Synopsis: Captain Archer is abducted by a Tellurite bounty hunter while on Enterprise Sub-Commander T’Pol must deal with a microbial infection from an away mission.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what can happen when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious into itself, and what happens when it doesn’t.
In “Bounty,” Captain Jonathan Archer is captured by a Tellurite bounty hunter, Skalaar, responding to an offer made by the Klingons to bring Archer in, dead or alive, for 9,000 darseks. Meanwhile, on Enterprise Sub-Commander T’Pol and Dr. Phlox return from an away mission infected by some sort of microbe. This microbe causes T’Pol to enter the pon farr, the time of blood fever, and as she tells Phlox, she must mate or die. While on Skalaar’s ship traveling to rendezvous with the Klingon Captain Goroth, who will pay him his due, Skalaar reveals to Archer that the reason he is working for the bounty is that he wants to get his former cargo ship out of Klingon impound. Just then, Skalaar’s current vessel is attacked by another bounty hunter, who demands that he turn over Archer to him. Both ships are damaged and forced to land on a planet. Archer does everything he can to escape from Skalaar, from telling him that the Klingons will not come through with the bounty to trying to sabotage Skalaar’s ship instead of helping with repairs. Skalaar then learns that his cargo vessel was cannibalized by the Klingons, and he agrees to help Archer escape their custody. During that same time on Enterprise, T’Pol’s need to mate is making her irrational and she has to be subdued by force so that Phlox may save her life with a serum.
In this episode, similar to how in the last one Archer was compared to the conscious ego when it is too one-sided, here it is T’Pol whose Logos-driven conscious one-sided ego is forced to acknowledge the unconscious instincts of pon farr. Because the irrational urges have been suppressed for so long, this leads to psychic and physical pain. Meanwhile, Archer here can be compared to an ego that has acknowledged and integrated bits of unconscious material into itself, so that he is successful in navigating a situation that takes finesse and a bit of irrational persuasion to save himself. The episode therefore does look at two ways in which the conscious ego relates to unconscious material, but it is only through the integration of these bits of our psyche that it becomes more whole and the ego stronger.
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