Synopsis: The Enterprise crew returns to Earth and must adjust to change.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how difficult it can be for the Logos-driven rational conscious ego to incorporate bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Home,” after saving Earth from annihilation, the Enterprise crew returns to Earth to find that they have changed as well as the planet. Captain Jonathan Archer is debriefed and forced to face how some of the decisions he made in the Delphic Expanse, while they led to the successful completion of the mission, haunt him. Earth itself has become more xenophobic, which Dr. Phlox Lt. Malcolm Reed, and Ensign Travis Mayweather learn in a nasty confrontation in a bar. Meanwhile, T’Pol takes Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker III to Vulcan, to find that her mother’s position there has been altered due to her actions, and because of this decides not to cancel her impending wedding to Koss.
In this episode, the character of Archer, forced to confront choices he made that are not what he would have normally done but were necessary, can be analogized to what the conscious ego feels like when it loses complete control and allows bits of material from the unconscious to guide its actions. Because our society is so bound to honor the traits society has considered positive and abhorring some acts that are instinctive and hostile, yet vital, this can be seen as a defeat. In actuality, what Archer did in the Expanse was necessary to save Earth, and if he had only acted in a way consistent with societal pressures, Earth would have been destroyed. This is a very difficult lesson to learn in our culture, but one that is necessary if the ego is to become more balanced and the psyche more whole.
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