“The Trial of Joshua Bridges” is episode nineteen of season two of First Wave.
A female Gua is asking Joshua if he can hear her. Joshua is linked up to one of the Gua’s machines, following his arrest in “Rubicon”. A male Gua technician says Joshua has undergone two full doses of memory alignment. The woman wants Joshua’s opinion of the human race. They’re scum. Didn’t he help them, help Subject 117? Yes; he betrayed the Gua race. What happened to him? He was a war hero, a statesman. The woman tells the technician to initiate upload. Then Cade arrives and shoots the technician, though the woman escapes, and frees Joshua.
Cade is escorting Joshua out, though Joshua says he isn’t going out. Cade asks Joshua what’s wrong with him and Joshua remembers being in a cell. The woman tells Joshua he disgusts her; Joshua replies he isn’t a traitor. Cade and Joshua come to a junction; Cade asks Joshua which way to go, then goes the other. Back in his cell, Joshua is being told by a Gua judge he’s been judged for treason and is guilty of many things. Does he have a statement? Yes; he acted in defiance of what they had become. He is a patriot to the Gua. The judge disagrees. Joshua’s punishment would normally be torture and death but, given who he is, he’s been sentenced to memory realignment, to eb removed from his husk and put in stasis indefinitely.
Joshua wants to know how Cade found him. It wasn’t hard; an abandoned factory using a lot of power. Joshua says Cade has sealed both their deaths. Helping a human is the final proof of Joshua’s betrayal of the Gua. Why is Cade doing this? Cade asked Joshua the same question, showing a clip from “Joshua”.
Joshua says that was the beginning of his betrayal. Stronger species take the weak; it’s natural law. The Gua’s might justified their invasion. Cade says they had a common goal; to get the Gua off Earth. Joshua says he was wrong to take matters into his own hands; realignment showed him his true crimes. The conflict inside him is gone. He sees the error of his ways and he is at peace. Which leads to a flashback from “The Purge”.
Joshua sees his mistake; he took humanity’s side over his own kind. Cade tells Joshua that Joshua did it for his own kind. The woman contacts them over speakers and tells Joshua to let the Gua know where he is or bring Subject 117 into custody. This will be to Joshua’s benefit. Cade tells Joshua that what the Gua is doing is wrong. Joshua says it’s honourable. Cade has seen the true nature of the Gua’s experiments, remembering “Blind Witness”, and nothing they are doing is honourable. Joshua says humans experiment on lower lifeforms for their own benefit. The Gua, for their survival, will do what needs to be done. Cade’s actions are futile. The Gua will kill him, destroy the rest of humanity and make the planet their paradise. Cade saw what the Gua planned for their own kind in “Normal, Illinois”; it’s no paradise. Cade remembers what happened in “The Aftertime”.
This is a clip show episode, with more clips from some of the episodes mentioned shown throughout, as well as clips from Joshua’s trial, as Cade attempts to convince Joshua that his former actions were right. There is a surprise at the end, though.