Description: We pick up where we left off, with Enterprise destroyed and the away team on the captured Defiant. For those of you keeping score, that means it took an entire episode just to get here, with the only incidents caused by their own petty fighting because (if you'll remember) evil = stupid. Take out the backstabbing and the episode was about ten minutes long.

Well, luckily it takes Mirror Cooter a couple of minutes to get the weapons on line with technology from a century in the future that's half disassembled. Reed gleefully blows the crap out of the Tholians and then blasts the base with a half dozen or so photon torpedoes just for fun. However, even though they're free and clear, warp drive isn't functioning because it was all disassembled, and Tucker has no idea how to put it back together. Archer gives him the empty threat of do it in twelve hours or else (I'm assuming it's empty, since even the stupidly evil should see that understanding future tech isn't something you can bully someone into, and that removing your best engineer -by Archer's own admission- for someone else would make it less likely to work), and that they'll head straight to the front lines. T'Pol points out that the ship is operating with only ten percent of its normal crew (a crew that knew what it was doing, no doubt) and that they need to head for Earth, but Archer figures it'd be eaiser to just head straight to the front lines and risk blowing up Earth's last hope for victory because of his ego... so again, not too dissimilar from the regular Archer.

With that, everyone else is dismissed, except T'Pol, so that Archer can resolve the whole betraying him thing from last time. His neck during this is absolutely frightening; I kept expecting something to tear out and spray T'Pol with concentrated testosterone. She points out to him that she was just doing her duty in restoring the rightful captain, and with Forrest dead that makes Archer the rightful captain. He's still not happy, but he doesn't kill her. Instead he rants about how he never had a problem with her people until they joined the rebellion, because if there's one thing a mutineer hates, it's people who rebel against the designated authority.

neck #1 neck #2 neck #3

neck #2 neck #3

The sinewy necks of mirror Archer

After that, however, Archer gets down to the serious matter at hand, namely: changing into a TOS uniform (their own were destroyed with Enterprise and all they had with the suits they came over on) and bringing Hoshi over to pick up their seduction where they left off. So, he's homicidally enraged at T'Pol for a (probably bloodless) rescue of Forrest, but for the woman who tried to stab him to death in the same effort, he calls her over and acts like nothing happened. That Hoshi must be able to suck a photon torpedo through a garden hose, that's all I can figure. After pouring drinks, they start talking about themselves in the regular universe - Hoshi's a bit put off learning about her other self, but Archer is the real treat. Listening to the accomplishments of his counterpart (much greater than his own, of course) he rants like each word was a pingpong ball he was trying to spit at the wall, it's really quite an interesting bit of acting. He also acts really squirmy and fidgety, like a young child told to stand still for a photograph. On the whole, Archer's getting ready to crank the crazy up to eleven.

Meanwhile, Tucker starts arguing with one of his subordinates who reports that some parts were stolen in the last few minutes. Being Tucker, he thinks the parts just disconnected themselves and hid as a little game to play with the crew, so the poor schmuck is just told to go find them without any more thought on the matter. As you -a person with a brain capable of more than just fixing things and hitting on T'Pol- are obviously aware, there's still an alien on board (they even knew there was a reptillian on board, yet never caught one), and it quickly kills the poor dumb engineer. Apparently they can't pick up the saboteur on sensors, so they quickly leap into action the mirror universe way: take a blue fish slave and have Mayweather beat the shit out of him until he talks. I suppose in this case, it's at least a method likely to work. So Aquaman finally spills his guts and tells about the slavemaster, who's a Gorn.

The Gorn were a reptillian species who fought against Kirk in the episode Arena, where it was just Kirk and the Gorn captain fighting one on one on the rocky planet with no weapons under the control of the Metrons (a race that makes Richard Simmons look like a Hell's Angel). Kirk's brain had to outwit its brawn, though the two apparently have the same intelligence. I guess it proves so here, as the Gorn seems to be doing a pretty good job of outsmarting the mirror humans here. In the TOS episode, he was made form in a cheesy green costume (hey, it was the sixties, what more could have been expected?), while here, it's all CGI. Unfortunately, the CGI looks just as silly, if not moreso, than the costume. Ah well, special effects, what can you do.

Anyway, while Reed gives his report, Archer has another of his manic fits as a halucination of regular universe Archer appears and lightly mocks the other Archer's attempts. When the Gorn tries to negotiate, Archer demands all the parts back first, and despite the insistence of others that it's not unreasonable, Archer's really just gunning for an excuse to go in and kill it. Even in the turbolift, hallucination-Archer eggs him on to do it, and what better source of advice can you have than an imaginary representation of yourself? However, it seems ghost Archer may have overestimated his corporeal counterpart, as the group heads down to look for the Gorn and things go less than well. Reed's half of the team follow a trail to what they discover is a false sensor reading. Instead of asking himself why the Gorn did that, they all just let down their guard, so that the Gorn is able to blow them up with a bomb that was in plain view and had bright red lights on it. Really. Evil also = incompetent.

So Archer goes off with just one random MAKO to finish it off, since he's obviously better now than what he had three more guys helping him. On the way, they step over numerous dead Defiant crew members. What were you planning with that, Archer? Going to just leave them there until they bloated and exploded? I mean, you guys have clearly had a lot of time on your hands, what with you sitting around and thinking about how evil you are. Anyway, believe it or not, Archer gets ambushed by the Gorn, and the two wrestle on the floor for a while. The backup MAKO keeps whacking it on the back of the head with the butt of his rifle, but to no effect. Maybe you should use a stun setting, assuming the captain wants it alive? Then again, given the idiocy that populates the mirror universe, hitting with the butt of the rifle might very well be the stun setting. In any case, it was all moot, because after the Gorn finally kills the MACO, they trap it by increasing the grav plating, and Archer just shoots it. Poor MACOs; they should have just slipped those red shirts on and made it official.

So with the problem taken care of, the Defiant is repaired and heads into the front line, rescuing Admiral Black against the rebel forces (Telarites, Andorians, and Vulcans). Seeing the old Constitution-class swooping in and annihilating ships is admittedly a visually impressive scene, and it's more than enough to convince the enemy they're outmatched. Black is brought over, and Archer asks that he officially be made captain of the Defiant, but Black has enough sense to know that putting it in his crazy hands would be a mistake. Well, to prove how not crazy his is, hallucination-Archer shows up again and goads his physical self until Archer vaporizes the admiral. After that, he gives an empassioned speech to the crews of both ships about how the reason they've been losing the war is because incompetents are in charge, and he believes it's time they be removed and replaced with a man who listens to imaginary versions of himself.

We soon see Hoshi is slinking around Archer's bed. The two are framed in silhouette, so what exactly is going on is unclear. However, from the way he's moving, I'm pretty sure that Archer is jerking off while he talks about how much everyone thinks he can't cut it... which I think is perfectly in keeping with mirror Archer's character, don't you? When he's done with whatever it is he's doing he reveals his plan: get all the aliens off the Defiant and over to the other ship. Phlox will be the lone exception, seeing as how he's Archer's only doctor and his people aren't rebels.

While all this has been going on, T'Pol has been slowly spreading discord amongst aliens, first Phlox and now Soval (who's an officer on what was Black's flagship). She keeps pointing to the records of the Federation and how everyone within are considered equals, but everyone she mentions it to is leary. Especially with Soval, she's somehow become some kind of cat woman and she crawls around him talking about it all, like she was trying to seduce him. It's like watching a woman do a slow striptease while explaining the ramifications of gap insurance. She eventually says her plan is to download all useful tech data and then blow up the Defiant. Eventually Soval agrees to her plan, and the two persuade Phlox to do the deed, with promises of a nifty lab and lots of hot women. The latter is brought up by Soval, who makes the addition in a manner that cracks me up, probably because he does it like an elderly Amish man would.

Their plan is somewhat hampered when T'Pol's access to the schematics is discovered, but once again we get evil=stupid, as to deal with a being with three times human strength Archer has sent one MACO and Hoshi. The purpose for this is soon transparent, as the taking out of the MACO leads to a girl fight, like one of the sillier plots from a Cynthia Rothrock movie. They should've just skipped all the pretenses and gone for the bra-and-panties-pillow-fight (it would be no less absurd than all the decon scenes from the first two seasons). But just as T'Pol turns the tables on Hoshi, the MACO shoots her... and it's a stun! So, five minutes before the end of the second part, we can now confirm that all the times when stun would be useful, everyone forgot about it. Archer tries to get her to talk, and after seeing the agony booth, beatings, psychological warfare, and empty threats, we see that he now just figures she'll spill her guts with a few angry words. This may be the mirror universe, and people may torture and slaughter one another for absolutely no reason at all, but even evil incarnate won't stoop so low as to hit a girl.

As that's going on, Phlox has slipped in and removed a few components, which shows us that you can shut down the whole ship in two minutes by yanking out a few tubes. The other ship (the Avenger), begins blasting the Defiant, but Tucker went down to check on what the anomalies in the power grid were, and beats Phlox with a piece of equipment before putting the tubes back. Archer, true to his idiom, blows Avenger away, then has wild sex with Hoshi. But, of course, while Archer was busy giving his speech about he will one day Rule The Galaxy! he gets poisoned by Hoshi. Yes, see Archer, that's why when someone tries to kill you it's a good idea not to put them in a position so they can try again. I'm sure you could have had someone just as hot to replace her once you became emperor, as the ghost of Amish Jebediah Soval would probably have told him. While he's dying, Hoshi then begins making out with Mayweather, probably just to piss on him one last time. She then shows up over Earth and declares herself the new empress of the empire.

How this is going to work out is a mystery to me. If anyone who commands the Defiant can just make themselves emperor/empress, and as we've already seen anyone will betray anyone else for any reason at all, then it seems to me that nobody is going to really be able to hold onto the position for any length of time at all. The thing about the mirror universe is that the backbiting amongst people is so high that the system just isn't going to be able to sustain itself and will come crashing down. Now, we do know that the Terran Empire will collapse in less than two centuries, but ironically it will be because of reforms rather than the self-destructive nature of this system. In other words, while they were a backstabbing collection of anarchistic thugs, things ran smoothly, but as soon as all that changed, the whole thing fell apart. Let's face it, mirror universe = stupid.

Rating: 8

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"More like a Federation of Fools!" Archer, master of wit