The Thaw

(Short write up this week, looking forward to read what y’all thought)

The A-Story: Jimmy McGill’s brother, Chuck, is a fear clown (aren’t they all? I kid, El Santo!) traps Kim and Torres in a computer program.

Michael McKean is great in this, as he is in pretty much everything he does. The episode is so very 90s in it’s aesthetics, but McKean rises above the silly setting and it pretty terrifying as a digital manifestation of fear. The whole episode felt very TOS to me, right down to the end.

Uhhhhhh??:

Favorite Dialogue:

The end scene was fantastic! Janeway at her most badass. How this scene was shot is also striking in its simplicity. I’ve added the pictures here because it goes hand in hand with the dialogue, especially how McKean and Mulgrew do so much with their facial expression. Mulgrew, cool and triumphant, and McKean, lost and afraid.

JANEWAY: You know as well as I do that fear only exists for one purpose. To be conquered.
CLOWN: She tricked me.
JANEWAY: Did she? Or was a part of you actually hoping to be defeated? Isn’t that why you allowed Captain Janeway to come here? Because you sensed she had the power to subdue you.
(It is getting dark.)

CLOWN: No. She lied. That was very un-Starfleet of her.

JANEWAY: Starfleet captains don’t easily succumb to fear.

CLOWN: What will become of us? Of me?

JANEWAY: Like all fear, you eventually vanish.

CLOWN: I’m afraid.

JANEWAY: I know.

CLOWN: Drat.

DAMN, JANEWAY!