Spoilers follow. You have been warned.

This week’s episode wasted no time in getting to the meat of the matter, picking up where last week’s episode left off, with no recap. Gordon lightened the mood a little the tension quickly picks up when Talla is shot trying to protect Ty and that tension keeps up for pretty much the entire episode after that. This review will not be a blow-by-blow recap of the episode, but rather, a breakdown of what made the episode tick.

Use of Characters

One of the major things that works well for this episode is its use of characters.

Ed shines as a captain making tough decisions. He has to find a balance between protecting the Union as a whole, and protecting the crew entrusted to him, and there are no easy answers.

Kelly devises the idea and takes the risk of escaping to get help from The Krill.

Bortus takes out the guards so Kelly and Gordon can escape.

Gordon’s skills and ingenuity save Kelly more than once, and he’s instrumental in the final battle as well.

LaMarr devises the plan to mask the message to Union Central, and is instrumental in the final battle.

Talla tries to do her best as Security Chief, although based on the circumstances, she can’t succeed.

Claire saves Talla’s life.

Marcus convinces Claire to let Ty help.

Ty and Yaphit are the MVP’s of this episode, successfully getting the message to Union Central and saving Isaac “emotionally” and physically respectively.

And of course, Isaac played a major role. We’ll get to that later.

The Story

The story itself was thrilling to watch. There was no lack of danger or suspense but best of all, there were no plot holes to speak of. What was presented was quite believable. The Kaylons were not dumbed down, but lived up to their claims of intelligence. They were wise to the things you would expect them to took believable steps to counter. One of the things that made it believable was the presence of failures.

Talla getting shot.

Ed and Isaac failing to save the officer from being blown out the airlock.

Ed’s initial failure to warn the Union and the resulting destruction of an entire vessel and crew.

The countless deaths in the final battle.

Ed and Isaac failing to save the officer from being blown out the airlock.

These things give the story gravity and establish that the stakes are very real. They also makes the triumphs much more earned and satisfactory.

They also explained a lot of things that could have become plot holes.

Isaac was made after the other Kaylons. This explains his difference in appearance (blue eyes and accents)

The ship was dark for most of this episode to help set the tone, but this was explained by the Kaylons saying that additional lighting was an inefficient use of energy.

The Admiral established the it would take weeks to call back the entire fleet. This is important because the Union is obviously very big, comprising of many races, but it would have been implausible for all of the fleet to have made it back there at that short notice.

Isaac was made after the other Kaylons. This explains his difference in appearance

Throw a little suspense in there, and you have a great hour of television. Getting the shuttle through the closing doors, evading destruction with a super quantum jump, Yaphit taking on the Kaylons, Ed’s attempt to destroy The Orville and Isaac’s order to terminate Ty are just examples of the tension and suspense that made this episode such a thrilling ride.

Getting the shuttle through the closing doors

The Heart

The Orville has already proven that a story about a robot can be full of heart and emotion, so it should come as no shock that there was no lack of heart when it came to Isaac this week. Writer, Seth MacFarlene really accentuated the bond that has developed between Isaac and Ty. throughout the entire two-parter, Ty never accepted that Isaac would turn on him. Throughout this episode, they sowed seeds of Isaac’s affinity for the crew, with Primary questioning his motives more than once. However, the crowning moment was when Isaac could not bring himself to terminate Ty, and turned on his own people instead. This payoff felt really earned and this is what makes The Orville special… the heart of it all.

This payoff felt really earned and this is what makes The Orville special… the heart of it all.

Epic space battles and CGI is great, but it’s also empty if we don’t feel something for the characters at the center of it. You feel the emotion in the crew going from great disappointment at Isaac’s betrayal to fighting for him in the end. Claire’s commitment to forgiveness, Ed’s endorsement of Isaac and stance for his rights not to be violated and Yaphit being the one to reactivate him, despite wanting Claire for himself. And let’s not forget Isaac disabling himself in a callback to the song Gordon sang to him in Part 1.

My heart is so disguised

I just can’t live a lie anymore

I would rather hurt myself

Than to ever make you cry

There’s nothing left to say, but goodbye

This was the perfect emotional callback and payoff to the first part of this story.

The Scale

I can’t wrap a review of this episode, though, without talking about the share scale of it all. This is the biggest space battle I have ever seen on television. It brought back memories of Deep Space Nine’s “Sacrifice of Angels” battle, but this was in a class of it’s own. The entire scenario and the scope of what was visualized in the battle itself was movie-quality, and I would venture to say, better than stuff produced for some big-screen productions. The final approach to earth across the surface of the moon was perfect. There was even a hull breach and we got to see some of the crew blown into space.

The Krill coming in just served to take what was already huge, and elevate it to unbelievable heights for a television show.

Conclusion

So that’s my review of Identity, Part 2. There’s so much more that can be dug into in depth but I’ll save that for future posts. If I had to rate this it would probably have to be 10/10. Brilliant execution which did not disappoint.

