ent s3e18 azati prime + s3e19 damage

what a pair of episodes! it’s been a bit since enterprise’s had me this hooked.

we got to see daniels again! was cool seeing the enterprise-j and such. i was sad watching archer go to sacrifice himself to destroy the weapon even though i knew he’d be fine because he has the world’s strongest plot armor. we got so many good character moments!! trip and t’pol, hoshi and travis, archer and t’pol, archer and trip, t’pol and phlox. the desperation, being just moments away from not only the ship being destroyed, but all of earth if the mission failed… GREAT STUFF!!

the reveal of t’pol’s trellium addiction makes so much sense. she was first exposed to it when on her old ship, seeing her old comrades dead or basically turned to zombies. it had to have been traumatic. she left everything behind, her job, her family, her planet, her people to serve alongside people who always saw her as an outsider. she said it gave her new emotions, she blended in better with the humans. it’s as though she was trying to kill her past self, go all in on the new reality. maybe it was a kind of self harm at first, we know she carries guilt from her actions during her time in intelligence. maybe she thinks she should have died on that ship. it’s all very tragic, i hope it gets better for her now that she’s told phlox about it. (honestly given the circumstances i’m surprised there aren’t more crew members with drug addictions)

archer’s continued descent into immorality is fascinating. as t’pol said, he did the exact thing he swore he would never do. he is no better than those marauders. those people probably did all die, but what’s one research vessel to a whole planet? travis said that he was using self sacrifice as penance for everything he’d done. and that would be easier, to get what was coming to him, to not have to kill anyone else, to leave the ship to someone else, but the galaxy demands he live. trip, who always had the stronger moral compass, being the one to tell the captain he did the right thing is so interesting. even reed, trigger happy and infallibly loyal, questioned archer on this. i wonder whether trip actually believed that, or if he was just trying to take some of the burden off his friend’s shoulders.