Hardline Dill (ENT S2E7)

Here's to the finest crew in starving.

When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.

This is a parody.

Paramount owns the song.

Welcome to The Greatest Generation.

It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica.

I'm Ben Harrison.

We talked about pickles.

It's actually kind of a while back now on the show that we talked about pickles.

I think months ago.

We were talking about Grillos.

Uh-huh.

What else did we say about pickles?

Do you remember?

I don't.

I don't at all.

Anyway.

I don't remember this conversation or many conversations, really.

It inspired my childhood best friend, Michael Hoffman.

He doesn't care at all about Star Trek, but he listens to the beginning of our show sometimes.

And he caught that and sent us each a jar of pickles.

And I thought

we should honor that pickle conversation by trying these out on the show today.

Is it your thinking that this is going to be a recurring segment?

A pickle marin?

If you will?

Do you like pickles?

I think they stink.

Are these kosher?

I love pickle.

Pickles!

Pickles!

Conspiculously crunchy!

Pickles on the side.

I'm crazy about

it.

I'll say rock and fly a pickle.

How about two cents?

Okay.

Who wants a pickle?

Pickles!

I want a pickle!

Pickles!

Pickle johnny!

Everybody wants to open a pickle john!

I don't hate the idea of a pickle, Marin.

I feel like that could be a thing on the game of buttholes if we could find a way to like tie it back into the show.

I have very specific pickle tastes and and pickle disinterests.

Yeah, you're not a you you eschew the sweet pickle in my

forms.

Even in like a like a like a daikon radish at a at a Korean restaurant form.

No, no, I like those.

I think that's fun.

I guess what I'm saying is like I'm totally down to eat a bunch of pickles on our show.

But if this starts getting into like, all pickles are good pickles, let's celebrate the pickle, let's enjoy sweets as well as dills or whatever, I might just quit the show.

I couldn't do that.

Yeah.

I'm a hardline dill.

I like a bread and butter pickle on like a hamburger or whatever.

Because I don't usually put ketchup.

So that can be like the one little bit of sweet in my, in my flavor palette on my burger sometimes.

Yeah, I don't know.

That doesn't work for me.

When you go to Chicago, do you not get the neon relish on your dog?

I do, but the offset that the sport pepper and the celery salt and all the rest of it does to that, it kind of knocks down that aspect in a way that works for me.

Yeah,

I don't know how to play this because I'm so used to being the one with the toxic food takes that

nobody wants to be anywhere near that like when you have such an obviously wrong food take, I'm a little bit at sea.

Yeah, I think it might surprise you how many FODs feel the way I do

in comparison to how many FODs ever feel the way you do about a food take.

But Ben, for the longest time, I thought you had stolen my jar of pickles, pickles sent from your childhood friend, Michael Hoffman, a friend who I also have a text relationship with, who texted me separate from you to say, hey, has Ben given you the pickles that I sent?

And I was like, hey, Michael, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Ben didn't say shit.

So I've been harboring a kind of like, what the fuck, Ben, have you done with our pickles kind of resentment over the last few weeks?

And I'm really glad that we're able to make it right.

In my defense, they just showed up at my house and I didn't, you know, it was just two jars of pickles in a box.

And I was like, oh, these must be some delicious pickles for me.

And there was no communication of give the other half of that to Adam.

Sure.

I'm the one that gets in trouble when foodstuffs are left on my porch that I just consume without question.

Look at you.

Oh, these are all for me.

They got to be.

No mistakes here.

I saved the second jar just in case you didn't get a similar shipment.

That was right to do.

And I recently transmitted it to you.

So this shipment came to you without a note, without anything.

It was a box with two jars of pickles in it.

It was a box with two jars of pickles from the company that sells these pickles.

Epic pickles out of York, Pennsylvania.

Did we get different kinds?

I got garlic dills.

Yeah, that's what I got as well.

I got a note about the name.

This seems like some real modern Edge Lord.

Kick you in the dick pickles.

Like, pickles so pickly, it'll fuck your shit up.

Like,

when you call something epic and then out of the other side of the mouth, you categorize them as mild

garlic dills.

We'll just see what you got in the jar here, Epic Pickle Company.

Yeah.

Well, I think we should give these a try and see if they live up to the name.

One time, Michael Hoffman sent me a selection of peanut butters from his favorite peanut butter company.

And I was like,

I called him up and I was like, holy shit, I have never tasted peanut butter like this.

What the fuck i didn't know that it could be this this way

and neither is your dog and he was like congratulations now you will only ever want to buy 11 jars of peanut butter and damn i then went to the website of the company that made that peanut butter and sure enough uh a kingly sum asked for a jar of that peanut butter the first hit is free ben one observation i have about this jar of pickles is that it is absolutely full of stuff yeah you look at the brine and it's got whole garlic cloves in it.

It's got peppercorns.

It's got leafy herbs, which I'm going to guess is dill.

Yeah, it's got the seeds of

the cucumbers.

I like saving my pickle juice for other pickles.

Yeah.

Like you can fix a pickle that you don't like by sticking them in juice that you do.

I've found this out through experimentation.

My wife's mother keeps pickled brine that she got from like a pickle place in the Lower East Side, like one of those pull the pickles out of a big wooden barrel on the sidewalk kind of places.

And she gets, you know, regular ass store pickles and puts them in that brine.

They taste great.

The mother brine.

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense.

Also, you know this.

Maybe some FODs don't.

Marinate your chicken in pickle brine.

Especially before breading and frying it.

It's a fantastic thing to do to your your poultry products.

All right, I'm pulling out a wedge.

I'm going to pop it on Mike.

Oh.

That's satisfying, right?

Yeah.

I thought this was full of spears, but look at, did you get this on top?

Yeah, there's a little handful of chips on top.

You could make like one hamburger with the amount of chips you get.

What is this, a hamburger for ants?

You're going spear.

I'm going to go chip.

Okay.

Le Chaim.

Cheers.

That is a nice pickle.

The flavor's there.

I like the flavor.

No crunch, though.

You're not getting

it.

I got good crunch on my spear.

Maybe I gotta get a spear instead of the little disc.

Oh, yeah, the disc is less crunchy.

All right, I'm gonna go for a spear.

I wonder why that is.

Yeah.

Spear is crunchy.

The chip is not.

What a nice gift this was.

Our thanks to Michael Hoffman.

If you would like to send us pickles, and by now, I think you're fairly certain of what our specific pickle tastes are.

I'll eat anything.

Bring it on.

Get in the DMs.

Contact Bill Tilly.

And if you are so generous,

maybe send some jars to Bill and Wendy and Rob and all the rest.

I think.

That would be tremendous.

I don't want to make any of our production team feel bad for missing out on pickle time.

Yeah.

Adam, we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle on today's episode.

Do you want to get into season two, episode seven of Star Trek Enterprise?

It's called The Save All

TePaul is just up late reading.

What do you think this is?

Do you think this is like a novel or is this like Sorak talking about the foundations of logic or some shit?

Vulcan hentai is just a bunch of symbols going into the holes of other symbols, you know?

Oh, yeah.

Like typography nerds really get off on this.

Like, I'm sure there's a name for like, you know, the G that's, that's not like circle and hook.

It's like circle and lasso underneath.

Right, right.

How you want to just put an I in that lasso, don't you?

Oh, I've heard that Klingons get particularly horny around that one because they're seeing two holes you know i mean you want to you want to take a capital h stick it in that lowercase g

you know you know what i'm talking about yeah really spread that lowercase g out you know that's typeface action isn't it

yeah you like that lowercase g don't you you know lower lowercase g put its ass in the air presenting

No one likes getting interrupted during reading time, Ben.

No, it's extremely annoying.

You're trying to wind down for the day and

you're clearly, clearly like in getting ready to go to sleep mode.

And somebody hails you and is like, what are we doing about, you know,

picking that stuff up at the hardware store tomorrow?

Who's going to go?

And he's like, oh, do we have to plan this right this fucking second?

Anyways, this is a...

a lady on the phone who

tells TePaul that they've located Mainos.

Mainos is less than three days from their current location, and TePaul is very interested in this news and would like to be reassured that they're positive that this is Mainos.

Holy shit.

The Mainos?

Oh!

Oh, man.

That's exciting, you know?

You know, in certain cultures and languages, they just call him hands.

That's like a fun gangster name you know like uh like if you were in goodfellas you'd get like Johnny two times and then you'd get Hans right yeah because he would be he'd be the guy who stole stuff sure or he'd cut off people's hands that's probably better isn't it I like that Simpsons character Hans Moleman

I do too.

Who doesn't?

He's good, right?

Drinking has ruined my life.

That's our cold open.

That's all we get for the cold open.

And when we come back, TePaul approaches Archer, who is like, I've never noticed this part of the captain's mess, but there's like a, there's like a single, you know?

Like most restaurants have like two tops and four tops.

And then like, if they have a bigger group, they'll push a couple of four tops together or whatever.

They don't usually have the

oneers, you know,

for the lonely guys that want to come in and have a nice restaurant meal and read a book.

That's a pretty exciting idea, the idea of the single seat out in the middle of the restaurant.

I mean, it's obvious that's what the bar is for, but God, what a flex.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He is having his breakfast toast in there, and she comes in and she's like, hey, so your boss is going to call you about a thing.

And when he does, he's going to tell you that I need a shuttle pod and a pilot, and I'm going to be off the ship for three to five days.

So this is just me warning you that that is going to happen.

The most interesting thing about this scene to me is the power imbalance.

Who has the power in this scene and how it gets traded in the conversation?

Because the scene starts with that energy of like a kid telling a parent the principal is going to call you about something that happened at school.

So be ready to hear this.

But instead, it turns into the energy of like, I know more than you, the captain of the ship I serve on, and you should expect that this is going to come.

And also, everything that I tell you isn't really an option.

You need to permit me these supplies and the time to do this thing.

This is not something that Archer finds agreeable, I think, emotionally on any level.

He is such a little bitch about FOMO.

In this scene, he wants to know everything.

Where are you going, Tipal?

Why can't I go?

You're talking to Admiral Forrest without me?

What are you talking about?

After so many trust-building moments between these two characters, a really

blunt reminder that she is also sort of a babysitter.

While she is technically under him in the rank structure of the ship, she is there to keep an eye on him.

And when the Vulcans...

tell Admiral Forrest to jump, Admiral Forrest is going to ask how high 10 times out of 10.

And that trickles down on Archer.

And yeah, she's like very tight-lipped about this it's a matter of security is as far as she'll go in describing what she's even going to be doing and he is clearly very hurt thanks for being so enlightening

dismissed we cut over to a mclaughlin group issue one it's a strange mclaughlin group because nobody has been read in on what this highly classified mission even is like archer didn't get much more from admiral forrest than he got from TePaul, it seems like.

So he's just telling the crew, like, yeah, so

TePaul is going to be off the ship for three to five days, and we've got to park it in this one star system and figure out what to do with the time.

Must have been a really difficult decision to let the Admiral Forrest footage hit the cutting room floor.

Anytime you have the chance to include sexual icon,

Starfleet Admiral Forrest, you got to believe that you want to do it.

Von Armstrong is a name that I could see being that of a hunk of the year type, you know.

Especially if it's spelled V-O-N.

I feel like that's sturdier, more turgid.

Yeah, so they discuss a few different ideas for what to do with the time, and Mayweather finds out he's going to be the pilot on this one.

Did you get your hopes up here for anything at all that might be Mayweather related?

Any aspect that would help us get to know this valued crewman?

It would have been an interesting version of the episode if it had just been TePaul and Mayweather doing the A story and having to talk to each other about it at all.

I mean,

not to cut to the end,

but like, if this episode begins with TePaul's feelings about offing a guy during a mission when Mayweather's got to do that.

Yeah.

I would have loved that.

It would have been a very interesting version.

Cold weather gear, restraints, phase pistols.

That's all anyone knows about the sort of mission ahead.

Like, you know, there's like the screenwriting advice of like throw away the first 15 pages you wrote and start the movie there.

This kind of felt like that, you know, like to Paul saying what she's going to need for the mission would have been a really fun place to drop in at.

Well put.

Yeah.

Because like we already know that Archer's big mad about this, and that's what the next scene is about also.

It's just Archer sitting in his quarters being a sulking little baby and TePaul coming in and confronting him about that.

It's the way that he's mad that I have a really hard time with.

Like,

no one is surprised that the Vulcan High Command keeps information close to the vest.

To the robe.

Need-to-know basis is really what they're all about.

Right.

I don't get what Archer thinks he's achieving by making TePaul feel bad about the circumstances that everyone has already agreed with.

Like, this is the way things are.

Yeah.

I'm with you, Ben.

A lot of people don't think things be the way that they are, but they do.

Anyways, yeah, she talks to him a little bit about the backstory here.

She used to be a security officer way before she was a science officer.

And

there is a place called Agoron that is like a planet that the Vulcans are now pals with, but that wasn't always so.

Because when the Vulcans first met the people of Agoron, their society was super corrupt and they like contracted with the Vulcan security services to infiltrate all of the corrupt aspects of their society and like decoruptify them so that they could get their shit together as a society.

Which is kind of like a concept that we've heard before, right?

Like the episode where they picked up that Vulcan ambassador and she was super chill, Fenula Flanagan.

Yeah.

Tepal seems to have lived many past lives.

This may or may not have been the mission where she learned how to dodge, dodge, roll.

I was expecting to see some of that this episode.

I love a dodge, dodge, roll.

Yeah.

But, anyways, like the it was like hundreds of agents that were dispersed throughout the society with their Star Trek loaf alterations so that they would blend in.

Yeah.

And they all eventually were disinfiltrated and went back to the Vulcan homeworld except for a handful of holdouts.

That's such a fucking scrabble word.

Like

I'm going to put dis in front of infiltrated.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on.

I challenge.

That's a word, right?

There were a couple of people that held out and became fugitives.

And TePaul was in charge of rounding up six of these people who decided not to be Vulcans anymore, but to continue their assumed identities as Agaronians, I guess.

Hmm.

Agorites?

Who knows?

She got five of the people she was supposed to grab.

This is the sixth that she is going to go get, and she would like Archer to tag along for the mission secretly because she feels like she needs someone that she can trust on this one.

And it ain't Mayweather.

Just like being back in the war.

Who are you?

Inside Travis Mayweather.

Parents must be very proud.

When I was a kid, we called it the sweet spot.

Who are you?

I'm the helmsman.

I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages.

And your mom, very proud.

That's true.

It takes practice.

Other than keeping Inson Mayweather up at night, I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here.

Does this moment in some way

make Archer's negging

work out

because on the heels of all of the shit that he has thrown at her, for her to go like, I'm gonna need you on this one, Cap.

I'd prefer it if you were involved, because I trust you.

After being an absolute dick to him

throughout, it just,

I don't know, I don't know, Ben.

It makes me bang my head against the wall, is what it does.

And I'm wondering if after seeing a polo ball being manipulated in this scene, you aren't up for banging your head against the wall

when we play another game of polo.

Come on.

Polo?

Come on.

Or boyo.

I told you.

Best sport in the world.

One part basketball, one part swimming,

and one part wrestling.

I didn't know it was such a rough game.

Oh man, I didn't even see that coming.

I guess it makes sense.

There was water polo on screen in this episode.

Very exciting sport.

We should learn more about it.

It's the hit trivia game within a podcast fan that asks one simple question.

Are we talking about polo the water sport?

Pollo the chicken?

Or polio the disease?

In a special fun variation on the theme.

Ben, I will ask you three questions.

Okay.

Each question will have an answer.

That answer will be either polo, pollo, or polio.

This feels like it's going to be easy, just for the record.

I'm putting that up top.

Listen to your confidence as the guy who has biffed every single game of this that we've ever played.

Let us begin.

First question: Which of these is most associated with the post-Cereal Company?

Polo, the water sport,

Poyo, the chicken, or polio, the disease.

Mmm, okay.

So, like, I'm trying to remember if Weedies ever had

a water polo person on the box, and also whether that's a post or like a general mills.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Oh,

you know, I'm thinking about, like, crusting a chicken breast in cereal and, you know, making a

Wiener Schnitzel kind of thing out of that.

What do do you call it?

Thrusty breasts.

Millonese.

Yeah.

Love them.

Uh-huh.

Or polio.

I mean, this is a, you know, transnational organization.

Maybe they had some kind of like health thing, the initiative that they did back in the day, back before.

Through vaccines, we beat an entire disease.

What a concept.

All reasonable possible answers.

I'm just stuck on the idea of using a breakfast cereal as a breading.

Because I do it with like crunched up pretzels sometimes, but...

Oh,

I've never dipped breasts in pretzels.

You gotta try it.

Which is what you're saying that you enjoy doing.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I'm gonna go with boy.

Wrong!

The answer is polo, Ben, because the Post family, all of them, were major polo enthusiasts and patrons of the sport.

No kidding.

Yeah, how about that?

Emily and all the rest of them?

All the rest.

Question two.

The Hawaiian style of this gained popularity in the 1950s.

Okay.

The answer possibilities are polo, the water sport,

hoyo, the chicken.

or

the disease known as polio.

Hmm.

I mean like tiki culture was ascendant in the 50s, so I could see, like, some kind of Hawaiian preparation of chicken being

something that went along with that.

But I feel like that's just like teriyaki or something.

And while the Hawaiian people are excellent at water sports, what with their invention of surfing, I don't feel like there's a great way of like

sectioning off the ocean in a way that would engender like a

sport the way water polo is played.

I'm gonna say, you just tying yourself in knots.

Like the disease underwent some kind of metamorphosis that was originally endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and then got out.

Right,

like an iron lung with like an outboard little float next to it.

Which is an iron lung painted with like beautiful tropical flowers.

Hey, that's gonna help you feel better, right?

So I'm going polio.

Raw!

Damn it!

What?

The answer is polio, Ben, referring to teriyaki-style chicken.

It was teriyaki chicken?

Yeah, you should have gone with your first instinct on that one.

I thought that the Japanese had invented that.

Yeah, not the case in my research.

Okay, wow.

Which was extensive.

Okay.

Final question, Ben.

This activity was most popular in the summertime.

Are we talking about playing polo the water sport, eating pollo the chicken,

or catching polio the disease?

Well, I mean, I think a lot of people caught polio the disease from swimming pools, so...

Could be that.

Eating chicken.

I mean, cookouts, fried chicken.

I I mean, it does feel like a summery pursuit.

The only way that, like, dark meat is like stews and steaks.

And, like, you know, sitting inside a dark room with a white tablecloth kind of a vibe.

Sitting inside an iron lung, getting down on a plate of chicken.

Yeah.

I feel like when I see water polo, it's always being played inside.

Uh-huh.

Like into indoor pool kind of energy.

So.

I think I'm going to go polio again.

I'm going to the judges here.

Okay.

Okay.

Six of them are nodding yes.

Ben, you are correct.

Wow.

You've gotten an answer right.

Peak polio season was in the summer, and it was often spread in public swimming pools.

Yeah.

So, catching polio.

Very popular.

Correct answer by Benjamin R.

Harrison, which means he has answered correctly one out of the three questions in

today's game of Polo Folio

or Folio.

I didn't know it was such a rough game.

I told you it was going to be easy as fuck.

I believe that's your best score ever.

Easy as fuck.

Yeah.

Anyways, Archer agrees to go on this mission, even though she won't tell him much more about it.

We learned from her that Manos

became rich

because his job was to infiltrate like a smuggling operation that specifically was smuggling weaps.

Gotta have weaps, he's the key.

And specifically bio-weapons.

Now he's super rich, and he's used all of his vast wealth to try to stay a couple of steps ahead of the Vulcan security people that would really love to grab him and bring him back in.

She got really close to nabbing him one other time, and it was on Risa.

Do you feel like with the lifespan of Vulcans, the statute of limitations on some crimes is just fucking crazy?

Like add a zero to whatever they are in our culture.

Yeah, that's only fair.

Yeah.

In a corridor on the way to the shuttle pod, Archer throws the keys to the ship to trip.

It's like, hey, you're the acting captain now.

Look at you.

And anything,

even remotely associated with this mission, you can't tell anyone.

Do not tell anyone what's going on here.

And it's not like Trip even knows enough to say.

Yeah.

He's just as in the dark as anyone who would ask.

I do feel like that has to

undergird some of Trip's inability to act running through the rest of the episode, right?

Like, not really being sure where he stands as he's being left in charge feels very unmooring.

And

we head down to this planet, and it's a snow planet, and we're in a bar.

First place you go on snow planet, it's almost always bar,

and it's full of all kinds of rowdy, loafy aliens.

They're poking around for this guy that they're there to chase.

And Mayweather just kind of gets left to watch the door in the hopes that that's the only way out of this criminal's hang.

I mean, you sort of forget about Mayweather a number of times this episode in a way that is unfortunate.

I mean, I think it's good here because of the way this scene unfolds.

Like, they're starting to look for him, and DePaul sees his reflection in a thing.

And I thought there was really good choreo when, like, she turns around, and then there's this kind of shuffle where people are bumping into her, and

he disappears and is like hiding under tables and stuff.

This is a restaurant that is absolutely full of loafy aliens and Bruce Davison.

Like, there is no, you know how sometimes like it's been fashionable to have like a giant hood and not just a useful hood for weather?

Sure.

There is no hood size big enough to cover up a Bruce Davison and obscure him

in a way that's effective, to keep him hidden in a place like this.

Yeah, he really stands out like a sore thumb.

Yeah.

There's a lot of shuffling about and him getting lost in what is not a very big crowd, but I thought they did a great job of making it very

plausible that they were losing track of him in this room.

It feels like a very full restaurant.

Yeah.

Archer like jumps up on a table to get a better view of the of the space and gunfire breaks out and all kinds of chaos is going off in this restaurant.

And it is Mayweather, who we've forgotten back over by the door, who slips into the crowd and grabs Bruce Davison and gets him down.

They cuff him and perp walk him out of there.

And that's the end of the episode, Ben.

Great success.

Yay!

I'm wondering what's going on on Enterprise.

Absent its captain and first officer.

We find out out in the

dining room, the captain's dining room, where Trip Tucker is acting like a kid who got left home alone for the first time.

He has invited Dr.

Flox and Reed to eat with him, and they can get anything they want.

Trip Tucker has gone ahead and ordered for them, though.

Yeah.

Bangers and mash for you, and Denobulin sausage for the doctor.

Very nice.

He got them beers.

That's fun, right?

He wanted them to watch some some water polo with them

and it's a very uneasy hang like do you ever see the lonely island video just two guys and we're having a good time yeah who invited steve that dude's a gun we're just two guys who are having a good time that's the energy here they are not quite sure what to do with their arms these are not people that just go hang out with each other on a regular basis yeah i mean god imagine inviting reed to any hang at this point

fox tells Tripp about this virus that he's detected circulating on board.

He'd like to inoculate the whole crew.

Tripp's a little bit of an anti-vaxxer, so he's not ready to just give a full-throated endorsement to this plan.

Because the side effects are

injection site discomfort and explosive diarrhea.

Oh, I thought that that was the side effects of the disease.

I was like, yeah, like let's fucking for sure inoculate against the poops.

that is not how i read that scene yeah so he chooses against certain diarrhea yeah in a way i kind of understand i'd hate to be responsible for giving the crew the

runs okay that makes more sense to me i thought that this was just him being like completely unable to make even the smallest most obvious choice but uh yeah because it because it's like i don't want to make a call on that i don't want to make a call on whether we're powering down the warp core to recalibrate the torpedoes.

I mean, that seems like an easy no in retrospect because like who gives a shit about anything we do with the torpedoes?

They don't work.

Let me get back to you is the refrain that Trip Tucker has for all requests of this type.

Yeah.

Hoshi lets him know that the Vulcans are very keen to speak to Archer, and yeah, he just keeps kicking.

Every can he comes across gets kicked down the road.

I don't hate this, especially with how little information he has about anything.

This is a poor job of delegation by Captain Archer here before he leaves.

Sure.

He really didn't empower his employee to do anything.

Set him up for failure, is what I think he did.

Either he completely empowered Trip or he didn't empower him at all.

Like, it doesn't really feel like it's been well defined.

And back on the planet, after the most successful fugitive pursuit in history, they have taken this guy to the Harbormaster.

The Harbormaster looks over their paperwork and is like, Yes, you do have the legal authority to extraordinary rendition this guy off-planet.

Unfortunately, we just started de-icing the landing pad, and it's coated in acid, and that acid won't neutralize for the next four hours.

So you better hang out.

And they're like, well, what about our prisoner?

And he's like, not my problem, guys.

Ben, this is like,

you know, sometimes you watch Family Feud and one of the questions is like, how did they even have

eight top answers to a question like this?

Right.

Like for the question, how do you keep TePaul, Mayweather, Archer, and their fugitives stuck on this planet?

I feel like if I had guessed, cover the launch pad with acid,

you would get buzzed.

There's no fucking way that's one of the top eight answers.

And yet, this made the list.

Yeah.

Blocked in by much larger spacecraft?

Yeah.

Show me.

Show me a mechanical issue with shuttle pod.

Can't take off.

Show me exorbitant docking fee that was not advertised at the beginning.

Show me.

Everyone in the bar recently inoculated with the vaccine that Dr.

Flox mentions up up on the ship and is now sick with diarrhea and can't travel.

See, that's a long one.

That's like a big double height.

Yeah, you can see it on the board that that's a really big answer.

Good answer.

It makes a whooshing sound when it rolls over.

So they're like, okay, we're going to take him back to the bar and like tie him up.

And there's this kind of offhand comment about

how this guy works alone.

And suddenly we're in this weird yellow flashback, kind of like picklebrine-colored flashback to Paul chasing this dude, Manus.

We see effects choices

related to memory all the time.

Lots of fun colors and transitions and music and

treatments given.

Where does

Through Picklebrian

measure to you

as a way to convey confusion or the accuracy of a memory or whatever?

Because by calling attention to this, what I'm saying is you see this effect very rarely in a way that makes me suspicious.

Right.

Like, I don't know that we can trust any of this, right?

Like, it kind of in a Star Trek context, it could be like weird simulation.

Like,

kind of reminds me of like Tom Parris remembering doing a murder over and over again in that way.

Riker abducted by clicker aliens.

Are you referring to when he got skishmed?

I am, yeah.

Yeah, it's a very specific effect, not the sepia tone

memory of just a regular ass memory.

Yeah.

Faith of the fart.

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If you're enjoying Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek, but you haven't dipped into our other hip program, Wholesome, you're only getting part of what we do.

That's because on Wholesome, me and Ben and Adam Ragusia talk about all kinds of things that make us happy.

With each episode being hosted by one of us where we share what we're enjoying at the moment and have a conversation about all the little ways it makes our lives better.

With topics about movies, neighbors, ice cream, mid-TV.

It's a weekly dose of good vibes every Wednesday and you can get it at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

So listen to wholesome.

Maybe it'll inspire you to share something that you think is wholesome wholesome with your friends.

Every Wednesday at patreon.com/slash wholesome underscore pod.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

And you will never take the greatest gym alive.

Ben would rather die.

Rather die.

So they're talking to Mainos back in the bar, and he's like, I'm not a smuggler.

I'm a nice guy.

I'm a family man.

Like, the only reason I'm getting arrested right now is because the Vulcans can't handle one Vulcan not wanting to like do their Vulcan bullshit anymore.

Can you blame me for running?

I just wanted to live a different life and like that shouldn't be a crime.

I at one time worked with bad people, but I don't anymore.

Yeah.

I'm fine now.

Not only that, I'm a girl dad.

Tin ma'am.

Check out the enormous hollow puck.

of pictures that I keep on my person

every single day.

And like they reach in and pull out this puck.

This puck is like an ashtray

in a Vegas bar, like in the 60s or something.

It is absolutely enormous.

Extra, extra big.

Yeah.

This is the sort of thing you want to wear in a chest pocket to protect you from a bullet.

Maybe it does double duty as that, you know?

Yeah.

It's got pictures of his family and a digital copy of the Bible.

He does that thing where he's describing describing his job, but he's describing his job in a way that makes you feel sorry for him.

Like, yeah, you know, all I do is traffic in spent warp injector casings, and you know what exposure to those do over the long term.

And he kind of looks off into the middle distance like, oh, geez, guy, really?

Wow.

You don't meet a lot of aged injector casing haulers is a thing that is sad.

It's like, what?

What are we talking about here?

I'm supposed to retire retire this year.

I got my last haul coming up, and then I get to go home to these sweeties.

Hopefully, I don't have too much ionizing radiation damage that I won't be able to at least make it to their 18th birthdays.

He does that thing, like, with the story, though, which is like he does not

say that what TePaul is describing him as isn't true or wasn't true at one point.

Like, look, they told me to go home.

I didn't go home.

I understand that's bad, but that's all I'm guilty of.

And Tepal

cannot deal with this.

To say that she's like bad copying in this scene, I think is accurate because, like, she goes at him with a knife, and you think she's going to like bury that knife.

in his birdie or something, but no, she's like slashing at some seatbelt material and wraps it around her boots because evidently the straps on these seatbelts are acid-proof and by wrapping her boots in this material she goes out into the cold walking on the acid covered runway

heading for Manos's ship which she believes to be filled with weapons everybody knows that seatbelts are acid proof you know yeah that's like the main thing about seatbelt restraints yeah and she goes like She gets right on board his ship.

She must have jimmied the lock or something.

I think this is the sort of planet you just leave your shuttle unlocked on.

Yeah, yeah.

It just seems like a nice place.

Yeah, and so she's like in there and she's like remembering more of this, of this memory.

And there's some like, there's some scenes where it kind of seems like she's like being held down on a table and getting like attacked or assaulted or something.

Yeah.

It's getting scarier and weirder.

But she just like finds a bunch of barrels of

spent warp injector casings on this ship.

She's thorough, too.

She doesn't just like open the trunks and see a top level of these casings.

Like, she grabs a piece of metal and kind of stirs around

in these boxes.

I like that detail.

Yeah, it's like when like the loaf of bread is delivered to the prison, they cut it in a few places to make sure that a file wasn't baked into the middle of it.

Oh, she is so disappointed.

Yeah.

Like, as emotive as TePaul could ever be.

That's what she is here.

She gets this name in one of the memories, Josin.

And it's Mainos yelling to Josin.

We don't know what this means.

And we cut up to the entrepreneur where Trip and Hoshi are having a conversation about

what do the Vulcans know about us?

Like, he's asking a bunch of questions like, has this guy been to Earth?

Has he ever seen a picture of Captain Archer?

Is he going to buy this?

Because Trip is dressed up in a captain's uniform with captain's pips and is going to attempt to give this Vulcan captain the impression that he is, in fact, Captain Archer, because it is now weird that he hasn't responded to the hails of this Vulcan ship.

Love Trip Tucker wearing a four-pip uniform here.

Yeah.

Oh, Captain, my captain.

It's pretty great.

It turns out that this urgent message that the Vulcan captain was supposed to get to Captain Archer from Admiral Forrest at Fleet Command is that Cal beat Stanford 7-3.

Do you think that that's in polo or is that in football?

That's a great question, Ben, because it is now time to play our second round of...

Come on.

Now,

we can't do another one.

Those are growing more and more difficult to create.

I don't envy the challenge you've made for yourself.

There is just not a lot of polo trivia to be had.

Well, there's plenty of polio trivia.

Sure is.

Trip gets off the phone real quick, and we cut back to the planet, and TePaula is back from her jaunt across the Assidi landing pad with the bad news that Mainos may not be fibbing about just being a lowly injector hauler.

Do you believe him here?

I mean,

it's such an interesting moment in the episode because he has really done a great job of selling that he is a normal man.

What do you mean, normal man?

He's just an innocent man.

You can't overstate the work that a Bruce Davison does in these moments.

He reads as very credible.

And also, you're trying to do the math of, like, why is TePaul so jumpy around this guy?

and why are the memories picklebrine colored when they could be just merely black and white like we've said this before green means bad does mean bad in Star Trek green is coded for bad guys or bad memories yeah so she's like I got to speak to this guy by by himself can you guys clear out and so Mayweather and Archer just go to the other side of the bar and

TePaul starts asking him questions.

She wants to know who this Josen guy is.

And it's like, I like the way the scene was written in retrospect because it's like a question that makes zero sense to him when she asks it.

Like, what are you talking about?

Pretty great.

And he's like, yeah, like, I don't know if you got bonked on the head by a coconut after I last saw you on Risa, but he was another Vulcan that did not want to go back and rehabilitate his Vulcanness.

He just wanted to,

he wanted to be a chill-ass dude with a different kind of facial loaf.

This is a moment in the episode where TePaul has a full-blown freak out, like yells at Manos before getting up and leaving.

Where is the take where Archer and Mayweather look at each other like,

whoa?

Did you see that?

Vulcans are supposed to do that.

Yeah, like,

I wish we had a little more dust on that part of it because these takes like Tipala's done this a couple of times this episode.

She's spicy as hell and it's unusual and no one describes it as being that way.

Yeah, she totally loses control and it's over this memory of shooting this guy Josin.

like her shooting him specifically and she doesn't understand the memory and so she flips out at this guy and then she instead of attacking him, just goes over to Archer and it's like, hey, man, I need to talk to you outside because I'm having a bad time here.

And when they go outside, she's like, it wasn't six fugitives that I was sent to get.

It wasn't six.

It was

seven.

You just hit G8.

If you like Keena, come on.

Which is another weird tape.

This strange, strange way she's behaving today.

She'd forgotten all about it.

And what she has dug up is that

she went through a Fulara, which is a memory repression ritual that she did.

Also, name of a great character actor, Fionola Fuarla.

Fuarla Flanagan.

Yeah.

So she felt really shitty and unsettled about the fact that she whacked this guy Josen.

She went to that sanctuary that the Vulcans had the secret listening post built into the reliquary of

and had this ritual done to erase the memory and all of the bad feelings surrounding it so she could go on being an unfeeling, coolly logical Vulcan.

The reason she felt complicated, I guess, is he's like in the memory, he's like going for a gun and she shoots him, and he dies.

But she didn't actually know whether or not he was going to shoot at her.

And

I guess Manos has like really tried to play that element of it up.

Like he was a normal man.

We were both innocent men.

He wasn't violent.

He just didn't want to be a Vulcan anymore.

Big bad feelings.

And she's starting to wonder if that guy was innocent, and if maybe Manos is too, by extension.

But then they hear a noise and they go back inside, and the entire bar has been consumed in a conflagration.

This is a planet where there is so much snow and ice that they do not stock public gathering places with fire extinguishers.

Candlelight illumination can often provide a comfortable mood for a clientele interested in going on romantic dates or celebrating significant anniversaries.

You're gonna let the ambience burn your customers alive!

Then, how are you gonna pay your alcohol bills?

So, what I've done here is put up two large 10-foot by eight-foot menus on each wall, completely fireproof.

We got you asbestos-coated menus from bartender.

Oh man, I saw a revention POS system the other day.

Wow.

So excited to see one.

That's like seeing a celebrity.

Did you go up to it or did you leave it alone?

Because in LA, you're really supposed to just leave it alone.

Yeah, you know, I didn't have the guts to say anything.

You know, because like I'm sure it would have been flattered if I'd said, like, hey, I really appreciate what you do.

Keep up the good work.

Yeah.

You know, no way.

Anyways.

We said a little more to Edward James Olmos when we met him than we did to this POS system.

Yeah.

Adam and I got invited by a friend of DeSoto to go to a play and Edward James Olmos in the lobby of this play.

Adam had like an extended conversation with him about baseball.

Yeah.

He was really cool.

He was super nice.

Big fan.

I couldn't really hear anything you guys were saying to each other because it was loud in the room and I didn't want to like loom over him and lean in because it was like it's fucking Edward James Olmos.

He's a legend.

Yeah, you're you're you're self-aware about your looming.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's consider it.

So Frakes and Olmos, I couldn't quite get it up to talk to either

yeah

yeah pretty classic

mainos stating the reason for starting the fire is he would rather burn than go back to vulcan and be like reprogrammed out of this mission this does slightly undercut the argument that he's like a humble family man who just has like a dangerous job hauling hazardous waste.

What about your family, Manos?

Do you think they'd rather you burn?

He's a girl, dad, and a wife guy, but not that much of that.

Do you think that they were real?

Oh, I mean, that's a fucking huge puck to be carrying around if they're not real.

Yeah, they got to be real, don't they?

So they go for his ship to see if he's there, but when they go inside, he doesn't appear to be there.

And Archer is almost like taunting to Paul Years.

Like,

he's messing with you.

And you're fucking losing it, man.

Like, your emotional even keel has been falling apart since you met that guy.

Do you think the reason Archer was such a dick for the first 15 minutes of this episode is to make this moment seem more grounded in their relationship reality?

Like, to appear not so off-putting?

Because, oh yeah, this is like, they can talk to each other this way.

They have this entire episode.

Because I think if you just have basic archer from the beginning, this might come off as like, whoa, way over the line, like traumatizing someone who's been traumatized.

The other Starfleet captains that we have spent significant amounts of time with let themselves lose control emotionally so seldom that it really feels important when it happens, though like one time a season that Jane Way

will like

completely chew somebody out or Cisco or Picard or whatever.

Like, Archer is so much more fragile than any of those captains in that way.

It almost seems like if Archer were buttoned up and professional, you'd be like, God, what's wrong with Archer?

Something might be...

Really upsetting him.

Has he been like replaced with a nub and bug alien?

Or

what is this?

They're like, we're going to go like mess around, like turn on the heater because it's so fucking cold on this ship.

And Archer and Mayweather go up to the bridge and they find this panel that's got something hot under it.

And it's a conduit that is running a ton of power that they didn't think would be running a ton of power given that the ship was powered down.

And they mess with it.

And back in the cargo bay, a holographic wall disappears.

And it turns out Mainos had like a secret hidey hole on this ship, which is another thing that makes me think maybe smuggler.

There's something about the composition of Archer holding a Dustbuster with his arm around Mayweather in the pilot seat that made me go directly to the scene in pulp fiction where John Travolta is waving around his gun and shooting the guy in the back.

I thought the scene after this scene was going to be them putting blankets and bedding and stuff on that flight deck in order to operate the ship afterward.

I will never forgive your ass for this shit.

This is some fucked up repugnant shit.

I thought they were going to blow Mayweather away in this scene.

Wow.

They were going to fill Lamar him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Instead, it's the big reveal.

Yeah.

Archer and Mayweather get onto the scene and

they are told to lock themselves in a closet together so he and TePaul can leave safely.

Finally, someone shoved Archer in a locker where he belongs.

Yes, and Big Starfleet Nerd is an accurate description.

They agree to do this, and when Tepal goes to enter how the code goes, Archer shoves the door open and it flings TePaul across the room.

And then Archer races across the deck to John Woo a couple of phasers that he finds and just goes, ham on Manos.

Amazing.

This firefight doesn't last very long.

Manos gives up.

He surrenders almost immediately and he's like coming out and they're like, ha ha,

you're not so tough after all, are you, Manos?

And then he slips through a little trapdoor in the floor and drops down out of the bottom of his spaceship.

What?

I didn't see that coming.

If this were a video game and you were playing Archer, like you'd be looking around the room.

Like you'd be using

your left radio button to like look all around.

And then there would be like a flashing triangle at at the switch at mainos' feet you're like oh what's that about that's interesting

why is that one piece of the scenery glowing in that weird way

yeah

pretty hard to miss

it's not like mainos is some sort of moriarty he's not like some super brain at all

it's just you seem like you're a super brain when your opponent is jonathan archer yeah So they are after him really quickly.

And then Tepaul has this moment where she's like got the gun on his back.

It seems like she's going to like shoot him.

And he's like, you're not going to shoot me.

And then she's letting him walk away.

And Archer has to be like, TePaul, like your job is not to be.

judge, jury, and executioner.

You're just getting him and bringing him back.

Somebody else is going to do that part.

You're not here to like resolve whether he's the bad guy or not.

And I mean, if you want to feel a little bit like an executioner, shoot this guy in the back and take him down.

That'll make you feel a little endorphin rush, huh?

For the first half of the scene, I was like, did the writers forget about the stun setting?

Like, she can just shoot him.

Yeah.

Right?

Shoot him!

Of course she does, but I was like, what's the big hold up here?

He is way down range in an interesting and exciting way.

Like, she pops him from, like, 30 yards.

I don't know how long 30 yards is, but like, it seems like a great distance in my mind.

It's probably a lot.

Yeah.

Anyways, turns out this guy did have biotoxins aboard.

Despite TePaul's extensive search earlier, she missed a locker full of glowing bottles of toxic sludge.

A refrigerator, you say.

Full of

limish green beverages.

you're thinking you're thinking julian bashir would be interested in what mainos is smuggling i think so i mean i think very much so what do you have to drink or eat to make your pea lime green probably a lot of broad right that's what broad does broad does that yeah yeah this is this is a cooler full of broad piss

maybe if he'd like gotten to stay in the game like if to paul had never apprehended him because Vulcans are so long-lived even though he appears to be of a different species, he could have survived to the Deep Space Nine era and smuggled some of his stuff through Deep Space Nine.

This would have been a great storyline.

Like, oh, like suddenly Bashir and Quark are on the same side of an issue because they're like

trying to smuggle Bashir some yummy, delicious piss to drink.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

This is great.

So he was guilty.

Yeah, he was a bad guy after all.

Do you feel proven right based on your suspicions, or did this come as a surprise to you?

I would say at this point it wasn't a surprise, but I liked how long the episode was able to keep the ball in the air in terms of making us wonder whether this guy was as bad as he was cracked up to be or not.

It seems fairly trivial that we end the episode with Archer getting the keys back.

to his ship from Trip Tucker, who remains curious about what Archer did on that mission.

Nothing much is really resolved there, but what happens in a very interesting way is TePaul comes to visit and

she's there to reassure Archer that she is okay.

She doesn't need a leave of absence.

I found it interesting that that was her mission

in this scene.

Right.

And also to extend the offer of, you know, of

friendship reciprocity.

Like, if you ever need someone that you can trust the way I needed to trust you you can trust me is what TePaul says yeah and do you feel like on a baseline level that was ever the case like do you think Archer doesn't trust TePaul I find I find her extremely trustworthy more trustworthy than Archer but I think that that trust felt a little violated at the beginning of the episode when she was telling him like how it was about to go because she had been in touch with the Vulcans and that was going to mean that Starfleet was going to be telling him to do something.

I like that aspect of it.

And I also like the way Tepal is

trying to understand why she behaved the way she behaved.

She's like, yeah, I think I kind of, even though I didn't remember the stuff that I remembered in Picklebrian later, I think I had like an inkling that I was going to need someone that I could trust, not just on a like, get my back when someone's shooting at me standpoint, but also a get my back when I'm having like a really fucked up emotional experience that I'm not really prepared for.

Yeah.

I love the idea of categorizing memories that you can't really trust or aren't really sure of as being picklebrian memories.

That's a shorthand that I can get with.

That's more and more of my memories just in general.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Adam, did you enjoy this episode?

I wonder if I would have liked it better if

instead of the resolution that puts our characters in the room, having the very literal conversation about trust,

if you don't just have them report to the bridge and their stations

and like knowingly look at each other and get back to work, if that isn't a superior ending to what this is, I think I reflexively prefer a more ambiguous ending than a let's tie bows on all of it to resolve.

I think you can convey this information in a more subtle and satisfying way.

And I think the episode as a whole was interesting, and I like learning more and more about DePaul's past as a super agent or whatever.

But I think my issues with it have to do with that final scene.

I think you don't just

get or restore trust by going, hey, you can trust me from now on.

And the other person going like, cool, yeah, definitely.

That's not how trust works, you know?

Typically, no.

I was also just thinking it would have been cool if the final scene had instead been Bruce Davis's character getting out of it.

you know, on the Vulcan ship, like somehow like escaping that.

It would be so fucking cool.

I would have loved that.

Well, Adam, do you want to see if anything has escaped into our priority one message?

See if we've got any Bruce Davisons in there, Ben.

That would be exciting.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

Supplemental.

Supplemental income.

Yeah, it's extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

Oh, we got a promotional priority one message here, Ben.

Here's how that goes.

Over the last several years, my partner has inured me to the dulcet sounds of your singing.

Since then, I've come to enjoy your pod.

Not just because I love my partner so very much.

He is woefully gift-averse.

So I plan to get this promo to pimp our own podcasts.

If Ben has the time between dad duty,

I challenge him to up his game by learning more with other new players of D and D or try something new.

MTA Mage with veteran players warping reality.

Wow.

So this is

in reference to

sometimes heroes D and D with editing that reaches to see Wendy's boots and OmblyGo Del Diablo where a bunch of lost folks are finding their way together.

Are these references that you get as a D DD player, Ben?

No,

honestly, Adam, I'm confused about what the name of the podcast even is.

Sometimes Heroes and Ombligo del Diablo podcast.

Okay.

It's an actual play podcast of the homebrewed Mage the Ascension.

All right, now we're on to something here.

Yeah, we're on to something.

Mage the Ascension is the game.

And the show is called Ombligo del Diablo.

All right.

All right.

Wow.

Well,

sounds like a hoot.

I'll give it a try.

I'll try anything once.

Ombligo is spelled O-M-B-L-I-G-O.

Yeah.

All right, Adam.

Our next priority one message here is from Ethan, and it's to Ben and Adam.

It goes like this.

Just finished a timeline watch of All Trek Everywhere and used TGG slash GGT as DVD bonus materials.

Ensuing time jumps between the pod release date made me face the strange parallels that shattered relativity, time ran amok with cause and effect, but now I'm a visionary.

So hey, all good things.

Big thanks for added giggles to my two-year trek.

Wow.

What a cool project.

That's a well-written P1.

Ethan.

Yeah.

I love the wordplay of that.

Very fun.

I have long toyed with the idea of doing a timeline order rewatch of Star Trek, but

I watch so much fucking Star Trek for work.

I don't know when I would fit that in.

Yeah.

There's a quality to the memory alpha website that I've encountered on occasion where it'll give you a little pop-up window in the bottom corner.

Yeah.

And it'll play clips.

in linear time of the Star Trek universe.

Oh, cool.

I mean, you'll go there for research, and what'll end up happening to me is I'll end up like focused on that box telling the entire story of Star Trek beginning to end.

It's amazing that they're able to do that.

And a great big project, it sounds like.

Yeah.

Hundreds and hundreds of hours.

Boy, what are you doing with your life, Ethan?

Now that I think about it.

Ben, our final priority one message here is from oh Mishophonia Sheffers everywhere.

Oh no, they heard the beginning of this episode.

And it's to Kev.

Here's that message.

Even though you eat popcorn every time we watch Enterprise, thereby triggering my mesophonia.

And even if you don't believe mesophonia is real,

parenthetically, PSA, it is.

I love you so much and I'm so grateful that we listened to this pod together.

Not anymore.

Shout out to fellow sufferer Nat.

Love.

Nooms.

I'm guessing that Nat and Nooms are no longer fans of the show.

I mean, it's encouraging that the Mesophones have gathered each other up together, you know, all in one place until we can figure out what to do with them.

Jesus.

Probably a smart idea.

Yeah.

Where they can't be bothered by the things that we do or the sounds that we make.

Yeah.

If you'd like to

talk to us about mesophonia or send us a very cryptic message about your podcast, consider doing it by going to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron and booking yourself a P1 today.

Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda this episode?

Incredible.

Drunk Shimoda!

I had one written down, and then I think I figured out what he was supposed to represent over the course of talking about this episode with you.

Because

in the flashbacks, in the pickle, Brian, that TePaul is having, there are these scenes where

she's like writhing on a bed or something and there's this like

very

crustily faced old Vulcan standing over her.

Very scary image.

And I was like, who was that guy?

Why was he attacking her?

And I guess I just like didn't realize in the course of the episode that that was a depiction of the like ceremony that made her forget her memory.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know why she would be like writhing and seemingly in pain or something during that ceremony.

it seems like the opposite of the way a vulcan ceremony would go sure seems like it but uh yeah it's like i was like who the fuck was that guy so i guess for just kind of confusing me uh old ruddy-faced vulcan is gonna be my drunk shimoda If you could go through a procedure to remove a memory.

If you could go through a procedure to remove a memory,

you might be Vulcan.

You gotta wipe the memory of going through the procedure, too, right?

This is my point.

Like, the eternal sunshine of a Vulcan mind-ness of this.

Like, they just didn't do a complete job.

You got to wipe, and then you got to wipe the wiper.

And then you're done.

Seems that way to me, anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you've hit it on the head, Ben.

Just the...

These Vulcans are supposed to be smart people.

You'd think that they would know to cover their tracks for something like this.

If that was the point, if the point was removal of the offending memory, you would also need to remove the method of removal.

You would think.

How are we smart enough to have thought of that, but the Vulcans aren't?

Yeah, like, are they just such incurious people that they're like, oh, I've had something removed from my memory?

Don't wonder what that could be.

Poor TePaul is like...

Jolene Blaylock is acting her ass off in this episode, trying to be like, you know, I was fine.

I went through the procedure.

And then all of a sudden, someone in my life referred to this situation and it absolutely shattered

that crazy Vulcan ritual I did.

If the mention of the moment is sufficient to destroy what the procedure has done to you, how good is the procedure?

Does it make any sense?

Yeah.

Make it make sense, Ben.

If it was a Vulcan ship in Star Trek the Next Generation, during that episode where everybody wanted to know why Data was lying to them, they would have just been like, we don't care why Data's lying to us.

Forget it.

Who gives a shit?

Incredible.

Faith of the fart.

Well, Adam, do you want to go over to goch.biz slash game where we keep the game of buttholes, the Will of the Riker quantum leap, and prepare to roll that hundred-sided dice while I tell you about season two, episode eight, the communicator?

Is this the history of the combadge?

Give us a bottle episode that's just going to the crayon factory.

Oh, yeah.

On Sesame Street or something, you know?

Yeah.

That'd be cool as fuck.

That'd be nice.

Archer and Reed return to a pre-warp society that is on the verge of war to recover a lost communicator.

Wow.

Hmm.

It seems like a great length to go for a lost tech device.

Really does.

But here we go.

Let's see if there is a great distance to go when I roll this hundred-sided die bin.

Let's do it.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

Oh,

we have landed on square 13, which is so, so, so, so, so close to a Porthos ate my note square.

Tula!

Did I win?

Hardly.

Narrowly missed it.

Could have been a very strange episode, but as it is, a very normal episode episode for you and me next time around.

Regass up.

I like it.

I really appreciate all of the friends of DeSoto who monthly support us by

throwing in a few shekels at maximumfund.org slash join.

Easiest thing in the world to do is support this show.

Just go over to maximumfund.org slash join.

put your credit card details in there and every month five bucks gets pulled out you get a free bonus episode and uh you know you're uh making sure this podcast lives on into the future.

Pretty great, pretty grateful for all that support we get.

We get support from our great team at Duxbridge Shimoda.

I'm going to start off by thanking Wendy Pretty for her great production abilities and making us sound gooder and better and funnier than we ordinarily would be.

I'll thank Rob Adler and Bill Tilley.

for running our socials for us.

Both of them great.

Doing a great job over there.

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Go check out the wiki, greatestgen.fandom.com.

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The Discord.

Yeah, Discord, Drunkshimoto.com.

The thousands of friends of DeSoto that are at drunkshimoto.com.

With that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of of the Greatest Generation Enterprise, where Adam and I just, you know, we can't quite understand each other.

We're not doing a great job

communicating.

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