Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Search for Phlox
By Keckler | Season 4 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.24.2005
Enterprise. Reed's Confession. "At first, it didn't seem like lying," Reed says. Quantum wonders what else he would call it. "Covert operations," Reed retorts after consulting his "How to Talk Like a Spy" handbook. "I was a young ensign -- it was...exciting!" Reed goes on that he thought his work with them was done until Paunchy contacted him about the plague. He swears this is the first time he's done anything for Paunchy since he's served on Enterprise. His duty was to slow Enterprise down while Phlox was pressed into medical service for the Klingons. Quantum hands over an e-pad, asking, "Did Paunchy tell you about this?" He had T'Pol take a closer look at the medical scans of their Klingakhan prisoner. "This is human DNA," Reed realizes. "I'm guessing the plague is a side effect of a military experiment that went wrong," Quantum says. Reed says he didn't know. He's a dumb spy. "Paunchy claims he's doing this because Starfleet needs a stable Klingon Empire," Quantum announces as he drifts to his WOTWW. Wait, Paunchy claims he's doing this? Since when is one paunch the entire section of 31? Reed wonders if Quantum believes him. "I don't trust him," Quantum grits out. "If the Klingons needed our help, there are easier ways to get it." Reed thinks for a minute and then steps closer, saying tremulously, "I wanted to tell you everything, Captain." He's totally coming on to him! Quantum moves in close as well and says that there's a way out of this: "I don't have to put you back in the brig but you have to chose where your loyalties lie." Yeah, Reed, seal your loyalties with a kiss. Reed confesses that he wasn't told where Phlox was taken. Quantum jerks his head away and grimaces in disgust. Reed, frantically trying to recapture the tender moment, hurriedly adds, "But Starfleet Intelligence believes the Klingons have a genetic research facility on Qu'Vat Colony." He offers Quantum the e-pad back. The music and tension sweeeeeells. And Quantum takes the e-pad back.
Quantum and Reed step onto the Bridge and everyone rushes to compose their faces in shocked expressions. I assume that, aside from T'Pol, no one else really knows what Reed did, so this excessive shock at seeing him back is a bit misplaced, to say the least. It's not like they haven't all witnessed Quantum flying off the handle at other times. Criminy -- he's confined Trip, T'Pol, and Reed to quarters because they told him he had egg on his face. At this point, they're probably like, "Quantum's on the warpath again -- he'll snap out of it sooner or later. Just let him walk it off." "As you were!" Quantum barks at all the pearl-clutching faces. They'll reach the Klingon colony in six hours. Reed suggests that Columbia drop back so they don't present a single target to Klingon patrols. Quantum relays this to Cpt. Happy Pants.