Talla Keyali

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> *"Quick thinking in a crisis is commendable."
> "That's my job."*— Kelly Grayson and Talla Keyali
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**Talla Keyali** was a Xelayan Lieutenant Commander in the Planetary Union. She grew up in a military family before joining the Union. She served as an Ensign Security Officer on the USS *Wilson* in 2416 and became Chief of Security of the USS *Orville*in November 2420, replacing interim security chief Tharl. A Lieutenant at the time of her assignment to the Orville, she was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander approximately one year later.

She is portrayed by American actress Jessica Szohr.

## History

### Early Life

Talla described her family as "a bunch of black sheep." Unlike the majority of her race who typically shunned the military while pursuing the sciences and arts, Talla hailed from a long line of Xelayans who served in the military.

Talla's parents "forced" her to learn the *pelpifa*, a musical instrument, while in school: "It was pretty much the whole reason I never got laid."

### Career

Talla joined the Planetary Union at an unknown date. In 2416, Talla was an Ensign Security Officer assigned to the USS *Wilson* under Captain Mosley and First Officer Barrett. She spent several days studying the Okudum, a technologically primitive people whose planet featured large amounts of dysonium, and became friends with a local girl, Aki, and her family. Talla advised the Union not to mine the dysonium.

Talla has also recalled that she once served under a male captain on a Union vessel that was badly damaged in a skirmish with the Krill. (This person may have been Captain Mosley.) A Janisi cruiser answered her ship's distress call, "a fiercely matriarchal species... totally dismissive of any and all males who appear to be dominant," but the crew did not know the cruiser was Janisi until the moment the commanding officer appeared on screen. Talla acted immediately and punched her captain in the face, knocking him unconscious and breaking his nose. The Janisi repaired the ship's power grid, but the incident was reported under Talla's official record.

By the time Talla left for the Orville, she described her reputation as "rough around the edges."

### Transfer to the Orville

The Union assigned Talla to the Orville in October 2420 after Captain Ed Mercer "begged the Union for another Xelayan," and she transferred to the ship by November.

In late 2420, Talla was part of an away team that made first contact with the Regorians of Regor 2.

From late January through February 2421, Talla served in the Battle of Earth on the Orville. When the Kaylon took over the ship, they imprisoned her along with the rest of the crew in the Shuttle Bay.

### Freeing the Okudum

In mid-2421, the Orville returned to the Okudum to find the Nazh had enslaved them and forced them to mine the dysonium by hand. Talla found Aki, who said that mining had sickened her father and gifted Talla a book on the folk hero Xandia. Admiral Perry ordered the Orville not to intervene, as rescuing the Okudum could ignite a war with the Nazh. Perry's decision outraged Talla. After reading Aki's book, Talla was inspired to dress up as Xandia and lead the Okudum to freedom.

Talla enlisted Chief Engineer John LaMarr and Doctor Claire Finn's help. Together, the three began a small campaign of frustrating the Nazh's efforts to control the Okudum and destroying their mining equipment. She had hoped her attacks would persuade them to leave, but the Nazh realized that she refused to take another life, and they stayed. The Nazh ultimately captured Talla by killing Aki's parents and using their corpses as bait for an ambush.

Ilis, leader of the operation, nearly executed Talla in front of the Okudum, but she was saved by Aki, who had donned a Xandia costume of her own and assassinated Ilis. The surviving Nazh fled the planet. Talla apologized for being unable to save Aki's parents; Aki coldly ordered her to leave. Though Aki harbored no ill will against Talla, their friendship had dissolved and Aki was not the same.

### New Horizons

In 2422, Talla was present when the *Orville* began exploring into Krill space.

Talla investigated the "suicide" of Isaac after he was bullied by the crew of the *Orville* in the wake of the Battle of Earth (although Isaac was reactivated).

She was also involved in the Kalarr expanse incident where Arachnids invaded the ship.

Shortly after this, Talla was away from the *Orville*, having spent a week with her parents. Shortly after she returned, the *Orville* detected signs of life on the planet of Narran 1, which had previously been scanned by Union vessels as a lifeless rock. Talla was on the away team alongside Mercer, Bortus, Malloy, and Grayson and they found that there was a 21st century American high school in the woods. Talla and the group walked around the high school before being attacked by a monster at the end of the school day. The group ran back into the school, only to find that it has been replaced by an airplane cabin. On the faux airplane, a lightning storm killed the plane's lights, and the plane begins to go down. When the plane crashed, Talla and group exited and ended up in a Moclan morgue. After exiting the morgue, the scene suddenly changed to Lake Ruell on Xeleya and the group used a boat to rush towards the light. Talla and Kelly nearly drowned. In each instance, those experiencing near-death found themselves having a strange experience of being out of body.

Meanwhile, back aboard the *Orville*, John LaMarr, who had been left in command, received a signal from an individual claiming to be Talla Keyali, stating that she had been at the rendezvous point for three hours and stating that if they didn't want her to get back to work, she was happy to take another week off. Confused, John told the woman, whoever she was, that she was down on Narran 1 with the away team. When she stated this wasn't the case he told her to meet them in orbit of Narran 1.

Back on the planet, "Talla" revealed herself to actually be Dinal, a Kandarian. The *Orville* had previously encountered the Kandarians before Talla's assignment to the vessel. For every 11 days that would pass in this universe, 700 years passed on her people's planet in an alternate universe. Since the original encounter over 50,000 years had passed for her people and they had evolved into near-immortal beings. She explained that she had created the simulation in order to experience what mortality was like.

It was also during this time period that Talla started a relationship with LaMarr.

## Personal life

Talla stated that she had been in relationships and said she used to date a human. As a result, she knew human-style dancing. She had a policy of breaking up with her boyfriends by the summer to avoid gaining weight.

She went on a date with Locar, a famed engineer, in either December 2420 or January 2421, but he was imprisoned by Moclan authorities for his heterosexual relationship.

## Alternate timeline

### *Pria* timeline

In the original timeline where Pria Lavesque did not rescue the Orville from a dark matter storm, the Orville and its crew were destroyed in the storm, so Talla never joined the ship.

### *The Road Not Taken* timeline

In an alternate timeline where Ed Mercer did not become captain of the Orville, Talla became chief of security of the Orville, probably around September 2420 when Alara Kitan left for Xelaya. During that time, Kelly Grayson attempted to warn Talla and John LaMarr that the Kaylon would one day attack, but they ignored her. Nevertheless, Talla saved the frequency for Kelly's personal communicator.

After the disastrous Battle of Earth, where the Kaylon defeated the Planetary Union, Talla and John LaMarr fled the Orville together in an escape pod. Using Kelly's old communicator frequency, they found Kelly and joined a crew of former Union officers to obtain the materials needed to send Claire Finn back to the year 2414 to reset the timeline.

## Personality

> *I know you guys were close with your last chief of security, and I know my reputation is a bit rough around the edges, but I can promise you both that if anyone comes at you or tries to take you down, I'm gonna mess 'em up first.*— Talla Keyali to Ed Mercer and Kelly Grayson
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Talla Keyali shares some traits with her predecessor, Alara Kitan, such as sensitivity and loneliness. She quickly bonded with Ed Mercer and Kelly Grayson, was willing to enter a relationship with the Moclan Locar, and exhibited a willingness to be physically aggressive during the episode All the World is Birthday Cake, when she lifted and threatened a Regorian doctor who sought to take a sample of Mercer's tooth to determine his birth date. She appears able to speak her mind and may be more self-assured than Alara, possibly due to her past Union service experiences and the acceptance of her family.

## Production

The character of Talla Keyali was written to replace Alara Kitan as actress Halston Sage would be leaving by the third episode.

Creator Seth MacFarlane came up with the name 'Talla' after seeing the word *talla* appear on the tags of James Perse t-shirts (*talla* is Spanish for "size"). "I’m like, ‘Talla? I don’t know what that is. It sounds like a name for an alien,’" MacFarlane recalled. "So, thank you James Perse for your contribution to *The Orville*."

At an unknown date, MacFarlane pitched the character of Talla to Jessica Szohr, describing the Xelayan officer and handing Szohr an episode. She was drawn to The Orville because of how its storytelling confronts contemporary social issues.

In April 2018, leaked photos surfaced of Jessica Szohr's character in the middle of filming *All the World is Birthday Cake* went viral online. Fans learned she would play a Xelayan security officer not unlike Alara Kitan. In May, Szohr's character's name was inadvertently revealed to be "Talla" in a photo of a gift given to the main cast, wherein the main cast was identified by their character's first name. Days later, the partially obscured surname of "Keyali" or "Kexali" was seen in a photo published by director Jon Cassar. Finally in a mid-December 2018 press release, 20th Century Fox officially affirmed that her name would be Talla Keyali.

Executive producer David A. Goodman revealed the first official details of Talla at a 2018 San Diego Comic-Con roundtable interview: "Her name's Talla, which I think is out already. Xelayan like Alara. And Jessica's a great actress, she brings a lot to this part, and I think fans are really going to like her. That's about all we can tell you."

Szohr has offered her own take on Talla: "[S]he's got a big heart, she's a little spicy, she wants to do the right thing and help people but yet she's like a little badass. ... She's pretty secure and stable in herself then all of a sudden she's literally ripping doors down and picking up things where you're like 'how is she doing that?'"

It takes roughly two to three hours to prepare Szohr's Talla make-up and costume each morning. She is known for sleeping through nearly the entirety of the make-up and costume application.

## Trivia

* Talla stated that in all of her past relationships, she gained weight: "You go out, you drink. You come home, you eat more, you drink more."
* Her security code to access the Environmental Simulator's recordings was Keyali-alpha-3-0.
* She had "a little" experience with handling a sword.
	+ Chief Engineer John LaMarr made a sword out of the ship's hull plating for Chief of Security **Talla Keyali**.

## Gallery

Talla leads a team of security officers.Talla posing as Xandia, an Okudum legend (*Heroes, Pt. 1*)Talla in the *Road Not Taken* timeline
## Appearances

* *Episode 2x04: Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes* (mentioned only)
* *Episode 2x05: All the World is Birthday Cake*
* *Episode 2x06: A Happy Refrain*
* *Episode 2x07: Deflectors*
* *Episode 2x08: Identity, Pt. 1*
* *Episode 2x09: Identity, Pt. 2*
* *Episode 2x10: Blood of Patriots*
* *Episode 2x11: Lasting Impressions*
* *Episode 2x12: Sanctuary*
* *Episode 2x13: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow*
* *Episode 2x14: The Road Not Taken*
* *Episode 2.5x01: Launch Day, Pt. 1*
* *Episode 2.5x02: Launch Day, Pt. 2*
* *Episode 2.5x03: Heroes, Pt. 1*
* *Episode 2.5x04: Heroes, Pt. 2*
* *Episode 2.5x05: Digressions, Pt. 1*
* *Episode 2.5x06: Digressions, Pt. 2*
* *Episode 2.5x07: Artifacts, Pt. 1*
* *Episode 2.5x08: Artifacts, Pt. 2*
* *Episode 3x01: Electric Sheep*
* *Episode 3x02: Shadow Realms*
* *Episode 3x03: Mortality Paradox*
* *Episode 3x04: Gently Falling Rain*
* *Episode 3x05: A Tale of Two Topas*
* *Episode 3x06: Twice in a Lifetime*
* *Episode 3x07: From Unknown Graves*
* *Episode 3x08: Midnight Blue*
* *Sympathy for the Devil*
* *Episode 3x09: Domino*
* *Episode 3x10: Future Unknown*

## References

1. ↑ Episode 2x05: All the World is Birthday Cake
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Episode 2x07: Deflectors
3. ↑ Episode 1x01: Old Wounds
4. ↑ Episode 2x03: Home
5. ↑ **Talla Keyali**. Episode 2x10: Blood of Patriots
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Episode 2.5x03: Heroes, Pt. 1
7. ↑ **Talla Keyali**. Episode 2x05: All the World is Birthday Cake
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Episode 2x05: All the World is Birthday Cake
9. ↑ Kelly Grayson. Episode 2x05: All the World is Birthday Cake
10. ↑ Episode 2x08: Identity, Pt. 1
11. ↑ Episode 2x09: Identity, Pt. 2
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Episode 2.5x04: Heroes, Pt. 2
13. ↑ *Episode 3x03: Mortality Paradox*
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Episode 2x06: A Happy Refrain
15. ↑ Episode 1x05: Pria
16. ↑ Episode 2.5x05: Digressions, Pt. 1
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Episode 2.5x06: Digressions, Pt. 2
18. ↑ Episode 2x14: The Road Not Taken
19. ↑ Episode 2x05: All the World is Birthday Cake
20. ↑ Rawden, Jessica. "The Ridiculous Way The Orville's Seth MacFarlane Came Up With One Character Name". *Cinema Blend*. Oct. 15, 2020.
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Darwish, Meaghan. "'The Orville' Newbie Jessica Szohr Breaks Down Her Character Talla & Working With Seth MacFarlane". *TV Insider*. Jan. 25, 2019.
22. ↑ /u/tqgibtngo. "Szohr's character name might be "Talla Keyali"? – (photo evidence)". Reddit. May 2018.
23. ↑ Cruz, Rachel. "'The Orville' Major Cast Change To Spice Up Bigger Season 2". *Business Times*. Dec. 24, 2018.
24. ↑ Three If By Space. "The Orville EPs Goodman Braga & Cassar - SDCC 2018". YouTube. July 27, 2018.
25. ↑ Sun - Main Stage | NYCC 2019 | SYFY WIRE. SyFy Wire. Oct. 6, 2019.
26. ↑ @jleefilm. "In My Trailer! Ep 5! 🎭💫🎬
•We welcome one of my favorite people onto the show! Jessica Szohr stops by to talk about playing Talla, dreaming about Will Smith, and how to make a trailer feel like home 💫. Boom! #RunThePoint #InMyTrailer #DoTheWork #TheOrville #Bts @InMyTrailer". Instagram. May 13, 2021.
27. ↑ The cast of THE ORVILLE talks their return @ San Diego Comic Con. TV Insider. Aug. 2, 2022.