Episode 79: Home

Pitch perfect. I can think of no other way to describe "Home", Mike Sussman's quiet little episode that finally provides both the Enterprise crew and the Enterprise viewers a chance to take a moment to deal with the events of the previous season, to come "home".

When I say "quiet", of course, I am being deliberately misleading, just as the title of the episode, "Home", carries with it an irony that will not be lost on the interested viewer.

As Archer, T'Pol and the crew find out over the course of this episode, neither Earth nor Vulcan is the same place they left when they went off to deal with the Xindi and, perhaps even more disturbing, they themselves are not the same people they were before the epic mission.

It is a quiet episode because, other than a very brief dream sequence in which a haunted Archer battles his demons (in the form of Xindi Reptilians) and a short fist fight in a bar, there is no real action. This is a quiet, introspective, psychologically difficult exploration of the impact of the Xindi threat on the Enterprise crew and the planets they left behind.

Earth has become a little less welcoming to the "other", be it the Vulcans, the Dinobulans or even the Star Fleet personnel who are blamed for having stirred up the galaxy. Vulcan, meanwhile, has taken the very illogical step of punishing T'Pol's mother for T'Pol's involvement in the obliteration of P'Jem.

In an intense debrief session, Archer feels attacked by the Vulcans who appear to be blaming him for he deaths of the crew of the Solaya. Feeling both frustrated and guilty, the good Captain berates the Vulcans for failing to support Star Fleet sufficiently throughout the Xindi campaign and before it even started.

Archer storms out and is ordered to take a vacation. He chooses to go rock climbing on his own to get away from his own internal conflict which threatens to tear him apart. The greater public on Earth has welcomed him home as a hero but he feels more the villain for the person he had to become to complete his mission.

In an engrossing and often painful ongoing conversation with Captain Erika Hernandez, his former lover who now captains NX-02, Columbia,and who bullies him into allowing her to accompany him on his rock-climbing adventure, he tries to express to her what she should expect when her ship launches. In the process, however, Archer is forced to come to grips with the fact that his own mission led him to torture sentient beings, to strand others with little hope of getting home, to deliver dozens of eulogies for crewmembers who died under his command.

Scott Bakula gives his best performance here and Ada Maris provides the perfect counterpoint, egging him on, drawing him in, yet sometimes withdrawing from the ugliness he shares with her.

Meanwhile, Tucker accompanies T'Pol on a visit to Vulcan. He expects a quiet visit with T'Pol's mother and a chance to explore the planet and the culture to which he has been exposed for so long. The visit, however, turns into something of a nightmare as, in the usual reserved Vulcan way, T'Pol's mother T'Les (played beautifully by Joanna Cassidy) lets both Tucker and T'Pol know that she has been disgraced and forced to retire from her position with the Vulcan Science Academy as punishment for T'Pol's part in the P'Jem situation. The only way for her family to be redeemed is for T'Pol to marry the man to whom she was long-ago betrothed.

Tucker is visibly stunned when T'Pol tells him she plans to go ahead with the wedding to satisfy her familial duty and, in a lovely scene with T'Les on the day of the wedding, he admits that he has finally realised that he is in love with his Vulcan colleague. T'Les advises Tucker to tell T'Pol how he feels but Tucker shows his class by refusing. T'Pol is under enough stress as it is.

Reid, Mayweather and Phlox decide to share a celebratory drink in the Starfleet bar, only to come face to face with the xenophobia that has taken hold in the human race when a group of thugs tell Phlox he's not welcome in the pub. A fist fight ensues and, at its height, Phlox responds instinctively, puffing up his face (like a puffer fish) to scare away the predators who are fighting his friends.

Phlox is so upset by the experience that he decides to spend the rest of his leave on Enterprise during her refit, choosing not to join Sato and Mayweather at his favourite Chinese Food restaurant to avoid any further episodes of violent xenophobia.

Archer and Hernandez renew their romance and, in a stiff final scene, Archer completes his debrief and offers an apology to the Vulcan ambassador, Soval. Much to Archer's surprise, Soval offers words of comfort to the guilt-ridden Captain, telling him did what he needed to do to save not just Earth but Vulcan and dozens of other planets that would eventually have been engulfed by the toxic space being created by the Spheres that Archer and Enterprise destroyed in the Expanse. At the end of the episode, the two belligerents shake hands and part... friends?

I am worried that I am just so relieved that B&B had exited as show runners at this point that I am not being entirely objective in my reaction to this episode but I honestly doubt Braga and Berman would have let "Home" remain such an introspective, thoughtful and intelligent exploration of the aftermath of the Xindi adventure had they still be directly involved.

I was surprised and delighted by this episode. It was the show I had hoped for at the end of the Xindi plot -- I'm only sorry we had to survive B&B's ridiculous (hopefully) last kick at the can in "Storm Front" to get to it.

Of course, I am now terrified to watch the rest of Season Four, for fear that Coto, Sussman and Strong let me down.