In parallel stories, Carol and the only other survivor upset by the state of things—the mysterious Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga, whose presence is as formidable as Seehorn’s)—embark on separate journeys that make them realize nobody can remain an island forever. Even if they’re stubborn as hell, which both of these characters definitely are.
Carol’s two chunks of narrative, which chart her declining mental state as her weeks in total isolation roll on, frame Manousos’ more literal trip as he departs his home in Paraguay and points his car north, with Albuquerque as his destination.
Carol’s first segment picks up with her driving away from Las Vegas, and initially—perhaps buoyed by the information we learned last week, that the Others cannot try to convert her without her permission—her mood is almost… jaunty? Chipper? Euphoric?
Humming and singing REM’s late-’80s apocalyptic ditty “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine),” she dials up the Others’ “need some space” hotline multiple times. She has a very specific Gatorade order, which then requires a scolding follow-up because the drone-delivered beverage is not, as she requested, “ice cold.” She buys an alarming amount of fireworks. She grabs a scratcher and wins $10,000, which she can never collect, but it’s still nice to feel lucky.
The “Carol singing to herself and doing stuff alone” sequence continues. It’s 12-ish days post-Joining; we see her guzzling beer and setting off fireworks in her cul-de-sac (patriotically vocalizing “The Stars and Stripes Forever”). We see her playing golf, singing “I’m Alright” (the theme from Caddyshack, duh) as she carts around.
When her cop car finally dies, she takes her pick from the discarded rides outside the country club (a Rolls-Royce with “Just Married” decorations all over it) and zooms off to a nearby hot springs; her thematic song choices are “Born to Be Wild” and “Hot In Herre.”
Then she pulls up to Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (crooning “Georgia on My Mind”), takes a look around (it’s totally empty, just like every other place she’s been), and removes Bella Donna from its display. Back at home, Carol grabs the Bella Donna poster print she has hanging up and puts the priceless O’Keeffe original in its place. She smiles. She’s satisfied with this.
Then she calls the hotline and demands a fancy dinner at the restaurant “where Helen and I had our anniversary.” Dressed to the nines, she sits down alone to enjoy her (again) very specific menu requests, then selects an easy-listening version of “I Will Survive” on the electronic player piano positioned near her table. Carol will survive! At least, for now!
Meanwhile, Manousos is well into his own long voyage. His life as a defiant holdout is actually rather similar to Carol’s, despite their geographic differences. (No offense to Albuquerque, which is quite lovely, but the South American landscape we see here is drop-dead gorgeous.) And since the Others haven’t exiled themselves from his presence, even in the rural areas he travels through, he’s greeted with teeth-grittingly cheerful hails of “Hola, Manousos!” and offers of help, water, advice, and so on from the side of the road. The Others just want him to be happy, after all.
As he drives, he listens to language cassettes, learning English so he’ll be able to talk to Carol eventually. He trims his hair. He catches fish for food. He reaches the literal end of the road at the Darién Gap, the formidable swath of land that he must pass through to continue his journey. The Others beg him not to attempt it, because everything he’ll encounter—plants, animals, insects, terrain, weather—will be hostile and potentially fatal.
But Manousos is hostile too, and the confrontational speech he gives as he calmly lights his car on fire is an all-timer: “Nothing on this planet is yours. You cannot give me anything because all that you have is stolen. You don’t belong here.”
As he fights his way through the perilous forest, he adopts a sort of mantra. It’s the first words he plans to say to Carol when they meet: “My name is Manousos Oviedo. I am not one of them. I wish to save the world.”
When he’s gravely injured on an evil-looking tree covered in spikes, he falls to the ground and nearly passes out—still muttering Carol’s name—as a helicopter circles overhead, aiming to rescue him whether he wants it or not.
Back in Albuquerque, it has now been 48 days since the Joining. Carol has been alone-alone for weeks. She’s now hitting golf balls off a downtown rooftop, blasting Judas Priest (needle drop: “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”), and smashing through every office window her swing can find.
Then, we see her back in the cul-de-sac with more beer and fireworks. This is different, though. This is morose. This is “if a firework flies toward my head, I won’t duck.”
When one of the rockets accidentally ignites a neighboring house, she does get up with a hose to put it out. But the next day, her errand run (still in the Rolls) to the home improvement store isn’t to pick up supplies for repairs. It’s to obtain paint and a roller so she can inscribe a desperate message to the Others—who are, of course, always watching from the sky—across the pavement: “COME BACK.”
The last scene is Zosia (Karolina Wydra), fully recovered from her Carol-induced grenade injuries and subsequent heart attack, pulling up in her little blue car. When they reunite, Carol gives her the biggest, most grateful hug. Will this period of forced loneliness have changed her attitude at all toward the Others? Or will Carol be back to her boundary-pushing ways—and her detective work—next time we see her?
There are just two more Pluribus episodes to go, and we are extremely hopeful that Manousos will recover from his own grisly wounds and reach New Mexico before season one ends. Wonder what kind of music he listens to?
New episodes of Pluribus arrive Fridays on Apple TV.
As of publication, a second season has yet to be announced; for now, we’ll just have to speculate on how the events of this episode could play out in the future. So let’s dig in, pop out our eyeball monsters, and discuss the finale of Alien: Earth season one.
The finale episode is called “The Real Monsters,” which is the most fascinating title of the entire season. At the start of the episode, it could mean one thing, but by the end, it could mean something else entirely. So let’s circle back to that at the end.
After last week’s wild episode, everyone has been put on pause. Wendy and the Lost Boys are in a holding cell. The same goes for Joe and Morrow. As for Boy, Kirsh, and the rest of Prodigy, they’re left confused and scared about the state of everything on the island, which is in very, very bad shape. Primarily, that’s because there’s a rogue xenomorph prowling the grounds, and in the episode’s opening, we finally get the promise of the show fulfilled.
It took seven episodes and change, but for a few minutes, we got to see a xenomorph running around Earth, and it played like a 60-second R-rated Jurassic Park. We even got to see it interact with an Earth-specific species, the crab. To be honest, we could watch the xeno walk around the island by itself, killing the occasional soldier, forever, but Wendy has other plans.
Alien on earth in Alien: Earth – FX
In containment, the surviving Lost Boys have a kind of existential discussion about who they are and where they belong. This is in large part because of the graveyard they found, and also how they are quickly discovering that, despite having the minds of kids, they are so much more. Nibs describes them as ghosts, beings who are out of place and time, which is the perfect metaphor for Wendy. She thinks they should be ghosts and make everyone afraid of them, not the other way around.
This begins with her using her powers to keep an eye on everything going on in the building. She manipulates a conversation between Boy and Kirsh about Boy’s negative impulses. She traps soldiers in an elevator to scare them. She plays footage of their human counterparts in Dame Sylvia’s room to make her live with what she and everyone else has done. Wendy is slowly flaunting the total control she has over everything, including the containment rooms. Remotely, she unlocks the one with her brother Joe and Morrow in it, allowing the story to move forward.
Wendy watches as Morrow goes to the creature lab and has it out with Kirsh, who has his back broken in the battle. Just as Morrow is about to win, though, he notices the cages are open. Another of Wendy’s tricks. Meanwhile, with communications down all over the island, Boy goes to visit Wendy and the crew. He acts as if he still has the upper hand… until Wendy unlocks the cell with her mind.
This shocks and terrifies Boy as he realizes he is no longer in control of anything. And that vulnerability gives him the chance to open up about his past. A past where he, as a six-year-old, built a synthetic father who killed his alcoholic actual father. He calls the hybrids “floor models” for what he has planned for the future, but they are so much beyond that. They all team up and tell him to run.
Dame Sylvia has some explaining to do. – FX
Each hybrid is given a job by Wendy to round up another one of the adults. As she makes the assignments, Curly asks if she can be called by her human name, Jane. It’s the first time she acts like part of the team, previously being very isolated and defiant in her loyalty to Boy.
As Nibs easily grabs Sylvia, and Smee and Slightly intimidate and dominate Kirsh and Morrow, Wendy looks for her brother. He’s been found by Atom Eins, who says that Boy wants to see him. We know this isn’t true, as Boy is currently running for his life, and Joe soon realizes that too. Atom locks him in a room with the eyeball, which pops out of the sheep and goes after Joe. Wendy arrives in the nick of time but is thwarted by Atom, who, we finally realize, has been a synthetic this whole time. Likely, he’s the synthetic Boy made as a child. Wendy picks up on this just in time and takes control of him, saving her brother as the eyeball escapes.
This means that Joe and Wendy can finally discuss his actions on the boat in the previous episode. He apologizes, but she’s still mad at him, feeling betrayed that he would pick his human friends over his sister. They both realize this is a very difficult situation because Joe has loyalty to his species and friends, as well as his family, but his family is no longer part of his species. In fact, Wendy admits she doesn’t quite know what she is. She only knows that she’s powerful and has a loyal ally in the xenomorph. The brother and sister make an uneasy truce out of love, but you can tell this isn’t over.
Kirsh finally meets his match. – FX
Meanwhile, Wendy had “someone special” looking for Boy, and, of course, it’s the xenomorph. Which finds him. He thinks he’s doomed, but Wendy has it spare him and instead takes out the soldiers who arrive. Boy’s dominance is no longer. Furthermore, the dominance of humans on this island is no longer. After eight episodes, we finally get a reveal of what the pod creature is as it eats up Siberian (Diêm Camille), one of the two Prodigy soldiers we’ve been following since the first episode. We also get to see the eyeball make it to the dead body of Arthur. An act that finally gives it a voice and a human brain, though that doesn’t pay off here.
And so, finally, as the episode started with the Lost Boys in the cell, the tables have shifted by the episode’s end. Now the adults, Boy, Kirsh, Morrow, Sylvia, and Atom, have been captured, and the hybrid children (plus Joe) are on the outside looking in. Oh, and they have not one but two xenomorphs on their side and at their disposal.
“What do we do now?” one asks. “Now, we rule,” Wendy replies. This delights Boy, who basks in the glory of his creations overtaking their creator, but it terrifies Sylvia and Joe, who see beings they love evolving into something more.
Humans and aliens have always been at odds in the Alien franchise. That’s kind of its DNA. That’s still true to an extent, but now, we have human-looking characters—the hybrids—teaming up with the creatures against the humans. And, like Wendy says, they have the potential to rule. Of course, many things are standing in their immediate way. First and foremost, Weyland-Yutani airships are currently on the way to the island. The other creatures are still around too. But Alien: Earth season one ended with a whole new being on top of the food chain, and it wasn’t the xenomorph.
Brother and sister continue to be at odds. – FX
So who are “The Real Monsters”? Typically, in Alien movies, as per the memorable quote from Ellen Ripley, the real monsters are the humans who will stop at nothing to make a buck. That may have even been the case earlier in this season. Now, though, it’s much more complicated. Are the monsters the hybrid children who want to “rule” the world? Are they the other creatures who, we think, are still independent of that group? Or are the monsters still the humans who exploited children for their own profit?
That one is the most obvious and easy to understand, but there is monstrosity everywhere depending on where your loyalties lie. And we love that about this ending. Let’s hope we get to see what Hawley thinks in season two.
Assorted musings
So, really, no payoff to the weird guy from the first few episodes cleaning the hallways?
Speaking of payoffs, the payoff of the pod creature felt very tacked on, right? We get to see it kill a main character, but the whole scene felt almost like the show forgot it had been teasing this fourth species of creature since the beginning and just needed it to do something. Hopefully, it gets to do more than a Little Shop of Horrors impersonation in upcoming seasons.
Did you ever get the sense that Atom Eins was a synthetic? I didn’t. He was robotic, certainly. And ice cold emotionally. But his loyalty and reasoning always felt pretty human. Now, in retrospect, his reveal as a robot speaks even more to the genius of Boy Kavalier. He made that guy at six years old? Wow.
The most satisfying moments in the entire season came in this episode as we got to see the usually scared and confused hybrids (who aren’t Wendy) come into their own. Curly taking back her own name was great. Nibs exerting pure physical dominance. And when Smee and Slightly said, “It’s our time now,” everything they’d been through felt like a prologue.
Where do we see the role of the xenomorph going in this show? Part of what always made them so fascinating and terrifying was their absolute ferocity. But now, we have two on Earth who are beholden to another type of creature. Do we just want to see them as bodyguards? Will they, or can they, rebel in some way? Almost more than what’s next for the hybrids, I’m anxious to see what this story holds for the xenomorphs, especially with the knowledge that 60 years later, Weyland-Yutani is still after one.
Lastly, thank you so much for taking the time to read and engage with these recaps. As a fan of Alien, it has been a blast to experience and dissect this show week to week. It’s rare we get to see a franchise we love get reimagined in such a surprising and smart way, so thank you to anyone who clicked on any of these articles. Fingers crossed we can do it again soon.
The penultimate episode of Alien: Earth season one is now out in the world, and after a few episodes of setup, things took off like a rocket ship. There was payoff after payoff, showdown after showdown, and, yes, lots and lots of creepy, gory Alien action. It may have been the best episode of the season so far, and that’s saying something, so let’s dive into what happened, what it means, and why we loved it.
The seventh episode of Alien: Earth is called “Emergence,” which is the perfect title for an episode where so much happens. Truly, it could refer to almost anything and everything—the emergence of another xeno, the hybrids rebelling, the genius of the eyeball, or even Kirsh’s plan. But ultimately, maybe the most important thing to emerge was the rift between Wendy and Joe, which hit a boiling point by episode’s end.
Before that though, a lot happened, so let’s run through it story by story. We’ll start with Slightly, who, last week, was finally successful in getting a Facehugger to do its thing on a human. Arthur, the newly fired scientist, was the unfortunate victim. Slightly’s best friend, Smee, senses something is wrong and bursts into Slightly’s room to see what he’s hiding. He’s shocked and scared at Arthur’s lifeless body but, being the good friend he is, agrees to help Slightly complete his mission. Under one condition: Slightly has to promise that Arthur will be fine once the Facehugger comes off. Reader, he will not be fine.
As they sneak out, they run into Kirsh, who they, and we, think is going to bust them. In a pretty surprising moment, though, Kirsh does the opposite, helping the two hybrids sneak Arthur out of the facility. Why does he do this? Does he secretly work for Weyland-Yutani? We don’t know. What we do know is that once outside, Arthur wakes up. The Facehugger dies, and he is very confused about how he got outside and why he’s there. Smee and Slightly make up a story about gas and an evacuation, so, in his stupor, Arthur goes along with it.
These guys are getting into all kinds of trouble this week—FX.
Soon after, though, Arthur’s memories start to come back, and he stops the boys. He goes into full Dad mode, telling them he knows they’re lying and that whatever it is, they can figure it out together. Reluctantly, they submit, and that’s when it happens. Pop. Pop. Scream. Scream. Arthur falls, and a little baby xenomorph pops out of his chest. Smee is furious that Arthur is clearly not okay, and Slightly is furious that they lost the creature he believes to be the only thing that can save his family.
They bring Arthur’s body to the rendezvous point where Morrow and a team of soldiers await. Morrow is angry but knows time is of the essence and deploys his team across the island. They head to a nearby bunker where Kirsh and an army of Prodigy soldiers are waiting. Kirsh and his team have captured the baby xeno that escaped and proceed to lock up Morrow and his men. Basically, like four episodes of story all get wrapped up pretty quickly, though we are still unaware of why Kirsh helped the boys and then scolded them after. Or if Slightly’s family is okay. We’re guessing they are, though.
Before he does all that though, Kirsh has to update Boy on everything that has happened over the last few hours… mainly the $6 billion hybrid that was somehow killed by an alien fly. Apparently, they don’t actually know if they can fix him because they never thought there would be a need to. But Boy is less worried about that when he sees that it was the eyeball, still inside the sheep, that orchestrated the entire scene. He’s endlessly fascinated by the creature and orders that it be moved to another location.
Wendy arrives in the lab to see what’s happened and is shocked to see that Isaac has been killed. She didn’t think that was even possible, and her fears about her safety (and the safety of all her fellow Lost Boys) are turned up to 11. As she tries to leave, a few guards stop her, so Wendy sends a few clicks to her friend, the xenomorph. The creature bashes up against the glass to let them know Wendy can leave, and she does. Boy and Kirsh are stunned at her actions and realize they need to keep an eye on her and the rest of the hybrids. Which is when they realize all the trackers have been turned off. Uh oh.
These guys are about to find out who really has the power—FX.
Of course, we know it was Arthur who turned those off to help Joe escape the island with Wendy. When he finally gets to her, she has already seen Isaac’s body and knows that she has to escape. But she wants to bring as many of her Lost Boys as possible. That brings her to Nibs’ room, where she’s being comforted by Curly after the trauma of having her memory wiped. Nibs agrees to come, but Curly doesn’t want to. Wendy makes her promise not to tell on them, which we don’t think she does, even though later she does cry to Dame Sylvia about something. Before they leave, Wendy does one last thing. She unlocks the now fully grown xenomorph in the lab, and it proceeds to feast on everyone in there. “What did you do?” Joe asks, not able to see what took place.
Wendy, Joe, and Nibs head outside, and among the first things they see are graves. Graves of their old selves. This throws all three of them for a loop, with Joe getting sad, Nibs being confused, and Wendy adamant that those bodies aren’t them anymore. It seems like a pretty transformative, crucial moment, but they press on.
A little down the road, a group of soldiers stops them with orders to bring them back. It looks like they’re caught when Wendy starts to make some noises. Out comes the released xenomorph for its second destructive bloodbath of the episode. After it’s killed all the soldiers to protect Wendy, Joe, and Nibs, the creature slowly approaches them. Wendy gently touches it, wiping some blood off, before saying something, and it runs away. Nibs is fascinated, Joe is terrified, and he asks what she said to it. “Hide and follow, I think,” she says.
These two are about to get into it—FX.
And follow them it does. They make it to the boat only to, again, be ambushed by soldiers. These, however, are led by Joe’s friends from back in New Siam. The soldiers have orders to bring everyone back, but one in particular starts being mean to Nibs. So she grabs him and rips his freaking jaw off. It sets off a battle where Nibs and Wendy start defending themselves against the soldiers. She’s about to call the xeno when Joe stops her. Nibs soon gets shot, and Joe electrocutes her. Wendy is furious. She can’t believe her brother would hurt one of her friends like that. “What did you do?” she screams, echoing what he asked of her earlier on.
Multiple times in the episode, we saw that Joe was increasingly uncomfortable with Wendy’s relationship to the xenomorph. So, him defending his friends against Nibs makes sense. He doesn’t seem to be on the same page with his sister on a lot of things, which has finally driven a wedge between them. A wedge that is being carefully watched by the xenomorph hiding in the nearby bushes. Wendy unleashed the xenomorph, and Joe does what he believes he must to protect his fellow humans.
Again, so much happened in this episode that it almost felt like a finale itself. Where do things go from here? Well, there are now two xenomorphs on the island, Weyland-Yutani soldiers are there, hybrids can be killed, and don’t forget all the other creatures too! It should be an explosive finale.
Boy, things are going poorly. – FX
Assorted musings
No, I didn’t forget about arguably the episode’s best scene. That being Boy communicating with the sheep, using the digits of Pi to prove its intelligence. It’s a genius scene, and Boy’s excitement at finding something that, like he said in an early episode, can really impress and challenge him, was palpable. But, it’s still in a sheep. A sheep that shits on command. He wants to get the eye into a human who can talk. And he mentions a possible mold guy…
Could that be a reference to the early episodes where we repeatedly saw a guy cleaning the wall? Is he the mold guy? Is he going to get the eyeball? That would be a great payoff if that’s what happens.
Before Wendy, Joe, and Nibs were surrounded by soldiers the first time, they stood next to a large, yellow structure that had been grown over. If you’re an Alien fan, that probably brought two things to mind. One, the chair of the Engineer, which the Nostromo finds in the first film, as well as the power loader that Ripley uses in the second film. The yellow, triangular structure feels almost like a blend of the two. And while clearly it isn’t anything like that, and probably won’t have any significance, it’s one of the best examples yet of this show just getting what Alien is. That thing just felt and looked like “Alien.” Which was probably the point.
Slightly and Smee bring Arthur’s body to Morrow to prove they really tried their hardest to execute his plan. But, when he’s ready to leave, Morrow’s soldiers push Arthur’s body into the water. The camera lingers on him for just a second or two too long. Maybe as a goodbye, or maybe because something else is coming from this character.
With the season two premiere behind us, it’s time to see what new debaucherous misadventures await John Cena’s Christopher Smith in the second episode of DC Studios’ Peacemaker. Given the explosive finale of the first episode, we’re in for a lot of explanations from our silver-helmeted would-be hero.
Episode two, “A Man Is Only as Good as His Bird,” jumps back eight months before the show’s premiere, providing context for why Chris was being surveilled by his ginger-bearded buddy, John Economos (Steve Agee). Turns out it was all the machinations of ARGUS figurehead Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo). While Flag Sr. and Economos’ work relationship is tenable at best, Flag Sr. does pull rank by having Economos spill the beans over his son’s death. Apparently, Amanda Waller ordered that the details for everything that happened in The Suicide Squad (James Gunn’s version) be covered up, as she’s wont to do.
However, Economos hands over a file about Flag to Flag Sr., and he learns the gory details about his son’s death at the hands of Chris. And with that, the inevitable clash between the two has gotten even more anticipation boiling under the surface of Peacemaker‘s second season.
We then return to Chris in the present, and he is still in a bit of a pickle, having killed himself from an alternate dimension. Ever the galaxy-brained genius, Chris’ first attempt to hide the evidence of his Kafkaesque homicide is to sweep it under the rug, literally. But it turns out not even Chris can employ the “You Can’t C Me” approach to covering up a murder. After justifiably crashing out a wee bit, taking a shower, and having a bit of a cry, he phones a friend to aid in sawing himself into pieces.
While Economos is still surveilling Chris mid-lunch break, noshing on some McDonald’s, we’re introduced to a new Peacemaker character, Fleury (Tim Meadows). After some dressing down of Economos’ gun safety faux pas (he tried to pull his firearm on Fleury while his weapon was still in its holster), Fleury informs Economos that he was sent by Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez) to serve as backup, since it’s clear Economos can’t in good faith objectively surveil Chris, given their history as bros.
Serendipitously, Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) shows up on Chris’ doorstep, and he tells her about his pocket dimension. In the spirit of sharing, Adebayo tells him about the whole Rick Flag Sr. situation. She then advises Chris to stop using his pocket universe because ARGUS is alerted whenever he does. She also says he should surrender it to them so they can’t hang it over his head, should something go wrong, as a reason to send him back to prison.
Soon after, Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma), aka Vigilante, shows up. It turns out he was the friend Chris phoned earlier. Apropos, Adrian shows up with cleaning supplies in hand to help Chris deal with his Weekend at Bernie’s pocket dimension whoopsies. Underscored by Foxy Shazam’s “Evil Thoughts,” Chris and Adrian get to hacking away at the cadaverous doppelganger.
With the doppelganger Peacemaker properly charcoaled in the pocket universe incinerator, Chris, understandably fucked up by the whole situation, peeks through the photo gallery of his double’s phone to see if life really was greener on the other side. The first album he clicks on is a 158-picture album dedicated to Milla Harcourt (Jennifer Holland). After thumbing through candid photos of them snuggled up in bed and other Hallmark-worthy candid moments, the gears begin to turn in his square skull to ditch his life in our dimension for the newly Chris-less one, proving men will literally waltz through pocket dimensions instead of going to therapy. Meanwhile, Fleury’s assortment of fratbro ARGUS militia task force, charged with surveilling Chris, is chomping at the bit to bumrush his house.
Speaking of Harcourt, we then cut to her attempting to nurse her barroom brawl scars from the previous episode to host their rooftop going-away party for Economos. That’s right, the gang is finally getting back together. As Economos notes, the impromptu venue looks really lovely. It features a whole string of overhead vintage lights that fancy restaurants use to create a cozy ambiance for their dining experience. Only their get-together exclusively features chips and dip, music from a dingy music speaker, and Bud Light brewskies. But hey, what more can a viewer ask than to see the gang back together finally?
But because we can’t have nice things, the ARGUS task force springs into action, raiding Chris’ house while the proverbial papa bird was away from his nest, partying. During their sweep, an ARGUS grunt drops a little DC Universe lore tidbit, saying that they’re equipped with scanners to detect extraterrestrial beings, which, as noted, is a major “dimensional discrepancy.” If you can forgive the above bird pun, know that it was all in service of setting up the Smith abode guard dog, Eagly, foiling ARGUS’ plans. We love an episode title that perfectly encapsulates the money-shot moments of its episode.
Eagly kicks tons of ass, taking out every task force member one by one. And because of Fleury’s bird blindness, he can’t take the shot and save his team because he “can’t tell how big this thing is.” For everyone furiously Googling “Does Eagly die?”, the answer is no. After handing the team their generous asses, the winged symbol of America struts back into the house.
Unfortunately, the bow on this wonderfully Eagly-filled episode sees Chris and Harcourt finally kind of talk at the party about what they are. Things don’t go well. While Chris tries to voice his concern for Harcourt since Task Force X broke up, she rebuffs, saying she doesn’t want to be seen as some damaged bird he can fix. So after stumbling back home sauced AF, Chris decides to go back into the hugbox of his pocket universe to see if things were as great with alternate dimension Harcourt as they seemed in the pictures.
But while Chris settles into the house, we overhear inquisitive questions from his not-racist alt-dimension dad, Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), wondering where his son went. During Auggie’s out-loud questioning—assumedly toward Chris’ alternate-dimension brother, Keith Smith (David Denman)—we get hints that shit ain’t so sweet in the alternate universe for Chris after all. Apparently, his dead doppelganger had a pill problem and might’ve been messing around with another woman that wasn’t Harcourt. Chris, too blitzed to care, texts a risky “Hey” message to alt-dimension Harcourt and receives a “Hey” with a broken heart emoji in turn. Hopefully, our nails won’t have been gnawed to the bone in anxious anticipation of how Chris’ man-pain will lead to even more cosmic problems for everyone and himself.
Peaceful Peacemaker Pontifications
Adebayo reveals that she and her ex had plans to move to Gotham. In retrospect, they’re probably better off staying their broken-up selves, given how the low rent in either Matt Reeves’ Elseworld or a Creature Commandos‘ iteration of the city can’t be worth moving to.
The aftermath of Chris’ orgy reminds us that he’s a bisexual icon, even when he’s not taking the Justice Gang’s LinkedIn-ass interview well.
Vigilante’s surprisingly insightful diatribe about liking sex, despite Chris’ assumption that he wasn’t into it because of how freaky sex can be, feels like an act of bonding with his friends.
Fleury is another oddball addition to the cast. Notably, his bird blindness and lack of workplace decorum, as well as his whole Mean Girls try-hard act of name-calling to seem cool
Economos puts to bed that the plural of Pokémon is Pokémon, not Pokémon.
With Superman in the books, the time has finally come to see how DC Studios’ rebooted universe will continue with the second season of James Gunn’s John Cena-led TV series, Peacemaker. Even before the show’s release, Peacemaker existed in a unique transitional phase between the old and new DC Universes, leading fans to wonder which elements would carry over and which would be left behind.
The answer to that, as gleaned from trailers and the occasional Gunn interview about its premiere being not safe for work, will have something to do with pocket universes and Peacemaker contending with himself in some capacity. So without further ado, let’s see what Gunn and DC Studios have been cooking up.
During a season one recap that brings us up to speed, noting Christopher Smith, (a.k.a. Peacemaker)’s relatively normal upbringing with his racist father, Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), we’re reminded that his dear old dad has a pocket dimension in his house. Unlike Lex Luthor’s pocket dimension, which he uses as a prison for those who slight him, Auggie (a.k.a. the White Dragon), utilizes it as a storage facility for all his gadgets, including Chris’ many Inspector Gadget-coded helmets. The explosive finale of season one saw Auggie killed, yet still present as a ghost haunting Chris in his pursuit of being recognized as a legitimate superhero. Surely, the show’s focus on pocket dimensions will prove to be a valuable narrative device later this season.
Why focus on the recap, you ask? Well, it’s already done some retconning on the season one finale. Famously, the finale saw the Justice League’s Wonder Woman, Superman, the Flash, and Aquaman show up late as hell to the party. However, Peacemaker season two’s recap is already showing its hand in taking creative liberties, changing how it incorporates its superhero cameos. Now, instead of the Justice League showing up, it’s silhouettes of the Justice Gang’s Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, and Green Lantern, with Superman and Supergirl in tow.
Just like the Peacemaker finale, the recap only features Hawkgirl and Green Lantern actors Isabela Merced and Nathan Fillion. Appropriately, they barb back at Chris, with Hawkgirl calling him a meathead and Fillion’s Guy Gardner taking issue with Peacemaker spreading rumors that he’s a puke freak.
From here, the first episode, “The Ties That Grind,” begins with Chris rolling out of bed, awakened by Eagly on a cold winter night. After a reflective glance out his window, Chris quickly punches in a code and stands at the threshold of a pocket dimension doorway, wearing nothing but a shirt and his tighty whities, as he witnesses an aurora borealis light show as whatever cosmic mumbo jumbo morphs into his Peacemaker lair.
Peacemaker’s lair apparently doubles as a communal garbage incinerator; a “crypt-keeping looking” alien guy appears, shrugs off Chris’ “good morning,” incinerates a giant rat, and then waltzes back through another interdimensional door like he strolled right out of Rick and Morty. But we’ve no time for interdimensional pleasantries, because Eagly discovers there’s another door, equipped with the same keypad, as Chris’ inside the pocket universe. What’s more, just outside of it is a pile of off-brand-looking Peacemaker helmets.
After punching in the same door code as his own, Chris stumbles into a well-furnished trophy room with eerie villain music, and something is amiss. This adversarial alternate reality has a newspaper clipping of Chris, his father, and what can only be assumed is his brother in the Evergreen Sentinel, showing them being awarded them the key to the city for being a top superhero trio. To add more credence to his strange discovery, Chris is greeted by an alt-version of his father, who wonders if he’s been sleepwalking again. Chris, overwhelmed by this reunion not being a ghostly haunting of his father like in the season one finale, runs away in terror.
There’s a pocket dimension inside Chris’ home, and it leads to a world where he didn’t kill his dad and wasn’t a raging racist and homophobe (as far as we know). All things weighing on Chris’ mind that he’s, like a man, trying to push down as he drives on the passenger’s side of Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks)’s ride as she tells him about her apparent breakup with her girlfriend.
Instead of blindly parroting Adebayo, he suggests that her ex was probably concerned about her safety. Adebayo counters this by pointing out that Chris seems to think he’s invincible and immune to danger during their missions, despite her concerns about his bravado. Their conversation steers into Chris asking about his crush, Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and whether she has spoken with Adebayo since the season one finale, which saw her hospitalized. Naturally, Chris is only concerned with whether or not Harcourt has talked about him, which she hasn’t. Womp womp.
Romantic pining aside, Chris gets vulnerable about his own insecurities, admitting that metahumans have apparently been bullying him, saying they make fun of him for his Jersey Shore haircut and “wearing a disco ball” on his head—conveniently forgetting he’s also said some not-so-nice things about Aquaman sleeping with the fishes.
“I know it’s cause my muscles are bigger than theirs, but jeez, right?” Chris remarks.
Adebayo reminds Chris that, despite the online trash talk, Peacemaker is a superhero who saved the world from a hivemind of alien bugs. Still, Chris seeks validation from his would-be peers as well, saying he no longer wants to be taken as a joke. This brings us to our first trial in legitimizing Peacemaker as a superhero: his job interview for the Justice Gang in a derelict strip mall. Things didn’t go so well for a lady ahead of him, storming out in a huff, clad in a full bunny get-up, but she’s not played by 17-time WWE world heavyweight champion John Cena, so Chris’s luck might be better.
Chris’ interview is officiated by Hawkgirl, Gardner, and LordTech owner and Justice Gang financier, Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn). After some mic issues, Chris overhears Hawkgirl and Gardner shit talk him between asking questions. But instead of popping a lid like he usually does, Chris swallows his pride and recites his bona fides as one of the best marksmen in the world with virtually any weapon and his hand-to-hand prowess. All of which only translates to Gardner as Chris being a violent dude who kills first and asks questions later.
Ironically, Lord emphasizes that the Justice Gang does not kill—this prompts Hawkgirl to scrunch her face as she recalls her act of pancaking a genocidal world leader who allied himself with Luthor in Superman. Regardless, the events of Superman have raised doubts about trusting metahumans, so they’d like to be extra cautious with screening who gets to be part of the team.
Lord cuts to the chase, bringing up Chris’ background check, noting he’s served time for first-degree murder and his killing of “dozens of people”—all of whom Chris says were for good reason. But Lord wonders which ones weren’t. While spilling his guts metaphorically about reckoning with his indiscriminate violence from the trauma his father gave him and the death of his brother, he overhears Hawkgirl and Gardner babble on about butts and how Peacemaker sucks. Instead of being embarassed that the mute function on their microphones isn’t working, Gardner laughs in Chris’ face—despite being the guy in charge of this not happening all day with every other interivewee.
By the time Lord looks up to apologize, Chris has already stormed out of the building in a similar huff as the bunny lady, telling Adebayo that his only talent, according to the Justice Gang, is “sucking dick.” Incensed, Chris retorts, saying sucking dick isn’t a put-down, but a compliment. All the same, Chris is fully disenchanted with the idea of joining the Justice Gang.
Turns out Chris wasn’t the only person getting a harsh grilling. While he was getting the worst superhero interview of his life, Harcourt was receiving hard truths from an interviewer from the NSA, saying that despite her “having a vagina,” she suffers from toxic masculinity. Proving his point, Harcourt has a shouting match with the interviewer about her “maintaining a hard appearance” and burying he feelings. After trying to walk back and calling him a “see you next Tuesday,” Harcourt claims her black-balling is a result of Amanda Waller’s own wrath.
After punching the dashboard of her car in a rage, Harcourt meets up with Chris, who asks about all the bruises, which she candidly admits to having caused by bashing her fists against it.
While nursing her bloody hands and remarking about how virtually every intelligence agency rejected her, Chris plays housekeeper, wrapping ice in a towel to place on Harcourt’s knuckles, all while noticing her pile of overdue bills. The romantic sparks between Chris and Harcourt are pretty undeniable in this touching scene, but they’re trying their damndest to keep things strictly business. And what better way to do that than airing out their grievances with Amanda Waller?
As they’re commiserating, Chris inquires if Harcourt wants to talk about something that happened “the other night on the boat.” Harcourt doesn’t seem to remember much beyond it being a party boat and not wanting to be on it, but Chris begs to differ. Apparently, the two got drunk and bumped uglies, but Harcourt quantified their tryst as a fuckup. Chris, pained by her waving off whatever happened that night, tries to at least have Harcourt acquiesce to it being a fun mistake, but she leaves him out to dry.
In full mourning territory, Chris returns home, loads up his bong, and starts snorting lines of coke like he was listening to the new Clipse album instead of the diegetic musings of “Guestlist” by Swedish rock band Hardcore Superstar. Which then cuts to Chris throwing a nude orgy rager at his apartment, full of all the adult private parts danging about on screen with reckless abandon that would make any parent rush to cover their children’s eyes had they dove straight into Peacemaker after watching Superman, expecting the same kind of general audience camp.
While everyone is having sex around Chris, some fist-bumping him mid-act, it’s clear he’s not having a good time (but he does give a little smirk when being kissed by male and female participants simultaneously—a bi icon!). Still, Chris is having the definition of a bad trip, rubbing at his face in a dizzying sequence. At the same time, appropriately bisexual lighting of his living room goes full kaleidoscope as everyone at his party either dances or sexes their night away.
In a stupor, Chris decides now’s the perfect time to bail on his party into the recesses of his pocket dimension. The camera then moves through space outside of his house to show John Economos (Steve Agee) has been outside in an ice cream truck, surveilling Peacemaker. Economos then answers a call from Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma), a.k.a. Vigilante. Evidently, they’ve become close enough buddies since the last time we saw them that Vigilante will cold-call him, requesting Economos to quiz him on owl facts.
Echoing Chris’ question to Adebayo about Harcourt, Vigilante asks Economos if he has spoken to Peacemaker lately. It’s very sweet that everyone, despite not checking in on one another, seems to worry about how Chris is handling the whole not being accepted as a genuine hero thing. Just after Vigilante reluctantly returns to his restaurant job, one of the screens on Economos’ ice cream stakeout set up alerts him to something being missed.
Economos then gets a call from a newcomer to Peacemaker season two, Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez). In the comics, Bordeux served as the bodyguard of Bruce Wayne—who we’ve yet to see in the new DC outside his appearance in Creature Commandos—and later served as the Black Queen of Checkmate. Here, her role seems to be that of a member of Belle Reve, which employed Economos at the end of season one, and she asks him to investigate. After hanging up on Economos, Bordeaux storms into the office of Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), who’s busy massaging the bridge of his nose, watching the newscaster complain about Arkham and Belle Reve metahuman escapees.
Here, we get the most consequential conversation in the episode that viewers have been wondering about since its opening. Apparently, in January, a “Christopher Smith” glitch similar to Luthor’s pocket dimension incident—which nearly consumed Metropolis in the final act of Superman—occured. This glitch has been happening more frequently at Chris’ humble abode, hence why Economos was stationed to surveil his house.
Flag Sr. and Bordeaux phone Economos, who spots Chris standing in front of his pocket dimension doorway. Flag Sr. decides to classify the situation as a priority one threat until they determine whether the Chris glitch results in another dimensional rift. Inside the portal dimension, Chris drunkenly stumbles through the room and punches the code back into the alt dimension as Foxy Shazam’s “Dreamer” plays in the background.
Inside the room once again, Chris gawks at the life his alternate dimension self appears to be having as a celebrated hero who, at one point, saved Gotham from an “ultra-humanite.” Unlike before, Chris’s window shopping of his alternate dimension self extends beyond the trophy room as he starts galavanting about the rest of the house, which looks more like a lavish mansion than the humble suburban house he currently lives in.
After making his way to the front yard, Chris gawks at a pickup truck in the driveway; Chris’ brother, Keith Smith (David Denman), emerges. Bewildered, Keith asks what Chris is doing home, inquiring if his matters at Blüdhaven have been sorted out. Seeing one’s dead brother all grown up would send anyone, much less Chris, into a tizzy. But after the two hug it out, and are joined by dear old dad, also wondering why Chris is home, and the dudes decide to throw a party.
At this point, the idea of leaving his old world behind for a second chance with his brother and father—who, in this version, don’t seem to be raging white supremacists (unless you’re a “knee-high imp”)—is as tempting to Chris as kryptonite is deadly to Superman. Elsewhere, Harcourt is getting harassed by dudes at a bar and shutting them down in typical Harcourt style. Beer bottles get smashed over some generous foreheads, balls get punched, and it’s safe to say feelings and orbital bones get hurt. Unfortunately for Harcourt, the numbers in her barroom brawl get the better of her, leading to her getting punted in the face and thrown outside.
Checking back in on Chris, the Smith patriarch stuns his befuddled son with an “I love you” before retreating to bed, leaving Chris and his brother alone while Chris is no doubt running the numbers on whether or not he should pull a page out of the doppleganger playbook of Jordan Peele’s Us and stay in the alternate dimension. Before he can think any further, Keith asks how things were with his ex. Reading the room, it’s clear that Harcourt is the ex, so at least we can figure that the grass isn’t as green on the other side of the pocket dimension either, at least when it comes to Chris’ love life. Still, Keith says Chris should try to win her back, whoever this (totally Harcourt) lady is, even if she’s with “some jarhead.”
Still keeping up the ruse that he’s this dimension’s Chris, Peacemaker nearly breaks down when he tells his brother he loves him, which his brother shrugs off with a laugh that he’s being too sentimental while drunk—not knowing all 251 pounds of Peacemaker can pack a lot of soft boy energy. While Chris is left weeping, we cut back to our dimension, where Economos is debriefing Adebayo about Peacemaker’s pocket dimension being a high-priority threat under the surveillance of Flag Sr. and his organization ARGUS (finally, a name, linking us back to Creature Commandos!).
And yes, Flag Sr. knows Chris killed his son, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), in The Suicide Squad. Since the end of season one, Economos says Flag Sr. has been watching Chris in the hopes that he will mess up on a grand scale, so he’d have a reason to arrest him (or worse) for the betterment of humanity. Which brings us back to the anomaly inside Chris’s house, likely triggered by his dimension hopping and whatever is going on with his doppleganger, who is using their room as a shared storage closet.
After accidentally airdropping a dick pic to Adebayo, they hatch a plan to have her ask Chris what’s up with his pocket dimension instead of ratting him out to Flag Sr. Back in the alternate dimension, Chris is walking around the decadent Smith house once more and gawking at his bedroom and posters of bands like Hanoi Rocks (spelled Hanoi Roxx) on his walls. I’m sure someone more tapped into music tastes can note whether it’s in character with Chris’ raucous rotation.
Here, it’s confirmed that alt-dimension Chris’ ex is, in fact, Harcourt, with the reveal of a vacation photo of them all booed up. But before Chris can continue to romanticize over how nice his life is here, he pulls a gun on himself. Or rather, the alt-dimension Chris finally shows up and threatens to exercise his Second Amendment right on the back of our Chris’s head.
Fortunately, or unfortunately for our Chris, this alt-dimension Chris is also a bit dense, wondering if our Chris is a shapeshifter. Alt-dimension Chris gives chase to our Chris, who tries to book it back to his dimension. Alt-dimension Chris activates “magic stars,” prompting the wings of his helmet to track Chris like heat-seeking missiles, scaring up his back as he tries to put the code back into their pocket dimension, where they do battle. After some rocket tackles into some expensive-looking columns, Alt-dimension Chris beats the brakes off our Chris. But before he can deliver the finishing blow, Chris activates Alt-Chris’ jetpack, causing him to get impaled on a spike in the ceiling, thus freeing me from having to type alt-dimension Chris ever again.
We’re left with a shot of Chris holding the limp body of himself, wondering whether he should continue the charade in the alternate dimension or leave it be. Chances are, he won’t, and we’ll have more fun witnessing how he handles trying to pull double duty in his dimension or if he’ll leave it all behind to continue the chicanery in the alternate dimension.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is, at this point, very clearly a series that is unafraid to dabble in its format on a regular basis. That can lead to episodes of Star Trek that don’t necessarily look or feel like what we expect of Star Trek, even if they still play with ideas and approaches that fit into what the franchise has done for generations now. This week’s Strange New Worlds definitely fits into both of those ideas, with an episode in a new format, an in-universe documentary, and an episode that tries to raise one of the oldest critiques of the franchise with one question: is Starfleet an organization of scientific inquiry or a martial tool of empire?
Unfortunately, this means this is an episode that wants to be two things at once… and ultimately spectacularly fails at being either.
“What Is Starfleet?” tells two stories at once. One is the Enterprise‘s mission to the Lutani—a non-Federation civilization which has requested aid in a conflict with their sister world, Kasar, through the transportation of a large spacefaring creature called a Jikaru, a giant part-whale, part-moth kind of psionically powerful sentient being for purposes unknown. It quickly becomes clear to the Enterprise crew that, despite their strict orders from Starfleet command, they have concerns about the Lutani’s treatment of the Jikaru and their intent for the creature in a war that they are in the process of losing badly. Although the story never explicitly details just how impactful the casualty figures of the Lutani/Kasar conflict are to their respective peoples, we are told that nine million Lutani had perished, to “just” 119,000 Kasar in comparison.
There is an interesting set of morals at play here that Strange New Worlds allows its vast swath of characters to come at from different angles, giving “What Is Starfleet?” a ton of potential. Ortegas is distrusting of working with the Lutani because the species purportedly supported the Klingons and raided Starfleet shipments during the Empire’s war with the Federation. Pike and Una bristle that Starfleet is giving them orders to follow without a fuller picture of the situation at hand. Spock and Uhura dislike having to follow these orders and instead hatch an alternate plan to find ways to communicate with the Jikaru itself. All this becomes an increasing dilemma when the Enterprise crew slowly discovers that the Jikaru is immensely powerful, that at least some Lutani object to their government’s plan for the creature, and eventually discovers that the Lutani have genetically engineered and mentally altered the Jikaru into essentially a sentient living weapon of mass destruction, one that realizes that it has been altered to think of only violence and death, while fearing that the same may happen to its children.
Eventually, as tension mounts and the Jikaru’s massive psionic outbursts threaten to potentially destroy the Enterprise before the crew can even morally reckon with the fact that a living creature-weapon has begged them to euthanize it, the Enterprise decides circumstances have evolved enough that Starfleet command’s initial orders can be challenged. Pike threatens the Lutani military with a very powerful enemy in the Federation if they do not allow Enterprise to escort the Jikaru to a nearby sun to immolate itself, and Starfleet moves to put the Jikaru’s home world under ecological protection to ensure that the Lutani cannot modify its children into similar results, seemingly inevitably leaving the Lutani to defeat and potentially genocide in their conflict with the Kasar.
All that sounds pretty good, and for the most part, it kind of is—getting to see individual elements of the Enterprise bridge crew wrestle with orders no one necessarily agrees with, for various different reasons, leads to some fascinating tension and friction. It touches on broader themes the episode wants to play around with that Star Trek itself has pondered in fits and starts for decades: questioning Starfleet’s role as a simultaneous exploratory scientific organization and a military force that can be tasked with either defending the Federation’s borders or intervening in non-Federation conflicts with impunity. What happens when those two halves of Starfleet have to be reconciled? Can they ever truly be?
Unfortunately, what I’ve just described is not the actual episode of Strange New Worlds that aired this week. The actual episode that aired is an incredibly poor documentary made by Ortegas’ brother, Beto (returning guest star Mynor Lüken), also called “What Is Starfleet?”, that has so little idea of what it’s ultimately trying to do that he should’ve looked at the footage in whatever the 23rd-century equivalent of an edit bay is, and decided to never let a member of the public see the shitshow he’s made.
“What Is Starfleet?”, both the Strange New Worlds episode and Beto’s creation as a filmmaker/journalist, is entirely in that documentary style, presented metatextually as if we are watching his work rather than an episode of Star Trek. Everything noted above about the Lutani mission is interwoven throughout camera footage from various sections and stations aboard Enterprise, or via Beto’s hoverdrone cameras. Either drone technology has not improved in a society where faster-than-light travel and near-instantaneous matter transportation exist, or Beto is deliberately going for a shaky-cam aesthetic to lend his documentary an air of cinéma-vérité, but regardless, he is an awful videographer, repeatedly shoving cameras way too close in people’s faces or capturing things at obtuse and overtly dramatic angles that make for an incredibly frustrating viewing experience.
Beto is also likewise an awful interviewer. Intercut through all the above are 1:1 interviews Beto conducts from behind camera with various members of the crew. Some are better than others, and occasionally make an interesting use of the editing format to convey the message Beto wants to convey (for better or worse, as we’ll get into). He contrasts interviews where Pike acknowledges the duty of Starfleet to uphold the values of the Federation, with candid footage of him bristling at command’s orders, or interviews with La’an where she discusses the necessity of security and the last-line option of being forced to engage in lethal conflict with footage of her in a slick, leather training uniform performing phaser-kata in a training drill. But overall Beto’s documentary suffers because he has put too much of himself into it for it to be considered as a challenging piece of investigative journalism into, as his opening narration frames it, whether or not the Federation is a diplomatic entity engaged in peaceful exploration of the galaxy or a colonizing empire with Enterprise as its flagship weapon of war.
But broadly the majority of the other interviews Beto conducts for “What Is Starfleet?” are at best probing to the point of a clear attempt to construct a pre-established argument—about 80% of his documentary, as haphazardly shot and constructed as it is, is clearly intended as an exposé of Starfleet as a nefarious, untrustworthy entity, masquerading warmongering militarism with a veneer of frontier diplomacy—and at worst deeply, personally invasive to his subjects. We cut from footage of Doctor M’Benga and Nurse Chapel failing to save the life of a Lutani scientist mortally wounded by the Jikaru after attempting to stop Enterprise from escorting it from its homeworld straight to an interview between Beto and M’Benga, where the former probes the latter about his military service in the Klingon-Federation war. Similarly, in his interview with Uhura—for who Beto has been introduced this season as a potential romantic interest—he cruelly surprises her with the revelation that one of the only friends she made at Starfleet Academy was killed in action aboard the U.S.S. Cayuga during the events of last season’s finale in an attempt to provoke a shock reaction, taking advantage of their closeness in the process.
Again and again throughout the bulk of “What Is Starfleet?” Beto establishes a very clear bias in his framing, with little in the way of real tangible evidence outside of the combative tone of leading questions, or the irritance he attempts to provoke by shoving his drones in everyone’s faces. It undercuts the valid question at the core of his argument about Starfleet’s conflicting duties and ideals for the audience, fictional or otherwise, because the documentary becomes less and less about that question, and more and more about why it seems that Beto wants to ask a question he apparently knows the answer to in the first place. Even though he is largely off camera throughout, “What Is Starfleet?” as a documentary makes its documentarian the subject—and although that is a perfectly reasonable approach for the medium in many ways, it almost certainly isn’t for a documentary made off of the back of what is believed by that documentarian to be investigative reporting aboard a perceived military warship.
It’s not helped then that around 80% of the way in, “What Is Starfleet?”—both the documentary and the episode—turns its vision on a dime. After Uhura communicates with the Jikaru and learns of its desire to be euthanized and the extent to which the Lutani have bioengineered it into a weapon, we see a stark sit-down between herself and Beto from an off-angle where she plainly tells him that he came into making this documentary angry and with a point to prove out of spite: he was mad that his sister joined Starfleet and left him behind, and he was mad that she got hurt in service of the organization that took her from him. Being told off, in combination with the Enterprise‘s decision to go against its initial orders and aid the Jikaru in killing itself, turns the final act of the documentary and episode into a noble celebration of Starfleet’s ideals. Actually everything’s fine, and Starfleet is very good, and at the end of the day, as chintzy interview narration from Uhura tells us as the documentary closes over shots of the Enterprise bridge crew sharing dinner in Pike’s quarters, the answer to “What Is Starfleet?” is the people that serve in it.
And with that, “What Is Starfleet?” fails to be both an effective documentary and an effective episode of Star Trek. Even putting aside that Beto’s anti-Starfleet bias came out of nowhere in this episode, despite his prior appearances, the result of the last-minute tonal change renders both the documentary and the episode’s potential critiques of Starfleet as an organization impotent. The documentary framing means the episode’s narrative around the Lutani mission is not given the chance to decompress and consider the emotional impact on any of our characters; they just get to be shown having a nice time and having dinner together. Given its metatextual existence as a documentary, Beto’s clarity of vision as a filmmaker is muddied into flip-flopping from one extreme to another, from hit piece to puff piece, because he got told off by a girl that he likes. If this were a real documentary, Beto changing his mind should’ve led to it being reconstructed in the edit process entirely—even to make the fact that he came into this process with a preconceived notion that was ultimately challenged and proved incorrect the narrative arc of the piece, if not just to avoid the final product looking like two fragments of two radically different documentaries.
“What Is Starfleet?”, both as an episode and as a documentary within the universe of Star Trek, ultimately has no idea what it actually wants to say about the question that Star Trek has tried to wrangle with for over half a century at this point. And if that was going to be the case, then maybe Beto should’ve killed his story before it ever got on air.
If The Last of Us has taught us anything, so far, it’s this: love can conquer anything in the mushroom apocalypse, except the mushroom monsters themselves. Joel learned this lesson the hard way, first with his daughter Sarah’s death on Day Zero, and most recently with Tess’s explosive exit in Boston. Now, it’s Ellie’s turn to learn the lesson.
Enter: “Left Behind,” round seven of HBO’s The Last of Us, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s riveting adaptation of the iconic video game. We previously heard the tale of how Bella Ramsey’s Ellie sustained the bite wound that should have killed her, but instead identified her as mankind’s best hope against the fungal apocalypse. Now, we’ve seen that moment for ourselves, the tragic climax of a beautifully tragic episode of television.
Before dipping into the past, The Last of Us kicks right back into where we left off. An injured Joel has fallen off his horse and onto his back, seemingly lost to the world.
But despite the episode’s title, there’s no way Ellie is leaving Joel behind. She Ellie lugs her rugged companion to a nearby house. He’s conscious, but still badly wounded; even in his present state, Joel knows would be better off racing back to Tommy and finding safety in Jackson. With his close-to-dying breaths, Joel tries to save Ellie’s life. Instead, he only reminds her of the last time a loved one left her behind.
The rest of the episode flashes back to a few weeks before we first met Ellie in the confines of a Firefly safe house. Before encountering Marlene and the other rebels, Ellie was a student enrolled in a FEDRA boarding school, learning the dictatorship playbook straight from the source. As expected, Ellie doesn’t exactly fit in. She’s getting into fights with her fellow students, and receiving disciplinary action after disciplinary action as a result. After Ellie gets into yet another blowup, a higher-up at the school named Kwong (Terry Chen) tries a different tactic: appealing to her inner fascist directly.
“No matter what anyone out there says or thinks, we’re the only ones holding this thing together,” says Kwong, without any hint of irony. “There’s a leader in you, and one day, it could be your turn.”
Bella Ramsey.By Liane Hentscher/HBO.
Ellie takes the words to heart, but only for a few hours. Late in the night, she’s awakened by a familiar face: her best friend, Riley (played by another HBO repertory player, Euphoria’s Storm Reid). Missing for several weeks now, Riley reemerges with some news: she’s living out her and Ellie’s teenage rebel dreams of working with the Fireflies, and she has a gun to prove it. She also has an offer for Ellie: “Come with me for a few hours, and have the best night of your life.”
Riley and Ellie sneak their way into an abandoned building, finding a dead body and some leftover booze. As they buzz past the corpse and through the rooftops, Riley tells Ellie all about Marlene and the other Fireflies. Ellie tells Riley that FEDRA may not be so bad after all; Riley shoots that rhetoric down swiftly, and it doesn’t come up again.
There’s no sense in debating politics when the best date night ever is on the line. Riley takes Ellie to a shopping center called the Liberty Gardens mall, widely thought to be sealed off by FEDRA, but actually still operational if only you know where to look. Riley lights the place up, and the whole establishment roars to life, the two teens along with it.
