To help Adira unlock the memories of her Trill symbiont, the crew heads for the Trill homeworld. But an initial warm welcome sours when the group receiving Adira realize she's human. Meanwhile, Saru looks for a way to help his traumatized crew cope with their unthinkable new circumstances.
This episode started out a little bit bumpy to me. There was a clear destination the writers were trying to reach, but moving all the pieces into position wasn't quite as elegant as I could have hoped for. A spat between Tilly and Stamets feels a bit out of nowhere (particularly as it's been quite some time since we've seen such a cranky Stamets), but it's necessary to set the stage for later. Culber foisting onto Burnham his responsibility to escort Adira to Trill feels a bit mechanical (he's doing it because Sonequa Martin-Green is the top star of the show), but it's all in service of putting the best character in the right narrative place.
Once the slightly clumsy setup is out of the way, the episode goes on to be excellent. The dinner party scene was a much-needed continuation of Tilly's breakdown last week, an effort to really delve into the emotional truth of what a one-way time-traveling leap into the future would do to a person. After all, while there's probably a sci-fi explanation for Detmer's behavior that's yet to be revealed, everyone else in the scene was finally, really expressing themselves. Stamets has a desperate, deep-seated need to be The Man that was put on full display; both he and Tilly (and yes, Detmer) got to speak some unvarnished truths that were very impactful.
But even more moving was the planet-side story. And this was a real magic trick of writing and acting, because even though we did have Sonequa Martin-Green present in moments, giving a skillful emotional push, this story was all about a character we just met. And it was moving. The love story between Adira and Gray was both powerful and efficient, making you care deeply and quickly. The work by Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander was exceptional, and it was a real tour de force by director Hanelle M. Culpepper, who managed to keep focus on these performances even as a ton of visual effects permeated the entire Trill vision sequence.
Even the fan service here was spot-on. We saw these Trill caves before on Deep Space Nine, and the look from that episode was recreated faithfully and upgraded significantly. The spiritual overtones of various "Dax talks to her past hosts" episodes was similarly referenced and expanded. All while keeping grounded to the emotional core of the story.
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