S02.E10: Blood of Patriots

[Bort]

Ed must initiate peace talks with the Krill.

Airdate: Thursday, March 7, 2019

[Bort]

Well yeah, I was suspicious of Oren and the “daughter” from pretty much the get-go. She looked way too old and was creepy as fuck.

[shapeshifter]

And then there was Orrin's cryptic "patriotism is for people with large families," which I guess is 25th century-speak for "revenge is a desert best served cold."

[Chaos Theory]

Gordon is by no means my favorite character but this was an incredible episode for Scott Grimes.  He played Gordon straight for a change and for the first time in two seasons I found myself relating to him.  

[Mr. Sparkle]

4 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Gordon is by no means my favorite character but this was an incredible episode for Scott Grimes.  He played Gordon straight for a change and for the first time in two seasons I found myself relating to him.  

Yes, but at one point he sounded exactly like Steve Smith from American Dad. 😉 

[TVSpectator]

2 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Well yeah, I was suspicious of Oren and the “daughter” from pretty much the get-go. She looked way too old and was creepy as fuck.

At first, I thought that Oren's 'daughter" would turn out to be the mysterious weapon but then the Krill captain didn't care for whether or not the "daughter" so it had to be something else. I liked this episode a lot and somehow this made me like Gordon much more. The dude was obviously torn about who to have loyalties to but he realized that being a terrorist isn't the answer, even if it was his friend wanting to attack the Krill. This was a great episode, and Scott Grimes really played the part amazingly well. But I did see his double take with Talla once she confronted him in the shuttle bay. Also, smart that they made sure that their shuttles have spacesuits and an airlock- it's like they thought it out or something. Then again, Mercer knew about Oren (because Malloy went to Mercer but we never saw it) and probably helped set up the entire escape route- maybe.  

[TVSpectator]

Just now, Superclam said:

Yes, but at one point he sounded exactly like Steve Smith from American Dad. 😉 

Somehow I didn't notice that. 

[Danielg342]

Kind of took a bit to get going, but once it did, it did great.

I had a feeling that Orrin was a strange dude from the minute I saw him. I figured the show would go with "he's not really Orrin, he's a Krill in disguise" (like they did with Teleya as "Janel"), but the way they ultimately explained it worked too. It did require a bit of a Deus Ex Machina (creating a whole new race on a whim to provide the "final clue"), but it still worked in the end.

I'll also say that this episode was Gordon's finest moment. Required to do more than just make fart jokes, Scott Grimes showed what kind of an actor he can be. I already knew (he was on Criminal Minds), but he never really brought it out until now.

Oh, and shout out to Admiral Ted Danson...Seth McFarlane's ability to get great cameos never ceases to amaze me.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Danielg342

[hendersonrocks]

I was distracted most of the (generally good, as usual!) episode trying to think of whether Mackenzie Astin and Scott Grimes ever starred in something together as kid actors back in the day. It appears the answer is no, but Google still produced some priceless photos of them together in the 1980s.

[Driad]

The "daughter's" early behavior reminded me of River Tam in Firefly, and I wondered what or who might be a weapon, so I was not surprised at the answer.  Starting to like Gordon a lot, now that he has moved away from his early fratboy behavior.

[ketose]

So is it just coincidence that there's also a father figure named Oren hanging around with a girl and committing mass murder on The Flash as well?

While I can compare this episode to TNG's "The High Ground," I'm starting to think of the South Park adage about how the Simpsons did everything first. This episode was wholly its own. They managed to build upon the relationship between the Union and the Krill and tell a B story about someone doing the wrong thing for what might have once been the right reasons. Also, Yaphit is a hero and Dan got 2 scenes.

[phalange]

I knew there was something off about the daughter aside from the fact that she didn't talk. I assumed she was the weapon somehow, but not that her blood was toxic to other life forms.

When Gordon helped Orrin steal the shuttle, I wondered if he decided against telling Ed after all, maybe because he felt guilty that Orrin suffered in Krill prison while he didn't. They had a good plan in the end, complete with space suits for abandoning the shuttle. I felt for Gordon that he essentially had to see his friend commit suicide. I liked the scene of Ed admitting that he was jealous of Gordon and Orrin's friendship. 

The Krill agreeing to the treaty is a huge step forward from where Union and Krill relations were back in season 1. Nothing like a race of genocidal robots to bring people and space vampires together. And Talla's stalling tactics for the Krill were hilarious. The pee corner lives on. 

Bummer that we have two weeks until the next episode. 

[Bort]

4 minutes ago, phalange said:

Talla's stalling tactics for the Krill were hilarious. The pee corner lives on. 

I died when Ed asked for five more minutes and we see Talla snapping on a latex glove. No wonder the Krill seemed extra cranky at the meeting later. I guess. They’re kind of hard to gauge.

[Danielg342]

7 minutes ago, phalange said:

Talla's stalling tactics for the Krill were hilarious. The pee corner lives on.

...and whatever she was going to do with those gloves.

[EllenB]

I'm starting to really like Talla.

[shapeshifter]

25 minutes ago, EllenB said:

I'm starting to really like Talla.

She has a smile that kind of has a wink vibe, which works really well with the show's humor.
About her snapping on a rubber glove to stall 5 more minutes: I'm going with the Krill finding a rectal exam no more invasive than a cheek swab for humans.

[DrScottie]

This reminded me of the TNG episode "The Wounded" Captain Maxwell played by Bob Gunton (known best for his role as the warden in the Shawshank Redemption) didn't recognize the cease fire between the Federation and the Cardassians. They had massacred his family and he was convinced that they were planning an invasion. He had destroyed two vessels and nearly restarted the war before Chief O'Brien was able to talk him into surrendering. Gordon wasn't able to do that for Orrin though. 

[EllenB]

Oh!  And hooray for Yaphit getting honored in that cut-rate Star Wars ceremony!

[thuganomics85]

Liked that the show acknowledged that Yaphit played a huge part with saving the day in the last episode and received a metal for it.  On the other hand, I'm surprised we didn't even get a peep from anyone about Isaac still being a member of the crew.  I have to imagine that it will eventually get addressed more going forward.

Good episode for Gordon and Scott Grimes, even if I saw a decent amount of it coming.  I figured something was going on with Orin and that there was a reason his "daughter" was featured so prominently, even though she was mainly off to the side.  I also figured it would all end with the Krill being right on some levels, because I didn't see any way the show was going to have Ed and the Orville gang be responsible for the ceasefire and potential path for peace to be ruined.  Still, they clearly did a number on him and likely other prisoners of war, so the Krill are still clearly someone that are going to be dangerous allies going forward, but they and the Union just happen to share a common enemy (for now.)

This episode was also probably the best they've used Talla so far.  Her creativity towards stalling the Krill was fun!

Admiral Victor Garber is understandably taking a break after what went down last week, so it is now the return of Admiral Ted Danson!

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, thuganomics85 said:

Admiral Victor Garber is understandably taking a break after what went down last week, so it is now the return of Admiral Ted Danson!

And now I'm hoping we get at least a B plot featuring both Admiral Victor Garber and Admiral Ted Danson exchanging some dialogue.  

[Biggie B]

I wish there would've been one throw-away line at the end that explained what happened to the "daughter." What did they do with her, especially since she's such a danger?

[shapeshifter]

24 minutes ago, Biggie B said:

I wish there would've been one throw-away line at the end that explained what happened to the "daughter." What did they do with her, especially since she's such a danger?

Maybe at the beginning of the next episode we'll get a throwaway line about Not Daughter's fate similar to how we got Yaphit's heroism award ceremony at the beginning of this episode? 

[welnoc]

2 hours ago, Biggie B said:

I wish there would've been one throw-away line at the end that explained what happened to the "daughter." What did they do with her, especially since she's such a danger?

Why do we need an explicit throwaway line?

That young woman was a victim, both of the Krill and of Oren. I find Oren's actions towards her despicable. Do you think that he'd have taken her with him if he hadn't been able to use her as a weapon? I don't think so. She was a bloody time bomb as well and he didn't seem to care; I don't imagine he'd have kept her around or helped her after he'd blown up as many Krill ships as he could.

The Union has shown itself to have some compassion and since that woman is toxic to other beings, they'd send her home to be with her people. The Union probably told the Krill that she was in the shuttle craft with Oren.

I'm quite happy that not everything is explicit and some things are left to our imagination, it would get boring otherwise.

Someone also mentioned throwaway lines and consequences for Isaac. Did you see him at the ceremony? He wasn't standing with those to whom he'd been closest and there was a great deal of space around him and the rest of the crowd. It's a subtle indication that he is alone, totally. And that is the consequence and quite possibly a seed planted for future episodes/storylines. 

Seth McFarlane has stated in interviews that he's tired of the dark (emotionally and literally) and distopian outlook in most television today. He wants hope and fun and brightness in his show; that should also serve as a sort of blanket explanation for some of the questions being asked.

Just my own opinion of course, no criticism of anyone intended.

[Emma9]

I was a bit surprised they jumped right from the explosion to the treaty. Wouldn't the Krill captain have been suspicious that they'd simply created a story and blown up an empty shuttle in order to avoid handing Orrin over? Even if the existence of the fake daughter's species is familiar to them, they still had no proof that she is one and that her blood is what destroyed their ships unless Ed allowed the Krill to examine her, and no way at all to prove Orrin is dead.

Also, I wonder how exactly the blood-canisters-as-torpedoes thing worked. In order to react with the nitrogen atmosphere inside the ships, they would have had to first breach their hulls. Even if the Krill were caught off-guard and didn't have their shields up, the canisters would have had to be strong enough to punch through the ships themselves without breaking while still outside and in vacuum (where the blood would presumably be harmless), but then somehow break open once they're inside.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Emma9

[Bort]

21 minutes ago, welnoc said:

That young woman was a victim, both of the Krill and of Oren. I find Oren's actions towards her despicable. Do you think that he'd have taken her with him if he hadn't been able to use her as a weapon? I don't think so. She was a bloody time bomb as well and he didn't seem to care; I don't imagine he'd have kept her around or helped her after he'd blown up as many Krill ships as he could.

I found her to be of the same stock as Oren. I don't think she was some wilting flower that Oren plucked to use despicably as bomb fuel. It was a partnership. One that she had the better side of, since the kamikaze plan had Oren perish and her survive.

[Florinaldo]

"Mother's maiden name" as a boarding question? Not only is that outdated custom still in effect in the Union but  we now know that the Krill also practice it. Or perhaps it's just the writers' inability to imagine that social norms can change over time.

It was no big surprise that someone who was a prisoner for 20 years in a torture camp would turn out to be the one killing all those Krills. But it was a bit of a stretch to reinstate him immediately as an officer, giving him access to all areas of the ship; should someone re-emerge like that after all this time, an intelligently designed security process would have included some psychological assessment and a decision by a review panel. But the Union does not seem to bother with things like that. Also, it was a plot expedient that he could go wherever he wished.

So Gordon can act as something else than an immature fratboy in space.  How long will this refreshing character twist last?

[welnoc]

16 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

I found her to be of the same stock as Oren. I don't think she was some wilting flower that Oren plucked to use despicably as bomb fuel. It was a partnership. One that she had the better side of, since the kamikaze plan had Oren perish and her survive.

You could be right; I was taking her relative youth compared to Oren into account. Maybe the decision to blow up Krill ships was mutual.

I still find Oren's actions worse than hers, especially when he put back on the Union uniform. 

I think I'll just have to watch the episode again and see if I feel any different. 

See, this is why I don't want any throwaway lines; we get to debate and participate in the show and I really like that. If everything was explained there'd be nothing to talk about!

[Bort]

16 minutes ago, welnoc said:

I was taking her relative youth compared to Oren into account.

As the ruse was that she was supposed to be Oren's daughter, I had been thinking that she looked way too old to be 20. And since she turned out to not be human, we have no way of knowing how old she really is. She could be even older than Oren.

I do agree that she should simply be sent back to her people.

[Good Queen Jane]

18 minutes ago, welnoc said:

You could be right; I was taking her relative youth compared to Oren into account. Maybe the decision to blow up Krill ships was mutual.

Orrin said that she had her own reasons for hating the Krill. I am fanwanking that she was not a teenager but that her species just looks young.

[SimoneS]

I thought it was an okay episode. 

[Driad]

During commercials I switched to a documentary about the oceans, that had a lot about krill.

Ed signed his name Ed Mercer. Cast lists give his name that way, not Edward or whatever. Glad to see the Krill guy did not write his name in English characters.

[rmontro]

13 hours ago, phalange said:

When Gordon helped Orrin steal the shuttle, I wondered if he decided against telling Ed after all

The editing there wasn't quite fair.  They made it look like Gordon went directly from Talla's office to the shuttle bay.  I thought he was going to force Orrin to reveal his plan, but I didn't realize he had already informed Ed, and that Ed was in on it.

Gordon looks like he's the focus of the next episode also.

Hardly any comedy in this week at all, makes me wonder if they're every going to just drop it altogether at some point.  I love that guy with the spots all over his face though, the one discussing the casual Fridays, he cracks me up every time.

[meatball77]

2 hours ago, rmontro said:

 I love that guy with the spots all over his face though, the one discussing the casual Fridays, he cracks me up every time.

 

He's my favorite.   I wonder what other ideas he has to make the ship more comfortable.  Music in the Elevators, Casual Fridays

I would hate for them to drop the humor.  I think the secret is finding the right balance. 
 

[rmontro]

3 hours ago, meatball77 said:

He's my favorite.   I wonder what other ideas he has to make the ship more comfortable.  Music in the Elevators, Casual Fridays

I had to look it up, but his name is Dann, played by Mike Henry.

Those scenes from last season (I think it was) when he kept running into Ed and Kelly in the elevator, what a scream.

[ketose]

12 hours ago, Emma9 said:

I was a bit surprised they jumped right from the explosion to the treaty. Wouldn't the Krill captain have been suspicious that they'd simply created a story and blown up an empty shuttle in order to avoid handing Orrin over? Even if the existence of the fake daughter's species is familiar to them, they still had no proof that she is one and that her blood is what destroyed their ships unless Ed allowed the Krill to examine her, and no way at all to prove Orrin is dead.

Also, I wonder how exactly the blood-canisters-as-torpedoes thing worked. In order to react with the nitrogen atmosphere inside the ships, they would have had to first breach their hulls. Even if the Krill were caught off-guard and didn't have their shields up, the canisters would have had to be strong enough to punch through the ships themselves without breaking while still outside and in vacuum (where the blood would presumably be harmless), but then somehow break open once they're inside.

I'm going to assume there were some remains of Orrin.

On the first 4 Krill ships, he was using a Krill shuttle with torpedoes. Presumably, the blood was in there. With the Union shuttle, he was just going to crash the shuttle into the Krill ship.

[Carmel Cub]

Does anyone know the name of the actress who played Orrin's "daughter"? I tried to find it on IMDB but neither the name of the character nor the actress show up as yet.

ETA: Never mind. I should have looked again before I typed that...and for the record her name is Aily Kei.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Carmel Cub

[shapeshifter]

5 minutes ago, Carmel Cub said:

Does anyone know the name of the actress who played Orrin's "daughter"? I tried to find it on IMDB but neither the name of the character nor the actress show up as yet.

Aily Kei 

[ketose]

I just got what the title meant.

[Corvino]

I'm glad other people brought up the episode's not dealing with what happened to the pseudo-daughter. She was fascinating both as a supposedly traumatized mute and then as the secret weapon. I thought she was going to turn out to be Orin's weapon, but I thought it would be by her having developed some Carrie-like destructive powers under Krill mistreatment. Explosive blood! Ha! Anyway, I wanted to know! I spent the two post-pre-treaty scenes yelling at the screen "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PSEUDO-DAUGHTER?"

I like Welnoc's initial suggestion that she was just sent home to her people. They could assume she was a victim of PTSD (even if he met her after he escaped from the POW camp; she wouldn't have been sitting pretty in Krill territory wherever she was) and cut her some slack for threatening Talla. I was pleased that the Krill commander said they weren't interested in her, which meant they didn't know she was the weapon, which meant our people were free to be nice. If she had any sense, under the changed circumstances she'd claim she was an innocent victim of Orin's obsession, anyway.

[GaT]

I'm with other people in wanting to know what happened to the "daughter". Some other things I found strange, Orrin didn't look like someone who just spent 20 years in a supposedly horrible prison, he looked way too healthy. At one point it gets mentioned that Orrin raised her in the prison, but then he says he hasn't seen her since she was a baby but he acts like he knows what happened to her in prison. This wasn't my favorite episode.

[tv-talk]

Liked it well enough but would have enjoyed it much more if Ed had turn Orrin over to the Krill once he knew for certain he was guilty- that would have been something.

So basically everything is back to normal with Isaac? I expect at least a little more from the Identity story but there was Isaac just computing away in the background, right there when blob was being honored for saving ship from his people. I really hope they dont just brush all that under the rug, though I could see a pretty funny scene/joke where Gordon quipped "Remember that time you betrayed all of us and tried to destroy the human race? Good times" or some such over a drink

[Orbert]

Orrin did look way too good for someone who'd spent 20 years in a prison camp.  He looked a little batterred and bruised when they first found them in the shuttle, but in the next scene he was all cleaned up and Iooked great and I guess we just had to let that go.

It was Gordon who said that he hadn't seen Leyna since she was a baby.  They needed that line to explain how he didn't recognize her and thus had no idea that it wasn't Orrin's daughter.

[Whimsy]

On 3/7/2019 at 10:18 PM, TVSpectator said:

At first, I thought that Oren's 'daughter" would turn out to be the mysterious weapon but then the Krill captain didn't care for whether or not the "daughter" so it had to be something else. I liked this episode a lot and somehow this made me like Gordon much more. The dude was obviously torn about who to have loyalties to but he realized that being a terrorist isn't the answer, even if it was his friend wanting to attack the Krill. This was a great episode, and Scott Grimes really played the part amazingly well. But I did see his double take with Talla once she confronted him in the shuttle bay. Also, smart that they made sure that their shuttles have spacesuits and an airlock- it's like they thought it out or something. Then again, Mercer knew about Oren (because Malloy went to Mercer but we never saw it) and probably helped set up the entire escape route- maybe.  

ON 3/7/2019 AT 10:59 PM, DRIAD SAID:

The "daughter's" early behavior reminded me of River Tam in Firefly,and I wondered what or who might be a weapon, so I was not surprised at the answer. Starting to like Gordon a lot, now that he has moved away from his early fratboy behavior.

I got River Tam vibes too, so I knew she was the “weapon”.  The Krill didn’t know how he was causing the explosions, so it didn’t surprise me they didn’t care about her.  I’m glad they did switch it up and that wasn’t his actual daughter after all.  I just assumed his daughter was special in some way.  

On 3/7/2019 at 10:57 PM, hendersonrocks said:

I was distracted most of the (generally good, as usual!) episode trying to think of whether Mackenzie Astin and Scott Grimes ever starred in something together as kid actors back in the day. It appears the answer is no, but Google still produced some priceless photos of them together in the 1980s.

My teenage heart was crying tears of joy. I was so excited to see two of my teen crushes on the screen at the same time. Lol. Those pictures are so funny to see now. 

[shapeshifter]

29 minutes ago, Orbert said:

Orrin did look way too good for someone who'd spent 20 years in a prison camp.  He looked a little batterred and bruised when they first found them in the shuttle, but in the next scene he was all cleaned up and Iooked great and I guess we just had to let that go.

Claire could use her tricorder (or whatever it's called in the Orvillianverse) on Orrin to make him good as new, like when she gave Gordon a new leg. 
This was more to the point:

31 minutes ago, Orbert said:

It was Gordon who said that he hadn't seen Leyna since she was a baby.  They needed that line to explain how he didn't recognize her and thus had no idea that it wasn't Orrin's daughter

plus:

8 minutes ago, Whimsy said:

River Tam vibes

[marinw]

So why was Dude back in uniform so quickly? Isn't there some sort off debriefing-readjustment protocal to follow?

Edited March 9, 2019 by marinw

[Ubiquitous]

On 3/7/2019 at 10:57 PM, hendersonrocks said:

I was distracted most of the (generally good, as usual!) episode trying to think of whether Mackenzie Astin and Scott Grimes ever starred in something together as kid actors back in the day. It appears the answer is no, but Google still produced some priceless photos of them together in the 1980s.

Hokey smokes! I wondered why Orrin looked familiar! 

16 hours ago, rmontro said:

I had to look it up, but his name is Dann, played by Mike Henry.

Those scenes from last season (I think it was) when he kept running into Ed and Kelly in the elevator, what a scream.

Ah, I wondered why he sounded familiar! 

Good ep. I thought the Krill (or a faction trying to sabotage the treaty) were repeating what they did with what's-her-name , especially after it was pointed out by admiral Ted Danson.

[DarkRaichu]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

So why was Dude babk in uniform so quickly? Isn't there some sort off debriefing-readjustment protocal ro follow?

The Union is probably the most trusting (naive?) organization in the galaxy, with softest security. 😛

No wonder that Krill woman could escape their facility so easily and infiltrate the Orville in relatively short time

The episode is good overall. Since the episode had a more serious tone, I like how the humor was mostly kept minimal and contained with side characters.

Yay for Yaphit.  That was a great way to recognize side characters and make the Orville feels like a real ship with real diverse crew.

I stopped comparing the show to Star Trek.  The Orville is it's own show and deserved to be treated like one.

So, if Orrin and Gordon served together at an out post when they were in their 20s and this was a 30 year old friendship, doesn't that mean Gordon is in his 50s now???

Edited March 9, 2019 by DarkRaichu

[tv-talk]

So why was it that all the scans done by the Orville and the Krills didnt pick up what the daughter was but then Claire knew? Is the idea that the green blood was the give away but scans cant pick it up? If scans cant tell that she is a walking bomb, they need to get some new scanners- the Krill too.

[shapeshifter]

57 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

So, if Orrin and Gordon served together at an out post when they were in their 20s and this was a 30 year old friendship, doesn't that mean Gordon is in his 50s now???

"Orrin and I were best friends. From grade school all the way through Union Point" (Gordon).
I'm guessing "Union Point" is like "West Point."
So they're probably supposed to be around 38-42?
Scott Grimes is 47.

[DarkRaichu]

3 hours ago, tv-talk said:

So why was it that all the scans done by the Orville and the Krills didnt pick up what the daughter was but then Claire knew? Is the idea that the green blood was the give away but scans cant pick it up? If scans cant tell that she is a walking bomb, they need to get some new scanners- the Krill too.

IIRC she squirmed away whenever the doc tried to scan her.  The doc probably respected the Not!daughter's privacy so much she wouldn't force her to get a proper scan.  This goes back to my point above about the Union being too trusting