The 14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
4. Exit The Eel
The influence of the baby eels is pretty shaky. How is it Terrell and Chekov can sit by as their shipmates - Reliant’s crew - are marooned on Khan’s “barren sandheap,” yet Terrell manages to resist when Khan instructs him to shoot Kirk- a man he says he’s never even met? Is Kirk just that awesome? Rank doth have its privileges, I guess. Or is actively murdering someone just too much for even eel influence? Whoops, guess not, as he vaporized an innocent civilian (Jedda) just moments earlier...
And after Terrell phasers himself out of the narrative rather than Kirk, why is it the eel in Chekov’s noggin chooses that precise moment to beat feet? Awfully convenient, that. For 40 years fans joked that the beastie fled because it was starving to death because Chekov was brainless.
And Kirk zapping the eel is pretty dumb, too. Bones might’ve needed to study it to figure out how to best treat Chekov after its exit. A little quick on the trigger finger there, Jim.
As scripted there was a reason for the eel behavior: when Chekov collapsed, Bones immediately gave him a hypo injection and the eel exited, presumably reacting to whatever nasty tasting medicine was poisoning the well.
But as is... dumb.