Recap / The Orville Season 3 E08 "Midnight Blue"

The crew's visit to Heveena's sanctuary world may put the entire Union at risk.

---

Tropes:

• Advice Backfire: Kelly tells Topa to be honest about her feelings for the boy she likes... not knowing that the "boy" in question is Gordon.
• An Aesop: There comes a point when appeasement can no longer justify toleration of the heinous actions of your would-be "allies". In addition to the obvious Khashoggi parallel, the Russian invasion of Ukraine also provided a visceral and topical real-life example of this.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Heveena is still a huge Dolly Parton fan. She listens to her music while writing, has papered an entire wall of her house with pictures and sketches of her, and falls to her knees in reverent awe when she meets Dolly's holographic recreation.
• Alien Blood: Topa bleeds black when she gets tortured for information.
• Alien Sky: Heveena's planet has two moons.
• The Atoner: Klyden is horrified and heartbroken when he learns about what happened to Topa. It's enough to get him to renounce his former prejudices and return to the Orville so he can try to rebuild his relationship with her and Bortus.
• Bittersweet Ending: Though it veers more on the sweet than the bitter, at least on the character level. Moclus is expelled from the Union, meaning the Union's primary means of defense against the Kaylon is now gone. However, on the positive note, Heveena's colony's safety is now guaranteed, Topa is safe, and Klyden even returns to atone, allowing him to reconcile with his family, having finally overcome his past prejudices.
• Broken Pedestal: By the end of the episode, Heveena's actions have cost her Bortus' respect.
• The Bus Came Back: Heveena and Klyden.
• Call-Back: Heveena's still a Dolly Parton mega-fan, and once again one of Dolly's songs (this time performed by the lady herself) provides her with the motivation to stand up before the Council.
• Cerebus Call-Back: Gordon asks Ed if he can come with them to the Union Council, because Topa is like a little sister to him—exactly what he told her during The Teaser when she tried to ask him out.
• The Cameo: Dolly Parton has a scene as a holographic recreation of herself that Ed creates to convince Heveena to help Topa.
• Cringe Comedy: Topa trying to ask Gordon out on a date while he's in Engineering with the rest of the staff. Gordon is oblivious to the context of her offer while everyone else has a metaphorical facepalm at the awkward situation unfolding.
• Delayed Family Acceptance: Continuing on the events of "A Tale of Two Topas", we learn that upon hearing what the Moclans did to Topa, Klyden returned to the Orville as quickly as possible. Upon seeing Topa recovering in Sickbay, Klyden reconciles with her, admitting that while he hated her for her decision, he never wished her harm, and that what the Moclans did to her has made him realize his views need to change. He tearfully accepts her for who she is and says that he is proud that she is his daughter, the first time he refers to her as such.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The torture and attempted murder of Topa for information on political dissidents owes a lot to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, which was presumed to have been carried out by the government of Saudi Arabia, a close US ally. At the time of production, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was making headlines by vowing that, under his administration, Saudi Arabia would become a "pariah state", though, obviously, that didn’t happen.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Subverted when Heveena offers Bortus a heartfelt apology about what happened to Topa, and says "I do not expect you to forgive me". Bortus side-eyes her and flatly says "That is a reasonable expectation", before silently walking away.
  • Played straight when Klyden is brought back onto the Orville and into the lives of Bortus and Topa, although the unspoken assumption seems to be that everyone has suffered enough.
    • Though it's zig-zagged when Klyden begins his apology and Topa, just happy to see him again, brushes it off with "it's okay." Klyden responds by saying no, his treatment of her was not okay.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • The Union has bent over backwards to appease the Moclans, but once they find that they kidnapped, tortured, and nearly murdered a child, they decide enough is enough and expel their planet.
  • For Klyden, he may have hated Topa and not accepted her at first, but he never explicitly wished harm on her. That, and it was not only the possible death of a child at the hands of his people, but the possible death of his child, that made him rethink his bigotry, and try to mend ways with his family.
• Eye Scream: The Moclan torturer has a gruesome wound over his missing left eye. Bortus then shoves a Krill shock baton into the torturer's good right eye.
• Hero Worship: There's a chain going on. Topa hero-worships Heveena, and in turn Heveena reveres Dolly Parton.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: As stated below, the Moclan ambassadors are right that Topa's kidnapping is because of Heveena breaking the agreement, she was only kidnapped because the Moclans were also breaking the agreement. The inspection team pretended to have left, sabotaged Grayson and Bortus's shuttle, kidnapped Topa because Heveena heavily engaged with her, and took her to a black site for plausible deniability.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Bortus chugs his beverage at the beginning of the episode, since he's dealing with the problems of being a single father with a teenage daughter. At the end of the episode, Ed hands Kelly a cup of spiked coffee, saying that she looks like she needs it.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Topa is tortured to get the name of the Moclan female underground's contact on Moclus, and their communication methods. She gives in eventually and tells.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The Moclan delegate rightly objects to Heveena appearing to get off lightly, especially given the fact that none of the events of the episode would have happened if she hadn’t been blatantly undermining the agreement with Moclas, to say nothing of remorselessly involving a child in her machinations. Her actions nearly resulted in the violent death of that child, and did directly cause a disastrous fracturing of the Union in the face of the existential threat of the Kaylon. Time will tell whether she will be a Karma Houdini.
• Jerkass Realization: Learning that Topa was tortured and nearly murdered is enough for Klyden to finally realize how his own prejudices contributed to this. He accepts her for who she is and begs for a second chance with her and Bortus. The fact that one of the first things Klyden does is use Topa's correct pronouns is enough to leave Bortus speechless, and he even invites Kelly to join them for dinner to show he's changed his former attitude.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The Moclan torturer gets every bit of pain he dished out to Topa returned and then some, including having his remaining eye destroyed by his own Krill shock baton.
• Late to the Realization: Gordon takes a bit, to the exasperation of everyone else in Engineering, to realize that Topa is trying to ask him out on a date.
• Leonine Contract: The fact that the Moclans are the primary supplier of weapons for the Union is brought up again, with Gordon furiously noting that the Moclans use it to demand concessions with little if any return beyond the service they already provide, believing the Union is too dependent on them to risk losing them. Learning that they tortured a child proves to be the last straw, however.
• Loophole Abuse: The Moclan observers claim Topa being on the planet violates the agreement of no new Moclan females. Bortus responds that she's not staying, merely joining the team as an observer, and Kelly adds that females are permitted as part of the survey team, with no specific restriction on species.
• Mandatory Line: The bulk of the cast, actually.
  • J. Lee's only spoken lines are in the scene when Topa asks Gordon on a date.
  • Mark Jackson as Isaac only has one line, mentioning that he is compensating for the effects of the nebula in his scans.
  • Anne Winters as Charly mentions compensating for the effects of the nebula in her navigation sensors, and then challenges Mercer for potentially violating the treaty.
  • Penny Johnson Jerald only appears in one scene, healing Topa of her injuries and informing Bortus that she will require extensive counseling.
• Mildly Military: Gordon should never have been in the conference with the Moclan delegation in the first place, and his outburst directed at both the Moclans and the Union brass should have him up on charges of insubordination, at the very least. Gordon even lampshades that he's wildly out of line and could be court-martialed for interjecting as he does, not that he lets that stop him. Justified as the Union Council were all clearly thinking the same thing as he was and just chose not to.
• Mood Whiplash: The start of the episode is light-hearted and fun, showing Topa's Precocious Crush on Gordon, Topa meeting Heveena, and the Luminite festival. Then, when Topa gets kidnapped and taken to a blacksite to be interrogated, the tone gets much darker and remains so for the rest of the episode.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After Heveena has spent the entire episode insisting that she was justified in asking Topa to become involved in her Underground Railroad for other Moclan females, she is clearly horrified by the sight of Topa's injuries and the knowledge that she is responsible for what happened to her. Klyden also comes to the realization that he's been a terrible father and husband and reconciles with his family.
• Near-Villain Victory: The Moclans come very close to getting their way yet again at the extraordinary meeting of the Union Council, pointing out that the only proof of the accusations against them is the word of a Moclan dissident who, in the same breath, admitted to violating the agreement on her own part. Even Mercer and Halsey seem defeated... until Kelly, Bortus, and Topa arrive and are able to present the evidence needed to sway the Council.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Bortus beats the hell out of the Moclan torturer, hurling him into the ceiling before smashing his face into pulp and jamming the man's own shock weapon into his remaining eye.
• No-Sell: Right before Bortus launches his beatdown, the Moclan torturer jams his shock baton (on its highest setting) into Bortus's leg. It does nothing to stop him.
• Out-of-Character Alert: The fact that Heveena isn't offering any theories as to Topa's kidnapping, especially by Moclans, is enough for Ed to realize she's hiding something.
• Papa Wolf: Bortus risks everything to track down Topa. When he sees what the Moclan torturer did to her, unleashes his fury on the man, ignoring Kelly's orders to stop (at least initially). See No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, above.
• Persona Non Grata:
  • Moclus is expelled from the Planetary Union, although Halsey admits it's going to be a messy divorce due to how tightly-integrated Moclus is (or was) within the Union political and military structure.
  • Bortus, Topa, and Klyden all renounce their Moclan citizenship and thus are no longer welcome on their home planet.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Kelly acts as both a mentor and a mother figure for Topa, while Bortus and Klyden are her biological parents. Kelly and Bortus, while not a couple, are very good friends and seem to have this relationship.
• Precocious Crush: Topa develops one on Gordon, of all people. He has to lightly let her down.
• Realpolitik:
  • Yet again, the need to keep the Moclans allies against the Kaylon and Krill mean the Union has to swallow their dislike of the Moclans' close-minded ways.
    Ed: It seems we're always on "shaky ground" with them, doesn't it? Always bending over backward to accommodate their bullshit?
  • However, seeing how the Moclans have been lying about holding an innocent girl hostage and torturing her is enough for the Union Council to finally decide it's not worth turning a blind eye to the Moclans' prejudice just to keep their arms treaty going and expel Moclus from the Union.
• Red Right Hand: The Moclan torturer is missing his left eye, presumably as the result of a fight. Bortus later blinds him in his other eye.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • A frustrated Gordon verbally shreds the Moclan delegation when they once again hold the Kaylon threat over the Admiralty's heads as a means of getting their way. He also directs part of it towards the Union political and military leadership for going along with the Moclans' actions out of fear of losing their weapons supply.
    Gordon: Look, I know I'm not supposed to talk here, and I'm probably gonna get court-martialed, but somebody's gotta call out these assholes!
    Ed: Gordon, don't.
    Gordon: Every time they cross a line, we let it go, because we're scared to fight the Kaylon without them. And every time we compromise, they still act like they're the ones getting the shaft!
    Admiral Halsey: That's enough, Lieutenant!
    Gordon: You treat people like garbage, and then when you get called on it, you bitch and moan that we're not respecting your "beliefs"! Well, screw you and your—!
    Ed: Gordon!
  • Bortus gets one himself when he brings Topa before the Council, exposing his people's duplicity to the galaxy.
    Bortus: My daughter is fortunate to be alive. They planned to murder... her. Members of this Union planned to kill... [tempers his emotion] ...my child! [with the mother of all Death Glares at the Moclan ambassador] You are liars, and you... are butchers, and YOU MUST ANSWER... FOR YOUR CRIMES!!!
• Riddle for the Ages: The identity of the mole on Moclus who is aiding Heveena is never revealed to the audience, although the Moclan torturer learns who it is after torturing Topa. Whether he was still capable of transmitting that to Moclus after Bortus stabbed him in the eye with his own Agony Beam is also not revealed: he told Topa earlier that on the maximum setting it burns out the victim's nervous system, and he was about to use it to execute her.
• Ship Tease: Played with. Kelly and Bortus are basically co-parenting Topa at this point, and during their visit to the female colony, one of the younger Moclan girls asks if they're mates. Later on, Bortus tells Kelly that he's grateful to have her in his life and says that he considers her part of their family, all while they're sitting very close to each other and looking deeply into each other's eyes. Despite this, they're both quick to affirm that they're Just Friends, and Klyden returns at the end of the episode anyway.
• Shout-Out: The music that plays during the evening in Heveena’s colony is a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”.
• That's an Order!: Bortus is so (understandably) consumed with rage at his daughter's torturer that it takes Kelly pulling this twice on him before he stops tearing into him, coming very close to killing him. Notably she addresses him by his rank instead of his name in order to snap him out of it, something she's never done before.
• Torture Technician: The Moclans employ an unnamed one at an illegal black ops compound on an uninhabited planet to extract the information from Topa that Heveena gave her. He also engages in a bit of Good Cop/Bad Cop by himself, first telling Topa to sit and offering her water before breaking out the fisticuffs and torture instruments.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: How Heveena defends using a child for her spy network, arguing that the needs of all the other female Moclans are worth the risk. Ed doesn't see it that way, and she eventually comes around for Topa's benefit.
• Wham Episode: The Moclans have been expelled from the Union, leaving the galaxy's three major powers standing alone separately against the Kaylon threat.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ed and Admiral Halsey tell Heveena off for violating her agreement with Moclus and getting Topa involved in her Underground Railroad scheme.
• Will-o'-the-Wisp: Hevenna explains the colors of the Lumenites to Topa, telling her the blue ones are extremely rare, like her. A blue Lumenite appears and leads Topa away from the village. While the Lumenite was not malicious, by drawing her away, Topa is able to be captured by the Moclans.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Moclans have no problem torturing a child for information and then killing her once she's complied, though Bortus and Kelly interrupt the latter.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Both Bortus and Klyden renounce their citizenship on Moclus.

---