Season 2, Episode 46 "The Gamesters of Triskelion"

"The Gamesters of Triskelion"
Production Number: 46
Air Order: 45
Stardate: 3211.7
Original Air Date: January 5, 1968

There are these scientists, probably guys who watched this show as kids, who are working on transporters. Like "Beam me up" transporters. They can transport stuff like, 10 feet. I'm torn. While I really don't want the kind of shoddy workmanship that leads to soul-splitting, Mirror Universe, desert-you-on-the-planet's-surface transporter fuck-ups, I'd also really like this guy to hurry the hell up. Imagine never missing an appointment again. Or being able to get your immunizations, then being instantly zapped to an exotic destination. Me, I'd like to be able to skip the nine-hour round trip involved with family functions (especially since the drive back this time included a two-hour delay due to road construction). I could save money on not having to buy two tanks of pricey-ass gas, and I wouldn't have to spend hours on the freeway, reading alternating billboards that proclaim Jeebus to be the answer, then proclaiming pot to be the answer. (I feel like both cannot be the answer. You have to pick one, like a blue pill/ red pill kind of thing where both of the pills are blue.)
Keep plugging away, transporter scientists. I'd like to go to Catal Huyuk someday, and I'll bet the flight sucks.

Beam me up, yo

*******

Kirk's Log 3211.7: "We're orbiting an uninhabited planetoid with electronic gizmos on the surface. Gonna take Chekov and Uhura downstairs to monitor things."

Again, I question why the freaking captain must go on this goofy routine check of electronic gizmos, but I guess as captain Kirk gets his pick of any number of fascinating, important routine checks.
"Mind the store," he tells Spock as the three leave the bridge. Dude, I love it when Kirk uses ridiculous human colloquialisms and Spock just nods like it's no biggie.  Just another day at the office for him, where every cubicle holds a dorky human.
So Kirk, Uhura and Chekov hop on the transporter pad, and Scotty preps to beam them down, but they disappear... and the sound effects guys select a "boi-oi-oi-oing" noise to accompany their journey to... somewhere.

Kirk makes note of the weird sky color (copper patina, I guess?), and the three suns, and declares that they are not on the surface of Gamma II, the planet they were orbiting.
Upstairs, somewhere else, Scotty is losing his shit. He comms Spock on the bridge to tell him that the away team disappeared, and gets a facetious answer in reply.
"No, dipshit," says Scotty. "I didn't beam them anywhere. They disappeared off the pad, and the cheesiest sound effect ever occurred."

Downstairs, across the universe, Kirk attempts to raise the E and is unsuccessful. A group of mismatched people come out of the rocks and surround them, brandishing weapons. Phasers are less than useless, and Kirk orders his away team to use hand-to-hand combat. Uhura, like a bad-ass, tries to take on two chicks at once. Unfortunately, she's outmatched, as is Chekov, who got stuck with some pro-wrestler. Kirk, ever undefeated, manages to gain the upper hand and dispense with his guy, but then he's knocked on his ass by a green-haired female. Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Kirk's Log 3211.8: "Here's a recap of all the shit that just happened while you were getting a Coke out of the fridge, because you didn't realize that your show had already started."

Another dude appears with a boi-oi-oing, this one in a vampire cape. His face texture is strange, almost like someone had painted his skin with Elmer's School Glue. Or hard-water deposits. Hard-Water Deposits welcomes Kirk and Co, and tells them that they will be important additions. He introduces himself as Galt, the Master Thrall of Triskelion. No idea what that is, though. He doesn't even give them his business card.

For the record, which ever way you try to pronounce the word Triskelion in your head, it's never going to be correct. I had myself convinced that it was most definitely Tris-kuh-LEE-un, or possibly Tris-kuh-LY-un, but it's actually Tri-SKELL-yun. I don't know why that matters. It doesn't. Forget it.
Galt and the others take Kirk, Uhura and Chekov to some kind of dungeon, where they're manacled to the wall. Collars are put on them, and Galt tells them that they were selected and transported to Triskelion to be thralls (I think he means slaves).

Upstairs, in a galaxy far, far away, Scotty and Spock are trying to determine where the others have gone. There is nothing wrong with their equipment, and there are no life signs on  Gamma II. Bones, because he lacks someone to heal or something, slips back into his role as Head Bitch in Charge of Whining That No One is Looking For Kirk. Spock replies that their best option is to keep looking and hope for the best.
Bones sneers at him that hope is a human failing.  Spock agrees and replies that after living with humans, some contamination is to be expected. Scotty looks like he's holding in a laugh at the use of the word "contamination." I'm sure most people on this ship are used to watching Spock troll Bones.

Kirk, Uhura and Chekov are shown to their sleeping quarters, which have bars and their names printed on them. They come off as horse stalls. Kirk makes a half-movement, and the three attempt to make a break for it, but their collars glow, and they fall over in agony.

We find out in the next shot that Galt the Armless Wonder has been consuming the Spice, just like that dick in episode one. When his eyes clear, he tells them that was dumb, and that their shock collars should keep them in line. Frankly, where the fuck did Kirk think they were going, anyway? None of them knows this planet at all, and they have no means of escape. Anyone else would have gone along with Galt, gathering information for an escape plan. But oh, no. There's Kirk, leaping without giving so much as one thought to looking first. Dumbass.

There's a brief scene where Spock and Bones give each other some grief, but it's not important to the plot, so we'll move on.
One of the other thralls, a guy named Lars, goes to Uhura's cage with a tray of food and tells her that he's her drill thrall. Let's look at Lars, who is part of this week's evidence that the costume department is on drugs. Firstly, dude looks like Christopher Walken in drag. I know that's not the costume department's design, but it's the case nonetheless. That pompadour is a bit Johnny Bravo. His jerkin is actually an okay design, and I would be down with it if he wasn't wearing short-shorts.

The hell it's not.

Lars enters Uhura's cage, and you hear her protest and their shadows on the wall showing her struggling against him. Holy shit, is he raping her? We cut back to Kirk, yelling for Uhura. It's a super-dramatic cut just before commercial, where Kirk is shown reaching toward the camera and yelling "Lieutenant!"
I know that Kirk is responsible for her, and that if Uhura is getting raped that they can't show that on tv, but dammit, why must everything be about Kirk? Might as well re-name it The Kirk Show, starring Kirk, Kirk's Old Friends, and All The Rest.

When we return from commercial, Lars is exiting the pen, telling Uhura that she is not allowed to refuse selection, and she appears to be just fine. So dude went in to give her food, and tell her that he was going to train her, and it seems like he grabbed  her, and both she and Kirk over-reacted.
Kirk's drill thrall, the green-haired girl, shows up with his tray, but she just sits in a chair and glowers at him.

Spock's Log 3259.2: "Recap, recap. Peeps have been missing for two hours. We don't know where they went or how to find them."

A gold sitting at the science station finds an ion cloud, and when they ask the computer about it, the computer returns with "hell if I know." And it doesn't. Nothing in it's known universe matches that shit. For some reason - I guess to save money on extras - the gold who was running the science station is now the navigator.

Chekov's drill thrall comes in, and it's the yellow girl. Her name is Tamoon, and she's clearly sweet on Chekov, but he's obviously repulsed by her. She's cute enough, but they gave her super-masculine attributes, and they seem to have dubbed her voice over with that of a feminine-sounding guy. I guess the point is that they wanted Tamoon to be masculine, and this is turn-off for Chekov? He's kind of a dick to her. She's actually really nice to him.
Let's move on to her costume, shall we?
Tamoon is goldenrod, with orange and white hair. She's matched her make-up to her collar-color, which is blue. But more than this is the fact that she's wearing a romper. I just got into a mini-debate on Facebook the other day about rompers. I feel like most one-piece outfits only look good on certain kinds of people, and look ridiculous and ill-fitting on most others. It is not my favorite look. Tamoon is wearing a pink-and-orange romper that's not the end of the world, which is to say that it fits her alright, and the silver accents are okay. The thing that puts her outfit over the top (for me, at least), are her matching pink booties, and the fact that that romper is paired with the yellow skin and orange hair. It bears the mark of Star Trek Ridiculousness. "Super-yellow skin and orange hair mean alien, yes?"

Kikr's drill thrall is the green-haired female, Shahna. He wolfs down food and asks questions. She tells him that Galt controls the collars for punishment and obedience purposes, and that the Providers will buy Kirk for their teams when he has been properly trained up. The color you get on your collar indicates who bought you. Shahna admits that she was born here into slavery, and that her mother was killed in a freestyle match. Kirk tells her that she is beautiful, and I roll my eyes. Shahna asks what beautiful is, and there go the eyes again. He shows her her reflection in a chafing dish lid, and tells her that that is what beautiful looks like. Seriously, Star Trek, I'm getting eye strain here. They're interrupted by a red alert announcing the training time, and I heave a sigh of relief that this shit is over.

I hate to keep dropping the narrative to talk about costumes, but Shahna's is the worst, and a clear illustration of some of the weird shit that Star Trek churns out while trying to answer the question, "How do we make a human look like an alien?" Eventually, they'll reach the conclusion that the best answer is forehead ridges (Klingons) or funny-shaped ears (Vulcan/Romulan/Ferengi) or fucking with the bridge of the nose (Bajorans and countless others). But those are later shows, and here, it's a weird skin or hair color and not enough costume. Shahna is wearing strips of tin foil, a boob sling, matching knee-high boots and gloves. Her hair is not only large, but badly-dyed green, and that color clashes horribly with her skin tone. It looks even worse with her mod make-up. Shahna is the epitome of Star Trek Cheese, and it won't stop with her costume. They've already laid the ground-work here with that "What is beautiful?" crap.

Scene: Bones yells at Spock again.

Galt stops the training when he brings in another thrall (this one dressed in cheetah-print boxer shorts and a long sleeveless tunic) that he says was slow to obey a command. As part of training, Galt tells Uhura to attack him with her weapon. Uhura tells Galt to fuck off and die. Galt responds by trying to have Uhura tied up for punishment instead, but Kirk interrupts by insisting that he is responsible for his crew members, and he will take it. So they tie him up and Kroog, the final thrall in the group, gets ready to whip him.
Let's look at Kroog. His costume does not suck. He's huge, has tusks, and wears a fur covering and boots. He's got a neanderthal look about him that I buy, and he's got a face only... fuck it, I bet his own mother slapped him when he came out. Kroog is a well-done alien.

There's a break, and when we return, Kroog is trying to whip a constantly-moving Kirk, who does a voice-over recap supplemental log, just in case you fell asleep sometime in the last 20 minutes.
They get a rest period, and Kirk sits down next to Shahna. Like the wizened old gym rat who mentors the young rebellious boxer, she gives him a swig of some kind of restorative drink, and tells him that Kroog's left eye is weak.
Back in the ring, Kirk manages to wrangle out of his ties, and uses the thong to strangle Kroog from behind. A disembodied voice interrupts. The unseen providers start a bidding war for Kirk, Uhura and Chekov. When Kirk yells that they are free people and belong to no one, they start wagering on whether or not Kirk will be trainable, and if all three will have to be destroyed due to unbroken spirits. Galt goes to our crew members, and his eyes go Excessive Spice Consumption. The plastic markers on their collars turn the color designated by their owner, and bahahahaha! They're all Reds now. *snort* How's that shit feel, Kirk?

Episode-padding scene of Spock sort of accusing Scotty's transporters of malfunctioning. Scotty tells Spock to suck it.
And now for the scene in this episode that I hate the most: Shahna and shirtless Kirk are jogging through the landscape in some ruins. Slightly out-of-shape Kirk begs for a rest, and he asks about the Providers. She replies that she doesn't really know anything about them, but that their bodies are not like thrall bodies. He tries to talk to her about stars, but she isn't interested. Then he tells her that they are slaves, and should be free. Having been raised on Triskelion, she doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. So how does he try to talk to her about freedom? By bringing up love. No, they're not fucking with us. This is where they're headed. Kirk finds out that Shahna doesn't know about love, so he's going to set out to show her all about it. With his penis. How often does he pull this shit? He tells her that love is the most important thing on Earth. I think most politicians would disagree, Kirk.

Shahna ends the conversation by telling Kirk that she doesn't think they should be talking about this, and he asks about the Providers again. She volunteers a bit of information, but then her collar glows red, and she's obviously being tortured. Kirk yells at the sky for the Providers to stop,  that it's his fault. The Providers break in to tell Kirk that they find him interesting, and they eventually leave Shahna alone. Kirk scoops her off the ground, and she goes grateful damsel on him, and they make out. You know, Shahna used to be a bad-ass, but then she took a Kirk to the mouth.
Then Galt shows up to cock-block him and send them back to the horse stables.

Scene: Spock is following a feeling that the beam that caught Kirk and Co is in another system, and is headed there. McCoy and Scotty think the others are trapped on Gamma II. They compromise: they'll check out Spock's hunch, but will also return to search Gamma II. I can't decide if these scenes are here to illustrate that the E is actually looking for the others; if the writers have added them in to give us a reprieve of the thrall story and Kirk's Quest for Space Nookie; or if the Space Nookie story wasn't long enough, and they're padding out the episode. These scenes seem unnecessary. Of course the E is looking for them - why wouldn't they?

Spock shuts them down by suggesting that they mutiny against him
in order to get what they want.

Kirk, still shirtless, is in his stable when Shahna brings food. She's weirded out by him now, but he forces a kiss on her. When she relaxes into it, he slugs her, then apologizes to her unconscious form. I hate you so much right now, Kirk. Fuck you.
He grabs the door key off of her, and lets Chekov out. The ensign has tied up Tamoon in his stable. So he and Kirk chose to go with the dick move, and exploit the feelings of the women training them. They let out Uhura, and it turns out that she's the only one who wasn't an asshole in her escape plan: she complained about the food to Lars, who went to report her. Kirk surmises that, if they can get their phasers back, they can use those to short out the collar. I hope the phaser is set on Fucking Obliterate when you use it on yours, Kirk. They only make it as far as the arena when Galt appears. His Spice eyes light up their collars, and they writhe in pain.

Upstairs, the E has entered orbit around Triskelion. Spock and Bones have decided to beam down to look amongst the humanoid life-forms that they detect, but they are blocked from leaving the bridge. The disembodied voices of the Providers welcomes them. The voices are heard on the planet's surface as well, so Kirk hears them talking to Spock. For whatever reason, he can talk to Spock on the ship as well. He explains that The Providers transport people from other galaxies to this planet, to train and fight for the Providers' amusement. He accuses them of not showing themselves.
The Providers decide that Kirk seeing them would be okay, and *boi-oi-oing!* he is standing (still fucking shirtless) in a cave with three colored brains. And hey, they're on the same planet as those lithium mines that were invading the space of the Horta. Good times.

Kirk sees the painting and surmises that this is the power source of the beam, hidden underground. The brains tell him that they once had bodies, but have evolved into a simpler shape, because of their superior smartitude. Now they're bored, so their only way of entertaining themselves is to kidnap other people, train them to fight, and bet on the outcome. Kirk decides to trick them by offering to have himself, Chekov and Uhura fight an equal number of thralls. The stakes are, if he and the others win, everyone goes free, and the Providers will educate the thralls and teach them to govern themselves. If they lose, he'll give the Providers the entire crew of the E. Okay, seriously? Those lives aren't yours to give, asshole. You seem pretty cocky about this, wagering everyone in the vicinity. The brains agree, but switch it up so that Kirk will fight three thralls on his own.

Blue is the sexiest brain.

Boi-oi-oi-oing. Kirk is back in the arena, to fight Lars, Kroog, and some random Andorian. The rules are that Kirk must stay in the yellow areas, and the thralls must stay in the blue. If you go into the wrong color, you lose a weapon. If a thrall is injured, he is replaced with a new thrall. The fight goes up on the E viewscreen, because why the fuck not? Things start up, and immediately, no one stays completely on their own color. Kirk takes out Kroog with a spear, then the Andorian throws a spear at Kirk, which misses and gets Lars. Kirk wounds the Andorian, so Shahna is sent in. Because Shahna is the only person in the universe who can fight, she knocks Kirk on his ass. But she is unable to make the kill shot, and he ends up taking her to the ground, a knife at her throat. Shahna declares that the thralls surrender. One would think that the brains wouldn't accept this outcome, but because there are only two and a half minutes left before the credits roll on this episode, they do. The E is free, and the thralls as well. The brains will show the thralls how to make a home for themselves.

Kirk apologizes to Shahna, saying that he hopes she'll understand that he didn't lie to her, he was just doing what he had to escape. Of course she doesn't fucking understand. And now that she knows what love is, and how much it sucks ass, the next time someone suggests these kinds of activities, she'll think back to this one asshole who told her about this wonderful thing, and then ripped her heart out. She'll probably wind up in therapy, you douche. She lies and says she understands a bit, but that she would like to go with him. He replies that he can't, mostly because he was using her, and the love thing was a ruse that he doesn't want to keep up. So he kisses her again, and Scotty beams the three up.

Chekov and Uhura look like they don't buy his shit, either.

We're left with a Girl-O-Vision shot of Shahna, looking up to where Kirk beamed from, and she says "Good-bye, Jim Kirk. I will stay here and learn some shit and remember how you fucked me over, even though it's suggested that I will remember you fondly, because that's how bullshitty romantic movies work." A single tear rolls down her cheek, and I vomit copiously at this hackneyed crap.

Congratulations, Gamesters of Triskelion! You win the prize for being the Cheesiest Episode So Far! Let's see why:

-premise of slaves being used to fight for masters' amusement been done before (Bread and Circuses);

-multiple excuses for Kirk to wander around in a ripped shirt/shirtless;

-use of the "boing" sound effect, which is best used in cartoons that are not being asked to be taken     seriously;

-girl does not know what love is, and Kirk takes it upon himself to "educate" her - premise used on a semi-regular basis;

-girl who starts out as a badass turns into a damsel;

-villains turn out to be talking brains;

-costumes kind of typically "Star Trek awful";

-end shot is of single tear running down girl's cheek because fucking Kirk left, rather than girl shaking fist at sky and yelling "good riddance!"

Things that make this episode more watchable:

-Uhura given a larger part than usual;

- ...?

Death Toll:
Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 12
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 6
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths this season: 19
Total crew deaths thus far: 36

Just thralls this time. I feel like I was promised a Red bloodbath, but got a drippy faucet instead. Maybe I should switch to GoT.

*******

This week's tea is the Gold Peak brand, and I've been curious because you can find this brand in Carl's Jr restaurants. Only they're not in the fountains like Fuze or Nestea, they're in a sort of coffee urn with their logo on the front. I wondered if Gold Peak was sending loose leaf tea or even giant bags to CJ's, and having them brew it there. What's more, I wondered if GP brand was actual tea, or just tea flavor. 

I can't find any info if they brew it in-store or not, but it's not tea-flavored. While it doesn't specify the leaf base, it has the slightly bitter after-taste of black leaf, so I'm gonna guess that it's real tea. It's pretty good. I thought maybe they would have it in Hardee's, which is what they call Carl's Jr in some parts of the country, but it wasn't listed on the Hardees menu. Why is this fancy-ish tea even IN fast food restaurants? It's owned by Coke. Anyway, it comes in a bunch of flavors that I've seen in grocery stores, and also on their website (though it only comes in one flavor -unsweetened- if you get it at Carl's Jr).

http://www.goldpeaktea.com/

My grandma is allergic to cats, so she keeps this little faux kitten
on her guest bed. I think it's made from angora. It's so fluffy, I'm
gonna die.

Season 2, Episode 45 "A Private Little War"

"A Private Little War"
Production Number: 45
Air Order: 48
Stardate: 4211.4
Original Air Date: February 2, 1968

So my friend KaraokeMama got a label maker. Do you know what happens when people get label-makers? Everything in their vicinity suddenly requires, and receives, a label. Seriously. I watched KaraokeMama make a label for the label maker. So while I was engaged elsewhere, Roomie and Dubs used the maker to label my keyboard. Should I mention that this my work keyboard? I suppose it's fortunate that my coworkers are all cats.

*******

We open outside this week, and despite the fact that every planet with outdoor shooting looks expressly like Southern California, I really don't care. It allows the actors to move around in the space, and it's got to be cheaper to film out there than to build sets inside.
Bones and Spock are gathering plant and soil samples. Kirk, part of the Trio Landing Party, whines to Bones over the comm how he's bored, and could Bones please science faster?
Probably sick of hearing "are we there yet?", Bones tells him 30 minutes, and goes back to what he was doing.
Kirk hasn't got anything better to do than chat up Spock while Spock collects plants, so they make small talk about the inhabitants of this planet, the hill people. There's also some kind of monster-thing, the mugato.

No, not him.

He says that the hill people are primitive bow and arrow types, so of course right on cue so villagers sneak through the rocks with flintlock guns. They don't see the trio, but they clearly see the bow and arrow types  that they're about to ambush. I gotta tell you, the inhabitants are all wearing terrible wigs. I think I might actually prefer Mugatu's hair.

"Hey, I know that dude," says Kirk, of the group that's about to get their asses handed to them. "That's Tyree, I lived with him here."

Well, at least now we know why Kirk is here: he probably lived here during a fact-finding mission. It seemed like all he was doing was keeping Spock and Bones from working, and I found myself wondering why they hadn't just sent down a little unobtrusive Red in his place. Kirk has a purpose, for once.

Like a dipshit, he pulls his phaser. Spock reminds him of the Prime Directive, and he decides to throw a rock instead. It lands near one of the black-haired dudes, and his gun goes off, alerting the white-haired dudes. The white-hairs flee.

Kirk probably thinks he was being clever by not using his obviously advanced tech, but now the black-hairs wanna know who kept them from gunning down their fellow man, and they go rushing up the rock formations at Kirk and Spock.

"Aw, crap," says Kirk, and they run away.

Too late, though. One of them shoots Spock through the back. Holy shit, you guys. Someone was paying attention, and remembered that Spock has iron-based blood. Good on ya, Details Guy.

Kirk helps Spock back to Bones, and they beam up just in time.

Bones has called ahead for an emergency med team, and they start treating an unconscious Spock right there in the transporter room. Uhura calls to say that Klingons are in orbit, and Auntie Archon prays for believable Klingons this time. "Errand of Mercy" Klingons, not "The Trouble With Tribbles" Klingons. K, thanx.

Kirk rushes to the bridge, but the Klingons haven't noticed them yet. In the interim, Kirk muses on the fact that, 13 years earlier, he hung out with the hill people and they only had bows and arrows. Uhura points out that it took 1200 hundred years for humans to go from arrows to flintlocks. Scotty adds that the flintlock is the next logical step in evolution, weapons-wise, and Chekov puts in that no culture evolves at the same time as another (completely countering that bogus "parallel-culture-progression" theory from Bread and Circuses), and that the hill people may have evolved more quickly than humans. They agree that the Klingons would not have given them this tech, as the Klingons would have given them something more effective. 

"Did I ask for your fucking opinions?" demands a grouchy Kirk. There's an awkward pause, and he apologizes before going to sick bay.

HOLD THE COMM BADGE! There's a black guy in sick bay! And he's a specialist, not an intern! Go diversity!

Bones tells Kirk that he isn't sure if Spock will live or die at this point. My bet is for living, and healing just in time to either save the day, or getting better just before the credits roll. Bones tells Kirk that Dr M'benga is a specialist in Vulcan physiology. Kirk says that Bones should leave Spock with M'benga, and come back to the surface with him. He wants them to dress like natives and find out if the Klingons are doing scientific research (yeah, right), or if they're breaking some kind of treaty between the Federation and Klingon Empire. Seems that this planet with it's undeveloped inhabitants is off-limits to others.

Gonna pause here. Seriously, you guys, what if one or more races has taken a look at Earth, declared it underdeveloped, and made a treaty saying they won't mess with us until a certain point? Like right fucking now. 

Suck on that little slice of the sublime, then go back to reading this insignificant little blog.

Kirk's Log 4211.4: "Can't call Starfleet, cuz I'll alert the Klingons to the fact that we're here. Gonna say fuck it, violate orders, and make contact with the natives. Screw it all. My boyfriend has buckshot in his back. I'll just be reckless."

So Kirk and Bones beam down, and they're heading toward Tyree's village when they're attacked by a spacesquatch. Bones sets his phaser to Fucking Obliterate, and takes out the mugato. Unfortunately, the thing bit Kirk, and his system is filling with poison. 

Show some respect. This dude invented the piano-key necktie!

Bones radios the E, but Scotty has taken it out of orbit to avoid the Klingons, and won't be back until the agreed-upon rendezvous time. Bones gives Kirk a shot of something, but Bones has to find Tyree to help. Conveniently, when the good doctor stands up, there are white-haired hill people standing there staring at them.

Bones' Log 4211.8: "Kirk got himself bit ten seconds after beam-down, cuz he's a complete jackass. I don't even have anyone to bitch to about abandoning Kirk to do other important shit. In the meantime, we're waiting for Tyree, who is chief now, and his wife, who knows about mugato poison."

We cut to Tyree and his wife Nona, who works for the Department of Transportation. They see some dark-hairs with their flintlocks, and Nona tells Tyree, Lady MacBeth-style, that he needs to get some guns so he can raid them. 

"Naw," he says. "Shit will settle, and we'll be peaceful again."

"Bullshit," she replies, and she gets him high with some plant.

A white-hair shows up to tell Tyree that a really old friend has come into their village, and Nona looks interested. She tells the white-hair to bring Tyree when he is lucid again.

Nona goes to the cave and sees Bones using his phaser to heat rocks to keep Kirk warm. She backs out of the cave, and when Tyree shows up, she tells him that she needs to know everything about Kirk so that she can heal him. He hedges, saying that Kirk has secrets that Tyree promised to keep. She replies that she needs to know or he will die, but that last part comes out like a threat.

Back on the E, Christine watches Spock's vitals and decides to hold his hand. Dr M'benga comes in and she makes this movement like, "What? I wasn't shipping myself with him." He tells her that Spock is in a state of self-hypnosis, concentrating all of his willpower on healing himself. But he also thinks that Spock is conscious enough to note that she probably has a notebook filled with pages that say "Nurse Christine Spock". There's light "haha, caught you shipping" music that accompanies this, and I wonder how Majel Barrett fell so far from Number One to hopeless fangirl. *sigh*

Nona and Tyree go into the cave and perform this sort of hippie sex ritual thing set to drums. Really, the thing that probably heals Kirk is the weird root that Nona slaps on the bite, and not the fact that Tyree sliced her palm open.

Nona passes out, and Kirk comes to just long enough to realize that he missed getting to watch the one-woman drum orgy. Bones looks at the wound, and realizes that not only is Kirk's bite gone, but Nona's hand wound is as well. Kirk goes to sleep. Nona wakes up and tells Bones that Kirk belongs to her because their blood mingled within that root. She is helped to bed by Tyree. He tells Bones that Kirk cannot refuse anything she says, according to legend. Dramatic music!

There isn't a real need for this screencapture. I just wanted to
point out Bones' bed, which looks comfy as fuck.

Kirk wakes up and goes into the cave bedroom next door, where Nona and Tyree are sleeping. Tyree and Kirk are excited to see each other, and Tyree introduces his wife, Crazy Bitch in Furry Bra. Kirk asks about the flintlocks.

"We need to get some!" says Nona gleefully.

Tyree takes Kirk and Bones outside to talk, but he bars Nona. "Penis owners only."

Lookee there, he stood up to her. Good job, chief-man.

In sick bay, M'benga says that things are going well, and tells Christine that if Spock wakes up, to do whatever he says. Okay. Whatever. Moving on.

Tyree tells Kirk and Bones that the flintlocks showed up a year earlier, and that he has not seen strangers in the dark-haired village, but that he has seen them making the guns themselves. A bunch of his people have died since.

"I think we should go at night to check it out," says Kirk.

Despite the fact that she doesn't own a penis (or maybe because she owns Tyree's), Nona strolls in and tells Kirk and Bones that she knows who they are, and that they could make Tyree very powerful.

Kirk brushes her off by saying that his people used to be like them, with spears and shit, then they got better weapons and blew each other away, and it took a long fucking time to get to the point where they were peaceful with each other again.

"You all suck!" yells Nona, before stalking out of the room. "And you're a shitty friend, Kirk!"

Tyree is gracious enough to tell Kirk that Nona is full of crap, and they make plans to check out the dark-hair village that night.

Bones points out that if the Klingons gave the dark-hairs those guns, then they have every right to act.

Tyree, Bones and Kirk go into the dark-hair village, and a scuffle breaks out between them and a guard. Kirk takes him out easily, and Tyree grabs the gun. Okay, so I know that the dark-hairs have one kind of advanced technology, but how in the hell did they go from cave-dwelling to concrete buildings?

Inside an office, a dark-haired villager meets with a Klingon. He says that it took an extra long time to divide up some spoils of war, which includes one blonde hill woman. The Klingon, Krell, suggests giving her to the man who killed the most hill people. Oh, yaaaaay. More "women as gifts."

Krell then gives the dark-haired Apell a more-improved gun, saying that he'll get upgrades soon, after he's stood in line at the mall outside of the Apple Store overnight.

Krell and Apella come in, and Kirk and Bones hide. Apella tells Krell that killing the hill people is easier than trading with them, and it's more fun. This guy is totally a winner. Why are girls not lining up to suck his junk? Krell promises Apell that he'll be rich, and a governor of the Klingon Empire.  Wow, when those aforementioned girls finish fooling around with Apell, they can clean up using Krell. What a great wingman.

Bones accidentally opens his scanner, which makes a noise. Krell and Apell go to investigate, so Kirk jumps out and starts a fist fight. No need to rip his shirt - they've barely tied it in the front to begin with. Because no one in the known universe can take Kirk in a fight, Krell and Apell go down like little girls. But when Kirk and Bones attempt to run out the front door, they're confronted by dark-hairs with guns and dramatic music!

Again, no one else can fight, so Kirk and Bones easily escape out the door and are chased, along with Tyree, out of the village.

Upstairs, Spock wakes up and yells for the nurse. When Christine comes running, he requests that she beat the shit out of him to help him regain consciousness. She balks, but slaps him all the same while he yells "Harder, harder!" You know that he's talking to Christine, but thinking about Kirk. Scotty comes in and restrains her, but then M'benga follows and starts punching Spock in the face.

"Dude, thanks," says Spock. "Totally healed now. Good to go."

"The fuck?" asks Scotty.

On the surface, Kirk is showing Tyree and his friends how to shoot flintlocks. Turns out Tyree is a hella good shot, and he seems shocked. Okay, I just have to say: Tyree looks shocked at all points in time. "I have a wife? No way! My old friend from 13 years ago came back? Awesome! The sun rose again? You're kidding!"

Bones pulls Kirk into the cave to ask what the hell Kirk thinks he's doing. The captain tells Bones that he's evening the odds between the hill people and the villagers, which he feels is the only way to keep things balanced, as the Klingons have blown everything to hell by giving the villagers guns in the first place. He references "a war in the 20th century on the Asian continent." He's not saying Vietnam, but... Vietnam. Basically, two super-powers go head-to-head arming lesser groups of people, and the best way to counter it is to keep evening the score. Bones points out that this could fuck up all of the shit, and also that Tyree could die in doing this, but Kirk doesn't feel like he has a choice. Bones actually wonders out loud if Nona has put a spell on Kirk.

Kirk goes to talk to Nona, thinking that she can explain to Tyree this balance of power thing, which is kind of stupid, considering that she's the one who is pushing for Tyree to gain power over the villagers. I bet she just wants to use that power to buy herself a better fur bra. Maybe in a color that occurs in nature.

He finds her near a pond, and we know that she was just naked because we can see part of her naked torso. No side-boob, though.

"I wanna talk to you," he says in that overly-confident Kirk way.

"Smell this herb," she replies, holding a sprig of something under his nose.

Tyree happens by with his new gun, still looking puzzled. He starts to smile when he sees them, but then he realizes that Nona wants to take Kirk to Poundtown, and he raises the gun as a stoned Kirk and Nona make out. Tyree loses his nerve at the last minute, drops the gun, and runs away.

Unfortunately for Nona, stoned Kirk is too interested in her to notice the spacesquatch coming at them, and she manages to claw her way out of Kirk's arms, then roll around on the ground screaming while the mugato tries to take swipes at her. Like a dumb bitch, she fails to notice the fact that she perpetually carries a giant dagger on her belt. She waits until Kirk comes out of his daze and sets his phaser for Fucking Obliterate, then disintegrates the squatch.

Kirk kind of stumbles post-high, and Nona knocks the back of his head with a big rock in order to steal the phaser. She takes off.
Tyree ends up back in his camp, where Bones gives him shit for leaving the gun. He leads Bones and several others back to the gun, and they encounter an injured Kirk.
"That bitch took my phaser," he groans.

Nona runs through the rocks and stumbles upon some dark-hairs, and yells "I bring you a victory for Apella!"
Whoa, plot twist.
She declares that Apella will be strong enough to use the new weapon, and tells them to take her to them. Instead, they decide to rape her. Kirk and the others run over the rocks, and yell to Nona. The villagers decide that it's a trap, so they stab Nona and shoot Bones.

Now taking bets on that city in the background - LA? Burbank?

A brawl breaks out between everyone, and the villagers mostly ignore the fact that they have guns. I got into this debate about magic the other day, too: why the hell would you reach for a more powerful tool when you could just put your fist through someone's face? It's more satisfying.

When the smoke clears, Nona is discovered to be dead. The remaining villagers have run off, and Tyree tells Kirk that he wants more guns, because he has to avenge his bitchy, cheating asshole of a wife.
"Sooo, you got what you wanted," Bones mumbles to Kirk.
"So that sucks," Kirk replies.
He radios Scotty, and he and Bones are pleasantly surprised when Spock answers.
"I guess you can't kill a computer," Bones says.
"How long for you to replicate 100 flintlocks?" Kirk asks Scotty. "I gotta give them to this guy I know, so he can kill a bunch of innocent people because this bitch wanted some power."

And that's the depressing end of this episode.

Death Toll:
Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 12
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 6
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths this season: 19
Total crew deaths thus far: 36

Just a bunch of civvies again. And one bitch.

*******

Everybody is sick here. I thought I might post a recipe that I have for Upset Tummy Tea. Shut up, it's good. This is what you need:

-water

-lemon juice

-ginger

-mint

Heat the water and lemon juice. Add the ginger and mint. Let it steep for a few minutes. This tea came to me in a commercial kitchen, so we had fresh ginger and mint readily, and I'm not certain how potent the tea is if you use powdered ginger or dried mint. However, lemon juice, mint, and ginger are all good for settling your stomach, so even if they aren't as up to scratch as the super-fresh items, it should still be okay.

Oreo