Anghraine

It's wild to me that I had heard of the prime Kirk/Spock content in various TOS episodes long before I saw them, but had never heard of what IMO is the shippiest moment of all thus far, in an interestingly O_o goddamn I do not want whatever you two have but you do you?? holy shit though what a moment way.

I'm of course referring to the otherwise rather mid episode "Requiem for Methuselah," in which Kirk has an underwritten love affair with a clueless woman whose various secrets have to be discovered before her inevitable death.

At one point in this relationship, her.......uh, guardian??? sort of???????? had Spock play the piano while she and Kirk waltzed, which (in-story) Spock did perfectly while somehow managing to silently exude even more intensity than usual. After the plot (and her life) were over, we end not with the usual cheerful bit of snark on the bridge that ends most episodes, but with a weary Kirk falling asleep with his head on his arms, and Spock hovering not far away. McCoy shows up to exposit the last bit of plot detail, and then goes on an unprompted and honestly pretty viciously racist speech about how Spock, unlike Kirk, can't understand love triangles and will never suffer from the joys and agonies of love because of his inherent lack of feeling as a Vulcan. The speech is longer than usual and just really mean-spirited for no reason as McCoy waxes rhapsodic about all the aspects of passionate true love that he claims Spock will not and cannot experience, before he just leaves.

Spock then turns to look at Kirk, and now just bleeding intensity, he takes a few slow, deliberate steps towards sleeping Kirk, lays his hand against Kirk's cheek and neck, and then very obviously mind melds with the unconscious Kirk while murmuring, "Forget."

Is this healthy, respectful behavior that honors Kirk's autonomy? No, obviously. Is it god-tier repressed homoerotic passion between two people who should probably just work their issues out and stop inflicting themselves on anyone else? Yes.

Tagged: #there are a lot of oddly paced slow physical staging bits in the episode so at first i wasn't sure it was significant that spock is so slow #in his approach to kirk at the end - coming right off the mccoy speech about passionate love/love triangles it was something else #but i wasn't sure what he was even going to do until he laid his hand against kirk's face and i was just thinking wait WHAT #and then the - wait is he MIND MELDING with SLEEPING KIRK as a response to the accusation that he is racially incapable of passionate love? #and then realized that this episode - in which he admits to one feeling ('envy') culminates in him wiping his rival from kirk's memory #jesus. what the fuck. i'm sorry if i ever thought the kirk/spock fangirls of the last decades were exaggerating #blandly healthy and supportive spirk is out toxic yaoi spirk is in #(also there's a bad episode in which shatner is forced to give a godawful ramble about losing command! i'm losing command! #and kirk is just melting down as he and spock get into an elevator and it's just going up floors as kirk loses his shit #and it would just be unforgivably awful but his fixation on losing authority of his beloved enterprise is stopped by one word from spock #spock literally murmurs 'jim' and kirk just sort of collapses on him and then immediately relaxes and calms down. wild shit) #mccoy critical #i actually love him in most episodes but this was awful and out of nowhere #in terms of the stakes at that point. but the fact that it's this huge rhapsodic speech about the grand passion of LOOOOOVE #not only talking positively but also about the torments of love that spock allegedly can't feel #and w/o a scene break it leads /directly/ into spock wiping this woman from kirk's memory????? well. i am not blind to the function it serves. let's say.