For a brief moment I went "oh noes, another syrupy story". Bortus and Kelly both.
Then it turned out to be clever and interesting!
Of course with that said the attraction between the two aliens got zero development, but I am understanding nevertheless. If they wanted to earn her tears at the end, they would have had to set up their relationship in a separate episode, and I think it was a reasonable priority to skip that.
That said, this episode provided at least two chances of seeing a Moclan wrestle a Xelayan, and they squandered both: first romantically as a much more likely pastime (why would an interspecies pair ever go for the nostalgia of an unrelated third species??). Then when the Engineer could have tried to overpower Talla in the shuttle.