episode3x08a

Synopsis followed by review: 
Archer wakes up to find that the ship is being attacked. As he goes to leave his quarters, a guard outside his door stops him and tells him he has orders from the captain to keep him from leaving. Archer knocks him out and makes his way to the bridge. T’Pol, who is now in command and wearing a Starfleet uniform, orders that someone take Archer back to his quarters. They all watch helplessly as Earth is destroyed by the Xindi weapon.

Archer wakes up again but this time is not in his quarters on the ship. He looks in a mirror and sees that he is much older. He hears some noise and walks into a kitchen where T’Pol is making breakfast. He asks her where they are and she replies that she will answer all his questions and for him to sit down. She asks him what is the last thing he remembers. He replies that he was in the command center, that they left together and were in one of the corridors on their way to the bridge. She tells him that that happened 12 years ago.

In a flashback, we see Archer and T’Pol in the corridor and the captain is asking T’Pol to come to the movie being shown that night, “Rosemary’s Baby”. An anomaly hits the ship and T’Pol is trapped in some debris. She tells Archer to leave her and get away but he stays and is hit by the anomaly. Archer wakes up again, this time in sickbay. Phlox tells him that his brain has been infected with “clusters of parasites” left by the anomaly when it hit him. They affect his ability to make new long-term memories and as such he can only remember new things for a few hours and then forgets everything.

Back in the future, T’Pol tells Archer that Phlox tried to find a cure but couldn’t. In a flashback, we see that she and Trip tried to keep Archer up to date on things happening vis a vis their mission but that it became clear that he could no longer command the ship. Admiral Forrest gave her a field commission and made her captain. Archer asks about the weapon and T’Pol tells him they found out where it was being built and were headed there when they were intercepted by two Xindi ships and were boarded. They fought well but Mayweather and 12 others died. The ship was heavily damaged as T’Pol had rammed one of the ships with the other Xindi ship docked and attached to Enterprise. Enterprise could only reach warp 1.7 at best after this and Trip blamed T’Pol for damaging the ship.

She tells Archer that they finally made it to where the weapon was being built but that it had already been deployed. The Earth had been destroyed along with all the human outposts and that less than 6,000 humans are left alive. Archer, obviously shaken goes outside. T’Pol follows him outside and tells him that they are on the 5th planet of the Ceti Alpha system far away from the Expanse. Most of the crew is still on Enterprise, Trip is the captain and they patrol the system.