Fortunate Son

Archer is talking as if this is vigilante action on the Boomers part. But vigilantism is considered wrong because it shortcuts the justice system - we look down on those who take the law into their own hands because we have police and courts and jails to deal with criminals. Archer is condemning the Boomers, but what is their alternative? Starfleet doesn't send ships out to protect them, doesn't do anything to hunt down or stop the Nausicaans, apparently doesn't ask for help from the Vulcans in protecting them. Archer seems to think the Boomers are wrong to be making any fuss about what is being done to them.

Contrast this episode with "Silent Enemy", when it is Archer who faced an enemy that was stronger and more powerful than his own ship. He couldn't wait to arm himself with the most powerful weapons he could and start shooting back. How would he have felt if the Vulcans had shown up and lectured him about not using violence?

Rather tellingly, towards the end of the episode Ryan asks "What about next time when another freighter gets jumped in the middle of nowhere, what then?" Archer simply ignores the question, because the implication of everything he's said so far is that the freighter crews are honestly expected to just sit there and die.

This one is Enterprise's first attempt to give Mayweather some sort of role in the show, and it doesn't go well. It's interesting to look back at this from the perspective we get after Enterprise finished, knowing that Mayweather would become "Super extra", aka The Man With No Lines. Pretty much his only characteristic is that he's a former Boomer, and here they play on that by having him play two basic roles; first, he argues the Boomer case with Archer. Second, he argues Archer's case to the Boomers. Neither one comes off well. His speaking up for the Boomers consists of a comment or two about how they like to solve their own problems, but he never makes any kind of coherent argument. There's a glaring disconnect between the situation and Archer's response, as I explain above, but Mayweather doesn't explore it in the slightest. And his speech to Ryan consists of "you might piss the Nausicaans off and they might attack my family." Um, they might do that anyway! They're ALREADY attacking Boomers, and the only answer anybody is offering them is that they should cower before the raiders in the hopes that they won't hurt them too badly!

Having thus "explored" Mayweather's Boomer past, they'd pretty much drop the character from here on out.

This is the third speed glitch Enterprise has managed in only ten episodes. I know they work to time and money constraints on this show, but would it really have been so terrible to have said "a year" instead of "six months"? Does nobody on this show have the ability to use a calculator?