Kotik wrote:The first real argument was the infamous decon scene. It may have been added for shameless titilation, but it offers two important things:
- It's their first real argument and by Trip's later admission it is the point at which he realized that there is some kind of chemistry between them
- Same goes IMHO for T'Pol. There is no logical reason for her to let Trip fondle her ears. Not only does she end the contact quite belatedly, she also 'returns the gesture', when she caresses Trip's ears.
I think from that point on the direction is clear and it isn't surprising that it is Trip, who convinces her that she should continue the mission, while Archer is in sickbay
Many say that "Breaking the ice" is where their long way towards each other begins, but I think this episode was more meant to hammer the point home for those who hadn't yet gotten the clue that their interaction was different.
I couldn't agree more! Their interactions are very different!
For example, she let Trip fondle her ears and run his finger inside the waistband of her shorts (totally unnecessary!), but in "The Andorian Incident," she is extremely reluctant to even share the corner of a blanket with a fully-clothed Archer. And was it my imagination, or did she spend way more time than was necessary rubbing that decon gel on Trip's back? Maybe she was just being thorough, but I swear she went over the same areas several times. In contrast, she seemed much more detached in "A Night in Sickbay" when she applied it to Archer. It was far more clinical.
Here's another example: At the end of "Sleeping Dogs," when Hoshi, T'Pol, and Reed are in decon, Hoshi and Reed are smushed right up against each other, while T'Pol has several inches of space between herself and Hoshi. We had just gotten an episode where T'Pol and Hoshi make a connection. It would have been perfectly natural to see all three of them literally rubbing shoulders, yet T'Pol is still physically separate from the others. I think Trip would have been all up in her personal space if he'd been on that bench.