Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Home Is Where the Snark Is
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 20 | Aired on 04.15.2003
Mess Hall. Malcolm and May-Wolfinger sup together. Malcolm doesn't think four years is such a long time to go without seeing your family, since his last clan hammer toss was nearly ten years ago. "Starfleet really oughta think about putting family on starships," May-Wolfinger comments, thus launching the good ship Anvilpop with a bottle of indifferent champagne. Malcolm is not down with the idea of a bunch of Reeds fluting around him while he tries to blow things up: "Yes, well, they'd better post a psychologist on board because I'd need one if my parents were roaming the corridors!" Okay, so he has one or two issues. May-Wolfinger laughs that you can't walk ten meters without running into your babysitter or great-aunt. Aw, that's so nice and claustrophobic. Hoshi comms May-Wolfinger to tell him that he's got a response from his mother coming in. May-Wolfinger grins largely before dancing off to his quarters to receive the not-even-possibly-bad news.
The Captain's personal log dispassionately hints at May-Bisbee's father's death. Quantum climbs into the G-Spot and asks the squatter if he minds his presence. Upside-down, May-Bisbee tells him that of course he doesn't mind. Quantum pushes himself off into partial gravity, commenting that he hasn't been up there since they left Earth, and settles down next to his helmsman. May-Bisbee's face is wet as he bitterly tells Quantum that his mother sent "a message" to Starfleet six weeks ago but he never got it. Whether it was the news of his father's death or just the news of his father's worsening condition, I don't really know. Quantum tries to make excuses for the armed forces of red tape, while May-Bisbee wears a hair shirt for not being ready to talk to his father sooner. You see, Pop-Weather wasn't all fired up when his son decided to join Starfleet. "He'd been grooming me for his job since I was a kid," May-Bisbee tells Quantum. Quantum makes understanding noises, but assures May-Bisbee that his father really was proud of him. But wait, these aren't his usual empty platitudes; Quantum can actually back up his claim. Apparently, when Quantum was trying to eeny-meeny-miney-moe his helm officers, he got all the COs to write up some letters of recs. Pop-Weather wrote the shortest letter of all, saying that he'd never met a more natural "stick and rudder" man in his life (I'm sure there's a large stack of Corned Beef Slash in that term, but I'm just not hungry tonight) and Quantum would be a fool not to take him on. Well, I agree with half of that. More pratitutes from Quantum and more regrets from May-Bisbee.