Line #20 Recap/TheOrvilleS1E06Krill


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/normal_to_s1_e6_0205_06_krill.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Only Ed would be weird enough to trust Gordon with {{Shapeshifter}} abilities.]]
3	Mercer and Malloy go on an undercover mission to obtain a copy of the Krill scriptures, the Anhkana, in order to understand them better, but they discover the Krill ship they've infiltrated is on its own mission: using a weapon that will kill a hundred thousand humans on a nearby colony. And the Krill have their own children aboard the ship.
4	----
5	!!Tropes:
6	* ActionPrologue: The ''Orville'' answers a DistressCall from a Union colony and ends up battling a Krill destroyer.
7	* AlwaysNight: The Krill homeworld has intense cloud cover which blots out nearly all sunlight, resulting in their LogicalWeakness described below.
8	* ArmorPiercingResponse:
9	-->'''Teleya:''' Why did you save the children?\
10	'''Mercer:''' They're kids, with their whole lives ahead of them. They're not my enemies.\
11	'''Teleya:''' After what they saw you do today? They will be. ''They. Will. Be.''
12	* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Spoofed.
13	-->'''Malloy:''' What do Krill names sound like?\
14	'''Mercer:''' I don't know. I don't think anybody knows.\
15	'''Malloy:''' Probably exotic and alien.\
16	'''Mercer:''' Probably, yeah. Like Quarz... noth, like that kind of thing.\
17	'''Malloy:''' Zang... tozon.\
18	'''Mercer:''' Kreeyewloxstein.\
19	'''Malloy:''' Probably not "[[AmbiguouslyJewish stein]]."\
20	'''Mercer:''' No, not "stein."\
21	'''Malloy:''' Like a Haj... valorp.\
22	'''Mercer:''' Froozhengladje.\
23	'''Malloy:''' Haagendazs.
24	* BittersweetEnding: Mercer not only obtained the Anhkana, but he brought along an intact Krill destroyer and prevented the massacre of a hundred thousand innocent civilians. However, despite his best efforts to protect the children, he's told by Teleya that all he did was ensure they'd grow up wanting vengeance for him killing the rest of the ship's crew. It's hard to say how right she is about that, given at least Koja is shown to be curious and inquisitive.
25	* BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce: Bortus demonstrates his ability to eat anything by casually popping an entire ball of wasabi into his mouth, much to the horror of his colleagues, with Alara remarking that she'd have been left crying and throwing up if she'd eaten just half of it.
26	* BodyHorror: The crew of the Krill Destroyer all burn to death in the episode's climax, and the viewer gets to see their skin burning. Doubles as a FamilyUnfriendlyDeath.
27	* BoldlyComing: While speaking of Alara's latest failed relationship, [=LaMarr=] suggests she date Isaac since he's as strong as she is. Isaac gladly hops on this bandwagon, as it will help his study of other cultures. She politely declines.
28	* CallBack:
29	** Mercer references the Krill attack in the [[Recap/TheOrvilleS1E01OldWounds pilot episode]].
30	** Malloy complains that the Krill stabbed him in the leg that [[Recap/TheOrvilleS1E05Pria he had just grown back]].
31	* CassandraTruth: When questioned on why he and Mercer have infiltrated the Krill ship, Gordon honestly replies that they came for the Anhkana. The captain doesn't believe him, as it's far more likely they came for the experimental neutron bomb than a mere book, regardless of its importance to the Krill. Then he says, "Well, it kinda became ''about'' that."
32	* ChildrenAreInnocent: Mercer's reasoning for not killing the children. Plus Koja is shown to be inquisitive and questions the logic of the Anhkana, which makes Mercer that much more reluctant to harm the kids.
33	* DecapitationPresentation: Zazaron shows off a human head taken during a raid on a colony, then stabs it a bunch of times as part of a cleansing ceremony.
34	* DirtyBusiness: Mercer and Malloy aren't happy when they realize they have to kill the crew of the Krill ship to prevent it from carrying out its attack.
35	* {{Doorstopper}}: The Anhkana is a huge tome, easily half-a-foot thick. This keeps Mercer and Gordon from easily copying it.
36	* DownerEnding: Ed and Gordon accomplished their mission and then some, not only getting the Ahnkana but also capturing an entire Krill vessel, single-handedly taking out a majority of the crew (minus a teacher and her class), and preventing the massacre of a human colony. However, the incident has made peace with the Krill seemingly even ''more'' impossible, with Teleya smugly telling Ed that, after what he did, the children he saved will grow up with nothing but hatred for humans (with the possible exception being Koja).
37	* DressingAsTheEnemy: Mercer and Malloy use holographic disguises and a captured Krill shuttle to infiltrate one of their destroyers.
38	* EurekaMoment: Mercer has one, while explaining to Koja about various human races, specifically about the reason for the dark skin of Africans. He suddenly realizes that the Krill, having evolved in perpetual darkness, have no natural protection against ultraviolet.
39	* EvilIsNotWellLit: Justified. The Krill race evolved in an environment with very little sunlight, which explains why their ships are scarcely lit (especially when compared to Union ships) and is supposed to be a cause of their generic unfriendliness.
40	* ExplosiveInstrumentation: A panel explodes on the bridge during the firefight with the Krill. [[{{Irony}} It's responsible for fire suppression.]]
41	* ExtremeOmnivore: Bortus can eat virtually anything, as the harsh conditions of his homeworld necessitated that their people be able to derive sustenance from whatever they could find. He chows down on a cactus, a napkin, and a glass to demonstrate. This may also explain why they only need to urinate once per year--their bodies produce very little waste, since they're able to process so much more than ours.
42	* FailsafeFailure: A panel catches fire and Mercer orders it put out. When he asks why the fire suppression system didn't kick in, Alara explains that said panel was responsible for that system.
43	* FemalesAreMoreInnocent: Played with; Teleya is the only female Krill with a speaking role in this episode, and her primary role is apparently a non-military one that involves tutoring the children on-board the ship. However, she's just as gung-ho about wiping out the colony as the rest of the Krill, and is in no mood to accept Ed's IDidWhatIHadToDo speech at the end of the episode.
44	* FrictionlessReentry: Averted. Mercer has Malloy skim the atmosphere to create a smokescreen from the reentry friction, blinding the Krill long enough so he can drop their entire complement of torpedoes onto them without them trying to dodge.
45	* IndyPloy: The rough plan to snatch a copy of the Anhkana consists of "Get disguised as Krill, fly around until we find a ship or something, then find a copy and try to get out." That's also the detailed plan. Everything else has to be made up as they go along.
46	* JustInTime: Malloy manages to shoot down the Krill neutron bomb just before it impacts the colony.
47	* MoodWhiplash: Turns on a dime from light-hearted adventure and comedy to dark drama and back again several times. Although all episodes of season one of this self-described {{Dramedy}} series have elements of this, "Krill" is generally cited as a notable example due to its violence and ominous ending; yet it starts with a comedic sequence in which Bortus displays his ability to eat almost anything.
48	* MoralMyopia: Krill society sees anyone but them as soulless beings to be treated as nothing more than obstacles. When Mercer kills the entire crew of the Krill destroyer save Teleya and the kids to defend a helpless colony, she only sees the Krill he killed and says that all the kids will see, too. Though given Koja's vast interest in Humans and even asking if they have a soul, she might not be ''entirely'' right.
49	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It remains to be seen how much of an effect it will have, but Ed and Gordon's mission is this when it comes down to it. They were to obtain a copy of the Anhkana to understand the Krill and try to reach peace. In the process, they infiltrated and killed an entire ship's worth of Krill, except for children who may take it as a lesson on why humans can't be trusted. They did obtain a copy of the Anhkana, but it now looks like theft and desecration as opposed to quietly copying it page by page without anyone the wiser. In all likelihood, this mission is more likely to cause violent reprisals from the Krill, even if the goals were technically accomplished.
50	* NotSoAboveItAll: When Malloy makes Bortus eat a cactus plant, Alara chastises him for possibly hurting Bortus. When the Moclan eats the cactus with no problem, Alara ''immediately'' makes him eat a drinking glass.
51	* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: It's noted that interstellar civilizations usually become more secular as they expand outward, while the Krill have remained fiercely religious in spite of it.
52	* ProductPlacement: Played with. The god of the Krill is called "Avis," whom Gordon points out has the same name as a "21st Century rental car company." Gordon uses one of their catchphrases as the meal "blessing" with Teleya and calls the Union's god "Hertz."
53	* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Teleya's last line:
54	-->'''Teleya:''' After what they saw you do today? They will be. ''They. Will. Be.''
55	* TheReveal:
56	** The Krill in the pilot episode hadn't worn helmets out of purely military necessity, they'd done so as protection from sunlight.
57	** We finally get to see what is presumably a Union heavy cruiser (the ship that docks with the ''Orville'' after the battle).
58	* RightForTheWrongReasons: The Krill captain assumes Gordon and Mercer are on the ship to sabotage the neutron bomb. He's right in the sense that they are planning to do that, but it's not their reason for coming in the first place and it's just happenstance that they picked that particular vessel to infiltrate.
59	* RunningGag: Once he learns that the Krill's deity is named Avis, Gordon keeps making jokes about how he shares the name with the car rental place.
60	--> '''Gordon''': Oh, Avis, cover the loss of our vehicle!
61	* ScaryAmoralReligion: The Krill religion states that non-Krill have no souls and are therefore inferior; at best, they're tools to serve Krill interests, at worst, they're impediments to Krill ambitions that can be removed.
62	* ScaryDogmaticAliens: The Krill are the fundamentalist type, attacking humans because their religion says they're justified in doing so.
63	* ShoutOut:
64	** As the planned destruction of the colony approaches, it turns into a reconstruction of scenes before the destruction of Alderaan in ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]''.
65	** During prayer on-board on the Krill vessel, instead of saying "Temeen Emideen," Gordon says "[[Literature/TheHungerGames Katniss Everdeen]]."
66	** It's said that the Krill have clung to their religion even after developing spacefaring technology, and that if the Union ''were'' to attack them, they would see it as a holy quest. This seems like a pretty clear nod to The Covenant in ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}''.
67	** As Ed and Gordon are cruising through Krill space searching for a ship, they're listening to [[Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival CCR's]] "Midnight Special"--like the driver and his passenger in the opening scene of ''Film/TwilightZoneTheMovie.''
68	** The interior of the Krill ship strongly resembles that of the ''Scimitar'', Shinzon's ship in ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''. Other elements taken from that film include the bad guys being out to kill the population of a planet using a radiation device, and the Krill sharing the same AchillesHeel as the Remans, namely an extreme aversion to sunlight (albeit Mercer and Gordon actually think to exploit this weakness, something the ''Enterprise'' crew have often been criticized for not doing in the film).
69	* ASimplePlan: Mercer and Gordon have a simple mission: dress up as Krill, infiltrate a Krill ship, copy their scriptures. It escalates to stopping a weapon of mass destruction and hijacking the entire ship.
70	* StartsStealthilyEndsLoudly: The mission starts as an infiltration mission to copy the Anhkana and get out with the Krill being none the wiser. It ends with them killing the entire crew save one teacher and her class, and hijacking the whole ship.
71	* TakeThat: Ed comments with disgust that the Krill's holy book, the Ankhana, is "brutal", and compares it to a Creator/BretEastonEllis [[Literature/AmericanPsycho novel]].
72	* TokenHeroicOrc: Koja is incredibly interested in humans and even asks if they have a soul, when the Anhkana specifically states that anything that's not a Krill doesn't.
73	* VampireHunter: Invoked by an excited Gordon upon deciding that the Krill are basically "space vampires".
74	* WeakenedByTheLight: The Krill evolved on a world with virtually no sunlight, so intense ultraviolet light is lethal to them. Mercer and Gordon exploit this by rigging the internal lighting to release an ultraviolet burst, cooking nearly all the Krill onboard in seconds.
75	* TheWorfBarrage: In true ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fashion, the ''Orville'' fires all energy weapons at the Krill ship with the Worf {{Expy}} reporting "No damage." This is totally justified, however, since the ''Orville'' is a mid-size cruiser (roughly equivalent to one of the smaller "science vessels" in ''Trek'') while the Krill ship is a full-size combat starship.
76	* WouldntHurtAChild: Mercer calls off the plan to trip the neutron bomb inside the Krill ship when he realizes they have children aboard. As seen above, however, it may [[DeconstructedTrope bite him in the ass later]].

Context Recap / TheOrvilleS1E06Krill