As our cadets return home for their first school holiday, they must choose between what their families expect of them and their own dreams for the future — including an aspiring captain who’s secretly willing to risk everything to re-write her own past, and an aristocratic cadet called to serve his planet way before he’s ready.
Written by: Alex Taub & Eric Anthony Glover
Directed by: Andi Armaganian
There is no spoiler protection in the episode discussion threads, and spoiler tags are not necessary!
A low point episode for me, the wedding could have been much better just adding a nemesis character to Daren that is hovering over her fiancee to grab the throne, some dark guy with evil intentions. As for the Genesis/Caleb plot I only enjoyed that he knew all the time she was playing him, I would have enjoyed much more if he will have resolved the issue, and don’t have to tell the Chanciller about it.
Not very interesting episode, the main problem is that Darem has changed because a lot of time has passed between episodes, and I don’t have a sense of that (there is a line when they said how long Tarima has gone for the recovery) , he has evolved from the character he was on the first episode, but we don’t realize it
The change in Darem was the whole point of the Calica/prank episode. He went from needing to be the best (because of his parent issues) to apologizing to Genesis, supporting her as their team leader (with the prank as well), and telling his parents he’s found another way.
With the Miyazaki episode, he immediately gave Genesis credit for the idea of how to find the cloaked ship, and while he didn’t have lines for it, when she was getting frustrated with the search, his body language and gestures were essentially encouraging her.
All that stuff about Darem becoming less of an asshole since joining Starfleet has been retconned out. Now the story is that he was quiet and selfless on Khionia, and became a confident asshole since joining Starfleet Academy.
I mean, have you really never met anyone who’s one way around some people, and another way with others? We should all be so lucky! I’ve had co-workers who are total assholes to colleagues, but become simping ass-kissers in front of higher-ups. Or kids who are angels at home and absolute terrors at school. Or the other around: they’re angels at school and terrors at home.
Darem was sweet, deferential, and dutiful for Kaira (and his parents’ approval), and then he let himself loose for the first time at the academy when he didn’t have any of that baggage on him. That’s not at all different from kids who grow up in strict homes, then basically go hog-wild when they go off to college, and then later grow out of that wild phase.
But I thought he was competing so hard with Genesis during the sportsball episode because Khionia was such a competitive society.
We’ve known very little about Khionian society till now. Darem was competing hard with Genesis because his parents would, if we believe he was being truthful, leave when he made a mistake. That’s what that episode was about: him dealing with the insecurities caused by his parents’ neglect (and realizing there was another way). He and Genesis had a bonding moment over living up to their parents’ expectations. They wouldn’t even call him back, hence his going to Reno saying his PADD was broken as it wasnt receiving calls. And Reno saw through the situation and talked about people who do show up for him, referring to Genesis.
If he was a competitive asshole because his parents made him into one, why did Kaira never see that side of him?