This is... probably not how you were expecting to see Kes again.
An older and more powerful Kes returns and in the first few minutes kills B’Elanna Torres and transports herself back in time to the year Voyager first arrived in the Delta Quadrant. Angry and bitter over the way her life has gone after she left Voyager, she plans to betray the crew to the Vidiians and return her younger self to Ocampa.This episode provides examples of:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Evil Kes strokes the hair of her unconscious younger self.
- Ageless Birthday Episode: Tuvok's exact age isn't stated. Janeway's remark about him approaching "the big three digits" suggests he's somewhere from 95 to 99.
- Asteroid Thicket: Well, a Subspace Vacuole Thicket, but it serves the same purpose. Voyager will have to slow down to safely navigate it, making it a great spot for a Vidiian ambush.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Kes, as her vengeful older self causes panels in the corridor to explode at her mere presence.
- Biological Weapons Solve Everything: Samantha and the Doctor have developed a neural agent to incapacitate a Vidiian Boarding Party, albeit a nonlethal one.
- Blatant Lies: Tuvok blows out the candle on his cake because it's a fire hazard.
- Boarding Party: The Vidiians board Voyager. All two of them.
- Breaching Pod
- Kes rams her shuttle into Voyager, teleporting on board just before impact.
- The Vidiian cruiser latches onto Voyager with grappling cables that cut through the hull.
- Butt-Monkey: The Doctor is complaining that if only he had a name, people would treat him with more respect. He turns to find that Kes has slipped out of the room while he's talking.
- Call-Back: Plenty to Season One.
- While discussing an Offscreen Moment of Awesome involving Diverting Power during an attack, Janeway agrees with Chakotay that B'Elanna was a good choice for Chief Engineer. Chakotay pushed for her promotion in "Parallax".
- The Vidiians, introduced in "The Phage".
- The Doctor's search for a name, which he asked Kes to help him choose in "Eye of the Needle".
- Samantha Wildman is conducting an analysis of the Vidiian biology. She hasn't told Janeway about her pregnancy yet, which happens in "Elogium" in Season 2.
- B'Elanna mentions the Maquis using the Badlands to ambush Cardassian cruisers ("Caretaker").
- Past Janeway keeps shutting off the Doctor in mid-sentence.
- Joe Carey does his usual flashback cameo. After all, it's not like he's still alive in the future...is he?
- Contrived Clumsiness: While pouring Janeway coffee, Kes 'accidentally' spills some on her desk so she has an excuse to linger in the Ready Room to clean up the mess.
- Continuity Snarl:
- Janeway states at the beginning of this episode (prior to the time travel shenanigans) that Tuvok's age has yet to reach 100. This goes against everything that had been established about Tuvok's age, approximately 113, prior to this.
- Tuvok mistakenly has his commander pip in the past, but he wasn't promoted to that rank until "Revulsion" in Season 4. Ironically this is actually consistent as Tuvok was mistakenly shown wearing a commander's pip throughout the first half of Season One.
- Death Glare: It's not often that Janeway encounters someone whose glare is more lethal than her own. Evil Kes is able to blast people aside with a look.
- Death Is Cheap: Two security officers, B'Elanna Torres and Older Kes die as a result of her Roaring Rampage of Revenge. However memories of these events enable Janeway and Tuvok to prevent them in the future.
- Desk Sweep of Rage: Seeing Neelix has left flowers and Your Favourite meal in her quarters, Kes smashes the recorded message he left and sweeps the flowers off the table.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You:Janeway: It's set to kill, Kes...
- Face–Heel Turn: Up until the point that her older self sees the Note to Self when events began to repeat themselves.
- The Fog of Ages: Older Kes has forgotten that she made the recording three years ago, almost half her lifetime.
- Hallucinations: Season One Tuvok finds himself seeing Naomi Wildman, Seven of Nine and the Borg children. Later he starts Hearing Voices about the events before Evil Kes time-jumped.
- Innocent Flower Girl: Kes' younger innocent self is tending her flowers in the Airponics Bay when older Kes hyposprays her.
- Lured into a Trap: Vidiian spaceships are appearing on their sensors just long enough to make Voyager change course from time to time. The crew realise they're being herded into a region of subspace vacuoles that make maneuvering at warp difficult.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Janeway leaves the bridge in the middle of a battle to confront Kes. At least her absence gives Chakotay a chance to look badass.
- Mandatory Line: As the plot largely takes place during the time where Seven wasn't part of the crew yet, her main task this episode is getting mind-blasted by Kes in Engineering.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: When Tuvok catches sight of Future Kes posing as her younger self, his expression shows he realises something is wrong. Then he starts recalling events that haven't happened yet.
- Mythology Gag: It wouldn't be the first time that a main character has been killed by a recurring character who has gained lethal powers and gone off the deep end, although in this case, Death Is Cheap thanks to the Reset Button.
- Newspaper Dating: As they're IN SPACE!, Kes just asks the ship's computer.Kes: Computer, how long has Voyager been in the Delta Quadrant?Computer: 56 days, 17 hours.
- No-Sell: A Forcefield Door is thrown across the corridor in Kes' path, but she just steps through it. She also isn't incapacitated by a stun blast, so Janeway has to increase the setting enough to kill her.
- Not Hyperbole: When Kim warns that Voyager's hull could be torn apart he's not joking, as a large section of hull is ripped open to space when the last grapple tears loose.
- Note to Self: Younger Kes leaves one for her older self in the form of a hologram that activates years later to remind herself what she chose to do by being part of Voyager's crew.
- Not so Dire: What Dark Secret is Tuvok hiding from his captain?Janeway: (Death Glare) I've always been honest with you, but you've been keeping something from me.Tuvok: I don't know what you mean.Janeway: Don't you? It took exhaustive research, sifting through teraquads of data, separating fact from rumor, but eventually I arrived at the truth.Tuvok: Captain?(Janeway turns to her replicator and replicates a small cake with a lit candle.)Janeway (with a huge smile): Happy birthday.
- Not So Stoic: Evil Kes can't help smiling when meeting Neelix again. She also looks shocked after trying to dispose of her former mentor Tuvok.
- Person of Mass Destruction: What Kes became upon her return.
- Red Shirt: Kes psychic-blasts two security personnel along with a large part of the corridor when she first arrives. Averted later on, when the cycle repeats, and Janeway orders the sections of the ship in Kes' path to be evacuated to prevent casualties.
- Reverse Polarity: Chakotay uses this and some Techno Babble to break Voyager free.
- Ridiculously Difficult Route: Does Voyager take the long way around the region of dangerous subspace vacuoles that constantly shift their position, in which Vidiian organ hunters are waiting in ambush? Of course not!
- Sacrificial Lion: Kes kills B'Elanna before time-jumping, just to put across that she really has turned evil.
- The Shuttlecraft Came Back: Although it isn't the same literal shuttlecraft that Kes used in her departure in "The Gift".
- Self-Serving Memory: Future Kes blames Janeway for encouraging her to be a Bold Explorer, but as her younger self reminds her, it was Kes' idea to leave her homeworld and then to leave Voyager.
- Sickbed Slaying: When Tuvok ends up in Sickbay after Hearing Voices, Kes dials up his cortical stimulator to send him into shock. He recovers, but not in time to interfere in Kes' Evil Plan.
- That's an Order!: Janeway uses her captain's prerogative to insist the Doctor break medical confidentiality and confirm that Samantha Wildman is pregnant with a female Half-Human Hybrid.
- Thought-Controlled Power: Kes is shown walking through a hallway with the bulkheads exploding around her without even a hand wave.
- Time Travel: Kes uses the power from Voyager's warp core to time-jump back to Season One.
- Tim Taylor Technology: The Vidiian cruiser has locked grapples onto Voyager.Chakotay: Full power.Kim: That could tear the hull apart.Chakotay: Then tear it apart!
- Urban Legend: Apparently the one about the guy who wakes up after a drunken binge with a missing organ is still making the rounds among Starfleet cadets.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The older, empowered Kes seems to have nothing left but abstract rage at Voyager's crew for, as she sees it, ruining her life.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Kes thinks she's changed too much to return home, so tries to abduct her younger self and send her back instead.
