S2E16 - Meld

This week on The Voy Cast, we dive into that episode where Tom Paris creates a gambling empire, and an EPS conduit becomes the scene of Voyager’s darkest mystery yet.
Tuvok is feeling VERY STRONG…VERY POWERFUL, and maybe the most chilling villain the series ever gave us — Ensign Suder, Voyager’s very own Moriarty-level menace. Quiet. Calm. And terrifying.
And we answer the question: What happens when Tuvok tries to understand a killer… and the darkness stares back?💀
All this and more in MELD 🖖

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Come hang out with us in the Delta Quadrant!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hey listeners, I'm your co-host Audrey, and I'm your co-host Terry. Welcome to the Voikast, your home in the Delta Quadrant for All Things Star Trek Voyager. Today on the pod, we dive into that episode where Tom Paris creates a gambling empire and is promptly shut down. And someone is murdered and burned to a crest and shoved into an EPS combat in what maybe one of the darkest murders I've ever seen on Star Trek. Uh, Tuvok is feeling very strong and very powerful. And maybe the most chill chilling villain the series has ever given us. Instant Sutter. Which is such a creepy name. I love it. Um Voyager's like very own Moriarty level menace, at least potentially. He's so creepy the way he talks. Do you know the guy that plays him? It does all the Chucky movies. He's the voice that makes sense. He's also worm, whatever worm guy from Lord of the Rings. From Lord of the Rings. You know the king's counselor that's like evil trying to like keep the king all wormwood, yeah. It was like worm something. Uh yeah, that's the episode. So let's get into it. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

not like a funny episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

No, it was so dark, but it was like dark and I like I really enjoyed it because the villain was so creepy evil and so well played. It was so dark. Like the whole episode was dark. It was the even the lighting, there was no brightness anywhere. It's just dark, dark, who directed it? So the teleplay is by Michael Killer. The story is by Michael Sussman. They only allow Michael to write the dark episodes. And it was directed by Cliff Bowl. So I heard his name before kind of new style. I wonder. Let's let's look at Cliff. Oh picture Cliff wearing a shirt with burns on it. Cliff pretty interesting. You know the first episode of Star Trek he directed was in the next generation. This totally makes sense. You know the episode in the first or second or third season, I forget, where the parasite worm things are taking over everyone in Starfleet's high command, and Picard has to go on this like mission to like figure out the conspiracy and then kill the guy at the end, and he has like a little worm thing coming out of it. Do you remember that episode?

SPEAKER_02 3:05

No. I will be honest, I do not.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Season 125. Wow, forgot there are that many episodes in season one.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah, dang. Alright, so kind of a similar dark conspiracy type theme.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah, I feel like he has a theme. He has a thing he does. And that is dark conspiracies. So like we mentioned, the beginning of this episode starts with Tom Paris running a gambling circuit out of the holodeck uh bordello that he has set up. And Harry Kim is so not into it. It's kind of hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

But like every everyone is just hanging out in the bordello now. There's just a bunch of random crewmen that just chill there. It's become the official hangout, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

I mean, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah, I mean, I guess so. And probably you there's only so many holodex, so you gotta start sharing people's programs.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, I feel like there were more than one on the Enterprise D, but I don't know that there's more than one on Voider. Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe there's two? I don't I don't know. Curious to see if someone writes in the comments, hey, let's actually listen to the episode. There's this many holodex. We'll do it as a as like a hidden why am I losing my mind? What do you go into Friday?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Trivia, hidden trivia. Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Well, he Tom just seems like he wants to do a little gambling, I guess, really. And so he says, let's all guess on the radiogenic particle count at 1200 hours. And everyone's like, hell yeah, I'll I'll guess that.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah. Is this is this like guessing the amount of jelly beans in a jar?

SPEAKER_02 5:07

I yeah, I assume so, except it changes every day. So you get all day.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah. And it looked like you had to actually get it. Like it's not you were closest to you have to be exact. So at the end of it, the computer was like, nope, no one got it.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah, nobody won. Because who could guess that? I don't even know what the range of numbers of particles would be. It seems like it'd be very high. This would be very hard to guess. But Tom does decide.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Do you want to know some things? Do you want to do you want to know some deep? Do you have things for me to know? Radio, a radio gen, I always have things for you to know. Are they relevant to anything in life? No, not at all. That's why we do.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

We don't want it to be relevant to life. We want it to be relevant to Star Trek.

unknown 5:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

I don't even think this is relevant to Star Trek. A radiogenic particle is a type of radioactive particle found in low concentrations in space and is higher concentrations associated with various natural or artificial phenomena. Radiogenic particles in sufficient quantities could serve as the alternate power source for starships.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Well, they're getting those.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

I know. Listen to this. In 2372, Tom Paris created a short-lived Paris radiogenic sweepstakes for the USS Voyager. A lottery whose winner was the one to correctly guess the radiogenic particle count the next day. Yeah, and then it goes on. But I don't, that's it. We don't really know anything else about it, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

And I'm sure they didn't either, because they couldn't guess correctly. But Tom is charging everyone to be a part of his new poll, which is great. He's getting replicated rations.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah. He makes Harry like write everything down on a Harry's like his secretary.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

So bad.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah. And in the next like couple scenes, we're in engineering, and Balana is kind of trying to figure out why there's there's some sort of problem and the conduit's not working anyway. She calls Tuvok to engineering. It sounds urgent. He was being pestered, is the best word I can describe it by Nelix.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Un annoyed. Nelix really wants to see him smile, which is just, oh my god, Neelix, step away.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

This made me laugh so hard though. Neelyx is trying to think about like some different Vulcan holidays. And he's like, what about the holiday where um what's it called? The rumory, where it's a festival that hasn't been celebrated in like a thousand years, where everyone gets completely naked and just gets spangs, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

It's an orgy of Vulcan.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

And he's like yelling this as he's walking out the door. He's like, I could set up this holiday and we could all get naked and take our clothes off. He's like screaming this in the message. I could make arrangements.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Oh god. Oh so Tuvock gets is happy to have to run to engineering at this point.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

And then Balana opens this like conduit door, and we're like in the conduit. The camera is like from that perspective. And there's just like a burnt fried arm. Arm.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Hanging out.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

So at first is like, okay, well, is there just an arm or is there a like a whole body?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah. Probably. We find out later. It's like he's trying to vaporize basically the evidence. Yeah. And it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah, normally. And I think the doctor says something about that. Like, normally, if you had put a body into this crawl space, it would have vaporized, but something shorted, and so it just got charcoaled.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, it got barbecue. So uh yeah, and this is like dun dun dun, you know, get that like cut to credits. And then the rest of the episode, the lighting on the ship is like super dim. I don't think we have an actual scene outside of maybe like Sick Bay where it's not like super dark and creepy.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Even in Sick Bay, it's like nighttime lighting a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, they like dimmed it.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah, you're right. I when Balana was talking about what's going on in engineering, what's going wrong, we briefly see the I don't know if it's an ensign, the person who has been feeding information to the Kazon. And so I immediately we see that guy for like two seconds, and then we see this body. Yeah, I was like, oh, definitely. I was like this. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And then, well, no. The doctor confirms that uh this crispy guy was in fact murdered. Someone hit him in the head, and that is why he died. And that's still I'm like, it was this traitor guy.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

It wasn't though.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

I continued to think it was through more of this episode than I should have because I wanted it to be.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

I was like, I I I think I ruled it out in my mind. Because I'm like, no way are they gonna just like I mean, I guess they could, but then they never really tied it into any kind of investigation. So I was like, nah, that can't be that guy. That's not how that art.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I mean, it could have been that they just never found the the culprit, but then what would the episode be about?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Honestly, before they found the arm, I thought she was gonna like open the conduit door thing and have there'd be like a secret, like little computer dashboard or something.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Something connected to the Kazon.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah. And I was like, oh, it's an arm. Okay. Very different turn. Yeah. I was like still thinking about like naked women on like a beach on Vulcan and cut into murder.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Actually, that was kind of an abrupt change from talking about Vulcan holidays to just dead crispy guy. The guy's name was Darwin. I don't think we ever met him.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So great name for a guy that gets murdered.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Fair point. Survival of the fittest.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

I think the writer's room, they're just like sitting around like a dead guy. What should we call him?

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Obviously. They pretty quickly have a suspect because there was just one guy on duty the night before in engineering.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I like that they focused on what that is their suspect, and the senior officers are meeting to talk about it. Also, like the I think they're in Janeway's quarters because I I don't think they were in the actual conference hall. It was like a smaller room. And they are like really shaken by this. And Jacote goes on about how this guy never really sat well with him. He was on his crew as a maquis and really loved killing and violence. And T Vok's like, why didn't you bring this up in reports? And they have this little back and forth about like, I didn't think it was my hunches were relevant. And Tvox, like, well, I disagree.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Obviously, they are.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

And this guy's name is Sutter. Yes. And Chicote does say, like, you know, we did a lot of unsavory things. It took a lot of like violence and stuff. He didn't feel like he had to bring it up. Right. Right. But as he's saying that, I'm like, no, this guy's being framed. This sounds like a setup. Everyone's like, oh yeah, he's so violent. It still sounded to me, I was like, the other, the traitor guy set him up. He's setting him up to take the fall. What's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I I was already on just this, like, okay, it's this other guy, it's completely about him. And when they were in the med bay doing like a genetic um analysis, I was like, this is so cool. It's like 1996. And this is still like early genetics, and they're um they're really like diving into genetic science, and they've got like a little spinny thing off to the side, like it's still analyzing the the genetic material, and he's like, here's the it's this guy, it's Sutter, the guy that you had suspected.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

They found his DNA inside the head wound on Darwin, and I still am like, he's being set up. All of this points to him. It can't actually be him.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah, but then you meet the guy and you're like, oh yeah, he definitely killed him.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yes, actually, as soon as we met him, I was like, maybe he's working with the traitor. This guy's definitely guilty somehow.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

No way. This guy, this this guy is so creepy. He has this like Hannibal Lecter vibe about him and he like talks so like quietly and creepily, you know. It's true, he does. And he's a beta zoid, which makes it even creepier somehow.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

It's the like dark eyes that makes it very creepy.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah, and it's like he do you think if he since he's a beta zoid, he like enjoys the feeling of them dying?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, maybe. He seems to be a special beta soid. We get into it a little bit, but as soon as Tuvok confronts him with this DNA evidence, he's like, Yep, you're right. I did it. I I hit him with a spanner, hit him in the in there, was gonna vaporize him. Guess I screw that up. You got me. Yep. He's like, and I'm like, now I'm like, oh, he's confessing. He is working with the other guy and just trying to cover this up. I still was in denial. I was like, this is too easy. Everything points to this guy. That can't be the whole point. Yeah. And Tuvok is Tuvok's kind of like on the same page as me. He's like, this doesn't make sense. He's like, why did you kill him? And creepy guy Suter is like, because he looked at me funny, or I didn't like the way he looked at me. And Tuvok's just like, no, no, that's not a legitimate reason to kill someone.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

It's like Tivok cannot understand the mind of a psychopath. And I thought that was really interesting. Like, yeah, he's like, this isn't logical, and the doctor even talks to him about it later. He's like, not all human races are logical when it comes to this, and certain people are psychopaths and they just kill. That is just what they want to do.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

And Tuvok cannot accept that, it doesn't make sense to him.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's really interesting. And he does have these like creepy black eyes, and so Tuvok like he like walks away and then he comes back. He's like, I have to he tries again, he's like, I have to know why you killed this guy. But he just keeps giving him the same answers, basically, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Um Yeah, he talks a little bit about how beta zoids like can usually feel other beings' feelings, and that he doesn't he can't feel anything, even though he's a beta zoid. And he says that basically he's always been violent and has always acted out like this, and that he just doesn't have a reason.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

It's super creepy. I love the idea of a beta zoid serial killer. That is like such he they I wish they had like juiced this, right? Like, had like a two-part episode where he gets loose on the ship and we don't know who's killing people, and bodies keep showing up, and then the investigation goes into part two of the next season where they're just like dun dun dun, who is it? The big reveal, right? Like a serial killer two-parter. That would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah, yeah, it definitely was a little they could have expanded this for sure, but I think the focus turned a little bit more to Voc and his inability to accept this.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yep. So he says, All right, well, I can't let this go. I can't drop it. It's bothering me. I I don't understand. So I'm gonna propose that we do a mind meld, which is super dangerous. Um and I think it's interesting. We've seen mind melds before in all different seasons of shows of Star Trek and the movies. And like there's this awesome episode in Strange New Worlds, which is a prequel series to the original series where Spock does a mind meld with his, or like a special kind of mind meld with his fiance, and they actually end up switching bodies. Oh, yeah. And then there's an episode, uh, there's several like mind meld episodes in the original series again with Spock, where different things happen. Um, but this is the first one I've seen where it like really affects the Vulcan like this. Like even in even in the 2009 movie, which I love. And if you hate it, fine, but I will always disagree with you. Um, it's an awesome movie. I they he mind melds with Kirk, and then Kirk is like crying and all this stuff. He's like emotionally overwhelmed afterwards, and Spock is fine. So it's like, I guess it depends.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah, it seems super unpredictable. And when Tuvok proposes this, he's like, I have a lot of ways to dampen feelings and urges, and maybe I can transfer some of that to you, Sutter, so that you don't like murder people anymore.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

And yeah, it's like therapy, insta therapy.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

And Sutter's like interested in that.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

He's like, Yeah, okay, let's do it. They meld right there. I don't, nothing really happens immediately. It's not until Sarah's like, Where I lost where I was in my notes.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Okay, I don't remember like the response immediately after the mind meld. I just remember Tupac going to Janeway's ready room later to talk to her about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah, he he gives a report on what he did. And then there's a scene where he in that conversation, he suggested like executing him. And Janeway was like, that's weird. I don't want to do that, and you know that, and why do you want to do that? That's not something you usually propose. Right. And he's like, I don't know, I think he'd be good to do.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah. So I feel like he got he got some idea of like how fucked up this guy is, and he's like, we should execute him.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

But I know they had the opposite response.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Really?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I thought that was Sutter's violent tendencies wearing off on Tuvok and just him. Him wanting to murder him being more open and fine with violent um violent things, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah. I noticed when they were having this conversation that Tuvok was like wringing his hands in this kind of nervous manner that I was like, oh, we don't see Tuvok do that. This is very intentional. Like he is didn't even notice that. He is way in out.

unknown 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

She does say that the mind melds um has made him more disconcerted than he expected.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, also made all of us more disconcerted.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah, absolutely. Jane was like, take time off.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Yeah. Like, you never want your boss being like, you should take some time off. Like, seriously. But he he objects and he, I feel like the next scene, for some reason, I remember the next scene being him being confronted by Neelix again, and then he like aggressively and angrily chokes Neelix out, like up against a wall. And I was like, holy shit. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Well, oh my god. Yeah, you see him sitting in in the food hall, and Neelix approaches him, and I'm going, like, not right now, Neelix, not right now. We know Tok is not feeling good. Like, don't, and he starts being super annoying, like, give me a Smile and is even like touching Tuvok's face and trying to make him smile. And I was like, Dude, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

To be fair, I would have also choked Neel's off.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Yeah. That totally fucked up. And but of course, when Tuvok responds like that so violently, we're just like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Yeah. Yeah. And then at the end, he's like, and holographic and holodeck in good. In holodeck program.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Yes. So he is taking out his frustrations on holographic Nelix, which is totally fair. And this comes off of like the last thing he says to Janeway before he leaves to go to the holodeck is that he's already working on a way to rid himself of these excess feelings. So this is how he's doing it. He's pretending to kill Nelix.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Elsewhere on the ship, because we only get these two scenes, basically. Yeah. But Chicote just he walks into the other holodeck, I guess, and confiscates the he shuts down the gambling ring that Paris is running.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah. And he really he tells Tom he's really disappointed in him. He's like, you're a senior officer, like skimming off the top of this is not okay. And then he talks about like how Janeway has put so much trust in Tom. Yeah. And um, and then I was kind of thinking, like, okay, so why was Tom doing this? Is he acting out because he has like unresolved feelings for Janeway and their children that they abandoned on a planet somewhere?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

I didn't think. I didn't think that Baron would. This just seemed like something Tom Paris would do. A Tom thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Yeah, I had kind of felt like Tom had turned over a new leaf, but this, I guess, kind of was just like, nah, Tom's still Tom.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I mean, to be fair, I really don't think it's that big a deal.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

No, I fully agree. Everyone there knew what was going on and were we're fine with it.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah, and and Chicote's being a hard ass, and Paris probably shouldn't be doing it to like this extent. He should keep it small and fun, like one thing, and not like grow this pot. But it's Paris, so he like gets into something and he feels like he has his ego inflated and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna keep doing this. This is fun for me, and gets in trouble. But I didn't think it was that big a deal. And even like Tuvok's reaction made or Chico Day's reaction made sense to me. But like, if I was Tom, I would have been like, Yeah, you know, it's not the end of the world. No, and I think I don't think Janeway's thinking about this at all.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

No. And Tom was providing like a pastime for everyone to to do. I it felt like fairly positive until the fact that like he is getting a percentage, but otherwise he took it too far. He did. Yeah. He did. But it wasn't a terrible idea.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yeah. Um, so it's like this fun little random aside, and then we're back into like fucking serial killer zone. Uh Tuvok goes to Sutter, and Sutter is like weirdly changed. He's even creepier, but he's like calm. He's like a calm, he's like truly a Hannibal lector at this point. Like calm, emotionally controlled, talking with an even creepier voice.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

He tells Tuvok that he's feeling centered and that it's almost like he can observe the violence within him.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, it's like yoga with serial killers.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

You should do that, Terry. You should do that on like in October. Do like a serial killer themed yoga experience. Yoga That sounds terrible. It sounds terrifying, and I would do it. All like in the dark, really creepy. Just whisper like into people's ears.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

This would be like a horror sound bath, I think, is what we're describing here. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Terry teaches yoga, so she's gonna bring that experience to us. She's gonna bring that experience to us remotely for us. Absolutely. One of the few countries not currently at war with the United States. But possibly in the future. Well, it is right next to Venezuela, so Yep. That's great. We're doing great. Doing so good. It was interesting that Sutter says something very interesting. He says, I find violence attractive. I was like, what an interesting way to describe violence.

unknown 26:51

Act.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Well, to yeah, to some people. To he himself, absolutely it is. Um Tuvok's trying to recommend courses of treatment for him because he doesn't think that this calm that he has imparted through the mind meld will last. So he's like, you should definitely try holographic violence.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

And Sutter's like, yeah, no, I've tried that. It's it's not the same. And he kind of just starts looking at Tuvok with like this knowing face, and he's like, You're struggling with these feelings. You're also seeing how attractive violence is.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

And Sutter is like kind of coy, kind of like manipulative. And he's like, I would consider another mind melt. Yeah. I think that would help us both. And Tuvok immediately like walks out of the room without saying anything else, goes to his quarters, locks the door, deletes his security clearance, and tells Janeway that he's no longer fit for dirty duty. And I was like, whoa. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Sutter said that he observed that a mind meld is almost an act of violence, which was Yeah, like violation. Like it's a violation. Absolutely violation. But I mean, when two people were were accepting about it, I don't I don't know. I thought that was just a really interesting statement that he made.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yeah. I think I think I walked away from that feeling like he was saying, and we've seen this in action, it has the potential to basically be like a mind rape. Like that what they did maybe not necessarily was that, but like it had it's a tool for violence if used it correctly.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Oh, it absolutely can be. It's so powerful. And the fact that Tuvok is dealing with unwanted consequences of it kind of.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

He's going with them. Yeah. So Janeway comes along with a very, like, very sexy security officer by her side. And they go in, and Tuvok's quarters are like trashed, completely trashed, and he's like throwing furniture around. He's like sitting in the dark shadow. You can barely even see that someone's there. And he's like lurking and sweating and stuff. And uh it's super, we've never seen Tuvok like this. It's super creepy.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

No, it was terrifying. And as Jane May walks into his room, he's like, do not come any closer. And she walks a little closer and he's like, for your safety, do not.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Then he says something like super creepy. He's like, I've been sitting here, um, thinking of all the ways I can kill members of the crew, and I'm up to like 98 or something.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds a little hokey when he's like, I will remind you that I am trained in the martial arts. But he means this as a very serious just the martial arts.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

We all grew up with karate kids.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

We know what we're doing. That and Killbill. So it's terrifying. Yeah, Tuvok has lost control, which is just not something we've ever seen. And Jane Wayne is like, we need, we need to help you. We need to get you to sick bay. And he's like, I recommend you sedate me if you're going to do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, yeah. They they take him to sick bay. And there's, you know, talk of a neurochemical imbalance and his something, something part of his brain. And the doctor, I did write this down, temporarily disabled his emotional suppression system. And I was like, yeah, is that like an actual neurological system in a Vulcan's brain? I've never heard of this.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

That is what he made it sound like. And the goal is he explains basically to try and reboot that system. They have to take it offline and then let it reset. And he also says that mind melds go wrong more than Vulcans would like to admit.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Well, he says it in like the sarcastic darkter ways, like rolling his eyes. He's like, oh, things go wrong all the time. Why do they do this? Exhausting, just typical Vulcan behavior. Yeah. And then they're like, oh, they come to the doctor when they want. And Jane Lee like shuts him down halfway through his sentence. He's like, okay, let's focus. And so they decide to like wake him up. They have a force field around him.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

And they're doing there's like a countdown for this emotional suppression suppression system to come back on online. It's like three minutes or something.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

So why did they have to wake him up for that? Great question. Because he wakes up and he's like, he's like, I feel so strong. I feel so powerful. And he'll like puts his fists down on the table, and he's like walking around all weird. And then they say like they say like, nah, we're he we're not gonna we're not gonna keep this on so you can feel powerful and strong. And he throws some furniture. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

And during this, he is emoting. Like as the actor as a character is showing so much more emotion on his face than we have ever seen from Tuvok. He did it's such a good job. Incredible and incredibly disconcerting.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Yeah, yeah, very unnerving. It's like, why is he? It's like whenever, whenever uh Spock smiles, you're like, Yeah, you're like, stop, don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Um, Tuvok is he seems to really relish all these emotions that he's feeling, and he that's he tries to convince them to leave his suppression system offline.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

And she's like says it's euphoric.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yeah, and he says that it would help him to study primitive Fulcans if he could stay like this. And they're like, no. Yeah, no way, that's not gonna happen. They're like, Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Let's have no. I was sitting there, uh, I wrote down that I am uncomfortable with Two Vox emotions. Like, this was super wrong. Yeah. And he yells at Janeway. He's starts talking about Sutter and how he thinks that Janeway wanting to spare his life is a sign of weakness. Then he starts saying that all humans disgust him. And if they'll just let him out, he will go kill Sutter for her. And then she won't have to make that decision. And then he does a little half smile, which is the creepiest thing I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Yeah, it reminded me of I don't know if anyone's gonna remember this, but in the 2008 presidential campaign when Herman Cain was one of the presidential candidates running for the Republican nominee nomination, he had a commercial that became famous for a while. And he like did this like creepy like side smile, and it was like super slow. And on the commercial, like zoomed up his whole face. And then things go back to crazy, and this is one of the episodes where I'm like, damn it, why did they end it like this? Just give me another episode of madness. He breaks out of Sick Bay later, like everyone has kind of laughed. He breaks out, he goes straight to the brig and he does like this whole monologue with Sutter where he's like, You're gonna, you know, is this vengeance? Is this like justice? And you can't control your violence, I couldn't control mine. And then he starts a mind meld to execute him, and this happens all at once. I was like, what is happening? Oh my god. I did not I thought he was just gonna, we were at the very end of the episode. There were like five minutes left. So I was like, okay, like it's gonna be one of the episodes where like Tuvok wakes up, he's like, Okay, I'm better now, and then do do do.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

No, it escalated so quickly. And yeah, Sitter, like, he recognizes this immediate immediately. He's like, Oh, this is a logical use of violence. Like, you're just figuring out a way to murder someone right now, and he doesn't seem particularly scared to die. He doesn't seem to blame Tuvok at all. He's just like, I know what's going on here. Yeah, yeah. So it was Tuvok grabs him in a violent mind meld.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

And they stutters like he's trying to kill me.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yeah, you can't really tell what's going on. There's like some groaning, they're both struggling, and then Tuvok just like passes out.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah. Oh, they yawn. Um, yeah, just of course I yawn at this part. So they get him back into sick bay, right? And the doctor does something like says that Tuvok not being able to kill Sutter is a sign that his emotional suppression system is coming back online. I was like, no, it's not. No. Well, I He came pretty close. If Sutter hadn't called for help, he would have been dead.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

So I mean, it seemed like I mean, nobody came to help, right? Even though Sutter called for help, that Tuvok like basically passed out before he could kill this guy. Assuming that that means that Tuvok didn't want to kill him or wasn't able to kill him, I don't know is correct. That seemed like he was stretching for sure. He does apologize to the captain, though, for insulting her and for saying all humans disgust him, essentially. So that I think is a good sign.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Yes. I had to I kind of left after watching this. The there's a growing trend in our Voyager episodes, and I'm curious to see if you've noticed it, where the episode ends with a senior officer having to apologize to Janeway in her ready rooms.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Yeah, this is done in Sickbay, but uh god, yeah, they all just fuck up. Not Janeway.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

And it's just kind of hilarious. They all it always ends with them apologizing to Janeway.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Yeah, that's that's interesting. But Tuvok isn't necessarily fully healed. The doctor does say that this could take 10 more times of turning on and off his suppression system, or it could take years. So we're not really sure if recovery has happened or when it's gonna happen. I kind of feel like the next episode we're gonna get in there and Tuvok's gonna be completely normal. And we're not gonna talk about it again.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

But no way are we gonna talk about this again. Next week, on the Void Cast, Voyager encounters Dreadnought, a Cardassian missile that Alana reprogrammed during her time in the Machine. Somehow, this missile ends up in the Delta Quadrant, and they have to stop it from annihilating an innocent inhabited world. Thanks for hanging out with us in the Delta Quadrant. Make sure to visit us on Instagram at the Voicat or www.thevoicat.com.