The Greatest Generation - Logically Non-Monogamous (VOY S2E24)

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

After a transporter accident merges the ship’s oddest couple into one odder single, Janeway and the crew are desperate to lower the overall weirdness on the ship. But as the search for answers drags on, the needs of the one start to make a case that might outweigh the needs of the many. Is the back of Tuvix’s head a meme from an early Internet shock site? Will people prefer the new, less piquant approach to tactics and cuisine? What’s Kim’s clarinet going to smell like after this mission? It’s the episode that asks, did Neelix have a cinnamon roll in his pocket, or was he just happy to merge with Tuvok?Exchange scarves for goods at PodShop.bizSupport the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice.Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is now regularly streaming on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Watch your back shot. Hello. I'm Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S. and Fort Lein. Captain Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S. says, boy, I'm dirt, Captain, Captain, Bringing what the U.S. says, boy, I'm dirt, Captain,

Welcome to the greatest generation. Voyager is a Star Trek podcast from a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranaka. This may sound a little different than the show normally does because we're in a big concrete, boomy room that has terrible acoustics. I leaned some foam things up in a couple of places but it's not helping. Oh

yeah, is that why it looks like the killing floor of a slaughterhouse in here? That's for something that I'm gonna do later. To you. All right. You can need to floor squeegee because I'm not seeing any floor drains in here. Shall we get into the mailbag at him? Let's get into it. This first package is from Mike H in Something something new Jersey. That's one of the exits of the Turnpike, right? Is TWP short for township? Something township, maybe.

Hey Ben and Adam, my wife loves me, but she did not love Star Trek, the cruise. She was gracious enough to agree to go with me, but once we got there, she immediately regretted her decision. Wow. To make matters worse, I asked her to renew our vows

during a group renewal ceremony led by Major Kira herself, the non-visitor. Wow. When cleaning up, I stumbled onto the renewal certificate and instead of framing a keepsake from a family memory, only half of us want to remember, I'm sending it to you. I'm really worried about Mike and Tiffany's marriage. They're doing fine. They're doing exactly what they wanna do.

I mean, this does come from both of them according to the top of this letter. There's so much more to our cruised debacle if you're ever in Philadelphia again for a live show, Hoops on me, and I'll share. It's funny, mostly, I promise. Stay safe and well, Mike H. PS, they spilt my wife's name wrong.

Is Tiffany Whits her mirror universe counterpart? Tiffany Whits is not her actual name. I'm gonna show these people the certificate. Renewal of Vows certificate. Star Trek the cruise to Michael and Tiffany have together after two years of marriage on this Joys' Day of January 6th. Oh no.

together after two years of marriage on this Joys Day of January 6th. Oh no! Had to be January 6th, didn't it? Well, at least we know where they were on January 6th. So, that is signed. A question that, personally, I'm pretty tired of answering. Yeah, yeah. People always want to know where you were at them. I was signed by an non-visitor herself, so that's pretty amazing, pretty nice bit of Star Trek memory there.

Our next package here is from J Kirkpatrick in El Serito, California. At a place I know quite well from my childhood. It's to us. This is Forbidden Adam. Forbidden Adam's Coco No-nose from James. Wow, there's no note. As far as I can tell, wait, is there a note in here?

What this is, is a Dacquery Cocktail book from Havana, Adam. That's what you want. This is mostly in Spanish, it looks like, oh, there's English too. The greatest bar on earth. Is that what the bar's called? I think that's its reputation.

Ah, the cathedral of the Dacary. That's probably the only church I'm interested in going to. La Catedral del Dacary is translated as the cradle of the Dacary cocktail, which I never put that etymology together, but that's great. This is a whole, this is a long book

with a lot of cocktails in it. I, uh, no pictures at all in that book. Yeah, it is, is graphic free because graphics are the work of imperialist capitalists, right? I really love the like way out and fonts and stuff though. It's really gorgeous. I wish Jay had sent a note.

This is amazing. I hope to make some drinks. Oh, there are some graphics in here. Look at that. There is an advertisement for Hattui Cuban beer. Amazing. Wow. Thank you, Jay, for sending that in. Let's start to get to some of these bigger packages. Look at this one, this one's from Defested.

Defested's our friend. Yeah, in Wisconsin, we hung out with Defested at the STLV pool party that we threw. I'm guessing Defested is in the chat, just from... I hope so. Defested has a bit of a rep for showing up in the chat. Yeah, defested as other reps too But we'll never tell Adam and Ben at hashtag STLV2021

I was incredibly surprised to learn that your Romulan Picard doll pronounced action figure did not come with the Romulan suit bowl attachment. This seemed wrong It is wrong. It's a wrong that must be righted within this package. It's your very own Romulan bowl with a bonus Romulan Picard accessory. Also, during a realist, and I noticed a mention of Spotted Cow

in DS9, season six, episode 10, which is brewed only 20 miles from my house, and also happens to be one of my favorite beers. Hey, I had a taste. Adam had been hoarding it and Ben never got a chance to try it. It's true. As the beer is not available outside of Wisconsin,

I thought I'd send some to Cume looking up the legality of shipping beer and then becoming sad and confused. Yeah. I can relate to that, Defested. So I promise to bring some to your next live show in Wisconsin. Y'all are awesome and your pods helped me through one of the worst depressions of my life. I know I'm not alone here for everyone that you have helped through serious times with

your consistent, taken-far jokes. Thank you, DeFested. Thank you, DeFested. That was really sweet to say. That is really sweet to say. As a person who has battled his depression in my life I am always super flattered to hear things like that. I Hope our show is a tool for people in that way. I

Mostly hope that our show is a tool Well, we never set out to make it that but it's kind of cool that it is. Sorry. I'm gonna unveil This action figure atom. Alright. Wow, it really does come with a soup bowl with attached spoon down there. That is excellent. Why did they include this spoon? That's so funny. Wow. Man, this is great.

Did they describe it as garbage soup that Picard hates? I'll see if I can read something about the soup on the back. Romulan bowl. Common vessel. Just poor consumption of traditional Romulan victuels. Okay. I mean, that's fine.

I mean, the other characters that they advertise on here are pretty fun. They've got the Jordy that turns into invisible Jordy. Lieutenant Commander, the Forge reporting for duty caps. They've got Raker on that first contact away mission where a BB Newworth wants to do him. We shouldn't fear the unknown. We should embrace it.

Troy in uniform. There's more to being a bridge officer than memorizing technical manuals. And Hugh the Borg. Hugh and the Waiterman. And Lieutenant Barkley.. You. I don't know, wait a minute. And Lieutenant Barkley. Hello, forward to your report, Mr. Broccoli. Oh, yeah, even Barkley gets one.

We don't have a Ronnie Cox action figure. Oh, man. I wonder if they ever made a Ronnie Cox action figure. I don't want to talk about it. Get it done. They made an action figure for Romulo Picard. They're not going to give us a gelico. Seems like they should have given us a gelico. I don't know why they didn't. All right Adam, just two more packages left here.

Really? You're really cruising through these. Listen, there's more packages but I don't want the Marin on this episode to be like 45 minutes long. Yeah, that's true. This is from Mark A in Champagne Illinois and it is two friends of DeSoto. Wow, so it's not really to us. No, we're no friends of that man. I think we are. I think when do we count as they came for DeSoto and I said nothing. Jesus You were you two you're too busy storing the capital apparently. That is not true! We've got a letter! It's a thank you letter. Dear Ben and Adam, a few years ago I went through a pretty rough patch in my life and one of the things that helped me get through it was the two of you. Binging through the next gen and DS9 episodes was delight and made each day a little better.

I'm doing great now but I still wanted to send something to thank you for all the jokes and Chris Brenner drops. Mm. I'm Chris Brenner. Brenner information systems. You know, interface operations, net access, channel 90. That Chris Brenner. This Thomas Reiker action figure is my favorite,

not because he was only in two episodes out of like 400, but because he's wearing the wrong uniform. Whoa! I think they may have just stuck his head on an O'Brien figure. Who knows? Anyways, I hope you enjoy it. And thanks again for being rad, Mark. Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Mark. Man, that is totally the wrong uniform, because he was in red when he was on Deep Space 9.

But he was also in the ship version of the red uniform, not the station version of the red uniform. Thomas Riker should have detachable facial hair, though, and it should be purple. Yeah, let's look at these sideburns. Doesn't look like those come off. There should be a switch on the back, you know, like action burns. Yeah, this is great.

Let's look at the character's advertisement here. Vash, you could get Deep Space 9 Edition Vash. Are you sure this place is safe? You could get Deep Space 9 Edition Q. Quite a mockly crew you've assembled here, Benji. And Captain Picard in the Deep Space 9 uniform. This can't be real. Oh, I guess they kind of explain it a little bit here, Benji. And Captain Picard in the Deep Space 9 uniform. This can't be real. Oh, I guess they kind of explain it a little bit here

on the back. It says Lieutenant Riker in Star Trek Deep Space 9 uniform. There it is. There it is, folks. That's the Riker. This package is from Kenneth M. In Medford, MA, to pen and atom, getting it open. All right, here we go.

Dear Ben and Adam, we hope you enjoy this mutated Tom Perez action figure, complete with three mutant offspring from the Star Trek Voyager season two episode threshold. Your review of it hasn't aired yet, so we can only assume it's your favorite episode so far. Yes. Correct.

Thanks for your top notch podcasting over the years. Greatest generation and greatest discovery are bright spots and dark times. Now you enjoy your journey through the Delta quadrant. Here's to the bits, Sarah and Ken. Wow, thank you, Sarah and Ken. And here is the action figure. He's just as grotesque as I remember.

It's tongue-barfing addition. Oh, I guess this is post-tongued barfing, right? He was more like flaky at that point, and at this point, he's starting to look like a salamander, man. They did get the expression, right? Like some sort of weird pride expression to the gross things he's doing.

I want to open the box because the offspring are not visible in the packaging. I really want to see what they look like. That's very funny from the packaging. I really want to see what they look like. That's very funny from the back. If you can see them from the back, wait till you see them from the front. I like that he comes with three offspring and a phaser. Now that's a cute baby. There's no coloring on it for the eyes, but it is shaded a little bit on the top of the head. I wish they'd... You can't tell who it takes after. Yeah. So we got three of those. We got a red phaser. Again, a thing that totally sent me up the wall when I was a kid, because I was like, the phasers aren't red.

This is wrong. You had a really deep voice as a child. Yeah. Got less mature as I've aged. a really deep voice as a child. Yeah, gotten less mature as I've aged. Ah, man, that is really great. Looks like a nice, corduroy, suit jacket situation happening there. Yeah, that is really terrific. Thank you to everyone who sent stuff in to us for this exciting Marin Open. We've been streaming this on our Twitch stream, and if you're a listener and just hearing about this, make sure to follow the greatest Trek Twitch account, because we do this from

time to time, and we're having a lot of fun doing it. It's usually a lot better than this. Now Adam, let's get to the episode we came to talk about today. Oh yeah, let's do it. It's one of my favorites. It's... An episode you haven't seen yet. It's season two episode 24.

Twovix. Oh, it is the twovix episode. Revers scores. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your turf. At a false alarm. What? I know we just got out of the Marin and into the episode, but we got a frantic text message from Bill Tilly

after our Twitch stream. You know what you never want after a Twitch stream is Bill Tilly, normally like the least flapped person in the world, moderator of your Twitch stream texting you, there's been an incident. Apparently, the entire time we were doing that, there was a box sitting out in front of everyone that we didn't notice, but everybody on the stream did. Yeah. We didn't open. So we got to open it right now. We looked like such idiots moment to go. Adam, this last box is from Clara in Goodlitzville,

Tennessee. Oh wow. I love Tennessee. I mean, parts of it. Oh wow, I love Tennessee. I mean parts of it. Hi Adam, I need to ask Ben a question real fast, but rest assured, I got you both something. Back when Lockdown was still in full effect months before y'all started twitching, you showed off your collection of gifts from live shows on Instagram or something. You told a tale of bringing one sculpy nub in bug from the Vegas con to show some folks that work inside the pocket what they ought to bring back in the new shows. Was that a bit or did you really tote that thing with you to show someone officially trek affiliated? If so, and even if not so,

I am both flattered and mortified that I talked myself out of spring for a basic trapper keeper for storage. That's great. I just plunked that thing in a re-reused gift box full of tissue paper and hoped only a few toes would fall off and transit in efforts to rectify my lack of foresight and realize Adam's idea of downsizing to brooch proportions. Please accept these superior little life forms

now in less embarrassing containers. Thanks for the hours of entertainment that make good soundtrack for hours of crafting, as now I'm planning to be at STLV next year with an alien cosplayer too. Hey! Hope to see you there, hit me up if you ever want some homemade loaf, conspiratorially, Carly the Cardassian Smith, PS24, effectively gross, is my birthday episode of TGG. Awesome. I love hearing about people's birthday episodes. This is great. The box that this comes in, it's a very starfleet official looking box. What's in the box? Wow. I've seen a lot of homemade nubin bugs over the years we both have. But I'm going to say that one is among the best we've seen. The colors feel very true to

screen. The colors are great. Very screen accurate. There's one for each of us. And we'll put since this wasn't on the stream I'll have to send some pictures to Bill Tilly to put up on the Instagram Are they are they broaches like do they have little clips on the back? I can't tell do we can We can buy Kirk action jackets and and pin them on and then people will think we've confused Nebden bugs for steady eels, but we'll we'll know the truth Yeah, it'll be fun to walk through Star Trek Glass Vegas just having our cosplay corrected by people.

It's super fun to wear something and then have people well actually you. Yeah. I think that actually gives you license to roundhouse kick them into a glass table, right? Yeah. Sure does. I'm going to take that to the episode. People are going to kill us if we don't start talking about the episode.

One of the longest maryns ever leading up to one of the most significant episodes of Star Trek Voyager, huh? It sure is. It's still season two episode 24, too, Vix. Reaver, of course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around. Then it is a great day for an away team mission to collect flowers.

Mm-hmm. The love in away team mission. Nielix and Tuvac are odd coupling their way through this thing. If you're like, hey, there's some nutritious flowers down there. Who should we send? Let's send the tactical guy and the morale guy. And also... And also... And obvious choice. The numbers are great too. Who should we send? Let's send the tactical guy and the morale guy. And also the obvious choice. The numbers are great too. Let's just start with two and see what happens. The idea of them being down there is food gathering. Yeah. Food gathering. But let's use

the buddy system, but not so many buddies that we bring up enough food for everyone. What if our agribusiness had a great, like so many acres been, so many acres of corn out there and wheat, but we're only gonna send two people out there to harvest it. What do you say about that idea? It seems bad. Yeah, I guess it's a prospecting mission and maybe they send more people down

if this proves to be a worthwhile thing to harvest. It's only a couple hundred mouths to feed anyway. Yeah. The Sears Garden Center set is in full effect here. And Neelix is kind of busting two-vox's chops about two-vox's, two-vox chops about his, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm putting X's at the end of two-box name. Bustin is chops about being sort of an hedonic, unable to enjoy

himself, and just as much coming back the other direction as two-box kind of bust Nelix's chops about being obnoxiously friendly and good-natured. We saw it not too long ago how great of a vocalist Tuvak was. He busted out that song for the kids. Probably in the same soundstage. Put them right to sleep. And I don't feel like Tuvak wants to be pimped here into singing. Why don't we sing a song? Why are we toil?

He is not feeling like it. He is prepared to die for his crime. It might make the mission a little bit easier for him, though, if he could lol, Nelix, and do a nap. That's true. Yeah. So continue this by myself, Mr. Nelix. Co-incidental to this, back up on the ship,

in the transporter room. There haven't problems with the transporter But it's okay like you got your two best transporter types up there You know everyone has their fingernails trimmed. We got an instant came up there along with skull cogan And you just do not want to beam through an annular confinement beam. That's too tight You want to loosen that baby up before a transport, don't you? Yeah, you want to make sure that the anus is just right. They turn the knob, they slide their fingers up the iPad and only one thing is materializing

on the pad. It's neither Nielix nor Tufok, but it's too late. And the camera cuts back to the transporter pad after we watch Kim and Skullcog and kind of go through a panic of realizing they fucked up. And there is a different man on the transporter pad. A man whose uniform is made out of a pattern that appears to be cinnamon rolls in a pan, but in a starfleet style. Delicious bakery fresh cinnamon rolls.

And that's the dun dun dun dun to theme. I want to say right now that this is the moment. When this character turns around and reveals themselves, this is the moment where you decide whether or not you can get with this episode or not. Like the degree to which you feel like the combination, the visual combination of Nelix and Tuvac is just silly as hell or credible and interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Where do you fall on that? Or do you want to save that for the end? I think I might save it for you Now this suspense is gonna kill me I'll tell you who is not interested and seeing one second more of this person is Kim who is basically John Wu two dustbusters out from behind him and is like ready to cut this guy down Intruder alert is what he says. I love this. This is absolutely the right thing to do and I feel like ready to cut this guy down. Intruder alert is what he says. I love this. This is absolutely the right thing to do.

And I feel like I feel like a worse Star Trek script would not think to have the immediate reaction be suspicion and fear. If two fix was Videon, Kim and Skull Cogan would already have been degutted. Like I said, I think you got to throw up the force field. First thing, right? Yeah, I wonder, does the, does the transporter automatically disabled weapons or, or is that

something you have to do volitionally every time? I don't know. I mean, a lot of questions crop up out of this scene. One of the questions I have is, it's Hogan's fingers on the controls, right? Is it Skull Kogan's fault? Does he have a transporters guilt here? There are many people's internal struggles

in this episode that I wanted to know more about, and that's one that I didn't even think of. Does he like go off and just feel like shit for the rest of the day? Do people treat him differently? I really blew it in the transporter room today. Given how many transporter accidents there are in Starfleet, it seems like that would be a real hazard to the job.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's why Chief O'Brien always seems so haunted, right? Right. That in the memory of spending a lifetime in a jail cell with a man that he loved and then killed. spending a lifetime in a jail cell with a man that he loved and then killed. Kim can't decide to blow this guy away on the transporter pad or hold the dust best for to his own head. After seeing what you see.

The question right off the top is, who is this guy? Yeah. And what have you done to Nelix and two Voc? And this guy says, I am Nelix and I am two Vock and Probably the funniest moment in the episode is and skull go again looks down at the computer and he's like yeah computer says he's right Check out It's like the panel at the end of Crimson Tide. According to our review, he's both right and he's both wrong. And Lippazon or Stalions are born to Laxian, but they're black Balkans

when they grow up. of Tufik's smartly starts doing the parlor trick of ideing everyone he sees when he's in six bay, right? And this is this is something this is a technique that he's using to kind of chill everyone out Yeah telling them secrets that only they and Tufik and orneelix would know Luckily, this is the only form of identification that the crew needs to determine that his side of the story is correct. Yeah, the doc agrees with the earlier bioscancer read out. The man you see before you is literally a fusion of two men, but he's surprisingly healthy considering the circumstances. But also, it's not just the two of them. It's also the orchids that they were collecting. This guy is one third,

Nielix one third, two vach, one third flower. Don't tell Michael Shaven. What goes on mentioned is the Ziploc bag of cinnamon rolls that Nielix had with him to make that little flourish on his uniform. Nielix brought a little snack down from brunch. Yeah. Two Vicks seems pretty happy to see Cass in this scene.

Yeah. Cass was not so much. No. No, and this is starting here. I found this to be an incredible Jennifer Leanne episode throughout. It really is. Yeah, I mean, like the connection she has with both characters is very deep at this point. Yeah.

And I think one of the most interesting things about the episode is how little consideration some of the other characters on Voyager give her when this happens. And how much that is both really sad and also true to the way the show has been written up till now. I feel like if everybody had tried to comfort Kess in this moment, it would have felt a little saccharin and dishonest. And I thought it was an interesting moment of the show, kind of writing

in a way that was, it was, it was, it's hard for the show to cover up the fact that she's been a little bit underwritten at best. And so it's, it's pretty honest about that. And the way it's written. Well, I want to emphasize your point even more. I feel like there is very little compassion to go around for the entire crew and it really starts here Tovix is not treated like a person who has suffered from an accident here Everyone if they're even able to make eye contact with them at all There's no affection in the look and even Janeway looks at him with a kind of disgust that I was not prepared for

Yeah, I think part of what's informing that is that Tuvix is weird and doesn't seem traumatized. You know what, that is a great point. If he presented as suffering, I think the instinctual human, with a very named racist gift of affection or sympathy or empathy would be appropriate and seen, but because Toovix seems fine, maybe that's why.

One of the most impressive parts of Tom Rife's performance is how much it kind of oscillates early on between hard, toovix and hard Nelix, and then over the course of the episode, finds a weird midpoint between them. But this first scene, he's like saying super nelixie things and then kind of like turning on a dime and saying super tuvaki things. And I feel like he really found the character in a way that is really impressive given what a strange character this is. This secret weapon in Jennifer Leanne's performance is that Kess likes everyone.

And when she doesn't automatically like Tuvix, it really puts me on notice for the rest of the episode. Yeah. Because there's the moment here where they're like, why don't you take this thing which used to be your lover to the lab for study? And when even Kess is disgusted by Tuvix, when she's nice to everyone,

that really is such a tone setter. Really is. And it's also a tone setter that she's just being asked to do that without anybody giving any consideration to where her head might be at in this moment. Yeah, would you mind hosing out the area of the ship where you're one and only lover was atomized by some alien.

Like, it's just a mess down there. We need you to clean it up and... It's the same ask, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I like to get to it. TwoVix is the one person that kind of recognizes that like in the scene. He's like, hey, I realize this is super weird.

This situation must be very difficult for you, Chris. And she kind of brushes it off. This is the scene where he decides to give himself a name. Also, the scene that for the first time we hear definitively that Doc Holliday has not been going by Schmollis. Yeah, this is, he too thick basically throws this in Doc Holliday's face. You know what?

In the in the three minutes since I've been on the ship, I think it's important to have a name and here's what that is definitively. He initially comes up with Nivok and then pivots to Tuvix, which is the only way he can keep his talaxian passport is if he has an X in his name. Yeah. as if he has an accent his name. Yeah, I mean, two vix is the one commenting on how uncomfortable Kess has got to be, but it's two vix that should be uncomfortable while holding his arm at a right angle for the next 20 minutes that he has to be scanned, right?

Did you notice this? There's no arm rest under him. He's just got to be like holding it out like he's the fucking Robocop. Thank you for your cooperation. Good night. Even CVS has an arm rest that they're like, they're like, where do you get the blood pressure cuff? Yeah. Yeah. And the doctor's log update us with the news that he has not selected a new name for himself.

He feels terribly hurt by the way Tufix threw that in his face and that they haven't gotten very far in figuring out how this happened or how to reverse it. So it goes unreversed and the captain comes down to visit six bay to see what's going on and Tufix is like, hey, I would like to get back to work. I could suggest either being the tactical officer or the cook and Jane was like, tactical officer, please, not the cook, not the cook. Things have been going great since Neelix left. Yeah, no kidding.

I mean, kind of a traumatic event has happened to this person and I don't know, placing him on the bridge might be a little premature, but he is gonna get kind of eased back into things. And what better way to kind of feel like you're part of the senior staff again than to attend a McLaughun group? If you want.

It's a real bring your child to work day decision because like I don't know if you ever got brought to work, but like when I have been on both sides of the bring your child to work day scenario, it is meetings, man. It is meetings when you don't need to have meetings. Just to have a place to sit. Can't ruin anything in a meeting.

No, sure can't. And kids love them. The victim of a terrible accident, like nothing more than to hear about that disaster that created it, in a meeting they're attending, while everyone's talking about them, around them. Yeah, they have been talking the entire time about how to... De-combine. Too valkyneelics, how do we get them back? If they get a sacrifice, neelix, in the process, that's fine.

That's fine, we're willing to do that. But the first step in figuring that out is figuring out how they got combined in the first place. You want to make yourself a two-vochlet? You got to crack a couple of negs. Yep. Wow, the title on this one is going to be repellent to the new viewer. We know people are gonna want to listen to this one, and I just turned off all that good will.

Repulsive. Yeah. You know that greeting card that you would see occasionally in the 90s that would say like sex on the front and then on the inside it would say, now that I have your attention. Oh yeah. Congratulations on the big promotion at work. Now that I have your attention, happy Mother's Day.

That's kind of how Tufix behaves in this meeting. Sex. I beg your pardon. Tufix's contention is that a process called symbiogenesis is responsible for what happened. Symbiogenesis? Symbiogenesis, science forbidden. Sir, your forces are carrying. This is a process whereby a species will reproduce by combining with a different species and creating a third thing.

Right. That's how this orchid maybe works and in the transporter beam, Nelix, the orchid and two-vac all interacted and created a new... And the cinnamon roll. And the cinnamon roll. And the cinnamon roll. Oh, excuse me. I'll create it. It's their thing. This is a scene where you first really get a good look

at the back of two VIX's head. They smartly do not light the back of his head very much on this episode. Because when you do see it, it looks like a man's butt being held open. It feels like not as wide goat-sea. With the wedding ring and everything. It looks like a pumpkin that's been rolled around in glue and hair clippings. Ah, it's so upsetting. The back of his head. I hate looking at the back of his head, Adam.

I hate to see you go, but I hate watching you leave even more. Is what they say at the end of this McLaughlin group. Please don't go! I think that one thing that this episode does well is without getting super explicit about it, give you a sense of where a lot of the characters will stand on the ultimate decision that happens. And one of those characters is Kess, who they break up this McLaughlin group, like we're gonna get more samples and see what we can do. And then Kess is like walking alone in the hallways and comes upon two vicks. And it is quite clear that she feels almost jilted by the situation. Like, she has been abandoned by both her mentor and her boyfriend. And I think that the implication that Cass could tear the ship apart with her mind is a pretty major consideration.

Like, if she gets too mad, it's, it's trouble. That is such a great call. I mean, had she rolled up on two vicksicks had cast been behind two vicks in the corridor Instead of confronting him face to face. She's liable to freshen up the whole ship. This would have been the end of the series She sees the back of that guy's head once and that's it and then you cut to the three credits done it's done. This is a weirdly unmotivated beginning to the scene, though, because I thought that the scene suggested that Tuvix was just standing outside of Kess's quarters waiting for her to get home, but nothing about that is described.

It seems as though Tuvix was just standing in the hallway with all that shit on him. Is he standing outside the mess hole? I don't know. Standing in the hallway. Yeah, it's all that shit on him Is he standing outside the the mess hole? I don't know because that's where they go next and it's it's mayhem in there like everybody is in the kitchen Somebody's eggs are burning This is the definition of in the weeds if you're a commercial kitchen here. Yeah, seriously. Two Vix kicks everyone out and starts whipping up dishes and we like smash cut to after dinner service where Cass and two Vix are cleaning up and he's really crushed the meal. Like apparently a little bit of Vulcan restraint is what Nelix is cooking needed.

Yeah, things aren't as pecan as they used to be. It's really remarkable. Interesting choice and shots here. I mean, both of them have been doing the dishes after dinner service. You know, like a good partnership should be. She stayed at her post. And we get a shot of both of their hands after being in the water, and they are just totally raised up

from the act of washing dishes for like the last 90 minutes. And it's one of the reasons I think that when two X-holes cast his hands, she bolts because, ugh, it is nasty. So clammy. Yeah, I was a dishwasher for a whole summer. And it's easy not to tell when you have a tiny hole in a glove that goes up to your elbows.

And after a shift, I, one glove, normal hand. And then on the other arm, other hand looked like Dr. Polasky's face at the in that episode where where she was made to age and in an advanced way like it was skin was falling off of that hand it was so gross it was awful. I wanted to take it to the meat slicer after that every time I get into the damn thing I'm convinced that's what's going to happen Oh, I'm sorry to hear that buddy. It look but it recovered though. See Now there is soft as ever. Oh, yeah, definitely recovered at him Looks great A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all.

FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, I'd make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Sherry Are Embarrassment

Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure delightful nonsense We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you and come here on Gianni. I've come back with cat toothbrushes Which is impossible to use come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps are open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really frigging me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I, these giraffes do not smell good.

No they do not and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We gotta get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey oh sorry sorry sorry are you Noah? Yeah I know we look like humans but we're actually we're podcasters. We are podcasters so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry?

We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal stuff like that And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end so seem like something for us to check out We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie available on maximumfun.org This isn't going to work out clearly between two vicks and Kess. And my question for you has been, why is two vick forcing it so fast? His timeline seems to be internally motivated against a strange four knowledge that that he's not going to be around long. I, yeah, I wonder about this. I mean,

so I'd say that the big hole in this episode, the thing in this episode that kind of makes me want it to be a two-parter so that we could get way deeper into it is what is it like to be two-vicks because the interesting choice is that these are the two characters that are the most at odds most of the time like two Valk fantasizes about killing Nelix. They are as polar opposites as you can get a board voyager. Right. And the one character that never unpacks this is two vicks. But like maybe he just fully loves Kess, you know, maybe it's like so hard for him to not live it, you know. I don't know if he half loves Kess or fully loves Kess, but like the one little lip service

that we get to this is that he loves to Pell, 2vx wife back in the a quad and Kess equally. I could never forget to Pell. I carry 2v fox lovers inside me. But like, it's hard to connect to that part of the character. Like, to what extent is that a conflict within him is hard to say. He wants to be ethically non-monogamous. And he just doesn't, he doesn't make his case in a graceful way. No, yeah.

You can't just spring that on a person, Tuvix. Yeah. You got to do like, you know, start leaving some books around the house and then kind of. Then he wants to be logically non-monogamous. Which might make a better title to the episode. Or like last line in the cap, who knows? Right.

I don't know who describes him as such, but someone describes Tuvix as the best of Tuvok and Nelix, and I thought that was such an interesting choice in character design for this person, because it takes away the idea of Tuvix is suffering until the very end, right? If he's all the way positive and all the way good at his job, you don't give anyone else a foothold

that they would use to dislike him or feel awkward around him, or whatever, Kess is the only person permitted to really feel that way for most of the app. Yeah, I mean, she is the character in whom that is given the most voice. I really do think that this could have been an interesting two-parter from like the- I think they should have ran it to the end of the season Ben, like I would

go further than that. It's fascinating. Because we're seeing very little interplay between two-vicks and the rest of the crew save for Janeway and Kess. but if what they do with the transporter to bring Tuvac and Neelix back also preserved Tuvix, I would really like to know how Tuvac and Neelix would treat this third person. Right. Yeah. And that's something that you could you could totally get storyline out of for several episodes. And that's like definitely the kind of thing like the show could be doing like the misfits that we collect along the way, version of Voyager that doesn't seem to quite exist is like would be very fun to like start to interrogate a question like that. Right. It does seem like Tufix gets put on tactical eventually because our next scene is with Chico Tay and the captain finding him at the security station.

Tovix walks down to where Paris is and tries to sit at his station and everyone who's sitting behind him is like, no, no, no. The back row for you. Back of the bridge, tovix. I cannot be looking at that for an entire bridge shift. You will sit in the corner and you will face out. Toovix is really good at his job, Ben, because he's using intuition instead of logic only. I have often wished for the sense that humans call intuition or instinct.

It's an adaptive trait, this intuition. They send BLT and Paris down to the planet to collect samples, and what they do is collect a bunch of flowers, and they put them in a sample container. I guess some of these are flowers that they brought down from the ship, and then they add the local orchid, and they beam it up, and it materializes on the transporter pad as a two-vix flower. They forget they shouldn't be beaming people from the surface to the planet so they beam up Paris and BLT and what shows up on the transporter pad been? Yeah. It's someone that they called croque monsoor. Hahaha. Hahaha. Oh.

BLT in Paris, Ben. I got it. You know Paris and BLT? Yeah. It's the bacon, but none of the tomato or lettuce. Right. And then you had mustard and cheese. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Pfft. It was a good joke. I liked it. Whose responsibility is this to create the flowers and then the combination flower? Just a set designer? Yeah, prop master.

Master, maybe, I don't know. I really found this plant combination credible. They did a really good job with this. This would be a cool screen used prop to own, right? It really would. One of those cool hyd and plain sites props. Yeah. So they they beam this flower, they, you know, the flower is in six bay and they're trying different transporter techniques to disentangle the DNA. And it's just, they're getting dead flowers left and right. The sequence I thought really hit because you get like the music cue of positivity when they beam the container aboard.

And then almost immediately when we transition to six bay, like we go minor key with the music, and then the dock looks at the clock behind the crew and he like announces the time of death. Right. For Nielix and Tubac. RSVP them.

Welcome aboard Mr. Tubac. We end the scene on like a horrified cast. Yeah. Janeway says she's gonna tell the crew and then they're gonna have a funeral, right? For both of them. You gotta do that. It seems only right, but it seems like Kess is the only one

who actually observes this funeral. She's in her room later. She's lit a candle for both Neelix and Tuvac. And I feel like Tuvix is kind of pulling an Albert Brooks here when he comes in to his own funeral. I can't stand that all this praise is going to somebody in a box. You can't stand that the praise is going to somebody else. Is Tuvix a COVID order?

Yeah, I think so. Jennifer Leighens performance in this scene, I think might be her best work to me of what she does here, because Kess's thank you when Tuvix says, you got me during a funeral that she's doing for Tuvix and Neelix, is a form of thank you that I remember getting in high school after asking out someone out of my league. Like someone taking it as the kindness that it was intended, but also as a little bit of a fuck off, please,

I'm trying to do a thing, leave me alone, kind of thank you. Thank you. But she is in no mood. Yeah. She does a great job of letting him down easy, but it's hard for both of them. When you get the soft let down, you really don't want to double down and go with the I love you. It's a classic blunder.

I thought he was going to try and kiss her on the mouth and she was going to be like, get away from me. Yeah. But he smartly kisses her only on the cheek. She's like, get out of here. But just sort of back your way out of the room. Do not, don't turn around. Just take, okay, one more step back, no to the left.

No, you're left. Then back, that's the wall. I want our relationship to be about honesty and the back of your head looks like an old man's ball sack. I just can't take it. You look like you should be under a hand dryer in the locker room of a gym. You look like you need to be powdered before going out on a hot day. You look like you're a lot longer than you were when you're a younger man. I think it's weird that it's sticking to my legs.

Coffee, black, make it yourself. I know you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself. Cass is pretty upset after this and goes down to see the captain who is also having a kind of sleepless night. Yeah. And, man, like the last scene being one of Jennifer Leane's great performances so far in the series, I think this scene is one of Kate Mungru's great performances in the series because

they sit and have this conversation about this thing that is like not quite grief, but is very sad and hard to deal with emotionally that everyone on the crew is experiencing of like, we've lost people that we don't think we'll likely ever see again, except for they're not dead. And neither are we. Especially, Ensen Kim. Right. Floating in in space a few episodes ago. Got some complicated feelings about that. Yeah, I wonder what he would sound like if we could hear what his thoughts were. He'd probably sit there and say,

cry. I love that moment in the scene where Kess describes two vixes chairing of his feelings with her, and Jane was like, do you feel the same way? And Kess is like, oh, oh, God, no! Oh, are you serious? Have you seen the back of his head?

And the captain was like, honestly, earlier, I was going to reach out and push your faces together to kind of force a kiss, but I didn't want to touch the back of his head. So I didn't, and it's had me really rethinking a lot of things. Yeah. Janeway compares her feelings to those that the rest of the crew must be having. And this is a nice scene for her, like you say, but it also feels like the hope of getting back together with a loved one in your hometown, right? Like,

maybe you want to be considering experimenting with one or more people while you're away at college, finding yourself. Like, that's the tension that everyone on the Voyager is feeling, the special person back home or the at college ready to experiment. And she gives Kess this council in the hush tone of someone ready to blow up the ship Where she to see the back of two vixes head again but As it is they they hug goodbye which Seems really nice for two people in their circumstances, right?

But also when do you hug your boss? I think it is Exclusively in a moment that it is this fra. Yeah, exclusively in a moment where where death has happened Yeah, yeah after the break We get a captain's log and it's the rare musical number Captain's log Adam it's been two weeks since it became too VIX now It's got jobs in both the mess all and bridge five days since his uniform He came to VIX. Now we've got jobs in both the mess all, Anne Bridge. Five days since his uniform reverted to the standard issue, Starfleet, three days since

the Six Bay Test, proof we couldn't unbake the cake that is his body. But it'll still be two days before we kill him. Yeah. And so that's nice. He's the best of two-vac Anne Nelix, and specifically not the worst, Ben, which is interesting. He's cooking his ass off, he is better in meetings, he's funnier, he's less creepy. It makes him harder to kill, the more useful he is. It's like, what if you had two of your worst employees combined into one great employee,

but the back of his head was gross? you had two of your worst employees combined into one great employee, but the back of his head was gross. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You rather, yeah, we cut to Kim's clarinet practice when the doc radios in about a theory he's working on and it's interesting enough that Kim goes straight there. Here's a question I had after the scene, Ben. Does the doc work as fast as the computer could or is he constrained by the projection as

a humanoid in terms of how fast he could work on a solution to a problem like this. And is he like more creative in the way he problem solves than the computer would be? I feel like a bunch of interesting questions. I want to see him go like, hold that thought, I'm going to turn myself off and like use all my cores to process this. Go in low efficiency high power mode. myself off and like use all my cores to process this. Go in low efficiency high power mode. Yeah.

Kim is really excited about the idea of solving this problem. It's, they've had two vicks around for a long time. So apparently Kim has turned on him as well at this point. Kim doesn't even drop that rag on the string through the clarinet and then pull it through to clean out all the saliva from inside. He just leaves the clarinet dirty. And that's going to be gross as hell when he picks it up again.

It's going to smell. It's going to smell like like 40 retainers stacked on top of each other. You don't want that. Okay, so we know that Cass doesn't want two vicks. We know that Janeway doesn't want two vicks. We know that Kim doesn't want two vicks. We know that the doctor doesn't want two vicks. What about Paris and Chicoetay?

What makes them hate him? Shoot a great game of pool. He's fucking savage at pool Adam. He's fucking killing them. Every time they go down to, it's no fun to go to Sandrine's anymore. No, it's not. It's terrible. And he's fucking banging that jiggle-o too.

He's crazy, he's created everything. He's bending the jiggle-o over the pool table and the jiggle-o is like, well, at least I do not have to look at the back of his head. What's the thing that's more upsetting? Tovix beating Chico-te and Paris at pool or Tovix bailing in the middle of a pool game, and just like sort of rain checking it halfway through in order to sit with Cass at the tiny

candle at table. I think that if you're the guy with the stack of quarters on the edge of the pool table, and Tuvix leaves Sandrins, you're like, yes, I'm going to play the like worst guys. Yeah, exactly. Kess, after Tuvik sits with her, declares to him that she wants to be friends with growth potential. And Tuvik's like, so you're saying there's a chance. Yeah.

Also, there's some pretty big news down in Six Bay, you might want to come down for. Yeah. Doc Holliday in Six Bay tells the story of Barium, which is a drink I've had a lot of over my life. It gave me some sympathy gags here. Barium is the disgusting drink that makes the GI track visible to X-rays. And if you're having a GI situation that merits a hospital visit, it's what you drink.

And there is nothing worse than feeling... You should tell that to diarrhea bin. He could really use some of that stuff. No, I would never suggest this to diarrhea bin because the thing you wanna do least when you're feeling tummy troubles is drink a disgusting thing. Yeah.

I don't understand why this is the medical science. It's awful. Sounds like a goddamn Spanish inclosition. The doc is like, we're going to use space barium on one part of two vicks in order to separate that out from the others. And the flowers I've produced here will prove that this plan will work. How do you feel about this two vicks? Very close-up shot of Toovix, throwing the ethical wrench in the works. Yeah, he throws his ethical sabote into the doctor's plan. Hence the word sabote. And the camera pushes in on Janeway as we go to commercial.

When we come back, she is at the window, having a bum out thinking about this ethical quandary and talking it over with Chicoete, who's... It's interesting because she kind of like trades Chicoete for Tuvix in the scene. So he's kind of like hanging out, helping her chew on this until she can meet with Tuvix one-on-one about this. Yeah, Chicoete's great counsel for her in a lot of situations, this one included. She expresses to him that Tuvix might have been there long enough to become permanent, or in other words, a statue of limitations.

Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell fucking yeah Hell yeah! Fucking yeah! Woo! That's you of limitation! That's what I'm talking about! Yeah!

That's what we do on this show! Adam is in the process of trashing his recordings. Oh! with crashing his recordings. Yeah. Oh. Oh. Oh. My desk stuff really just went flying. Yeah. It's big mess over there. My wife is on just a totally professional conference call upstairs.

Well, well, I'm destroying my office. Like I'm a rock band staying at a hotel room. This is why she doesn't take my job seriously. What is there to be taken seriously? The main question here, Ben, at what point did two vicks become a person and not an accident. The question is, is Janeway an antifixer? This is the best wordplay episode we've ever made. This is our finest creation. She is talking to him about like, hey, so who like, I kind of want my guys back. And he's saying, you're going to have to kill me to do that.

She might as well be turning to camera for this. I felt like this was a question asked of us, the viewer at the same time. Right. Is this murder is the question of this episode? And it is stated very explicitly by two VIX and Janeway is like, listen, two fuck was trying to execute Brad Duriff like four or five episodes ago. Like, you don't exactly have a leg to stand on. Or at least if you had, if you had two legs to stand on, you've eliminated one, right?

Yeah, to my knowledge, two vixas not attempted murder. So he's been a part of the crew. Do you think he has one knee-licks leg and one two-vac leg, though? Oh, man. What does this fucking dock look like? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Do you think the back of his head looks gnarly?

Oh, man. Looks like a chorizo sausage with that, yeah, where they've removed the casing. Yeah. Janeway phrases this really interestingly. She must speak for Tuvac and Nelix because they cannot speak for themselves. And Tuvix takes great umbrage with this. Ben, he's calling this an execution. There's coffee in the unfortunate predicament as we're all facing.

And he makes a very persuasive case to her and then we cut away before we can get her reaction to this case. I thought that was an interesting bit of timing there that you don't get to live in that moment. Yeah, the only solution I've seen is when she says, like, well, if you are half delix and half two Valkyrie, you're going to have to give me half of your pips because obviously you're not a full lieutenant in that case. Yeah. What happens to the pips?

Another unanswered question, this episode. Tvix goes to, for some reason, the mess hall to ask Kess, beg, really, for Kess's help convincing the captain not to murder him. And while this is, I think, a good decision based on Kess's inherent kindness, she would rep Tvix out of the kindness of her heart and like her good spirit She is exactly the wrong person to ask for every other reason Right, she is she's the person that is at the most risk of rejecting two vix because of what his existence robs from her and She goes right to the captain

He's he's asking basically can you go make my case to the captain? Can you be another voice on my behalf and she goes to the captain and says this is tearing me apart Much like you want to tear to Vix apart Oh hi Chico day Oh, hi, Chico, today. I love this sequence. Didn't you like the way the baton gets past? Uh, Tuvix has the scene with Janeway that ends with Tuvix talking to Kess that ends abruptly with Kess talking to Janeway right after.

It's just cut, cut, cut. You don't see the transit, which I think emphasizes the desperation here, right? When you don't have time to think in between these scenes, you're just made to act in the same way that two vixes running out of time. This is the centerpiece Jennifer Lee and scene, though, right? I mean, she gets a lot of great scenes. And she is the, in many ways,

the kind of most emotionally vulnerable character on the show and to see the pain that this is causing her is I think the show is relying on that pain being enough to be persuasive against the next scene because the next scene is the kind of famous moment where two vicks like walks onto the bridge and is taking his position and issues in order to Tom Perez who is like, are we still treating this guy like he's around or what's going on? And soon enough, Janeway comes out and without actually saying it out loud makes it pretty clear that her decision is needs of the many outweigh

the needs of two vix. There are a lot of moments in this episode that don't make Captain Janeway look great, but one of the ones that stood out to me was before Janeway comes out of her ready room. It's this scene where two vix reports for duty and everyone except two vix seems to know that Jane way is making a decision right now about whether he should live or die. And that seemed especially unfair to him. That like, why the fuck is Tom Paris so in the know about what's happening at the very highest levels of decision making on the ship?

That didn't seem right. Yeah, I mean, it seemed to know what to do in a situation like this. It seemed bad, but also humiliating. Right. And that humiliation plays out in this scene when 2Vix is begging everyone to get in the middle of this. Does anyone see that this is wrong? A episode full of fabulous performances,

and this is really gut wrenching and hard to watch because the Voyager crew stand around kind of stone-faced while he appeals to all of them not to let this happen. And his last moment on the bridge is a moment of forgiveness, which is almost the most painful part of this. My colleagues, my friends, I forgive you. This to me is what this episode's ultimate message was. It was, by the end of it, I felt a great amount

of conflict about the morality of the question. Yeah. But what superseded that feeling about the episode to me was the idea of sacrifice. And that's what Tuvix does here. He sacrifices himself for the wellness of the rest of the crew by forgiving. Yeah. And I think that the most complicated part of that is it very much feels like a sacrifice

under duress. Yeah. There's no other option. They go down to Six Bay, Doc Hollow Day refuses to do the procedure, which is... Well, the Doc refuses to do the procedure because it's death by hanging for some reason. Like, there's a gallows there and they're going to beam him as soon as he hits the bottom of the rope. So Doc holiday does have a point. He does. Yeah. This is fucked up.

The procedure falls to Janeway. And I kind of think it should. I think it is, if it's going to be her choice, it should be her doing the, the deed. And she administers the space barium. the deed and she administers the space barium and she runs the transporter programs that they have set up. And on the bio bed, we get a long transporter sequence that results in two vix disappearing and two vix and helix reappearing. Two vix is wearing his uniform and Nelix

is wearing a bunch of cinnamon rolls around his genitals. Like it's a cod piece or something. And he says, oh, sorry, Captain, this is what I was wearing when this accident happened. He's wearing cinnamon rolls on his body like that scene in Varsity Blues with a whipped cream bikini. It turns to the Captain and says, I don't want your laugh. For as attention getting as the beam split is on the biobad, my attention toward Janeway was totally unbroken. And that was intentional by the episode.

You follow her around as she does the entire process herself. And then after the transport is successful, So do you follow her around as she does the entire process herself? Yeah. And then after the the transport is successful, you follow her out of the room into the corridor, where she gathers herself because she is not looking forward to dinner. Anymore. Nope. I guess Leola Rude is back on the menu, boys. Yeah. She feels like shit after this, but like, there's a physicality to her feeling too

that you really get a sense of, this is great stuff by Kate Mokaru, right? Yeah. I mean, she gives no voice to this other than to kind of, Tursley, welcome, Nielix and Tuvac back who, for their part, do not seem upset by what happened. Do they remember? I wish we knew that. Yeah, a big question in my mind is, if they have this flower, shouldn't they be able to reproduce the effect

if we get them back and they're like, no, you know what, like better the other way, you know? And what happened to Crock Monster? Yeah, that character just gets left on the planet. Yeah. You know, though, like if you pushed a button and got a million dollars, but somewhere somebody died, would you push it?

Is like, I kind of the question that Tovix asks, like if Tovix gets to keep existing, but two people die to allow it Is it worse than pushing the button to get two people back and Tovix does I Listen Adam. This is not a good this is not a good podcast to parse these Philosophical questions weren't idiots. No, it's not and we are I've Did you like the episode? Yes, in part.

We know it's the U.S.S. No, we know it's Captain, Captain, Captain. We know the U.S.S. No, we know it's Captain. I love this episode. I think this episode is peak track. Like, it's such a wild sci-fi idea. It's so unsettling and so many people

have so many different opinions. You know, our friend Manusadha has an entire Twitter account dedicated to Justice for TwoVix that I encourage people to follow because it's very funny. But it's the handle. Justice for TwoVix. Okay, good. I think Kate Mulgrew has blocked this account, which is... Wow.

It's pretty fun. I don't like that. Don't harass people on Twitter. No, not a... I don't think he harassed her. I think she just is like in on the joke. Jane, I just don't want to hear about this anymore. Yeah. But like, I think that the thing that remains compelling

is like, I don't feel like I super strongly know my own mind on this one. Yeah. And the amount to which this episode is willing to expose Janeway to accusations of having done the wrong thing is fascinating. Like our Star Trek Captains never get exposed to that kind of accusation. And frequently when our Star Trek Captains are subjected to a choice like this, they are permitted the grand monologue. In order to articulate all of the sides of the argument, I think one of the things this

episode does really well is it's very confident in the idea that the less Captain Janeway says the better, because the less she says, the more questions we have in watching her act and make her decision here. I don't know what I would have done in Janeway's shoes, and I think that that is the thing that makes this an episode that is really fantastic in my mind. How about you? What do you think? It's a fantastic episode, Ben. But what's going to last with me for a long time is how ugly of a look it was for so many people on the crew. And I mean, like, literally, when people look at two vicksicks there is a level of existential dread baked

into every reaction as if they are staring into the abyss of what a life in Starfleet is like and it stares back and what they see is the back of the head could stare back, that's what they're seeing. And in that way, Ben, two vix is a warning because as the episode went on, the warning became about something else. If two vix resisted all the way up until that separation, it would have destroyed the crew. Yeah. But that sacrifice that he made for them, I thought really cement where the viewer

is being asked to place themselves. Like, I think the episode has an opinion about how you should feel. And I think that the episode wants you to feel bad for two vicks and what makes you want to have justice for him. Mm-hmm. But in appreciating the episode as much as I do,

and I do, I think this is one of my favorite voyage episodes. It is very hard for me to forgive that they didn't grow this storyline over the course of several episodes or an entire season. Tom Wright was outstanding casting for this. And I mentioned this at the top of the show, like when Tuvik's reveals himself,

you blow the casting on this. For a moment, they were going to go with Ethan Phillips as Tvix, I read. Ooh, that would have not worked. If you blow the casting, it's a fucking joke of an episode. But because it's Tom Wright, an actor with some gravitas, he makes you feel a certain way about his well-being as a character, and it's so hard for me to forgive, like, being robbed of an entire season where we get like a scaling love triangle between two vix and Kess and Nelix here. Yeah. And what that must be like,

it's robbing the season Peter to pay the episode Paul and if you don't know How much of a runway you got on a series? I get it like go for maximum impact late in a season Like you're doing here, but I wonder if they knew they were gonna get seven seasons if they wouldn't have made a different Decision about the two vix character. I think that's a fascinating thought experiment. And I think anybody that's a fan of Voyager wishes that they had more time with this character and more time with this conundrum because it really feels,

I know Manuth thinks it's a pretty simple math, but I don't. It sort of takes the baton that I Borg started running with. And that baton gets passed to this episode fairly directly in terms of the morality of a choice like this. And I was just outstanding. And as good as I had heard that it was going to be also which is another degree of difficulty,

like I was geared up for this. And it's not disappointing. Yeah, like I've been wondering about how it would hit you because this was your first time viewing it and it's like the famous episode of Voyager in many ways. Yeah, good stuff. Well, do you want to see if we have any good stuff in the priority one inbox, Adam? I'm looking forward to separating the sender from the message. That's an easy decision Ben priority one message from star fleet coming in on secured channel

Need a supplement Supplement yes extra the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship Adam we have a few priority one here. The first one is of a promotional nature. It goes like this. Do you want Captain Janeway to answer for our crimes? Do you want Tovix's murder to be finally avenged? You're not alone. Justice for Tovix is a 100% free novel

set in the Star Trek universe About one man's quest to see that the Federation charges Janeway for killing this unique man unique man unique man Into the world of the late 24th century and see how one young man seeks out Voyager's crew and Janeway herself as a quest for justice Turns into an obsession. Wow! So go to justicefortuvix.com today to read the whole novel for free, holy shit! I want to know who this character is. Yeah, I wonder if Manusadia blurbed this novel.

Wow, even though it's a free fanfic novel. This may be one episode where I'm actually looking forward to the response on the internet. Most of the time I do not look forward to it, but yeah, this is going to engend you some strong feelings for sure. Yeah, justice for two vicks. That can't be.

The caveat being we're idiots and not claiming to be moral authorities of any kind. Yeah, go take an introductory college logic course. You want to, you want to turn this one around? Ben, our second priority one message is from Joe, it's DeSera, the message goes like this. As I'm writing this, you are defending your dissertation to earn your side, which is a short for psychology doctorate, and become a fantastic therapist to all children everywhere. Wow.

Well no by the time we hear this, but here's hoping the defense goes well, and surprise. If your committee does not let you graduate, it would be a work crime! Regardless I love you, and I am so, so proud of you. Amazing. Yeah, so Sarah has all of our hopes here for successfully defending their dissertation. That is a important work. I wish I'd had a side-dee help in me out when I was a child. That would have helped.

I mean, so much. I'd be a happier adult right now. So much if your college work been indefensible. So indeed Adam, our last priority one message here is from Courtney and it's to Robert goes like this. Happy Father's Day darling. Even though our C monkey didn't get to be born, I know you would have been a far, far better father than Worf. I love you, honey bear. We're a little late for Father's Day reading this one out, but that's a very touching message. Wow.

You need a Robert. Yeah, geez. It sounds like a tough thing you two went through, but it sounds like you love each other tons. So, you know, that helps make up for something like that. Anytime you can make a wharf joke during a time of great trauma or sadness, I think you gotta do it.

Yeah. You got to. And that's what we have here with Courtney and Robert. Our best to them. Yeah. Well, Ben, these priority one messages, as well as every priority one message we've ever read are created over at maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron.

And the submission of a priority one message is one of the great ways that you can support the ongoing production of the show. So thanks to everyone who has. Hey Adam. What's that been? For that old life, I don't like bread and I don't like you. I love this too. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk shimoda?

Drunk shimoda! My shimoda occurs in the mess hall when the kitchen is in the weeds. And this is just a classic moment of, we've got the verbalizing of some food, specifically the eggs that need to be turned. There's no spatula there. She's like, just flip them. Whatever. That's just one of the many things happening here.

But in this scene, we've got skullcogon. We've got dragonfruit. We've got a gourd and we've got gerkcogin, we've got Dragonfruit, we've got a Gord, and we've got Gercans being passed back and forth in close quarters in the back of this kitchen. What are they cooking with Dragonfruit, a Gord, and Gercans? Really fucked up fruit salad. My Shimoda is everyone in the kitchen right now, trying to make a meal out of those ingredients. This is like an episode of Chopped,

where there's no way to make anything good out of these ingredients. So that's my Shimoda. What about you, Ben? It's a real ready steady cook disaster. My Shimoda is in that scene on the bridge when Toofix is making his emotional appeal to the crew. Janeway has clearly had some security people

on call ready to go, because they just kind of show up. There is a lady and a gentleman and they come onto the bridge out of one of the elevators. And my drunk Shemota is the dude because he looks like he kind of missed his mark as he came off the elevator and almost ran into the other actor. As he entered the scene, just barely doesn't plow into her. So it was like a moment that kind of made me

chuckle in the middle of a really fucked up emotional scene and it was distracting enough to get my drink charameau to this time. And yet like if you're shooting it, we got it. Moving on. We got it moving on and also like I kind of understand why this guy would be a little bit unsure, footed in a moment like this. Good call. Yeah.

So I feel like it is emotionally on authentic moment. Yeah. Good charameau to been. Good charameau to emotionally on authentic moment. Yeah. Good you mode it been. Good you mode it by you as well. Adam, I'm gonna head to gach.biz slash game and fire up the game of buttholes. The will of the caretaker looks like our runabout is on square 38. Not a thing in sight, nothing we could hit. Oh, I like that.

When can we ever say we're not in any danger? It's rare, but you know, it's one of those things. Like when you're in the D-quad, you're rarely not in any danger, but it happens every so often, and you gotta enjoy those moments. Our next episode is season two, episode 25 resolutions. After contracting a deadly virus, Janeway and Chicoote are forced into exile on a planet that shields the effects of the fatal

disease. Well, I'm just as a baseline against any and all resolutions, Ben, I just believe you should do the best you can the whole year through. Now try to make any grand gesture. You're not gonna wait. On New Year's Eve or whatever. You're not gonna like do three yoga classes and then beat yourself up in March when you realize that you haven't kept it up. We're all just walking each other home, Ben.

Let's just try to be better to ourselves, all right? Okay, I guess I'll try. Hey, that sounds suspiciously like a home, Ben. Let's just try to be better to ourselves, all right? Okay, I guess I'll try. Hey, that sounds suspiciously like a resolution, Ben. You knock that shit off. I don't want you to try, and that's my point. Okay, very enough. You're required to learn as you play, roll. Chula!

Did I win? Hardly. Adam, I have rolled a one. I just skipped our runabout on to square 39, keeping us in the safe zone, even next time we play the Game of Buttholes. I like that. Altra's safe, that's us.

Safe as hell. Alright Adam, this has been a very long episode, so let's thank all of the friends of DeSoto who make this possible by going to MaximumFund.org slash join. Let's thank the folks that recommend the show to friends. Let's thank the social media director of the expert Shimoda podcast family Bill Tilly, the Card Danny, running the greatest trick Instagram and Twitter accounts. You want to talk about what we've said here? You have a take on this episode. Use the hashtag greatest gen.

Have a conversation with the other friends of DeSoto. This week, we might look at it. The music you're hearing is made by Dark Materia, who granted us lifetime use privileges of his work. It's the Picard song. Adam Regusio makes all the rest of our music and we thank him at the end of every episode. Yeah, encourage you to go to Adam Regusio on YouTube

and check out his cooking channel. Go to Adam Regusio's YouTube channel, justisfortuvix.com And with that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and episode of the greatest generation Voyager where we find out whether Ben and Adam are Thanks for watching!