#yeah we've got risk implosion if you know what i mean 😏

[favvn]

The more I think about it, the more the turbolift scene from And The Children Shall Lead is both the opposite of and bookend to the conference room fight from The Naked Time.

The obvious differences of environment and how the scenes are staged are at the forefront, of course. In The Naked Time, Kirk finds Spock alone in the conference room after he has had an emotional breakdown from the virus. In And The Children Shall Lead, Spock physically has to pull Kirk off the Bridge and into the turbolift, something that mirrors his earlier words to Kirk about the need for a captain to be unshakeable in the eyes of the crew in order to maintain command. (And if anyone in the series understands the need for privacy and control over one's countenance, it's Spock.)

Both characters are incapacitated by their emotions, Spock by the sadness and regret that the virus has brought forward and Kirk by sheer fear and anxiety made all too real by a crew that is distracted by their own fears and made unable to hear him due to illusions. Both are stuck reckoning with the very things they fear. Spock still feels such strong emotions and love in spite of his adherence to Vulcan custom. His attempts to control his emotions and reign in his human half have come to nothing. He can still be unraveled into a sobbing mess. Kirk fears that he is truly alone, unheard and ignored by his own crew, and unable to keep the Enterprise and maintain control as a result. The realization of this fear reverts him to childlike behavior, from his slouched posture and the way he folds himself inwards as if to make himself smaller, to the higher pitch of his voice. Any certainty and authority is gone from Kirk.

There is another element to Kirk's fears in both episodes in that his captaincy exists only in relation to others. Without the Enterprise and her crew, what exactly is Kirk? He holds no position or importance if one of those elements is missing. Yes, his speech about love and how it's off-limits to him speaks to the demands of the captaincy versus his need for connection and love with another person, but there is that other element of reciprocity behind it. And The Children Shall Lead shows it in a very harsh light in how each person on the Bridge either cannot hear him or ignores him.

In order to get through to Spock in The Naked Time, Kirk resorts to slapping him, with the intent that the pain ought to cause him to snap out of it (this scene is perhaps hilarious in hindsight when A Private Little War later shows that Spock must be slapped in order to leave a Vulcan healing trance. Thanks for that detail, Roddenberry ♡). It doesn't fully work until Spock hits Kirk back and knocks him over the table. The scene ends with them separated by the table between them but with Spock back to his usual self and Kirk now infected with the virus.

In And The Children Shall Lead, Spock calmly stands his ground in the turbolift and calls Kirk by three different names. Spock first says, "Captain," in his attempt to get Kirk's attention. It is Kirk's title, the rank that Kirk holds on the ship, the name of his job, the very signpost of his command. Spock calls Kirk exactly what he needs to hear, yet it doesn't break through the anxiety unleashed by the children. Spock tries again, softly saying, "Kirk" next. By this point, Kirk has lunged at Spock with his hands at Spock's throat, believing that Spock is attempting to take the Enterprise from him as other past episodes have shown (The Deadly Years especially, but episodes like The Ultimate Computer, Mirror Mirror, and The Menagerie show it to an extent). Kirk still does not hear Spock past his fears, which leads Spock to call him "Jim." This, the use of Kirk's preferred nickname, the name that only his friends have used, is what finally gets Kirk to snap out of it. The scene ends with them physically together and still in a partial embrace but both acting like their usual selves and uninhibited by a virus or induced fears. In this sense, And The Children Shall Lead's turbolift scene, the one that so many people regard as a "now kiss!" moment, is a culmination of the fight scene of The Naked Time if one recalls the repetition to "risk implosion" to do what has "never been done" and come together towards a united point.