The Orville Season 2, Episode 4: Nothing Left On Earth Excepting Fishes

This week on The Orville we get one of the best episodes yet, as another of Mercer's relationships goes sour, Gordon decides to be all he can be and a dangling plot thread is resolved. Oh, and we learn what the hell that title means!

Overall Nothing Left On Earth Excepting Fishes was a welcome change of pace, featuring much more action than the previous three episodes. Not that there's anything wrong with character-driven stories, mind you, but it's nice to finally see a good old fashioned sci-fi shoot-em-up.

The episode also took a hard look at religion and religious intolerance, subjects that are most definitely relevant in our current society. Even better, the message was subtly delivered through the lens of sci-fi metaphor, something I wish more modern series would try. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Star Trek: Discovery and Season 11 of Doctor Who, with your on-the-nose, straight up lectures.

Man, sci-fans are the absolute worst. Last season fanboys complained that The Orville featured too many jokes, which undercut the drama. This season MacFarlane is noticeably toning down the jokes quite a bit. Of course now the fans are whining that the show isn't funny anymore. Jesus wept. 

One last thing before we get on with the fun. The Orville regularly airs Thurdays at 9 pm. Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, or STD as I like to call it, premiered this past Thursday at 8:30 pm. I see what you did there, CBS. Firing shots across The Orville's bow, eh?

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, INCLUDING A SHOCKING PLOT TWIST!

The Plot:
On the bridge, Lt. Tharl reports for duty in sweaty gym clothes. Kelly orders him to put on a uniform, but Mercer tells him he's fine as he is. Kelly remarks that Mercer seems more relaxed than normal.

Kelly then announces the ship's next mission is a supply run to Epsilon 5. This frustrates Gordon, who says they're supposed to be explorers, not delivery men. Lt. Janelle Tyler, the ship's new dark matter cartographer, enters the bridge and gives a report to Mercer. Kelly senses an obvious attraction between the two, which is confirmed when Mercer announces he's knocking off early for the day.

Cut to Mercer's quarters, where he and Janelle are enjoying movie night, as they watch The King And I. Janelle's never seen it, or any of the other movies Mercer's shown her (hmm...). They discuss going public with their relationship, and Janelle suggests they take a trip together. She complains that it's cold in Mercer's quarters (hmmmmm...) and he gently places his jacket around her shoulders.

Sometime later Mercer tells Gordon he's seeing Janelle. Even though Gordon initially had a crush on her, he fully approves. Mercer then tells Kelly about Janelle, but she reveals she already figured it out. Kelly tells him to go ahead and take the trip, as the ship can handle the supply run without him.

The next day Mercer and Janelle take a shuttle bound for Sensoria 2. They make small talk as he plays the music of Billy Joel, someone Janelle's never heard of (hmmmmmmmm...). 

Everything goes smoothly until they encounter a trio of Krill marauder-class fighter ships. Mercer cloaks the shuttle, and fortunately the fighters fly right past them. They both let out a sigh of relief. Their celebration is short-lived though, as the ships suddenly turn around and head right for them. The ships begin venting drive plasma, which forms a cloud of particles that stick to the shuttle and make it visible. 

Mercer tries to outrun them, but the fighters target the shuttle's engines. Suddenly a massive Krill warship appears and pulls them inside.

Back on the Orville, Kelly tells Bortus they've been assigned a new permanent security chief. Bortus is relieved, as he's not fond of Tharl. Gordon enters and announces he wants to take the command test. He says he's tired of being "just a pilot," and wants to advance. Kelly warns him the testing is tough, but Gordon assures her he's ready.

Meanwhile, Mercer sits nervously in the brig of the Krill ship. The Commander appears and demands he give him his command codes. Mercer stalls, saying he's only a captain and doesn't have access to upper level codes. The Commander activates a viewscreen, which shows a Krill soldier torturing Janelle with some sort of futuristic cattle prod. She screams in agony, and Mercer immediately hands over his codes to the Commander. Wow, way to fold like a lawn chair there, Mercer!

On the Orville, Doctor Finn gives Gordon his psych evaluation. She starts with a holographic Rorschach test. As each image flickers into view, Gordon's increasingly disgusted by what he perceives. He finally runs from the room in horror.

Elsewhere, Mercer's still in the brig when a Krill woman enters. He recognizes her as Teleya, the Krill schoolteacher from the Season 1 episode imaginatively titled Krill. He demands to see Janelle. Teleya says that'd be difficult, as she reveals that SHE was Janelle all along! GASP!

Teleya begins monologuing, telling Mercer that after he handed her over to the Union, she was interrogated for months. Eventually she managed to escape (never mind how) and returned to her people. When she learned of a plan to capture a Union captain, she jumped at the chance. She was then genetically altered to appear human, infiltrated the Orville and struck up a relationship with Mercer in order to lure him into a Krill trap.

When Mercer asks why she went to so much trouble to betray him, she reminds him of when he came aboard her ship disguised as a Krill, and feigned friendship as he killed almost everyone onboard. She says now he can experience the same betrayal she felt during that incident. She taunts him, saying it was all too easy to fool him into thinking Janelle was real and loved him.

Just then the ship's rocked by an explosion. Teleya says it's the Chak'tal, a race that's not happy with the fact that the Krill invaded their space. The ship shudders again, and Mercer's inadvertently freed from his cell. He knocks out a guard, grabs his gun and points it at Teleya. She agrees to help him find the fastest way back to his shuttle.

They run through the corridors, as the ruthless Chak'tal kill everyone they see. They make it to the shuttle bay, but unfortunately it's blocked by fallen debris. Teleya then opens an escape pod, and for some reason she lets Mercer board it with her. The pod blasts off just before the Krill ship is destroyed by the Chak'tal.

The pod seeks out the nearest habitable world and crash lands. Mercer wakes sometime later, and sees Teleya pointing a gun at him. She says they need to make it to higher ground to send out a distress signal. To that end, she forces Mercer to carry the equipment and march ahead of her.

Cut to Gordon sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge. He's negotiating with an angry Krill on the viewscreen, who demands he hand over a group of hostages or else. Gordon awkwardly tries to defuse the situation, but the Krill commander fires on the Orville and destroys it. We then see Gordon's actually in the holodeck, er, I mean the Environmental Simulator taking the Kobayashi Maru, er, I mean the command test.

Kelly enters the Simulator and tells him he failed again, but at least he's thinking on his feet. He wants to try it again, but she orders him to get some rest and start fresh in the morning.

Meanwhile, Mercer and Teleya trudge the the planet's forest. She asks about the command codes, and for some reason Mercer admits they were fakes. He turns the conversation to their "relationship," saying he can't believe the entire thing was fake. Teleya tells him she was simply doing her duty and felt nothing for him. She then proceeds to give him a strangely accurate appraisal of his personality. Mercer tells him she sounds like his ex-wife.

Just then they hear a noise, and realize the Chak'tal have followed them to the surface. Apparently they're quite the determined race! Mercer and Teleya manage to hide until they pass by.

Mercer notes that the sun will be coming up soon, which will be deadly to a space vampire like Teleya. He says they'll never make it to high ground in time, and says they'll have to hole up for the day and try again that night. Teleya's reluctant to stop, but realizes he's right. She says there may be caves at the base of the mountain.

Elsewhere, Gordon's in the Mess Hall bragging to a female crewman about taking the command test. He asks her if she wants to get drinks later, and she says sure. Kelly overhears and asks Gordon if he's taking the test to pick up women. He claims he wants to be a captain because he's bored with who he is, which makes him think he has nothing of value to offer. Kelly tells him that's not true, and says to make sure he's taking the test for the right reason.

Mercer and Teleya find a cave and settle in for the night. He notes she still has her gun pointed at him. He says eventually their people will have to learn to get along. Teleya says that's not possible, because the Anhkana teaches that only Krill have souls, and Avis made the universe for them to conquer.

Mercer says the Krill's idea that the universe is theirs for the taking is a myth created out of fear. Teleya counters by saying Mercer fell in love with a myth. Burn! He tells he he believes the woman he loved is still inside her somewhere, and goes to sleep.

Cut to morning, when Teleya wakes up and sees Mercer's gone. She starts to run out of the cave, but stops when she sees it's daylight outside. Mercer's standing in the entrance, and says the sun's barely moved in the last hour. He says by his calculations, a day on this world is equal to twenty tree Earth days.

He says they'll starve long before then, and he'll have to place the distress beacon himself. Teleya initially refuses to let him go alone, but eventually realizes he's right. Mercer climbs to the top of the nearby mountain, sets up the beacon and sends out a distress signal.

On the Orville, Bortus detects the signal and informs Kelly that it's from Mercer, but is on a Krill frequency. Alarmed, Kelly orders Gordon and Bortus to take a shuttle and rescue Mercer.

As Mercer makes his way back to the cave, he sees the squad of Chak'tal heading his way. He makes it back to Teleya, tells her they're sitting ducks in the cave and need to find a new place to hide. She reminds him she'll die in the sunlight, so he gently drapes his jacket over her. They both pause for a second as they realize he's done that before.

They run to the top of the mountain for some reason, as the Chak'tal follow closely behind. Since Teleya can't see well in the bright sun, Mercer convinces her to give him her gun. He fires and takes out several of the Chak'tal, The rest begin shooting back, pinning them down.

Just then the Orville's shuttle appears overhead. Gordon sees Mercer and Teleya, and realizes they're in trouble. When Bortus asks how they're going to rescue them, Gordon tells him he's a pilot, and he's got this (subtle!). He manages to land the back end of the shuttle on the mountaintop. Teleya realizes Mercer contacted the Orville instead of the Krill, and swears she won't be taken captive again by the Union. He tells her this is no time to argue, and shoves her into the shuttle. He jumps in and Gordon hightails them out of there.

Back on the Orville, Merce decides to release Teleya to the Krill. Kelly reminds him he doesn't have the authority to do so, and he may end up being court marshalled. He notes her objection and does it anyway. He releases Teleya from the brig and tells her to contact her people.

Gordon asks Kelly why Mercer's risking everything for someone who tried to kill him. Kelly tells him that's what command's all about, and asks if he's still interested.

Some time later, a Krill destroyer rendezvouses with the Orville. A shuttle enters the bay, and three armed Krill emerge from it. Teleya walks toward them, then stops and turns to face Mercer. She tells him that if he thinks this action will change the Krill's outlook on the Union, he's wildly mistaken. He tells her to take a message to her leaders: They can keep fighting, or they can talk. He then gives her a tiny flash drive containing the complete works of Billy Joel.

Mercer watches sadly as Teleya boards the shuttle and heads back to her ship.

Thoughts:

• Obviously the big news this week is that Janelle Tyler, who was introduced in the Season 2 premiere, is secretly a Krill. In fact she's actually Teleya, the schoolteacher who first appeared back in Krill.

Many fans began theorizing that Janelle was actually Teleya when they checked IMDB and realized that both roles were played by the same actress, Michaela McManus. 

It made a certain amount of sense, but eh... I didn't buy it. Mainly because for years, it's been common practice for the various Trek shows to use the same person in multiple roles. In fact actor Vaughn Armstrong played a whopping THIRTEEN different characters in every modern version of Star Trek!

The Trek series could get away with this because their guest stars are generally covered in layers of prosthetic makeup, making it impossible to recognize them. The shows would also reuse an actor to save time, since they already had a plaster mold of their face. And some actors just can't handle having stuff glued to their head for eighteen hours a day, so the casting directors liked to cast people who were used to it.

I assumed The Orville was reusing McManus for similar reasons. Looks like I was wrong!

I started becoming suspicious of her early in this episode, when she said she'd never heard of Billy Joel, Taxi Driver or The King And I. Everyone else on the ship seems strangely well-versed in 20th Century pop culture, so the fact that she wasn't was significant!

When she complained of being cold in Mercer's quarters, I knew for sure the rumors were true and she was really a Krill.

Now that I look back, the clues were there the whole time. At the end of Ja'loja, Mercer's nursing a broken heart in the ship's bar. He tells the bartender, "You know what would be great right now? A Krill invasion." Instantly, Janelle enters the bar and asks if she can join him! That little bit of foreshadowing flew right past me at the time, but in hindsight it's pretty obvious.

Another clue: They even dressed Janelle in green and black— the official and predominant colors of the Krill Empire! How the hell did I not notice that?

One last obvious sign: In Season 1 of STD, there was a human character named Ash Tyler, played by actor Shazad Latif. Oddly enough, Latif also played a Klingon named Voq. Fans noticed Latif was pulling double duty, and suspected that Tyler would turn out to be a genetically altered Voq. And of course that's exactly what happened. Sound familiar?

Heck, Ash and Janelle even share the same last name!

I'm assuming MacFarlane was well aware of the Tyler/Voq plotline, and concocted a similar one with Janelle/Teleya as a wink and a nod to STD. Or perhaps as a middle finger to them, who knows?

• Overall I liked the Janelle/Teleya storyline, except for one thing— it was resolved WAY too soon. Jesus, this is only the second time Janelle's appeared on the show, and the first time we've seen that she and Mercer have started up a relationship. It was hard to feel too awfully bad for Mercer when we just now learned about their affair.

This plot definitely needed some more room to breathe. Ideally we should have gotten at least one more episode of them canoodling before Janelle pulled the rug out from under Mercer. 

• This week's opening credits were kind of sad. For the past fifteen episodes, we always saw Halston Sage's name superimposed over a planet-devouring black hole.

Alas, this week we see the black hole, but now with J Lee's name supered over it. Nothing against him of course— I just wish Alara's name was still in the credits.

• Speaking of credits, why's Chad L. Coleman's name listed this week? There's no trace of Klyden anywhere in the episode. Does Coleman have some special deal that guarantees  his name appears each week, whether he's actually in the episode or not? He must have a good agent!

• Possible Continuity Error: At the beginning of the episode, Kelly announces their next mission is to deliver supplies to Epsilon 5. Back in Old Wounds, the Orville's first task was to deliver supplies to the science station of Epsilon 2.

This may not actually be a mistake, as it's entirely possible there could be more than one habitable planet in the Epsilon system. Or it could be a case of the creators forgetting what they previously wrote.

• How does Tharl put on a sweatshirt? His second esophagus is somehow protruding from the center of the shirt, but there's no visible seam in front. He... he can't pull his esophagus out of his stomach and stick it back in, can he? Please say he can't.

• As we all learned from Mercer's choice for movie night, the episode's title is a line from the musical The King And I, starring Yul Brynner. 

For the record, the name of the song is A Puzzlement, and the lyrics go:

"Is a danger to be trusting one another,

One will seldom want to do what other wishes.

But unless someday, somebody trusts somebody,

There'll be nothing left on Earth excepting fishes!"

There're about twenty five more stanzas in the song, which I'm not gonna copy and paste here. You can google the song if you wanna see 'em. I'm aware of The King And I but have never managed to get around to seeing it. This episode kind of makes me want to check it out.

• For some reason the Union uniforms got a slight upgrade in this episode. Last week the crew's rank insignia badges featured a color-coded departmental icon on a grey field.

Suddenly in this episode the insignia are all metallic silver on a grey field. No idea why they'd change this, especially a third of the way into the season.

• During their date night, Janelle says she's cold (hmmmm...) so Mercer carefully drapes his uniform jacket over her shoulders.

Later on the planet's surface, Teleya can't go out in the blazing sun, so Mercer carefully drapes his jacket over her head.

It's not exactly subtle, but it's a nice little callback, and Teleya's reaction indicates there may very well be a tiny little bit of Janelle left inside her, despite what she says.

• Definite Continuity Error: It's hard to see in this image, but when Mercer and Janelle take off in their shuttle, its registry number is ECV-197-1.

Oddly enough that's the exact same number of the shuttle that Gordon and Bortus use to rescue Mercer and Teleya! Whoops!

That seems unlikely, since Mercer's shuttle was tractor beamed into the Krill ship, which was later blown up real good by the Chak'tal. 

Either the Orville's shuttles are ALL marked ECV-197-1, or the FX team was in a hurry and reused the same digital model!

• When Mercer leaves for vacation he's wearing a blue shirt and a black leather jacket highlighted with blue piping. Is this some kind of casual version of his uniform? Or are all his off duty clothes color-coded by rank as well?

• The Krill smoke out the cloaked shuttle by venting drive plasma that adheres to its hull. That's a pretty cool trick! Even better, it's something I've never seen in Star Trek. Or any sci-fi series, for that matter. Well done, writers!

• After Mercer's captured, the Krill Commander demands he hand over his command codes. Mercer refuses, as a good captain should. The Commander then begins torturing Janelle, and Mercer INSTANTLY blurts out the codes! 

Way to sell out your people over a woman, Mercer! I was extremely pissed off at him for this, as felt like something Mikey-Spock would do over on STD.

Thankfully, we later find out that Mercer's actions were all part of a ploy. He actually gave the Krill a set of FAKE command codes, specially created just for situations like this. According to Mercer, the codes unlock reams of fake data that'd take the Krill weeks to sift through. 

That's actually a pretty good ploy! Unfortunately Mercer tells Teleya about it later, rendering the trick useless from now on.

• Mercer has a really good eye for faces. Call me racist, but all Krill look pretty much the same to me. I don't know that I'd have been able to instantly recognize Teleya. Especially after a year or more.

• The funniest part of the episode had to be Gordon's holographic Rorschach test, in which he saw a series of increasingly obscene and upsetting images. Is it just me, or do the digital ink blots look a lot like the aliens in Space Invaders?

• This week we get two antagonistic races for the price of one: the Krill and the Chak'tal. The Chak'tal were awesome looking, and sort of resembled orcs. 

Last season Gordon described the Krill as "space vampires." So now we have space orcs as well! Cool!

• So Teleya and Mercer manage to blast off in an escape pod seconds before the Krill ship explodes. For some reason, it then promptly and violently crash lands on a nearby planet. Was there something wrong with the pod? If not, then why the hell isn't it capable of a nice soft landing?

• Mercer and Teleya are then stranded together on an alien planet. Take a look at this shot of the planet above. There's something about it that's reeeeally bugging me. See those two moons in the upper left corner? Notice anything peculiar about them? They're in two different phases! One's full and the other's a crescent. How in the name of Evil Spock's beard is THAT possible?

The only thing I can figure is maybe the two moons are fairly close together, and the full moon is in front, casting a shadow on the smaller one that's in back. If that's what the FX team was going for here, it didn't work. Better to have separated 'em a bit so they'd be in the same phase.

• The best part of the episode was Mercer and Teleya's discussion about religion and morality. Teleya tells Mercer, "You lead a godless existence. You have no soul. You reject the guiding hand of Avis. And without belief, there can be no moral code."

Ah, there it is! The battle cry of the self righteous! I hear this refrain all too often these days. It's amazing to me how many Christians think that atheists are automatically immoral because they don't believe in the Invisible Sky Man. 

Hell, a few years back, Phil Robertson, patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan, went on record saying atheists are all demented serial killers, because their lack of belief in an all-mighty Deity gives them carte blanche to murder, pillage and rape to their heart's content! Holy Sh*t!

This notion that atheism automatically equals immorality pisses me off no end. It's entirely possible to be a good person without believing a bunch of ancient claptrap. In fact, when you get down to it atheists are probably more moral than Christians. They're good because it's the right thing to do. Christians adhere to their moral code because they fear their petulant Asshole God, who'll throw them into a lake of fire for eternity if they act up.

• This has nothing to do with the plot or anything, but it's something that kind of bothers me. Apparently whenever the Orville crew's done eating in the Mess Hall, they just saunter off and leave all their garbage on the table. What the hell? Would it kill them to empty their trays into a trash can? And it's not like Gordon was suddenly called to the bridge here— he just left his crap for someone else to deal with.

• Wow, poor Isaac didn't have a single line in this episode. In fact he only appeared in a couple of very brief scenes. I wonder if that was even Mark Jackson in the suit? Would they bother making him come in for a ten second scene? I'm betting that's probably a stagehand or extra sitting there in the background.

• As we saw back in Krill, UV light is deadly to the Krill and actually fries them to death. Yet 

when they genetically altered Teleya to pass for a human, they somehow made her immune to UV light while they were at it. 

So... if they have the technology to make her resistant to sunlight, why not use it on their entire race? Being limited to darkness seems like a serious handicap for a conquering race. 

I'm assuming this is probably a religious thing. If Avis intended them to walk around in broad daylight, he'd have given them sunscreen or something like that. It might also be a matter of racial purity, and not wanting to pollute their perfect genetic code.

• One last thing about the Krill's aversion to sunlight. Back in Old Wounds, the Krill all wore nifty helmets that retracted into their armor. Too bad Teleya didn't have time to pack one of those in this episode! You'd think there'd be at least one of those helmets in every escape pod.

• In the third act, Mercer scrambles up the side of a mountain in order to activate the distress beacon.

This mountain will no doubt look familiar to native Californians, as it bears a striking resemblance to Rocky Peak Park, located in Simi Valley!

• I love this rear view of the shuttle taking off from the planet during Mercer's rescue. It looks like the ship's really taking off, as the ground is clearly receding in the distance.

I've been trying to figure out how they managed to pull off this shot. Most likely they used a drone-mounted camera and filmed it taking off, and then greenscreened the footage into the shuttle's hatch.

• Apparently Krill Shuttles are just miniature versions of their destroyers! Did they not have time to design a new shuttlecraft, so they just took the destroyer model and shrunk it down?

• So is Gordon good now? Earlier in the episode he whined that he was bored with himself and saw piloting as a dead end career path. After he expertly saves Mercer from the Chak'tal with his fancy shuttle maneuvering, does he realize his piloting skills have real value? 

I guess we'll find out when we see if he's continuing the command test or not.

• Over in the Star Trek Universe, various alien races interbreed all the time (which is actually not possible). Just how extensive was Teleya's alteration into a human? I wonder... will we see a half human, half Krill in a future episode? Mercer and Janelle did canoodle after all!

• This Week's Incongruous 21st Century (And Earlier!) References:
This week we find out that Mercer listens to Billy Joel, and watches The King And I, Taxi Driver and Raiders Of The Lost Ark. And apparently people are still familiar with the work of Jane Goodall. 

• THIS WEEK'S JAW-DROPPING STAR TREK SWIPES THAT MAKE ME WONDER HOW LONG IT'LL BE BEFORE CBS SUES THE PANTS OFF OF FOX:
Mercer and Teleya being stranded on a planet together is very reminiscent of the TNG episode The Enemy. In that episode, Geordi LaForge was stuck on a hostile planet with a Romulan soldier. Of course the two enemies had to learn to work together in order to survive.

The Mercer/Teleya plot is also similar to the Deep Space 9 episode Waltz, in which mortal enemies Captain Sisko and Gul Dukat are marooned on a planet together, and have to learn to work together in order to survive.

This week's episode was also mildly similar to an episode of Deep Space 9 titled The Jem'Hadar, in which Sisko, Jake, Nog and Quark go camping on a planet. Sisko and Quark are captured and taken prisoner by the Jem'Hadar. They meet a fellow prisoner named Eris. She turns out to be a Vorta, another enemy race, and was posing as a prisoner in hopes she could pump Sisko for info.

In this episode Gordon decides to take the command test. On TNG, Doctor Crusher and Counselor Troi both did the same thing late in the series' run.

In the TOS episode The Corbomite Manuever, the Enterprise is menaced by the alien ship Fesarius. Captain Kirk tells the ship's captain that the Enterprise is coated with a substance called "corbomite," a protective substance that creates a reverse reaction when attacked. During Gordon's command test, he tries the same bluff, practically word for word!

• This Week's Best Lines:
Mercer: (telling Tharl he doesn't have to change clothes) "Tharl, you're fine."
Tharl: "Righteous. Mellow alert."

Mercer: (gushing about Janelle) "She's cool, she's smart, she's funny. Sh... She checks every box. I've never met a woman who checked every box."

Gordon: "You said Kelly checked every box."

Mercer: "Yeah, well, I got more boxes now."

Mercer: "Um, I just wanted to be the one to tell you I'm seeing Janelle Tyler."

Kelly: "I know. "

Mercer: "What?"

Kelly: "Come on, really? I see the way you smile when she walks onto the bridge. I know your smiles. You have fifteen. Three are for happiness. Eleven are passive-aggressive. And one is for being in love. I've seen it before, you know."

Mercer: "What are you, Jane Goodall?"

Kelly: "Yeah, and you're the primate."

Kelly: "Thought you'd be glad to know they've finally assigned us a new security chief. She'll be here next week."
Bortus: "There are many on board who will be pleased to know this."
Kelly: "Tharl driving you crazy, too?"
Bortus: "He does not stop talking, and he makes loud noises when he consumes food. He comes to the mess hall wearing... sandals."

Kelly: (after Gordon says he wants to take the command test) "Okay. Well, first, you'll need a medical and psych evaluation. I'll tell Dr. Finn to expect you."
Gordon: "Thank you, Commander. I won't let you down. Future captain right here!"
(Gordon leaves)
Bortus: "He will fail."

Doctor Finn: "Now, I'm going to show you a series of different shapes, and I want you to tell me what you see. Just say the first thing that comes to mind."
Gordon: "Got it."
(Finn displays a holographic Rorschach blot.)
Gordon: "Yeah, I, uh I'd rather not say."
Finn: "Why not?"
Gordon: "It's kind of embarrassing. Can we move on to the next one?"
Finn: "All right."
(She displays a second.)
Finn: "What do you see?"
Gordon: "Oh, man, that is disgusting."
Finn: "This is all confidential. No judgment."
Gordon: "That's even worse than the last one!"
Finn: "What do you see?"
Gordon: "Let's move on!"
Finn: "Moving on."
(She displays a third image.)
Gordon: "My God, who makes these things!"
Finn: "Try this."
(A fourth image pops up.)
Gordon: "Okay, this is a hostile work environment!"

Gordon: (to the Krill Commander, during his command test) "But you know what we do have? We have heart. Yeah, we got a lot of heart, lot of passion, you know, so watch out!"
Holographic Krill Commander: "You will release the prisoners or you will die!"
Bridge Officer: "Sir, they're charging weapons."
Gordon: "We also eat a lot of protein. You know, fr... fresh fruits and vegetables, that kind of thing, very, very healthy diet. Makes us tough. You know, you don't want to mess with that, trust me. Very little dairy."

Gordon: (discussing his failure of the test) "I kind of choked there at the end."
Kelly: "Well, the deflector thing was novel."
Gordon: "I really thought I had him this time."
Kelly: "You're thinking on your feet, so that's a start. I'm just not sure that good digestion is a persuasive deterrent."

Mercer: "Did you feel anything at all?"
Teleya: "No."
Mercer: "It was just your mission? To get close to me?"
Teleya: "That is correct."
Mercer: "Man, I liked you a lot better when you were using contractions."

Teleya: "If I was not going to kill you, I would give you some advice."
Mercer: "Please. Love to hear it."
Teleya: "You are painfully attentive. The failure of your marriage has caused you to overcompensate in the moment. And yet, paradoxically, despite this, your work remains your first priority. You have no balance."
Mercer: "My God, you sound like my ex-wife!"
Teleya: "You feel entitled to educate others, but your own worldview is self-defeatingly narrow."
Mercer: "Yeah, well, at least I know who Billy Joel is."

Mercer: "You're afraid to accept the fact that your superiority may just be a comforting myth." 
Teleya: "Who are you to lecture me about myths? You fell in love with a woman who did not exist."