challenge -- to defeat one without using a weapon -- that puts her at an additional disadvantage but gives her a cause and an objective. And the way these aren't random targets, but rather people she feels have wronged her adds extra juice to the proceedings.

So do the side characters. I kind of enjoy how much of a dick Yord is, but I also appreciate that he’s not actively evil or anything, to where he stands up for Osh when she’s accused of murdering Torbin. I’m increasingly entertained by Jecki, her willingness to call Yord’s plan stupid, and her cleverness in coming up with a much better and more effective one. And as a Good Place fan, it’s nice to see Manny Jacinto as Qimir, a feckless apothecary aligned with Mae who feels appropriately rough around the edges.

This is also a good episode for Mae. It’s not easy for her to be around Sol again, or to have him judge the life she’s made for herself since leaving the order. The tender and fraught rekindling of their partnership is one of the best things about the show so far. It adds a certain charge and sadness to every scene where they’re together.

Likewise, it’s nice to see Osha and Mae confront one another, after each believed the other was dead. (And, not for nothing, it neutralizes my theory that maybe Mae is the dark side taking over Osha’s subconscious or something.) The fact that after everything each has been through, the connection shared and lost, Osha ultimately provides for Mae’s escape rather than bringing her in, portends more interesting things to come.

Overall, once again, The Acolyte blends compelling intrigue, exciting action, and meaningful character work to produce another pleasing episode of television.

[7.8/10] The crux of Star Wars is choices. Choices are at the heart of all good storytelling, but Star Wars in particular is founded on them. Luke chooses between the Darkside and the Light. Han chooses to return to the fight when he could take his money and run. Vader chooses to kill the Emperor rather than let his son follow in his mistakes. These are all monumental decisions, centered on character, that are a bigger part of what made the franchise so indelible beyond the space battles and special effects.

And my favorite part of Bad Batch’s series finale are the choices it chooses to center on. Crosshair wants to go in alone to spare his comrades, but Hunter and Wrecker choose to follow him anyway, because by god, they are still a team. Rampart chooses to nab the cloning research, no matter what harm it causes, because he wants it as a bargaining chip. Nala Se chooses to sacrifice her own life to destroy, because she won’t let her science be used for more evil.

Emerie Karr chooses to rescue those innocent children then continue being a handmaiden of the Empire. Omega chooses to forgo the easiest path of escape because she wants to help liberate her brothers. The imprisoned clone troopers could easily just leave themselves, but choose to fight alongside Echo and Omega to rescue the original Bad Batch.

And in the endgame, Hunter chooses to trust that, after years together, Omega knows what to do in a tough situation. Omega herself chooses to take her chance, knowing that she’s been prepared for this moment. Despite his shaky hand, Crosshair chooses to take the shot, and makes it when it counts. And Dr. Hemlock chooses to bank on the notion that loyalty is a weakness, rather than a strength, unwittingly sealing his doom.

Those are the choices that make “The Cavalry Has Arrived” a satisfying end to The Bad Batch. Clone Force 99 continues to function as a team despite their hardships and losses along the way. The children and clones are freed, with Emerie doing the right thing. Hemlock and Rampart are defeated, victims of their own hubris and greed. After seasons’ worth of worry, Hunter sees how much his surrogate daughter has grown and come into her own. Crosshair finds the mettle to rise to the occasion despite his traumas on Tantiss. And Omega herself aces her final exam, becoming a full-fledged member of the Bad Batch, able to face down anything, and remember the compassion and courage that held her steady through so many challenges.

Which is all to say I like where the show lands and how it lands there. It gets the core things right, crafting a sound ending and confrontation that reveals both who these characters are and how far they’ve come. That is not easy to do, and on that alone, The Bad Batch deserves its laurels.

Here’s where I struggle a bit: everything from about the midpoint of the finale to that final confrontation with Dr. Hemlock is kind of a mess.

What’s funny is that the first half of the episode is surprisingly well structured, clear, and propulsive despite having to juggle a lot. You have Omega and her mini-Bad Batch scheming to escape; Emerie and Echo following their trail; Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair working their way into the base; and Dr. Hemlock trying to fend off this attack he viewed as inevitable. The four-perspective structure gives you a sense of scope at the base, and allows the episode to keep the energy and tension up by moving from one plot to another.

There’s even a sense of escalation and chess match to the proceedings. Omega divides Hemlock’s attention by releasing the Zillo Beast. (Another nice bit of payoff!) Hemlock responds by unleashing his Shadow Operatives. There’s a sense of punch and counter punch to the various moves the parties make here. And the fact that the rest of the Bad Batch recognize Omega’s handiwork because she’s successfully following their playbook, is a nice way of showing how much the young clone internalized in her time with the crew.

Hell, I’d go so far as to say I downright love Omega’s rescue mission for the child prisoners. It’s one thing for her to be a full-fledged member of Clone Force 99. It’s quite another for her to successfully lead her own mission and organize a bunch of amateurs in a way that still lets them win the day. The biggest throughline across The Bad Batch has been Omega coming into her power, and this episode does a good job of dramatizing what she’s capable of even apart from her usual allies and resources.

But once the kiddies are on a transport with Dr. Karr, and our heroes are fighting the Shadow Operatives, everything turns to mush. “The Cavalry Has Arrived” runs into the same problem that a lot of clone-based stories run into -- by definition, a lot of these people look alike. So when you shoot everything in low light and put everyone in similar armor, who’s fighting whom and why it matters gets muddled pretty quickly.

The show tries its best. The Shadow Operatives have cool designs, even if they get samey quickly. I wish we got confirmation that the one operative is a specific clone of Crosshair, but whatever. They all have different fancy weapons and pose vaguely distinct threats, cutting the image of purge troopers from the Fallen Order games.

But the truth is that even high class goons are just goons. At the end of the day, the bad guy is Hemlock, and he’s never been a physically imposing figure. So slogging through fifteen minutes of undifferentiated firefights and fisticuffs with the bad guys doesn’t evoke much beyond a yawn from me, especially when it’s hard to follow the action.

There’s some catharsis in the notion that the sort of regs who looked down at Clone Force 99 in the beginning of the series are now willing to fight to save their lives. And our heroes’ steadfastness despite Hemlock’s “conditioning”, and Omega’s faith in her brothers, are both admirable. But little in the sturm und drang of the finish is especially compelling until that big confrontation with Hemlock on the bridge.

Ironically, I’ve always preferred it more when Bad Batch goes small than when it goes big. I can't deny the technically impressiveness of what the creative team pulls off her. You definitely get the sense of utter chaos and streaking combat throughout the facility. But I don’t know, I never really felt like the Bad Batch was in danger, and it was hard to muster up a lot of care when they were squaring off against the supposedly unstoppable Shadow Operatives.

Still, if you can strip that way, you have a lot of strong choices, from the creative team and from the characters. That reckoning on the bridge is the culmination of three character arcs, and one villain’s demise, all rolled into a single big scene, which is impressive. The way the good guys don’t just snuff out “Project Necromancer”, but reach a sort of fulfillment and self-actualization out of taking down the last remnant that saw them as science experiments, not people, is stirring.

The ending isn’t bad either. Though basic, there’s something to the idea that after fighting for so long, the Bad Batch and their fellow clones have earned that so precious of freedoms -- the freedom to choose. The central problem Clone Force 99 started with is what the lives of these good soldiers amount to when they don’t have any more orders to follow. The sense of being used up and spit out by the Empire pervades the series. So there is something just as stirring about Hunter reassuring Omega that they can stop running; they have the freedom to go and do and be whatever they want. And the closing tableau, of warriors at rest, is a lovely closing image.

Well, almost closing image. The gestures we get toward the future are nice enough. Tarkin reapportioning the funding to Hemlock’s project to the Death Star makes sense. Omega growing up and joining the Rebellion, in effect, choosing to fight, adds up. And while we don’t know the fate of his brethren, if anyone’s earned a rest, it’s Hunter. We haven't seen much in the way of clones getting happy retirements in the Star Wars universe, so I’m happy to see ol’ Space Dad get his.

I don’t know quite what to say about THe Bad Batch as a whole other than that it was the most consistently high quality show in the Star wars animated canon. The floor on this one was high, and you can tell that this creative team, who have largely sprung forth from The Clone Wars and Rebels, knows this sandbox like the back of their hands. The art, the thematics, the character growth, the politics, the canon connections, the little moments of joy and pain, were all well done on a week-to-week basis.

And yet, despite that technical excellence, I’d be lying if I said that the series had wormed its way into my heart like some of the other animated series have. The best I can guess is that there’s a sort of sameyness to the show, and a flatter tone, which can make it harder to distinguish sometimes. Still, watching Omega grow while maintaining her righteousness and care for her fellow clones, watching Hunter become a good parent and caretaker despite never having one of his own, and especially watching Crosshair goes from Imperial true believer, to traumatized used up defector, to reformed hero, were all worth the price of admission. Despite any ups and downs, like Hunter, The Bad Batch has earned a little rest.

[7.9/10] A funny thing happens as you get older. Children stop being peers. They stop being those bratty things you have to put up with as a teenager. They’re no longer the little ones you see, but aren’t really responsible for as a young adult.

And somewhere along the line, they start becoming these small people that you need to protect, to look out for, to support, to nurture. You recognize, in a way that's hard when you’re younger, how vulnerable they are, how much they depend on the folks who’ve been through the wringer and know the perils of the world to make sure they’re okay.

Kids are not naive innocents. They have the same vibrance and diversity of thought and feeling and attitude their grown-up counterparts do. But they need help, your help, and that realization is humbling and more than a little scary.

Which is all to say that “Identity Crisis” hits harder when you realize you’re no longer a ten-year-old imagining what it’d be like to be Luke Skywalker hacking and slashing through stormtroopers, and instead, you’re a crusty old grown-up struck by what it’d be like to be the Luke Skywalker who’s been entrusted to look after his nephew and see that he goes down the right path.

I assumed that what lie behind the trooper-protected doors of “The Vault” was something expected: a bunch of jars of pickled Snokes, a few budding attempts at cloning Palpatine, maybe a few more deformed Clone Troopers or something. The last thing I expected was a small collection of imprisoned children, and it draws out the evil of the Empire in a way that few things could.

This is one of the more harrowing episodes of The Bad Batch. I can easily stand blaster fire and dogfights among commandos. I can readily handle life-or-death fights between good guys and bad guys, even if feisty Omega is in the fray. What’s harder to withstand is a toddler, who weeps without his plushy, being torn from his mother. What’s more difficult to stomach is seeing young force-sensitives imprisoned, who only want to return home, and are treated like indifferent property rather than people.

It’s devastating to watch, and The Bad Batch is counting on that. This is (I think?) the first episode of the show that doesn’t feature a single moment of Omega or Clone Force 99. This is all about Emerie Karr stepping into a bigger role and realizing the horrors it would require of her. It is seeing the depths of what she’s participating in, trying to suck it up and do her job, only for her to be moved by the plight of the young souls she’s supposed to treat like chattel.

There is great power in that. “Identity Crisis” has some cool moments for longtime fans. Tarkin’s appearances are always a pip. The back channel negotiations and rivalries of Imperial politics always intrigues. We learn that Omega isn’t necessarily a force-sensitive herself, but rather her genetic material can act as a “binder” for DNA from other force-sensitives, which is a welcome swerve. And The return of Cad Bane and Todo is always a plus. (I should have known Bane was in the offing once I heard Seth Green voice one of the random villagers.)

But for the most part, this is a more stark story, about someone recognizing the abject cruelty they’re a part of, and not being able to turn their heart away from it once they do. The callousness with which Dr. Hemlock encourages Dr. Karr not to become attached to tiny people asking for help and solace, the casual dispassion with how Cad Bane kidnaps a child and practically taunts Emerie for asking too many questions, all reveal a rot in the soul that must have taken hold for someone to be so unconcerned with the welfare of blameless children caught up in the machinery of the Empire.

Not for nothing, there’s a political charge to this story. It is hard to see children ripped from their parents, families ratted out by opportunistic neighbors, and most pointedly, kids in cages, without thinking about the current moment. The Bad Batch is not the first show to suggest a regime is evil by treating young ones this way, but it comes with extra bite in the wake of American policies that are not so different.

The message here is affecting -- that it’s hard for anyone with a heart not to be moved by such terrible things being visited upon little people who don’t deserve it. Dr. Karr wanting to step up, to replace Nala Se, only to see what the Kaminoan saw and realize why she did what she did, makes her change of heart palpable and meaningful.

Because she sees little Jax try desperately to escape and be harshly stopped and punished; she sees little Eva ask plaintively when she gets to go home; she sees a small infant torn from its mother whose tender age is treated like a boon to compliance, not a crime against an innocent, and cannot help but care.

I still love the stories of heroes choosing good with lightsabers and magic powers. I still love badasses leaping through the galaxy and fighting for the good. But the more real acts of evil, and more mundane acts of kindness move me more these days. And all the more, I understand how what could turn your heart, are these tiny beings who need your help, and witnessing an institution that would ignore their suffering, or worse yet, make it the point.

[7.5/10] Hey! Now there’s more of a surprise! If there’s one thing that seems clear about Barriss, good or bad, it’s that she has a strong sense of self-righteousness about her. In a way not unlike Count Dooku in the Tales of the Jedi miniseries from the same crew, you can see all these little things building up that make her lose her faith in the institution she’s a part of...again.

So when she sees Imperial citizens living in squalor, when she sees the Fourth Sister brutalize a square of impoverished people, when she hears excuses about needing to show strength to earn respect, when she sees a potential ally who’s ready to surrender mowed down, she can take no more. “Realization” certainly stacks the deck, but I didn’t see Barriss’ face turn coming, at least not in this episode. Given her history, maybe I should have.

I’m intrigued about where Barriss’ story goes from here. Do she and “The Jedi” she saves become confidantes and kindred spirits? Are they too simply hunted and eliminated by the people Barriss used to fight alongside? Does the Grand Inquisitor engage in even more rigorous “testing” for new recruits to ensure nothing like this ever happens again? Only time (or the finale) will tell.

But in the meantime, I can appreciate this one for showing the depth of the self-justified villainy of the Inquisitors that's enough to turn Barriss’ stomach and change her mind. The fear of children, the harshness of living conditions, the mortal blow on a defenseless person, all excused in the name of their mission, show how blinded and harsh this group can be. While a little heavy-handed in underlining the evil, it's enough to explain why Barriss would turn away from this and betray her erstwhile masters.

(Though hey, spoilers for the Obi-Wan miniseries: Some of the oomph is taken away by the fact that we see the Fourth Sister in that show, so we know she survives. Does a large fall kill any force-sensitive person in this universe?)

Overall, this is fairly standard stuff, but it’s done well, and gives us (or at least me) an unexpected direction for Barriss’ story.

[7.8/10] That's more like it! I enjoyed both halves of this one. Rampart’s shtick elevated the Bad Batch’s mission to find their way to Tantiss. And Omega starting a miniature rebellion only makes me like the character more.

Here’s the funny thing. I complained about the last episode because it felt solid but formulaic. We’ve seen the “search and rescue” type mission in Bad Batch specifically, and Star Wars in general, lots of times. The same is true for situations where our heroes have to infiltrate some Imperial stronghold. (Something that goes all the way back to the frickin’ Droids cartoon, and even A New Hope.)

But here’s the thing -- I find the good guys having to pretend to be Imperials to pilfer some important crumb of information far more interesting than their just sneaking into some location and busting some asset out. There’s an inherent tension, and almost mischievous subversiveness, to our noble good guys having to pretend to be baddies for an afternoon, in order to achieve their goal.

Will they be found out? Can they successfully navigate the practical challenges of Imperial security systems and the personal challenges of fooling station personnel? And once they inevitably trip some alarm or alert some Imperial functionary, can they complete their task in time to sneak away unscathed?

Again, this is Star Wars, so you know that it’s going to work out. But it’s still fun to see the main characters spray paint their armor black to fit in with the bad guy patrol, or tell some mid-level Imperial manager that their mission is classified, or stun some low-level goon and probe for information on the same kind of station Luke and Han once interfaced with. The heist-type setup is far more entertaining and exciting than the standard “beat up a bunch of guys and action hero your way out of dodge” approach from “Juggernaut”.

Of course, “Into the Breach” has an ace in the hole -- Admiral Rampart. For those of you who’ve read the (mostly tepid) Aftermath trilogy, Rampart’s interactions with the Bad Batch have the same tone and tenor of what I imagine Sinjir’s interactions with the Rebellion would be like on the screen. (Hint hint, Mando-verse creative team!) The way he’s clearly resentful of his clone captors, while also carrying himself with a certain supercilious dignity given his former rank, and also clearly only looking out for his own skin makes Rampart an appropriately irksome but amusing fly-in-the-ointment for our heroes. Frankly, Rampart is more compelling as a stubborn and untrustworthy ally than he ever was as an antagonist.

His doubt and flustered quality, while Hunter, Crosshair, Wrecker, and Echo all remain steely in the face of impossible odds, proves a nice departure from the steady demeanor of our heroes. The way he fumbles through this plan like the rest of them, pulls rank on Imperial functionaries, and has to be subdued once again to go along with the adaring plan makes him a great ingredient in the stew.

Not for nothing, the big set piece of the episode -- featuring our heroes hitching a ride to Tantiss on a science shuttle with the secret coordinates at the last minute -- comes with just the right stakes and ticking clock to make it exciting, even as you just know the good guys are going to make it. Whatever “Juggernaut” lacked in terms of a perfunctory, standard Bad Batch episode, “Into the Breach” makes up for with much more flavor.

The Omega half of the episode is good as well. There’s been a lot of chatter in the fandom about Omega always getting captured, but what I appreciate about it is that she’s different in the scenario each time. Not to get sentimental, but our little girl is growing up. The way she’s not by any means helpless despite being sequestered by Hemlock, but rather resourceful and craft in finding a way out, shows you how far Omega has come since she was first all but stuck in a clone facility.

More to the point, in her time with the Bad Batch, she’s learned how to be a part of a team. Yes, it’s clever to see her using the games that Hemlock’s subordinates insist their child captives play to lay out a plan to escape. But more to the point, she’s become an expert, an authority, a helper, for the younger children trapped in this pristine white prison. She recognizes the value of a team, and is there for the poor younglings who’ve been cowed by their imperial captors, giving them hope to escape. The show plays Omega’s efforts to leave the facility for the appropriate amount of tension. More than that, though, it’s heartening to see her once again thinking of others, building a trust with her fellow imprisoned children, and reassuring them that they’re going to get out of here.

Overall, this is a big step up from the last episode, with a thrilling escapade from Clone Force 99, and another great illustration of how far Omega’s come, and how capable a young adult she is, in her half of the episode.

[7.6/10] I appreciate that this one focused both on Crosshair’s recovery from his trauma, particularly when returning to the place where his heart fully moved, and on his tense reconnection with Hunter. Neither is easy.

For the latter, the show does some of its best work. There’s something very understated about Crosshair’s pain at returning to the location where he realized the Empire saw clones as disposable property. The way he’s tense even stepping onto the site comes through clearly to the audience. The way he looks around, the sense memory flooding back, is palpable. And my favorite moment in the episode is where he stacks the stormtrooper helmets on the storage container, a quiet tribute to his fallen comrades for no one but himself. Crosshair is taciturn, unemotional, but you can tell this place had an effect on him, one that he’s still reckoning with, and the show doesn’t flinch from that.

“The Return” doesn’t shy away from the lingering friction between him and Hunter either. In some places, the episode lays it on a bit thick, but there’s a core of truth that bears out. Hunter’s right in his reluctance to trust Crosshair after the way he turned on them and even helped hunt them down. And given that Crosshair went to work for the Empire, it’s not crazy for Hunter to wonder why Crosshair’s not telling them the whole story and harbor his suspicions.

Crosshair is equally justified in feeling like his onetime brother is giving him an unnecessarily hard time. He rightfully points out that, whatever the rest of the Bad Batch may think of him, Crosshair sent them the message about Omega. You can tell both that whatever his protestations, Crosshair still harbors plenty of affection for the young girl (who amusingly points out that she’s technically older than Crosshair), and that he blames his brothers for not acting to save her before she was captured.

Most importantly though, having seen Crosshair;s journey, we know that he’s not keeping details close to the vest because he’s trying to deceive his comrades. He’s holding things back because they hurt to talk about, because he’s as bred soldier who’s not equipped to express basic emotions, let alone complex ones like, “I thought I was being a good soldier, but I committed acts of evil and realized I was being used as a weapon to be used up and then discarded.” Both he and Hunter are sympathetic here in why they’re not on the same page.

Of course, what gets them on the same page is fighting a giant ice worm.

The defense and attack of the Dune-esque oversized wiggler is creditably done. The script sets up the threat subtly, lets it escalate, and gives our heroes goals both immediate and longer term that drive the action. The fights are generally well staged, with the worm looming over our heroes and causing a ruckus even when he’s not in frame. And Crosshair and HUnter having to work together, rebuilding their trust in the process, gives the action a point.

I’ll admit, after decades of watching Star Wars, and years of watching the animated series, I’m just inured to most of the action now unless it’s especially well done. The worm fight is the kind of interstitial battle where you know everyone’s going to make it out unscathed, and it’s just something action-packed to drive Hunter and Crosshair closer. So while I can appreciate the work, it’s easier for me to zone out during these moments.

Still, I like that through the work the pair come to trust each other a little more, and Omega, who’s still learning and growing, recognizes that it’ll take time, but that two people she loves are starting the rocky path to loving one another as brothers again. I’m more in it for the deep psychological examination of trauma and rebuilding of shattered relationships than I am fighting gigantic bugs at this point, but thankfully The Bad Batch has both.

(As an aside, I’d assumed that Crosshair’s shaky hand was a physical ailment or clone degradation he wasn’t allowing himself to treat out of some kind of penance. But now I’m beginning to suspect it’s psychosomatic, and a reflection of his internalized guilt over his past actions. I’m interested to find out!)

[7.7/10] I like how this episode dramatizes what’s changed about Omega in the time since she linked up with The Bad Batch, and what hasn’t.

What has is plain -- she’s a much more savvy player than when she started as an isolated ward on Kamino. She’s astute enough to recognize that she and Crosshair need disguises if they’re going to be skulking around the shady, Imp-infested confines of Lau. She’s experienced enough to know how to tempt a local functionary with a bribe in order to get her to bend the rules. And she’s skilled enough to be able to win the money she and Crosshair need to effectuate that bribe by popping into the local cantina and hustling patrons at cards.

Omega is no longer the naive, if capable young naif she was when she joined our heroes. Rather than being led around by the nose by Crosshair, she’s the one making plans and greasing the wheels when necessary. Seeing her seem so capable and assured in a tough environment is heartwarming in a strange way.

But it helps that she’s still the kind-hearted person we met when we started. Her tactics may have changed, but her principles haven't. The way she refuses to abandon Batcher, how she’s inclined to set the other impounded animals free, how she’s reluctant to use Crosshair’s brute force tactics because she doesn’t want to get anybody else hurt reveals the way in which, however more savvy Omega might be now, she hasn’t been corrupted. It’s a nice distillation of the pure qualities she started with and the greater talents and skills she’s internalized from her time with these commandos.

I’m also a fan of the planet Lao in this one. Lord knows Star Wars loves its corrupt backwaters, and the vibe of this one is familiar to anyone who’s seen the “underworld” and faraway places of the franchise in action before. But the addition of Captain Mann, the local Imperial administrator, elevates this one.

Normally Star Wars bad guys are snarling villains, but there’s something chillingly down-to-earth about Captain Mann (aided by a great vocal performance from Harry Lloyd). He scans as someone content to be a big fish in a small pond, taking advantage of his limited domain of authority to feather his own nest at every opportunity, and lean on the locals and visitors alike. I like him as a representation of the sort of everyday evil of the Empire. Not everyone is a megalomaniac striving for ultimate power. Some people are content with their lot to be able to abuse their position and get rich and comfortable on the back of mundane, local corruption and oppression.

His interactions with Omega are great, with the right layer of sliminess and cravenness to their interactions. They do a good job of advancing the larger story, since there’s the inherent tension of Omega and Crosshair trying to earn enough money to get off of Lau without attracting unwanted attention, something Captain Mann’s presence complicates. And him cornering our heroes provides a good excuse for Omega to make good on her “free the animals” impulses, and for Crosshair to give into his “shoot first and ask questions later” approach for a strong action sequence. It’s a little convenient, but Captain Mann getting his karmic comeuppance from one of the animals he imprisoned makes for some tasty just desserts.

The reunion at the end is also touching. In real time, it hasn’t been that long since our heroes have been separated from one another. But given that it’s been a whole year for viewers, and that the show committed to nearly four full episodes with separate adventures for everyone, everyone reuniting feels earned and meaningful. Wrecker and Omega hugging and rekindling their sibling bond is sweet; and Hunter embracing her as well, with his fatherly air, is no less piercing. You get the plain sense of how hard both sides have been fighting to get back to one another, which leads to great catharsis when they do.

The reunion with Crosshair is, naturally, a bit more complicated. But I relish that complication. The appearance of their betrayer, albeit one who helped save Omega, really adds to the mixed emotions of the moment. It’s well-staged and framed too, with the two ships landing on a remote planet, each a mirrored beacon of light across a dark expanse. It helps you symbolize and internalize the distance that Omega and her brothers have traversed to get here, and the emotional distance that still remains between Crosshair and his brothers.

Overall, this was a strong episode of the show that develops a quality new locale for the Star Wars pantheon, uses it to showcase how Omega has grown while hanging onto her best qualities, and earns a touching reunion among the main characters.

[7.8/10] I’m going to offer “Whistlespeak” some high praise -- it feels like a meat and potatoes episode of 1990s Star Trek, updated for the modern day. The visit to a pre-warp planet where our heroes have to blend-in, the moral dilemma of whether to observe the Prime Directive or save the lives of innocents and friends, the contemplation of what belief means in the shadow of tremendous scientific advancement, were all the bread and butter of The Next Generation, and Voyager and sometimes even Deep Space Nine. Seeing Discovery replicate those rhythms, and in some instances even improve on them, is a sight for sore eyes after an up and down season.

For me, this is a better spin on the type of story TNG aimed to tell in “Who Watches the Watchers”, where Starfleet officers were captured by a community of Bronze Age proto-Vulcans, and Picard had to save his crewmembers without letting the locals believe he was a god. “Whistlespeak” isn’t exactly the same. But the principles, of pretending to be a local, rescuing an ally from their potentially deadly practices, and reconciling your advancement with their beliefs are at the heart of both episodes.

The premise sees Burnham and company following the trail of an ancient Denobulan(!!!) scientist to a comparatively primitive planet called Hemenlo, to find the next clue. To secure it, they must blend in with the locals and work their way to a weather tower disguised as a mountain than Hemenloites revere as a holy place. That means taking part in a ritualistic race, meant to mirror one of the community’s hallowed myths, where the winner gets to tread the holy ground and complete the ritual to ask the gods for rain.

It’s a good setup! One of the best parts of Star Trek has long been the “new life and new civilizations” part of the mantra. While the outlines are familiar, meeting a new forehead-accented community with a unique form of communication, vibration-based curatives, and their own distinctive set of cultural practices is invigorating. The premise of Burnham and Tilly needing to hunt down the clue without being discovered or disrupting the locals’ rites adds a sense of tension to the proceedings. And as in classic Trek, we get a parent and child, named Ovaz and Rava, to help bring the planet to life in a personal sense, each of whom gets meaningful interactions with our heroes.

For Tilly, that means running the famed Helemna thirst race and bonding with young Rava. In truth, the show has underbaked the story of Tilly’s struggles to find the right connection with her students at Starfleet Academy. But I like that her interactions with Rava, both before and after the big reveal, show that she’s capable of forging that kind of mentorship connection. It’s a simple gesture, but her choosing to refill Rava’s bowl, re-qualifying her to finish the race, is gracious and powerful. Seeing her compassion, and the two women lifting one another up to reach the finish line, does a nice job of selling why Tilly makes sense as a Starfleet instructor at a time of uncertainty for her.

Honestly, the interpersonal interactions, which are typically a weakness for Discovery in my book, were one of the highlights here. If nothing else, this episode brings back the friendship between Burnham and Tilly in a way that's shown and not told that I love. The two have an easy, playful rapport that befits the show’s longest-running friendship. Their joking with each other, banter, and breaking all the rules to save one another fits the two people who’ve been in each other’s corner for the longest. Hell, even their racing together comes with echoes of the famous “Disco” shirts and jogs along Discovery’s corridor.

It’s not limited to that, though. One of the best parts of this episode for me is Adira getting their chance to step onto the bridge, and pushing past their nervousness with the help of Commander Rayner. I like it on two fronts. On the one hand, Adira has sneakily become one of my favorite characters on Discovery. They are basically what Wesley Crusher was meant to be -- a talented but untested young ensign -- except that Adira is more endearing through their anxiousness and stumbles, which are more relatable than the young wunderkind on the Enterprise-D.

At the same time, this is a good episode for Rayner, clearly changed after the events of “Face the Strange”, the way his usual calm but firm demeanor is used not to demean his subordinates or give them the short shrift, but rather to show a steely confidence in Adira, makes him feel like a good Team Dad rather than a recovering Team Jerk. It’s a good look for all involved.

Not for nothing, this may also be the most I’ve liked the interactions between Dr. Culber and Stamets. In truth, I’ve never fully bought their relationship. It’s long seemed to miss that spark that turns on-screen relationships from script-mandated pairings into something the audience can invest in. But I don’t know what to say -- they felt like a genuine married couple here, familiar in their way with one another, a little playful but caring, and tender in an area where they’re nervous to tread. There’s a relaxed sweetness between them that we don’t always see, and it helps sell Dr. Culber’s ongoing storyline of personal discovery.

I’ll admit, I have my qualms about that storyline. Star Trek is no stranger to spiritual awakenings (hello Deep Space Nine fans!), and my assumption is that it will tie into the ongoing storyline in a plot-relevant, not just personal way over time. But I’ll admit to appreciating the humanist spirit of the franchise, and I’m always a little leery when creative teams veer away from it in ways that don’t feel fully baked. (Hello Voyager fans!) Still, both Stamets and Book telling Dr. Culber not to fret over his newfound sense of attunement to something greater, but rather just enjoy it and let it wash over him, is a solid start.

That humanist spirit is more alive in Burnham’s adventures down on Helemna. It becomes necessary to break the Prime Directive and talk some future sense into Ovaz when it turns out the prize for winning the race isn’t just a visit to the sacred mountain, but rather the “privilege” of becoming a sacrifice to the gods in the hopes that they’ll bring rain. When it’s Tilly who’s suddenly on the chopping block (or, more accurately, the suffocation block), Michael is willing to throw the rules in the can like so many great Starfleet captains before.

I appreciate the twist! The episode runs a bit long for my tastes. But I like the fact that this triumphant moment of Tilly’s kindness and camaraderie with a young but aspirational soul quickly turns into a horror movie when you realize what their “reward” for winning is. The secret weather station containing a vacuum chamber that becomes a sort of altar creates a ticking clock as Tilly and Rava lose oxygen. And it creates urgency not only for Michael to disobey the Prime Directive in the name of her friend, but to convince Ovaz of the truth so that he’ll open the door and free her and his child.

What follows has shades not unlike the best part of “Who Watches the Watchers” -- a Picard-esque conversation between the wizened space-farer and the local mystic about what’s really going on. (Heck, Burnahm even shows Ovaz a view of the planet from above, a Jean-Luc classic.) I appreciate the idea of Michael rooting her pitch in both the practical and the personal. She explains to an already devastated Ovaz that his people can have their rain regardless of the ritual, and on the personal front, that Rava doesn't need to die for it. The explanation of the weather station and technology on the one hand,a dn the personal appeal on the other,shows the best of Michael.

And despite the on-the-nose “Here’s the lesson we learned from our treasure hunt today” ending that would make even Kirk blush, I like the theme about the evolution of belief more than the tacked-on theme of being cautious with technology. Burnham doesn't use her knowledge or technological advancement to invalidate Ovaz’s gods or tell him his rituals are no good. But she also recognizes that there is a hunger for the community’s beliefs to evolve and grow alongside the needs of the people and their evolving view of the world. The notion that ritual and tradition can sit comfortably alongside advancement is a heartening one, and it’s delivered with a blend of high-minded philosophy and personal compassion, and understanding nuance that would befit The Next Generation.

This is the kind of thing I want more of from Discovery even as we only have four episodes left. Even though it’s connected to the larger chase, this episode could stand on its own. It dusts off old franchise tropes but finds new spins on them, updating the lessons for current problems. And most of all, it puts our heroes hand-in-hand with another, with believable relationships and interactions among both the regular cast and the guest stars. As the episode’s own moral suggests, it’s never too late to keep the good from what’s old and blend it with the best of what’s new, and in an episode like “Whistlespeak”, it’s nice to see the show taking its own advice.

[7.5/10] Let’s start with the good. Ventress is back! Since the 2-D Clone Wars show, she ahs been one of the coolest parts of the animated corner of the Star Wars universe, and so it’s nice to see her get a chance to step into this modern era of it.

She also makes a ton of sense as an erstwhile mentor for Omega and someone with a strange concordance with the Bad Batch. She knows better than anyone what it’s like to be manipulated by forces within the Empire, to be kept as someone’s side project, to have abilities you’re not quite sure what to do with. She also knows how being Force Sensitive marks you, makes you an object of interest, a tool to be used, by greater forces. The way she wants to both help Omega, and also protect her and keep ehr away from all of this, speaks to the difficult circumstances Ventress has been through and come out the other side. (And there’s some nice parallels to the main ideas of Ahsoka in that.)

And in her interactions with Hunter, Crosshair, and Wrecker, she carries on the theme from the 3D Clone Wars show -- that the war they all devoted themselves to was a tragedy, one where they were all used and spit out. The sense of knowing what that's like, of coming out uncertain of your loyalties and broadened in your perspective or right and wrong, good and evil, makes her of a piece with what Clone Force 99 experienced during and after the war, Crosshair especially.

Like Shand, she is a bit of a wildcard, someone who doesn’t fit neatly in the alignment chart. But she’s also someone who’s seen this all before, and is ready to impart her wisdom to the Bad Batch, and especially to their young ward. I like that idea a lot, especially when it comes to the costs of being force sensitive, not just the ability to lift rocks and calm angry beasts.

Admittedly, the calming angry beasts part is cool. The episode is a mixed bag visually. It is cool to see Ventress duck and doge through our heroes like the badass that she is, and swing around a lightsaber once more. (And, not for nothing, it’s cool to see her with hair not unlike Merrin’s in Fallen Order as a fellow sister.) But the herky jerky style gives the fight movements a certain janky, stop-motion vibe that detracts from the encounter.

That said, her and Omega’s rumble with the kraken is a winner. The design of the kraken is striking, with a multicolored carapace, alien beak, and swarming tentacles. And the fact that Ventress bests it not through brute strength or deft dodging, but rather through forging a Force-friendly connection with the creature, illustrates both her mastery of the Force, but also her lesson to Omega at the same time.

So as a vaunted return for Ventress and an event of “testing” Omega’s ability, “The Harbinger” succeeds. True to the title, she also works as someone whose warnings of what’s coming setup grave things to come in a way that intrigues and terrifies, with poor Omega in the sights of the jackals.

But there’s a few problems. The smallest of them is that this seems to contradict the Dark Disciple novels, in another case of the television wing of Star Wars overwriting its literary wing. Can you come up with some retcon or explanation for the discrepancy? Sure. Ventress even has a cheeky line about it. But yet again, after pretending that everything’s canon, the powers that be once again prove that there is an unspoken hierarchy. So enjoy those written tales for their own independent worth, but don’t expect them to be the tail wagging the dog of Lucasfilm’s film and T.V. offerings.

The medium problem is that most Star Wars fan could assuredly guess what “M-count” meant by this point, so having Ventress come down to confirm it doesn’t mean very much. Yes, there’s no reason for the Bad Batch to know that, but bringing in characters to solve mysteries the audience already knows the answer to, without any sense of foreboding or tragic irony, makes the plot mechanics feel perfunctory.

Last but not least, not everyone needs to be Force Sensitive! It happened in the Sequel Trilogy (sort of). It happened in Ashoka. Hell, it pretty much happened with Leia. Why can't some major characters just stay (relative) normies and revel in their achievements that way. That ship has already pretty well sailed with Omega at this point, but I don’t know, I wish we could get more characters in Star Wars who are special and cool without them secretly being revealed to be force-sensitive. It runs into the “All of Peter Parker’s friends end up with spider powers” problems that makes the universe feel smaller and cheaper.

Still, I like where this lands, with the idea that in the age of the Empire, force-sensitivity is less a blessing than a curse. The training scenes with Ventress and Omega are a little too generic, which is part of my problem. But I appreciate the reveal that they’re also part of a ruse, something to tell Omega that she isn’t a Jedi, and try to convince her, and the much more skeptical Bad Batch, to spare her what an answer in the other direction would mean. “Someone who is force-sensitive, but doesn’t realize, and goes untrained to avoid becoming a target” is a much more interesting story than the umpteenth “Rough-around-the-edges young learner is schooled in the ways of the Force” story.

All that aside, Omega still represents a certain light in this world. She’s willing to give Ventress a second chance, much as she was for Crosshair. She sees the good in Ventress despite her past, while Ventress tries to spare Omega from the bad that could lie in her future. It’s an interesting game of contrast and compare, and makes “The Harbinger” a good outing for The Bad Batch, even as I still lament some of its problems.

[7.8/10] Another strong outing. As we continue down the path of Morgan Elsbeth’s backstory, this is a sharp vignette to show us how she first connected with Thrawn.

From a pure practical standpoint, I appreciate the fact that, whether she realizes it or not, she has to work her way up through his goons. An exchange of words with Captain Pallaeon (featuring Xander Berkley reprising his live action role in The Mandalorian) to establish her credentials, and a war of weapons with Rukh (featuring franchise royalty Warwick Davis reprising his role as Rukh from Rebels) to establish her prowess as a fighter unwittingly earns her an audience with Thrawn herself.

I like their dynamic. Candidly, I didn’t always love Thrawn in Rebels. But I appreciate his characterization here, as someone who thinks bigger than just the Empire, who sees the flaws and vulnerability in it even as he’s working to sustain it. He recognizes how many individuals within the Empire’s leadership structure are there out of pure greed or pure fear. But he recognizes not only a capacity to think bigger in Morgan, but an objective, a drive, beyond the venal or quotidian wants of the rest of the Empire’s ossified commanders.

That drive is revenge. That too is prosaic in its way. But it’s also something that led Morgan to rebuild herself, to find a backwater planet like Corvus (the planet where Mando meets Ahsoka in The Mandalorian), and turn it into a built-up base of operations that the Imperials themselves want to harvest. You can see how that drive has lit a fire under her, making her capable and distinctive in an apparatus without much ingenuity.

I also like that this is a moment of self doubt, for Morgan and for her followers. The sense of anger on Corvus, where the workers who untied around her in search of wealth and prosperity turn resentful and threaten revolution when she fails to sway the Empire to take her up on her ship-designs, shows how much Morgan has riding on this. She banked her reputation and maybe her safety on this ploy. Likewise, her disgust that try as she might, these aren’t her people, only continues to fuel her resentment.

Thrawn is someone who can channel that, who can provide resources, who can see not only talent but distinctiveness. It’s plain from the tone of their team-up here that this is a deal with the devil. There’s something ominous about Thrawn’s fighters lurching into view, and the scared murmurs of the citizenry. But to get what she wants, Morgan will work with whomever she needs to, and do whatever it takes. That's what Thrawn's counting on. And it makes for another strong chapter in the story of how Elsbeth became the witch we would come to know later in the timeline.

[7.8/10] When I saw in the trailer that Tales of the Empire was going to focus on Morgan Elsbeth, I sighed a little. The character, who debuted on-screen in The Mandalorian and came to prominence in the Ahsoka show. She was something of a big nothing in those shows, coming with that sort of flat blandness that, sadly, pervaded a lot of Dave Filoni’s follow up to Star Wars: Rebels. So to be frank, I was less than enthused at the idea that this rare treat, a Clone Wars-esque follow-up in the format of Tales of the Jedi, was going to focus on a character I didn’t really care about.

Well, kudos to Filoni and company, because this installment made me care about her. Some of that is just the visuals. It’s hard not to see a veritable child, running scared across the arid landscape of Dathomir, her and her mother fleeing from an incarnation of General Grievous who is the most frightening he’s been since Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars, and not feel for them.

The terror of the Separatist attack on the Ngihtsisters’ home base, the trauma of watching your mother cut down by their chief butcher, the panic of running and hiding while killers are on your trail, all give us a strong sense, both in terms of imagery and emotion, of the crucible that Morgan was forged in.

But I also like her brief refuge with the Mountain Clan. I’ll be frank -- I don’t remember much about the mountain clan. I think Savage Opress trained there before he was juiced up by the Nightsisters? But I don't remember exactly, or whether we know the matron and her children from before.

Either way, it works on its own, and that's what matters. After the glimpses we saw in The Clone Wars, and the visit to Dathomir in Jedi: Fallen Order, it’s nice to not only see the planet on screen once more, but to get another peek into its culture. The idea that there are people of this place who are not like the Nightsisters, not like Maul or Savage, who are nonetheless drawn into the depths of this war, add both dimension and tragedy to the fate of the planet and the communities who reside there.

I also appreciate the introduction of Nali, a young member of the Mountain Clan who is presented as a fulcrum between the path of war and vengeance stoked from within Morgan, to the path of peace and patience, preached by the matron. So much of Star Wars comes down to meaningful choices, about whether to give into anger and hatred and seek violent retribution, or whether to center oneself on calmness and redemption and no more than defense. Framing that as not just a choice for the Lukes of the world, but for the ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events like Nali, helps drive the momentousness and universality of these decisions home.

And you see both sides. You understand why Morgan is the way she is and wants to be prepared for the droids to come attacking once more. After what she’s been through, what she’s seen, being prepared for battle is natural. Wanting revenge is natural. The way she tries to prepare her fellow young women with weapons and fighting is understandable, given what she’s lost.

ANd in truth, the matron seems pretty naive. When she tells her daughter not to give into that strain of belligerence, and to trust that they’ll be okay, it sounds like a leader putting their head in the sand. So when the droids do show up, and she destroys them all with a mystical ball of light, it’s a hell of a turn. Her moral, that just because someone doesn’t seek out the fight doesn’t mean they’re unable, is a strong one, in the moral and spiritual tradition of the franchise.

It also sets Morgan on a path of tragedy. This being Star Wars, it’s framed in prophecy and vision into the future. But more in keeping with that ethical and spiritual bent, it says that Morgan has chosen the path to darkness, or more accurately, that it’s been thrust upon her by these devastating circumstances, and the road she walks will be a bleak one from now on. Poor Nali walked that path and was killed for it. We know from other shows that Morgan survives for some time yet, but we also know, from the fates of those who’ve walked a similar path, that it rarely ends well for them. Either way, I didn’t care about her path before, but I do now.

[7.6/10] Let’s start with the most obvious thing -- Bastion’s backstory is wildly confusing. So Mr. Sinister infected Nathan Summers with a techno-organic virus, and then Scott and Madelyne sent him into the future, and somehow that created human-sentinel hybrids (or the human-sentinel hybrids evolved separately?) and the successor to Master Mold sent a similar virus back in time to (I guess?) the 1970s to infect Sebastian’s dad, who then conceived Bastion, who has visions of the future that he’s now trying to create?

Who fucking knows? The show does its best to explain, but the whole thing is about as clear as mud. I have a high tolerance for comic book-y outlandish when it comes to superhero storytelling, but this is some Kingdom Hearts-level time travel insanity. What the damn hell.

But you know what? It doesn’t necessarily matter, because you get the gist of what Bastion is going for here. Regardless of how it happened, he can envision a future (or came from the future? Or has Nimrod’s memories of the future? Again, who fucking knows) where mutants vastly outnumber and eventually overwhelm the human population. So his idea is to enhance the human population, make them android hybrids the way he was, so that they can turn the tables and usher in the “utopia” that Cable has witnessed.

I like the concept and how it turns the tables on our heroes. The X-Men are used to being technically superior but socially ostracized. The idea of the opposite happening, beings who are more powerful, claiming that they are the next evolution, changes the dynamic. We’re used to the X-men fighting mutant supremacists or angry humans afraid of being left in the dust. Fighting a new “species” who claims to want to leave mutants in the evolutionary dust flips the script in a compelling way.

The problem is that the techn-zombies, and how far and wide they’ve been seeded without memories, is another loony touch to me. You’re telling me all of these people went in for Bastion’s treatment? And they’ve lived their lives blissfully unaware for so long. And that no one asked questions fr discovered them until now. Again, I don’t ask for much in the way of plausibility from an outsized show like X-Men ‘97, but the whole thing plays like a random Pod People/Cylon/Zombie twist for the sake of setting up a giant set piece than anything that makes sense on even a generous narrative plausibility scale.

But it’s a darn good set piece! I’m already a little tired of the Jubilee/Sunspot pairing, but him showing off his powers to save her mid-flight is a nice beat. And I especially appreciate how damning it is that, when confronted by her son’s abilities in front of shareholders, she’d rather sell him out to respectable-seeming monsters than own that her child is different. Again, in many ways, Roberto’s mom is worse than the openly bigoted parents we’ve seen in X-Men, because she accepts her son personally, but cares more about appearances and finances than his well-being.

I don’t know if I’d call Cyclops the epitome of great parenting, but he’s at least better than Roberto’s mom! The show doesn’t give the Summers family subplot that much room to breathe, but their mini-arc is good nonetheless. The idea of Jean having Madelyn’s memories and not knowing quite what to do with them is especially intriguing. Nightcrawler has really climbed the ranks of my favorite characters in this, and the way he describes one’s personal history as recollection plus emotion is both poetic and thought-provoking.

Her, Cyclops, and Cable jumping out of a fighter jet in a sports car, racing away from a flying horde of zombie androids, and bursting through a cave via Scott’s eye-beams is not exactly a typical family outing. And yet it’s surprisingly wholesome when they work together and become the world’s most extraordinary blended family in the process. Plus, I’m not made of stone. Them leaping into a cool pose while the car explodes behind them is eminently fistpump-worthy.

And hey, as much as it’s just mindless action, watching Wolverine and Nightcrawler team up, blades in hand (or in hands, or tail) to beat up the bad guys is hella cool. Even when the plotting and character beats get jumbled, X-Men ‘97 can reliably deliver the fireworks.

But there’s something under the hood here. The show makes Bastion an earnest villain of sorts, one who does terrible things to mutants both physically and by reputation. But he’s also someone who thinks he’s a dinosaur stopping an asteroid. It mirrors the way real life individuals justify bigotry and extermination with the idea that they’re just trying to fend of their own “replacement.” His excuses and self-justifications make him seem extra-pernicious, but to his own point, different than the mustache-twirling baddies like Mister Sinister.

I also appreciate Dr. Cooper’s change-of-heart, realizing the horror of what she’s been a part of after Genosha and wanting to make amends. Her releasing Mangeot as penance is a strong choice for a character who’s been a bit generic to date. Her speech talking about how moments of triumph and acceptance for the oppressed fall to ruin so often that they’re sad but not surprising, and go ignored by those unaffected, is gutting, and her “Magneto was right” climax is terrifying. Magento going to one of the poles and unleashing an electromagnetic wave that wipes out all power (and the technorganic goons) is a deft way to halt the problem du jour while also setting up a reckoning to come as “the war” begins.

And oh yeah, Xavier’s back. As I’ve said before, I'm pretty sanguine about that happening. Comic book resurrections happen all the time, and Xavier was tastefully written out at the end of the original series. I’m loath to see the show go back on it. But hey, I’d be lying if hearing him say, “To me, my X-men” again wasn’t rousing.

Overall, the plotting and practical elements of this one get more than a little off the rails, but the action-heavy parts are superb, and the reflections on intellectual fig leaves for bigotry and how easy it is for those unaffected to ignore the worst of it leave this one with a lot to like nonetheless.