While visiting the female Moclan colony Heveena (Rena Owen) set up, Topa (Imani Pullum) is kidnapped by a Moclan inspection team. As Bortus and Kelly mount a rescue, Ed clashes with Heveena over why the girl was taken and the Union’s issues with the Moclan finally come to a head.

This is essentially a movie, clocking in at close to ninety minutes and it uses its time very well. It also uses its guest stars well and Pullum is excellent as Topa throughout. Her resolve, especially the final choice she makes here, is absolute without ever playing as stereotypical. Topa is a terrified little girl, but she’s also making a stand for something bigger than she is. Heveena may inspire her to do this, but it’s Topa who redeems Haveena, with a little help from Ed and a guest star we’ll get to shortly.

Rena Owen has the hardest job here and not only nails it but cements her position as the show’s best guest star. Heveena still has that quiet, clenched determination and kindness but Brannon Braga and Andre Bormanis’ script develops her in two fascinating ways. The first is that, with her sanctuary world intact, Heveena is standing up on her foundation and breaking the law for what she’s sure are good reasons. Those reasons lead her to recruit Topa as functionally a child soldier and are directly responsible for getting her kidnapped and beaten and there is no good way to look at that. Heveena may not be the biggest villain in the episode but in the first half sure she’s certainly a villain.

Heveena’s second development comes in the second half and with the assistance of Dolly Parton.

This really is a swing only The Orville could take and it’s a home run. Having established Dolly’s music as key to the Moclan female movement, the show, and Ed, cleverly put Heveena in a simulation with Dolly. It could so easily be cheesy but her honest compassion, coupled with the song that plays over the crew rolling out to protect their baby sister, is determined and poignant and unique to this show.

It also wakes Heveena up and  Owen does great work in the second half of the episode as the Moclan leader stops instigating and starts building. Along with Topa and Bortus she becomes an architect of what the Moclan will become, not the bigoted, terrified race they are.

That brings us to Bortus and Kelly and the more traditional element of the show. Macon and Palicki bounce off each other very well and the show not only plays with that friendship but also hints at a romance which feels much more organic than the John/Talla relationship last week. It also leads to a vital moment where Bortus beats the Moclan torturing his daughter half to death and only stops because Kelly tells him to. It’s a rough scene, in a plot that forms the backbone of the episode and delivers some nicely handled and unromanticized action that balances and plays well with the core issue of the episode.

It also leads to the show’s final surprise: Klyden. Chad Coleman returns here and has two scenes that bring the whole episode into land. Klyden’s grief-struck apology to his daughter is incredible, honest and raw and frantic. The moment where he asks Kelly, someone he tried to attack the last time he was on the show, for dinner, is if anything better. The two are still cautious, still circling one another but Klyden’s gentle, wry smile as the episode closes suggests that peace really has broken out. A relationship renegotiated and echoing that of the two peoples involved.

Verdict: A massive, ambitious piece of TV that changes the show it’s part of forever and never loses sight of its heart. This is one of The Orville’s finest hours in a season that’s increasingly full of them. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart