Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Here Comes The Bride, Siliconed, Green, And Snide
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.06.2001
Hoshi hands over the decrypted message to Trip: "The code was pretty complex." Trip asks what it says, but Hoshi tells him it's in Vulcan and he'll have to run it through the translator. "You didn't read it?" Trip asks. Not everyone is as all-fired snoopy as you, Tryptography. "I didn't feel it'd be right," Hoshi tells him. Trip thanks her and hightails it to the translator. As the message processes, Trip looks concerned. "Well," Trip says, arriving at Quantum's cabin, "we decrypted the message." "And?" Quantum prompts him. "It's not exactly what we expected," Trip says. I told you, it's a love letter! Did I call this or what? "It's a letter," Trip continues, pretending he didn't hear me. "What did it say?" Quantum asks. "It's personal," Trip says. "What do you mean?" Quantum asks dimly, apparently unable to grasp the meaning of simple adjectives. "Very personal," Trip says. Quantum groans, and Trip says he could order Trip to tell him but he wouldn't be happy once he knew. "Why the hell was it encrypted?" Quantum asks. "That's what I want to know," Trip says, aggravated. "Maybe Vulcans encrypt all their personal letters. All they had to do was send it through regular channels, mark it personal, and we'd have left it alone. But no, they had to encrypt it -- force me to start snooping! I feel like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar." T'Pol's cookie jar. That sounds vaguely sexual for some reason. Quantum tells him it was an honest mistake. "I gotta tell her," Trip says, rubbing his temples. Quantum asks how that's going to help matters. "It's the right thing to do," Trip says. "At least I'll be able to look her in the eye without feeling guilty." Yes, because this is all about you feeling better, isn't it, Trip? "You're a good man," Quantum sighs. Um, let's not break out the Sanctimonious Wine just yet, at least not until I clean out my 72-ounce wine glass. Quantum suggests he take a phase-pistol with him (because, of course, T'Pol's previous exhibitions of anger have shown her to be of a particularly violent nature), and Trip says, "I might need one." As far as I'm concerned, Trip should give T'Pol a phase pistol and let her take her best shot at him.
Trip takes T'Pol aside on the bridge and clumsily attempts to tell her what he did. "Did you ever do anything totally by mistake that you weren't very proud of?" he asks. "No," T'Pol tells him. Trip tries again: "Did you ever come across something that you thought was one thing, so you reacted a certain way and it turned out to be something completely different?" "Your point, Commander?" T'Pol asks. Trip tells her he knows about her letter from the Vulcan ship. "It was a personal matter," T'Pol says, and goes back to her work, hoping against hope Trip didn't notice that she signs things "S.W.A.K." Trip asks why it wasn't sent through normal channels, and T'Pol tells him that takes too much time for urgent matters. "So they sent it in code? D'you have any idea how suspicious that looked?" T'Pol looks at him: "You read my letter." Trip tells her he doesn't feel very good about doing it. T'Pol offers him the rest of her letters in her cabin as reading material. Trip sighs in exasperation and says, "I'm trying to apologize here." Funny, I haven't yet heard the words "I'm sorry." Maybe I just missed it -- rewinding, replaying -- nope, they aren't there. Quantum coms T'Pol and asks her to report to his ready room. T'Pol asks Trip if anyone else has read the letters. Trip answers in the negative. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention it," T'Pol says before stomping off. Of course, given Blalock's weight, it's more like she tiptoed off.