Welcome back Wolf 359 friends and fans to another installment of Wolf 359 Daily! It’s February 28, making it Mission Day 645. Let’s dive into Episode 22: “Mutually Assured Destruction.”
Alrighty folks, today is a big, big day for the Hephaestus mission. Captain Lovelace is officially in the building. We get a great cold open on this episode with the Minkowski-Lovelace standoff right at the top. Here we are, fresh off some great absurdity and shenanigans with the plant monster hunt, and suddenly things have just gone right off the rails. Oh, you thought the plant monster was the weirdest thing on this station? Surprise, we’re bringing people back from the dead now.
I do have to say, I love moments like this for Minkowski. So much of the time she’s trying very hard to be a textbook example of a Good Commander™, but so far that has not worked out great for her most of the time. But we do get these moments where the rubber is hitting the road and there’s not time to think about “what’s the right thing a commander would do.” There’s only protecting the crew, and she does that with every fiber of her being.
For a little trivia on this standoff scene as well, it tickles me that the command code for the Hephaestus station is “Vulcan.” We get quite a bit of fun namesake interplay on the station, what with Hera being the mother program of the Hephaestus station, where the goddess Hera was the god Hephaestus’s mother. Likewise, Rhea was the mother program before Hera, and Rhea was the titan who was mother to the gods, including Hera. The authentication code for the station, “Vulcan,” is the Roman name for the god Hephaestus. Love this stuff.
But for real, I’m so excited that we’ve entered the Lovelace Era. Every time I come around to these first episodes with her, though, I forget how intense she is. The confrontation with Hilbert in particular. I mean, I don’t think she ever stops being intense, but when she first arrives back on the station it’s just such a contrast to the way Minkowski and Eiffel have been. Where Minkowski was willing to starve, bribe, and threaten Hilbert for information, Lovelace goes straight for choking. Granted, I guess we should consider that, while it’s been years since the last mission, as far as Lovelace is aware she just went into cryo-sleep after knocking Selberg out to make her escape. So this isn’t so much a case of going from 0 to 100 in six seconds, she was already just going that fast.
By the way, massive spoiler alert for the end of season 3, pause now or forever hold your peace: We could sit here and talk about how “Um actually, this isn’t Lovelace coming ‘back’ because the ‘real’ Lovelace did fall into the star and die.” But that’s honestly not as fun to me. Like, it is very fun to think about on a metaphysical level, if you died but miraculously a copy was made of you that had all your memories and physically was just like you, and didn’t know it was a copy, would that just be you, et cetera, et cetera. To me, in every way that matters, she’s Lovelace, and she’s back. The best part, to me, is that this doesn’t even seem like a “came back wrong” situation. Captain Lovelace came back exactly the way she was, and that’s now everyone’s problem.
We do get a few fun little seeds that something very odd has happened with Lovelace’s return (besides the obvious fact of the return itself). Hera finds that the shuttle’s navigation computer was completely clean, as if it had just been turned on. She also finds the shuttle’s composition includes a few mystery components that she can’t reconcile with past station blueprints. Not gonna lie, the first time around I did fully think it was just Goddard being dicks and sending Lovelace back to screw with everyone. What can I say, I’m a first-thought-best-thought kinda gal.
All the intense stuff aside, it was really nice to get a minute when Eiffel and Lovelace were talking. Though it didn’t last long, it’s great to have a moment to kind of unwind things and talk about the absolutely absurd things that have happened, like the plant monster and the empty man. And like, when’s the last time any of these folks just had a laugh. At least without it being a semi-hysterical and exhausted one.
Alas, it doesn’t last long, since soon Lovelace coups them so fast and effectively it stuns me every time. Honestly, gold star for Lovelace, the Hephaestus Takeover Grand Champion. Turns out having a nuke on a deadman switch is much more effective for taking control than knockout gas. The rest of this season’s going to come on fast, and Lovelace has more or less become the Big Bad for this arc. It’s so weird coming back to this period of the show, because I remember being so aggravated with Lovelace on the first listen. Like, how dare she just come in here and hold a bomb over everyone and plan to blow up Hera? But let’s be real, the Big Bad is as it ever was: poor communication. They’ll talk about how blowing up the station means killing Hera, and how that’s a bad plan. At some point. Eventually.
Alright, I think we’ll wrap up here for this installment. We’ve got a busy month ahead, as we’ll be covering the entire remainder of season 2 over the next three weeks. For now, we’ll see you again on March 10 for Episode 23: “No Pressure.”
Today’s rejected Pryce & Carter tip:
Never use a long word when a short-barrel shotgun will do.
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 March 10 for Episode 23: “Mutually Assured Destruction.” Thanks for listening!
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