#tos: requiem for methuselah

[anghraine]

It's honestly kind of funny to me that catapulting into Kirk/Spock shipping has launched my usual "meh, not into jealousy as a metric of romantic love" shipping tendency out the window and instead I'm genuinely charmed by the extent to which they reflect the same unhealthy seething jealousy.

This is most obvious with Spock, but you'll get McCoy joking about Spock falling in love with a computer (not an android, a stationary computer) and McCoy being A Normal Guy Joking About His Friend Having a Hobby is immediately contrasted with Kirk's barely repressed jealousy (you can all but see him thinking "time to talk another computer to death" while McCoy just laughs at his own joke about it). Kirk gets more and more generally insecure until Spock publicly declares that, while he does like an efficient computer, Kirk is irreplaceable and he doesn't want to serve anyone or anything else, and Kirk looks like he's about to kiss him on the bridge.

(Kirk still talks the computer to death, btw, for plot reasons. But big "Edith Keeler must die" energy.)

I also enjoy Kirk's horror/outrage at Leila Kalomi and her obvious gloating over "taking" Spock from him in the docility sex pollen episode and Kirk's willingness to do or say anything to get Spock back vs Spock bleeding intensity throughout "Requiem for Methuselah" as Kirk falls in love with Rayna, then Spock numbly listening to McCoy's speech about how he can never understand the glories or agonies of romantic love triangles or passionate love before waiting for him to leave and then wiping Rayna from Kirk's mind. Just two bros who are totally normal about each other!

[electronickingdomfox]

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the women of TOS act so gentlemanly with their ladylike men...

It's adorable.

[icantspellthings]

I can't get over how much this looks like she's watching an episode of Star Trek on a modern flat screen TV. Girl, this is literally me right now (minus the fancy outfit) in the 21st century watching Captain kirk on my shitty TV.

[trek-tracks]

Times "Jim Kirk is a survivor of the Tarsus IV massacre" is brought up in TOS episodes: 1

Times "Jim Kirk is an absolute shit pool/billiards player" is brought up in TOS episodes: 2

(don't @ me with "this line from this episode can be interpreted as a reference to Tarsus," I just love that Kirk being unable to work a pool cue properly is actually a recurring gag, intentional or not)

[spockeveryday]

[daftmooncretin]

fellas is it gay to lovingly caress your captains face as you remove his memories because you don’t want him to cry anymore. (he’s crying because he flirted with leonardo da vinci’s robot girlfriend too hard and she blew up fyi) just before this a mutual friend told you he pitied you because you had no capacity to love.

[self-made-purgatories]

From the Half-Empty Loveseat to the Cuck Chair: there is definitely a Spirk fight arc in Season 3. Here's the latest development, from The Cloud Minders.

First, a quick recap of the last two episodes:

S3E19: Requiem for Methuselah: Everything goes off the rails in this episode. Kirk fixates on a female Spock surrogate because internalized homophobia, repeatedly rejecting the real Spock and seriously hurting his feelings and their relationship in the process. It turns out the girl is a counterfeit girl in addition to a counterfeit Spock, and so Kirk loses it even further and hurts Spock even worse. Their relationship is in shreds by the end of the episode. I wrote a gigantic post about this episode if you want to know more of my thoughts (and more about the half-empty loveseat).

S3E20: The Way to Eden (the Space Hippies one): Kirk and Spock are definitely still fighting (I posted about this too). They don't touch, don't make eye contact, don't flirt, don't work together, struggle even being in the same room together. Spock goes off and has a thing with a fun flirty space-hippie musician guy in a miniskirt (and honestly, good for them).

And now:

S3E21: The Cloud Minders: Spock and Kirk are back to working together, off on a mission together. Their tone is cool, professional. They keep their own personal space. Their interactions are calm, less awkward than The Way to Eden, but no longer intimate.

At one point they are given a bed to share and Spock takes the cuck chair across the room instead, which is fraught with symbolism. The half-empty loveseat is gone; Spock is sitting alone, leaving no room for Kirk. (Not to mention that he has literally been cucked.) And yet still, still, just as at the end of Requiem for Methuselah, he watches over Kirk as he sleeps.

Most notably in this episode, Spock openly and shamelessly flirts with their host's scantily clad six-packed daughter, both in front of Kirk and in private. Spock's unusual behavior is both to make Kirk jealous and to cockblock him because he really cannot fucking take any more of this bullshit of having to watch Kirk bag another bitch of the week right in front of him. It works; the girl is practically begging Spock to fuck her and never once looks at Kirk. Meanwhile, though, Kirk is attacked by a female disrupter, and he manages to pin her to a bed and flirt with her, but he does keep it in his pants. After a short struggle with the disrupter, Kirk calls for Spock and when he finds the two of them standing alone in the room together, Spock bitterly asks, "Am I... intruding, Captain?" and proceeds to glare at Kirk for most of the conversation that follows.

BUT. Late in the episode, Kirk is in trouble down on the planet's surface. Spock beams up both Kirk and his attacker and jumps into the melee to help Kirk and break up the fight. He grabs Kirk with both hands and pulls him away.

Kirk is out of control, momentarily insane from the effects of the cave gas, and Spock forcefully and desperately reminds Kirk of this by very uncharacteristically, emotionally, illogically shouting it in his face.

Kirk composes himself rather quickly. There are echoes of the turbolift scene where Spock's presence delivers Kirk from a panic attack, although this time it's very brief, and much less like a kiss and much more like a fight. But once again, the moment is rife with sexual tension. (Seems like a good spot to point out that fighting and fucking are very closely connected in the series also.)

This is the first time they have touched since Requiem for Methuselah. They stare deeply into each others eyes for a brief moment. Are they communicating telepathically, as they sometimes do? What are they saying?

Did it feel good to yell at him, Spock? Did it feel good to release some of those emotions? Kirk, do you understand now? Can you fix it? Can you two kiss and make up and move on now?

All of this is underscored by the way Bones just stands there, saying nothing, staring unblinkingly at the two of them this whole time. He knows them better than anyone. I wonder if he is wondering the same things I am.

[skybson]

My Top 25 Costumes from Star Trek : The Original Series

2. Rayna's Gold Gown

[discoonthegrass]

**I included characters significant to one episode who I see referenced in fandom/fanfiction fairly regularly, yet who never appeared in other pieces of Star Trek media (not including novelizations of those episodes or beta canon)

[affixjoy]

I’ve been trying to explain Kirk Drift to my dear husband and he just refuses to see it.

This man? You think this man, once described as a stack of books with legs, is a macho man womanizer? No, my love, he is a soft nerd deeply in love with his first officer and his career.

This has the potential to be our biggest pop culture disagreement since the time I told him Star Trek was better than Star Wars.

[anghraine]

#i rewatched this episode recently and yeah that moment?? that murmured “forget”???#slew me#simultaneously so tender and so jealous and a middle finger to mccoy (who i usually love but who was definitely being a huge jerk here) (via @treepyful)

Yup! It's not praiseworthy but it sure as hell is passionate. And the context of McCoy's speech about how Spock can never understand the pain or ecstasies of love in the context of romantic love triangles, after three seasons and much of this episode involving Spock simmering with jealousy in the background or doing some absolutely batshit thing for Kirk because at some level everyone around him is an NPC compared to Kirk (which McCoy himself may or may not even connect to his screed here or elsewhere because Spock is otherwise so undemonstrative in McCoy-speak) marks Spock's reaction as specifically about the idea that he can't understand or even experience romantic yearning. Wild. Despite some of McCoy's other unjust vitriol, this specific occasion is so OTT and unprovoked and lengthy that I feel that the writing slightly compromises his characterization in order to clearly flag Spock's motives in the following scene, which ... it sure as hell does.

(It's definitely a "I would not approve IRL but Kirk and Spock are so mutually jealous and possessive and irrational—and I'd argue even unethical!—wrt each other so many times and to such a degree that I'm just like "well, you do you, it's incredible in an insane way in this fictional context, but the two of you really need to stop involving other people in your drama, it has a body count.")

It's wild to me that I had heard of the prime Kirk/Spock content in various TOS episodes long before I saw them, but had never heard of what IMO is the shippiest moment of all thus far, in an interestingly O_o goddamn I do not want whatever you two have but you do you?? holy shit though what a moment way.

I'm of course referring to the otherwise rather mid episode "Requiem for Methuselah," in which Kirk has an underwritten love affair with a clueless woman whose various secrets have to be discovered before her inevitable death.

At one point in this relationship, her.......uh, guardian??? sort of???????? had Spock play the piano while she and Kirk waltzed, which (in-story) Spock did perfectly while somehow managing to silently exude even more intensity than usual. After the plot (and her life) were over, we end not with the usual cheerful bit of snark on the bridge that ends most episodes, but with a weary Kirk falling asleep with his head on his arms and Spock hovering not for away. McCoy exposits the last bit of detail and then goes on an unprompted and honestly pretty viciously racist speech about how Spock, unlike Kirk, will never suffer from the joys and travails of love because of his inherent lack of feeling as a Vulcan. The speech is longer than usual and just really mean-spirited as McCoy waxes rhapsodic about all the aspects of passionate true love that Spock will not and cannot experience as a Vulcan before he just leaves.

Spock then turns to look at Kirk, and now just bleeding intensity, takes a few slow, deliberate steps towards the sleeping Kirk, lays his hand against Kirk's cheek and neck, and then very obviously mind melds with the sleeping Kirk while murmuring, "Forget."

Is this healthy respectful behavior that honors Kirk's autonomy? No, obviously. Is it god-tier repressed homoerotic passion between two people who should probably just work their issues out and stop inflicting themselves on anyone else? Yes.

[saintspock]

spock's little face as he plays the piano.....he's so cute

[starberry-cupcake]

I'm gonna be a bit feral about the last 3 and a half minutes in 'requiem for methuselah'

the juxtaposition of bones telling spock he can't experience love and spock immediately after choosing to mind meld with jim to help him forget what hurts him is making me emotional, I don't care what kind of love it is, it's love and I'm emotional about it, leave me alone

[goofyjelly]

okay but what in the everloving FUCK was that scene at the end of Requiem for Methuselah (S3E19 STAR TREK TOS)

Cus Bones goes ON AND ON about how Spock will never know the intensity of love, the things it'll drive people to do, the rule breaking, the pain-

AND THEN HE DOES THIS ????

He is literally going INTO KIRKS HEAD and making him forget; IF THAT ISNT RULE BREAKING ON SO MANY LEVELS , I DONT KNOW WHAT IS

fuck, man, that scene... Jeez

I haven't finished watching all of the TOS episodes yet , but that scene is already one of my favorites of all time.

I love so many things about this: the spirk truthing, what this says about Spock as a person, just the way Kirk is so distressed to the point he just passes out on his desk with Spock in his room...

[trek-tracks]

These new CAPTCHAs are just a little too easy

[spockeveryday]