Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nobs And Nonsense
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.13.2001
In the street, Quantum and Trip agree that Shopkeeper's reactor has too much power to be a mere food and clothing replicator. Quantum comms T'Pol and has her meet him at Riaan's apothecary.
T'Pol and Quantum enter the apothecary. "Who's your friend?" Riaan asks with an emphasis on "friend." Quantum introduces T'Pol, saying, "She's helping me investigate Garos's shop. You two have something in common: T'Pol is a scientist as well." Quantum is obviously anxious that the two women in his life find common ground. T'Pol compliments Riaan on her facility and asks whether she may look around at things. Riaan says, "If you're careful not to touch anything." Even from the far end of the room, I can tell T'Pol rolled her eyes at that one. I did, too. "You two are from the same province?" Riaan asks. "Alberta," Quantum tells her. Not really, but I always seem to think of Canada when I hear the term "province," and Alberta happens to be my favorite.
Quantum keeps Riaan busy while not telling her anything about himself, and T'Pol scans things in various glass jars and tubes. "Turn down that flame, please," Riaan instructs Quantum, as she looks through a brass microscope (identical to the one my mad scientist mother displays in our living room, along with the odd trilobite and geode, in case you were wondering). Quantum turns down the Bunsen burner flame under the tea-colored liquid and asks questions about the illness plaguing the Ecoli. Riaan counters by asking why Quantum was in Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe; Quantum tells her they think Garos the Shopkeeper's got a machine in his basement. "A machine he isn't supposed to have," Quantum says, putting it in the simplest way possible, so that this simple-minded Tess of the D'Urbervilles can comprehend what he's taking about. "What kind of machine?" Riaan asks, as T'Pol takes more readings with her tri-corder. Quantum tells her they're not sure what the machine is, but that they think it might have to do with everyone's advanced stage of acne, and if she could tell him all she knows about blackheads, it might help. "I can't tell you much," Riaan says. "People are dying and I can't determine why. Drop this in the water, carefully," she says handing him a tiny syringe. "I learned of the epidemic eighteen months ago; my brother was one of the victims." Quantum pauses in his droppings to dispense platitudes. Riaan says she thought it was an airborne contagion, but that it never spread beyond their city, so she threw that theory out. Maybe they should check to see if anyone's received any mail from Trenton, NJ. "I've sampled the soil, the water -- I can't find anything out of the ordinary," Riaan concludes, as T'Pol surreptitiously sticks some litmus paper in one of Riaan's beakers. Quantum asks Riaan why she thinks Garos is involved in the breakout, so Riaan shows him a map. She tells him that the first cases occurred close to Garos's shoppe: "That was just one month after he arrived." Quantum asks about the "evening deliveries" she accused him and Trip of being a party to. Riaan picks up the skirt of her high-waist Juliet-esque dress and tells him that, every night, someone carries crates and barrels from Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe to a place outside the city. "Every time I've gone back in the morning, the crates are gone. Hand me that?" Riaan says. "That's why you were watching his shop," Quantum says, handing over what she indicated. "You though we were there for the crates." Riaan elaborately pours a stream from the beaker. "What is that?" Quantum asks, curiously. "Tea," Riaan says, offering him and T'Pol a thimbleful. Yum, a comforting steaming cup of skin contagion!