The Orville S3 EP 8 Midnight Blue Illuminates The Need For An Orville Movie

“Our struggle for equality has always demanded risk and, if necessary, sacrifice!”- Heveena

EP 8 starts out rather mundane. Cmdr. Grayson and Bortus are having a drink in the Mess Hall casually discussing Topa’s newly acquired hostile attitude towards Bortus (or Papa as she calls him) and how frustrating it is to parent a child, especially when the child in question has a crush on a boy but refuses to give up the details. Papa (there is a difference between Lt. Cmdr. Bortus and Papa) then asks Kelly to have a chat with his grouchy spawn, just to make sure she’s OK and this is just a kid being a kid thing. Kelly agrees and the ensuing conversation is a strong but sweet moment of a mentor offering advice to her mentee without throwing any adult under the proverbial bus. From their conversation, Topa is emboldened to head straight over to her crush (right before school, I mean she is organized) and ask him out to dinner which is a definite flex except her crush is on Gordon and all joking aside, he does let her down gently. The other engineers however now have a new bone to gnaw on in the form of Lt Malloy’s pride and they really enjoy it.

Peter Macon as Lt. Cmdr Bortus and Adrianne Palicki as Cmdr. Grayson.

It’s that time of year again when delegates from both Moclus and The Planetary Union meet at The Sanctuary, the all-female moclan colony established as a safe haven for the outcasts who fled certain death on Moclus. Admiral Halsey requests Kelly and Bortus conduct The Union’s inspections and when Topa gets wind of the mission she begs Papa to take her with him and Kelly so Topa can meet her hero Heveena. Against better judgment Papa allows her to tag along (the struggle between Lt. Cmdr. and Papa was very real at that moment) and the fairly odd family heads down to the planet.

The treaty signed between the Union and Moclus allows the inhabitants to live as they wish without the threat of violence if delegates from Moclus and The Union are allowed to inspect the colony once a year to make sure all terms of the treaty are being followed, the most prominent term/demand out of the Moclans being that no one from the colony is allowed to assist any females born on Moclus in leaving the planet and seeking refuge at the Sanctuary. The inspection is supposed to be done jointly, however, the Moclans get there early and finish early (nothing suspicious there) but when Kelly and Borus arrive, the Moclan representative are startled and disgusted at the sight of Topa walking off the Union shuttle. Tempers flare but the rivals part ways and everything else goes as planned. Topa gets to meet Heveena and spend some much-needed time with her only for the triumph to turn into a tragedy.

A night that will live in infamy. Imani Pullum and Topa and Rena Owen as Heveena in The Orville: New Horizons EP8 Midnight Blue. All photos courtesy of Hulu

After the inspection Kelly, Bortus and Topa are invited to join the Double Moon festivities and get to know the colonists. Topa asks Papa if she could go look at the clouds of brightly lit flying insects that are gently flying about the edge of the colony, he agrees, and even Heveena joins her to watch them. Heveena, unfortunately, has an ulterior motive and ropes the young moclan into helping her maintain communication among the reestablished routes between Moclus and Sanctuary that are smuggling female moclans back to the colony, violating the treaty and putting many lives at risk. The Moclan delegates who everyone thought had left the planet overhear part of Heveena and Topa’s plan, lure her away from the colony and kidnap her, taking the child to a nearby uninhabited planet with the intent of torturing her for information. When it’s discovered that Topa is not only missing but not even on the planet, Bortus and Kelly head out to find her, their ship hobbled by Moclan sabotage and unable to communicate with the Orville.

A cameo that no one will ever forget.

Heveena is brought aboard the Orville with the hope that she can provide more information on what happened to Topa, Bortus, and Kelly. The more Heveena talks the more obvious it becomes to Captain Mercer that she knows more than she’s letting on, and when the truth comes out, Heveena refuses to help The Union in their efforts to coordinate an investigation into the kidnapping. Heveena is trying to protect everyone in the colony and those aiding the resistance on Moclus but her willingness to sacrifice Topa for the good of the many is misguided, and so Ed turns to Heveena’s own hero for help. Dolly may have been a simulation but with her advice and her song Try, she convinces Heveena to do the right thing and testify before the Union about what she knows and her involvement in breaking the Union treaty.

While the politics of the situation are being navigated, Cmdr. Grayson and Lt. Cmdr. Bortus go into full recon mode and, after storming the sparsely guarded compound, rescue Topa moments before she is murdered. Badly beaten both physically and emotionally, Topa requests that she be allowed to testify before the Union council before being treated for her injuries so that even the most hatefully indignant Moclan representative cannot refute the facts of Topa’s story. Moclus is expelled from the Planetary Union, and the colony is put under the protection of the Union making it a genuine sanctuary. We’ll have to wait and see if there are any repercussions against Heveena for what she enabled but at least the colony is protected. While Topa is being treated for her injuries back on the Orville, Klydon is invited aboard by Captain Mercer to visit Topa and begin to repair the damage his past hateful bigotry has caused everyone and it is a genuinely powerful scene.

One of the more powerful, if not the most powerful, episodes to date, Midnight Blue ushers us through some very relatable real-world situations like gender-based violence, zealotry for a cause no matter the cost, balancing politics with ethics, and the enticement of taking justice into our own hands and offers a look at how all of these affect society as a whole but it’s done without lecture or conceit. Visually Midnight Blue is mind-blowingly beautiful, the music score is spectacular and the cast, once again, was phenomenal. Adrianne, Peter, Imani, and Rena all performed their roles as though they were living them instead of participating in them, and it was utter magic. With everything, each episode highlights we definitely need a The Orville movie. Or more episodes. Or both. We’re flexible like that.

Mightnight Blue, along with all previous episodes of The Orville are available to stream right here on Hulu.