Oh, right. I forgot the scene where you see them going to the simulator, and someone off-camera is watching them.
But… then… the faked murder took place just minutes after that scene, and Locar was busy dancing with Talla.
So he couldn’t have anticipated that Klyden would see him, and already have a pre-programmed simulator scenario to fake the murder. That takes time and preparation. So he was already planning on framing Klyden well before Klyden saw him walking to the simulator. But at that point, there’s no reason to suspect any animosity between Klyden and Locar at all.
I’m not trying to be nitpicky, and since this is a crime solving mystery plot, it really has to make sense in this way.
I’m not seeing a valid sequence of events in which Locar disables the security during the system test, later meets Klyden, Klyden and Locar express no animosity towards each other, but Locar has set it up this whole time to frame Klyden even though Klyden didn’t know/had no intent to report him when Locar’s plan went in motion. Locar also has no way of knowing that Klyden saw him with Talla and would react by informing on him.
Unless I’m missing something, the sequence of events don’t make sense.
I think Locar is supposed to be just that good - he can modify the recording (which already showed Klyden confronting Locar, because that really happened) to show a murder in a matter of minutes. Perhaps he had been preparing for a fake murder for some time, and only decided on pinning it on Klyden at the last minute.
On the plus side, it was a pretty entertaining episode even if it doesn’t quite make sense (if I’m not missing anything).
The writers and the actress are doing a good job of making Talla her own character, not just Alara v2.0. But in that case it just seems weird to replace one Xelayan with another, if they’re not going to be similar enough in personality to be able to re-use script ideas they wrote for Alara. But, fine, tiny woman being the strongest person on the ship does some (predictable) trope breaking and I think they must really value that.
It was pretty funny. Lamar and Gordon listing off all the whacky things that has been done on the ship to Talla. Gordon correctly guessing that Moclans eat the tooth of their former lovers. In general, I really like the deadpan style of Moclans and in this regard Locar had a similar disposition used to good effect. Although I’m a little unclear on this - not all Moclans are stoic and understated and literal the way Bortus is. We’ve seen other Moclans not acting like that. So I assumed Bortus’ mannerisms were more a Bortus thing than a Moclan thing. But then Locar basically acts exactly the same as Bortus, for the same jokes. Not sure what to take away from that.
The acting was pretty good, from Talla and Bortus especially. The brief moment where Bortus loses his shit was striking, it had exactly the effect they were going for.
Other than the plot holes I mentioned in a previous post, using a murder mystery as a way of exploring cultural differences is a very good take on sci-fi storytelling. A lot of the best episodes of Star Trek were set up like this. I appreciate that they’re willing to create cultural conflicts with alien races that aren’t easy to solve.
Isaac is taking great care to see that Claire is getting the top notch dicking she deserves.
Actually just the opposite. Waif-fu is now one of the biggest tropes out there, and a staple of many films. Kick-Ass, Firefly, Akira, The Fifth Element, and so forth.
Think about it this way - Locar has known for years that he can be exposed at any moment. Faking death and fleeing is something he’s therefore had years to prepare for, by developing the invisibility device, learning how to subvert security systems, etc. He didn’t need to anticipate Klyden’s confrontation; he just needed to recognize that it was time to put his plans into action, and use Klyden’s confrontation as the the excuse.
Locar dances with Talla, then Talla gets called away. Locar resumes “air dancing” as if Talla were still there. Klyden then angrily confronts Locar (on-screen) and promises to reveal his secret, storming off. Cut to commercial.
At this point, Locar is left alone in the holodeck for what could be up to an hour. The only reference we have for how long it was is Talla apologizing for taking so long when she returns. An hour seems reasonable, and would be plenty of time for the Rain Man of engineering to whip up a quickie frame job.
You’re right, I went and re-watched it and most of my criticisms are based on forgetting that. I need to rewatch things sober before I criticize them, I think. My bad.
He did have the plan all along to fake his death, though, right? That’s what the whole security disabling thing was about. I wonder if his original plan was to frame Bortus, and only changed it when Klyden became a convenient target.
But whatever his original plan, it all adds up now as plausible. I was wrong. This was the 2nd best episode of the season.
WHat I think is best about re-using Moclan society for these stories is it doesn’t require finding some oddball planet with strangers ‘that have issues’ (private little war, yangs, Khoms, etc) - it allows them to keep it ‘all in the family’ to discuss the many types of issues.
All along, as in that was his plan as soon as he set foot in the Orville? I don’t think so. He would have been perfectly content to fool around with Talla then go home to Moclus. It was only Klyden’s threat to turn him in that put him into panic mode and fake his own death. After all, it wasn’t that great a plan - he got caught within a day or two.
It’s also good that they’re setting up potential conflicts with the Moclans. Near the end of the episode, Mercer made an off-hand comment about if the Union would be able to maintain an alliance with a culture that seemed so fundamentally opposed to the more general Union culture. They need the Moclans, probably as a united front against the Krill, but Mercer recognizes that this is an alliance fraught with difficulties, which is something the viewers have been pointing out almost since the beginning.
They must have a real and pressing need for the alliance, considering that they overlooked Klyden’s attempted murder of Bortus, a Union officer. It’s cultural relativism taken to an extreme.
I was thinking it might be interesting if the Union disapproved of Moclan ideology, but that the Moclans had something essential the Union needed. Maybe huge deposits of the stuff that the FTL engines or the replicators need can only be found in a few places in the Universe, one of which is Moclas.
It might be a little too on the nose, with Moclas being a stand-in for something like Saudi Arabia, but it would make sense if we saw that Moclans had something unique to offer that justified tolerating their incompatable cultural beliefs.