"La'an also provided I think a really classic noir trope too, which is not only the paranoia, but looking at the person closest to you to gage whether you are paranoid or not. And we used Spock as their love angle to represent that. And I think they were a great pairing because they're going through some relationship stuff this season. Using him as that backboard for her own psychological breakdown I think is really really fun."

Now Spock can't give her the slightest benefit of the doubt and worse, the show makes it look like he doesn't even care about La'an's feelings.

All the intimacy and understanding and connection between them suddenly gone without an explanation (because the show doesn't take time to actually explore their feelings and relationship).

And apparently they don't talk about anything anymore because he didn't know about her worrying so much about her Augment side and the appointments with Christine.

Once again I'm left with the feeling after the episode that there was not enough focus and too much left out to explain the changes between La'an and Spock, those real conversations about them addressing their issues and where they're standing with each other.

The amount of sloppy backpaddeling from what they started and already did build between them last season and not even giving them real scenes together to sell the break-up with emotional payoff is very annoying and frustrating to watch.

At least they looked very pretty in black and white.

Imagining a Spock & La’an wedding because Ethan and Christina are (apparently “officially”) engaged 💍🥹

I need to make a fan-art of these two lovebirds tying the knot so bad.

So there's not that much to talk about since the episode didn't give us much. I still think the episode is overall very fun and it gave us "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in the original Klingon which is just fantastic, but some stuff in the episode just rubbed me the wrong way.

the only Spocklaan "scene" at the beginning of the episode and I'm putting that in quotation marks because we didn't even get to see their conversation.

that's actually one of the show's problems when it comes to developing the romantic pairings, not just La'an and Spock but the others as well - that so many important scenes and interactions between the characters are not shown on screen and instead the show jumps from point A to F with the audience having to fill in the gaps. In this case here, we don't get to see La'an and Spock addressing their feelings and status of their relationship in the aftermath of the events of last week's episode (but that is something that really should have been shown) and instead get presented with them spending shore leave separately

Spock trying to calm down La'an is hopefully a foreshadow that he will be the one helping her deal with her issues. He knows her better than anyone else (apart from maybe Una but we haven't seen much of that friendship so far either) and just like last season, he's the best fit to help her, so he better stop being a shitty boyfriend.

still side by side even while on shaky ground

Spock looks very fine which is makes it such a shame we didn't get a scene with him and La'an because she also looked so fine. It's just not fair!

still campaigning for the fix-it AU story with La'an and Spock having a shotgun wedding and destroying the hotel suite with their passion under the influence of the planet (ohhh, what if the planet triggers Spock's Pon Farr???). We can also add a shore leave leading to an unplanned pregnancy plot if we want to be greedy.

Spock's story with plants and seeing plants was incredible funny. (you just have to love cactus Ortegas, pot included)

That should have been his adventure, seeing everyone as plants, and not the Kirk hallucinations that made zero sense beyond the obvious that the show just needed an excuse to shove Kirk into the episode. They didn't have a single moment that even indicated some kind of friendship in the previous episode but suddenly Spock's hallucinating him as his bestie? Sure, Jane.

also people praising the fanservice despite bluntly breaking canon are not allowed to criticize the show for so much as scratching other canon ever again! Either you care about established canon and continuity or you don't, but you can't have the cake and also eat it!

on the other hand, Spock using Kirk as his imaginary therapy dog and telling him everything means he's spend the whole time talking about nothing but how much he loves La'an and how he wants to make things right between them again and asks Kirk for advice/help. We don't know what Spock actually talked about so can't prove me wrong.

and Kirk's all supportive and down to helping bring Spock and La'an closer together again. He said they're perfect for each other last episode and Holo-Kirk also shipped them.

that would actually be a funny plot with Kirk just constantly showing up on the Enterprise to fix everyone else's love life because he can't fix his own mess with Carol.

Spock saying they should take La'an as muscle because that's still his wife and it gives her an outlet for her aggression. He knew she would f*** up that gang and that's what she did!!!

Spock talking about La'an being scarier - don't pretend like that doesn't turn you on, Spock, I've seen your reaction as Human Spock

also reminded me of the parallel with Ring of Fire in which Spock loose it and has this deeply violent outburst that makes everyone worried about him but on the show it's the other way around and La'an is the troublemaker. Again La'an and Spock matching each other's journey and character arcs across different media and La'an isn't the only one with a dark side.

La'an trying to turn a relaxation class into an Anbo-Jyutsu tournament to the death 😂

and snatching Scotty's shirt to become the alpha dog!

but I help but feel annoyed at how the show portrays La'an this season so far and constantly doubles down on her violent Augment side being activated and make that her entire personality while ignoring her character development last season. Guess she's not allowed to dance anymore. We know it's going to be resolved in some way with La'an finding self-acceptance, and since she'll still part of the crew in the final season, she's not going to turn evil.

this made me so sad for La'an because as others already pointed out no one on the ship seems to take her struggles seriously and she ends up sitting basically by herself outside the circle. She sees the crew as her family but it's sad little that family seems to care about her struggles. She deserves better!

Me and my last functioning brain cells after the episode:

Well, that's it.

Here's to hoping next episode will have some more and positive Spocklaan stuff to talk about.