When Sarek is injured in a terrorist attack and lost in space, his telepathic connection to Michael Burnham may be the only thing that can save his life. Meanwhile, Ash Tyler settles into a new role on the ship, and Captain Lorca is scrutinized by Admiral Cornwell.
Even as I've seen a few of the harder-to-win-over fans warming to Discovery, I still see fairly regular complaints of it being set a decade before Kirk's Enterprise. I'm not sure if episodes like this hurt (by thrusting that connection front and center) or help (by making it key to the plot). What I am sure of, though, is that the writers found a deep emotional story to tell here that was made more resonant by its prequel-y connections.
When Spock was revealed in the movie Star Trek V to have a half-brother, it was an unnecessary reveal made cheaper still by the poor quality of the story. Here, Spock's unknown-until-Discovery sister paints in moving subtext about Sarek. This isn't the first time that a deep love of Spock for Sarek has been made explicit on screen, but there is a new context here that's painful for all involved.
You can also reason how Sarek choosing Spock over Burnham "lines up" with what we know of the relationships we've seen previously. Spock making a choice that rendered the sacrifice of Burnham moot would absolutely be the sort of thing that could explain the rift in the family. So would the fact that Sarek and Burnham had mindmelded (in such a particularly intimate way) when Sarek and Spock never did. It's a story that plays for good drama on its own and enriches what we already know to be true. If you're going to do a prequel, this is how you do it right.
Ash Tyler seems to be buttoned up tight for the moment, betraying no real sign of his ordeal as a Klingon prisoner. (There's a preposterous fan theory online that this feeds into, but I certainly hope it's incorrect.) Still, the character got a lot of good moments at the margins of this episode, landing a role as security chief after earning Lorca's trust and praise, and giving Burnham the logical pep talk she needed to successfully rescue Sarek.
But you can argue that even though the Sarek/Burnham story was front and center, this was really Lorca's episode. Everything you knew about the man holds true, but is so much darker than you'd ever imagined. The one big thing we seem to be missing about him at this point is his core motivation. He's doing whatever he has to, using whoever he has to, to stay in the game -- but is that to exact revenge on the Klingons who cost him his crew? Is he on a vain quest for one adventure that will somehow atone for what he did? Or is he just cracked, does he just need to keep swimming like a shark?
Even before Cornwall voiced on screen that she couldn't tell if she was talking to the real Lorca, he'd delivered chilling moments throughout the episode. Using the holodeck to force a prisoner of war to relive his escape, for the sake of an evaluation? (But then, he knew the conventional evaluations had failed to effectively test himself.) Referring to Burnham as more of a possession than a person? (And I don't think he was kidding when he said don't come back without her.) Deploying sex as a distraction/weapon in a way that would make even James T. Kirk recoil? (In this, at least, it seems Cornwall had schemes of her own.) Star Trek has never had a captain like this, and while some will argue that it shouldn't be possible, I for one embrace the new storytelling possibilities it opens up.
Because the episode did such a good job of peeling back the layers of the rotting onion that is Lorca, you knew where it was going to end up before it got there. Still, it made it no less horrifying to see him throw Cornwall away to the Klingons just to protect himself. It's possible we'll never see her again, though in a serialized story structure willing to make big changes, it's just as possible we will. If Cornwall ever returns, what condition will she be in? Will it be enough for Lorca to feel any remorse at all? Will her story be enough to cost Lorca his career? Will the threat of that possibility be enough to push Lorca to even more immoral measures?
Before closing, I should also mentioned the compelling little Burnham/Tilly subplot -- a sweet parallel to the A-story in which Burnham learned that there's more than one way to be a mentor. We also got a small glimpse of Stamets, who seems to have gone full hippie after his spore experience of the previous episode. (This would be pure fun, if the final moment of last episode hadn't suggested more dire and sinister after-effects.)
In all, a really great episode (undermined by the terrible CBS All Access streaming service, which couldn't play it for me without freezing and stuttering regularly). I give it an A-.
No comments:
Post a Comment