The Orville season 2 episode 2 review: Bortus’ simulation addiction
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It was clear at the forefront of this episode that Bortus and Klyden were having problems with their marriage, and eventually, it got so bad that Klyden wanted to kill him — this is apparently custom for their people as a way of announcing that they want a divorce. Dr. Finn put the two into some counseling, but even at that point the principal problem was not clear: That Bortus was making a beeline for the simulator at any opportunity that he could.
On an emotional level, there were questions as to why in the world Bortus make a beeline towards this simulator as opposed to trying to actually talk through some of his issues. Eventually, we started to figure it out: Bortus held Klyden’s past decisions when it came to Topa against him. It caused a rift and because they weren’t talking about it, Bortus didn’t feel comfort with him. Instead, he looked elsewhere in order to get a little bit of comfort instead.
For most of this episode, this problem for Bortus was personal — however, one of his simulators actually contained a virus that ended up causing problems aboard a ship. This was especially problematic given that The Orville was doing their part to help a planet’s people who were about to be swallowed up by a sun. All of this story culminated with an action-packed series of events in space, ones that led to Bortus having to show that he could redeem himself in the middle of a mission to bring back 30 of the planet’s people.
The end of this episode was about Bortus’ redemption — while he did cause a massive problem for both himself and also everyone on board this ship, he did find a way to save lives and be a hero in the end. In the aftermath of this mission, Bortus did realize that he needed to speak with Klyden about how he was feeling and not running from his problems into a simulation.
CarterMatt Verdict
This was not your typical episode of The Orville, but really, what is? This episode was actually shot during season 1 and we do think that it did have a lot of what made those later episodes great — sure, there were some humorous moments and there was something about the simulation addiction that was ridiculous. Yet, the series played it straight and actually took the issue seriously. Even with its edgy-for-network-TV subject matter, there is a sort of earnestness to this show that makes it appealing and emotional in a way that you would not expect.
Despite everything that happened with Bortus tonight, there was a nice ending at the tail end of it.
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