tpel
-
Posts
274 -
Joined
Content Type
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Discussion
Posts posted by tpel
-
-
At first I was annoyed that they were treating Nolan like a "suspect" over an obviously clean shoot. But then it became clear that we were seeing his perceptions, colored by guilt. The other characters were actually very nice to him. So I enjoyed the examination of Nolan's character, and thought that Fillion nailed the trauma reaction. But, of course, the writers couldn't leave it at that; they had to jump over the plausibility line and have the dead guy's brother break into Nolan's apartment. Sigh.
I liked it that Bradford apologized to the Captain after barging into her office. But putting him on the "rescue" team has to be the worst idea ever.
-
10
-
-
On 12/4/2018 at 7:11 PM, WendyCR72 said:
God, I remember Anson Mount from the ill-fated 2006 version of the TV show, Conviction (set in the L&O universe with the SVU character, Alexandra Cabot!). Looking at that picture, he seems to have aged quite well. :-)
He's going to be Captain Pike on Star Trek Discovery soon :-)
-
1
-
-
I like the friendship between Bishop, Lopez, and Bradford. But mostly we've seen Bishop and Lopez looking out for Bradford -- picking him up at the hospital, playing along with the round-up contest, comforting him at the end of this episode. That's sweet, but I hope we see him reciprocate a bit more. Given his personality, it makes sense that a lot of his support for them would not necessarily be out in the open, and it might consist in not doing things as much as doing things (e.g., not ratting Lopez out for covering up West's gunfire issues). So it is fine if it is not quite equal. I just don't want their relationship to be all about the women helping him deal with man-pain.
8 minutes ago, newyawk said:I didn't think Chen was a moron, but apparently she is. That whole "Let me just stalk my T.O. to his estranged wife's house" thing was contrived and didn't play well. Just stupid and I hope there aren't more soap opera-ish instances like this. I hope someone finds out that she knew he took evidence from the apartment and she didn't say anything. And Bradford isn't too clever either. That big of an unguarded heroin stash in his wife's apartment, his wife's in custody and it doesn't cross his mind that her boyfriend might send some armed thug to her place to retrieve it? And he goes in there twice?
Yeah, her just showing up was kind of weird. But, though at first we were meant to think Bradford took the heroin, apparently he did not. That is, I don't think he removed it from the apartment, left, and then brought it back. Rather, he took it out of its hiding place, but then changed his mind and put it back, before leaving the apartment.
-
7
-
-
23 hours ago, Evagirl said:
I think of Jim Caviezel every time I look at the male T.O. Am I alone with this vision?
This! It didn't occur to me until you mentioned it, but there is a strong resemblance. The coloring is different, but around the eyes and mouth there is definitely something there. No wonder I think Bradford is kind of hot :-)
I'm not sure how literally we were supposed to take Hawke's remarks that his wife's boyfriend was naked and wearing Hawke's slippers. But in Hawke's mind, he was trespassing into Hawke's domestic role, and Hawke responded violently.
I didn't care much for this episode. Hawke, while fairly well-acted, seemed cartoonish to me. And the episode emphasized the timeline/pacing problems of the series: everything is happening too fast. The story would hit the emotional notes it wanted better if Hawke was someone Nolan knew well, several years ago. But Nolan has only been on the job for a little over a month, and the LAPD police academy is only 6 months long. So the entirety of Nolan's relationship with Hawke has taken place within the last year.
I did enjoy the interactions between Bradford and Chen. He seems to have progressed beyond merely torturing her to actually teaching her -- though if that teaching involves gross stuff, all the better! And she is striking back, not because she hates him, but because she is starting to see him as a colleague rather than simply her demon-taskmaster. I think these two have better chemistry than Chen had with Nolan, but don't want to see them romantically paired. If dating a fellow rookie is bad for Chen's career, dating a T.O. would be worse. And his romantic life is "complicated", to put it mildly.
-
3
-
-
I understood Bradford being angry at Lopez for not giving him a heads-up about West freezing under fire. But I'm not sure I get why everybody seems to think this will lead to an instant dismissal. The first time, his panic left his T.O. in danger; the second time that was less of an issue. Wouldn't the higher-ups expect that there would be some learning curve here, as people learn to tamp down their normal reaction to gunfire?
I agree that Nolan fussing about the training book was silly. My favorite line from the episode was when Bradford said, straight out, that he would only be happy when he broke West's spirit.
HODOR!!!!!
-
4
-
-
I like Bishop a lot. She and Nolan are moving from a T.O./Boot dynamic toward a genuine partnership a little quickly, perhaps, but their interactions feel natural, with a good companionable vibe. She's his superior, but she doesn't lord it over him more than is necessary, and they both listen to each other. I like the emphasis on Nolan's positive view of humanity, as that is something that could carry the series a bit, once he is no longer a rookie. Also, Nolan's more chill attitude toward having a plan B makes sense. He's not a kid. He knows stuff happens in life and you roll with it. That doesn't mean you are any less committed to the job at hand. "If this doesn't work out, I'll try Beauty School" :-)
I find the scenes with Bradford to be the most gripping, yet also frustrating. This story arc would be so much more meaningful if it happened later in the season, when we know more of what his baseline is. In the first couple of episodes, he was shown to be a bit of a wild card, so it is hard to see what is truly out of character, due to stress. I liked that Chen was able to deal with him somewhat, but there seemed to be a bit of a failure of problem solving between her and Nolan. They acted like her options were narc on Bradford to his superiors, do nothing, or deal with it herself. But we, and presumably they, know that Bradford has friends among his peers. Bishop stepped outside the strict chain of command when she warned Chen about the potential consequences of her relationship with Nolan. Chen could have returned the favor by giving Bishop a heads up that her friend Tim was struggling.
-
3
-
-
On 10/24/2018 at 11:18 PM, chaifan said:
The vibe I got off of Talia's warning to Chen was that she won't be taken seriously by the other guys if she dates other cops, that they'll assume she's there just to get a boyfriend/husband and isn't serious about becoming a police officer. This isn't uncommon in many male dominated fields - it's a horrible double standard, as the guys don't get any negative reputation from dating a female co-worker. It wasn't so much relationship advice as it was career advice.
Yep. This struck me as dead accurate. I work in a male-dominated academic profession, and the only time I perceived myself not being taken seriously on account of my gender (female) was when I was dating a man in the profession. We were the same age, same level, no conflicts of interest -- didn't matter. This relationship will cost Chen more than it costs Nolan. And it will be worse in a few years, if it lasts, since once they are no longer rookies, he will look like he has seniority even if they are the same rank.
I found the timeline confusing. As others have noted, Tim was out of hospital an back to work implausibly quickly, given the apparent severity of his injury. In an early scene, Chen and Nolan joke about skipping work, and one of them mentions that it would look bad to play hooky on their first week. I don't know if that was meant to be strictly accurate, but if it was even approximately true way too much has happened in a week!
-
7
-
-
10 minutes ago, CooperTV said:
Nolan/The female rookie couple is the most random thing done for future potential drama ever. Also, it made me cringe.
Yeah, I didn't care for that at all. They are both consenting adults, and there is no power differential at work, so I don't really have any ethical objections. But it cheapens Nolan's character, making it seem like maybe this is all just a midlife crisis -- hot new job, dating a girl half his age. It helps a bit that the actress is 30, though they seem to be writing her as younger.
-
6
-
-
Overall, I thought it was well cast, very well acted, and poorly written. That gives me some hope; a clunky pilot episode can lead to a good show, if the actors are on point.
The good: Nathan Fillion is charming, as always. I also very much liked the dynamics between the female characters. The two established officers, Bishop and Lopez, had a friendly rivalry-- fierce competitors, but not cutting each other down. And Bishop's advice to Lucy seemed like it came from a good place, looking out for a young woman who might be harming her career.
The bad: Way to much speechifying -- mostly Nolan, but also the Sergeant, go on and on with trite musings that are supposed to sound deep. Bradford, the T.O., could have been interesting. He presents himself as a sadistic, racist jerk, but that may just be a training technique, and his facility at dissecting Bishop and Lopez's feelings about promotion was interesting. Yet we've already randomly met his junkie wife and seen him get shot, so it's like the writers couldn't wait to reveal that he's not just an asshole. A little patience would have made for a better payoff.
In the big picture, I'm worried about staying power. As Lucy said, in a year or two Nolan will just be one of the guys. Sure, he'll be a decade or two behind in terms of promotions, but once he's no longer a rookie a lot of the premise of the show goes away.
-
1
-
-
OK, so Julian was raised to be sacrificed, like the cow. It was Dr. Jeffries' idea. Vera wasn't crazy about doing it to the cow, and she seems genuinely attached to Julian, so I don't see her being all that eager to sacrifice the child she raised. But I could be wrong about that; she's hard to read. If we assume that Julian was abducted to spare him from this fate, that raises some new questions. Were the couple who abducted Julian working against Vera or for her? Is Jeffries still around, pulling the strings?
-
5
-
-
3 hours ago, slothgirl said:
I like Heather, but it's SO obvious that what Marin keeps going on about her "lying to herself" is about her being gay.
Do you mean you think she isn't gay? Because she seems pretty self aware that she is gay, and that she is attracted to Marin. She hasn't come out to her father yet in the flashbacks, but I don't see her deceiving herself about this. Maybe Heather is lying to herself about the possibility of a romantic future with Marin, who seems to be bi or experimenting.
5 hours ago, teddysmom said:I can't believe Harry agreed to go into the woods with Vera, w/o his gun or phone. He's smarter than that, he even said he knew she was trying to draw him in, but he would go to try to figure out her scheme. And drank the tea?
He's smart, but he's also terminally curious. He may have a self-destructive streak, and being in Keller has triggered some serious pain. Putting all that together and I can kind of see how he might act against his better judgement.
-
8
-
-
On 8/17/2018 at 12:18 AM, slothgirl said:
If Ambrose was there for quite awhile after the fire (clearly they've seen him since, because the fire was more than 15 years ago), how is it that the fire is some big mystery to all the townspeople, and it's what everyone focuses on when they see him? Cop's Dad brought it up at the Rotary Club like it was something neither he nor other people knew much about, even though I recall a whole burnt out house in Episode 1 that Ambrose drove past. Surely in a town like that everyone knows everything that ever happened to anyone?
On 8/17/2018 at 1:32 AM, slothgirl said:I read a synopsis of Ep 1 on Vulture that reminded me that Ambrose disappeared from the lives of people in Keller 15 years ago when Heather's Mom died. I wasn't clear on whether he LEFT at that time or whether he had already left and came back for the funeral, THEN cut off contact.
My understanding was that the fire happened when Ambrose was around Julian's age. He stayed in town for a few more years, perhaps finishing high school. Then he left, but visited once in a great while; the last visit was 15 years ago. While the fire might not exactly be a mystery, assuming Ambrose's age is approximately that of Bill Pullman (64), it happened 50 years ago. So I can buy that it has become part of the town's murky history that captures people's imagination -- something they've heard of, but may not be clear on the details.
-
2
-
-
Yes, I suspected that there was some behind-the-scenes intervention on Sean's behalf. But to hear Dr. Now chastising Dottie for not keeping up with her hygiene? Dude, she was clearly in a lot of pain, and just not up to doing everything that needed to be done properly. Whatever her issues, Dottie is not lazy. If she is not taking care of herself, it is probably because she can't.
20 minutes ago, ams1001 said:Why didn't she get at least a visiting nurse/aide to help with her wound care and fix her some meals until she could get around more easily?
This! A couple of hours of assistance a day could have staved off a major setback.
-
17
-
-
I felt uncomfortable watching parts of this episode. Dottie, maybe a week post-surgery, is left alone in a hotel room with no assistance. Sean, barely mobile and emotionally crippled, is dropped off in front of his mold-infested apartment to fend for himself. Yes, Dottie shouldn't have been smoking, and yes, many of Sean's problems are his own (and his mother's) making. Still, cameras recorded physically and/or mentally compromised people in dangerous situations, and nobody thought to intervene?
Perhaps there was some behind-the-scenes intervention for Sean, as the new apartment materialized rather quickly. But Dr. Now seemed surprised to learn that Dottie was on her own in the hotel.
-
14
-
-
As I was watching the first scene, set in Vietnam, and I saw the guy in glasses, I said to myself, "Ooooh, I bet that's Skinner . . . I hope that's Skinner!" And it was Skinner -- woo hoo!
I've always loved Skinner, so having an episode centered on him was a treat. Yeah, it didn't cover much new ground, but that was OK: it solidified the relationship between him and his problem-child agents.
Mitch Pileggi has aged so well that I initially thought the math didn't work. I mean, it had already been established that Skinner was in Vietnam, but (not recalling any dates that may have been given in the earlier seasons) he could have been there only at the very tail end of the war, in the 1970s. But for him to be at least 18 in 1969, Skinner would be about 66 now. Looking at him, that didn't seem likely. Then I checked online and learned that Pileggi was born in 1952.
I was genuinely worried when Mulder and Scully left Skinner alone, injured, stuck in a pit, covered in gasoline. But, of course, he hauled himself out and kicked ass! The feat is more plausible, given that there was now a rope hanging down into the pit, that Scully let down for Mulder. Still, pretty impressive!
-
2
-
-
The good: I loved Michael admitting that the reason she grabbed MirrorGeorgiou was simply that she couldn't watch her die again, and Saru gracefully accepting this. Stamets' reaction to Tyler was perfect: he didn't punch him, and he was aware that Tyler was suffering too, but he wasn't ready to forgive and forget. Cornwell shooting the fortune cookie bowl and referring to "my Gabriel" was lovely. And any time Cornwell and L'Rell are on screen together, it rocks. MirrorGeorgiou talking with Sarek was great, too . . .
The bad: . . . except, it seems this conference led to a bone-headed plan. Seriously, I get it: we love Michele Yeoh and want any excuse to keep her on the show. But making the Terran Emperor captain of a Federation starship is ridiculous. The cover plan is to map the Klingon home world with an eye to taking out all their military strongholds. So, obviously, the real plan is some kind of global genocide. Which we are supposed to believe Cornwell and Sarek endorse, because they think it is the only way to survive. But, of course, it is really an opportunity to let Burnham shine by espousing Federation principles, at the expense of Cornwell's character (Sarek's complicity will be excused due to his Vulcan logic). On other notes, while I feel bad for Tyler, I'm kind of over his story line. Tilly getting up and sitting with him was great, but then other people doing the same cheapened the bravery of her action.
-
11
-
-
Welcome to the In-Mourning-For-Interesting-Lorca club, OLynn! I love your analysis of the character, and would have liked him to have been who he seemed to be: a damaged but redeemable man. I do think the writers could have had their cake and ate it too, by making him MU Lorca yet not eeeeevil -- driven, pragmatic, willing to make sacrifices most of us wouldn't, but with an overarching goal that was respectable. It would have let the show examine the mirror universe in a more realistic way. Is it just a place where everybody is intrinsically bad? Or do they become bad because of the horrible choices they must make daily? If the latter, could plucking someone out of that environment and dropping him in with moral people for several months improve him? Could pretending to be a good man actually lead to becoming a better man? Instead, he morphed into a caricature :-(
That said, I was thinking about what the show could do to restore our trust. Maybe:
- Knock it off with the character-isn't-who-he-seems-to-be trope. One might have been OK, but we got two within a 15-episode season (Lorca and Tyler), and they hinted at another (Stamets). It is hard to bond with characters when they might be revealed to be completely different--and worse--than they seemed to be.
- No more throw-away deaths. Yes, this isn't our parents' Star Trek. People can die, perhaps must die, to make it a realistic portrayal of a risky setting. But it's not Game of Thrones either. Don't kill people just for shock value.
- Related to the previous point, find a way to bring back Dr. Culber. Not ghostly-adviser-Culber, but real flesh-and-blood-character Culber. Landry and MU Lorca can stay dead.
- Don't redeem and integrate MU Georgiou into the cast. She can have some badass moments, and I won't begrudge her a meaningful death. But part of the reason they made MU Lorca so exaggeratedly eeeevil in the last episode was so that she would look good by comparison. Don't do that. She is the emperor of a vicious system; if anyone is truly bad, it's her.
- Develop the characters we have. Saru's growth had been sidelined for much of the season, but he really stepped up to the plate in episode 13. Keep going with him. Now that the bridge crew has spoken complete sentences, give us more of them. I've grown to like Burnham, but it can't be all about her.
Anything else?
-
1
-
11
-
Yeah, I don't want the spores to regenerate Lorca, now that he's inexplicably become "stupid and crazy-evil" (shrewd.buddha).
But come on little spores, you know Stamets was the brains behind the plan that saved your whole freakin' mycelial network, right? Couldn't you bring back Dr. Hugh for him?
-
4
-
-
Jason Isaacs has made it clear in interviews (see the media thread) that his agreement to be on the show was explicitly for one season, that Lorca is Dead, Dead, Dead, and that his run on the show is now over. Of course, he also said that he lies in interviews all the time! I think the truth is that he is done as a regular character. That doesn't close the door on future guest appearances. Which he will probably also lie about ;-)
This episode left open three ways he might appear in the future: (1) flashbacks, (2) MirrorLorca -- somehow regenerated by the spore network into which he fell, (3) PrimeLorca -- seen in or retrieved from the mirror universe. #1 would be nice; I hope they don't go with #2; #3 would be awesome.
-
1
-
-
tennisgurl, I totally agree. I hope the writers salvage a bit of the character by giving us Prime Lorca. Even if he comes back to the prime universe alive, I know he won't be a regular character -- given his counterpart's shenanigans, no admiral in their right mind would assign him to the Discovery. But an occasional appearance when Jason Isaacs is free would be nice. If Prime Lorca has survived several months in the mirror universe alone, he must have made many awful, pragmatic-to-unethical choices, and has probably developed the PTSD his counterpart was assumed to have.
1 hour ago, statsgirl said:I'm looking forward to Michael convincing Phillipa she belongs in their universe now.
Please, no. But they can give us some awkward scenes with Saru and some awesome interactions with Cornwell. And then let her have a worthy death or badass betrayal scene.
I know many people preferred Tilly's mirror universe look, and I'll grant that her clothes were an improvement. But I'm glad the barely-contained curly red hair is back! It's as bright and exuberant as her personality!
-
6
-
-
1 hour ago, clyo22 said:
I must be the only one who didn't adore this episode. As I commented on last episode's thread I didn't enjoy Michael and Emperor Georgiou teaming up against Lorca. MirrorGeorgiou is as evil and disgusting as Lorca (turned out to be). There is no redeeming qualities in her in my opinion. I hate racism/ xenophobia / specism in every form, every iteration and every universe.
Burnham's loyalty for MirrorGeorgiou is disappointing. She is not her Georgiou! She is a monster and they downplayed her evilness in this episode, making her seem vulnerable just to win our compassion. She didn't win mine.
I'm with you. It was like the writers didn't want to make the characters or audience wrestle with any tough ethical questions. The Emperor had to be made relatively good, so it was an easy choice for Michael to side with her. And the Emperor, conveniently, felt that having killed her potential usurper wasn't enough for her to be able to stay in power, and thus had no problem with Michael destroying her ship. Really? I like Michelle Yeoh, so I'm interested in what they might do with her. But redeeming the character would be awful.
-
5
-
-
I am disgusted with the character assassination of Lorca. Making him MU could have been a cool plot twist, yet left him an interesting character. This is a guy with the intelligence and patience to pull off the long con, a guy who, from what we saw previously, is justly regarded as a tactical genius in two universes. He could have been presented as having a compelling reason for rebellion, so that Burnham would have a tough choice as to which (if any) of those vying for the throne she should back. But no. The writers decided to make him Space Trump, railing about immigrants and promising to "Make the Empire glorious again!" Star trek has a history of dabbling in political themes, but this was just a caricature, meant to mark him as the bad guy. What a waste of one of the most fascinating and deftly played characters in all of Trek.
Also, this:
2 hours ago, jsbt said:The show is very enjoyable and I'll continue to support it, but it feels network TV-safe and homogenized and simplified in many ways, both production and story/character wise beyond what it could be. The Mirror Universe is a fan favorite setting, but I felt it should've come later in the series, and when it did come I felt the plot moved far too fast - Saru and co. just go with Lorca turning out to be a Mirror turncoat instantly. I still have no idea what is going on with Stamets and Culber beyond cliched dead lover dream sequences I've seen on a dozen TV shows, and I have no faith he's actually coming back, which makes killing him (while likely keeping Voq/Tyler on the show) deeply awful and pointless to me.
In some ways, it is "Star Trek for Grown-ups" (violence, willingness to kill characters, need to pay attention to anticipate plot twists), but in others not so much. Here is hoping that in the second season it gets better.
On the positive side, I did love Captain Saru. This was the first time I saw him as ready for the big chair. I'm also happy to see him and Burnham becoming friends again. And Cornwell, whom I love, is back in the preview -- Yay! So, it's not all bad. And amidst all of the explosions and choreographed fight scenes of this week's episode, I was left with a shred of hope for a satisfying future development: we were never told definitively what happened to MU Burnham and PU Lorca. The former was conspicuously absent. She is believed dead, but neither the Emperor nor Lorca claimed responsibility for killing her or said how she died. Honestly, I kept expecting her to turn up and kick ass. Maybe she will step into the power vacuum left by Lorca's death and Georgiou's disappearance, taking charge. Also, we now know that MU Lorca came over to the prime universe using the "Mirror, Mirror" method, which might mean he swapped with PU Lorca. The latter would've ended up on the MU Buran, which was destroyed shortly thereafter. But we don't know how soon that happened. He could have realized he was in bizarro-world and fled before the attack, or his crew could have realized that something went wrong in transport and transported him back to the planet from which he was beaming, then they got destroyed and he was stuck.
-
7
-
-
12 hours ago, Emily Thrace said:
I do think we should consider the source on that one. It might be her way of rationalizing Micheal's betrayal. Lorca always seemed more paternal to Michael than anything else to me.
That was always the sense I got from him, too. I guess we'll never know for sure, unless MU Burnham shows up -- neither the Emperor nor Lorca is exactly a dependable source of information.
Looking back on the episode, the following scene strikes me as odd: Lorca is in the agony booth, the guard (?) tries to make Lorca confess to wronging his sister and say her name. Of course, part of the function of the scene is to make us wonder whether he is MU or PU Lorca. But, setting that aside, it is just weird. What exactly was Lorca being accused of? Breaking the girl's heart? This is the MIRROR universe! Love is way down on the list of why people have sex. Dumping one girl (or guy) for the next is normal behavior. Unless the sister was twelve or Lorca killed her afterward, both of which would warrant mentioning, it is hard to see why the guy would put himself at serious risk to seek vengeance. It is also hard to see why Lorca wouldn't say the girl's name, thus saving his confederate from a horrible death. One possible explanation for the latter is that Lorca has a never-negotiate attitude and doesn't trust the guard not to kill his friend anyway. Another explanation is that the sister, Ava, is one of Lorca's rebels, and the guard (not really her brother) was trying to confirm her identity.
-
1
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Unusual Suspect said:
I'm still not sure how I feel about the Lorca reveal. I credit Discovery with playing fair, because it's not like they didn't lay out the clues. I also like the temerity of doing something this bananas. OTOH, I dunno, it sometimes feels like the show is going for the cheap shock. Like the Kelpians. Or all the creepy sex/family stuff between Burnham, Georgiu and Lorca.
They definitely laid out clues that he was MirrorLorca. But that was consistent with him being admirable in some ways. Now his positive traits seem to be fading away. Thinking about why I liked him:
1. While his methods could be pragmatic-to-evil, he was trying to win a war and, ultimately, save lives. Now we learn . . . not so much. If he was MirrorLorca on the side of the resistance, that would be interesting, or if he was trying to overthrow an especially destructive emperor, there could have been some big-picture good to his actions. But it appears he was just trying to overthrow Georgiou to seize power.
2. He made hard choices, but didn't make them lightly, continuing to punish himself for perceived losses, such as the Buran. Now we know that his eye problems were due to his MU origins, not "choosing his pain" to remember his Buran crew.
-
1
-
S02.E12: Through the Valley of Shadows
in Star Trek: Discovery
Okay, so I'm totally in love with Pike now.
There were things about the episode that were annoying: I was willing to hand-wave the time crystals in the Mudd episode, because it was kind of a humorous episode. But now, yeah, I want a better explanation. And Michael wanting to go after Leland because (1) his carelessness 20 years ago contributed to her parents' "death", and (2) he is control's puppet? These two things are incompatible. The guy who is culpable in the parents' fates is likely dead, and he is not culpable for Control's actions using his body.
Back to Pike ❤️ He saw that he has a truly awful future in store for him. We knew it all along; now he knows too. But now, instead of just bad luck or the result of a knee-jerk impulse to help the cadets, his sacrifice is a considered decision. He was absolutely horrified by his future, but freely chose to lock it in. There may be examples of greater nobility and strength of character in Star Trek, but I can't think of any at the moment.
Anson Mount was amazing. His freak-out in the cave and then talking himself through his decision for moral reasons was superb. And his scene later with L'Rel and Tyler, where he is trying to explain things to them but is clearly still deeply traumatized . . . wow!