They come across a dark matter nebula and Archer says no one’s ever seen one. Hey, but in the first season episode “Breaking The Ice,” Archer tells a Vulcan that he’s been IN one! Isn’t everyone really bothered by this inconsistency?!??

An old friend of Trip and Archer died. Trip wants to check out the nebula with him, but Archer wants to go alone

T’Pol says it’s against regulation for the captain to go somewhere alone. Archer should have been a good friend to Trip and said “Trip wanted to go, I guess I’ll bring him,” but I guess that wouldn’t work because he needs to tell a story to someone who doesn’t know it

The story is about how Archer and his friend kept pushing to go warp 2, and prove to the Vulcans they can handle deep space

But then things blow up

We see how Trip met Archer. Trip worked for Captain Jefferies’ team

T’Pol is really uncharacteristically nosy in this episode. I guess it’s a good thing otherwise this episode would just be mopey Archer flying to a dark nebula

After Starfleet decides to scale back the program, Archer and his friend steal a ship and take it out for a drive

They were willing to throw away their careers to prove the ship is ready for deep space