Enterprise begins with a short speech of Archer on some sort of floating arena, ending with "It’s good to be home." Usually when the last word said before the credits happens to be the name of an episode it’s not a good sign. I’m breaking paragraphs where the scene changes between the several plot lines, even if there are more logical places to break them. Try to keep up, there’s a lot going on in this episode.

Following the credits we see Archer at a bar where he is greeted by a female officer he has known from his old academy days. We learn that she, Erika Hernandez, has recently been promoted to Captain of NX-02, which is nearing completion.

Though he halfheartedly would rather be overseeing the refit of Enterprise, Trip has been ordered by Captain Archer to take some time off. He mentions he has no place to go to T’Pol who asks him to join her while she visits her mother on Vulcan. He agrees to go with her.

Meanwhile, at a debriefing at Starfleet HQ, Archer has a bit of a spat with Ambassador Soval when he’s accused of not doing everything he could to save the Vulcans who went insane in the Expanse. Archer claims that he had "more help from the Andorians than I ever got from the High Command." Upset that Archer is not being very diplomatic, Admiral Forrest orders Archer to take a break before they resume the debriefing. Archer decides to do some mountain climbing, alone, but Captain Hernandez shows up to be his climbing partner.

Upon arrival on Vulcan, Trip and T’Pol are talking about their plans when T’Pol’s mother shows up (interrupting T’Pol to rebuke Trip for making a comment about her being a "snazzy dresser") and questioning T’Pol in Vulcan about why she brought a guest with her. Once inside, T’Pol finds out that T’Les (dear old mom) has resigned from her job at the Academy, and that there is a letter waiting for T’Pol from her fiancé Koss. T’Pol says she has nothing to say to him, and T’Les says that the fact that T’Pol is no longer engaged to him is something up for debate.

Back on earth on the mountain, Erika informs Archer that her old high school has been renamed after him and that there are 2 or 3 dozen schools in North America named after Archer now, and that Cochrane didn’t have that many schools named after him. Erika asks Archer if he had a chance to overlook her candidates for bridge officers. Archer tells her she should get a MACO for tactical, and starts talking about how dangerous things are in space and that she should have an entire squad of MACOs aboard. There’s a great "cynical" statement about "Boldly going into battle" right before they find a track of a mountain lion and she makes a sarcastic statement about it being a "good thing I have you here to protect me."

Back to Vulcan, Trip is obviously not a morning person when he is surprised to be woken up at 4 a.m. by T’Pol to help cook the morning meal. As a guest, it is apparently expected of them to prepare the morning meal in Vulcan culture. We have some interesting small talk over the table about T’Les not enjoying her retirement and T’Pol mentioning being offered a commission with Starfleet. Also Trip offers to try and fix T’Les’s broken stasis unit. T’Les responds by commenting about humans see their own goals as more important than the goals of the family.

Ok, now we get a bar scene where Reed is signing autographs, Travis comments about Reed’s choice of jacket (wearing an Enterprise Jacket so that all the pretty women in the bar would want to talk to him). Then racism comes out. A drunken jerk starts talking to Phlox as if he was just as bad as the Xindi because he’s an alien. Of course, this leads to a bar fight, which is ended when Phlox puffs up like a pufferfish, scaring everyone off and really confusing Travis and Malcolm. I would also like to point out that Travis and Malcolm have some great brawling moves.

Next, we are treated to a scene between Trip and T’Les, where Trip tries to thank T’Les for letting him stay there, and she comes back with "I know you are romantically involved with my daughter." How fun for any guy. She was quite surprised by Trip’s ability to fix her stasis unit and asks him to consider fixing her synthesizer. Then Koss shows up. Yikes!

T’Pol and Koss speak in the courtyard. Koss makes it clear he still wants to marry T’Pol. T’Pol makes it quite clear that she does not want to marry him. He however makes a comment about being able to get T’Les’s job back if she goes through with the wedding. He makes it clear that she only resigned to prevent being fired.

On Earth, Archer notes a star in the sky and said that Enterprise found their first M-Class planet next to that star, and comments about there being a psychotropic compound in the air that made his crew start trying to kill each other. He makes a comment about the Vulcans being right and humans not being ready for exploring the galaxy.

Next T’Pol confronts T’Les about why she is retired. It seems that T’Les was falsely accused of stealing documents from archives because the Ministry blamed T’Pol for the incident at P’Jem, and since T’Pol was in the expanse and couldn’t be punished, they punished her mother instead. As T’Pol calls it, "It’s criminal." T’Les comments about T’Pols inability to suppress her emotions and blames Tucker for her refusal to bond with Koss. She found it shameful that T’Pol would believe that a human and a Vulcan can have a future together.

Back on Earth, Archer hears growling noises, grabs his phase pistol, and… locks into hand-to-hand combat with 2 Xindi Reptillians, punching and fighting when his phase pistol is knocked from his hand. The 2 Xindi lift Archer off the ground and throw him off the side of the mountain, hurtling him to his death. No, I’m not kidding, it was in the episode.

Of course, upon falling to his death he wakes up perfectly safe to see Captain Erika leaning over him asking him if he is all right. When Archer responds that he doesn’t even know what "all right" means anymore, she asks him if he wants to talk about it. He said the reason he wanted to go climbing is cause he wanted to get away from the hero worshippers who think he is some sort of hero since he feels horrible about the terrible things he did, like torture, and marooning a peaceful species just to get what he needed.

Upset, he decides to go climbing in the middle of the night. Erika tells him it would be a shame if he lost his footing, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the feelings anymore. The Captain asks he she thinks he has a death wish, to which she of course answers "You tell me." He responds by saying all he wants to do is get away from her because she reminds him of the way he was 3 years ago, the explorer he and his father wanted him to be. He admits he lost something in space and doesn’t know how to get it back. And finally, she kisses him. We were of course waiting for that since she first showed up in the bar. She offers to help him find what he’s lost.

After the break, we are taken to the fire planes of Vulcan, a very pretty, if very desert-looking place. T’Pol informs Trip that she has decided to marry Koss to save her mother’s job. She says she’s been negotiating with Koss’ family so that she does not have to live on Vulcan, at least not right away. Trip asks how he is supposed to take this, to which she replies that she is sorry. He replies "You brought me 16 light years to watch you get married to someone you barely know."

Archer, looking in much better spirits back on the mountain, why wouldn’t he be after getting the girl? She asks him why they stopped seeing each other. He replied that it was because he was her superior officer and it wouldn’t be appropriate. She answers back that he is not her superior anymore and they again kiss.

In Sickbay (Back on Enterprise Finally, that is the name of the show right, Enterprise?), Phlox gives Hoshi a clean bill of health who reminds him that he promised to join her at "Madame Chang’s" and he makes an excuse not to go. She comments that he has been commenting about the Eggdrop soup for ages, then explains that she spoke with Travis and knows why Phlox doesn’t want to return to Earth. She comments that this isn’t the way to deal with prejudice. He says he does not blame them for their feelings, Earth has suffered a horrific attack and it will take time for things to heal. He does ask her to bring him some takeout, however.

His mountain climbing expedition is over, the debriefing concludes and everything in it is deemed classified (isn’t that always the way, how come some things can’t be public eh?). Archer apologizes to Ambassador Soval. And Soval thanks Archer for saving the universe.

On Vulcan, while trying to get ready for the wedding, T’Les asks Trip if he has ever told T’Pol that he loves her. He said he didn’t even really know it until she told him that she was marrying Koss. He wanted to tell her right there when he realized he was losing her, but he couldn’t. She tells him that there’s still time. He answers that if he says anything T’Pol "might call off the wedding, or worse, not call it off. She has enough pressure as it is, I don’t want to make things more complicated."

After welcoming him to the wedding saying she was glad he was there, T’Pol gives Trip a small kiss on the cheek before moving on to go through with the ceremony and marry Koss.