"I think that at some point -- possibly soon -- the person he is and the person he was are going to collide with each other."
REVIEW: Though The Orville is based on Berman-era Trek, it would be true to say those shows always lagged in terms of LGBTQ+ issues, while The Orville takes those issues head on, especially in the Moclan episodes. Though Bortus doesn't share those sentiments, the ugly side of this warrior culture is its profound misogyny, better typified through Klyden, who always comes off as a villain in these things. But he speaks for all the other "untainted" Moclans in these matters. In the first season, the two of them had a child and it was "aberrantly" female, leading to a landmark court case that saw Topa's sex changed. It was shockingly brave to not only address such things, but to have it end on such a downer. Now Topa is a teenager and despondent indeed. It's a trans story, filled with heartbreak and poignancy.
Topa thinks of joining the fleet because something's missing in his life. He feels incomplete and feels something is wrong with him. But the sad youth is drawn to Kelly as a role model and she agrees to mentor him (so we get some good day-in-the-life of an XO out of it), but the kid continues to have dark thoughts, and once Klyden decides Topa shouldn't be interacting with a female (a female who can kick his ass and at one point, gets to), those thoughts turn to suicide. We can question Kelly's breach of ethics, pointing Topa in the direction of classified information concerning the trial and her origins, but she's let off the hook a little bit by Bortus being the one who lets Topa read the sealed files. This is, by the way, a very good episode for Bortus. Peter Macon gets to show a wide range of emotion (not easy for a Worf-like character) and even sing (Nature Boy seems redolent with meaning without being on the nose at all). With the cat out of the bag, Topa is quick to assume a female identity, one that could be restored surgically. And without ever resorting to trite "in the 21st Century, X and Y, we've moved on since then" material (which Trek was often guilty of), we get strong parallels with trans struggles today. Klyden paints Kelly as a "groomer" who has someone imposed her femaleness on Topa (as if such things were communicable), and there's a generation gap at play where Klyden's own terrible experience finding out he had been born female is part of why he doesn't want Topa to know, but Topa is growing up in a more permissive and open-minded environment that doesn't send her into despair when she does. In fact, denying her gender identity would be worse for her.
And then there's the politics of all this. If a Union doctor performs the surgery (which Bortus has consented to, even if Klyden has not), Moclus is liable to pull out of the alliance. The Union just lost the Krill, it can't afford to lose another well-armed ally. So the Orville is ordered not to proceed. Claire is ready to leave the service over it, but Isaac isn't not an actual Union officer and can be programmed to do the procedure, so he volunteers. Plausible deniability (the singing distraction) doesn't prevent an Admiral from tearing Ed and Kelly a new one, but a change of make-up, dress and performance makes Topa female again. It's notable that when she looks at herself in the mirror, it's the first time we see the character smile. There's a lightness to her from then on, and a humanity that female Moclans have, and males tend not to. Dramatically, it's the sense that Topa is now living her true life. The show has generally tried to find ways to shoehorn space battles this season, and there's certainly an opening to do so, but surprisingly, the Moclans do NOT drop out of the alliance and use the fact that a Kaylon was responsible to justify greater zeal to win the war. In other words, the Orville got lucky. So did we, because splashy effects at the back end would have taken away from the human story. As for Klyden's threat that he would leave Bortus over this (which is suggested to be a violent affair), it's going to have to wait. The show doesn't ruin on Topa's parade here, but there are certainly ramifications to address. I do think they missed a trick by making Isaac's motivation be the improvement of his relations with the rest of the crew (who like Topa and thus might like him more), rather than a concern over Claire possibly leaving the ship, but perhaps we've gone down this road before with him. Regardless, it looks like Claire is impressed enough to resume relations with him.
A quick mention of the B-plot, if we can call it that, which has the Orville assist archaeologists in a dig. It's just background with very thin thematic links to the main story (digging up the past, finding out what a long-lost people were like genetically) and a couple gags. They might have done more with this, but it would have pulled focus from the real story, so let's accept it and move on.
WHERE SOMEONE HAS GONE BEFORE: One might say TNG attempted such an episode with "The Outcast", but it was largely a failure, so I will say that indeed, no Trek has gone this far before. The Union Standard calendar gives dates as long numbers, like Star Trek's stardates.
REWATCHABILITY: High - A powerful story with tangible impacts on the rest of the season. It's hard not to get a little weepy watching it.
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