Prodigy’ Feels Young Again In “Touch of Grey” [Ep. 218]

Table of Contents

“Touch of Grey”

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episodes 18 – Debuted Monday, July 1, 2024
Written by Jennifer Muro
Directed by Sung Shin

The last standalone episode before the two-part season finale ties things up nicely with an exciting adventure, especially for the Voyager crew.

Coffee before nostalgia.

WARNING: Spoilers below!

RECAP

“Let’s get back in the saddle.”

The pressure of the mission and concern over the fate of the kids weigh heavily on Janeway, who’s longing for a quiet early retirement on the farm, but Chakotay is there to keep her grounded. The sudden arrival of Ilthuran and Wesley with a dire warning doesn’t help her mood, nor does a broadcast from Asencia taunting the admiral to come to the rescue of the kids. Sure it’s a trap, but she’s going anyway and so are Chakotay, Wesley, and even The Doctor… who all volunteer for this dangerous prison heist mission. The big bad has locked down Solum with transport blockers and Crusher’s ordeal has shut down his time and space superpowers, so they build a Vau N’Akat transport ship to sneak in. After sneaking through a blockade with the Doctor’s bad (but passable) impression of a Drednok, they land in “The Wastes” of Solum, and after a bit of a slog they arrive at a domed ruin where the kids are being held. Without his powers, Wesley is feeling out of sorts but Janeway reminds him he used to be a Starfleet officer and he should start acting the part. He and Chakotay are to sneak around back to find a way in while she and the EMH head straight to the front door to give Asencia exactly what she wants, a Starfleet admiral. Oh boy.

You may be a master of time and space, but I still miss Tom behind the wheel.

“I make my own future.”

Like Janeway, Gwyn starts off struggling with her own demons, but her compatriots rally to support her leadership. Inside their new prison, they find a domed ruin… and they are not alone: Asencia has somehow trapped a Loom. Oh s—t! The big bad cackles maniacally as they scamper about to avoid being erased, noticing the squid monster is itself feeling trapped and even a bit lonely. Aww? Zero senses that Janeway is nearby just as the admiral is brought to Asencia, who isn’t interested in a prisoner swap and prefers to just shoot her. OMG! Don’t worry, the admiral is actually meeting up with the Chakotay; the one doing an extended death scene is the holo-doc in disguise. Acting! After getting a telepathic message from Zero, Janeway goes for the classic, turning her badge into a makeshift bomb, giving The Loom an opening to escape to start systematically erasing Vau N’Akat guards. The distraction allows the kids to reunite with the other officers and Wesley channels his younger Enterprise-D self, reconfiguring a device to remotely fly the transport ship in for a harrowing escape. Asencia is left alone as Ilthuran broadcasts his own message to kick off an uprising to her tyrannical rule. A jubilant trip back to Voyager is tempered by Gwyn, who’s devastated to see her home turn to open civil war. But Janeway is feeling young again, so she vows to returnand finish what they started. Confident and caffeinated, the admiral is ready for a big finale.

Zero doesn’t need to read minds to know Jankom is about to lose it.

ANALYSIS

One more rodeo

A solid episode indulging in some heist and prison-break vibes gives some of our characters a moment to reflect on the paths that brought them to this critical moment. In particular, “Touch of Grey” draws some of the clearest parallels with Gwyn and Janeway as both struggle with moments of doubt and both are rallied by their loyal friends. Gwyn’s decision to split the team in the previous episode has shades of Janeway’s call regarding the Caretaker in the Star Trek: Voyager series opener, the consequences of which she carried throughout the series. But this episode really gave the adult characters their moments as we saw Janeway reassemble her Voyager team (with Wesley as guest star), leaning into all the tropes of doing one last job before retirement. Everyone was tying up character beats, burying hatchets, and delivering satisfying hero moments; even the Doctor hamming it up worked for them. This was probably the best episode of the season for Robert Picardo, who can always deliver the goods when called upon. He has a curious admirer in Hologram Janeway, showing that she is an individual character with her own agency, something to consider as the plan calls to send her and the Protostar back in time. Even Wesley gets reminded that he had a lot going on before he could travel through space and time with the power of his mind. Tying this all up together, we have our younger crew learning from the elders while inspiring the veteran officers to step up and be the heroes they have always been.

Please state the nature of the flirting emergency.

“Touch of Grey” is one of the top examples of how tight these season 2 episodes are and how finely tuned the pacing is as the different perspectives and storylines are woven together, jumping from action to character beats and back again. This and the last few episodes have done an excellent job of building out the world of Solum, which is clearly far from monolithic, avoiding a trope of many Trek societies. We even got a bit of empathy for The Loom, a classic Trek theme of finding a way to reach out to enemies, but we probably shouldn’t expect them to be invited over for coffee anytime soon. As for Asencia, the show has dug way too deep a baddie hole for her to get a redemption arc, leaving that to her younger self.

Can The Loom be potty trained?

Final thoughts

“Touch of Grey” is a great action episode that stands entirely on its own but also nicely sets up the two-part season finale. The stakes couldn’t be higher, the characters couldn’t be more primed. Let’s go fast…

Forget J/C… say hello to C/M.

BITS

This is the first episode of the season with a cold open.
Stardate 62091.1
In what may be a franchise first, Janeway actually types her log.
Chakotay brought Janeway her old USS Voyager badge, but in episode 205 we saw she already it in her collection. Perhaps he regifted her own badge?

C A P T A I N ‘ S L O G … Oh, wait, I’m an admiral… where is the eraser on this thing?

TrekMovie’s Prodigy July binge-watch

Since all 20 episodes were released on Netflix at once, we’re binging it in five-episode arcs; we can’t stick to watching just one a week! Each All Access Star Trek podcast (every Friday morning) will cover five episodes, while written reviews for all five will be published throughout the week, with two-parters paired up. This will all wrap up just as San Diego Comic-Con kicks off at the end of the month. We also hope to have more Prodigy interviews and analysis in July and beyond.

NEW: Full spoiler open thread!

We welcome fans joining us through our July coverage of 5 episodes each week, and we ask our readers to keep comments related to the season up to the episode being reviewed.

For those choosing to binge the show even faster, we have created an open thread where you can post all the spoiler comments you want for the entire season.

Season 2 of Prodigy is available to stream on Netflix globally (excluding Canada, Nordics, CEE, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Mainland China) and season one is currently available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe with season two coming soon. Season two has launched in France on France Televisions channels and Okoo.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.