Friday’s Child Ending

[cgervasi]

I do not understand what happens in the last act of Friday’s Child.

Why does Eleen tell the Maab that she killed her baby and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy? Maybe she was doing it to get them to stop the search because she wanted to help McCoy who helped her by delivering the baby. It seems like a short-term solution, though, since word of the survival of the heir to the throne and three high-ranking foreign officers who were tangentially involved in a recent coup would certainly get out. It’s not like she could say they were dead and no Capellans would ever think of them again.

Why does Eleen have to die even if the baby is dead? It doesn’t seem like she’s the sort to challenge Maab for the throne. I thought the concern was the baby would grow up to be powerful and challenge Maab.

When Kirk and Spock appear, why doesn’t Maab care that Eleen has just lied to him about a key fact? His main objective was to kill the baby and arrest or kill Kirk and Spock. This seems like a major betrayal. Are they saying Maab had a secret love for her?

When Eleen tells Maab she will flee, does she mean to goad the Klingon into shooting at her, giving Maab a chance to attack the Klingon. Or does she really want to risk lives to flee so she can commit suicide at home?

At the beginning they said the Capellans’ kleegats were as deadly as a phaser up to 100 yards. But when the injured Klingon pulls a Type 1 phaser, the Capellans are suddenly afraid to attack. Why not? They similarly don’t attack Scotty’s party, which was armed with Type 2 phasers.

In the final fight scene, Kirk and Spock are doing holding up very well with their makeshift bows and arrows. Once the Klingon and Maab kill each other, Kirk and Spock suddenly surrender. Why surrender at that moment? They had more arrows and fewer people to fight. Is it because they thought with Maab dead Eleen would have the authority/sway to be sure the Capellans released them? Or is it that their whole plan was to goad the Klingon into taking rash action so that the he and the Capellans would fight each other and not fight Kirk and Spock?

 

[Spock's Barber]

I do not understand what happens in the last act of Friday’s Child.

Maybe the guys playing the Capellans just wanted to get out of their Telletubbie costumes.

 

[Push The Button]

The prime directive is absolute and inviolable, except when it isn’t.

 

[Phaser Two]

Why does Eleen tell the Maab that she killed her baby and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy? Maybe she was doing it to get them to stop the search because she wanted to help McCoy who helped her by delivering the baby. It seems like a short-term solution, though, since word of the survival of the heir to the throne and three high-ranking foreign officers who were tangentially involved in a recent coup would certainly get out. It’s not like she could say they were dead and no Capellans would ever think of them again.

Eleen is quite intelligent and her motives are complex. When she attacks McCoy and flees the cave, it appears as though she's selling the Starfleet members out to save herself, or to betray them and die in apparent peace as she was prepared to do before. However, she is really stalling in the hopes that the Starfleet ship (of which she has heard discussion) will arrive and she and her child shall both live, and in power no less. Hence, she claims that K/S/M and the baby are dead and asks to die in her own tent according to law, a request that Maab immediately honors.

Why does Eleen have to die even if the baby is dead? It doesn’t seem like she’s the sort to challenge Maab for the throne. I thought the concern was the baby would grow up to be powerful and challenge Maab.

We're not given a full set of the Capellan Statutes Annotated, but my guess is that as the wife of a deposed teer and the mother to his heir, she's probably not particularly welcome as a potential troublemaker for the man who killed her husband (or had him killed). I don't believe we see any other female Capellans other than the one who offers Kirk food, but Eleen's regency at the end suggests that women are not completely marginalized in Capellan society. As such, perhaps Maab viewed her continued existence as a threat.

When Kirk and Spock appear, why doesn’t Maab care that Eleen has just lied to him about a key fact? His main objective was to kill the baby and arrest or kill Kirk and Spock. This seems like a major betrayal. Are they saying Maab had a secret love for her?

Maab doesn't have time to digest that because Kras pulls the phaser first and betrays his sworn word to the Capellans. Since Maab's ascent to the throne was based mostly on trusting the Klingons over the Federation, he likely realizes immediately that he based his rebellion on a lie, and probably also reasons that if the Klingons were lying, the Federation wasn't. He also feels duped, and hence gives Eleen back her life and forfeits his own in order to eliminate the Klingon who deceived him. The appearance of Kirk and Spock is somewhat immaterial to this, but it probably doesn't hurt that (a) they're also attacking Kras and (b) since they're alive, the child probably is too, and Maab really doesn’t have much of a claim over the legit heir when his alien underwriters were clearly full of bull.

When Eleen tells Maab she will flee, does she mean to goad the Klingon into shooting at her, giving Maab a chance to attack the Klingon. Or does she really want to risk lives to flee so she can commit suicide at home?

Almost certainly the former. She believes - and Maab apparently agrees or he wouldn't give her back her life - that she's dead anyway under the law, so she can go out while lending a hand.

At the beginning they said the Capellans’ kleegats were as deadly as a phaser up to 100 yards. But when the injured Klingon pulls a Type 1 phaser, the Capellans are suddenly afraid to attack. Why not? They similarly don’t attack Scotty’s party, which was armed with Type 2 phasers.

I think Maab's men are waiting for him to act; he's yelling at Kras and realizing that he's been a pawn. Also, as you pointed out earlier, Kirk and Spock attack right at this point, confusing matters more.

As for Scotty’s awesome rescue, the Capellans were suddenly leaderless (or doped out that Eleen was their new leader), possibly realized that they'd been conned by Kras, and they'd just seen what phasers could do. I see nothing for them to gain by fighting Scotty’s forces.

In the final fight scene, Kirk and Spock are doing holding up very well with their makeshift bows and arrows. Once the Klingon and Maab kill each other, Kirk and Spock suddenly surrender. Why surrender at that moment? They had more arrows and fewer people to fight. Is it because they thought with Maab dead Eleen would have the authority/sway to be sure the Capellans released them? Or is it that their whole plan was to goad the Klingon into taking rash action so that the he and the Capellans would fight each other and not fight Kirk and Spock?

I think Kirk's only plan was to "get" Kras. He says so. But I think, yes, he and Spock realize that with Maab and Kras dead, it's over and Eleen is in authority. It might have been helpful to the audience if she'd said "Do not harm the Earthmen" or something before Kirk and Spock emerged, but the way it unfolds works for me.

 

[BK613]

@Phaser Two It's worth noting that several of the six Capellans are still armed with their throwing weapons. So if they had wanting K&S dead, they would be dead. They seem to have taken up a defensive wait-and-see against a pair that they have been fighting who are approaching them, still armed.

 

[Commishsleer]

Didn't the original version have Elaan betray them all?

 

[Grant]

I never realized the ending was so complicated

 

[Qonundrum]

Maybe the guys playing the Capellans just wanted to get out of their Telletubbie costumes.

A picture tells a thousand words, but get a bunch of people to sit around and ask them what the words actually are, there is rarely a consensus.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I never realized the ending was so complicated

It's not.

 

[Noname Given]

Maybe the guys playing the Capellans just wanted to get out of their Telletubbie costumes.

Hey , Paramount helped keep Carpeteria aflot in the 1960ies with those costumes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hey , Paramount helped keep Carpeteria aflot in the 1960ies with those costumes.

And in the 90s as well, according Armin Shimerman.

 

[Push The Button]

Hey , Paramount helped keep Carpeteria aflot in the 1960ies with those costumes.

Maab seems to be wearing a set of drapes too.

 

[diankra]

Didn't the original version have Elaan betray them all?

Yep, the transmitted version is a massive rewrite, possibly done during shooting (so any scene already shot had to remain). The Blish book uses the original script, where she dies after betraying everyone.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

By the way, it's Eleen. Elaan is in the eponymous third season episode.

 

[alchemist]

Yep, the transmitted version is a massive rewrite, possibly done during shooting (so any scene already shot had to remain).

The revised final draft (the shooting script) was complete before filming commenced.

The Blish book uses the original script, where she dies after betraying everyone.

Blish used the first draft for his adaptation.