Finally listened to The Delta Flyers episode recapping "Shattered," my all-time, all-series favorite episode of Star Trek. Robbie and Garrett did a great job for a lot of reasons, including excellent character insights, wonderful behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and tons of Janeway/Chakotay shipper joy. But I want to talk about their take on the end of the episode, because their interpretation differs from my own in an interesting way.
As we all know, just before the timeline gets reset, Past Janeway pulls aside Present Chakotay and asks "just how close do we get?" He replies "let's just say there are some barriers we've never crossed."
I know some people think this indicates a platonic friendship. I disagree. Janeway asking the question at all indicates that she has romantic feelings for Chakotay, and Chakotay giving a cagey non-answer instead of shutting her down indicates that he has feelings right back.
My interpretation has always been that "barriers we've never crossed" means "we both know there's something here and we've toed the line a few times, but we've never publicly acknowledged our feelings for each other."
Robbie and Garrett, on the other hand, have the opposite, and possibly even shippier, interpretation. They believe that the "barriers we've never crossed" exchange proves that Janeway and Chakotay HAVE openly talked about their feelings, and have mutually decided to set them aside for the good of the mission.
And... I don't hate this read? At the very least, it brings a whole new level of poignancy to the end of Prodigy's "Cracked Mirror," the spiritual successor to "Shattered." In the corresponding scene in that episode, Janeway and Chakotay launch themselves into each other's arms, he tells her he's been dreaming of this moment, and she assures him he's home.
This scene is beautiful as-is, but if we view it as a bookend to an earlier hypothetical conversation on Voyager where Janeway and Chakotay plainly admitted their love but acknowledged they couldn't act on it? It's pretty damn perfect.
