On the Orion ship, Archer and Harrad-Sar drink alcohol and watch three slave girls dancing. He then offers them the coordinates of a planet with a lot of magnesite and "gives" the slave girls (named Navaar, D'Nesh, and Maras) to the crew. Malcolm shows the three to their quarters, but he's a bit hot and bothered and has trouble focusing.
While they travel to the coordinates, the men on the Enterprise become very distracted by the Orion women and they start behaving aggressively (much to T'Pol's disdain), while the women get headaches and become lethargic. At one point, Malcolm and Travis try to turn themselves off by exercising, and when treating Hoshi in sickbay, Phlox starts behaving as though he's nearing a sleep cycle even though he's just had one. Navaar becomes attracted to Archer, and D'Nesh to Kelby, whose friction with Trip increases.
The ship reaches the planet and begins their scans, and a small alien science vessel fires on Enterprise. Archer gives Malcolm the order to destroy it, but Malcolm refuses. Archer tries to do it himself, but it leaves. Then, Kelby and D'Nesh have a snog and she tells him he's better than Trip, so he goes to engineering and sabotages the EPS system, leading to a fistfight between him and Trip.
Phlox examines Trip in sickbay and reveals that the reason the crew has been so out of sorts is because of a pheromone the Orion women have, but that Trip and T'Pol are immune, and the symptoms will increase with time. Archer locks the slave girls in decon and interrogates them, but they deny everything. While Trip and T'Pol work on repairs in engineering, she reveals that she's immune because she's a Vulcan, and he's immune because they became psychically bonded that time they had sex.
Harrad-Sar returns before the repairs can be done, claiming that he's ready to claim his "reward": Enterprise. They fight, leading to Enterprise's weapons going offline and the Orion ship hauling Enteprise away. T'Pol and Trip think of a plan, but then the Orion women escape and go onto the bridge and Navaar persuades Archer to have T'Pol arrested. He orders Malcolm to arrest T'Pol, and Malcolm tries, but is stunned by Trip, who also stuns Archer and Travis. Then, the Orion women are sent away.
Phlox gives everyone injections and reveals that they will recover in a few days. As the Enterprise turns to leave, T'Pol says she wants Trip to stay and he forces her to admit it's for personal reasons, then they kiss.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Affably Evil: Harrad-Sar seems friendly enough...until he reveals that he's after Archer's head. And even then, he's not very malicious about it, assuring Archer that it's Nothing Personal.
- Behind the Black: Used for good effect with the dance scene, where one dancing girl suddenly becomes three.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Phlox combines it with the off-button hypospray when he sedates Kelby.
- Call-Back: Trip sleeping with T'Pol back in "Harbinger" has made him immune to Orion pheromones since the two are now psychically bonded and T'Pol is a Vulcan.
- Continuity Nod: Malcolm isn't too keen on dealing with the Orions after they tried to enslave nine of the crew.
- Dinner and a Show: Aboard Harrad-Sar's ship. The dancing Orion girls provide one hell of a show.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Every guy on Enterprise finds it extremely hard to concentrate when they see the Orions, especially Kelby—but not Trip.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The idea that female Orions have pheromones that control males and make other females feel ill is never used again. In the next arc of this very season of Enterprise Orion women will be shown serving on the Mirror Universe Enterprise, and in the 2009 Star Trek film, Uhura has a female Orion roommate who obviously doesn't give her a headache and while she sleeps with Kirk, doesn't appear to exert any unusual influence over him. And if Big Bad Osyraa in Season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery could do that, she surely would have been shown using it to her advantage. Lower Decks justifies this however by saying not all Orion women emitted or utilized such pheromones, nor were all Orion women even capable of doing so (with Tendi getting annoyed at the stereotype that all Orion females have this ability).
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: In homage to the TOS "Everybody Laughs But Spock" ending, we have everyone laughing except T'Pol.
- Expecting Someone Taller: A variation. Harrad-Sar says that for someone wanted by the Klingons and the Orions, he was expecting Archer to have a more robust appetite.Archer: With all those people after me, I need to stay quick on my feet.
- The Gadfly: Trip can't resist trolling T'Pol about their relationship.
- Get Out!: Trip throws Kelby out of Engineering for his insubordination.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: This episode brings back the green-skinned attractive Orion women who were the Trope Namer.
- Happiness in Slavery: Played With. Orion slave girls seem perfectly happy to sexually please their masters, but because of the pheromones they emit, it's actually their masters who are held in thrall. Harrad-Sar even admits as such, in the perfectly calm voice of someone who's accepted this long ago.
- Hate Plague: One side-effect of the Orion pheromones is that several of the men start going at each other's throats. Trip has to break up more than one fight in Engineering.
- Interspecies Romance: The Enterprise men, who are all humans and a Denobulan, are all attracted to the Orion women, and Navaar in particular is very interested in Archer.
- Love Is in the Air: The Orion women produce pheromones that excite men and make other women lethargic and give them headaches.
- Manipulative Bitch:
- One of the Orion women sinks her pheromones into Kelby, making him sabotage Enterprise.
- It then turns out that this is the hat of Orion women. Harrad-Sar even admits that the men are the real slaves in Orion society.
- Moment Killer: Archer is busy snogging one of the Orion females when T'Pol calls him to the bridge.
- Ms. Fanservice: Three Orion women wearing skimpy clothing, introduced via sexy dance. Yeah, that counts.
- No-Sell: The unidentified science vessel fails to inflict any damage to Enterprise.
- Not So Stoic: Downplayed; T'Pol apparently makes a joke towards the end of the episode, though it's left ambiguous as to whether she truly meant it as a joke.
- Our Dragons Are Different: T'Pol mentions some reports on flying, fire-breathing reptiles on Berengaria, though she questions the accuracy of these reports. Spock can confirm that they're real.
- Sexually Transmitted Superpowers: The episode reveals that Vulcans are immune to Orions, who usually make everyone fall in love with them at first sight unless there's an Incompatible Orientation, and if a human has slept with a Vulcan, they gain this immunity.
- Shouting Free-for-All: When Kelby is in Sickbay after sabotaging Enterprise, he and Archer and Phlox start trying to shout over each other until Phlox shuts him up via off-button hypospray.
- Unusual Euphemism:Trip: We didn't mate.
T'Pol: [quietly] Uh-huh...
