Welcome Wolf 359 friends and fans to this Valentine’s Day installment of Wolf 359 Daily! Today is Mission Day 631, and we’re taking a look at Episode 21: “Minkowski Commanding.”
Y’all have no idea how excited I am that it’s “Minkowski Commanding” day, I love this episode so dang much. Commander Minkowski has had a lot to deal with for the last six-hundred odd days, she deserves a little nemesis battle for most of the month of February. As a treat. We all cope with stress in our own ways, and for some people that involves creating an incredibly hazardous work environment with acid traps. It’s fine.
Yes, all told Minkowski does spend about twenty days playing chess with the plant monster in the air vents. The episode begins here on day 6 of her mission, meaning she started her hunt the next day after “The Paranoia Game.” The hunt doesn’t conclude until Mission Day 645, running right up to the start of “Mutually Assured Destruction.” So, y’know, as you go through the second half of February, spare a thought for Minkowski still crawling around in the vents. Or maybe think of Eiffel, who’s going to spend the next two weeks dodging nets and bullet ricochets. He might need the thoughts more.
This episode is so great for so many reasons, but most of all I do love seeing the bit of role reversal between Minkowski and Eiffel here. She’s sunk teeth and claws into her objective of getting rid of the plant monster at last, leaving Eiffel to be the “responsible” one, continuing to keep up with station maintenance. A lot of things have gone sideways on Minkowski in this mission. While Eiffel and Hera talked in “Bach to the Future” about how they’d been sent on this mission more for what they are than any particular skills, I wonder if Minkowski has had similar thoughts about her role. After Hilbert’s mutiny, she knew she was never really in charge of this mission, and hearing about Lovelace’s crew, she’s probably realized by now that she’d been sent along just to babysit another doomed mission.
Minkowski just so needs this, to get something 100% resolved for once, so she goes a little feral over it. Honestly, there’ve been times I’ve related very strongly to that feeling. When Wolf 359 was originally airing, I was in the middle of changing careers. The thoughts that I’d just wasted five years and accrued thousands of dollars of debt getting an education degree, that I was putting all my eggs in the basket of a 13-hour-a-day, 6-day-a-week coding bootcamp with no guarantee that I would actually manage to make the jump to a tech career, were awful and persistent. But we started every day with a toy problem and it just became the daily mantra that goddammit, if I can just write this function to turn a number into Roman numerals, maybe everything will work out.
So yes, this episode resonates very deeply with me and is high in my favorites. This episode is also the second episode of the series written by Sarah Shachat. To my immense shame, I missed calling out her first episode, “Let’s Kill Hilbert,” in our double-header with “Happy to Be of Assistance.” Perhaps I can earn her forgiveness by talking about how “Minkowski Commanding” probably has the greatest density of my favorite lines of any episode. Hera’s announcement about the bullet holes in the ceiling of the mess, particularly the “should someone with hands do something about that?” has me wheezing every time. This episode also gives us the iconic “I’m the commander. I don’t have to ‘agree’ to anything” line, which would feature on Minkowski merch in the Wolf 359 store. My all time favorite, though, is “I am in charge of this disaster.” After the series finale, I actually got a tattoo of that line with a harpoon on my arm. I love it.
In the end, not everything goes as planned for Minkowski, despite her dogged efforts for nearly three weeks. When she finally finds the plant monster’s lair, she discovers that it stole the screwdriver to make itself a nightlight. I guess Pryce & Carter #946 holds true: Statistically, most things are afraid of the dark. This information, along with Eiffel getting stuck in an acid trap, bring Minkowski to talk down the standoff with the plant monster. Ultimately, they agree to live and let live. I do really enjoy how much Minkowski treats the plant monster like an adversary. We’ll get the chance to contrast that with certain other Goddard employee’s handling of the situation in future episodes.
But wait, we still have the fantastic fake-out. Just as things seemed to be winding down, including the end credits theme starting up, we suddenly have a proximity warning! An incoming ship! And it’s Captain Lovelace!? We just spent the first half of the season talking about how totally dead she and her crew are, but then! I love this twist so much, it just tickles me every time, and also we’ll be hearing much more of Cecelia Lynn-Jacobs from here on out, which is freaking amazing.
Oh, and before we go, this was one of the few episodes that didn’t have Zach Valenti reading the intro and credits. I really appreciate that touch, that for “Minkowski Commanding,” we get Minkowski taking the lead from the very intro.
Alright, it’s time to leave Minkowski to her plant monster madness for a while. We’ll be back again on February 28 for Episode 22: “Mutually Assured Destruction.” Hope to see you then!
Today’s rejected Pryce & Carter tip:
Never beat around the bush. If you see the bush, you’ve got to hammer that thing before it becomes too powerful to be stopped.
Wolf 359 Daily is written and recorded by Rina Cerame.
Wolf 359 is a product of Kinda Evil Genius Productions. More information on the show can be found on their website at wolf359.fm
We hope you’ll join us again on February 28 for Episode 22: “Mutually Assured Destruction.” Thanks for listening!
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